Finding Nemo

Dory: There, there. It's all right. It'll be OK.
Marlin: No. No, it won't.
Dory: Sure it will. You'll see.
Marlin: No. I promised him I'd never let anything happen to him.
Dory: Huh. That's a funny thing to promise.
Marlin: What?
Dory: You can't never let anything happen to him. Then nothing would ever happen to him.
Not much fun for little Harpo.

Newer post...

The internship got over long ago (July 27) and we are all back in India, but yet there is not time enough to write a good lengthy post, thanks to GRE, TOEFL, FYP, CAT, allegedly the busiest Seventh semester, Apping, Placements and what not ... the list goes on.

So, respected visitor, you don't need to check out this blog so frequently as you used to do earlier, but only infrequently from now on, until may be next semester, or when all or most of the above mentioned tasks get accomplished.

Ciao!

New post?

Sorry guys, but I am too busy and too stressed out to write a new post now. Wait until my internship gets over!

Australia at last!

We are here now. In Australia. How lucky I am to get to Perth where temperatures are always near 10 even if it's sunny! How cool it's here! Too fortunate I am to get out of Chennai's deadly summer heat, though the trees on campus alleviated it a little. Verily I am lucky. I used to hate the sun when I was in India, because he was always making me sweat, and I hated sweating. Here, you won't sweat unless you are exercising or having ...

I always write long posts. It's easier to read than to write them.

Perth was excellent when we got there at first. But we began to learn soon that it wasn't really a big city at all. High-rise buildings were prohibited unless they were at the city centre. So, finally you can only see buildings with around 50 storeys at the centre of the city and you can count them on your fingers.

We eat at Currie Hall's dining Hall. Currie Hall, though it ends with a Hall, is not a Hall in our sense, may be in the natives'. It's a hostel in our sense. Students stay during their course of study at Currie Hall. So essentially we eat in the hostel mess. They call hostels colleges here. Residential colleges. What we call colleges, they call Universities. But we have universities too in India. And you know what they call hostels? Hostels are where people put up when they stop in the middle of their long-distance journey. They also call them lodges, backpackers, etc. We stay here in such a place. Beatty Lodge it's called. Yes, we are staying at a lodge, for two and a half months. Incredible, where the University has made accommodation for us. And of course it's costly, being a lodge.

Why couldn't we have stayed at Currie Hall? Can a visitor stay for two and a half months in Jamuna hostel when he arrives on campus two weeks before the end-sems? Yes that's when we arrived. Their end-sems are starting next week. This week is a study week, and therefore a holiday week. They HAVE a week free before exams. And their exams are not on a daily basis, as is the case with our quizzes and end-sems. It's as is the case with BITS-Pilani. They have two or three days between each test. But if that should have been the case in IITM, it would have been a semester with a test every three days, given the number of tests we take and the number of working months we have for a semester. Four months per term and they call it a SEMester! It should have been called a quadmester or something.

Coming back here to the University of Western Australia, it's very good on campus. First of all, they don't have a compound wall all around the campus. They have streets running in and around the campus. But I must say, they haven't got trees on campus as we have got all over our campus. Not more than two buildings you can see at once, when you are on campus at IITM. Hey and you must hear the crows cawing here. They cry like a young country boy screaming for help. Every time I hear the crows caw, I feel like laughing, but I don't. And you must see a crow here. It would weigh twice as much as an Indian crow. SOOOO fat they are! The cats here too are bulky. But I must not judge against the cats' slimness, because I only saw one cat.

My work here is pretty interesting. To say, it's VERY interesting. It's on Image Processing using MATLAB. I am learning a lot in MATLAB now. I'll show them what an IITian can do. I have got an e-mail id here too. Write to vamshi@ee.uwa.edu.au.

What else? Chix ARE SEXY man. Vinay and Leo say they find every girl they see beautiful, but I say I don't. Only few I find beautiful, and fewer sexy. Being fair in complexion alone doesn't make them attractive or beautiful, I say to them. Leave that alone.

I haven't done much shopping here, because I am afraid of spending here, the first reason being the stipend (which is pretty low), and the costs and forex being prohibitingly high. One Australian Dollar costs THIRTY FIVE Indian bucks. They paid the half-funded guys only two K $, and that covers only half our basic expenses. Leave that alone too. I don't want to talk about that.

