random typings...

Just feel like blogging today. Not feeling good. No idea why. Waiting for the Nirvana songs to be copied, so that i can start listening to them. This is an updated list. Already had most of them. Blogging has become the new fad of ug3. A lot of people have created their own blogs. And most write about waking up, working, sleeping etc. Like a reporting form. I always thought that a blog was something more that just a detail of your daily activities. It should give an insight to how you feel, what you were thinking and so on. Though this is not generally applicable in my case either. A lot more people have started reading blogs. Hmm.
How is a woofer useful? Woofer is that thing that comes with the speakers and make the sound better. Well, that maybe its general use. But for me, its more than that. It is my footrest. Why am i telling that? I started this post with 'not feeling good'. The question is why? Why? Why? Why? No answer. Slightly disappointed maybe. Thought that after the hectic month that i had, i would finally find rest. Relax, read papers, novels, watch movies, just lie around. Did that for two days. Just two days. And then it started all over again. My schedule for the next 15 days again looks packed. I want to cry out loud. I want a vacation! I was just thinking how worn out i might have been looking those days. Today, i was relatively fresh when i went to class and many noticed that. I am bored blogging about my busy useless life. Am just reminded of my last sem. Had nothing to do then. Talked to my long time friend today. A considerable amount of water had flown in the river(which one?) after our last conversation. Having broken his leg, he is enjoying the time in the infirmary. Reminded me of my school days. Felt like reminiscing. Soon, i will be having similar thoughts regarding this place. What all would be ingrained in my mind? ...

I have always been seeing you
always wanted to be with you
your sight fills me with pleasure
the time spent with you, i treasure

for me, you are unattainable
like a fairy in a fable
you trot before my eyes
my poor self forlorn, sighs

Like innumerable objects both physical and abstract, this poem's construction has halted. Due to pressing engagements and lack of interest on the writer's part, this poem at its forming stage itself has been cruelly abandoned...

The best way to relax

Moving towards the darkness
a flight into the unknown
swiftly crossing all fences
i was all alone.

My feet not touching the ground
but no, i wasnt flying
by the gravity, i was bound
though my thoughts were defying

The cool scent of the air
could take you to heaven
and the wind through the hair
would put you on cloud eleven

I was moving at great speed
without exerting a muscle
I was on a high, indeed
riding on the bicycle

Thanks to the great sage Vasishta for lending his cycle and inspiring this poem...:D

1 slept .. 2 wept .. 3rd swept ..

Most of my posts crib about me not having time. Well atlast i think i have some free time. Exams got over today. The last few days have been a real torture. No, not that i was reading for exams. But because i wasnt able to read. :D So where should i start? I guess from sunday morning. Thats where the last post left it.
A guy peacefully sleeping in his room. Sleeping till it was time for lunch. A sunday. Generally that is a sign that the guy doesnt have much to do. But here was a unique case. He had a lot to do. Exams were starting the next day, and he didnt even know the titles of the chapters. On top of that, he had to finish his honourable project of a year and submit it the next day. So finally he wakes for lunch. Eats to his stomach full. Rarely do people get to eat nice food in the mess. He went to the mess with the resolution that he would prepare full scale, all guns blazing when he comes back. But your resolutions shrink as your stomach expands. 'Too heavy to read now.' So what is the most expected thing to do? No, not sleep, but watch a movie! He watched Closer instead of reading about closure. After the movie (which was nice and different), he does sleep. Finally around 7, he is aware of the world again. Not because his conscience woke him up but that job was accomplished by the fireworks in the adjacent stadium. So then back to the mess. If only everyday was so simple. Comes back and finally gains the courage and energy to start his preparation. Had an exam on monday and then three continuously on tuesday. And the project was to be submitted by monday evening. So after an hour or two of staring interspersed by studying, he finally decides to quit. And back to bed again.
Wake up in the morning. Nope, not early at all. Then start preparing around 9 for an exam at 11. More than enough time, or so he hoped. Went to the exam. Looked at the paper. Just two questions. Had to write one. Selected the one on AI, since he had no idea what Descartes said or Plato proposed. Looked at the answer sheet. Blank! The answer sheet and his mind. He forgot where to start. Looked around. Chaos struck a chord and the writing started. Recollect a single word that you read, write a paragraph based on that. A big break after every page. Each page was a battle won. Then after sometime, he recollected nothing. Just sleep. So what does he do? Sleep ofcourse. After some 10 or so minutes, he is rudely woken up by the Knowledge scribbling in front of him asking for a second additional sheet! And here was our guy, not even reached half of the given sheet. So starts furiously again. Taking the impetus, the window also starts making its presence felt. Every now and them, it cries for attention. Our guy had to go and bolt it down. The bell rang. The paper taken.
The fun has just started. The day was still young. After a hurried lunch, he started editing a paper. Paper? editing? Did he work part time for a newspaper? Editing the team description paper for the rescue team. But what did he do that could be described? Nothing. So most of the paper contained what could be done. :D The submission took place around 6. So finally, the time was ripe to start preparing for the three exams the next day. So what does he do? Sleep again. 8 is destined to be an auspicious time to start the preparation. So it goes on until two in the night. Does that mean that he completed the preparation? Naah, didnt even start anything for the first exam. Wake up in the morning of the D-Day. Yeah early, 7! Read all that can be done in some 15 minutes and go confidently to the exam. Write the exam for some time. Then suddenly you wake up. What happened? Fell asleep while writing the exam! Shake the head and start again. Wake up again. Oh no. The exam was a goner anyway. Then the next one. No sleep this time. Write with total concentration. After an hour, still finds himself solving the first question. Another exam gone away.
Finally after a frantic lunch, attempt to cross the third and final frontier to bliss. A Look at the paper and the decision was made that it would be three bad exams in a row. Anyway, start trying with a heavy heart. Finally solved one. Then he solves another question. And so he goes on . Almost wrote all answers. Well its another matter, how many are correct. So at 3pm on 22nd the feb 2005, He finds himself free of any sort of work! It has been a long time...

