By personal experience, I am compelled to infer that the worst thing for any student to do is to question things during preparation-for-test time. Here's a part from the interrogation that I subjected myself to one day before a bio test:
Q: What do I gain by studying about plant reproduction?
A: Well... who knows, I might become a farmer in the distant future...
and presto!The Biology text book is closed and I venture out to do more constructive things... 'Mum, whats for lunch??' All this being perfectly alright ...but in comes the catch towards the end of the day...any inquisition about the depths of learning become fading things of the past and yours truly, is trying desperately to put mug... simultaneously remembering ...the words, 'ticking away the moments that make up a dull day, you fritter and WASTE the hours in an offhand way...'' with twinges of guilt.
Oh well, the tests are done with for now and the only time that I'll start the interrogation again is probably when the marks come out...
To initiate my one day freedom from acads I went along with my brother to shoot baskets in the basketball ring outside. As usual, we got told off by entire Bong family who reside in the house just adjacent to the basketball ''court''. Tragic, their lives must be. I mean my apartment has it's entire play ground right next to their house. Cricket balls, plastic balls, tennis balls, basketballs, shuttlecocks and the likes somehow always manage to find their places in the renowned Bong house.
Lovely place, my apartment that is. It's got this absolutely rad design..loadsa trees ,fresh green lawns, brilliant 'stonehenge' passage, amazing terrace with even more amazing view...the drive way from the main gate to the basement is the best...it has these eucalyptus and bamboo trees lining the footpath...It's a real nice feeling when I'm walking home from school, and all I can see is the stone passage ,feel the movement of the trees...and see the rising building...in the distance. The thing is that this place has about a gazillion kids all over the place. In fact it's extremely rare to find anyone above the age of 5 years and that makes it even nicer.
The bathroom has to be given the highest degree of certification. Right above us, in the first floor, is this family with some ten month old baby and all..and they ALWAYS seem to be bathing him. To top it all they are tam brahms so we actually get to hear the baby-coochey-coochey-coo talk in Tamil! Twice a week,my brother and his group of thugs have karate classes on the 6th floor and believe me, you can actually hear them screaming in Japanese or whatever. The bathroom singing of course is a common ritual ( I myself indulge in it pretty wholeheartedly) but then fact is that I live on the ground floor so all the sound waves kinda superimpose and reach my precious tympanic membrane in the bathroom...like i said lovely place.
In 'Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance', when the narrator's son,'Chris' asks him to help him with a letter, the narrator actually tells him to list out what he wants to say in no particular order and sort it out later. The son ends up writing a three page long list! Try it sometime if you have a writer's block or something and then let me know if it works... if it doesn't, well you aren't meant to write anyway, go stick your head in mud...but if it does, then we'll go together and shake Robert Pirsig's royal hand...
Yesterday was dad's b'day and all.. I had an exceptionally nice day...went to some pseudo mall, stood around watching other people buy stuff and feeling financially and mentally secure. Then we went to Blossoms which is a pretty decent second hand book stall...stale smell of old books and that sort of a thing...then had dinner in sorta pseudo but nice Chinese restaurant, 'Mainland China' and all that so obviously,I was pretty touchy about having to attend special classes in school on a Sunday.
So what I did , right after getting up, without brushing my teeth and all, was to read a story from'Nine Stories'- J.D Salinger, called' For Esmé- with Love and Squalor'.
I got this nice, satisfactory feeling after reading the story so, I didn't read anything else. I mean, that's the thing with short stories... I can never read two at a stretch or something. Okay, I thought that I would devote at least one paragraph to the greatness of the story and statements like 'Salinger is God', but I don't feel like doing it anymore so I might just as well talk about his book covers... Salinger's I mean. The books that are published by' Little Brown books' have this pure white cover with the names of the book and author written in black. On one corner of the book, are these colour strips and thats more or less it. When I went to buy 'The Catcher In The Rye' some two years ago.. I was pretty much in a daze when I saw the book . I mean for a book that is universally talked about, it looked pretty plain and all that; not that I really give a damn or anything but then the feelings sorta imbibed in you anyway...human tendency probably. It's like our man, Salinger did everything he could possibly do, to make his books as plain as possible and boy! do I love it! It kinda binds you to it, the cover binds you to the book I mean.
I, like a lot of other sensible people, love the I'm-at-peace-with-the-world mode which is currently the mode that has been activated. And so, I think,that it is time for today's Chautauqua to come to an end.
cogitated thoughts
I broke the 'G' string of my guitar yesterday. Eventually, I'll go to the shop and buy a brand new set of strings, hoping that in the distant future some other string might break; to avoid the curious eye popping stares from the old sardarji in 'Premsons' who refuses to believe that my 'E' string never breaks, if nothing else. I've three other sets of strings consisting of all except the good old 'G' string. Right!Chuck it all... I'm not making too much sense anyway... am I?