Let's come to .... FOOD!
I am eating a lot of non-vegetarian stuff I have never eaten before in my whole life. That's because all the vegetarian they serve us here is awful. MAN! You should have seen the mushroom thing they served the veg guys the night Currie Hall guys had this 'end-of-sem' party. It was totally burnt on one side. It looked like they tried to gas-weld it to the rod-like thing at the mushroom's bottom, and failed in it, so they only served us the top part. It smelled awful too. I, being unable to bear the smell, turned it over. AAH! It was a relief when I turned it over. No more awful smell. Then I could concentrate on the events happening on stage during the party. And I can't imagine how Aswin ate that THING! Leo too! Oh my God! That's why I go for non-veg here. Chicken and fish mostly they are. Chickens tastes good here. It's awesome once in a while. You can say I should have brought home-made pickles here. I did. First of all, you must agree that pickles don't make much, and I having only two varieties or pickles, can't survive on pickles alone for 10 weeks. The first week, bringing the pickles to Currie Hall alone was a problem, because of the absence of appropriate containers. I brought them in those three-layered polythene standard packing they do for foreign travellers. Once I cut it open, I won't know what to do with them, since I can't keep them like that in the bag and carry them. Boxes? Yes we could have bought a few, had the costs been encouraging and I had enough money. Luckily, Vinay brought 4 plastic containers used in microwave ovens, from a distant relative he had in Perth here. That was after a week. So we now have pickles with us to carry for lunch and dinner.

I have to go now. Will put in more stuff the next time I write another post.
Bye

Muhahahaha!

I told you I would tell you when we got our passports, with or without visas that is. And now I tell you we got our passports yesterday evening, AND WITH VISAS. Hehehehe.

And even for that, we had to wait for three hours in hunger. Leo and I waited for the passports to come to my room. Too bad I couldn't take all the other guys' passports. Waiting everywhere. Am sick of it. Waiting for food in Tifanys in holidays with everybody gone home. Waiting to go home. Waiting to go to Australia. Waiting for the summer to get over. Waiting for the B.Tech to get over. Can't take it.

Chaos in my brain...

I can't take it anymore. Can't sit here any longer.

Do you know who your neighbours are? Their names at least? No? How pitiful. Typically citiful you are. Why then do you need a house with neighbours? You could live in a forest just too easily.

The other day Aswin, Anagha and I went to find DKP's house regarding some internship related stuff. We knocked on one of two adjacent doors hoping one of them to be his house. A teen girl came out. Anagha asked - Is this Professor David Koilpillai's house? Or is the next door? Apparently it was not. She didn't know about the ones next door. She called out to her dad," Papa, who lives next door?". I was taken aback. There are people in the world who don't even know their neighbours' names. We didn't grow up like that! We used to play with the neighbouring kids when we were children. We played badminton, we played tag, we played Antakshari. And we are still in touch with them, though we are separated now.

I never thought I'd grow up to hate IITs. They no more appeal to me. I know I am looking at only side of the coin, but that's the only side that's facing up now. This reminds me of something - Buttered bread always falls buttered-side down - One of those Murphy's laws. IIT is like a bird cage, or marriage. Those who are outside want to get in. Those who are inside, want to get out. After coming here, people start thinking about life. That's the only thing some do here. Bachelor of Technology, Life Engineering. Now that I think, why isn't there such a course offered anywhere? That would really help the world, don't you think? Life engineers just a phonecall or a mouseclick away, ready to make your lives better, and eventually make the world a better place.

I like typing. And I type fast. I have only recently mastered the skill of typing without looking at the keyboard. I even use the shift keys without looking.

Nothing in the world waits for you. Only your parents do. Not even your siblings. No, they have their own feelings and opinions. They grow up to become what they want to be. But your parents don't take sides. In case they have to, they stand by what THEY THINK is right for their children, and trying not to hurt the feelings of the other, try to explain.

I used to bloghop, and I still do. But I only knew yesterday from Raja that it was CALLED bloghopping. That kind of thing even exists in Orkut, but I don't know what it's called - profilehopping, or simply hopping, or something. I rarely keep hopping for hours, in fact I have never done so much yet. My eyes ache after a certain number of hops. If my eyes don't, my forefinger does. Some part of my body always does. That's when I take a break.

I once kissed a girl. Nothing to be excited about. She was 8 and she is my sister. But, of course, I do feel like kissing a girl who is of my age and is not my sister.

It's 12 pm and I have to return my paper now. All this happened on an additional sheet I took at 11 am for my Control Systems Endsem.

