La Plata De Nada

<drumroll>
Enter Alcoholic Toddler.
"Greetings," says the non-comittal bastard, "Greetings, readers, welcome back to my humble blog."
"I come in peace. Apologies are in order, and I will elucidate....as soon as I can make up some excuses."

So it has been a year since my last post. Well, almost. A lot has happened. Not that much of it is important.

I finished all my semesters. I finished my final year project. Hell, I finished college. There were no placements...well actually there was one, but I missed it because I was out of town. Wasn't interested in that company anyway, so it doesn't matter. Which means I'm happily unemployed at the moment.

I have never done any internships, nor any in-plant training. And also, companies don't hire freshers individually by online applications; most of them hire freshers only through campus interviews. So, prospects look bleak. But, as I said, I am happily unemployed.

Most of my time at college was spent doing nothing.
I barely studied...not much studying was needed, since it was the seventh semester, no core subjects, only theory and management. I barely picked up my guitar..in fact, for months, I didn't even look at it. So no progress there.

Then came the final semester. Project work started. After being snubbed by all the companies to which I applied (I started late, because I had no inkling of the procedure involved, and no one told me when I asked), I rolled up my sleeves and thought of several ideas, which were summarily rejected by the new HOD.
In the end, I was left with no choice but to accept the idea offered by the HOD himself, which meant I had to  do it his way or else...
There were problems through the entire duration of the project work..
I'm just glad it's over.
Then came the final exams...satisfactorily completed.
After all this, I had so much free time, it was overwhelming. Overwhelming because

• It was so goddamn hot!(still is)
• the computer was taken (bro was glued to it)
• It was so goddamn hot!!! 

I took a short trip along with family and a friend to kotagiri, a hill station near Ooty. It was a good trip overall, though we had problems with the hotel. The weather was a great relief, after the sultry heat of Chennai. We went to a couple of parks, a waterfall and the Kodanad view point, which was surreal. Some of the incredible scenery could not be captured on a camera. Well, not mine anyway.
We went trekking across the tea estates and in the midst of a rainforest. All in all, four days well spent.

Here are some of the photos:

Cabbage field

Tea estate

Teenage tadpole

Some kind of moss(ter) (super macro shot)

Another kind of moss (super macro shot)

Kodanad view point - 270 degree view of hills all around. The hills are too far away and faint to get a good shot with this camera...you have to be there to appreciate the amazing view

Tea plants

Revival

Hey, I'm back, fellas!
My PC was out of order.Hard disk went defunct, then for a couple of months it wasn't replaced...it was decided that buying a new PC altogether would be better considering the outdated status of the old one...

Finally we decided on a model and lo, here I am! (I don't much like the idea of going to a cyber cafe to blog...ergo no posts until now)

Nothing phenomenally life-altering has happened in the meantime. I gave my exams, completed my project, kept up the photography, beach visits and television marathons. Pretty uneventful and boring. Although there was one part that was of concern; my mom's wrist surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome, but all's fine now.

Spain won the Euro, once again!(too late to talk about, but still)
College has started way too soon, and I'm not even sure if any placements will be possible this sem...prospects are looking appallingly bleak. I've taken a couple of days off to recover from a bout of throat infection and fever...and also so I can finally go and watch The Dark Knight Rises this evening..heh heh.

Something to distract me from the vortex of confusing musings of the evasive future plans.

I went to Mysore for a measly two and a half days...had a good time, nonetheless.

It's frustrating how the mind draws a blank after a long hiatus from writing...I'm just typing whatever passes through my aching head, in no particular order. The longer I pause to think, the more confused I become about what to write....stupid mental inertia..
oh, well...I'll just post a load of photos I took this June and July..just a few, mind...I don't have time to upload them all.

Misery of May

Hello, I'm back..
Sorry for the delay in posting...again...(I seem to keep doing this- but in my defence, it's difficult to blog with my head up my ass)
weird things keep happening here.

#1. I activated the internet, finally, and it had been barely a fortnight when I received a bill for more than 35000 bucks.

#2. Termites have infested the place..one of the doors has been dislodged from its hinges as a result. Also, a small hill keeps growing on the courtyard walls. Creepy and irritating.

#3. One fine day I decided to cook myself some maggi. I found the packet riddled with holes made by red ants who had populated it so much that I could barely see a patch of noodles without an ant on it.

#4. My morning walk was interrupted by a 1 metre long snake casually crossing a path near my house.

Living in a mini forest may sound awesome but it sure has its share of  complications.

Apart from all that, my exams are coming up...they were to start on the 9th but got postponed by a week. People keep telling me they hope I'm studying well....and I keep telling them I hope so too...<sigh>..some people never learn..

I might go rabbit hunting soon..I just got wind of the fact that there exist some wild hare in this campus. Gotta get me some pics of wild hare and some foxes as well. It'd be nice to add that to the collection.

I sometimes go to the beach in the morning...its nice to get that whiff of sea-breeze early in the day, it just kind of fills you with some sort of energy.

Energy you can dispel all day, not studying...heh heh.

But i got a whole load of syllabus to cover, so i can't sit my ass here much longer, and i certainly can't afford to think up something funny to make you laugh out loud until my exams are over....

