Fun in the lift

Today's incident was too much. I often look around here and there to find some pretty faces around me and most of the times, do not get caught watching them. After all, its all about experience, I have been doing this from ages ;-) but till today, I have never taken a step ahead. It's not like I am afraid or something, but somehow I feel 'the one' is still to come in my life. Whatever happened today was not planned at all, it was just natural.

Coming to the point, I was going to the cafeteria for my lunch and was standing in lift. Kedar and me, as always were playings pranks at each other. At some floor, the lift stopped and someone went outside. As the lift was about to close, I saw a "pretty face" waving her hand for lift. Being a "good boy", I moved my hand through the door to stop it from closing. I could not see her face clearly but being a seasoned person, I am quite sure that she must be a good looking girl.

As she came towards the lift, I started looking at her and the door was again about to close. I wanted her to come in, but was so much into staring at her that I forgot to move my hands through the door. Instead, I was pushing the door in a opposite direction with all my strengths and in doing so, I almost fell in the lift. I was trying so desperately to prevent the door from closing , but finally Kedar managed it on time. I was like 'What the hell I am doing" as it looked too bad. She must be thinking what an idiot person I am. A "Thank You" from her brought a smile on my face but I did not even replied her saying "You are welcome". What a jerk I am ! By the time the lift went on the last floor, Kedar and me blasted into laughter. Fortunately she got off on 6th floor. We were laughing for about 5 minutes and Kedar was showing me how stupid I looked in the lift. I must have looked like Mr. Bean :-). As Jogya and Sneha came, he shared the story with them from start, not only by narrating, but with acting also.

One should take lessons from every incident in his life and I am looking forward for another opportunity to correct these mistakes ;-)
Amen...

Free as in Freedom

Free as in Freedom is a book ( open book rather) which narrates Richard M. Stallman's journey of Free Software. I finished reading three chapters and can't leave this book aside. It's fantastically narrated and articulated written. The depth of details and style of narration shows that Sam Williams, the author, has taken a hell lot of efforts in bringing the life and career of RMS to larger audiences. It's a typical biography kind of book that tells us how a simple incident of a jamming a printer's paper in MIT's AI lab could be the harbinger of a big movement of open software. Also an incident when a professor at Carnegie Mellon denies to share his copy of a program with Stallman has a tremendous effect on Stallman's mind that it totally changes his path of career.

Stallman's life, his great contribution towards Free Software Movement, the respect that he earned in programmer's community all over the world by his elite yet free programs definitely deserve the attention. Almost everyone who is somehow related with computers knows Richard Stallman. I remember watching a video of his speech on my friend's computer but did not get a chance to read about this revolutionary hacker. This book will certainly add to my knowledge and introduce me to the concept and history of Free Software Movement.

One more notable thing about this book is, for its electronic version, you can pay in free software manner, i.e. by contributing towards it. The book is distributed under GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) , so that we can help improving the work and can create a personalized version and release that version under the same license. Just like any other free software program, this book will also accept patches.... Interesting !!!, I haven't heard of any other book which accepts patches !!!

So, that's what I want to say about it... 11 more chapters to go... I need to finish it up as soon as possible :)

Diwali...

Diwali is one of the most awaited festivals for me because it brings at least 2-3 days of vacation with itself. And those 2-3 days + a weekend can easily make up a half week leave for you. You get an official reason to run away from the work. :) Let me tell you one thing, on the day before the vacation starts, I do nothing. Nothing means nothing related to work, I use my precious time in planning what to do and what not to do in those 2-3 days. Earlier I used to write postcards ( mind you, postcards and not mails) to my friends which generally have a poem of a famous Marathi poet followed by a Diwali wish. I left doing it from last 2 years when my Grandmother and Grandfather passed away.

My mother always complains that I am too busy with my friends when I go home and seldom stay with her. This time I tried to be with her for almost all of the time. I had an urge to meet my school teacher Mr. Kaundinya sir but somehow could not manage it for many days which I finally did now. He is having his by-pass surgery today. My mavashi ( mother's sister) and her two kids ( Pratik and Pratiksha ) were our guests for this Diwali. Pratik is a biggggggggg fan of cartoons , Pratiksha is very cute and loves to dance ( even if she is in lower kindergarten). As always, I met other relatives and had a chat. I went to Shaggy's place ( Shaggy = Abhishek Dnyate) along with Sanket to meet his parents and wish them a happy Diwali.

