End of 2005

2005 will come to an end in another 7 days.. So I tot why not recap 2005. So here goes my archive . ( December has not come to an end . But if something spicy happens in the last 7 days, I will surely append the list.)

• Jan 2005 started strangely. The after effects of jaundice in December 2004 was continuing. Plus I got a strange cough infection called eosinophila.So I was technically sick the whole of Jan. My main objective last Jan was to help my sister with her board exams for the next 3 months it I did quite a lot of class 12 physics and chemistry had organized a class tour to Bangalore and ooty . And I skipped it. Thanks to my health and my appa.Instead we managed to catch up with Saarang and Odyssey quiz great fun. The biggest black mark last Jan was the way I flopped in the intra college programming contest.
• Feb 2005 : I dont remember much. Ya. We planned a one day pilgrimage trip . One of those nice trips I have been to. The main agenda was to go to Koothanoor Saraswati kovil near Vishnupuram.I got to go to my Chitti's home in Vishnupuram . But alas .Had to return that evening itself.I did this small presentation about Bluetooth technology in college. (which was just average again ).Another college trip. But this time to Neyveli . One of those boring and horrible trips.
• Mar 2005: This was a busy month. Class 12 board exams . It was as if I was going through it all over again. I really dont know how my sister put up with me and my hounding. Otherwise another uneventful month. One bright spot was that me and anu organized treasure hunt during the farewell. It was fun organizing.
• Apr to Mid May:Study holidays and Semester exams nothing much to write. Last time I had prepared well for all exams . (i.e much better than current sem) And I had written all papers except Computer networks well. (The anti climax was that I got the highest in networks ; 90. Funny).My sister made a decent 83 % in her board exams.
• Mid May to end of June:Another tension after the exams.Placements.Wasted most of May.Watched movies.Read some books.We had a KV gang reunion . It was our first reunion after 2000.Good fun.Went to Bangalore to my cousin's place for a week.Had fun. But also did some preparation was the first company on line. I was pretty confident about the quants and reasoning apart.But I was real scared about the verbal section. I mugged up some 500 words with great difficulty. I cleared the TCS exam and interview. It was quite a satisfaction. ( After the way I had flopped in my 12th and the entrance exams).Another KV gang meet up. More fun.

20th June 2005 marked the beginning of a new semester . The 7th semester. This was the most boring semester academically.( I am hoping that 8th sem would be better )

• July: July was a special month.Had loads of fun.We ventured out almost every weekend.The best part was getting broad band. Now cant imagine life without it. College was also quite interesting.Lots of fights and misunderstandings pre symposium(our dept. Tech fest).End of July was gloomy and desolate. ( Owing to cycle tests and symposium sandai.)
• August: This month was a mixed bag.Lots of Ups and downs of dispute. (which I dont want to elaborate here) .Things became better soon for me as the symposium approached on 29th Aug. I got to work for the debugging committee. Had a very nice time.I got to work with and make friends with a completely new set of ppl. I had known Sriram and Srinath before itself.Swaminathan,Divya,Saranya,Vivekanandan and Nachiketas were new to the gang.Did not attend any class. Was on OD for ever.Great fun !!!
• Sep:Was a very very boring month. I am not able to recollect much. Had lots of classes. My windows had lots of problem.Scored horribily in all the cycle tests.
• Oct:Again nothing much to say.Had another round of internal exams.And then study holidays blogging more seriously.
• Nov and Dec : Technically the exams should have started on 17th Nov and should have ended on 8th Dec. But the exams got postponed over and over and over again. (Thank u Bazz,Fanooz and Mala).It is still going on.As per the latest revised schedule the last exam in on 2nd Jan 2006 !!! But I did have my share of fun. Was perennially on the net . Did some blogging.Made new friends in Orkut.

Apart from this 2005 was a year of natural calamities and miseries. Gave a feeling as if the world is going to come to an end soon.

Best of 2005 :Made lots of new friends;

Worst of 2005:Fought a lot with almost all those new friends.

