actuality.log

You know you don’t wash your clothes often enough..

.. when this is the only way you can get enough detergent into your washer.

I decided to clean out my bag, and I thought I’d finished when it occurred to me that though it seemed “empty”, it still weighed a ton. Some snooping through the super secret secret compartments led to this,

and this.

GAH! I must have been travelling ON PLANES with this thing and their stupid X-Ray machines seems to have let me walk through security each time. Thank god these people aren’t responsible for national security.

No wait, they ARE.

I’ve been finding it hard to get out of this “read cool things for the high of understanding them” mode. I can’t explain it, I usually HATE work and intellectual work does fall under the blanket term, “work”. I especially hate studying. I must admit I quite enjoy classes handled by good teachers. It’s like, then the ideas are directly fed into your brain when all you had to do was not be unreceptive, a win win situation.

Anyway, totally sidetracked. Point being, at totally random points of time, and for uncharacteristically long periods, I’ve been picking up rather complicated books and reading through them. And I have been enjoying it. All of this is new, uncharted, and consequently scary territory. We’ll see where it leads.

I’ve also been sleeping a whole lot. And I mean a lot. I slept at some 9-10 last night to wake at 10 in the morn. I went back to bed around 11 (yep, was awake a whole hour), and woke at 3. Now I’m sleepy again.

In my remaining copious free time, I’ve been cleaning up the home. And I mean fairly thoroughly. I’ve scrubbed most things that can be scrubbed, and the carpets scared me. The sheer volume of hair I found everywhere; my friend’s “shed champeen” cats will be proud. Such things usually don’t bother me, but I can imagine myself 10 years down the line looking very different, in a very bad way. Not a pleasant thought.

I think it’s time I start looking into things like Rogaine. Then again, their “before and after” pictures, even with the “not standard results” disclaimer on their website leave much to be desired.

But then again, according to other ads, all you need to do is take that one pill and EVERYONE around you will see and think you cooler.

They just won’t know why.

It’s like, I finally get it now.

All that time I was cribbing about intellectual hurdles, I wasn’t cribbing about that at all. It was just this lack of.. support. Some form of comfort or anything. I had nothing.

The moment I get through it, I realize I have no one to go joyously screaming to. I have nothing.

Fish.

You’d assume that large research institutes won’t be bothered by a few bolts of lightning hitting power lines.

You assume wrong.

(*#$%(#* @_+@# CONNECTION INTERRUPTED $(@Y($@)(@)))) )@)$

I’ve been meaning to migrate from my aging (and slowly beginning to get too kludgy to maintain) RedHat box to something newer. Spent most of yesterday backing up data, wiping that partition, and installing Fedora. I must say it’s very… slick, and very blue. There were a bunch of kinks which I am slowly beginning to iron out, but for the most part it is beginning to get there.

I will be documenting my progress, the trials and tribulations involved with this sort of change, and the inherent coolness of newer stuff like linux 2.6.x and a nicely customised GNOME 2.6.x. Why? because my opinions matter.

Back in reality, similar revamping has been extrapolated to other things. My apartment for one. Fixed (as in got people to fix) a bunch of things in the apartment. I now have a functioning AC blower again among other things.

That apart, I got the travel paper work done at the international student center. I’ve started making few plans with the few people I know who will be in town around the same time. I returned a bunch of books I borrowed to read for the test (but didn’t have the time).

It’s all slowly getting back to normalcy. Yay.

There is this extremely huge electrical storm? going on outside right now. Muuuusstt sttanndd oouutt anndd obbsseervee preettyy patterrnns innn flaaashhhess ooffff ligggghhtt.

*CRACK!*

OWWW. IT BURNS.. ITT BBURRNSS. AHH.

*Runs around all goofily flailing limbs arbitrarily*

I wouldn’t consider V particularly sensitive or incisive. I don’t even usually give him credit for being able to cut through the fluff and see things for what they are. So anyway, we got to talking and he’s strangely all helpful about what I need to get my mom. I doubt there is something too much funnier than two clueless guys deciding what to get their mom. I mean, it’s not the process itself, it’s the magnitude of the cluelessness that makes it hilarious.

Either it’s been the lack of sleep or generally extremely sidetracked mind of mine, but I was going about justifying to him the gloriousness (and economics) of combined parents’ gifts. He listened, surprisingly patiently and just said “.. yeah, except Amma won’t ever touch it.”

Fancy him catching that. Back to the drawing board.

I rock. It went … very differently from what my nightmares had portrayed.

Fortune favours the brave, and occasionally, the foolhardy. Nothing officially stands in my way now from getting that PhD in Mechanical Engineering and Scientific Computing. (Yes, I like saying it out fully at times like this.)

And I did it my way too, the “wing it and let coolness carry you through” way. People spend months. I spent 2.5 real days.

