New Commitment - Classy Entries.

I am blogging from a Cafe. :)

For the past one hour I was struggling with this small math problem/puzzle. Unfortunately, I couldn't get head/tail of this thing. It seems to me that there might not be any solution. This at least helps me to satisfy my pride. My dear friend who pointed me to this problem, I am thankful to you. At the same time I am sorry that I cant help you get the credit of publishing the solution :)

Today is a dull day after so many sunny bright days. As usual I got up 10:00. My friend left to a tourist spot without telling me :(. Good that she did so.. otherwise I'd have discouraged her. Later, I too packed my stuff and came to this cafe. This cafe which is 125 years old! Already 2 cappuccinos are inside me along with the Italian cookie. A completely different day. About 5-6 hours in a cafe... just for reading, solving(?) a problem, watching people and of course thinking too.

What was/am I thinking? - Why do we always want to do the right thing? Sure that it's not to satisfy anyone except self. Then what if sometimes you want to do something which is not right? How do you define right/wrong? For those issues concerning others, we can easily define this. Those things just about self..?

I think the problem roots from the fact that there are things which are not absolutes. At least knowledge is not absolute in many cases. Then how will we be able to find solutions? .. Okay forget these things here. I shall try to solve them by myself and later post the solutions when I find them out. (It should be pretty difficult) - courtesy to Vimal.

Lately a very nice thing is happening to me. A couple of people for whom I have high regards for are appreciating my writing/blogging. I am happy :)

But they are simply unaware of the fact that their comments are making me tensed. It's my fault that my pride is growing up to sky and I'd start thinking about "my readers". Quite funny - "my readers". I guess, I am not going to think about that. Should be normal.

The blog which I started with the intention of improving my English writing skills... later turned out to be a passion which reflects my mind and thoughts! A very cool transformation!

I am happy anyway. Will continue to write whatever I feel like. This "Commitment to deliver ONLY classy posts" will fade away in a couple of days/posts. (in other words, "ahankaram can't last long")

Listen to this song Ennavo Ennavo from Priyamanavale. Pay attention to the lyrics too. The same way Minsaram en meethu also. Lately these kind of songs match well with my mood. What do they say about my mood? ;)
(am I still a mallu? Don't I have any Malayalam songs to point at?)

Wanted to write some more stuff.

1. Running Windows Vista on an iMac.
2. A tribute to some special people who shaped me.

Will do later.. My dear "readers",... wait.. ;)

Signing off, Sands.

[ REFERENCE TO PUZZLE TRANSLATION ]

PS: This is the puzzle which I was trying. There are three persons. Let's call them A, B and C. You don't know them personally. All you know about them is this - "A" speaks only truth; "B" never speaks truth; and "C" randomly speaks truth.

For any question, their reply will be only "U" or "V". And one of "U" and "V" means "Yes" and the other means "No". You can ask a maximum(altogether) of three Yes/No questions to these three persons and have to find out who is who. (They know everything in the world. For example, "A" would know what would be the reply of "C" for a specific question. So you can ask one of them about the answer which could be given by another person)

More formally:
1. Three persons - True, False and Random answers respectively.
2. Only two answers - U/V - one means yes, other means no
3. Only three questions to all (not three to each)
4. Find out who is who

Come on guys, this should be an nice brain teaser. Something similar to two tribes question of which one tribe speaks only truth, the other never speaks truth. Unfortunately I started thinking in the wrong direction and can't start from scratch.
<link to the original question - explained in the most round about way>
_

A Picture Post - My Office Space

Just putting some snaps of my working environment. I should say, I am very lucky to have such a good place. Here are the pictures, let them speak.


Today, my table was a little cluttered with so many books and papers; That's why I wanted to capture the image. Then thought - "Why not put in the blog?" Anyway, the seat which you are seeing in the picture is not mine. It is for the other person who would be sharing the office with me. Apparently, for the past 6 months there was no such man to share the office with.


This would be exactly what I see while sitting in my chair. The desk of a researcher - but where is the computer?.. eh? You can see the mouse though.


Yeah, here they are. My Computational Devices!! The Logitech microphone, Creative speaker set - full fledged multimedia centre too :) (?) Isn't the desktop image cool? - that's a close-up picture of a burning match-stick.


