Elvesbane

It’s so easy to forget!

The only reason I remember the names of the guys I studied with back in school is because we have these once-in-a-while get-together-s. Really. I might recognize their faces, but I wouldn’t remember them.

Unlike most people, I seem to lack any compulsion to keep contacts alive. It’s natural for me to ignore the fact that others used to exist in the past, to forget that they ever meant anything to me. Don’t think that I willfully do this or anything… I don’t. I’m a lover of information (knowledge, experiences, wateva), and loss of memories just seems like an awful waste!

The other day, mum reminded me about (^_^) something that’d happened a  very long time ago. There was this day, when me, mum, dad, n’ bro went for a movie and there was this guy sitting behind us, who mum noticed and pointed out to me. I suppose she’d imagined that I’d be surprised and glad to see my bestest buddy from Sarvodaya (1st through 4th standard) but all I could manage was a ‘Hi’ and a prolonged and painfully idiotic face, and all the while he was looking as though he expected to me recognize him at any moment! I didn’t bother talking to him (the movie was gonna start, after all) and I didn’t see him afterwards. Mum later enlightened me that the two of us had been practically inseperable while I was at Sarvodaya. Just as well, I suppose, he prolly imagined that I’d lost much of my mental acuity since 4th standard.

She’d also told me his name. I don’t remember it anymore.

As I said, it’s pretty easy to forget, but it sure as hell makes for some awfully awkward and embarrasing moments.

My mum is one of those people who’s got vivid memories of the things they did as a child. I’ve always been amazed when she remembers what people said or did when she was was a kid. She can even remember stuff from when she was less than 2 years old! Heck, I feel amazed when anyone remembers what they did or felt when they were little. Mostly because I don’t remember much of anything! All I have a snapshots that have faded to the point of uselessness.

I only have one memory from when I was in KG: When my mum forgot to pick me up from the nursery after class ended, and I had to be escorted home by a teacher. I must have been really upset by this break from normal routine! Funny thing about it is that the nursery in question is right next door (and still is).

Then there’s this memory from very very long time ago when I woke up from a dream laughing so hard I couldn’t stop for (what seemed like) ages! In my dream, my bro had been rolling me around the ground in front of the house, tickling me non-stop. Weird that I should remember that…

Then there are a few other scattered memories, some very weird dreams, but no coherant story anywhere. It’s like my memory just decays and dissapears super-quick.

Sure, you’d say that lots of people forget stuff from when they were kids. My problem is a lot worse. I don’t remember anything from school. Forget the fifth to eigth standards, I don’t remember much from my 12th all that clearly! That was only… 3 years ago! I don’t remember anything that happened in school. I only know that some things used to be some way, and that I did certain things at certain times… factual information, like: I used to play basketball after lunch everyday (but I don’t remember any of the playing). I remember me n’ Asif used to go to the canteen (or to Joseph Uncle) to have ‘post-lunch’ snacks everyday (because I never got to eat anything from my lunch box; everybody else did). Well… wait a second, I actually remember that part quite clearly now. Having lunch at school, that is. I even remember my lunch box - a small blue snap shut sorta thingy. I usually had bread with chocolate syrup inside, and I used to make sure that I got to eat at least one piece from the eight or so that mum packed (I didn’t really like the bread, but it seemed wrong to not eat at least a little from what mum’d packed ^_^).

Interesting. I don’t remember anything from either of the La Fest-s that I participated in (and those were supposed to be big events in a student’s life at Loyola!). But I remember other little things, stupid things even, like the tree whose root I sat on (it stuck out of the ground like a ledge) to study during the lunch break at term exams. I don’t remember what it felt like to be in class at school. I don’t remember anyone teaching me. I do, however remember the first time I was able to jump and touch the rim of the basketball basket. Hmm… I don’t think I can do that anymore…

Well, it seems I haven’t forgotten everything yet. I wonder how much longer it will stay, though.

Read me first:

Cutting Nails - I

***

I’ve finally cut my nails. Yay!

I sound nuts, yes (among other things).

