The fucking problem with me is that I think I am a really great person. I think I am the saviour; that I am here to make a difference in the lives of all those around me. I am here to live the lives of a hundred men, when all I do is stare at screen coated with phosphoric material which illuminate when an electron hits it.
I think, I am here to save a whole bunch of pathetic losers from themselves, from their low self-esteem; from their total lack of a broader view of things; I want to save them from throwing shit on to their neighbours houses; not knowing that shit bounces back. With a sight so short they can not see if they are running into a wall or onto a highway, a perception so feeble that they can not judge if they are hitting the accelerator or the brake.
A whole civilization that has started rotting, that has metamorphosed in to a pig while the water pool around it turned from a flowing mountian creek to a stagnant puddle of city sewer. In semblences of progress, it takes solace; ever insecure; comparing it self with civilizations it's borrowing so much crap from these days.
May be its just me.
Well may be I am fucking good.
May be I know too much about great civilizations.
May be I am just a person who can not let the past go, but at the same time knows what it takes to be there in the future.
May be I am too sharp, but at the same time too weak.
May be I am too strong, but at the same time too artless.
Any way, why should I care?
Why can not I just sit back, indulge in some materialistic pleasures?
Or am I just past that spiritual point where I am too smart to convince myself that materialistic pleasures are everything?
I am the sum integral of aeons of this civilization. Of sages that sat on mountain tops, of housewives who never asked questions, of hosts who let themselves starve for their guests sake, of farmers who passionately loved the land, of loyal warriors, of loyal servants, of devotees of Durga, of Rama, of the Ganga Dippers, of the wandering monks, of the poets, of the kings who encouraged them, of mountains that talked, of eternal bachelors, of grihasthas, of the drama artists, of the folk singers, .... of idealists, of beautiful lives in a pure country.
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Why I did not apply for the Job
Here are the qualifications required for a job I was looking at on a 'good' company's website. My status on each of the requirement is in red.
Qualifications
- B.S. in Electrical Engineering or Computer Science, or equivalent required. MS preferred
- MS in EE from great school with great GPA. Cool
- Three or more years of C programming and DSP assembly language programming experience with profiling and optimization experience
- Got all the experience in C that you need. Cool
- Texas Instruments C5x or C6x programming experience and familiarity with TI DSP/BIOS, and the XDAIS programming standard preferred
- Got this Experience too...
- Understanding of DSP peripherals and device interfaces
- Sure thing ...
- Experience with ITU-T communication system standards preferred
- Familiarity with ITU-T communication system standards MPEG Video or G.72x or MPEG Audio compression standards a plus
- Familiarity with UDP/IP, RTP and RTSP multimedia streaming protocols preferred
- Decent amount of familiarity with all the above.
- Excellent oral and written communication skills
- No problemo
- Powerful problem solving and debugging skills
- Got it all pal.
- Superior motivation, positive attitude
Superior motivation? Well the others I can learn or fake, but superior motivation?
Lets face it, this job sucks; people are there only for the money; you can not buy motivation with money, not that of superior quality, not for a long stretch of time, which in my case was over long ago. Sorry Matey!
Lets face it, this job sucks; people are there only for the money; you can not buy motivation with money, not that of superior quality, not for a long stretch of time, which in my case was over long ago. Sorry Matey!
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Forgetting Names
One of the most embarassing situations can be when you forget the name of someone who remembers yours (or at least who you are afraid remembers yours).
There is this guy who I meet regularly in college who comes and talks to me I never remember getting introduced to him, and the first time I remember talking to him, he was all so jovial as if he knew me from a long time. May be he mistook some other acquaintance of his to me; but we have been meeting on the bus on the footpath etc. and I am in a constant fright of having to introduce him to someone else.
And it happened today! There was this Malayalee NRI girl with a wierd name, that belongs no where in the world, a name she attributed to her mother's creativity. She has a class near mine at the same time; she live near my house too, so we find ourselves waiting for the same bus. I have a vague idea of her name but not the actual name.
