Yesterday was mostly an uneventful day, but in accordance with an unwritten pact I have with one of my friends that I’ll try to maintain a minimum average of 7 posts per week on the blog for the next few months, I think I’ll have to blog about the uneventfulness of the day.
After having convinced myself that I must put my best effort into Computer Science, which (*gasp*) is only 3 days away, I wasted a lot of time on doing my least favorite bit of the syllabus – theory. By not concentrating on any particular chapter, but lapping up most of the theory from most of the chapters, I was able to get most of the nastiness behind me. To sum up the experience in one word – Eurgh!
Also, I hope that all of you remembered that yesterday, from 8:30 PM to 9:30 PM, you were all supposed to switch off all electrical devices in your homes. (Okay, so maybe some of you may have chosen to keep your fans on, but that’s forgivable – I didn’t, by the way). I spent most of the hour finishing a letter I was planning to give to one of my friends on the day of the computer exam. It’s going to be a bit emotional, because there’s a lot of uncertainty hanging around when I’ll be able to see some of my hostel-residing friends.
But luckily, unlike, say a decade ago, the permeation of mobile phones (read calls, texts and mobile internet) and the internet (read Skype and everything else basically) throughout most India, no matter where they go, I’ll be able to stay in touch. Of course, it won’t be quite the same as meeting them in person, but its close enough. You can’t really have everything you want, y’know.
Speaking of wishes unfulfilled, 2:30 AM, 31st March will be another one of those moments when a faint glimmer of hope flickers before me. Getting 3 university decisions – Princeton, Cornell and Harvard. It’s a faint glimmer because three rejections in a row does tend to put a damper on spirits and hopes. Compound that with the lack of a Cornell likely letter addressed to me, and it’s a pretty glum outlook. And I won’t be abandoning Georgia Tech for Harvard. Add to that the competitiveness of Princeton, and I think I’ll be sitting this one out. And Stanford, on 2nd April, is a long, long shot anyway.
Reminds me of my old post – Go Jackets?!. I expressed my cautious excitement about getting into Georgia Tech. Not that I have anything against the place, but I was wondering if I could do better. Evidently, Georgia Tech might be the place for me. Unless of course, some miracle happens by the 2nd…
Now, I present before you, a problem I was faced with today, at ~5 AM. My Mom, who works in GK, likes to frequent Open Oven, a nice little bakery on the main road leading into GK. She likes to occasionally pop in and buy some stuff, inevitably in a bid to fatten me and eventually sacrifice me on some altar. I try to abstain from mindless snacking, but when you get up early in the morning, and no one else is awake, you do pretty much tend to eat whatever’s around. So croissant it was, today. Now, the thing is, I am completely oblivious as to how you’re supposed to eat it! I’m not kidding. I have no clue. Do you slice it and spread something? Do you spread something on top? Do you spread anything at all?
I eventually ended up spreading a bit of butter on it and eating it. Fortunately, I have a couple of more croissants left, which shall be experimented upon. Unless someone else eats them all. Which is very probable, especially since my brother is coming home from Mumbai. He’ll be sure to polish them off in no time. Oh, and he’s getting me his old disused guitar. I’m finally going to be having some free time on my hands in a couple of days time. Don’t intend to waste a moment of it. 
March 27, 2011 at 8:13 am
You might wanna check the timings of the Earth Hour again.
March 27, 2011 at 8:17 am
Wups! My bad
March 28, 2011 at 9:28 pm
hey… theory includes just communication …
and the 11th stuff…right?
(p.s. i’ll comment on your french bread later)
March 29, 2011 at 4:21 am
Uh…pretty much. There’s a 2 marker on database concepts too.
March 30, 2011 at 5:36 pm
” Compound that with the lack of a Cornell likely letter addressed to me, and it’s a pretty glum outlook.”
WHY would you expect a Cornell likely letter? Likely letters are VERY rare, and expecting one from a very prestigious Ivy League school comes off as a little on the ‘arrogant’ side.
And NOT getting a “likely letter” from Cornell doesn’t tell you anything apart from that fact that you’re not the TOP 3 kids from India applying to Cornell. You can obviously still get in. In fact, out of the ~40 people who get into Cornell every year, only 3-4 receive the “likely letter”.
So yeah, chill dude
March 31, 2011 at 1:37 am
Haha. You’re right. That was probably me over-reacting a bit. It’s just that I know a couple of people who had received it, so I must’ve disorted my perceptions about the relative exclusivity of that letter. Thanks for that.
March 31, 2011 at 10:45 am
Slew of rejections today… Stanford, Harvard, Yale… not a good way to end the apps… and I’m tired of hearing these colleges saying the same old thing… ‘this year was the most competitive and intense year in the history of the university’s selection process’… just our bad luck, I guess.
April 1, 2011 at 8:30 pm
Same here man. A friend of mine put it rather eloquently – all the rejection letters are like universities tell applicants “It’s not you, it’s me.” And yes, luck has loads more to do with it than anybody involved will be willing to accept.