Yes, this is all of it. This is how it looks like when I am 3 feet from the door.

DISCLAIMER: I feel that you just thought "how many books and papers he's reading!!". It's true that the picture gives a picture of a hardcore-student. Unfortunately that's not completely true. Today it happened so that these many books and papers came together. NO MISINTERPRETATIONS PLEASE.

Signing off, Sands.

_

Those times are gone; But good times will come again

I miss my IIT days, my bachelor days. I should say IIT days were more productive compared to BTech days.

Those late nights with karthik, the bread omelet, the midnight teas. Arguments and debates.

Guru - the one who has influenced me a lot. The very late night conversations with him. One day it was 1:30 - 2:00 at night when we both came back from lab... we hadn't started having Internet in our rooms at that time. We met in front of the bath room. A long argument on doing a PhD - straight after college or after some industry exposure. Finally, I got convinced and later followed his advice.

Yes, that is what I am missing. To be precise, the active debates - which gave a conclusion and food for thought.

And everyone correcting my English - whenever I uttered a word which had "o".

Sanjay's sharp dialogs. It's an art you got to learn. Karthik's emotional arguments. I still remember the argument on the children of inter-state-married couple. He got so emotional for Nandita Das.

Guru and Sanjay making fun of karthik. Poor fellow, had a difficult time. I still remember the chat script - Guru was giving out his opinion about karthik - to Sanjay. Unfortunately, Guru didn't know, karthik too was on the other side.

Varun - man, what's happening with you lately? I never dared to speak in front of him. He used to criticize me for every pronunciation issues - in English and Tamil. But, I do thank you man.. a LOT. My language was "HORRIBLE" ;). It is far better now.

Dada alias Priyankar, all those late nights with him too. He was my guide before I moved to Guru's "shishyathwam". I know guru knows that I admired him a lot. I still do. I will grow to be like him someday. Spreading energy all around me.

Dinil, Ep, Samuel - the trio. The fight with EP, on GOD/no-GOD, business at Guruvayoor issues, God for weak minds. He got really angry. I still think about it and laugh. Samuel was the king of diplomacy - I hated it. I like him a lot though. Dinil.... he comes from early life.. BTech days. I'll write it some other day.

Arun, his theater.. those movies. I was never that close with him like with others. Still I know/knew he has stuff inside. Just that some different bandwidth. He still must be having one of the keys of my room lock (1041, Krishna).

How many things did I miss-out? I carefully avoided OAT, The mallu gang, and so many such things. They come in different category. The TCS gang, the Trio and Karthik - that's all that really matter.

I still remember the very first debate. Guru, Arun, Sanjay and Siddesh - we were in front of Narmada-365. They talked about Chandrayan, India Super Power, Vision 2020 etc. I was just a spectator/listener. Topics varied from the above mentioned ones to gossiping.

Yes, this is all. The constructive talks whether at Narmada, or at Krishna or at Gurunath or wherever, they were the driving force. The life giving thing. There were people who could beat me up with their arguments. Their logic, the way they put it.

After those times, I've never met anyone who could say things with that much of vision or thoughts or meaning. Same way, lately nobody is able to win me in arguing. I have to find someone like that.. to give me food for thought. When I am the winner always, what I believe continues to be right. But that's not true. It's just because I've not met people with better ideas than mine and the ability to turn me to lose.

I am waiting for such people coming to beat me up and teach me new things, to give me ideas. I know they will come or I'll hunt for them. I need some more time to get the language part ready. The basic language is enough to start with, then I can start with how I did with my minimum English knowledge.

Signing off, Sands.

PS1: Trigger for the entry - it's just 10:45 at night. I am bored. I want to talk. I just thought about those days. I sent a mail to Guru. Then I went and read AMP's blog. Still I wanted to think more about those days. I opened the box of those memories and scribbled some of them here.

PS2: I wish I could write better. If only I could write down all my feelings? Sigh!

-

I love Munich

I've been wanting to post this for quite a long time. I don't think, even this post would do enough justice to my love for Munich.

My life was/is like this - I've lived 21 years straight in Kerala. Then 13 months in Chennai, 9 months in Munich, 9 months in Hyderabad and now again 10 months in Munich.

