Bad Mood

I hate people listening to “Bon Jovi-Its my life” all day (I hate that song btw) thinking they’re certified rock-freaks. My teammate is one such pretentious moron, who starts the day off humming whichever sh*tty song RadioCity played last, before we got off the bus.

Today had KK on radio, trying to pass off as Mallu. What an insult. He murmured some supposedly-endearing words in the language, I couldn’t make head or tail of. And sang stupid songs. All it left was a bitter aftertaste. Tomo, I’ll just keep the earphones on.

Sorry Saif, I really love you, but I just can’t stand the rot they force-feed us on 91 FM. It starts off the day at work with me looking like a thundercloud walking into office.

The only ray of light today was cognition of the news that Amal Isaiah (1 yr my junior at CV Ekm -> Neuroscience at St. John’s) has been chosen as one of this year’s Rhodes Scholars!

Back2SUN

I’m back in my old bay today. Met with SN, who has great plans in store to dev me into a tech expert. Took a look at the Project docs n’ its all greek n’ latin. God save me.

Took the IIFT test y’day. It was BAD. It had 5 sections (2 hrs): Verbal was a cakewalk, DI was good, Math was tough (lots of trig n’ diffn.), GK was crazy as expected, but the new RC section was killer!! I’m banking on the work ex factor to do its part.

IMS has totally screwed up this year. On a scale of 1-10, the SimCATs were 5 and the mock IIFT tests 3, but the real IIFT test was 7 and CAT 8! So when IMS – Part E comes, I know what to do. Expect just the opposite of what the sample FMS/XAT papers look like!

Otherwise, y’day was good. Roamed about with Gaurav, AKutty, Rajiv, Hari, etc. Ate at Hungry Buddha, Aiwa’s n’ Corner House after a long time. I also bought a C210.

Back2Work

After a mere three days of idle time at the office, I’ve been assigned a project. I asked to go back to my old project, which had decent work n’ a crotchety PM. Now he’s been replaced by SN, my main man, who asked me if I’d be interested in joining, and I replied “YES!”

Need to get my debit card reissued (lost my wallet in Aug), so I went to ICICI Jayanagar. I had to change my office address to the new location first. Gotta wait while that is done before getting the card sent. Gaurav chatted up a Customer Service babe while I was doing this n’ ended up applying for a credit card. I followed suit.

Thakur called me y’day after a long time. He has an offer from TAS, where he did his summers. But he’s sitting for placements in March anyway. Awesome chap that. He said TIME cutoffs were more realistic than what IMS quotes, so we’re hoping Aravind (who scored less in quant) gets all calls. n’ that makes my MDI call a real possibility (oxymoron!), or should I say possible reality?! 😉

Gotta shift to the new cubicle before I bring my headphones. I’ve got the latest iTunes and am all set to get ROCKing! Till then, my iPod Shuffle (thank you, Vittu!) serves music needs.

Fourth Day

Got to B’lore on Friday. The new house is quite tiny, but the bathroom is good, tiled n’ clean. It was the first room I really saw in the house, when I dashed in with the usual gas problems which a trip on a Volvo bus warrants. The last time I suffered was on a Hyd-B’lore trip. I alighted at Indiranagar that time, n’ almost battered Rakesh/Kicha’s door down at 5 a.m. on my way to the loo. I swore never to board a Volvo again, but the b*st*rds at Yesbee cancelled the sleeper and made me travel again. This time, I popped in a Stemetil which proved useless. I almost downloaded at Hosur, but exercised superhuman restraint and did some MJ dance moves to block bandwidth.

Friday: Vonamor – 3 pegs

The house itself is neat n’ well painted. The area is horrible though. There’s a garbage dump close by and a lot of dust. BTM 1st stage is primarily a Muslim area, n’ ours is quite interior- so its really shady. But the Mallu chai shop below is a bonus. I had a blocked/running nose when I woke up on Sat’day, n’ thanx to the low voltage, the heater didn’t work, so I decided to sleep over at Vineesh’s place. When the sun rose on Sunday morning, everything was perfect. I rode Kicha’s bike to JNC n’ reached in good time for the CAT. Released at the loo n’ marvelled at the smooth synthetic desk surface whilst shading circles.

I was drumming my fingers when the q. paper flopped onto my desk. 90 questions as opposed to last year’s 120-odd. ?. Twenty 2-marks n’ ten 1-marks. The reverse of CAT ’04. ??. None of the usual VA q’s I crack so easy n’ lots of RC’s. ???. Crazy DI/LR’s with 3-inch long q’s. ????. Stress on difficulty rather than speed+accuracy. Last yr, I attempted 16 1-mark q’s in DI n’ got 98%ile. It looked like they were targetting me. I think I did better than last time though. MDI looks a distant possibility. But I shan’t blame anyone. I had time on my side. Nothing however, could have prepared me for this. So I’ll just gear up for IIFT this wknd n’ FMS/XAT in Jan.

Sunday: UB Mini – 1 no.
Monday: Vonamor – 2 pegs
Tuesday: Vonamor – 2 pegs
Wednesday: ?????