By the way, power cuts are a bitch...

Into the misery of May I dive.....so long, fellas..

<SPLASH!!!!....SHIT>

March 2012

Ahoy there..
Been a while again, my apologies....it was the damn internet connection. What with commuting 5 hours a day and all the remaining work I didn't have time to get it fixed. All's taken care of now, so...........here I am!

This past month has been a tad eventful. I went to a couple of symposiums and discovered that I am as knowledgeable about engineering as a dog's flea bitten ass. Needless to say, it was very morale-boosting to know that.
I've been suffering from a kind of writer's block lately, since it's been such a long time, and I haven't written anything concrete. This applies to my exams also, although I manage to concoct some wild theories of my own, based on the combination of my irrefutable sense of 'alternative' logic and pure, unabashed, spontaneous stupidity. It's often that I'd be doing the proverbial 'laugh till you fart your pants all the way to Jupiter' routine upon reading my answer papers...and to top it all, I'll be getting anywhere between 70s and even 90s out of 100. Maybe the prof was high while checking the papers...who knows? Who cares?

Anyway, there was this one incident where I was back to my blundering idiot mode...

March 16, 2012

It was a morning of stifled yawns of barely stifled farts. The electricity had been out almost the whole night, and I just couldn't sleep. I somehow dragged myself to the bathroom and bathed after brushing and shaving....
After my small breakfast of oats, a couple of sandwiches and a rotting banana peel, I stumbled out of the house. Half asleep, I cycled till the main gate, dismounted and parked the bicycle(BSA Ladybird) with a skid near a dog's grumpy face. After being chased for 20 m or so I crossed the road and walked till the bus stand, wide awake at last..

Not for long, though..

Once in the bus, the spinning stupor returned, possessing me for the entire route. Fortunately, the last stop was my destination. I got down and sleepwalked till the platform and dumped myself onto an empty seat on the local train. You're probably wondering how come I found an empty seat in a local train....well, it was 7 in the morning. I unceremoniously flung my bag onto the luggage rack overhead, fell asleep almost instantaneously........









I woke up.
It was 8:20.
I missed my station.
oooooooooooooooooooooooh crap.
I sprang up, slid the bag from the luggage rack, and quickly got off at the next station.
Something is wrong, my sixth sense told me....
Why does my bag feel so light?...I'd brought a shitload of books to return to the library...
I got the answer soon enough...it wasn't my bag.
Like the cliched movie scenes, just then the train left the platform.
oooooooooooooooooooooooh crap.

I opened the bag and found a fat wallet in a plastic bag. Enter devilish grin.
I realise that the other person would probably register a case of theft when he realises what happened. Devilish grin vanishes immediately.
With a Shahrukh-esque expression on my face, I head for the station master.
There is no station master.
I dial the guy's number, which I got from the wallet.

"hello?"
"kaskhajh"
"I got your bag by mista-"
"asjagsdjgjg asdlkjuiyuiweyjgjhgagdnbn akdkahkdsuuysudyjghjg"
(It's all Greek (tamil) to me)
oooooooooooooooooooooooh crap.


I take the next train to the last stop and visit the railway police station.
I hand them the bag and file the report, before one can be filed against me.

Two hours later, I get my bag back. Report retracted.....whew..
I take the next train back.


I reach the college.
oooooooooooooooooooooooh crap.(I HATE my college)

The End.




Yesterday was my birthday.
With my financial situation and otherwise, I had never been to a pub before. My bro told me to meet up at a pub he got to know about, after college. I did so, but couldn't reach soon enough...I missed the stand up comedy and a few of the songs by the visiting band...Molotov Cocktails.
It was nice though....They still played a few songs after I dropped in. Alive by Pearl Jam, two more that I don't know, and for a nice finishing touch, Killing In the Name by Rage Against The Machines.....nice band.
Plus....FREE BEER!!!!!!!
After that, I had a nice dinner at a restaurant near our place with my bro and mom...
All in all, a nice birthday experience after a looooooooooooooooooooooooong time.

Cheers!

This is the Alcoholic Toddler signing off.

Trip to You-don't-know-where

Ole!
Its seems like a long time since the last leap year. So here I am, posting on a date that won't come again for another 4 years...
Woot Woot!

You may recall that I had mentioned a brief stay at an undisclosed location in my last post for 2011...well, gape away at the pictures!



November/December 2011.

I won't take the name of the place....because the enigma makes it all the better. My great grandfather used to live here...his wife, that is to say, my great grandmother, still does..

I enjoyed the stay, watching trains pass by (the house is right next to the track), picking the fruits from the garden, reading a novel, playing the greatest chess match I ever played in my life, strolling on the beach, and eyeing, not too surreptitiously, that oh-so-pretty foreign chick taking in the view...

The beach there is perhaps the cleanest I've seen in India. And the food my great grandma makes is just extraordinary. Unbelievable delicious, all with homegrown veggies and fruits.

A very short two days, but the best of the year, by far.

Here are the pictures...

vanilla creeper

mini sized chillies...picture taken from a distance of less than 3 inches

cashew tree

supari

heh heh

supari layed out to dry on the roof

sunrise on the beach

patterns made by crabs

green peppers

a growing pineapple

and another one