There was not even a single place where I wasn't happy. I was satisfied with anything and everything I got. I never complained about some place. Still if I praise some place, Munich comes first. Of course, I cannot compare Nellayi and Munich. Actually I find Nellayi to be the best because of that psychological thing that it's MY place. Otherwise.......?

Okay, back to my main subject here. I cant enumerate everything. Still...

Ubahn - The most comfortable and reliabele public transportation system I've ever seen. I've been to Berlin, Vienna, Paris, Prague, Brussels etc. No where I've seen such a good ubahn-system.

Englisher Garten - The unique thing. Stretching about 10-15 kms long and 4-5 kms wide, the garden is actually a small forest. Isar flows through the garden. It's all green everywhere. Singles and couples come for walk here. (Spazieren gehen). Biking inside is a pleasant feeling. The small cascade near Odeonsplatz, the Chinese tower, the nudist (:?) area all are amazing.

MarienPlatz, Stachus, Odeonsplatz and numerous other places - Fully crowded and silent at the same time. So many varieties of people coming and going.. rushing.. lovers walking hand-in-hand, hugging, kissing. Tourists doing shopping, the large shops, Karstadt, the two-euro-shop, the fountain at Stachus which turns to be skating ground in winter. All the Doner shops from stachus to hauptbahnof.

Cinema, Readery and Video Shop - Cinema is the name of the theater where English movies come. I might have watched more movies here than I've watched in Ragam/Ramdas/Kairali/Sreelakshmi/Ayodhya/any other single theater. Readery is the second hand English books shop - the largest in Germany. Video shop with 3000+ English movies and the the friendliest macintosh-maniac shop keeper.

OlympiaZentrum - The Olympic village of 1972 Olympics. The trees with full of flowers, 100s of two-room bungalows, all the sport facilities, swimming, the Olympia-hill, the lake, the swans.. what not..

People and cleanliness - Yes, very important. Very nice helpful people who keeps every place so damn clean. I've never seen any place which is as clean as Munich. Whoever has come to Munich at least once would agree with this. Also when I say about people... all those beautiful girls with kutti dresses and tyres around their belly. Ones without tyres too are there, the plump plump old people, the cute cute kids, everyone so nice.

My University - One of the top 3 universities in Germany. The ELITE university in Germany. I don't need to tell more..

The Climate - The only thing people could say to be bad. As a matter of fact, it is not actually that bad. I am comfortable with it. It's just human nature to get bored very soon. 3 weeks of snow will get them bored. In November, it was about 3-4 degree Celsius temperature and my friends were saying it was too warm. Anyway the winter seems to have gone. The lowest recorded temperature in city is -19. Now it is about 5+ degrees.

I might have missed out many things.. Oh, anyway I cant list out everything.. it will take a loooong time.

People including I, have started changing the dressing habits. Three weeks back, I used to wear all the thermal wear, gloves, cap, shawl etc along with the heavy shoes. Two weeks back I stopped wearing cap and gloves. Last week I stopped wearing the thermal wear and started using normal shoes. Yesterday I stopped taking shawl. In another three weeks, I'll leave the sweater and jacket. Then another 2 weeks, I'll move to Bermuda instead of jeans and to normal footwear instead of shoes. Some people are a little too fast - they have already moved to Bermuda and of course micro-mini-skirts have already started displaying the white-bloodless thighs of those hefty girls.

I've become kind of expert in Munich. I know most of the places, most of the stuff. Traveling in cycle gives me the extra knowledge of all the kutti kutti streets and all. Very nice lovely city :)

Who all reached here? Please raise your hands :). Congrats and Thanks :)

Part II - An open letter to all the cryptobloggers

Actually, what is your problem? You can very well say that it's your blog and you don't care whether the blog is readable/understand-able. Fine, but still readers expect something good. After typing in the post, why don't you just change the point of view and read the whole thing again? Just try to think whether the reader would understand something of it. Again, tell me you are writing the blog for you. Bull shit! True, you might be writing for yourself, but you always have readers in your mind. Every reader and every comment gives you happiness. You do expect them to read/contemplate and comment. You keep coming and look for the comments.