This morning I met the lady above and the guy above at the same time while waiting for a bus; to avoid an embarassing situation, I did something that if presented before the jury from the "Association for hopeless bachelors who should be extra extra nice to eligible women" would sentence me to the capital punishment.
I said Hi to the lady, and was about to embark on the 'being extra extra nice' journey as recommended by the AHBWSEENEW; when the guy started approaching me to avoid the embarassing situation of having to introduce two people whose names I do not know, I took two steps towards this guy and started talking to him, leaving the lady behind! Lord, bless my soul.
(I later made compensations by sweat taking to the lady after alighting the bus)
Later today in the bank, I met this Spanish guy, who adressed me by my name and asked me how I was doing? This time I jumped the boat and asked him what his name was? He said it was #@#$! at least that was what I heard! I asked what? He said that again. I gave up, he said it is Spanish for William. I later found out it is, well I forget, let me try Guillemo no Guillermo (pronounced Giyyermo) .
Yesterday, I also forgot the name of a girl, who knows that I already forgot her name once! This time I was careful not to tell that to her. AHBWSEENEW would not forgive forgetting names of people whom you should be 'extra extra nice to'; and telling them that you did is blasphemous.
Moral of the story: Like Brendan Fraser says in Blast from the past, use the name right away so that you will remember them!
There is this guy who I meet regularly in college who comes and talks to me I never remember getting introduced to him, and the first time I remember talking to him, he was all so jovial as if he knew me from a long time. May be he mistook some other acquaintance of his to me; but we have been meeting on the bus on the footpath etc. and I am in a constant fright of having to introduce him to someone else.
And it happened today! There was this Malayalee NRI girl with a wierd name, that belongs no where in the world, a name she attributed to her mother's creativity. She has a class near mine at the same time; she live near my house too, so we find ourselves waiting for the same bus. I have a vague idea of her name but not the actual name.
This morning I met the lady above and the guy above at the same time while waiting for a bus; to avoid an embarassing situation, I did something that if presented before the jury from the "Association for hopeless bachelors who should be extra extra nice to eligible women" would sentence me to the capital punishment.
I said Hi to the lady, and was about to embark on the 'being extra extra nice' journey as recommended by the AHBWSEENEW; when the guy started approaching me to avoid the embarassing situation of having to introduce two people whose names I do not know, I took two steps towards this guy and started talking to him, leaving the lady behind! Lord, bless my soul.
(I later made compensations by sweat taking to the lady after alighting the bus)
Later today in the bank, I met this Spanish guy, who adressed me by my name and asked me how I was doing? This time I jumped the boat and asked him what his name was? He said it was #@#$! at least that was what I heard! I asked what? He said that again. I gave up, he said it is Spanish for William. I later found out it is, well I forget, let me try Guillemo no Guillermo (pronounced Giyyermo) .
Yesterday, I also forgot the name of a girl, who knows that I already forgot her name once! This time I was careful not to tell that to her. AHBWSEENEW would not forgive forgetting names of people whom you should be 'extra extra nice to'; and telling them that you did is blasphemous.
Moral of the story: Like Brendan Fraser says in Blast from the past, use the name right away so that you will remember them!
Monday, July 17, 2006
Destiny to Make
These days it pisses me off to read some 'great' person's life story that begins 'Ever since my childhood I always wanted to be an X', where the X happens to be the 'great' thing they are now.
Well how do people who do not know the difference between beer and lager know what in the big wide world they want to end up as? Come on, spare me the loose talk. When has being nerdishly mono-minded since your childhood become so cool? When has spontaneity lost its charm? Well may be I am over reacting.
I as a kid had this rich uncle in America, who had a lot of money (at least after converting to rupees). So then all I wanted to be was a rich uncle in America. Well now I am almost there. (Depending on whether the department of Electrical Engineering at Tech thinks I am good enough to correct some exam papers in return for a huge tution waiver) .