There is no clear point to what I just said. It isn’t another one of my logical conclusions, because I’ve had more than enough time to note that logic, clearly, doesn’t apply to what’s going on here. The first argument simply ended up producing answers which begged the questions that begat them in the first place. What I’m about to say might sound absolutely senseless to a lot of you, but believe me when I say that it isn’t entirely senseless.

I was able to cut my nails because I didn’t really think about what I was doing. It wasn’t planned. I just sat down on the bed, picked up the nail cutter and started cutting my nails.

I’ve always (for as long as I can remember, and that isn’t too long) had this idea that anything that I fantasize or dream about will turn out not happening… which isn’t all that surprising, or unexpected, since I don’t exercise any control over my dreaming and most are far-fetched enough to be completely ridiculous.

I expect almost everyone does the same… about controlling their dreams, I mean.

But I wonder, sometimes, whether I’ve taken that… expectation… of whatever I imagine not happening, to the point where I expect even the most mundane of my dreams, say - of cutting nails - to not happen. I wonder, whether, somewhere along the way, I forgot how to just make decisions and then, follow them, then and there. It’s all about dreaming - planning, if you must. And then not doing since, after all, it’s just a dream.

Spontaneity!

Finally. I spent a whole minute racking my head for that word.

That reminds me of something the little woman told me the other day. She said she liked talking to people like Sabir because they respond immediately to whatever you say. Spontaneous, in other words. Quick thinking, sharpness, whatever. There are a bunch of words for that, every one of which share at least one common property - that I lack it… or have so little of it, that it hardly matters.

Equals… say, becoming the topper in some class test.

See, I’m being modest.

I remember a conversation that I had with kitty…

long ago, we don’t talk anymore… sigh.

…which somehow wound its way over to discussing somebody’s intelligence. She was kind enough to mention that I was one of the most brilliant people she knew (or something like that ^_^). She went on to ask me why I was the way I was. I appreciate how lightly she put it and I felt all warm and fuzzy inside, knowing that she could. I gave her the only answer I could - that I didn’t know and if I had known she wouldn’t have had to ask me that question. I’m assuming that she too understood the obviousness of that answer (once I’d told her)… but I don’t think she understood just how depressing it was.

As incisive as that question is, the lack of a clear answer renders it, if not meaningless, pointless at the very least. Of what worth is a question without an answer?

That sounds awfully philosophical, doesn’t it? It is? Ah.

But it is incisive and that is where its worth lies. It shows (in that horribly depressing manner) what exactly is the end result of being who I am.

And what is the end result?

A really cute girl effectively ends up telling me: “Man, you are one fucked up dude.”

This is going to be a big one. So fetch that pack of Lays / Popcorn / Favorite munchies before reading any further. ^_^

B.t.w, I’m going to make use of the word fun a lot in the following format - fun! (italicized with an exclamation point) in this blog entry. It’s just that I’m classifying those things as being under my category of having fun. Capish?

The whole thing was… enjoyable, to say the very least. Quite possibly unique too, which is kinda sad (like Jaimy mentioned towards the end) since a lot of it was entirely new to me, and that doesn’t happen often enough. I’m gonna go through the whole thing in as orderly a manner as possible, but that’s going to be hard since a lot of the stuff that’s happened is mixed up in my head, not to mention the fact that the itinerary got modified a helluva lot of times. I’m gonna avoid mentioning the train journeys since they were slightly boring, at best.

Hyderabad didn’t really turn out the way I’d thought it would… actually nothing did, and that’s to be expected, I guess. The greatest surprise during the whole trip was, undoubtedly, Sharika. Not that I really understand her more than I did before, or anything, but it definitely is nice to know that she doesn’t think of me as a completely hopeless conversationalist anymore. In fact, my high point during the whole trip was an argument I had with her, Shreya and Rajani during a trip back to the hotel - I disagreed with their opinion that women don’t pay any attention to a guy’s looks when it comes to a relationship. I hope I made at least one of them think differently. I thought the best part of shopping at Hyd was the Imax mall. It reminded me of Dubai what with all the expensive shops and the arcade (that was fun!). I even had a go at the rock-climbing wall - I climbed about halfway until I reached the negative gradient section which proved too much. (once again, fun!)

