Recreation

I have never been good with the telephonic conversations, never. I thought I would improve after having travelled far away from home. It’s almost been one year since I left home but I am yet to see any substantial improvement! One improvement though is that I don’t ask “Vechidattuma?” (shall I cut the call now?) every 2 minutes any more. That in itself is a big achievement. But there is a big problem area that I would have to improve upon – “Faking my mood”. It might sound really insignificant. How does it matter might be the question. But when you are thousands of miles away from home, when every word you utter and the tone that you speak in is being taken seriously (which obviously does not happen when you are at home) it’s very important. Because you might end up in trouble like how I did last week.

Last Sunday was one heck of a day. For some strange reason I wasn’t at my best. Nothing worked. I was bored to hell. I tried to read a book but I got no further than the first page. I tried calling up a couple of friends, one wasn’t reachable and the other was not in a position to talk (he was travelling. Don’t think otherwise), even G- talk was deserted. Such was my mood that even “Friends” series was a bit boring.

That is when I had to take a call from my parents. Now, talking to parents over the phone even if I am in a good mood is tricky, let alone talking to them whilst in bad mood. I say it’s tricky because more often than not I end up either giving too much information and get them to worry or give them very little info and run into the risk of answering their wild imaginations. Maintaining this balance is a big challenge.

So yes, my parents called and I carefully (or so I thought) cut the call down in a few minutes saying that I was tired and I wanted to sleep. I didn’t want to let them know that my mood wasn’t upbeat because that would prompt some obvious questions like why? What happened? Etc … I believe everyone would know the pain in answering these questions. My parents sounded like as if they were very understanding (again…so I thought).It also made me believe that I had improved my ability to fake things over the phone.

Imagine how bad I must have been in faking my mood if my father had mailed me the below link saying “an interesting site”
http://moodgym.anu.edu.au/welcome
When I saw the link, I was actually fine with it. As in, I thought I had only failed with the faking part. Little did I know that I had actually painted a picture far worse than the actual one. To help you understand the extent to which my faking had failed I have pasted the first Q & A from FAQ’s section in Mood gym (Below).

What is MoodGYM?
MoodGYM is an innovative, interactive web program designed to prevent depression. It consists of five modules, an interactive game, anxiety and depression assessments, downloadable relaxation audio, a workbook and feedback assessment.
Using flashed diagrams and online exercises, MoodGYM teaches the principles of cognitive behaviour therapy – a proven treatment for depression. It also demonstrates the relationship between thoughts and emotions, and works through dealing with stress and relationship break-ups, as well as teaching relaxation and meditation techniques.

I had a hearty laugh. Yes! i’ve fooled my father, just that he thinks that I am a little mentally ill now. It doesn’t make a big difference or does it?

This post has been published by me on the occasion of the Teachers' Day as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 2; the second edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

5/09/09



M. Govind
Roll number:12
?,Always 'C'section


Short answers (2 marks)
1) What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of teachers?
Teachers are the worst villains. Not all are villains. But the villains certainly outnumber the good ones by quite a big margin. (0 Marks)
2) Think rationally and write in a few words about your teachers.
Kudos to all those teachers who had the patience to read through my answer sheets after being impressed with my neatly written name and roll number, after which I promptly disappointed them with my not-so-neatly written answers. Because if I had evaluated my papers, I would not have reached any further than primary school. (2 Marks)

Answer in brief (5 marks)
1) What are your thoughts on teachers and teaching profession in general? (I should impress my teacher here... common 5 marks.)
Teaching is one of the noblest professions around. Teachers have always been taken for granted. They have been (and will be) expected to work their magic on kids on whom even their very own parents have lost hope. They forgive and forget our mistakes day in and day out with magnanimity that people from other profession can match only in dreams. (3 Marks)
2) Do you aspire to be a teacher some day in your life?
I would never want to be a teacher myself. Because even if someone curses me to the extent that I have cursed my teachers I am doomed .I can’t stand people who don’t listen to me when I talk. I can never put myself into a position where people make fun of me all day, call me by atrocious nick names and wish I would fall sick every day. (4 Marks)
Answer in detail (10 marks)
1) Compare teachers now and teachers of yesteryears.
When you talk of teachers now and teachers then you always get an impression that teachers were better then. Why is that so?

It might have nothing to do with the standard of teaching. It might be only because we have nothing else to believe other that what we hear from our elders. Elders keep telling us that teachers in those days were more sincere, dedicated etc. We listen to this happily and we are not even ready to validate this. Because we would love everyone to believe that we don’t have good teachers. After all you have an extra reason to fall back upon for scoring poorly.