Obituary:This year saw the death of many near and dear ones. Pattapa my mom's Grandpa, My great grand ma ( Kollu patti as we called her ) . The saddest was the demise of Arthi.M's dad. (This should not have happened) . And towards the end Kunju Chitti passed and Rada's Grand ma also passed away.

Pl tell me if I have by mistake omitted some important happenings.

I just hope that 2006 is atleast as good as 2005.

Wish you a very Happy new year.

Mathematics

I am not an expert in maths and I don't have adept knowledge in any branch of mathematics . But I simply enjoy doing maths ( Especially discrete maths and theoretical computer science) . And it has been my favorite subject through out . Despite all the fancy for the subject, I never managed to score a centum in maths till date and I very rarely crossed 90% .

I strongly believe that its the primary school maths teacher who moulds or destroys a child's mathematical instincts and I have been very lucky . Math is probably the only subject which requires reasoning and logic in the primary school. ( Science is also there...). But when certain concepts are taught at a really young age the kid loses out on the reasoning and ends up mugging it as a fact me give examples

• My two and a half year old cousin was taught to draw figures.. You can ask her to draw a circle or a square or a rectangle ...And she draws it for you. These are abstract figures and they don mean any thing to a little child. Probably some of them may be able to understand and reason out. But not all are genius and each of us have a different learning and understanding power.Technically we should not be ashamed of it.God made us that way .
• subtraction and borrowing. When I was in primary school , I never understood why borrowing was done. I had learnt it as a rule. Subtract one from the next digit and add 10 to the current digit.
• Similar funds in division.

Our system requires that we learn all the tricks fast. Learning negative numbers in 5th standard .Ha.Instead stress should be given on basic maths. Basic logic . And correlation to real world problems and situations. I am sure word problems in primary schools interested you more than boring subtract 5558 from 9986.

Maths text books. I never read a "Maths text book " during my entire schooling. Teachers taught how to do sums in class and we did the exercises at home. I havent browsed through the pages before the exercises even once. Sums . Sums. Sums. As if sums = maths. What a big misconception . Now I know. Maths books are supposed to be a pleasure to read. The "Why" factor is lost amidst "How" and a google sums.

And the biggest blunder is calling the so called "slow learners " for special classes and sending them to special tution. If a kid cannot understand maths in school why will he be interested in it in tution classes after school hours. Instead specific standard can be set for each school.And the 'gifted and above average kids ' can be called for extra coaching where "logarithms" can be taught in 4th standard if needed.

What ever I have written here will more more sense to you if you look at it from first generation learners and uneducated parent's point of view.Challenge is no doubt a strong motivating factor.But the basic purpose of learning mathematics should not be lost in the name of challenge.

There is lots more to be written... Expect a part 2 soon.

List

This post is inspired by Shivraman's blog ...
Here I have made a list of things that would have made college and Engineering better( Productive, interesting ,Fun,some stuff to look forward to everyday).I had a good time no doubt in college.But I want lots of changes.Here are my suggestions.

1. Classes. Some 85 % of time in spent in the classes or in the labs (atleast in my college). They will have to be interesting. Come on. You cant get bored 85% of the time.One is choice of subjects. We ought to be given more liberty to choose from a list.. ( atleast the so called "electives" if not anything else).
2. Classes again. Classes should not be lectures followed by lectures .There should be more interaction.Shounting . Fighting etc like how it was in school.
3. Strictly use of more than any one colour pen should be banned.
4. Assignments should be neatly written (pref probs ) in A4 sizes sheets. Strictly no Donald duck pictures.
5. Games. Play ground. I don think it needs any more elaboration.
6. Activities. You have some 2000 ppl .

Will keep appending the list ... Got bored

Pl comment

Will tell u a funny thing... The spell check catches the word "blog"

Tagged !!!

Its thrilling to get tagged ( for the first time )

By Whom ?? Harpreet
What ?? Write 20 things about yourself.

