LUNCH

Lunchtime at IIT reminds me of coming to the hostel in scorching heat and then eating hot rajma with rice: the worst thing possible. I used to be already so pissed off with the heat, and eating hot stuff that tasted so bad made lunch a horrible thing. I used to have chapathis sometimes, and they were so bad! They had a completely different taste: no-one can make chapathis like the mess workers. The sambar too was wierd, but okay at times. I never knew how rasam tasted before IIT. After staying for 5 years in tam-land, I still dont know how rasam tastes. The mess rasam used to be some kinda masala water. And the messers (short for mess workers) used to mix sambar and rasam when the quantities were less: imagine the taste of 2 worst liquids u cud ever taste (okay, Dr. Pepper is the worst liquid I've ever tasted..) mixed together!!!!

Mess also reminds of the curd: only our messers cud give such a taste to it. But I still wonder how Narsi, who never used to have curd at home, developed a taste for it! But the good thing abt curd was that it wud cool me down after such a hot and horrible lunch. Sometimes it wudnt b enuf, and I had to get badam milk (yummy!) or cooldies. Cooldie's were kinda leisure drinks back then, but they r such common here. My day cant pass unless I have some coke or juice. Water? Not much!

Some of the most jobless times in my life were when I stood in long queues in mess on saturday afternoons waiting for pooris. Either my mind was blank, or was thinking "When will the freaking pooris come?" or just farting with some farters. The day was reserved for relaxing, and there was not much to look forward to, except going back to sleep after lunch and the OAT movie at night (ooooooh yeah!). I continue the same habit here: I had a lazy lunch now, there's nothing going on in my mind, except "When am I going to take my nap?". Nothing to look forward to today.... another saturday wasted!

Lunch is okay here. Used to have lunch in the school canteen on weekdays. The food was mostly pizza or burger with coke, and I had to spend 5 bucks daily on the grub! The good thing abt grubbing in the canteen was bird-watching: there were so many babes there, and it was pure pleasure looking at them sitting in a canteen. I used to go with my friends and sit there even after finishing my lunch so that I cud have a good look of the babes there! I soon got tired of the grub, and spending daily (but not the bird watching). Finally decided on packing canteen, and now I eat grub at home daily. Thanks to my laptop, I dont have to rush back to school for work after lunch!

Weekend lunch is painful. I make the saturday lunch, and waste a lot of time prepapring it. Home lunch is totally normal: rice with dal or curry while watching tv (mostly jerry springer), but will be glad if I cud discover a new dish that tastes good and gets ready fast... will make it on all aftis, and will also recommend it to the messers :P

thats enuf for lunch... i'm full.. gotta get a nap....

CLASSES

The only time when I used to reach classes on time in IIT was in my first year. After that no matter how hard I tried I was never able to reach classes before time. But I was much better than most of the class. Guys like Mousie and Subzero used to reach the class 20mins after the start of the class. The only prof who tried to discard this habit was Dr. Rajaraman. He used to close the class doors 5mins after the start of the class. But this did not help in getting us to his class in time, and he finally packed closing the door within 2 weeks!

The lectures used to be okay types - if profs were good, they were really REALLY good, otherwise worrrsht only! Ksri was one such fart. If he wud write notes on wat he covers in classes, he wud write a book thicker than the Lord of the Rings!!!!! But the same thing wud be covered in 3 pages in the text book :D Imagine the amount of fart he put. I used to take novels in his class and read them sitting on the second bench. I never cared that he wud catch me reading novels, and I guess he never cared that I was reading novels in class. KAN was another memorable prof. Nobody used to understand wat he mumbled. U shud hear how Subby Reddy speaks. Unfortunately, his hischool teacher never taught him punctuation marks, and he misses them even when he's speaking. Imagine wat it wud b like (read this para ignoring the punctuation and u wud understand)!!!

But some studdd profs were in structural engineering. They had full fundaes + cud teach very well.