A solitary morning walk

Yeah, just now walked back from the lab. All alone. The air was cool and scented. The fresh dew refreshed my mind. The dark sky invigorated this tired soul. Tonight's work in the project gave me a faint hope that we could qualify. Our chances looked almost nill till now. Another day left. Lets see what happens.

Went home today morning for some peaceful sleep of a few hours. Returned in the evening to do the above said work. Collected the SE midsem papers. Surprisingly i did extremely well. The continuous stream of Fs in the assignment had led me to believe that this subject too was a lost case. Though these midsems do look like a lost cause. Yet to start preparation. Hadnt listened in the classes. Have no idea of what was being taught. And three exams in a day. Continuously. And i need to devote some more time to the Rescue project. So where does it leave me? In my room :D

The sun is yet to wake
slow and breezy is the wind
the night sky will take
the fatigue of this mind

good morning...i am retiring to bed :D

Jut because i am listening to a song...

Iron Maiden's Tears of the Dragon. Listened to it lots of times, but somehow, today it felt different. Maybe because i was suddenly plagued with doubts of what i was doing and why. I felt that i had lost the sense of direction. I was trying to progress, but progress where? Where exactly? I had no idea of my destination. All this after a day which had nill work despite the fact that i had to complete the whole thing today. Complete the implementation which i hadnt even started yet.
Today was an unique day. As is evident from the post below this, i slept quite late, in the early morning actually. And then got up (dsepite the protests of all my blody parts) and went to the class at 8:30 in the morning. Slept in the class for sometime. At the end, the prof was calling out some names for attendance and as he calls out my name, he remarks, "I suppose you slept well yesterday night". :D Then there was another class after half an hour. Went to it five minutes late. Found the door closed. The door which never opened to let us in despite the fact that half the class was standing outside. After an hour i had yet another class. Went to it. Sat in a chair. And slept. It was a class which had just 12 students. A class which is taken by my honour's guide. :D He would have surely noticed me. After the class, he and i had a talk about my project. (which currently seems to be a lost cause.) Then at 1, i was told that a few of us were going out for lunch. I had another class at 3. I already missed three classes of it. We are allowed to miss a maximum of four classes. So i went. To the lunch that is.
Then we went bowling. :D First time ever for me. Had lots of fun. Lots of fun after a long time.
Returned to collect my midsem answer paper (corrected) of a subject. Fared average. From then went to the cafeteria and played for some time with the new darling of IIIT. A cute little puppy. It is being pampered a lot. Followed it up by watching a basket ball match. We lost but it was a close match. Finally sat down to work at around 11 in the night. The time by which i was supposed to complete it. A work which would normally have taken me a week. Tried for a few hours. And realised that it was futile. So, currently i am blogging listening to Iron maiden.

Why am I blogging now?

