Originality AND Timing

Once Dan spoke of Timing making up for an un-original joke, and then I wrote about this brilliant Original joke which didn't make anyone laugh. The point being the tug of war in originality and timing, something like a Heisenberg momentum and position war or whatever that was.

Well, after a long walk in the woods, getting to my point, Dan - yeah, the one and only - has come up with somethhing really lovely that comes at the most brilliant time after a superfucked MCP paper and is brilliantly Original - Con diffidence! Feel confident!

Needless to say, Danny, Love your poetry. You're the best poet they ever can see. (Ever thought of publishing a book? I'll buy :) )

And, here's another crisis...

... or Such is the life of a Graduate Student.

First was the sub-prime crisis. (Okay, this has nothing to do with the current crisis, but hear me out.)
Then came the Financial Crisis. (Well, at least this follows logically from the point above.)
Then came the Academic Crisis. And it came in sinusoidal wave functions, recursive functions, goto statements (bad coding practice, btw), and what have you. (I never said I'm co-relating any of the above, or maybe I am. Hear me out. Please). Oh, and you can fathom the magnitude of the crisis' (the academic ones) because I was actually offering Starbucks in return of encouragement. (Yeah, that bad. And I ain't a billionaire, yet.)

And in the next chronology of events, (And please do not mistake chronology for causation, because as a 'Young MBA student', I wouldn't appreciate any fallacious reasoning you will indulge in post reading this.) And, I just lost the sentence (Like, "we just lost the beat"... it's a line somewhere in "We didn't start the fire (I know I'm going into nested thought loops - this one will close two parenthesis.))

Coming back to the point (Too much deviation... need to look into the metrics of average words per non-fiction blog post), the next in the chronology of events is the Clothes Crisis! Sigh. I have run out of wearable clothes. Either they are in the laundry, or in the laundry. That ways! End of story. So early in the morning, my roomie looks at me, and bursts into fits of laughter. Then my Cannie walks into class and starts laughing, then people ask me weird arse questions. Only if I had gone to the laundry yesterday evening. Sigh. Well... Such, is the life of a graduate student.

A passing thought...

I wonder what's with me and exams. And why is it that I suddenly become prolific when exams are around? Back in the engineering days, I blogged the most around crucial academic milestones like submissions, exams, presentations etc. Now I find myself blogging while MCP is in suspended animation. :(

Could this have anything to do with Structured Procrastination? Or just sheer resistance to accept the superiority of ambition over laziness?

Lost, and found...

... in 135 minutes.

Its been almost 4 months, and I haven't seen this city yet. In fact, if I were to venture more than a couple of blocks away from school, I'd be lost. Which, incidentally, is precisely what happened yesterday. And it was tragic, because I consider myself to have a very good sense of direction, (Yeah, joker, you're an outlier, therefore I'm ignoring you for the sake of general sanity.)

For quite some time I could see the skyscrapers of the central business district, and knew I was close to home, if not quite at it. And after some time, I find myself in weird streets, and I'm flummoxed. I come to an intersection that said "Quezon City" to the right and "Pasay City" to the left. And I had to goto Makati. Confusing. So I re-read the board, and the one that said "Pasay City" said, "via EDSA" and I remember EDSA as the station where we had taken the train to Tagaitay for. Phew.

So I carry on, and find myself in a place that was lined with what could be small houses, except the boards outside them read "Family rooms available", "Rooms No charge" and "Rooms available - P75 per hear per hour". The business student in me is trying to make sense out of this. Trust me, it doesn't. At the end of the day, the people who would use the rooms are going to indulge in potential family making activities, so which one would they choose? I'll bet the one that says "Family rooms", after all they have a 50% off on Happy hours too. (Well, I walked by again, when the business student was really flummoxed.). It makes more sense, specially if you're kinky, you wouldn't want to spend at per head per hour rates. (Disclaimer: I assume. I wouldn't really know if there is a point of indifference depending on the number of people w.r.t the family rooms.)

By now, I'm curious, but the place was kind of down market and didn't want to spend too much time, lest my previously mentioned fears of getting lost (which I was) and mugged (which I potentially could be) come true. After what seemed like an eternity, or about half an hour (depending on which of my personalities had taken over at that point in time), I saw something that said "Starbucks". Given that it made business sense to operate in locations where you are able to recover your fixed costs, and that Starbucks is expensive coffee, I knew happy hours were coming closer. (Or I was about to find my way back home.) Then came another, and a third and the skyscrapers in view... and in an hour after the first Starbucks, I was at a walkway that led to GreenBelt. And home. Finally.

Lost, and Found, in 135 minutes!

Totally out of context

The other day I was chatting with this friend -
(paraphrased, because the chat was somehow off the record)

Me: How's the term coming along?
Friend: Coming along well.
Me: So, this would be your second trimester?
Friend: Yes. The second trimester.

In a totally different context, or in no context, you'd think she were pregnant. Heh.
Just for the record, the conversation refers to the MBA. :-)

How to transition to a good graduate student.

An undergraduate students always attached a certain relevance to grades. So as an undergrad I would "need" to talk about what a dilligent engineer I am, a First Class with Distinction, no less. Then you internalise it so much, that the most naural conversation that you would have at, say, an airport waiting lounge -

"Hey! I'm Mathi, and you are?"

"First Class with Distinction"

"Err... Hi. What do you do for a living?"

"First Class with Distinction"

"Oh. What's that?"

"First Class with Distinction"

"Funny. You've got some sense of humor"

"Uh? Yeah. That's because I am a First Class with Distinction"

And so on...

So after a 99.90 percentile in the XAT, with well balanced sectional scores ranging from 98.66 to 98.90 you enter graduate school with the idea of making your mark, making eye popping points, decimating the curve, graduating with the highest honors possible, speaking such gyan... so much that ordinary mortals feel scared to stand within a one kilometer radius else the blinding light of your brilliance would leave them blind, or probably burn them to dust with the white hot intensity of a couple of shining suns, or something like that. After a couple of quizzes and exams you accept there's no point in aiming for the dean's list. Then it gets down to a high pass. And finally "fuck 'em. As long as I pass the fuckin' course".

Congratulations, you're now a complete graduate student.

Goodbye's

The worst part about good bye's is that they hit you rather late, like an amnesic patient, and then you come to your senses. It's kind of weird, in the transition period you never realise something is changing - if I remember my chemistry right (don't groan), when an electron transits to a higer level there is a lot of energy that is released ( That's why LED's emit light, right?) - so probably the energy of the transition kind of takes away from the reality of the good bye.

There's this song by Vitamin C called "Friends Forever" that me and Revy (and the others who were forced to travel with us. Heh.) used to listen during the SomeRat and then the BE project days (yeah, an eternity ago) - kind of sums up the whole feeling real well.

Will the past be a shadow that will follow us 'round?
Will these memories fade when I leave this town
I keep, I keep thinking that it's not goodbye
Keep on thinking it's a time to fly

Mathi Boy, Revy Baby, Charlie, Danny, Sai, G, Pearl (yeah, you too) - Missing you guys. :((

P.S: Yes jokers, the reality of me being in Manila has hit me now.

P.P.S: Revati, we're 25 now. It seemed like it will never come, back then, when we were 20/21!