As far as I can think, all my fellow bloggers are/were s/w professionals. If you cant think what would be the opinion of the end user, do you think your product will be good? Isn't it same with blogs? And the management/finance/marketing gurus, if you cant know what your readers want, how the hell are you going to do marketing? Learn to market yourself first, your blog first. Come, tell me .. it is the right of the writer to write whatever he/she wants. I don't think that person who told will come here and read this blog. Still, you know that's crap and just an argument to save your ass. Fine, enough.

To be honest, the whole blasting I did just here was triggered by a friend of mine. He used to write sensible blogs. Now his blogs are becoming cryptic. Dude, what I believe is this - "Any new reader should be able to follow the blog without having a prior knowledge of you and your thoughts". You can always argue against me... but those arguments are valid only for the "ilamaran-blog/My Soul" of yours in the private domain.

Signing off, Sands.

_

Three men and a baby

We meet many people in our lives and some of them really influence us. Sometimes it’s just a single sentence from them which'll influence us a lot. Yes, this is what we call “quotes”. We quote them later. I was thinking about three such sentences and persons who told them to me.

1. Dr. M S Anand – Free time is a state of mind

What is the great thing here? Cant you see that having free time is a state of mind? Yes, it definitely is. Lately, when I think I am getting crushed by different things to be done, I think about this sentence. This sentence is the equivalent of “There is no spoon”. When I really need time, I have it. So, the time is always there, it’s just that I got to get it. So it’s up to me and that means it’s up to the state of my mind. Abstract for you? – Learn to live with it.

And this Dr. Anand was the Director of IIT, while I was there. Probably he still is. This was heard in the first day’s orientation talk. This quote makes me regret – when I say I don’t have time.

2. Dr. Paulson – There are no failures in your life; only experiences

Last day at Prof. P C Thomas’ classes. Paulson sir – Organic Chemistry guru was giving all of us – the advice for entrance exam. He told, “All of you are appearing for entrance, not all of you will get through. Just realize that entrance is not the ultimate thing. Not getting entrance is not a failure; it’s just another experience”. He continued, “There are no failures, only experiences”. From that time onwards, I follow this principle.

Just like my well-wisher commented once – “Nadannathum, Nadakkunnathum, Nadakkanullathum nallathinu”. He means “All that happened, happening and to happen are for good” – because you always get something positive from them. So even if something bad happens, it’s not bad as long as you learn from it.

One Tamil girl came once to Munich. I was her host. I was talking with her and I told something like “It was a bad experience, anyway I learned my lesson”. She corrected, “It was not a bad experience as long as you’ve learned from it”. So that explains it.

3. Francis Pullokkaran – Life is not a bed of roses

I guess it was during my BTech days, sometime I was going through lot of tension. This friend of my father and colleague of my mother came home. We offered him a chair and he told he’ll sit down. He sat on the steps and we talked and talked. He was giving a talk on his experiences in life. He had had a couple of painful things in life, then he told the above sentence. Then it really struck me. I was having some little tension and compared to what he had had, it was nothing. I realized, if you mix this bed-of-roses and no-failure-only-experience dialogues, you get “Life is a great teacher”.

This is the story of three men and a baby. Those three men have made their impact on the baby who is/was me. It’s actually stupid that I had to have their help to figure out these so evident things. Even without their help, wouldn’t I have figured out these? Yes, Of course I’d have. They were the catalysts or rather trigger for my thinking about these. I stood on the shoulders of those experienced people and I could see far more than I could have seen by myself.

Change of topic

I am getting more and more pleasure of learning German. At the same time I am not sure whether I am learning it the way I should. All the grammar and related things, I am learning as if it’s some mathematical stuff. I ask my teacher “why?” all the time. And most of the times she replies – “Sandeep, Das ist nicht logisch” – “Sandeep, that’s not logical”. Basically, I shouldn’t be thinking why is the grammar that way. After all why should I think it has to have a logic? Is it some CFG?

Another major thing is that I am very comfortable with English. At IIT, I had a room-mate from Bombay. When we used to ask him to tell us is proper English rather than in the Marati-Hindi mix, he would start explaining things in English. After a couple of sentences, the medium becomes Hindi. Gradually it will move to the Marati-Hindi mix and finally pure Marati. The best part is that he was not aware of this transition.

This is happening to me. I start to talk in German and gradually move to English. Just like Meera Jasmine’s classical dance turns to disco-dance in the song “Enthu paranjalum nee” in “Achuvinte Amma”.

