Confessions of a real tired mind......

Hi all...finally a blog after a very very very long interval of time....the reasons are obvious, 3rd semester classes are going on in full swing. But anni is sick of the amplitude and frequency of the swing. This blog is about his 2nd year expereince so far....

NOTE: The characters appearing in this blog are veryveryvery unique(their uniqueness deserves the adjective), real and existent.... names are modified to protect their uniqueness....happy reading...

Anni was on his laptop, not playing FIFA but studying electromagnetics for his upcoming quiz.

ME: Hi man....watsup? its been really long time talking to you...
Anni: Oh...hi macchaaa...we have a quiz next week....so was just going through some quiz related stuff...

ME: Hows your college going on? How are the subjects?Interesting huh!!I have a lot to talk to you today....keep your quiz preparation aside for some time...
Anni: Macchaa...im fed up of this college man...they are squeezing the life out of me under the pretence of autonomy....

Anni: We have these tests and quizzes once in every two weeks...they dont even give choices man....like uve to read everything..im really bored of this monotonous life....

ME: But the subjects are interresting alwa??

Anni: Yeah the subjects might have been interesting if handled properly. There is this course called network analysis which is really taught by Prof.NA...and our math course is only linear algebra.
And...we have digital design, analog circuits, electromagnetics and instrumentation.....
ME: WOW math sounds cool...

Anni: Yeah sounds cool...but the lecturers themselves arent sure of the concepts dude....half the class time gets wasted in some trash discussion on questions like, "is R2 a subspace of R3?"...they have kept MIT's linear algebra syllabus...all they do in class is try to mimic gilbert strang's lectures....

ME: What about analog circuits?what do u have in that?semiconductor physics?
Anni: hahahahhaha....no semiconductor physics and all dude...we just have some transistor applications, their frequency response and other such application layer aspects. And unfortunately the course is handled by a really boring lecturer Lec.AEC...analog circuits class is 'analogous' to history class. THE most boring hour in our time table. Each minute seems like an hour in that class....relativity at its best.... :D

ME: Okay...what about electromagnetics, instrumentation and digital design???i have heard that electromagnetics is really interesting and mind boggling....

Anni: Shut up man....i dont know where you hear all these weird stuff...electromagnetics is handled like a calculus tutorial class for us...you know, just giving some problems involving all those integral theorems, divergence etcetc . In electromagnetics class, ican bet 90pc of the class wont know what they are talking (unless its other than the subject). Coming to digital...this subject is more of method based. There are innumerable terms to remember. There are set methods by which you have to solve a given problem. Again, as the complexity of the problem increaes you will be lost in those tiny details of the procedures used for solving rather than the totality of the problem and what it is depicting.

By the end of this anni was impressed by himself. Whenever he talks like this he imagines himself to be some professor and magnifies the gravity of the topic vary much.

Anni: I really dont want to talk about instrumentation. I would blame the guy who included instrumentation in the syllabus. It includes most of digital and analog stuff that we are yet to learn and that makes subject obviously looks lousy right now.

By now, i had to be impressed by his supposed to be problems. So i couldnt help acknowledging him.

ME: That was quite a description about the courses you have. So, finally its only circuit theory that has seemed to be interesting???
Anni: Yeah you can say that....

ME: So...how are bus facilities for your college now??have they improved now or what???
Anni: Duuuuuuudddddeeeee.....iget tired just by thinking of bus travel to the college....its amazingly horrible....

ME: Oh...it would be comfortable if you leave the house a bit early... :)
Anni: First you get up before 8 mate...hahahahha

Anni: The bus facility has worsened in the morning. They have removed
couple of usual buses and introduced volvo buses which icant afford on a daily basis. Mindless goofs.

ME: Firstly get up early, secondly stop complaining and do your work, dont be stupid.

I was just pulling his leg. He got irritated.
Anni: Its you who started all this Mr. I was doing my work. Now would you please get out and dont disturb me.
ME: hahahha...cool down...carry on with that calculus tutorial equivalent stuff that you were doing....ALL THE BEST

So, this was my little interview session with anni. More of anni and his tales in next blog......

ANNI v/s studies....

Hi everyone. Anni had been to RRI for almost 1 month to do some project. It seems that he hasnt been successful. We were just talking how things went on there.....