Snow World was also fun! Making a snow ball is difficult! But I pride myself in the knowledge that I was probably the only one who figured out how to make a proper snow ball. Towards the end of the one hour, my snow balls could travel as far as I could throw them (which isn’t all that far) without disintegrating. ^_^ My aim isn’t all that good though and that, coupled with being a pacifist, meant that I didn’t really hurt anyone with my super-duper snow balls. I got hit plenty of times though. It stings, lemme tell ya. Unfortunately I couldn’t take any pics here since I didn’t want a wet SLR on my hands.

Ramoji Film City was, as far as I’m concerned, a day wasted. At least everybody had the good sense (perhaps beat upon them by the unyielding sun) to leave early. Ramoji is more of a plain park than anything else. It’s got its fair share of interesting buildings, sights and curios, but the sad fact is that there is nothing more. Its all just something to see, and all that seeing gets pretty boring when you’re walking under a sun hot enough to make lead liquify.

On to Bangalore! The first day was entirely devoted to shopping. We (Me, Sabir, Sreekanth, Sreejith, Divya, Deepti, Roshini) went around the local shopping places looking for stuff. Actually I wasn’t exactly looking for anything but I ended up buying a USB cable for the iPod (which turned out to be useless), and another air-gun (I just can’t resist those ^_^), and a funky t-shirt.

Wonder-la turned out to be a photocopy of Veega Land. All that talk about it being 4 times the size and 10 times the fun is a load of hog-wash. It’s, at best, just as much fun as Veega Land. I tried out all but the most adventurous rides, and had fun (fun!) making a fool of myself in the Wave Pool. That’s about it for that Wonder-la, really. It was just your everyday water-park in a nice clean (heavily chlorinated) package. ^_^

The third day was a joke. We went to some temple in the morning - It seemed to me to be more of a commercial center than a place of worship so I bailed out early. I heard that the food stalls inside were very good though. The I.V. (that oh-so important ingredient) was an even bigger joke. We walked around the Infy campus and were finally lead to an impressive conference room, only to be shown a worthless promo vid, followed by an even more worthless question-answer session which proved that our guide didn’t know what to do with us and didn’t really care whether we left the campus impressed or not. Sigh…

Tour organization began to break down that evening. We got informed by the organizers that the train tickets to Goa hadn’t really been booked yet so we were going to have to look for an alternative means of transport. That really sent a lot of the guys into hysterics. Guys, mind you, not girls. All the girls remained calm (I thought that was mightily impressive) but a lot of arguments broke out among the guys with a few complaining about the lack of organization and what-not. Here’s an excerpt from a mail I sent Asif around that time:

“… It turned out that the tickets to our train to Goa hadn’t been ‘booked’ as had been assumed. This was two hours before the train was supposed to leave, approx 2 hrs before ‘now’.

All the expectable results followed - meaning a whole fuck-load of hue and cry. Sreekanth shined by being prominent among those who whined. That’s a whole story in itself so I’m not gonna get into it. …“

to which Asif replied:

“... Ah, something always happens. What’s a tour that goes strictly as planned? A strict tour, maybe.

Sreekanth shined by being prominent among those who whined. shine - whine - shine - whine - shine - whine - shine… …“

Truer words than he realized, I think. I actually had to physically drag Sabir away from Sreekanth at one point when their argument got a little too loud. Sabir later confessed that might have actually hit Sreekanth (or tried to) had I not pulled him away then. That would have been a sight. lol.

Anyway we reached Goa at 6 PM (much delayed, on a sleeper-coach bus), the next day and a few of the guys (including me) had a dip in the pool at the resort. We celebrated Nidhin’s and George’s birthday that night and I later went out with Sabir and Sreekanth to Dominoes and had some really nice pizza. Me and Sabir spent the night improving our aim with the air-gun. The can of deo that we used for target practice was left looking like the moon, its surface scarred by lots and lots of little craters.