A very pertinent question actually. Though it is a part of the larger question of why i blog which in turn is a part of the largest question of why bloggers blog. Actually this also is a part of another wider question of why people write something like a diary, blog etc.
The actual question is why am i blogging at 3:30am when i am already running short of 12-14 hours of sleep? Will this be my second awake-night of this week? Who cares....
I am writing this post since i have to understand and then enhance a program (should be called a software, it contains so many files and lines of code) which i havent seen till today and which has its comments in german! What a nice job.
To the larger question, Why do i blog?
Answers: (this post may look similar to one of jayaram's )
Ans. Because i like typing
Ans. Because i like writing
Ans. Because i dont feel like doing some work
Ans. Because i can write or rather ramble on.
Ans. Because i have 24hrs free access to net (actually pay for it through fees so i guess we need to fully utilise it ;)
Ans. Because, well, umm, maybe i should fake some answers :D

Some wrong answers:
Ans. Because it gives people a window into my life. (What! nah. this is not true)
Ans. Because it improves my writing skills (they are going from bad ot worse)
Ans. Because i am paid for it (wish it were true)
Ans. Because some people read it (but then why did i begin at all?)

Why do people as such blog? Cant enumerate the reasons now. As regards the last question, i have no idea why any person would maintain a diary, so cant comment on that either.

Someone(a friend) feels that my blog is awesome. :D:D:D Am flattered though i have no idea why he thinks so. (nope, am not trying to be humble (i already am ;) )
By the way, is there any cure to this disease called procrastination? Its microbes seem to have infected every cell of mine. Cant find much clean air these days either.

Summer is here to stay .. :((

Unbearable hot sun for the past few days. The last couple of days were spent in completing one of my three projects. The deadline of the submission was strangely at 6:00 am in the morning (yesterday). That resulted in almost all the students of that course stay awake all night in a desperate effort to make their programs work. By morning 6:30, i and my project partner had finished all the coding neccessary and even intergrated the various components. The components seemed to be working fine individually. But then when we ran it as a whole, we got the error that you should get in order to make a correct program, "segmentation fault". Check for the reasons. couldnt find any. We still had to write the documentation. My partner retired to his room, while i realised that blogging had some use. It made writing crap easy ;) and submitted the thing. Then ate breakfast etc. It always feels strange to brush your teeth when you didnt sleep. It sort of feels redundant :d. But anywayz, (i did brush) and just hung around until it was time for class. After the class, we again looked at the program to se if we could do something about the fault. In vain. It seemed to be getting worse. Earlier we were getting the error for some inputs only. But now it was not input specific. It was invariably giving seg faults. But not all at the same exectution step. Each time it was at a different step. Finally we went at 3 to show our non-running program. There was a crowd, all with the same intention. So i thought we would have a final look at the code. Then the process started. We seemed to be getting more errors. But we could atleast find some causes. Most of the other teams' programs were working for atleast some inputs. But not ours. Finally we made it run without any faults. But the output wasnt totally right. Made a few more changes. By this time, most of the teams had shown their program, most of which just gave a segmentaion fault. Finally it was our turn. I wasnt sure that our program was yet giving the correct output. We showed the updated version. It surprisingly ran for all the cases giving the correct output! Ours was the first one to be totally correct. Also it was the first time that our program gave a correct output! ;) So one of three has gone off well.
The second and most important one is lost in doldrums with no way to escape. Its living up to its name ........

The sun is beating down upon us....I want winter :((

Feeling nice ...

after some much needed sleep and relaxation. Writing this post in a dreamy stupor.

On a slightly different tone
let us be all alone
look into each other's eyes
and tell each other, lots of lies

Let us walk on the beach      [long time i went to beach :(( ]
out of everyone else's reach
holding hand in hand
and on each other, throw sand

Let us frolick in a spring meadow
without any lingering shadow
play around with the fresh grass
and crack jokes, really crass

Let us paint the town red
and share a comfy bed
live our life together
and hit each other with belt leather


Back to the dream world now .....

i had forgotten to title this post ...

02:19:40) pranavasishta: we complement each other well
(02:19:47) me: basically we suck
(02:19:54) me: hav lost direction in this world
(02:20:18) me: and r not helped by the fact that there is no one nearby to drive some sense into us
(02:21:04) pranavasishta: think i could never put it better.

