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College Life Events Music

Updates as of 31st October, ’08

Been a while since I last blogged and several things have happened meanwhile including intervals of idleness.

First, getting back on track with my final year project. I was given a last chance and I took it. Although, after having started watching Kaiji I feel like I should get really serious about it. It’s mostly system integration work and addition of a layer of easy configurability. Java work and it’s pretty interesting stuff going by the underlying technologies that are involved and why it sets itself apart from the smaller ones as an Enterprise-level software. /me points to Alfresco.

For two weeks, I’ve been suffering from an upset tummy. It’s a sad thing. Due to which, I couldn’t even attend the events at this year’s Cultural Festival (don’t ask my why “.org”, I don’t know) in my campus. Synchronicity, my favourite event in Antaragni, is a rock fest. Of course, there’s metal too \m/. This time around, around 25 bands showed up for round one preliminaries and 8 (or 9) managed to go upto round two. The finale had the best 5 from round two perform first followed by the main show by Irish band Glyder. And, yes, my stomach stopped me from staying back for Glyder and I don’t really feel like I missed it. It’s not the genre I’m into. But those two days of preliminaries and the pre-Glyder performance was something I was very satisfied with.

Antaragni is over, and so is Deepawali, the festival of lights. I had a good time that eve in my Advisor’s house. Fireworks with kids, prepared our own food, discussed some Philosophy – that was a nice family evening. Too bad I caught a cold while returning to my hostel.

Categories
Anime College Life Entertainment Exams

Summer 08′ Anime Season Ends

Zero no Tsukaima season 3 ended a week ago. The ending looked like they were in a haste. One more episode for World Destruction and it was just getting interesting.

Soul Eater is progressing well, but currently, the fansub group that has been releasing on time for the past two weeks don’t seem to like doing the h264 encodes. Naruto Shippuuden, although out of fillers, still wastes a lot of time with people jumping around on trees.

Code Geass R2 ended today. And what an end it was. Highly recommended shows (season 1 and 2) if you don’t mind unpredictability (in other words, good suspense) and a great, thought-provoking storyline.

Incidentally, it’s midsem exams time now. I’m supposed to be busy so I’ll sign off at this point.

UPDATE: Code Geass R2’s ending isn’t as simple as it might seem. Going with the unpredictability of Code Geass and that it’s a Sunrise/Gonzo production. There’s probably more to it: http://animeotaku.animeblogger.net/2008/09/code-geass-r2-25-so-is-lelouch-dead-or-not/

Categories
College Life Worldly Matters

Of terrorists, wasps and paranoia

I’ve always wondered why most westerners turn paranoid with an Arab working amidst them or even with wrongly caught Indian Sikhs at airports on suspicions of terrorism without actually confirming their intentions. Sometimes, I see these Arab comedians who talk about how stigmatised it is to live the life of an Arab in these western countries as westerners themselves. I’ve felt bad for the Arabs for this. But when news such as this shows up every now and then, it makes me think – maybe they’re not wrong for being so paranoid.

It is difficult to see who’s a terrorist and who’s not. I know, you’d tell me to understand the Arab culture first and then you won’t have such trouble (or something along those lines). But, no, it’s not that simple. Once stung, you’ll want to take lesser chances, unless you’re this guy who was with us until last year ;/

We have these orange coloured wasps here which are pretty actively roaming around looking for human prey to sting. They usually settle in humble places such as AC switches or the Library’s nook and corners. My policy with these little guys is to not aggravate them or bother with them. Even if they’re in my room, I just let them fly around and lead them out of the room if possible. Rahul Saraf, on the other hand, always found it amusing or I-don’t-know-what to go and slap these AC switches whenever he walks past them. And out come these wasps and bite his cheeks :D. Funny part is, he doesn’t get it. He’s done that thrice and has been stung on the same spot thrice ;/

Some of my other pals just squash them at sight. I’ve told them not to do that and also proposed a theory to them which goes like “these wasps remember you by smell, they’ll haunt you if you happen to harm them even once. If you leave them alone, they’ll leave you alone too”. Holds true for me, at least the second part does. I’ve even woken up without any stings on my body with these little ones flying around in my room all night. (Yes, I’m a nature-person. Er, don’t ask me about the geckos now ;v)

So, coming back to what I started off with. Even if you understood the Islamic people well, in places such as Britain, which is a place where Islamic people from different parts of the world are settled for quite some time now, it’s still difficult to pick the odd one out. Some suspect that the Islamic locals “protect” these potential terrorists until they say good bye during a suicide bombing session. In such scenarios, I’d probably be just as paranoid.

I’ll dream of world peace, as I lie down to sleep now, in the CSE lab.