The second day at Goa was spent shuttling back and forth between beaches. We went to the resting place of St. Francis Xavier towards the end of the day. The church exterior seemed to be in need of a lot of renovation, but the interiors were magnificent. Once inside, Sharika pointed out that a few of the girls (in our batch) who were actually crying as they prayed in the church. That seemed a little odd to me since I couldn’t spot anything that would make anyone cry. Religious fervor seems quite far-fetched so I assume it has to do with something I know nothing about.

Further breakdown of tour-organization meant that everyone was now fretting over whether we’d have tickets on the train back home that night. A lot of opinions were flying around and I tried my best to stay of the way. Eventually, after a lot of sorting through the chaff, it was finally decided to make do with what seats we had on the train. It actually turned out okay, and I still have no idea how they managed it, since we fit 58 people onto some 40 seats, and technically that’s illegal.

The ride back home was sombre at best. I spent a lot of the time sleeping and kathi-adikkifying since my iPod had lost its charge and I didn’t have any books to read. We reached Thiruvananthapuram at about 10 o’clock at night, and I got back home within 15 minutes. I slept from 2 o’clock that night to 2 the next afternoon. God, was I tired.

I’ve uploaded all the good photos I took during the trip to my PicasaWeb Album. Clicky!

Catcha’ll later!

I had an idea. A good one. I like!

Enough about that (^_^). Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty of everyday life.

Or not, since I wouldn’t know how to make it sound interesting. I say that because I do not believe that my everyday activities are not interesting. Saying so, would not only be stupid, it would most likely be false. Of course, my everyday activities refers to waking up, going to college, falling asleep, and everything in-between.

Let’s see… what interesting stuff have I done (thought about, realized, whatever) lately?

• I’ve installed Windows Vista on my system (64bit Ultimate)! I have to admit that I’m mightily impressed by the work Microsoft has put in. The installation was deceptively easy… I kept wondering when the endless pop-ups full of ‘Allow this to happen’ and ‘Allow that to happen’ would begin their assault. As it turned out my fears were unfounded. Those popups do pop up once in a while, but not too often. It’s difficult to find 64-bit software by the way, but that’s okay since 32bit works fine. The only failed app I’ve encountered till now is Alcohol, which is kinda sad. Vista is extremely zippy by the way. Windows Explorer has had an overhaul and is nigh unrecognizable from its predecessor. If you have a system with >= 2gB RAM and a decent CPU (read C2Ds or X2s), you should be thinking about upgrading. 64-bit is not a must, but it’s nice if you like to stay on top of things.

• I’ve noticed (over a large period of time) that girls like to mention that I talk very little when I’m in their company. Its interesting to note that they offer this piece of insight only when they outnumber the number of guys that are in the chat at that time, and almost invariably never let me answer the question. Perhaps they feel intimidated. By my looks? No one in their right mind would call me cute, but I guess I could be called handsome under certain lighting conditions. That’s me being silly, but then telling me that I’m quiet and I need to talk more is kind of silly too. What makes them think I don’t know that I’m quiet? As for the question… its involuted nature lends me to believe that it can be safely disregarded.

• I saw the teaser trailer of Need for Speed: Pro Street in High Definition, and I’ve grudgingly accepted the possibility of the eventual death of gaming on the PC. The sort of graphics displayed on that Trailer (run on an XBOX360) cannot be run on my PC (C2D E6300 + 2gig RAM + 7900GS) at either that level of detail or at those frame-rates.

• Oh, and lest you forget, I had a good idea. A very good one. I like, like, like!

I had an… interesting (giggle) chat with a friend today. Interesting for me, anyway. She said she found it uncomfortable. That’s understandable, but kinda disappointing at the same time. I, on the other hand revel in revealing conversations. Something about finding out the person behind the person… excites me.

Life has been good - depressingly so, in fact. The university exams have been put on hold due to some dengue fever alert somewhere; no one seems to actually know why. I think I’m supposed to feel happy about it (I’m not exactly a… buji, so yeah), but I don’t. Wierd. Or is it? I’m not sure.