This time even i had joined anni playing some game called FIFA 08....he was obviously defeating me in the game...
Me: Awrite....can we stop playing this??icant score even a single goal.....the game is sick....
Anni: HA!!!!playing games its not as easy as u think mate....u need to give it all u have...

This guy was just crazy about games. He used to shout, scream, whistle, curse the game designer, and do all sorts of things while playing, especially FIFA. The match got over and i lost..
0-6......

Me: So, whatsup with your RRI project?any progress?.....wat r u actually doing?
Anni: Dude....do not start that topic....i aint gonna discuss anything about that...
Me: Why maga???what happened??u were so excited about the project....weren't u?
Anni: Yeah....i was...but it wasn't....it was too monotonous....
Me: The hubris of the defeated...HAHAHA.....
Anni: Shut up...will u..u just sit here at home and watch some crap reality shows...
Anni, would surely hit me if i teased him even a little more.
Me: OKoK iam sorry...what did u do all these days?

Anni didnt want to share anything, but surprisingly he responded
Anni: Dude....the place is filled with people who are passionate about STUDIES!!!!!!
Me: OHO....u expected the professors there would be passionate about playing FIFA????
Anni: Hey....u came here to tease me or what???if thats the case, go n watch TV...ur favourite program "SAREGAMAPA 2007" is about to start.....
His eyes were wet. I thought, ok let me not tease him anymore.......
Me: Im sorry....continue...
Anni: Dude....what wud u do after your lunch???like if u had to go to some library after your lunch...
Me: Read some magazine, newspaper, novel etc.....why???
Anni: U kno what??in that place people read books like "DIFFERENTIAL GEOMETRY", "MANY BODY QUANTUM GRAVITY","INSIDE THE FFT BLACK BOX" as though they are magazines man.....cant they play for a while or something?
Anni's expression while naming those books was like Mr.Weasley's when harry said 'voldemort' for the first time in front of him.

Me: So what?let them read...whats ur problem?u read whatever you want....
Anni: As if i wud get whatever i want....
Me: Boss...iasked you about your project...not the people there..
Anni: Oh...ok...I DID NO PROJECT...
Me: Why?? u were doing some modulation stuff right?
Anni: NO....iwasnt...man u seriously think ican write modulation programs in matlab???come on idont have any prerequisites for that.....
Anni relied more on the prerequisites factor rather than trying to study without them.
Me: Ok agreed....ushud have studied them.....HA...u dont have time for games when will u study them?

Anni: Stop criticising me ok....you goto RRI one day and then let me see your "ZEAL" to study....man u take a bus from here....that bus...uffff...the whole of bangalore would be in that..get down at sadashivnagar and walk for almost 1.5kms to that place...at around 3pm u wud get a call from ur friend asking u to come for cricket....u surely cant deny such an invitation.....the ground is about 3kms from there....u have no buses to the ground.....walk under the hot sun....play cricket till 6:00pm...walk to the nearest bus stop which is another 1.5kms from the ground...get back to house at 7:15pm....annddddd u STUDY?????don't forget its your holidays...

Me: if i were u i wouldnt go to play.....
Anni: Oh yeah genius....icant do that....icant play even when in college....and u expect me not to play in holidays.....no wonder you are so good at sports.....
Me: Awrite Mr.Allrounder.....
Anni was really happy with himself for defeating me in conversation.

Me: U dint tell me about your 'project' thingy...u were given the task on the very first day right?
Anni: HAHA.....nothing....u kno what happened on first day?
Anni: I went to his office. He was busy talking with some other professor about GOK(God Only Knows) stuff. After waiting there for more than 30mins, he called me in. He was very warm kind of person. Asked me what all i had in first year, and he asked me what iwas interested.
Me: Hmmmm....
Anni: I told him iwas interested in thermodynamics and mechanics. hahaha, he was expecting something like signal processing, analog circuits. He asked me whether iwas in mechanical or in telecommn.I told him that the electronics we had till now was not interesting, so ididn't know much about electronics.
Anni was enjoying his own dramatic narration.

Anni: He asked me my syllabus. Seeing that, he told that i can do some real-time demonstrations of signal processing on matlab.
Me: ahahhahaha......i can guess your response...u would have said "yes sir yes sir" and repenting after that eh!!!
Anni: Exactly.....i was very excited about this word 'real-time'........
Now both of us were laughing.

