Psych...social in fact..

(this post was initially written and saved as a draft sometime in jan..i decided to keep the first paragraph in place though it isnt relevant anymore)

Its the 3rd week of the semester and so far, so good...why wouldnt it be so? after all, we havent had any quizzes till now and saarang is also there to look forward to..and the classes have been as usual..mostly boring but i have found atleast two courses, if i may say three, interesting...i am really enjoying going to these classes more so because there is no need (or atleast thats how i see them as) for me to sit and write notes in my notebook which usually is a rough book made of left over papers..infact, I even went to a class of one course without anything in hand...it felt nice :D

now, one of these 3 courses i am referring to is the HS elective...Social Psychology.. i am still not sure why i chose it as my second option...but something keeps telling me that this is a good choice..and the prof is quite different from any other prof that i have had till now..she communicates really well and makes the class very lively while still "teaching" something...actually, i keep getting the feeling that there isnt much that one needs to learn in this subject..just practical observation and being able to correlate what you see happening around you in your daily life to what you already know. Though that might sound simple enough, it is actually speaking difficult. It is quite interesting to do it once yourself..say observe someone closely like you have never done before and see what inferences you can draw. Its quite an interesting exercise and you are sure to discover many things that were hitherto unnoticeable..(anyone doing the course will realise how badly i am aping the prof here ;) ).

The first quiz paper had apart from what was taught in class a particular question that asked if environment and culture were part of reasons responsible for India's success in Pak in the recently concluded cricket series...lets see how much she buys the argument (read fart) that i have written in the paper..the paper pretty much made concrete the feeling that almost all HS courses depend more on your english skills than anything else. the class today about how attitudes are formed was quite lively and interactive..Interactivenes...something that is in lots in this class. and that sets this course apart from all other courses. most other profs would come, teach, care very little whether the students like it or not and pack. and there are the few like one of our PMT profs who takes too much pain in making sure that everyone gets the point and it gets just unbearable sometimes when some guys ask dumb doubts..real dumb doubts..or ask him to repeat what he has just patiently explained for more than 10 minutes. but in social psychology, nothing of that sort happens. either you listen in class or she makes you listen!! she is constantly on the lookout for junta who are sleepy and wakes them up..has happened atleast twice with the same guy till now..and she has a good sense of humour too. thats a crucial aspect in the classes being enjoyable. and the anecdots/recollections from her experience of teaching both 4th years and 2nd years simultaneously too make for a good time. all in all, i have to admit i do enjoy the course a lot.

oh, and how can i forget chocolates and her class!! her policy is that if we come late by more than a minute on a day like tuesday when class if immediately after the lunch break, we need to get chocolates for the others when we have the next class...sounds childish but kinda has worked i must say. though some guys(and girl(s) too) have failed to get the chocolates (some accuse me of also being part of that gang having bunked the day after i went late :D ) after coming late. but thankfully, a good soul revived the tradition today after coming late yesterday. i hope i wont be needing to get chocolates ever again..but its hard whatwith my penchant to go late to classes..i get some kinda thrill out of it..even if i dont, i hope others keep up the trend and bring chocolates when they have to :D

We are not alone...

If you read the title and started imagining that i am gonna be writing about aliens, UFOs and the like, you are gonna be disappointed at the end of the post..This is NOT about life on another planet. It is about the disconnecting of net that happens every (damn) day from 1 AM to 4 AM.... in case you did not know, this is not something that IITM can claim to be the pioneer of (nor IITMians claim the credit for pioneering such a thing)...For the unfortunate few who like blaming the dean for each and everything, let it be known that such a thing exists in high school hostels in the US for more than 2 decades!! In fact, it is cut from 1AM-6AM..2 hours more than us (though if we are to believe the discussions on DC that i was witness to during yesterday evening, lan is additionally gonna get screwed from 9-12AM too effective march 1st:(..shouldnt affect many people though...as we are all expected to have classes at these times )..by this time, most of us must have learnt it the hard way that this situation just isnt gonna get better...its perfectly right for us to have qualms about the way insti is going about making sure we attend classes..Having good profs who can teach really well will anyday attract junta to class, whether he be a muggu or a hardcore gamer.(we must accept that in todays scenario, neither you nor me is going to take up a teaching job even if the opportunity presents itself...the profession has just lost its sheen. i doubt if giving better salaries and perks will help in bringing more profs in). On one hand, I wholeheartedly support the lan cutting method of limiting us from wasting our time in all sorts of ways instead of attending classes but on the other, i keep feeling why cant there be a better solution to this problem..i am pretty sure many of us have been in some situation when we were really doing useful important work only to see the lan cup screwing us up badly just when it shouldn't have...And added to all this, it seems insti is also working to find a way to stop file sharing amongst us...though i doubt that they will ever be able to achieve this..should be interesting to see if they do achieve it and more importantly, how they achieve it..lets hope that insti doesnt go totally mad and resort to such mad measures. instead, i would be happy to suggest that they remove lan once and for all instead of imposing such stupid restrictions.

btw, i have added an automatically generated podcast of my blog..yup, you can now hear my blog and freely browse ahead without taking the pains to read with squinted eyes at the fart i write...though the voice isnt mine nor any other characteristic of the voice, it is only the wordings that i control...so dont be surprised if the voice instead of leaving a gap on encountering 3 dots but instead prefers to read them out!! Please do let me know about this new technology if i can call it so...only pain i think is that i need to be updating it whenever i post...hope i remember to. thanks to this website for creating the podcasts for me and storing them on their own servers too!! Check them out if you want to add a podcast for your blog too...or for the matter, any website that has a rss feed can be converted into a podcast.

PS: most of the stuff in the first part are totally based on some discussions seen in DC...so i do not vouch for its correctness.

Saarang 2006-an experience that was...

With so many posts on Saarang (atleast from IIT junta on my list), I cant be left far behind can I?...

To start with, this Saarang was a lot different from the last edition...More because i knew what to expect and what to do and what not to do...Well, i landed up a volship under RG as a lec dem vol..something that almost never gave me time to witness the other events that were taking place nor let me take part in any events(not that it would have mattered in the results sheet)..But it was a great learning experience on handling things and meeting new people.

I have decided to write a few things i learnt from those 5, rather 6 days of fun...

• Life is fun during Saarang!!


• Rajeev Menon is a nice guy...No i am not gay. Which other biggie would you expect to come half an early and speak to you so nicely and ask you questions like "How is grass amongst the students?"


• Never use the cell phone while sitting in first or second row in CLT that too when you are right under the speaker's nose..else risk public embarassment :(


• There are some nice people in IITM itself whom i never know existed


• I dont know how to flirt. Not that i tried as much as i could have but its a fact


• Guys who sit in their room and mug/go home during Saarang are not fit to be here :D


• Knowing your co-ord well beforehand helps a lot :D


• If the pro show gets boring, dont worry...There's always lots of other things to look out for in OAT


• Dean is not a bad guy after all. But the guys who went and provoked Led Zepplica to mouth foul language on camera and are spreading it on lan are idiots.


• 5 days is just tooooo long for Saarang. 3 is more than enough apart from the initial day

Thats all i can remember as of now...Lets see if there is anything else i can think about to add here..

PS:none of the points are written with specific persons in mind :D