Its different here. Since I am a grad student now, I have to take up coursework only in my field, and there r only 3 profs in the field: all 3 FART!!! at least my advisor is okay, but others r pathetic! They just read out slides and presentation files from the notes. Its as if they just wanna get over with the class. I think it's true to a large extent that profs r not really interested in taking up classes. They just wanna do research and make money. So they force themselves to take classes. Poor us!

Wat more can I tell abt classes here? they r boring anywhere, as is today's blog :P will try to make the next blog more fun

MORNINGS

This is the first message abt the contrast of my IIT and US life... and I wanna start off with how my mornings are different from the IITan mornings...

I used to wake up pretty early in my first 3 years at IIT. An old rusty alarm beeped at 6:30, and i used to wake up only to readjust the alarm time to 7. After waking up, used to start brusing and walking over the corridor. The fun part was waking up others. Everyone had these slips on their doors with "7am please" written on them. Some guys used to wake up with one bang. But guys like Viagra needed a lot of banging (on their doors) before they wud wake up. 2-3 guys used to team up to bang his door, and the look on his face was worth remembering: whether to shout on me or to thank me for waking him :P

Then came breakfast: breakfast was decent back then... better than lunch and dinner. The idlis used to be rock hard and dosas were like rubber plates. Best breakfast was Rava dosa on saturdays. I (and many others) used to wake up at 8 on Saturdays just for the dosa!!!!! The chutney was awesome. But the dosa lost its value when the new mess staff came up and made really awful chutney. Sunday dosa used to be good too, used to put me to sleep immedeatly.

It had become a habit to read mags on saturday mornings. Used to read young world and a couple of mags for an hour, and used to feel soooooooo sleeeeeeeeepy that i HAD TO go back to my room!

These were such simple things, but gosh, I just wanna relive them. Forcibly getting up early, and then waiting in the queue for taking bath, rushing for breakfast (and most of the times skipping it) and running for classes: these r some moments that I can NEVER forget.

Situtaion here is pretty different. I wake up between 9 and 11 on weekdays, depending on my classes. I never wanna wake up in the mornings, coz my room doesnt get sunlight, and my bed is very VERY cozy. Noone cud denie sleep in such a place. The alarm clock is electronic, which plays some songs on the radio when I wanna wake up. I am cotinuing the IITan habit of adjusting the waking time when the alarm rings (wat the hell, its better than waking up and shutting off the alarm). There's a rush to get ready, and I have the same old cereal in the mornings. (Those idlis and dosas used to give at least SOME taste in the mouth, but this shit only fills ur stomach.) Then pack bags and goto school, or start mugging at home. No excitement, nothing to look forward to. The morning ends in a jiffy, and also in a few lines.

Never seen mornings on weekends. So cant comment upon them.

But I like my bed very much. Wish I had the same in IIT. I wud never wake up in time.

And now its time to lie down to sleep on the same bed.... :)

Last week was a blast! I hadnt done much work, but got through very well in the meeting with my prof, because I put asked some fundoo doubts and he was definitely impressed!

I dont goto school anymore for working, only for attending classes. Just remain at home and work on my laptop. Got a cable net connection at home. So life's become so PEACEFUL! This word reminds me of the IIT life where I used it so much. I was thinking of my IIT life while lazing on bed last week, and decided that I wud write abt the contrast between my IIT life and the present life in US. I had thought abt this SOOOOOO many times, but was always lazy to write, and yeah, was *busy* :P

But before I start the blog, here r some comments written by some undergrad students in their transportation course papers:

1. I dont know why my brain is not working right now! I know the answer to this problem.

2. I know the answer to the question, but am not getting it. Please have mercy!!!

Is this why profs keep TA's here?

Had a great day yesterday: changed my SSN in the bank (which I was supposed to do long time back), sent check to Duddu and Raja got his Suntrust password. Suntrust sucks so BAD! It gave the online account password to Raja only after a month!

I also eliminated the noise generated by my wireless card, and now I'm able to browse coolly. Played cricket at the end of the day, had some home made halwa and dosa :)

But the day was also a disaster in some ways: I met Dr Aty at 1pm when I was supposed to meet him at noon :D!! Wasnt able to play quake with mallu because of some problem with the freaking wireless router :(((((

neways, the day was pretty cool overall.