I attended a fundoo movie quiz conducted by K.Q.A last Sunday. Attended a quiz after AGES. I went with my dad and grandpa( who was extremely pleased when we wrote 'Sneha, her dad and his dad' in the names of the team members thingy!) The quiz, was, as already mentioned, majorly fundoo. Questions about movies dating from time immemorial were asked and since moi knowledge in these things is still strictly in the basic stages, it didn't come as too much of a surprise to my dad when I spent half the time staring at the ceiling fan, taking in the junta and the likes. But all that being said, my dad and I both managed to collect some interesting trivia. So, Sunday morning was spent pretty constructively.
I kinda liked the entire atmosphere. The crowd consisted of a variety of people most of which looked like general engineering junta, 'smells like teen spirit' in the background, a couple of blokes were reading books and all that sort of thing. Some of the team names are worth a mention. People called themselves 'we are like this only', 'we will, we will rock you?'(note interrogatory tone!),'three weddings and a...punal?'(thats the threading ceremony in most of the parts down South) and other such brilliantly jhakkas names; trifle confusing for quiz master 'Madhav Nair' (who I thought did a pretty good job!) who had to call them out when they made it to the finals.
As a part of the teacher's day 'celebrations' in my school, us 12thies have to wear sarees and blazers and crappy stuff like that...which is why at precisely 4 pm yesterday evening, I found myself standing in a crowded...no, thats understating it...OVERCROWDED BMTC bus with my dear mum, going to stitch a blouse for yours sincerely (ahem! And quit smirking ya morons!)
A bus journey is an excruciating ordeal to say the least! It all starts with you standing in the middle of the road, waving your hands frantically in about 42(!) different directions so as to catch the driver's attention. This is an epitome to sending a very sweet invitation to Death, with best wishes and all! Mission accomplished, bus stops and you are just trying to make a very pronounced appearance in the bus when voila, the rest of your fellow passengers make sure you are already inside ! Enter bus, STREAM of Kannada (obscenities?) greets you RIGHT IN YOUR FACE!For people like me with limited control over the language it gets trifle complex to decipher out what in the devil's ass those sweet, happy, sunshine people are actually saying so I decide to give it a miss and move on. I caught sight of a couple of mothers who were actually carrying full grown 8 year olds just so they would get a goddamn seat!! By the end of the one hour that I was in hell, I was smelling of about 50 different mixtures of sweat, oil and what not. Initial purpose forgotten, all my mum and I wanted to do was ro get down and yeah! Even walking the rest of the distance would do.
Alright, I find myself running out of things to say which is why I'll let you in on a final, major secret. For those of you who don't already know...the Beatles RULE!Until next time, 'my guitar gently weeps'.
I attended a fundoo movie quiz conducted by K.Q.A last Sunday. Attended a quiz after AGES. I went with my dad and grandpa( who was extremely pleased when we wrote 'Sneha, her dad and his dad' in the names of the team members thingy!) The quiz, was, as already mentioned, majorly fundoo. Questions about movies dating from time immemorial were asked and since moi knowledge in these things is still strictly in the basic stages, it didn't come as too much of a surprise to my dad when I spent half the time staring at the ceiling fan, taking in the junta and the likes. But all that being said, my dad and I both managed to collect some interesting trivia. So, Sunday morning was spent pretty constructively.
I kinda liked the entire atmosphere. The crowd consisted of a variety of people most of which looked like general engineering junta, 'smells like teen spirit' in the background, a couple of blokes were reading books and all that sort of thing. Some of the team names are worth a mention. People called themselves 'we are like this only', 'we will, we will rock you?'(note interrogatory tone!),'three weddings and a...punal?'(thats the threading ceremony in most of the parts down South) and other such brilliantly jhakkas names; trifle confusing for quiz master 'Madhav Nair' (who I thought did a pretty good job!) who had to call them out when they made it to the finals.
As a part of the teacher's day 'celebrations' in my school, us 12thies have to wear sarees and blazers and crappy stuff like that...which is why at precisely 4 pm yesterday evening, I found myself standing in a crowded...no, thats understating it...OVERCROWDED BMTC bus with my dear mum, going to stitch a blouse for yours sincerely (ahem! And quit smirking ya morons!)
A bus journey is an excruciating ordeal to say the least! It all starts with you standing in the middle of the road, waving your hands frantically in about 42(!) different directions so as to catch the driver's attention. This is an epitome to sending a very sweet invitation to Death, with best wishes and all! Mission accomplished, bus stops and you are just trying to make a very pronounced appearance in the bus when voila, the rest of your fellow passengers make sure you are already inside ! Enter bus, STREAM of Kannada (obscenities?) greets you RIGHT IN YOUR FACE!For people like me with limited control over the language it gets trifle complex to decipher out what in the devil's ass those sweet, happy, sunshine people are actually saying so I decide to give it a miss and move on. I caught sight of a couple of mothers who were actually carrying full grown 8 year olds just so they would get a goddamn seat!! By the end of the one hour that I was in hell, I was smelling of about 50 different mixtures of sweat, oil and what not. Initial purpose forgotten, all my mum and I wanted to do was ro get down and yeah! Even walking the rest of the distance would do.
Alright, I find myself running out of things to say which is why I'll let you in on a final, major secret. For those of you who don't already know...the Beatles RULE!Until next time, 'my guitar gently weeps'.
© cogitated thoughts 2005 // Powered for Blogger by Blogger templates