So right from my childhood that was what I wanted to be. Rich so that I can buy Five Star choclate or a music system. Basically all the things your dad can not justify buying in a joint family. Once I was on the road to becoming a rich uncle, I hit the accelerator so hard that there was no stopping me; halfway trough my ride, I realized life is much more than money; that glory had many more faces. I hit the breaks hard, but my existing speed, with some help from Newton's first law of motion, lunged me into this rich uncle state and to drive back from here is going to be an effort. It is when I miss being a stupid from whom people do not expect anything,
where you can start a shrimping business anyday!
In my last days of college, I knew so well that I am going to be a technology-coporate bigshot that I did not care to apply for the armed forces. That was a big mistake. A man looking for glory, looking to satisfy his insatiable thirst for greatness, I would send him to the army.
Well, that is one of the disadvantages of being two years younger to your classmates, because two years after college I realized what a good option the army was. It would ahve 'fixed' me for ever. The best 'treatment' I would ever have got! Neway here I am at twenty three having seen it all, done it all in the corporate world. Too much appreciation at too less an age, there is no more challenge!
May be this is not very serious, may be I would have backed off in the last minute. Well if I am that serious, I can go now. You and I know it is not so straight forward. There is always the option of SSC. Well this may be only the pensive talk resulting from watching Forrest Gump for the hundreth time. It could only be the confusion of an old fashioned guy lost in the new world of technology. May be the voices of a lonely kid. May be they are for real may be they are not.
Well as mama says 'Life is like a bunch of chocolates, you never know what you'll get', lets see what appears this time when I open it. Somewhere between the so-far-yet-so-near lives of Jenny and Forrest lay your own destiny. Destiny to make or destiny to endure.
Sweet home Alabama
Where the skies are so blue
Sweet Home Alabama
Lord, I'm coming home to you
Well how do people who do not know the difference between beer and lager know what in the big wide world they want to end up as? Come on, spare me the loose talk. When has being nerdishly mono-minded since your childhood become so cool? When has spontaneity lost its charm? Well may be I am over reacting.
I as a kid had this rich uncle in America, who had a lot of money (at least after converting to rupees). So then all I wanted to be was a rich uncle in America. Well now I am almost there. (Depending on whether the department of Electrical Engineering at Tech thinks I am good enough to correct some exam papers in return for a huge tution waiver) .
So right from my childhood that was what I wanted to be. Rich so that I can buy Five Star choclate or a music system. Basically all the things your dad can not justify buying in a joint family. Once I was on the road to becoming a rich uncle, I hit the accelerator so hard that there was no stopping me; halfway trough my ride, I realized life is much more than money; that glory had many more faces. I hit the breaks hard, but my existing speed, with some help from Newton's first law of motion, lunged me into this rich uncle state and to drive back from here is going to be an effort. It is when I miss being a stupid from whom people do not expect anything,
where you can start a shrimping business anyday!
In my last days of college, I knew so well that I am going to be a technology-coporate bigshot that I did not care to apply for the armed forces. That was a big mistake. A man looking for glory, looking to satisfy his insatiable thirst for greatness, I would send him to the army.
Well, that is one of the disadvantages of being two years younger to your classmates, because two years after college I realized what a good option the army was. It would ahve 'fixed' me for ever. The best 'treatment' I would ever have got! Neway here I am at twenty three having seen it all, done it all in the corporate world. Too much appreciation at too less an age, there is no more challenge!
May be this is not very serious, may be I would have backed off in the last minute. Well if I am that serious, I can go now. You and I know it is not so straight forward. There is always the option of SSC. Well this may be only the pensive talk resulting from watching Forrest Gump for the hundreth time. It could only be the confusion of an old fashioned guy lost in the new world of technology. May be the voices of a lonely kid. May be they are for real may be they are not.
Well as mama says 'Life is like a bunch of chocolates, you never know what you'll get', lets see what appears this time when I open it. Somewhere between the so-far-yet-so-near lives of Jenny and Forrest lay your own destiny. Destiny to make or destiny to endure.
Sweet home Alabama
Where the skies are so blue
Sweet Home Alabama
Lord, I'm coming home to you
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Basic Need To Blog
Well I have ditched four drafts in the last as many days. So I thought I will write some of it today.