Anni: Later i found out that u needed to be really good at fourier transforms to do analog modulation....i picked up a book called fourier transforms and its applications.....in the very first chapter the book used the concept of boundedness.....idont kno even that.....ipick another book called single variable calculus...read about boundedness.....came back.....and there was something called dirchlet's conditions, absolute integrability etcetc.........it got boring....and the 'real time' programming was many parsecs away from me......

Me: Okay......what were u reporting to your guide?
Anni: Some program related to analog modulation that i found on internet......he would ask me some questions like: does it agree with any index?did you plot for 6million points? phew.....my answers were just yes or no s.....all guesses.....
Anni: He would ask me to bring some specific example....when i gave it....he wud say 'this is too specific. why dont you generalize it?'........

Me: Ok...
Anni: One day....when i showed him a nice amplitude modulation demonstration.....he told me to add white noise and fourier transform that and try to frequency modulate it......hahahahhaha.....man it seriously sounded greek to me. I told him idont kno any of those stuff......idont even know fourier transforms....he said: ok kid....study fourier transforms, amplitude modulation and frequency modulation. And he went out of station for 2weeks.......sadhya....

Me: Wokay...did you study them?
Anni: I tried studying but even that started boring....specially fourier transforms...uffff....ihate fourier....
Me: Bidappa.....everything is boring to you other than playing games and cricket.....
Anni: Whoa!!!!!u speak to me as if u are doing ur B.S. at stanford.....stop acting like I-Am-the-next-feynman.........
Me: Shut up......im goin for a walk....coming?

This is how we are, all our conversations end very abruptly, with no conclusions. Arguing with anni is indeed real fun, he turns desperate to win over you.......try it out if u meet him.....

Walk the talk show with Dr.Anni.....

Dr.Anni is a professor in electrical sciences dept. at California Institute of Technology. He has come to Bangalore to have an overview of the quality of education provided. This blog is Dr.Anni's views on the education system.

Me: Hello Dr.Anni......welcome to our show
Anni: Hello...thank u...its my pleasure..

Me: Sir, how was ur trip here at India?
Anni: Oh...it was wonderful... iwas very lucky,people i met were really hospitable....
Me: So, what do u think about education provided here?
Anni: I have observed the preuniversity and the high school education......ihave not done an exhaustive
research on this.....but still ican confidently say that ive covered most of them...........
Anni: Generally, after the 10th grade board exams, most of the students have the dream of entering the IITs .The competition is so tough that getting an acceptance from these institutes
can be comparable winning a robotics competition at CALTECH or MIT. Many students get a sense of inferiority complex due to this massive competition.
Me: Yes sir, i fully agree with you. These kids struggle very hard to get in to IITs.

Anni: I was really surprised when i was told that, of the total students taking up the IIT-JEE only 3% make it thru.
Anni: I went through the syllabus for JEE. Its just too voluminous. U need to be mentally prepared for such type of studies right from when u r in 7th or 8th grade. U cant prepare for JEE as u do for board exams....students find the difficulty in this area....they tend to remember rather than arriving at the result logically....
Me: So, whats ur point sir? u think kids are forced into this?
Anni: Not exactly....if a kid after his 10th grade is sent for coaching, he needs to put a lot of effort and his chances of making it through is 2 out of 100.His confidence level must be really high....else he might end up screwing even the board exams......
Me: So, u think kids must not be pressurized to get ito iit.

Anni: No, you got me wrong there. What im saying is, develop the art of learning from young age....it helps u later to crack these competitive exams very easily...... why do u waste time in your school days learning the same methods of solving quadratic equation, the same gravitational problems in physics?Why dont you learn something more?like.......... if u r done with quadratic equations, goto cubic, quartic, if u r done with learning how engines work, start with the thermodynamics of that.....

Anni: They would rather prefer doin 500 problems of the same kind where no use of head, brain or mind is required.. :D

Anni: And u kno why this is happening. Students are so dependent on their memory. Ive seen students mugging up math problems from their texts as nothing other than textual questions are asked in their exams. Its horrible.....
Anni: All i want to say is, kids are made to live in a very protected environment(academically)in their schools. Let them explore the beauty of science and maths. Ull see a phenomenal difference in their attitude when they grow up.
Me: Exactly, sir. Even ive seen school kids who get frightened at the sight of books like calculus, linear algebra etc...
Anni: Once that fear is removed from their mind, their is no stopping them.
Me: How about pre-university education?

