Henry Wadsworth... Longfellow

It has certainly been a long time since anyone saw this page. For the few who maintain RSS feeds to this page (I wonder why), it must have been that blip on your feed reader that led you here. I guess you’ll be seeing ample reason as to why you might give up on one of those, pretty soon. I’m not into public information and I don’t have the courtesy to inform any that this blog is closed (for heaven’s sake, it isn’t!). For once, I’d like to put a long, long post. This post has been pending for a full third of a year, from July. I wouldn’t be delaying it any longer. There are 2 parts – with a temporal separation, and possibly, an intellectual separation as well.

Caesarean Section

In the beginning, it is said, there was nothing. There is nothing throughout, for some. It is probable that this drives some to write, about this endless nothingness, this absurd null-potency, this negligible drop in a mighty ocean that one is. For some, there is no drive. Independence is farfetched. A slave to the unsurpassable, if it be called, one is to be. It is a mental block, a psychological and philosophical handicap. It transcends everything else, and arguably, this may as well be the reason for belief. This will just raise further questions – what is belief anyway? It is rather impractical to ponder about something abstract as this. To some, this naivety is a good curtain, or in certain cases, as may be, a shield. To be honest, in earnest, please do not read this. This may be comparable to sending a letter to someone in an envelope, with the contents of the letter being ‘Do not open this letter’¹; or comparably, as good as putting up an advertisement that reads ‘This is not an advertisement’. A ritual, it may be; so to be written, or typed. Convolution and complexity are beautiful, but not in a clear-cut sense. It is unnecessary to abstract the information that is predictably of no interest. July, August. It is rational to assume that a well-read person would either despise of the despicability and immaturity of the idea; or raise an eyebrow, for a thought.

This is not written in a pensive² mood. A quick look at some profiles on Orkut would tell you how often ‘pensive mood’ is the title of a number of photos in albums. I did not think before this. I am not a thinker. I am one among those with the philosophical handicap. But I dare not be proud of it. Ego, whose existence is irrefutable, yet unjust, refuses to think. A blog is not a place for such immaterial things – it is the place for reviewing movies and music, commenting on social issues, droning about how one is dissatisfied with anything and everything under the sun, advertising one’s proficiency in language etc. I don’t want to offend anyone by putting in references here. I am narrow-minded, stubborn, idiotic, but that is what everyone is. But knowing that I am idiotic is better. I wouldn’t claim this is existentialism and I wouldn’t be very hesitant to ignore a question.

As for what has happened, the times have been better than average. A well-deserved 2 weeks at home so that I could get some time to do nothing, it was nice. I fail to remember but someone has said that the best thing to do when you really need a break is nothing. It should clear your mind of all the other things in life. Once you have a clear and straight thought, things are just thrust wide open. I get a morbid urge to put reference to how things can be opened by sleeping³. I don’t think anyone unknown to me will be reading this, so the references make sense. I enjoy this needless idleness, knowing that you can leave open ends. And now, for something completely different⁴, the reason for the title of the previous post – I had got myself into anime. So I decided to put Japanese in the title. And the first letters of all the words together will read ‘Jap o Jap’. Abrupt end of part 1… I think I’ll soon be scaling new heights (read depths) in arbitrariness.

Plus Two

I figure out that, irrespective of how arbitrary and chaotic you can be, there should still be some order. Lots of examples come to my mind. One of them is how there is order in chaotic systems like turbulence⁵. It was all in a lecture. The second (to none⁶!) is saying that you can kiss goodbye to the chaos you thought existed, nature isn’t fractal anymore⁷. I have so many references here I can call this post Hash⁸-Bash. I would have loved to copy the Wiki symbol for references. When I make my webpage, I suppose I will use the Wiki template. As if, for as idle as I am, it’ll be done before you can say antidisestablishmentarianism⁹, wibble, charge etc. These types of references have been very useful in something I did, the Shaastra Main Quiz.

That was a whole episode of back-to-bed-is-something-you’ll-never-say-runs. The pay-off was just below the mark, thanks to an unnecessary interruption for an ethical (?) prank. If I ever finish making my webpage, I’d love to put up all the questions there; including the ones that couldn’t be asked. The other thing I truly enjoyed was the Ignobel. When you exercise your humour to try and make someone laugh, when all you normally do is give them neuralgia; you know there’s a spark of something new. All said and done, it came at a noticeably large cost. I have been watching xxxHolic, and some things I have seen reflect many of the realities I have come to appreciate. One episode¹⁰ seemed to show how the costs reflect on us. I don’t think the reference will tell you the entire story, but the idea (if you did read the page) is the high baby chair that Yuuko takes. It is the one that the woman’s baby sits on to eat. There! That’s the little spark, the subtle point in the episode. Looking a step further, does it even make sense getting inspiration for life from some work which is not even true? Why should you take ideas from something which is totally fictitious, let it be a book or a movie? I suppose once you start questioning your belief, you will never have enough answers.

Questions… and answers… solutions rather. The assignment was an exposure to how things happen at the last moment and still work. By the assignment, I mean the assignment we did in our Heat Transfer course. Making questions in Numerical methods in Conduction, and solving them. I succumbed to the work-at-the-last-moment policy for solving the problems. I must admit, it was my belief in the group that made me work. I guess it might pay off well. Num3rouno, we called ourselves. This is the group that we discuss in, the group that sits at a lunch table talking all kinds of esoteric issues, yet a lot of innovative and novel things. I bow to you.

Oh my god! I went so far forgetting what I began with – order. I was about to write the idea behind the title when I got started with it. This is where I have ended up. The idea is guessable. For the reason of order, I kept it the same. September, October - 2 more than their Roman numbers. I want to write about my Plus Two at school, since I mentioned it anyway. That was probably the last time I had done an assignment of that sort.

To wrap it up, these are my class photos in 2 years of Plus Two (11th and 12th obviously! I didn't have to repeat a year then) The photos are in chronological order.