Did I mention I rock?

Now to catch up on a couple of night’s sleep, and a day’s food. Well, mostly sleep.

Actually, I love you all. I just want to leave before the general narcissism makes you think I’m a bad person.

Will the world love me any less if I screw up tomorrow?

Or on the brink anyhow. This is madness, I just hope I don’t do something weird during the test itself. (Read: Pass out, cry, just fall down and start screaming in pain, get all defensive and start blaming arbitrary things for lack of knowledge, …)

It was so much easier when I was younger. I could be the guy who didn’t know squat, put in the 18 hours of reading, suddenly come out the guy who knew more than most. All that’s gone. I can’t really concentrate for more than a couple of hours (which explains why I am out here typing this), and even that time spent isn’t tremendously productive.

And there used to be this huge support network functioning quietly and efficiently at times like this, primarily my mom. If I looked tired, I needn’t ask for a glass of tea or whatever, it’d just be there. Having to make my own food was never an issue. If I realized the books I had were worthless, I could order someone to buy me better ones. If I was spending 8 hours trying to pass some level in some game on the eve of a test, I would at least be asked if I felt prepared enough to warrant goofing off.

Now, nothing. None of these and other such things exist. It’s only a matter of time before I sink, expecting inherent capabilities and support nets that don’t exist anymore to keep me afloat.

No, I don’t have any delusions of being able to pull these off.

I’ve been afraid and tense. Very. Which in my world seems to be the only time I work so it cannot really be any other way. I hope I don’t pass out during the test itself under the pressure. (Yes, that’s happened too. It’s extremely embarrassing.)

In an attempt to sidetrack my mind a bit, I’ve been reading up on the political fiasco at the homeworld. I am the most apolictical person I know. I just can’t get myself to care about such relatively pointless real life issues. But this recent general elections results back home has gotten me quite worked up. And I don’t see why. Here’s a portion of something I posted in some other forum.

What gives?

Firstly, this is totally independent of me having/not having issues with Congress party’s policies toward the advancement of the country. This is about our inability to find one worthy leader out of a billion or so.

IANAFIRI (I am not a farmer in rural India). Of course I don’t have any real clue how economic policy changes over the past few years affected “the average person in villages”, but I seriously doubt their positions could have gotten any worse. All I saw were my juniors in college finishing up with a lot more options than I had. It seemed to be a very good thing. These options resulted in highly improved purchasing power, and consequently better lifestyles. What seems to be the problem with a middle class that’s moving economically forward? How much can it alienate the poor? I am not an economist either, but don’t earnings growths in some sections trickle down to most other sections of society eventually?

More importantly, how much more could someone from the outside know about the real lives of these people than people from right there. If you felt the current government policies were only helping a few rich people in Bangalore, wouldn’t it be a safer bet to elect someone from around who’s lived your life so will probably work toward your betterment? as opposed to someone from Italy?

No, I was not there to vote myself and consequently have my opinions heard, so I don’t really have any right to complain. But what’s the deal? How important is someone’s name? If I officially called myself Gandhi Gandhi tomorrow will I automatically get to rule all with an iron fist?

Doesn’t this scheme of events bother anyone else?

I don’t feel so good. As in, I don’t really know. I’m pretty sure it’s in my head. My stomach’s all knotted up and I just.. I just wasted all day. I’ve been constantly flip-flopping between cockiness and seemingly justified goofing off, and fear and consequent inability to work. It’s pretty annoying, and very taxing. I just want.. no, I don’t even know what I want. I think.. I want something to be able to comfort me right now. So I can get back to real work and not constantly fight weird demons. I have realized, however, that I can’t ever really be a hermit hermit. Which is some good that’s come out of this. I can’t believe how much I craved some, any form of interaction today.

Unrelated, I bought some more stuff for people. V’s lists apart, I bought a relatively sweet camera and some other electronics goodies for my dad. I’m still quite clueless as to what to get my mom, and I’m too tense right now to make something.. thoughtful. It’s not as much clueless as the need to not make/get something lame and impersonal.

If someone went through this sort of thing few days ago for mother’s day, and came up with something, I’m all ears.

I’ve just spent the past two days with no human contact. And I mean the real deal. No leaving home, no roomies, (obviously) no phone, no email, no im, not even commenting on web logs. The world must have assumed I was studying (or died in my sleep), but I know better. That was broken this morning when the Fedex guy rung my doorbell and had me sign for a decent watch I’d ordered.

Trouble is, it isn’t for me. I still get to use my trusty old one my grandma got me when I aced my tenth boards.

And, not to get overly political or anything, but fuck. I’m from a land with very bright people. I’m so proud right now, I could cry. I guess all that needs to be done now is to change my name to Nehru Gandhi, go home, and rule said bright masses with an iron fist.