Anni: Yes, now lets come to preuniv. level......
Anni: Education at preuniversity level is quite decent. Even though the depth covered in each topic is not extraordinary, i feel students will defenitely be in their comfort zones regarding the syllabus.
Anni: Most of the students in metropolitan cities like bangalore, goto IIT-JEE coaching. They initially feel that its out of reach, however, the quality of students in those centres make them compete and they get adjusted.....
Me: Ok...

Anni: This is what iwas refering earlier...a student feels that clearing JEE is out of his reach mainly because he is not exposed to that kind of intensive learning earlier in his school.
Me: Absolutely, i get your point.
Anni: I wanted to mention another aspect that i noticed in PU colleges.
Me: By all means....its your show

Anni: Its very good that students have practical classes as a part of their curriculum. But, i feel that students must be left free to use their thinking and logic to get the results.
Me: Isnt that the case?
Anni: No, never......the student is given a lab manual, in which the aim, the principle, the procedure etcetc is given.....including the result........
Me: Ok...isnt it organized?
Anni: It is organized but its hampering the creativity within you....let me give u an example...

Anni: I was observing a physics practical class in progress. They were performing an experiment to determine the spring constant of some given spring. The method given in the book was somehting like this>>>Load the spring with a given weight and note down the extension of the spring from its undisturbed position. Repeat it with different wieghts and equate the force due to spring to the weight hung on it and get the spring constant value.
Me:Sounds good....

Anni: I saw student asking whether he could use the change in potential energy principle for the wieght and get the spring constant. Guess what the instructor tells him..
Me: Yeah thats a gud idea??
Anni: Hahaha....i would be the happiest person if that was the reply. Instead, he was reprimanded for disturbing the class.
Anni: The method suggested could be lame but still we should appreciate that the guy is thinking.... look this is what happens if the system is too rigid.
Me: Umean to say their should be no instructors for practical sessions?
Anni: No, there shouldnt be any if its killing some one else's idea.......
Me: I agree with you...
Anni: Well, this is all what i wanted to say about the high school and preuniversity education here........thank you once again for inviting me to this show...
Me: Its our pleasure to have u on this show sir......thank you.....

The theatre and theDVD argument......

Okay, this blog is a simple chitchat session among the trio: myself, anni and ani.

Anni, as usual was playing some computer game when i entered the room.
Anni: Wait for a second, im almost done with this level......

Me: When will u grow up???u still play those first person shooter games....yuck...atleast reduce the volume ..... will u???

Anni: yeayeayeahh bigboy.....
He reduced the volume by such an amount that could be an interesting topic for nanoscientists.
After about 20mins,
Anni: Ok mr. im done.....got nythin to eat??im exhausted

Me: Whoa!!!exhausted??virtually huh??yeah..take these..
I offer him some wafers which iwas eating.
Anni: Thnx...so watsup...how was dark knight???

I had gone to my friends house to see dark knight, he had rented a DVD.
Me: Awesome movie maga....too gud to miss...

Anni: U guys dont know how to enjoy a movie....u just watch in some 21inch screen...what fun is that man???

Me: Huh... cut the crap....iatleast i dont MISS gud movies as u do...waitin to go to theatres which is a sheer waste of time....

Anni: Dude..ok i agree that going to theatres is pretty much a waste of time...but imagine the theatrical effects man....the bass, the wide screen, people whistling when hero enters....u cant get those by bringing a DVD to ur house. And moreover u dont even get good prints.....

Me: Who said that???most of the times u get very nice prints........nyway screw the quality macha, all u need is a story.... that is it...use a headphone if u want the bass...

Anni: U people are nuts man. No wonder your friend manoj says that some crap kannada movie ARAMANE is far better than peter jackson's LORD OF THE RINGS. And do u kno why hes of that opinion??he saw LOTR on his PC and aramane in a theatre. He was not impressed with LOTR's picturisation it seems....bull shit....

Anni was furious now, he doesnt like someone telling him that LOTR or HARRY POTTER is a fagwashed up fantasy story. The wafers in his hand were screaming for help. Ani entered the room when he heard anni more or less screaming.
He was busy talking to our friend Karthik over the phone.

Ani: What ma? heated argument session eh???
Me: Nothing new....the same old topic...watchin movies in theatres or renting a DVD.