20 is a huge number. Especially if you have to list 20 things. Anyways here I go...

1. I am a weird thinker. I draw queer correlations and inferences . And I end up remembering a lot of junk.. ( Like on what date we had discrete mathematics exam in the second semester)
2. I am quite emotional but many a times I am also cold and unreasonable. I am a senti in my own way ( very superstitious .. Again in my own way) and I am god fearing and believe in Bagavad Gita and want to live life that way.
3. I hope to be a teacher one day.. and I simply enjoy studying mathematics and computer science. ( Pl pray this should happen)
4. The 12th standard board exams are the biggest disaster my life (till date). I never thought I did mess up with it "big time " in this manner.
5. The modest "KV" where I studied till 10th standard is (till date) the happiest time . I got an opportunity to try my hands on every thing . Here is where I learnt that " Teachers are those who teach you to dream , knowledge being secondary only " ( Quote borrowed from Karan Thapar )
6. I am easily influenced. If you were drawing an influence graph and if I am one of the vertices then my "indegree" would be at least 20. My father is the first person I consult for every thing. He again has the last say in every thing.
7. I love debating and will surely put up a fight when the point of view differs.
8. I enjoy coding ... Though offlate I dont seem to be programming much.
9. Yeah and I am obsessed with the window seats.
10. Eating... A big passion.. With curd rice being my fav .
11. Su do ku . Simply the most beautiful number puzzle .
12. I have lived in chennai all my life with visits to B'lore during hols. So its either Chennai/ Bangalore...
13. Friends ... Now I have a quite a lot of them. ( I love it when friends visit home because it was not a regular affair before college. Only one girl used to visit me till 10th !!!! )
14. Books... I am not a voracious reader . I manage to read the best sellers ( most of the times ) .
15. I have a loud voice and I am nicknamed " loud speaker" . Challenge: Make me speak softly.
16. Bad Spellings .... Its a curse on me.
17. Will have the money to travel around the world one day ???
18. I cant simply tolerate when books are cluttered around the room. Anything else is ok. But not books or papers.
19. I hate DOGS... Cant stand them at all
20. I don like exams being postponed any more. Had enough ! (once upon a time I thought it was a "fun thing " to happen )

Phew !! I am tired ... I tag Anu, Radha and Sandeep !!!

Exams !!!!!

Thought its high time I write something casual and informal. ( Atleast I am attempting ). The past few days have been very eventful begin with we had a really boring paper- "environmental science exam " last Thursday was a Herculean task studying simply because it was sooooo boring. It was pouring ( The incessant rains in Chennai !!! ) on the eve of the examination usual I slept at 9.00 and got up at 3.00 . Already I had some 1 chap left to complete . And inbox was filled with smses saying the govt had declared holiday for all schools and coll. Now how can I study ??? Impossible rite ???

With great difficulty I continued to mug " Domestic sewage treatment " . The morning news and the newspapers did not say anything about postponement of examinations. But then sky had cleared up and the sun was shinig.. Technically I wounld not have wanted a postponement of the examination. But it was a boooring paper... I was really sleepy .... and no paper has ever got postponed ... So I tot .. Let it get postponed.. And I can go to sleep at 6.00 in the morning. Bliss.

But life functions according to Murphy's laws...We did have an exam.. Tension over.

Next exam was "network protocols and security" . Now you cant exactly fool around. We had 3 days hols to prepare. I comfortably wasted 1 full day ( pucca wasted) . Now life functions as per Parkinson's law... Even if u have a zillion days to prep . The last 36 hours is wat that matters.Even the second I kind of fooled around. And again inbox was flooded about "rumors" of postponement... And I strictly din want any such thing... But alas . Sun Tv flashes the news : Postponed ......

This means we have another 9 days before the next exam. Virtually a short holiday..