Teachers today face a far greater challenge than what teachers faced then. Until recently apart from the normal troubles like students murmuring in the class what bigger problem could a student create? Probably eat in the class!! Now? Mobiles, Mp3 players, PSPs what not? I can never imagine our elders being as eloquent as we have been. Would they have ever voiced their opinions? Would they have ever been as disobedient as we have been? You know the answers don’t you? There are so many distractions around us. What distraction do you think our parents would have had? Probably radio… It must have been far easier to make a kid read. So teachers today have a herculean task at hand.

Having said all that, teachers today have their own shortcomings. Money has driven teaching standards to lower levels. Teaching is a profession, yes. People have to make money out of it, yes. They need not do it as a service, yes. But should money be the only motive? No. With all the tuition centers around, teachers are more concerned about making money. They try and allure students at school to join their tuition centers. This defeats the whole purpose of having schools and hampers the profession of teaching in general. (6 Marks)
Complementary question
Would you like to thank any teacher at all?
Although I don’t like this idea of tuition, I have enjoyed tuition centers. I met the best amongst my teachers in one such tuition. She taught me math in my +1 and +2.She is the first one who comes to my mind when I think of teachers I like. I owe a lot to her. I would like to believe that teachers of today are far better than teachers of yesteryears just for her sake. Total : 16/24 (oops!! there is a totalling mistake...but when you get more who cares . LOL)

The fellow Blog-a-Tonics who took part in this Blog-a-Ton are Vipul, Rajalakshmi, Dhiman, Ranee[1], [2], [3] , Avada, Indian Pundit, Sojo, Aneet, Pramathesh, Aativas, Sid, Pra, Ajinkya, Lakshmi, Shilpa, Bharathi, Shankar, Mytuppence, Azad, Pawan, Pankaja, Saimanohar, Guria, Shruti, Vishnu,Nasrajan and Richa. Click on their respective names to read their posts on Teachers : Aaj Kal. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

I was going to drive a car without an instructor for the first time last Sunday. I was scared to be frank. The thing that sacred me the most was the amount of money I would lose if I end up in an accident and yes as usual “final destination”. I somehow made up my mind to give it a go.It was a white Nissan Nido.It looked quite new. I was hoping it would stay the same way for a couple of more days.
I should say I eased into driving. My friend beside me was a good calming influence. In a couple of minutes I was on the “Story bridge”. I really felt proud when I parked the car only problem being both the indicators kept glowing for no reasonJ. In the ten minutes that we trying to put the indicators off it felt like as though were on a helicopter. There were so many buttons around. God! Finally my friend managed to find the right button. Phew! That was a relief.
We decided to head towards the sunshine coast. We thought the GPS would help us with the route. But if anything it was a distraction. After a bit of driving in the city trying to figure out how to get to the free way leading to sunshine coast we decided to head towards gold coast as it appeared simpler. In 5 minutes we were on the free way. Clocking 80 km/hr, I started feeling comfortable.
I changed lanes to exercise my driving skills. I suppose this irked the other drivers. Some honked (I am told that’s as good as swearing). Some people had some kind words to say. I didn’t hear any. After all I am from north Chennai. Some waved fingers at me. No, No! They don’t belong to AIADMK. But I believe it would make a good political party symbol. My other friend got a bit restless. He started nagging me right through, asking me to stay on course even if I didn’t drift away from my lanes. I did not let anything distract me. I am pretty sure, after a long long time I was concentrating on something. Concentrating on the job at hand (To save my money and to save to other lives on the car) I wanted to stay below the speed limit of 110 but I clocked 120km/hr at one point of time. Not consciously, though.
Finally we reached surfers paradise. An 80km drive. It felt great. Worth all the risk I had taken. We parked the car and strolled along the roads of gold coast. I was very worried for the car (God knows why). I was worried it might be a no parking zone. I was worried that someone else might crash against it in which case I will have to shell out money even though I am not responsible. All these thoughts got to me and I urged my friends to have lunch in the car itself. Height of pessimism isn’t it? Journey back home was also interesting. Barring an incident when the hand brakes got stuck it was awesome. Job well done!!! I was tired. But there was a deep sense of relief and satisfaction. It was indeed a trip for the car and not on the car.
I desperately want to buy a car now. Any good suggestions are welcome.