A chat conversation that i had with the sage of my class in the night around 2. And all of it is so true! What are we trying to do? Living life, trying to fit everything into nothing, going about life which though is different everyday, is similar in more ways than one realises. The same sun, the same morning rush, the same missing of breakfast to attend a class which is not worth it, the same dozing of in the class which helps you escape exerting your mind in trying to make sense of the seemingly incoherent mamblings by a distinguished prof, but doesnt help you in getting the much needed rest, the same rush after the class either to another class or to a nearby pc to check mail, the same mails, one from the administration office (some vaccine or another such inane matter) a couple from the lug (a question easily solved through man, and its reply stating the obvious), quite a lot of lost-found and sometimes to break the routine, a mail from some prof. Trying to fit in the available time to do something, though achieving nothing in the end other than a feeling of having worked a lot. What is the point? What are we trying to do?
What is the institute trying to do? "We want to be a research institute". Yet at every available oppurtunity we boast about our 100% placement record. Placements mostly at companies that follow the seriously complicated SE procedures. I dont think doing Pt every morning is going to make a better researcher. Neither would beingimmersed in assignments and classes. Poor first years, I pity them. We were really lucky. Didnt have the pt, the compulsary attendance, nor the place fixation in the classes. And they have grand plans of increasing the strength! For what? Quality is not going to improve. I just hope the institute doesnt degrade and fall into an abyss. It was a bright spark till now. A spark which sometimes falters. but hopefully would collect all its oil and glow cheerily again. ....

just because i feel like typing ...

.. hence i am writing this post. So have no expectations my dear readers. What sort of sins did u commit in your previous and future lives that you read my blog and some of you even return! I thought i would write something for the creative writing competition, but did nothing till now. Already 6 days have passed. And i dont seem to be doing anything now either. I crib saying that i have to do three projects etc etc. But do i do any of them? No sir. The only things that i am doing these days is eating and sleeping. And i am doing a lot of it. Seems that the copious hours of sleep is doing no help. Am feeling sleepy already........ But i dont want to wake up tomorrow morning. If i do, i am stuck without a free hour from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm. :((
I had an hour free from 2 to 3, but now even that has been alloted to the Felicity meeting. So I am going to be a zombie running around tomorrow. :((
I dont want to wake up. Good night :)

21 ...

Yeps. Thats how old i have become today. It does feel strange. How does it affect anything? Maybe it doesnt. But then again, it does feel different. And, do i look like a 21 year old? Certainly not, or so i am lead to believe. Anyhow, 21 years have passed. Lot more to come (hopefully). Looking forward to life :)

Veritas Horizon ...

I other words, Verizon. The sponsor for CodeCraft. Their GM, human resources came to the campus today to deliver a small talk. It was their idea. They also wanted a report on Threads to be given during this meeting. So, we had given them an itinerary long time back and were supposed to follow it. The major problem that i thought i would face was to get the seminar hall filled with people. I had mailed to students stating that the talk would start at 9:30 whereas it was scheduled to start at 10. At 9:30 as i was walking towards the room, i am approached by their HR who looked worried. He told that he didnt want his GM to face an empty room, hence called him and asked him to come at 10:15. After a few frantic efforts, people started filling the hall. 10:15 came and went. 10:30 was approaching. The supposed audience was getting restless and some started moving out (Oh no!). Finally he came after 10:30. Immediately i went and invited the Dean to come. The itinerary was that the Dean would give a speech, then i would present the report, then the GM would talk and finally answer the questions. But do things anytime go according to plan? The scheduled time was from 10 to 11. The compere didnt know the itinerary (not his fault), hence it lead to the GM being invited first to give the talk. He talked about the corporate jobs, the attitude of employess etc. This was obviously interrupted as has become the norm these days by the one-who-must-not-be-named (though i dont care a damn about placements). It went on till 11:15. Then i was called upon to give the report. I made it short and sweet. Used the same material that we had used for the press conference, just updated it a bit. I spoke for around 5 minutes. And i spoke pretty okay, with no gaffes. Dilip's nod after the report reassured this belief of mine. Then the beloved dean gave his talk about emotional intelligence. It finally ended at 12. One hour behind schedule. Debugging contest prelims was also supposed to end then. And it was the only event that i really wanted to participate. I was then supposed to escort him to the Director's office. In between, he praised me on my speech, saying it was well organsied blah blah. I made use of the time that he was in the director's office to find out the latest information about the events. I was informed that the third session of Debugging was starting then! He came out of the office, and requested us to show him around the building, the labs mainly. So took him around to the research labs etc. A group of five. They three, we two (Gautam and me). During this, he again expressed his appreciation. After that, escorted him to the stall on the ground, then back to the campus. The-one-who-must-not-be-named had also joined the group now, and was talking most, in fact all of the time. Finally he left at around 1. Before leaving, he appreciated the report once again, this time calling me by my name. :D
So where does that leave me? Do i want a job in Verizon? Nah, not really. The bad part, i couldnt participate in the debugging contest :(

Threads has started...