Change of topic

How can I leave without mentioning at least a single romantic incident? I was going in the train. I got in with a Cappuccino. I stood at a corner. A couple got into the same compartment and they stood hugging each other, they made it sure that the pole on which people hold is in between them so they don’t have to hold it to make sure that they wont fall.

May be it is not according to the travel-etiquette, I was looking at them. They were kissing lips to lips, all the English, German and French ways. I was simply looking at them and sipping my Cappuccino. After sometime the girl noticed me noticing them. It was during a kiss and once it was over, she smiled at me. I smiled back. Her lover continued to kiss her on lips. I continued to kiss my Cappuccino cup…. Smiling after every sip.

Later I thought, I should have winked when she looked at me. :) - would have been funny, eh?

Signing off, Sands.

PS1: My dear well-wisher, I know who are you. First time you commented I didn’t understand. But I do know now. I know you don’t need any proof. Thank you for visiting my blog.

PS2: njan-v4, if you couldn’t recognize this well-wisher, shame on you. There is no point thinking you as a mind reader.

_

Being a Student - A Small Analysis

Before starting to write down... let me give a pointer to the song which you could listen to... while reading the following ...

Nee nadanthal nadayazhaku...
Nee sirithaal sirippazhaku...
Nee pesum thamizhazhaku...
Neeyoruvan thaanazhaku...

My analysis of being a student is based on the old definition of student. According to that definition, a student has the following:-

1. Jeerna Vaasthram (Bad clothing)

This point just stresses the idea that a real student wont be interested in dressing and fashion stuff. (OK, let's leave out the fashion students here). When the student in completely into studies, the clothing/dressing stuff is not so important. Now, after coming with me for a little shopping, at least my mother and sister are not going to agree that I fall in the category of students with jeerna vasthram.


2. Shwaana Nidra (Sleep of Dog)

A real good student sleeps very less. Actually, I kind of follow this. Not to the level meant in the definition, still my sleep timings are less. Gotta improve a little here.


3. Baka Dhyanam (Concentration of a Crane)

Yes, the ability to concentrate is a must for a good student. If you have seen a crane cogitating, standing on it's one leg... you would know why the definition talks about the concentration of a crane. In this one also, I think I do score. Whenever I learn I do have good concentration. Could be improved.


4. Kaaka Drishti (The Sight of a Crow)

Crows are very good at observing even small things happening around them. A student definitely has to have such a good observation on things happening. Do I score here enough? I am not sure. I guess, I do OK. Of course there is scope for lot of improvement.


5. Brahmacharyam (No word in English for this - at least I don't know)

I don't think this needs to be explained. Not being married is not brahmacharyam. This is the power of mind. This is the power to control your mind from all fluctuations and infatuations. Those who have read my earlier posts do know whether I score even the pass mark :(

The above listed five things are supposedly must for a good student. Whether I believe in all of them or not is a different issue. But I have to improve in those ones which I think makes sense.

Continuous and never-ending improvisation - the secret of success. I still do remember Steve Ballmer's enthusiasm in the company meet. He shouts "Growth Growth.. and Growth" .. yes, that growth comes from continuous improvement.

Here a sudden change in topic.

Can you imagine the happiness of a man getting his own house? A shelter for himself. I can feel that. In the past 10 months I have been moving around in Munich. I relocated a couple of times - because I didn't have a permanent place to live in.

Last week, I got the letter from StudentenWerk which said that my room will be ready from first of march onwards. Wow, what a relief it was!. Now, I have an address of my own in Munich. No more "c/o" stuff. And the contract for the room is for 3 years. That means I have the room for myself for quite some time. :)

I have to start my packing again. Relocation is a tedious process. Packing, shifting, unpacking - very much non interesting. But this time I wouldn't feel that bad about moving. I am going to my OWN place. I was thinking... if this is what I feel about a student-room, what a person would feel to OWN a real home? He would be definitely on 9th cloud.

Pattu padikkanenkil kottumthalakku ponam
........................chakittum tharam

News Update: I got a MAC. Yes a 17" iMac - 64bit 2GHz dual core processors; 1GB RAM; ATI Radion 128MB Graphics Card; 160 GB HDD

Made a couple of unsuccessful attempts to install Vista. :( I guess, I got to learn and get used to mac first. Then I should read a little more about vista/mac dual boot. Then I should be successful. I know, people have done this dual boot already.