Anni: Boss, wud u like to watch Die Hard 4 on some TV screen or in a theatre??
He asks Ani.
Ani: Obviously in a theatre....no doubt on that...
Anni looked at me almost loathingly, like umbridge staring at harry when he says that voldemort is back.

Me: Hey ani, watsup with karthik?
Ani: Oh karthik....hes busy jamming his elec guitar.....
Anni: Magane dont change the topic....win this argument or submit that u were talking crap all this time.
Me: Ha, no way ...
Now i had entered the boxing ring.
Me: Okay, accepting that theatres give u awesome effects and all, the question is at what price?you need to pay a minimum of 80 rs., that too if you go to the first show of the day else the prices rise exponentially. Its a whopping Rs.180 for the 7:00pm show.

Anni: So what?we can go to the first show..........80 rs is not too huge a amount!!

Me: And at what time does the show start???10:00am...u need to be at the forum or the garuda mall or wherever at around 9:00am to ensure urself a seat in the prestigious theatre. For that u need to get up at 5:00am, finish all your routine and leave the house by 7:30am.....ufffff i get tired even thinking of it....

Ani: Yeah man i agree with you, its definitely a mammoth task for a movie....
Anni was spellbound. He could not reply as he would usually do. You could easily tell that he was performing an intensive search in his brain.
Anni: U people are basically lazy.....u kno its healthy to get up early in the morning?

I and ani start laughing like maniacs, even anni joined us.
Ani: oooooooo, look whos saying this???a guy who follows GMT in india....ok, lets have dinner....
We laugh it out n goto dinner......

The Dark Knight , a distant dream..........

OK....this is anni's first ever blog...spare him for his mistakes(do write your comments)....
DARK KNIGHT got released a month ago and as a movie buff anni wanted to see it really badly. But guess what?? even though it was his holidays he couldnt find time to go to this movie. Anni was going to Raman Research Institute, where he was supposed to get some experience on matlab and communication systems. No, he did well in neither coz he basically lacked the mathematical depth it required. So, you can guess that he went there to get his math right. Once when anni was at RRI, he got a call from one of his friends ani rao ,invitin for THE DARK KNIGHT. Anni said, "illa maga nange thumba kelsa ide. Ill be late to home if its a 4:30pm show...blahblah" basically he was doing nothing more than trying to act busy. Ani rao calls anni back after the movie n explains all the aspects of the movie which made it earn 5stars by almost every movie reviewer. Anni gets mad at himself for missing such an oppurtunity, and he couldnt even share it with ani rao at tht time coz invitation was given.

The very next day(tuesday) anni gets a msg from karthik asking whether they could plan for dark knght. Anni gets restless, hes so excited, he says yes without a question(he asks few questions like which theatre, who all etc). Okay, so, its all planned for thursday of that week, its goin to be PVR or INOX. Its wednesday evening and anni gets another msg from karthik that plan's been postponed due to some unavoidable reasons. Phew, u can imagine his state now. Gets angry at his fate. Afterall it was his only chance of going to a movie that summer(there is a 1 movie per vacation at theatre rule at his house). Naaaaaa, anni isnt a kid who breaks rules. So his daily routine goes on undisturbed and unaltered. That saturday, his cousin bro goes to a trip to some place near coorg for 2days. Most of anni's friends have gone to some place with their friends, and guess what???this guy cant even go to a movie. Hes really unhappy with himself. On monday he receives another msg from karthik saying that the plan is fixed for saturday. Again anni is all excited about all this, goin to some mall walkin around there in A/C corridors etc etc.

It was friday afternoon when some 5 or 6 low intensity bomb blasts occured in bangalore of which one was near PVR(not a good sign). Anni himself cancelled the plan even though it was going to get cancelled coz all malls were closed next day. Anni's guide at RRI was out of station for two weeks and still he couldnt goto a movie coz his friends were busy. On 11/08/08 he got a msg. Anni had no hopes this time as dark knight was removed frm most of the theatres (mummy 3 was released). Yes, the msg was again from Mr.Karthik for the same movie. They discussed the movie timings n all and found that only the 7 pm show was available in the remaining theatres which would easily cost them more than Rs.150. Boooooom the plan was cancelled. A sad ending indeed for a boy whos a movie buff. Anni now thinks that theres some defensive charm laid on the dark knight against him and is planning for another movie, still planning.......