And it is a huge success as of now! The two most popular events have been conducted. The response has been immense. And the icing on the cake is that there were no technical problems at all. \:d/. In short, we rock.
Sunday started with Codecraft, the online programming contest. 630 teams registered. The mock test on saturday had a few problems. So we were jittery. We completed the questions, their test cases etc just in the morning as the previous post tells you. So, all the more jittery. Changed every question beyond imagination. Hence, though all of them were from the net, where even the test cases and the solutions were available, they werent at all searchable. Finally all programming questions come down to the various types of algorithms like dp, greedy etc. We werent able to change just one question. It was still googlable. But we were already exhausted by then. So everything was ready by 2. And the contest started. I was at the help desk, i.e chatting on yahoo with contestants answering their queries. The contest was for 8 hours, supposed to end at 10. And the number of questions given were also 8. The submission portal opened at 2:30. Immediately there was a correct submission! Though it was for the second easiest question. Next submission for a distinct question was for the easiest question. Many teams had solved two questions by 3. I was getting tensed. Because if this was the rate, then the people would have solved all long before the contest got over. But, we were reassured by a question, which we assumed was next to insolvable. But guess, what happened? It was solved by a team at 3:15. Now that really got me tensed. All questions arent supposed to be solved by a single team in a programming contest. It was an unwritted law. Then Masu and me tried to prepare another question, but we werent upto it, so we soon quit. A few teams had solved 4 questions by 4:30. But then the speed fell. They encountered the tougher ones. And it took them a lot of time. All this while, there was not even a single problem with our server. It handled this huge amount of load pretty well, thanks to the distributed system which used around 10 pcs. I was chatting all this while. Some had nice doubts. But most were stupid or remarks that though their solution is correct it is not being accepted. At 6, it was obvious that our contest was a big hit. Most of the contestants were praising it. Both the questions and the server. Even our sponsors were extremely happy. Afterall, every question was based on them. What more mileage could they have got?
In the last two hours, i was getting feedback from the contestants along with solving their doubts. All liked the contest. Some even became my friends. We went on chatting about iiit, their institute (mostly iit) etc. The contest ended at 10 as scheduled. The most questions a team had solved were 6. And one question wasnt solved by any team. The ideal result. The only sad part was that the top IIIT team was placed 11th. None of our teams in the top 10 :( Though the guy coming second who had also solved the toughest question first, was an ex IIITian. There was a swedish guy who came fifth or something. We had many other international colleges participating.

That was CodeCraft. The next day, that is monday was Cachein, the online treasure hunt. It was supposed to go on for two days. Monday and Tuesday from 4 pm to 10 pm. It started on dot at 4. We were all tensed initially because, there was no mock conducted. But there were no problems what so ever again. A few questions had mistakes. But thats it. Nothing to do with the server. It ran as fast as an hare. :) Again i was at the help desk, that is chatting with the treasure-hunters, answering their queries with patience. Most didnt read the rules, and would ask about things clearly mentioned on the site. The others were adamant that their answers were correct though they were wrong. Many of the people that i chatted with were the same as the day before, i.e codecraft contestants. So once again, the discussion started about the fest, how they came to know about it, how they find it, their praise, their institute, our institute etc. :)
The firat day ended at 10. The same story with the second day i,e today (actually yesterday), though it was more tensed and frantic, it being the final steps to the treasure. I wasnt chatting this time. Had other things to do. By the way, Cachein had 700 people logged in at once, trying to solve puzzles and find the treasure.

Equity Pulse the stock market game had a demo yesterday i.e monday. But it wasnt good. Many problems came to the fore. The actual contest started today morning at 10. It really created a buzz around the institute with people asking each other about the profit they made. It had 800 teams. There were a few problems, bugs etc which led to the contest being restarted again at 2. Not many problems after that. In the night the online crossword and online quiz started after hectic work by the organisers who had been inactive a few days back without doing anything about it. The online crossword is called "X Word" while the online quiz is called "The Answer is 42".
Many institute's people are spending their nights trying to solve these two.
All in all, as of now, Threads'05 rocks. Not just in our eyes, but in those of the other institutes' guys as well.
For more details visit http://felicity.iiit.ac.in ......got too used to typing this at the end. Replying to various queries in the mails.
Feel like celebrating after every succesful event. :) Thats the plus point of being the coordinator without being stuck with one event. You are part of all events :)

Quite a big post this is...... Got to write one now on Threads with the statistics for the newspapers. I guess this was a practice for that........