This Diwali, I had a continuous thought running all over of my mind. This is going to be my last Diwali in India. At least for two years. I will not be here for 2 years, if I get an admit from some university plus the rest of the process goes smoothly. And that, added some tinge of sorrow in the celebration. My mother said it twice or thrice that she will be missing me a lot in next Diwali. I replied saying that we can celebrate Diwali together through web cam, but that did not stop her saying the same thing again and again. I am kind of confused and emotional at times, sometimes I think that I am very selfish in the sense, I am leaving my family and home at the time when they look at me as a responsible person and going away just for my future. And sometimes I feel that this is the right time to achieve something in life and one should take all kinds of risk for it. But many times the second thing overcomes the first one... I should slowly start adapting to it. And that's why I will be going home regularly from now onwards.

Arsenal vs. Manchester United

What you see when you have Arsenal playing against Manchester United? A thriller... This match wasn't an exception. William Gallas's injury time equalizer exemplified the greatness of the game of football, its uncertainty. I was almost breathless when the captain pushed it in the nets. What a relief !!!!

But I must admit that the red devils were superb on the ground. In the first half, Arsenal was having 57% of the possession and they still could not score a single goal. Of course, Adebayer, Fabregas, Hleb and others were trying their best, but somehow could not get the ball through . On the other hand it was the impressive Rooney who gave ManU a breakthrough. Arsenal must be missing Van Persie at that time. Rooney was continuously accompanied by magical Ronaldo and veteran Giggs. But gunners were not sleeping, they are known for bouncing back hard. Eboue gave a lofted pass over the head of the defender; Van Der Sar defended against Adebayor's ground shot but made a big mistake. The ball was going to the byline and ManU's defenders were static, waiting for the ball to go out of the game. There came Sagna who slided the ball to Fabregas. The Spaniard scored his 11th goal of the season.

There was a desperate try form the 18-year old Theo Wallcott who replaced Eboue. His attempt was almost a goal but missed it by a few inches, quite resembling to that of Ronaldinhio's one of the goals in World Cup.With about eight minutes remaining, Evra pushed the ball back to Ronaldo, piercing Gunners defense and Ronaldo slammed it to the empty net. I thought it was the end since ManU were looking aggressive and the gunners were loosing their grip on the game. It was frustrating. It went on to the last two minutes to see a decider and yes, gunners made it. Call it a luck, but still, it was sweet stealing the victory from the visitors.

Hail the gunners !!!!

GRE

I had my GRE on Tuesday, 16th. This was my second attempt and was hoping to score more. I had a poor 1030 in my first go and this time its 1200. So, I did improve but not sure if this improvement is enough to get into a decent school. My scores in mock tests were consistently above 1300 and was quite sure to fall into the same range in the final. But, something went wrong and my plans went awry.

First section of Issue was quite easy. Second one ( The argument) was like a lolly-pop . I took more than expected time in solving first 10 quantitative questions and that sucked. I remember it took me around 5 minutes to solve first problem :( , and it was not that difficult but I was over-cautious at that time. So, having messed up with timings, I should have recovered from the early loss of 4 minutes. but didn't. I am quite sure of solving first 10 questions correctly, but later I must have made some serious and series of mistakes that landed me in a poor show of 690. Verbal was comparatively easy, easier than what I expected. I have a great faith in my vocabulary and that helped me somehow to get into an average score of 1200.

So, that was my second tryst with GRE. I made a same mistake of fumbling at the most important moments and thus incurred a loss of around 100 marks. If it would have been 1300+, I would have been on cloud #9. My academics are not convincing though they show a rising graph, and scoring around 1300 was a must for me. That could have bolstered the chances of getting into some of the good universities. But alas, I did not make it. After talking to some of my friends, I learned that 1200 is not bad at all, and can take you to a decent place, but I am a bit skeptical about it. So what's next? Need to find out a good counselor and search for good recommendations from professors, I am having few names to request for. On 28th I will be having TOEFL, and after that, I have to look into a list of universities for selections. I am god damn sure that this process of selection, getting reco's and SOP's , transcripts. sending them to the concerned persons will definitely take a hell out of me.

I am prepared for one more hectic month!!!