"Negation" to define positives

Presence is the negation of absence.
Generally presence is a small set and absence is a jumbo set when compared to the former.
For instance

Let us consider defining "Being happy". Happiness is considerably difficult to define autonomously.
Happiness can have varied definitions : Bliss, State of delight, Being in great spirits; But these are are vague and needs further expansions and explanations we will end up with a recursive definition for it.
Instead 'Unhappiness' is easy to define and quantify ..
For instance for me
Unhappiness = { Being unwell , Failing , After a fight , ... }

Now happiness can easily be defined a negation / absence of unhappiness.
This again is a vague description because happiness and unhappiness are not just 2 elements of a binary system are certain fuzzy states in between. For example there are certain times when we are neither happy nor unhappy. However the previous definition does not account for this.

There are many instances in the vedas and other scriptures where the presence is defined as the negation of absence good is said to be the negation of bad.
Here I quote 2 such instances:
Advaita ... ( flicked from http://www.wie.org/j14/shankar.asp?page=2 )

why is it called "nondualism?" God is one, isn't it? Why is the word "advaita" being used? Advaita means not two. Why did the sages not say "one?" Why did they say "not two?"...to come back to the point, the word "advaita" is used to indicate not two! And the reason why is because the mind functions in a very linear way, from point A to points B, C, D, E, F and so on in a straight line—are you with me so far? Therefore, the moment you say "one," it means that there are two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight and so on and so forth. The moment you say "one," it means the possibility exists of two. One has got meaning only with relation to the other numbers; otherwise it has none. And the moment you say "one," two has already penetrated into it. That is why they don't say "ekant." They say "NOT TWO!" And NOT TWO means what? That the many has disappeared. But this is only indicated by a process of negation.

Swades...

Swades movie ... Pal Pal song... has a phrase " Man se ravan jo nikale . Ram uske man mein hai ".Ram is the good. Ravan is the evil. Ram 's existance is defined as the absence of ravan. Meaning we inherently become good when we root out the bad within us.

Rain

I am hoping that the rain would stop by the time I post this !!!

New theory !!!!

"Work expands to fill the time available."
---Parkinson
This new theory is dedicated to Parkinson.... (Some body suggest a good name !!!)
Our daily general activities can be broadly divided into three classes.

1.Our Mainstream activity ( College/School & related work . Irrespective of our likings or dislike we will have to finish the work)

2.Hobbies

3.Other regular activities such as watching TV ( , Sleeping ... my favorite ) . Interesting but not exactly special.

Now my theory states that
If your mainstream activity is dull and you dont have much to do ( Like for instance if you hardly have classes in coll and very less assignments and stuff..)
the other auxillary activities ( 2 and 3 ) also get affected.Some how too much free time (sense of not doing the mainstream activity itself) will make the others also look dull and mundane.(and sometimes you may end up craving for classes also)

NOTE :
1.This theory holds good only when you have too much free time. For example not having classes for one or two days will not make life boring.

2.When you have lots of free time you will obviously want to streamline the time available to pursue other activities.But still your mind will be disturbed . And you will not be able to spend the amount of useful time you wanted to on other activities.

3.More the free time more accurate the theory gets.

Computer science and girls ???

Computer games. It would be my last but one option for entertainment in this world.No variety of Comp game has ethused me.Nothing from the ever dragging strategy games to the action packed thriller stuff.Plus I dont have a brother to endlessly keep talking about them .Hence I remain totally ignorant and disinterested in them."These are supposed to improve your reflex . Play ...." Owing to such thoughts I have installed a variety of games...But all games failed to electrify me.Some times I wonder if I would pass out as a decent computer grad without playing these games... The thought still terrifies me.


( read this too - LINK )

Computers.Being a branch of Engineering . A branch of electronics plus mathemathics . It is surely not a male dominated science.But without second thoughts it is a boy's playground.Girls have not much business there.From the varieties of books written( the authors make it a point to use only "shes") to the wide range of computer games..(not to forget the mags ...) there is a male stamp.Not to forget the jokes cracked and the illustrations made..

And how many girls love their computers. Such links amuse me :( LINK). I really dont know about the number of girl geeks in the top universities.But here in my college less than a percentage of girls give a damn to their computers.Forget finding geeks.....