I haven’t touched my SLR in ages - what with the rain and the exams. Besides, I haven’t figured out how I can carry it everywhere. The bag that I keep it in is just too impractical for in-city use. Gotta find a way to hide it when I want to, and it doesn’t exactly fit in my pocket so I’m gonna have to get creative. ^_^

Quite a few things to do tomorrow - pay the fees, go around the city looking for raw materials (for a wi-fi range extender), get cracking on the construction of the same, gotta get a book from the library, gotta get started on a logo design… Et Cetera.

Ciao!

I’m leaving for Ernakulam tomorrow morning to attend my cousin’s wedding. Chetan’s gonna be taking his macbook along and I’m gonna test the ‘new’ Photoshop CS3 Mac OSX Native version on it. From the peek that I got of it, it seems to pretty similar to its predecessor… but the update to the magic wand tool (I can’t remember the new name) seems pretty interesting.

And for the record…

and out of nowhere, it seems…

…I’d like to state that I was being really, really stupid when I advised anyone to buy a CRT monitor over an LCD. The past two months with a BenQ FP71-E+ has brought me up to date with quite a bit of changes that have taken place in the world of displays since the oh-so-old cathode ray tubes were in power. For one, the age old excuse(s) of saying that a CRT has better Colour Reproduction, Black Level, 180 degree Viewing angle, and most IMPORTANTLY no ghosting no longer has any practical value. When I moved from my old Samsung CRT over to the current LCD, the changes quite literally blew me away.

• Colour reproduction was, if anything, so much better that it made me want to cry.
• True… LCD black isn’t exactly black, but it still dark enough that you’d never dare call it dark grey.
• 180 degree? You can’t see anything at that angle! Most LCDs boast 120 degrees of acceptable visibility though it still looks better when you sit in front of the computer table rather than viewing from the floor…

… which would be pretty stupid.

• Ghosting? What’s ghosting? I really don’t know what that is… and I’ve watched tons of films and fragged quite a bit on this display. This problem has been history for quite a while it seems.

LCDs are brighter, thinner… ergo smarter… ergo sexier, and in short much better than a CRT. If you’re planning to buy a new computer, say ta ta to the CRT.

Oh yeah, the title. I actually thought this one up on my own, believe it or not, and it’s even got a hidden meaning of its own. Wicked, if I say so myself.

And no, I’m not gonna explain it. Where’s the fun in that? Oh okay, I’ll give you a hint since it’s at least remotely possible that you’ve read up to this point:

I live it.

I’m going swimming tomorrow morning! Morning! Me! The world sure is changing.

But then, it is swimming, not some bleary-eyed trip to JD or the like. By the gods, I do not miss those days. Utterly and completely horrible, in all its pointlessness.

I’m also happy… or moderately so, at any rate. Things seem to be going smoothly these days… makes me wonder at times if they’re going deceptively smoothly… as though I’m being hoodwinked into believing that I’m living in a world where there’s no care at all. Of course, all these flowery words might just be the natural reaction to my new-found knowledge that the S3 results will be out in two weeks time. The world just might end then… or get tossed around pretty bad anyway.

I noticed that the my rate of posting has become pretty dismal once again since the ‘A Post a Day’ declaration. This just won’t do! I want to post! If only to keep a record of what’s been happening in my world. It’s just that the ever-present problem of my life seeming utterly, completely, and quite depressingly normal keeps getting in the way. Hmm… that reminds me of the speech that I gave kitty a few days ago on a similar topic. Maybe I should go re-read those words of advice. I could use them.

Buhbye.

Is there a word like that? Oh well, I’d told you, didn’t I?

I’m still playing with this image thing. Here’s something I made the other day (pretty much for the heck of it. ) I’m gonna host the file on imageshack and see how that goes.

It’s just an img tag. I like it. Hmm… this could be useful for future posts. And ya, bad compression artifacts, I know. I was a little too harsh with the compression slider on IrfanView.

Oh and in an interesting turn of events, I’ve started going to the gym again. Today’s the second day after more than a month, and my arm hurts like crazy. Bro’s coming too. He wants to gain weight. And I want to lose it. Funny, eh? I’m gonna go to sleep. I’ve to get to college early tomorrow and start writing an assignment (read copy, again. :D). So, ta ta.