Cricket is an art, by far the toughest game on earth. It might look simple, but the nuances of the game are too hard for us to comprehend. Cricket, they say is a Mind Game. Real cricket is 5 day cricket. No wonder they have named it Test cricket. It is a real test of character. Although 20/20 is globalizing cricket big time, its killing the game in more ways than not. It’s a pain to watch off spinners firing the ball flat out into the block hole and it’s even more pain full to observe that there is not a single international team that has a good leg spinner. The switch hit, the scoop over the wicket keeper’s head and the short arm pull can never match the Sachin Tendulkar straight drive, Rahul Dravid square cut or the Mark Waugh leg glance.
The two most important aspects of cricket are that it’s a profound team game and it’s highly unpredictable. In my view 20/20 kills the first part for sure. It’s not the better team that wins. It’s the team with more number of lucky people on a day that wins. I would even argue that test cricket is lot more unpredictable that 20/20. There is nothing more intriguing in cricket than watching a team battles it out on a last day wicket to save the game. In 20/20 a well constructed technically sound innings gets overshadowed by some awkward slogging which is unacceptable. In addition to all this we have the filthy rich who have taken over the game like as if it’s a property that they have inherited. For instance the idea of strategy break is just deep shit.”DLF Maximum” and”citi moment of success” are no better.
To cap it you have the cheer girls. God!! It’s the most irritating part of 20/20.This is not to say I am person with great moral values. Girls are charming, but cricket has enough charm to keep us up and cheering. There is no need for a catalyst here. If anything it’s a disgrace to cricket, players and the fans. Watching a replay of a shot or a wicket gives us more joy than watching the movements of some scantily dress women on the cricket field.
Its high time ICC thinks of putting in place a test championship and limit the number of 20/20’s being played. Anyways for those of you who are starved for good cricket ASHES 2009 is here!! J For the first time I am going to be in one of the participating nation. Go Aussies Go!!

I asked the taxi driver to take us to the A.J.Hackett Bungee jumping site. He said “get in mate” and added that he had very often taken people to this site but he has never had to pick them back from this place!!! J I started feeling a bit uneasy and restless.
We watched a couple of people jump. Both came out smiling and looked as though they enjoyed it.To be honest it didn’t look that scary .So we paid for the jump.We had to sign some papers saying we were undertaking this jump at our own risk and A.J.Hackett is not responsible if anything untoward happens!! Phew….
We took the stairs to get to the top of the bungee site. With every step that I took towards the top I felt I was getting a bit nervous. I felt my heart beat was a bit higher than normal. Halfway through I glanced down. It wasn’t encouraging. J I asked my fried if his heart beat was high as well…. Fortunately he said “Yes”! All sorts of thoughts came up to my mind. Barely 15 days back had I read news on Indian express saying a Techie died in Bangalore while he attempted to Bungee Jump. Scenes of “Final destiny” flashed through my mind. I wondered if there would be any hospitals around. But the place looked deserted, almost a forest. In an attempt to relieve my tension I tried to be humorous. I told my friend to ask Shreya goshal not to wait for me in case something untoward happens…both of us didn’t laugh L All this while I was thinking if I should go first or let my friend jump before me. Finally I made up my mind that I will jump first so that I can get over it in a flash. But I suppose my friend had the same idea. He insisted that he will go first. He jumped first. I didn’t see him jump. While he was hanging in air the guys who were facilitating things tied the Bungee cord to my legs. It was really tight. Still, I wasn’t sure. I asked them if it was tight enough. One of the fellows said, it only going to get tighter. Then he asked me sarcastically if this was the first time I was going to jump? I said yes. He gave a wry smile. L
The ropes were really tight and since both the legs were tied together I found it hard to move. I did move somehow. I moved to the edge. I told myself that I am not going to look down. But unfortunately that was the first thing that I did. God! Believe me 164 feet is really high. It was scary. It was really scary. My mind went blank. I surveyed the whole area. It was all green. The same pond which appeared very beautiful while I was at normal altitude didn’t look that pretty now. In fact nothing was pretty. I was scared, excited, confused, tensed…all at the same time. It was as scary as Anna univ results. J
One of the fellows asked me to wave to the camera (I am happy I managed to smile).Then I heard someone say that on count of five I should jump. I am pretty sure I did hear 5...4...3…but nothing after that. I didn’t jump…. He asked me to move a little forward. Part of my foot was in the air!!! He started counting again. 5…4…3…2…1 and jump…I did jump this time. This moment is what you pay for. The free fall, hoping that the bungee cord will hold you. It was awesome. I am not going to try and explain the feeling because I don’t think I will do any justice. The cord did hold and it took me up and down a couple of times. The scary part was done. I did manage to get on the boat finally and got back to normalcy. I felt a deep sense of relief and achievement. I am a certified “Bungee jumper “now.
By the end of it I did say that Shreya Goshal need not worry any more…and guess what?? both of us did laugh this time... J Teri ore , Teri ore , Teri ore …hay Raba.