I sometimes wonder if girls are not competent enough to be good programmers. I bet they can master the software engineering process. But how many hard core girl programmers can we count ??I think in a staightforward manner and can do a decent amount of logical and rational coding . But when it comes to innovation and algorithm writing ..... Oki I am not a geek.

Girls who fiddle.Can girls even fiddle ?? I cannot. Not because I am scared or anything but I simply dont bother. I have sat through many endless sessions where guys discuss some installation or some graphics card or some games or some troubleshooting process
(courtesy debugging commitee ).I always had to remain uncomfortably silent for a long time.

Have I landed up in the wrong course. I am sure I have not . I love all that I study.I enjoy mathematics and love my computer.Still I cant paly games or fiddle ........

Disclaimer:This is not some piece of article written for female rights ( or the like ) . These are confused thoughts of a girl who is studying Comp Sci...

And read this if you are still not bored:
LINK

Window seat obsession !

One of my appa's bravest decision was to send my sister and me to a school 13Kms away from home when we were 4 years old. Why ?? Because my amma worked in the same school.That was way back. Ever since then , till we finished 10th standard we travelled all the way from Kodambakkam to Meenambakkam in the electric train everyday.From that time window seats are a consuming passion . Any journey . Any vehicle .Without a window seat, it always felt incomplete.Anything else - from the ripe sapota sold in the train to a nail biting novel waiting to be finished was secondary to staring blankly outside the window as the train zips past...What is so special ??? Is it a panoramic view -- some excellent landscape... or city scape.. Of course not..There is nothing more to stare at except -- dirty walls with gaurdy advertisements , chaotic stations and unending railway tracks....

Window seats + long journey = dream time for me . It is where I sit and endlessly dream , get carried away by my thoughts , think about the going (present,past and future ... in the same order) .Window seats are an anti fatigue /stress therapy. A spiritual corner . Most of my best ideas, all those cracking solutions occured to me in some window seat ....
Even when the train is jam packed with absolutely no breathing space..I look around eagle eyed for a corner window seat...and If I know that somebody is going to move out of one I make prior arrangements and calculations and jump onto that window seat :-)
Do you think the my saga has ended.... No way. Every morning and evening in the college bus nothing , noone can distract me from my cozy corner..

This whole post would be incomplete if I dont mention this incident. Way back in 9th standard I was coming back from school in the electric train. I was sitting in the last compartment (next to the gaurd's cabin) in the last window seat.As usual dreaming... in my own world.The train was moving over the adyar bridge( Dadang Dadang ... as I would prefer to call it .. 'coz of the sound when any train is moving over a bridge). At that very moment I felt something hard on my shoulder. I thought it was a crow or worse an eagle and almost yelled...Then came the gaurd's voice asking me not to panic.. Actually he was hanging from this cabin door tapping on my shoulder... Then he asked if I had water . In the next station he got down .. came to my window ... drank water .... and then waved his green flag.....

Sri Ganesh karen..

Its long since i wanted to start blogging.There was not enough self drive (see how important it is ) and motivation from my Aatman (that is my own lazy self) to actually start one.After lots of procrastination and with the arrival of the broad band at home..I decided it is high time I satisfy my due desire to start blogging..

Sri Ganesh Karen..It is one of those hindi phrases which i learnt in school in the hindi classes
-- which I still remember and use .It means to start something ( new) with the name of pillayar.
Only other phrase which i remember is Now do gyarah hona meaning To run away or baag jana...
A blog is
( n.) Short for Web log, a blog is a Web page that serves as a publicly accessible personal journal for an individual. Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the author.
(v.) To author a Web log.
Other forms: Blogger (a person who blogs).

Me and personal jouranals put together is a total failure..Every new year I manage to grab one of the best diaries that he gets from my appa . After one week it invariably turned into a rough note book.After many repeated failures .... lets see if this e-avtar is any motivation at all.