As my friend Smitha was saying in one of her earlier blogs, in those good old days when she had less work at office and more time to contribute to the literature of the blogdom, blogging could be an addictive thing. Once you start a blog of your own, your thought process gets a new nagger. While on the road of thought, when you encounter a beautiful one, you say to yourself 'I should blog this'. There are a couple of things here. One, the train of thought has hit a serious speed-breaker, once you get back to your thinking, it does not continue the way it would have if it had not hit the 'I should blog this' break. Two, face it, noone is interested in reading your blog.
Anyway, I am living a lonely and quite depressing life right now, the bad news in that nothing is really wrong, I am being a cry baby when compared to all those people who do not know where their next meal is going to come from. Where as I know that it is right there in the refrigerator, that frozen food cooked a couple of months ago, half way across the world. The same kind of thing that I have been eating for a couple of months now. The good news is that there are only
two weeks left of it, and I am going to India after this, to meet a lot of friends and relatives.
A trip to my home is a zero-sum-game. I am tired of the world, I go home, and my mom drives me nuts. I am back the same way I left, if not worse. The house to me does not make sense, and the fact that I can not make my parents change any aspect of it, frustrates me. Its like living with the fact that your parents have messed up with your childhood, which btw is in vogue these days. That's why I visited Chicago thrice in eight months, to find a new home with new parents, I guess. This time back home, it is going to be different with all the parties around. To get rid of all the mental sediment from the 10 weeks of internship, which left in the subconscious gives nightmares later on.
Well I want to vent out here in this post. Lets get it done with. The things that are driving me low these days are.
My roommate is an ass, precisely the same kind of ass he thinks I am. Well isn't that what roommates are for? To teach you that the world, or atleast the house you live in sucks! That too they do that for free, ofcourse except for the same free lesson you give them back. My boss does not care. Well, he does not care if I am getting fed or not; along similar lines, he does not care if I took five days to do a job that takes well, two hours. That leaves me with having to walk one hour to a grocery store load my back pack as much as possible and walk all the way back to stay alive. Or leave office in the middle of the day, walk for half an hour get some food for 10 minutes and walk back again.
Though this is my first time in the heart of America, outside the protection and comfort of the Desi Zone, I am not hasty into judging that all Americans are mean, because I have seen some very very good American friends at Georgia Tech. The rest of the country should really work hard and mean to change that. Though the info-mercials, that out right lie all the time and the commercials, that do not mean a word they say, make you want to catch the next flight out of the country. Did I forget the news? How the fuck can they convert someone' pain and real issues into plain entertainment for commercial interests? Now, I know why I am depressed - too much TV and too many ads in between.
Here is another mixed news. Well for that matter all my work has been mixed news. I write a silly piece of code that does something and after days of debugging, it kind of works, but throws up errors, leaving me with mixed results. God save my career.
Well the mixed news I have got now is that 'I am out of love'. Like in a matter of a couple of lines of dialogue, It was gone, like the warmth of a tea. What was previously a sizzling cup of tea is now a damp over-sweetened milk. It happens all the time in the Jane Austen novels when the heroine discovers that the cool guy was infact an asshole. But mine was more like Gone with the wind where Scarlett discovers in the end that she has been in love with an imaginary character for twelve or so years.
I used to rely on this love-thing in those long boring days where everyday is like the next. Like a pig wallowing in the filth. Now that comfortable filth is gone. Should this pig be happy for getting cleaner or sad for losing a comforter?
Now what do I do to escape the boredom of this repetitiveness? I watch TV! I watch serials that kind of show that life is beautiful with a lot of friends around and that a lot of exciting things happen each day. Like Friends, That 70's Show, Grey's Anatomy, Daily Show, Everybody Loves Raymond, The Office, My Name is Earl, The Wimbledon, The World Cup etc.
Well at the end of it, howmuch ever I might feel pensive watching those serials in my current state of mind, I got to remember that those serials have absolutely no resemblance to normal lives whatsoever. Why? If they did, my current roommate, who is also a surgical intern at one of the country's best hospitals, must have been as hot as Katherine Heigl of Grey's Anatomy.
