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 !!!