Update: Vonamor – 3 pegs

Happening..

A lot has happened over the last week, foremost among them my serve. Last week, I played Tommy n’ lost 2-6. He’s a 40-yr-old tall smart finance consultant, also being coached by Mr. Shah. I held serve just once and broke his as many times. Most were love games. No, not the sort you’re thinking.

Things have changed since. Shah taught me how to serve on Thursday. Place feet in a line, a foot off the center, perpendicular to the baseline. Left foot forward, pull racket head back behind the shoulder first. Toss the ball, away from the body, so that it travels straight upwards. Bring arm forward n’ move upper body to transfer weight while you connect at full stretch. While you hit with the sweet spot, close the racket face above the ball to get some spin. Land with right foot front. Focus on weight transfer.

Using these fundae, I played Tommy today n’ lost 3-6, but as some daft reporter commented of the Sania-Sharapova match earlier this year, “the score doesn’t reflect the quality of the game”. Yes, though he double-faulted as often as I used to, I did just once n’ every game went to Deuce or close.

Off-season F1 news is very interesting. McLaren have been dealt a severe blow with Adrian Newey’s departure. He was the most valuable person in the team n’ I hate to see him leave. Call it Red Bull windfall. Narain is done for, but Midland say the real cause is his management (Indian!) rather than the fee. I got an opportunity to drive the Hyundai Accent CRDi y’day. Probably has to do with being new, but it displaces the City as my fave car thanks to awesome pickup, nice reclining position, n’ steering wheel not knocking my knees. Anyone got a VTEC ’00 I can try, to reinstate my loyalty?

I read The God of Small Things. Its got the most superb language I’ve ever read in ANY novel n’ I’m totally bowled over with A. Roy’s style. Otherwise, the book’s quite a drag, perverted, depressing, anachronistic and without climax. I watched National Treasure today. Good movie to watch after reading DVC or The Alchemist. Nicolas Cage is impressive as usual, but I’m besotted with Diane Kruger.

Deepu came over one day n’ we called Anand to play snooker. Did three frames on the English table n’ we all won one each. Then Anand taught us how to play ‘Tripsy’. Awesome game played with balls on the pool table. Each guy chooses his set of 5 balls (1-5 or 6-10 or 11-15) n’ tries to pot the others’. Well, I’m enjoying life. The last SimCAT is tomorrow n’ I’ve done nothing since 6th.. except this.

[Listening to Air Supply & Mehnaz – You are the reason..]

Last but one

SimCAT7 was a fiasco. I went late altho’ I was ready by 9, ‘cuz I waited for Sandeep. Hm, we were told off by the organizer. Had only 15 min to fill in the data n’ shud’ve left it after completing the important sections, but took time off reading the instructions on the q. paper. After I gave verbal 40 min, I realised there were 4 sections!! Then it was just contingency- thought I would score high, ‘cuz verbal is my highest-scoring area, but ended up with my lowest score yet- 44! What made me happy was, I managed to score 11 in quant, which is more than I got last time, in lesser time! Kolli, thanx.. I think the method worked out. n’ Folks, tho’ it didn’t help me today, I’m sure checking out the TIME quant material will make a big diff on the real test. I began y’day. The “Numbers” chapter is just awesome! I loved it..

[Listening to Carolene – Thiruda Thiruda – Thee Thee (4.57)]..

The Table

Red Bull have named their new team, and so has Honda. Thankfully, it looks like Karthikeyan won’t be driving next year, though Takuma will and Heikki won’t. :`-(

Renault (FRA) Fernando Alonso (SPA) Giancarlo Fisichella (ITA)	McLaren – Mercedes (UK) Kimi Räikkönen (FIN) Juan-Pablo Montoya (COL)
Ferrari (ITA) Michael Schumacher (GER) Felipe Massa (BRA)	Toyota (JPN) Ralf Schumacher (GER) Jarno Trulli (ITA)
Williams – Cosworth (UK) Mark Webber (AUS) Nico Rosberg (FIN)	Honda (JPN) Rubens Barrichello (BRA) Jenson Button (UK)
Red Bull – Ferrari (UK) David Coulthard (UK) Christian Klien (AST)	BMW (GER) Nick Heidfeld (GER) Jacques Villeneuve (CAN)
Midland – Toyota (UK) Christijan Albers (HOL) Anthony Davidson (UK)	Squadra Toro Rosso (ITA) Vitantonio Liuzzi (ITA) Scott Speed (USA)
Suzuki Aguri-Honda (JPN) Takuma Sato (JPN) Sakon Yamamoto (JPN)

[Listening to John McLaughlin & Zakir Hussain – ‘Vikku’ Vinayakram..]

Volley

I was a li’l tired when we began coaching today, and my ground strokes were all going haywire. I wasn’t taking an early backswing. So Mr. Shah taught me how to volley. I found Wiki has excellent pages for Tennis Shots and Grips too. I use the Eastern..

Its like you’re up with your back against a wall. No time for a backswing or a change of grip. When you hit the ball, chop to give it some under-spin. If you have the time, step forward n’ use a punching action to deliver more pace.