SAYONARA!

High T...

Chennai has reached it hottest summer in 33 years! Now, we are right in the middle of it. Lucky we are amid trees in IITM or we would have been reduced to ashes.

I once imagined a situation where I shop in the Spencer Plaza for a few hours and then begin to walk out. Before stepping out, I see the sun outside and extend my arm to check how hot it is outside. When I retract it, I see only black burnt humerus, radius and ulna. That kind of scene is not faraway with this rate of global warming. We will perhaps have to live underground all our lives or in glasshouses if we have to stay above the ground.

Go to Himalaya at 12 noon after class and you will forget all hunger because of the sweat and heat. But I will still want to go inside. Do you know why? For the cold water in there. No other beverage can replace ice-cold water. I want to keep drinking cold water as long as I can. But my stomach gets full after two glasses.

Oh my God! I can't stand this heat. Sometimes I feel I only want to go to Australia to escape this heat. But the bloody Visas look like they don't want black-boned Indians in Australia. And may God save the ones who are going to Hyd, B'lore and the ones staying in Chennai for their Internships. It's probable that I will join their Burnt Club if the Visas don't move a muscle. And park your bicycle in the sun for a few minutes and then try sitting on it, both the seats get roasted.

I don't know if you know this or not, but it's in my blood to sweat like hell whenever there is an opportunity. Everyone in my family sweats like that. I see Sachin has that involuntary habit too. One hanky is not good enough, I need a towel most times. Keep your hand stationary at a place for a minute, it gets wet with sweat. Even nights are hot. There is no instant and no place without conditioned air in Chennai these days where you can't sweat.

I must say, it's been a pleasure watching the movie Ice Age: The Meltdown, I felt like it was winter again. When you watch a movie, you don't care about your surroundings. You probably are sweating now, reading this post, because all I have been talking about has been high T. But it was a bit on the negative side that the ice in the movie had to melt - Global Warming again.

Whenever I am alone in my room, I stay in only one piece of cloth, or sometimes none. Many boys do that in their rooms, but they don't confess to you. It's not a shame guys, who is watching you? Webcams are banned in here! No one can know even while chatting online (unless you tell them of course!). And I won't talk about how girls suffer in their clothes in such weather.

Oh boy am I so desperate for this summer to get over! All I can dream in the nights, if I manage to get some sleep, is ice, water, rain, cold pineapple juice and my sweatshirts for winter. And hey, my fords! I wouldn't mind getting drowned in there if you can get me into one of them.

The friggin' stupid visa...

If you think you can't read such a long blog, don't. Or only read the para with the word 'imbroglio' in its first sentence. I am not going to share a happy bloggable event with anyone but my family. But if you like criticism and cynicism, keep reading. And don't get critical of me later. Because one did.

The FAULT is the Univsersity's, if we don't go there. Yes, it's entirely THEIR fault. You can't talk me out of it.

We are taking extreme pains in handling the visa and acccommodation formalities for all the 14 of us and it's all because the University guys are behaving like us, and we like them.

To those of you who are stumbling over this blog, I start with the initiation of Professor Hema Sharda, who had taken responsibility and pains in taking a few internships from IITs to the University of Western Australia, that's in Perth, a city on the West coast of Australia.

She started, and it took around 2-3 days for Hema 'Shards' and Pulkit Double to sort it all out and short-list the candidates. There were some selected with half funding, and some with full funding. Funny I had never heard of half-funded interns until then. Full was Aus $4k. I was selected with half. And Leo the other half. Later Srikant dropped because he got an offer for an intern in the University of New Mexico. He thinks he is lucky and happy he had dropped out of it. Later again, Anagha joined us. She had applied privately and got full funded biomed intern.

Then Hema came to the campus again. All the ones who got selected were in the process of applying for visas by then. I had taken the responsibility of representing the group of students, whenever required. When she came to the campus again, she offered two more internships to Gargi and Amit. We are now 14 together. 12 boys and 2 girls. 11 from Elec and 3 from Mech. I don't want to list their names now. Because it's a big list. Anyway, we are 14 now.

We applied for Visas, after taking pains in contacting Mancomp n times for doubts and suggestions, asking them to come to the campus to check the applications, calling up n Travel and Medical Insurance companies to find the cheapest insurance for a period of 3 months, going to and contacting TT Services only to find out that all they did was dumbly forwarded the applications to the Australian High Commission for a SC of 450 bucks, contacting the University Admin guys and our respective project guides to tell them we were applying for Occupational Trainee Visas.