This happens to be the first Macintosh machine which I keep my hands on. It's kind of good. But, my first impression is that a PC is definitely better. This opinion is prone to change - in fact, it has already changed slightly from day-before-yesterday.

Signing off, Sands.

PS1: The songs and the topic have no connection. They are of entirely different moods. But it came that way!

PS2: This whole post was typed in HTML. Even most of the tags.

A Small Post

Good things are happening to me… like… I am getting crushed! I am in tension, I am under pressure, I am confused, I am a little worried and scared… at the same time “I AM CONFIDENT and OPTIMISTIC” – yeah I am!

Another good thing happening is that I am getting two new friends. The first one I can feel that the wavelength is matching very well – and because of that I talk and talk and lost lot of time. The second one is actually an e-friend – the very first e-friend of mine. But I already feel – that it will turn to be a very good friendship. Very happy for it.

Repeating the first line... “I am getting crushed! I am in tension, I am under pressure, I am confused, I am a little worried and scared” – so, I gotta go and do something about it.

NB: At this point of time, no questions are entertained. I am not looking for any soothing comments. Just wanted to broadcast my mind.

Signing off, Sands.

The Guardian Angel Is Going

How are you supposed to feel when your guardian angel is going away? Actually I am not feeling anything special. Still this post is for him.

Peter, Peter Ullrich - he is the person who helped me the most in getting the PhD position here. He was my guide for my master thesis. Yes, Professor was always there, but the one who really helped me with my technical problems and such things.

Even for my PhD, he was the one guided me in the beginning until prof started looking after me directly. Now too he is very much concerned about me :)

He helped me find the room I live in now. So, altogether he happened to be my Guardian Angel.

Now, he is leaving TUM, going to Swiss for another university. He is in the transition period. He took me out for a coffee today and said bye to me officially. He will be a guest-researcher in TUM till the end of year. But he might be coming once in a blue moon only.

He is a pure mathematician. I cant describe how pure he is as a mathematician. He is a slow animal, he is too soft a character that others will definitely exploit him. As a proof for his non-interest in real-world things, I shall give an example. The wallpaper on his computer is the same for the past 2.5 years. And apparently, that happens to be one of the default wallpapers which come with that distribution of Linux. His desktop is cluttered with icons; - he doesn't even notice those things I guess. What he cares about is only MATH.

As a matter of fact, guidance directly by professor will do better for me than by him - because Peter is not an active character - so his passiveness and my hyper-activeness don't match.

Time for lunch. Signing off, Sands.

 

 

Incredible India

When mind is full of thoughts, life is full of events and you don't find somebody to talk-to always near you, the entries in the posts go high. According to the above stated law, here comes another post in my blog!

I went for ice-skating. Yes ice-skating!! My plan for last evening was the movie "Dream Girls". Somehow I cancelled the movie and it was then my friend asked me whether I wanted to go for ice skating. Why not? - thought I.

It all started with blood. I was just at the entrance, with the rented skates in my hand. Somehow they slipped and my middle-finger got hurt and came just a drop of blood. It was paining a little as it was all cold there. Never mind the pain, my thought was "If what they say is right, everything is going to be well and perfect" - because they say in Kerala that seeing blood is a good omen (Shakunam) when you start something. No idea why I thought that way.

Surprisingly, I found myself to be too scared in the beginning. Later, after the first 10 minutes of fear, I became the quick learner I always am (bragging).

I fell a couple of times. Actually 3 times. Falling is very easy, be a little careless for a nanosecond - then find yourself on your back, lying on the ground. Two of the falls were fine. The other one, I really hurt my buttocks and thighs. My whole body is paining today - especially the above mentioned parts. However, about 90 minutes of learning skating made me tired enough. I will be going there tomorrow again. I have to learn it well in this winter itself.

Today, I went for swimming too. I've been thinking to write about swimming. So many nice girls over there - and all in their swimsuits. Oh my goodness! (these details are for adult males only - so censored). But still, I have to mention that most of the men are NUDE in the bathroom. Also, at one or two times I saw NUDE ladies in their bathroom. No no, I didnt look that way for that. When the ladies' bathroom was opened, I saw them accidently..er.. luckily :)

About one hour in the pool completely refreshes me. I feel exhausted and fresh at the same time. For the past couple of weeks, I go there twice a week and it's really nice. I guess, this swimming would help me reduce my small tummy.

