Fun way of math learning

Check this out.
I wish I had the aptitude (or rather appetite) for learning math like that kid.


Today, I had one of the most refreshing debates on facebook. I dont know if non-friends can access it, but I am posting the link anyway-

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/note.php?note_id=114270495118&ref=mf


For the article which spawned this debate, click here.

Phew! Thats a lotta travelling.

Okay, that has been a hectic one and a half months, which saw me travel large distances. As soon as my exams got over, on May 1st I left Chennai for Delhi, where I was hoping to meet some old friends and school. That happened, and it was fun visiting the school once again, being introduced by your teachers as the smartest kid in class, best quizzer etc. (I was never good with modesty, though I loved being honest). On my last day there, I made the mistake of spending a 150 bucks to watch Watchmen, which according to me, was a very weird movie, the kind of which you have to wiki afterwards, so that you get those Ohhhh-so-that-was-what-that-was-all-about moments.








I am sorry Doc, but I just didn't like it.







After that and a 45 hours spent in a train in which they serve food for people with minuscule stomachs (they serve 2 rotis, so small that you can feed them to ants, and still they will be crying for more), I reached God's Own (mine too) Country's capital. 2 days later was a cousin's wedding, in which I had good traditional food after a hell of a long time, and boy, was I a wolf that day. In Kerala I met up with a friend and had nice game of football. Otherwise, my hours were passed in eating, sleeping and playing badminton.
After that, I reached Mumbai on the 4th of June, where I enjoyed Vada Pav, and some quality reflection time in front of the TV, where I realized that India wasn't going to win this World Cup T20. On 12th, I boarded the Saurashtra Mail, and here I am in the land of Milk and ....errr....well, not sure there is a lot of Honey here, but still its fine.

This entire trip around India saw me put on fat, and with no sign of any physical exercise for the next 2 months........I am told that the future is clouded by tachyons (Thank you for that insight, Doc Manhattan). I ate a lot of stuff, and most of it was awesome. I developed a love for fish, all kinds of them - be it fried or curry.






Karimeen Pollichathu - One of my favourite dishes, which involves doing some kind of cooking that I do not know to a fish which is peculiar to Kerala backwaters.






Now that I am in a city which can hardly call my home (I have stayed in this house for only 10 days, and know absolutely no one here except for my dad’s colleagues) my days here shall be passed in driving lessons, playing the piano, watching TV (lots of it), reading books and whiling away time on the Internet. I leave with a question which has disturbed me quite often –


In a movie theatre, which arm rest is yours?

Travelling

Its been a long time, but I have been travelling in the last 2 weeks, and after going to Delhi from Chennai, I am now in Trivandrum with my grandparents. Due to unavailability of Internet (I am in a cybercafe now), I won't be posting till I reach home, which will be somewhere in June. So till then, adios amigos.


P.S Oh yeah! needless to say, the food here is awesome.

Year in Review - and Plans for the Future

As my first academic year in IITM nears the end, I have discovered that there are some things, which I would like to pursue for all my 4 years here (3 more). One important thing that you have to take care of if you want to make full use of your time here (apart from academics) is to prioritize. I and my friends have had a lot of discussions on this. You can’t keep on trying stuff till 4 years get over and there is nothing you have gained. I am of the view that all the trying should be restricted to a maximum of 1 year, and then you should prioritize, pick and practice (wow! I came up with a 3P prescription………make that 4P). I have made a list of 4 things that I am going to pursue over the next 4 years – music, football, quizzing, and LitSoc in general.
Till now, I have always played music alone, which is interesting, but not half as much as fun as when you play in a group. When you play solo, you don’t need to take care of coordination, volumes of each instrument, tuning, and other things, which are very crucial when you play in a band. It is also a lot of fun when you play in a band, the late night practices, grub sessions, and the general banter (in insti lingo- farting) in between practices. Here I discovered the joy of playing with other people, and I want to do that for the next 3 years also.
I think it was around class 11 when I gradually shifted from cricket to football. I do play cricket occasionally, but if you ask me to pick one of them, it will always be football. Even in my JEE days, I played casual football quite regularly. When I came here, I saw that I wasn’t very bad compared to others, so I started playing here too. I bought my first football boots after coming here (and have already worn out 2 pairs here). I got through the NSO selections (which by the way is a very big farce) and made it to the hostel team, which ensured that I played football almost every day. I plan to keep playing football till I can, and am going to try to get into the insti team next year, as I heard that both the left wingers are passing out this year.
Quizzing for me starts way back, in 3rd standard where I was gifted the whole set of Bournvita Quiz books by my parents. I was a big fan of the show when it used to be good (and when it used to be quiz, before it became a talent show) and it was like a religion – watching it on TV at 12 on a Sunday. Throughout my school days, I quizzed and enjoyed quizzing, and I carried that enthusiasm into college, and though the quizzing style here is very different from what we had in school, I still enjoy quizzing here. Recently I put up a quiz of 15 questions for the Quiz Club Meet, and my questions were appreciated (though almost all of them were very easily answered).
LitSoc – Here is one thing that I realized very late into my 2nd semester, quite recently. I had planned to pursue my other 3 interests even before coming here, but LitSoc is one thing that caught my attention and made me interested in it. For the uninitiated, LitSoc is the inter-hostel trophy for LITerary and SOCial events. Competition has always thrilled me, and I thrive on the competitive spirit, bordering on RGing (there simply is no non-insti lingo word for this, so please forgive me). So I thoroughly enjoyed the competition between different hostels, and was disappointed even more to lose it to a rival hostel (and later, even lost the 2nd position). I have decided that next year onwards, I will work towards getting the LitSoc trophy back to where it belongs (we have been winning it for 3 years, before this year).

Western Music videos

Here are the videos of our hostel band performance in the LitSoc (non insti people, read: Inter Hostel Literary and Cultural Competition held throughout the year) WM competition. We came 2nd, which is quite an achievement considering that we didn't have a drummer! For all those who laughed at us and said that we can't play WM without drums, in your face!




This is Lazarus by Porcupine Tree. TI on the bass, Sayash/Rubber Band on guitar, Sutta on tabla. Dandiya on vocals, and yours truly on the keys.








Pure Narcotic by Porcupine Tree. Same instrumentalists as the previous one.





This is Nightmare Cinema, and instrumental medley. TI shifted to his natural instrument, which is the keyboard, and, in insti lingo, "raped" it! This was the best of the lot.



The winning performance was by Saras, which was truly amazing and out of this world. Here is their own composition, called Hourglass.





This was also partly the reason for lack of posting in the last few days. All the LAN hours used to go in practice, and I used to return to my room at around 1-2, when LAN would have gone. Nevertheless, I learnt a lot from this experience. Till now, I had played only solo. I had never played as a part of a band before, and trust me; it is very different from playing alone. There is an enormous amount of co-ordination required, and dedication and practice. This year, TI played a big role in us winning the 2nd place, right from song selection, to the last song, which was practically assimilated from different sources by TI and Sayash. TI is passing out next year which will leave a staggeringly huge void in our music group. I hope we get some musically inclined freshies next year, and more importantly, I get the hang of band performances.