A few days after we apply for the OTVisas, we are all called and e-mailed by this Reshma Joseph from the Australian High Commission saying they need something called Nomination Approval letter from the DIMA. If you are confused like hell, look at the image now. There is something called Nomination to be done. I will now explain what is supposed to be done when a student applies for an OTVisa.

If you still have no enthu in going on with this post, you can click on the little red button on the top right.

After the student is granted an internship at a Univ, the Univ must at first send him the Offer Letter. This is official now. The offer letter is I-20 if the Univ is in the USA. After the offer letter is sent, the Univ must fill up a Nomination form per internee, and submit it to the DIMA, that is the Department of Indigenous and Multicultural Affairs. After the DIMA in Perth takes its own sweet time ( TWO weeks) to process the Nomination forms, it issues what is called a Nomination Approval letter to the University per internee. The copies of these letters are what the internees now need to start applying for an Occupational Trainee Visa, along with the other documents. After the internees apply for OTVisas, the Australian High Commission takes its own sweet time (id est, FOUR weeks) for processing the Visa applications, though Dianne of UWA thinks of it as rubber-stamping in a minute.

The DIMA and the Australian High Commission say they are strangers to each other and must remain so. No communication. The High Comm also says no communication between DIMA and us. We have to talk only to the Univ.

Now let's come to our imbroglio. We applied for Visas on 14 March. On 17 March we get mails and calls from Reshma, asking for these Nomination Approval letters. We now confuse Nomination letters with these Approval letters. We tell the Univ they need these letters. Now Dianne tells us to apply for Tourist Visas. Funny how it happens. We tell her we already applied for OTVisas. Rob of UWA tells us after a few days that they started the Nomination process, which was supposed to be done in our childhood. This is where everything stalls.

We are here now. It's been a month since the Univ washed their hands off the Nomination. Can't contact the DIMA - it's not advisable the High Comm says. Mail the univ about approval letters - they reply about accommodation or not at all. Or they say they are disinclined to contact the DIMA again, because they are a Govt. agency. Mail the DIMA secretly, no reply. Call the High Comm - all they do is put you on hold for five times, and even if you get to Reshma, she tells you they will still take their own time for Visa processing. Ask her if we can cancel OTVisas and apply for Tourist Visas (that are supposed to be less time-consuming ), and she says we don't fall in that category and we can't do so.

We are now desperate. All of us are thinking of backup interns now. We are going to tell DKP the scenario so that we can get other interns if we lose this because of late visas. We keep postponing our flight dates from 8 to 11 to 15 to 20 now. It is highly probable that we go next year, because no way we are gonna get visas this summer.

Now, if you think it might have been our mistake not attaching the approval letter copies with the visa applications, you are wrong. The list of supporting documents had no mention of these letters in it. The agent from Mancomp knew zuch about it too. The Univ? It didn't even know a bit about Nomination until we told them, let alone Nomination Approval letters.

I will tell you when we get our passports back, and also if we got them with or without visas. Farewell.

What the Profs profess...

The wind is always blowing but my room is always hot and humid.

I keep thinking but not doing anything. I type, I click, I scroll, I double click, I watch, I...

I wait for the thunder to come. I wait for it to rain. I don't wait for the sun to shine. I can't wait for it to get over. I don't like sweat. I hate it when the shirt sticks to my skin. Skinny. I am neither skinny nor porky. I love and I hate myself. I do and I don't like to be myself. I can see myself shamelessly taking the degree at the Graduation Ceremony. What the hell did I learn at IIT? Nothing. Not exactly nothing. Crap. Nothing I wanted to know about. The Profs don't understand the situation - but they care about us. Only some of them, though. They really do. But there are these others - that think IITs are not for students- they are for Research. But I don't understand where those researchers would come from once these "researchers" retire. They must have been B.Techs once in their life. Maybe their life was similar to ours and that's why they are avenging themselves now. By torturing us.

There is one who is extremely cranky with students taking his course and not coming in an orderly fashion. We were always approaching him like the notifications on Yahoo IM or Gtalk pop-up in your computer if you enable them. He was fed up. He said he would only take 20 idiots for the course. Like there were only 20 seats in the classroom he was going to teach in. But we still didn't stop bugging him for his scraggly signature on the CoT form. When this all became too much, he started taking all of us for the course. He sat there like a teller in a bank and started signing the forms like crazy - because we went to him like crazy.