Forgot to mention the Mojito (read it Moheetho) story. Today is my landlady's birthday. She invited me to join her & her guests. Of course, they were having hot drinks and offered me one Mojito. I couldn't believe myself. Just a glass of that thing got me drunk - in just 15 minutes. There was a lady in the party who got drunk well and for her the whole world was just spinning around her - she too had just one glass of Mojito. I didn't have any clue about this stuff. I just wanted to try this new thing. Very nice drink. Tasty, refreshing, different and STRONG. Later I read in Wiki that it's a Cuban cocktail made using rum.

Time to wind up the post. Not having my laptop at home and being not in a mood to read together make me watch TV. In CNN (the only non-German channel available), an advertisement of Incredible India comes. In the 30 second advertisement, Kerala is shown thrice - Incredibe Kerala :).

The ad begins with a Malayali lady smiling. The moment she appears and smiles, I find myself to be smiling too. The ad has been done well. Hence the title is kept to honor our Incredible India and the advertisement. The title should have been like "Skating, swimming and Mojito - to an Incredible Indian" - to capture/match the contents of this entry.

Signing off, Sands.
PS1: How am I blogging if I dont have my "panchali" with me? - I use my landlady's computer.
PS2: Panchali is the name of my laptop. To be precise, "panchali.iformatik.tu-muenchen.de". Very soon I will be hosting my webpages there :)
PS3: Can there be a better name for a webserver? Panchali - anyone can access ;)

Firefox is DEAD

I hate Firefox. It crashes and crashes and crashes. Why? Agreed, that IE doesn’t have all those nice add-ons and stuff. But it never crashed like this.. at least not for me.

In the lab, I have just Linux and this FF thing is dead slow. Why whining..? Got to think about some other browser.

Sands.

NEO: This is incredible. I know Kung Fu.

Yes, he told after TANK loaded programs to his head - for straight ten hours. Do you know how it would have felt for him to say that?

I see, you are still in dark. I'll show you some light. The title is a dialogue from the famous movie THE MATRIX. The hero "Thomas Anderson" says this. Now, why do I say that I know the feeling when he says he knew KungFu?

I say: "I know German". It is a little too much for me to proclaim something like that. But I am filled with joy (not with joy-of-nothing. Lately, even joy-of-nothing is filled with joy of something)

Song of the moment:
Vizhikalil vizhikalil vizhunthu vittay
Enakkul enayaey olithu vethay...
...
Sithariya idhayathe thirudi vittay

Wait a sec... let me stop the song... am not able to concentrate.. !

I have already written that I am going for this German Course. Now, I am starting to get the results of the course. For the past few days I find myself to be comfortable with German. I don't mean that I can talk in German, I gotta go a long way for that. But I do understand quite a bit of it.

This might be the thing they call "the freedom of literacy". I used to feel illiterate in front of posters and notices on the way. I was as bad as deaf when announcements came in train/flight/wherever. Those times are gone. Now I can understand what they are trying to convey through the posters/announcements.

I still consider to be only 10% literate. My aim is to reach such a level that I can stop this blog and start a blog in Deutsch. That too in another one year from now. I guess if she were here, it would have been very useful. I mean Mirchi Suchi. She was one of my favorite Tamil teacher.

Have to listen to radio, TV and also read some small books for KG students. I've asked my teacher to teach me some nursery rhymes and some common proverbs - which I think would be very useful.

Back to reality .. from the cloud number 9. It's a long cherished dream of mine to finish "Concrete Mathematics" by DON. You know what?, in the acknowledgement part of the book, Don acknowledges MY professor's help in the creation of the book.

I have to finish the book soon - I am almost done with first two of the nine chapters. I have to learn MAPLE too - it's a software/language for mathematical computations. Have to implement some algos. Have to speed up myself.

That's all for now. Signing off, Sands.

PS1: After reading through it, why do I feel this post to be too cryptic and cluttered?
PS2: Don't get excited by thinking that I might stop this blog once I learn German. I wont stop - I wont let you live in peace.