Like all my answer papers brevity is last on my priority list in this post.
So yes, the exam time table is out. What is the first thing that I do? PLAN!! Plan for the holiday days in between exams. Believe me it will be meticulous. As per this plan the day I finish the previous exam I will come home take some rest and start studying for the next one (I vouch, I have never done this) .And in this awesome plan I would have given myself enough time to study most of the chapters for the “first time” and guess what? I would even have time to revise those chapters (LOL).
After my superstitions hair cut before my semester I would appear for the first exam in which my performance would be nothing short of scary. Now, instead of studying for the next exam I will find myself evaluating my answer paper repeatedly wanting to believe that I will get to that magical 36 and hoping against hope that my “affectionate” staff members (who never want me to pass) would have given me 14 in internals. My plans for the evening would have already derailed. This will be the trend for the next entire day. The problem with these holidays is it is not possible to neither keep worrying about the previous exam or to forget about the tougher one coming ahead. I will be very conscious of the fact that my plans have gone up in smoke but I would not be able to help it. After a point of time I will manage to console myself that I will clear the previous one. But still studying for the next one is not ON. I still have 2 days. That cushion is always the motivating factor. Next day will just serve as example of how to waste time. Though I would have my book in my hands I wouldn’t have managed more than 2 pages. I will know that I have to study. I will take honest efforts to study. But 15 minutes is all I will take to lose concentration. After one and half days of scheduling and rescheduling it will finally strike me that the time left will not even sufficient for me to study once , never mind the revision. What do I do? Develop strategy!!! This process involves observing 5 previous question papers and guessing the pattern. Which chapters should I omit and which ones should I study? This will take half a day as it also involves sort of brain storming sessions with dear mates over the phone (only question papers will be discussed).
The other challenging part is to figure out where to start?? Which chapter should I study first? Which one is easy and which one is tough? (Only if I had read it once I will know) This is where toppers come into picture. In an attempt to instill fear and to motivate myself I will call one of these toppers. They would have already completed 4 chapters and would be scared that they haven’t read the fifth one (My God!! I haven’t reached the second one as yet). So they will advice which is tough and which one is easy. As per the usual superstition I will start off with the tougher part. Surprisingly, I will find it easy. I will wonder how come a topper found it tough. Then I will tell myself “if only God had given me the power of concentration I would have topped my class!!!!”(A typical mediocre reasoning as to why he hasn’t topped any of the exams in his life).
Half way through, two and half chapters over. Time to talk with close friends who would have completed more than me. He will tell me “machi, there are loads left, **** you better hurry up”. I will take his advice and continue studying. Now there will be other people in my group who wouldn’t have completed as much as I have (What a pity). They will need motivation, wouldn’t they?? They will call me. I am a very honest chap. I will tell them what exactly I have completed. It will definitely serve as motivation to them, but the reply??. He wouldn’t have completed even one and half. Time to feel happy and time for complacency to set it. What more that poor chap wouldn’t have a book for the next couple of chapters. Off to the Xerox store, where there will already be a long queue of engineering students. Wait for my friend to get the book Xeroxed and get back home. What a feeling?? I’ve helped my friend in times of despair. J
Finally an evening and a long night left with 2 chapters to complete. Fear will be written all over my face. No more planning, no more phone calls. Study anything and everything that meets my eyes. Get up early and REVISE (but everything will sound new).An hour prior to the exam sitting on the ground with all the class mates, superstition is to sound confident. I will never , ever tell someone that I am scared that I might fail the previous one. “Pass machi, but 40dhan varumnu ninikuren “ and what about this one?? “ idhu ok da…eppadiyum pass aayidalam” deep down I will be shivering.
In the examination hall after reciting all the prayers I will look at the question paper. Out of 5 , 16 mark questions, I will know 2 and half (40 marks). And the ten 2 marks ?? I can manage three or four (6)nothing more than that. That’s 46. God that’s not enough. With my handwriting and presentation skills it will not fetch anything more than 30 marks. But what about my ambition (Not have an history of arrears) ??? That is when it will strike.. L If only I had studied during the holidays. The problem with these holidays is that it gives you a reason to repent. If these holidays had not been there i wouldn’t have got into the comfort zone and I wouldn’t have had a reason to repent. But now… hopes are dim. Very well….let’s try” Extracurricular activities”. Pass on signals to 11(I’m 12). Get a feel of his position. Then somehow manage to attend four sixteen marks and attend all the 2 marks. HOW??? The age old method that we use (Which is the capital of India???Ans :the capital of India is in north India) hoping this will give me at least half mark. So exam is done…time to pray and time to plan for the next exam J
Why study holidays now?? Im in one such period now.. :) Only difference being I do not know what is the exam going to be on?? And when is it scheduled?? But I will not fail to plan….