I don't understand why the hell the Profs should filter students who want to take the course he is offering. I don't also understand what the heck his problem is if we want to take it as a Pass/Fail or credit it. They don't even know the names of the students they teach. I have never seen a Prof teaching me who knew my name. And I don't even think I should capitalize the p in a Prof. Nihilistic. That's what i feel right now.

The Profs think all the B.Techs are flits. They think we can't think. They think we are coming here for some money, or to get their shoes licked up. Some Profs start with "You B.Techs.....", when they are troubled by a student who is a B.Tech. They love M.Techs. They really do. They look like they want to marry them. Because M.Techs are kids. They come and go silently. They clean the blackboard for them. They teach the students when the Profs don't come to the class. They correct the quiz papers when the Profs go to a conference or on a tour with the fares reimbursed by the Institute. The M.Techs are silent and obedient. They love the M.Techs.

I still don't understand the ******* difference between an MS and an M.Tech. I have heard of an MS in the US but not M.Tech in the US. I have heard of MS in the IITs and M.Techs in the IITs. But I don't know any M.Tech and haven't asked any M.Tech what the hell the difference is. They might not know anyway. Because the M.Techs are not MSs. That is not their job. They come to do their M.Techs and find a job.

Some B.Techs undergo this M.Tech conversion. They become converts. Maybe they want to study in life. But I am not going to do that anyway. Maybe they want to erase the chalk on the blackboard once in their lives.

All I feel like doing is study extensively. And study all the time. But I can't do it. I forgot all I studied my whole life. I don't remember the parts of a cell anymore. I can't differentiate between Mitosis and Meiosis. I am astonished I still remember both the names correctly. I forgot the trig formulae. I used to see Siva Sundeep do those trig transformations like the world is going to end the next day. I used to read books like hell when I was in Gowtham.

When I was at school, I was the only one who did his daily homework. And for that I used to top the class all my school life. I felt I was good because no other kid did his homework regularly. At college, I used to do these physics problems instantaneously in class when the lecturer dictated the question to the class. I was always the first to answer and most of the time I was right. But it is of no use now. 'Teacher' we used to call them at school. 'Lecturer' we called them at college and ‘Professor’ now. Professor. They profess nothing. Phonies I call them. College was where you went for the stuff you needed to learn for the Qualifying Examination. That is for the JEE. I didn't even hear the word IIT until I was in my Tenth Standard. My sister put me up for it. I am very grateful to her for it. But now that I am in an IIT that was my last choice in the preference sheet on the day of counselling, I know JEE is falling. Students are marching and protesting against the proposed reservation for those OBCs. I don't want to talk about it.

I forgot all my school friends. No contact with them for around 5 years. I am getting to know them just now, again. But I can't remember where each of them is still studying.

Study. I once used to enjoy it. I don't know if I enjoy it now. The Profs think we all know the basics. Some Profs think there are only 2 students in the class - A and B. Only A and B answer his questions. The Prof thinks only A and B do his assignments. But there are some who do all his assignments before they are discussed in class. If the Prof feels like the strength is too low - only two! - He looks at these C and D. All he now knows is there are 4 students in his class. He doesn't care about others. But he cares like hell when they come late to class. And also when the class is all shifted to one side of the classroom, nearer to the exit, ready to run. There is this Prof again who keeps jumping on the podium. Like a duck being chased. He chatters like a jobless crow. When somebody asks him a question he looks at the student like he is a madman. And before the student finishes the question, he starts answering. It works sometimes. But sometimes it doesn't. The sentence can change its course at the end. He is confused then. He thinks and says he would get back.

There is this Prof who can't operate an overhead projector. He calls a student to do it. And you should see the way he wears his clothes. His trousers - don't know if they are 3/4ths or pants. Something in between them. You could call them 5/6ths. You can see his ankles under them. They look like they are being worn since he was half a foot shorter. You should also listen to his class once - the way he pronounces some words. Lucky English has redundancy in it. Otherwise you can't get what he is saying. Ask him a question once. He can't get it the first time - because he gives you an irrelevant answer since he picked up only a few words out of your sentence. You will have to ask him again. Now he got the question. Alas! He doesn't know the answer. But to cover it up, he repeats his last answer. But we students know he is shooting the bull. But sometimes he confesses he doesn't know the answer . That too is of not much use now.