As my friend Smitha was saying in one of her earlier blogs, in those good old days when she had less work at office and more time to contribute to the literature of the blogdom, blogging could be an addictive thing. Once you start a blog of your own, your thought process gets a new nagger. While on the road of thought, when you encounter a beautiful one, you say to yourself 'I should blog this'. There are a couple of things here. One, the train of thought has hit a serious speed-breaker, once you get back to your thinking, it does not continue the way it would have if it had not hit the 'I should blog this' break. Two, face it, noone is interested in reading your blog.
Anyway, I am living a lonely and quite depressing life right now, the bad news in that nothing is really wrong, I am being a cry baby when compared to all those people who do not know where their next meal is going to come from. Where as I know that it is right there in the refrigerator, that frozen food cooked a couple of months ago, half way across the world. The same kind of thing that I have been eating for a couple of months now. The good news is that there are only
two weeks left of it, and I am going to India after this, to meet a lot of friends and relatives.
A trip to my home is a zero-sum-game. I am tired of the world, I go home, and my mom drives me nuts. I am back the same way I left, if not worse. The house to me does not make sense, and the fact that I can not make my parents change any aspect of it, frustrates me. Its like living with the fact that your parents have messed up with your childhood, which btw is in vogue these days. That's why I visited Chicago thrice in eight months, to find a new home with new parents, I guess. This time back home, it is going to be different with all the parties around. To get rid of all the mental sediment from the 10 weeks of internship, which left in the subconscious gives nightmares later on.
Well I want to vent out here in this post. Lets get it done with. The things that are driving me low these days are.
My roommate is an ass, precisely the same kind of ass he thinks I am. Well isn't that what roommates are for? To teach you that the world, or atleast the house you live in sucks! That too they do that for free, ofcourse except for the same free lesson you give them back. My boss does not care. Well, he does not care if I am getting fed or not; along similar lines, he does not care if I took five days to do a job that takes well, two hours. That leaves me with having to walk one hour to a grocery store load my back pack as much as possible and walk all the way back to stay alive. Or leave office in the middle of the day, walk for half an hour get some food for 10 minutes and walk back again.
Though this is my first time in the heart of America, outside the protection and comfort of the Desi Zone, I am not hasty into judging that all Americans are mean, because I have seen some very very good American friends at Georgia Tech. The rest of the country should really work hard and mean to change that. Though the info-mercials, that out right lie all the time and the commercials, that do not mean a word they say, make you want to catch the next flight out of the country. Did I forget the news? How the fuck can they convert someone' pain and real issues into plain entertainment for commercial interests? Now, I know why I am depressed - too much TV and too many ads in between.
Here is another mixed news. Well for that matter all my work has been mixed news. I write a silly piece of code that does something and after days of debugging, it kind of works, but throws up errors, leaving me with mixed results. God save my career.
Well the mixed news I have got now is that 'I am out of love'. Like in a matter of a couple of lines of dialogue, It was gone, like the warmth of a tea. What was previously a sizzling cup of tea is now a damp over-sweetened milk. It happens all the time in the Jane Austen novels when the heroine discovers that the cool guy was infact an asshole. But mine was more like Gone with the wind where Scarlett discovers in the end that she has been in love with an imaginary character for twelve or so years.
I used to rely on this love-thing in those long boring days where everyday is like the next. Like a pig wallowing in the filth. Now that comfortable filth is gone. Should this pig be happy for getting cleaner or sad for losing a comforter?
Now what do I do to escape the boredom of this repetitiveness? I watch TV! I watch serials that kind of show that life is beautiful with a lot of friends around and that a lot of exciting things happen each day. Like Friends, That 70's Show, Grey's Anatomy, Daily Show, Everybody Loves Raymond, The Office, My Name is Earl, The Wimbledon, The World Cup etc.
Well at the end of it, howmuch ever I might feel pensive watching those serials in my current state of mind, I got to remember that those serials have absolutely no resemblance to normal lives whatsoever. Why? If they did, my current roommate, who is also a surgical intern at one of the country's best hospitals, must have been as hot as Katherine Heigl of Grey's Anatomy.
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