Off the top of my head

I think with this post I might have set the record for the most consecutive days of inactivity one might have on one's blog-space! Lots and lots of things have changed since my last documented post, and there are too many things to say to give this article a coherent title.
Well, for the uninitiated (which I'm sure most of you must be of my whereabouts), I am in Paris, working, correction slogging (!!), on my second years of Masters studies (Economics and Finance, but more economics than finance). Writing is something that inherently has to have a source of inspiration, and for me its the 'vulnerable' points of my day-to-day life - when I am unexpectedly (pleasantly or unpleasantly) surprised, when I am inestimably frustrated, when I am deeply touched, when I am insanely bored etc etc..One funny thought - Remember Doogie Howser M.D. ? - Yes!, the lead actor of which is Barney Stinston of legen-wait for it-dary fame - Whenever I'm blogging, I have that image of him sitting in front of his classic, text-based, without-a-mouse (I think), Mac (I think again) computer, sincerely typing in his thoughts-of-the-day onto his e-diary, (sign of bigger things to come for me? :)). Anyway, it might be a good thing since it tends to focus my thoughts on to putting my previous thoughts in a thoughtful manner (wow..did you count the number of thoughts?). I have always wished we had an inner-monologue recorder, so that whatever all I say to myself in my head through the day with all the happenings around me, is duly recorded, sparing me the pain of having to recollect the happenings of the day (or in this case the past many days). Another funny thought..inner-monologue always springs up the image of J.D. of Scrubs fame, admittedly one of my favorite shows of all time (long live Scrubs!, even though I we see much less of Zach Braff on it now)
On to more serious issues now, I somehow always stop at the thought of an 'honest' blog..should I be putting down what I honestly think and reason out about things, people, animals, plants (the last two words just came out), without the 'risk' of being forced to rethink my opinions in the future..hmm..hmm..well that's one of the reasons I refrain from keeping a public diary, since it keeps you on a straight line, i.e. politically correct and diplomatic, and I don't normally like to be one of those kinds. Even so, I'll keep things as neutral as possible
I moved to Cite Universitaire from my originally place at the Polytechnique campus (those still in Paris or those who have stayed in Paris for any reasonable length of time will know about it). In short, it is a collection of student residences grouped by different nationalities (for the most part), even though that is nominal and students from any place can have any base provided lodging availability there is still not scarce (hey look..a rhyme!). People like to say and forever vouch that its a happening place, but I'm not been particularly impressed yet. Sure, one has to 'move one's butt', explore events, go to centers of socialization but here are the counterpoints.
One's butt needs to be well-oiled to move out often and mine's become slightly rusty with the huge amounts of reading and studying I have to do. Thus, my poor butt craves for an active butt, in other words a wingman/winggirl who's active in this place of rampant inactivity. On to events, well they mostly entail boring and overly-abstracted art exhibitions, overly-classical music concerts or superoverly-overestimated parties. For god sake, the somber music that I play at home is livelier, catchier and more dance-inducing. The tenders at most clubs don't care a damn about the guy/gal lunging at the counter, repeating himself over and over again for drinks that are at best shitty and way too overpriced. And did someone say centers of socialization, don't even get me started on them - There are bars, brasseries, cafes, well plenty of that, but you should see the faces of people out there (and I have noticed that on a consistent basis) - Its like the life has been drained out of them, stored in a cryogenic can, and buried somewhere beneath the permanent snow of the North Pole (the parts that have not been affected by global warming yet!)...it seems that hard to trace out. The point is why the cold attitude; isn't it freezing enough already (temperatures are touching -1 deg Celsius on an average here these days). Is it the daily grind? Is it the personal financial duress? Is it the fact that most places in Paris seem to be getting overcrowded by the day? I don't know, and I hope they don't 'don't care'. Maybe I should finally conduct a survey and ask Parisians 'Why so serious?' (In true Joker style) . I know Paris is considered laid-back (by my standards at least) but this is taking things a little too far. Anyway, I am your typical, friendly, neighbourhood Spid...no..eternal optimist (:)) and maybe Cite Universitaire has better things in store. And for the love of me, is there a pool table here, open to students, for the sake of some relaxed recreation..
Ohh ya..saw Avatar recently (I still cringe when I here the English pronunciation in trailers, it sounds unreal to say the least). I have to say that James Cameron has done a wonderful job at it; he's made the most out of a good concept. For a while, I swear I was transported to the alien world (wherever it is made out to be!)..One thing though, movie halls here are, on the whole, designed with such minimal comfort! It's like sit (no matter how uncomfortably), watch and then get the hell out of here!! The average PVR cinema in Delhi is much better with its reclining backrests, soft cushiony seats and ample leg-space. If you haven't watched '3 Idiots' yet, I implore you to please do so..it is worth the watch (though slightly over-the-top sometimes), with a message that for long needed to be presented in a watchable manner to the general audience. And yes, the I-Pad does seem to be faux pas to me too...Mr. Jobs we need a more exciting product from your innovative company..
I guess that's just about that I could skim from the top of my head..will keep posted with more interesting stuff, and I actually meant more of such interesting stuff (for those of you caught the pun)...Cheers!

PS : I will really appreciate it, and shower you with monetary gifts (:)), if you give your comments, suggestions, criticisms, abuses (ok, go easy on the last one)

Joey and Scrubs all the way!!

Ok..now what did he say?? I thought that meant something else!! What the f*** is going on?? These are some of my typical reactions when I watch some of the french movies out here, in my cosy room (which by the way is becoming too cosy..getting up in the morning is an ordeal!!) The point is there is little else on offer and with me being unable to access the internet on my comp for now (sounds weird in this day and age), I can't even download any life-saving subtitles. For the uninitiated, that's what I did in Nantes and it is not the most convenient way, but manageable nevertheless. I did manage to find Saw 2 in english (yippee) but that is one movie noone would want to relive (I freaked out again on the first scene). Luckily, in that time of utter desperation and about-to-break-something mood, I found the first season of Joey (follow up to Friends with Joey alone...check out his hot sister) and one of my favorites, Scrubs (three seasons at that). There were also a couple of seasons of Desperate Housewives, but hey I am not that desperate!! (no offence to the creators). So, there you have it..you know the secret to what I do 85 % of the time in my room...the other 15 is to bizarre to mention...I wouldn't like to break some censorship policies. So what will I do once I am over with these two...well...God knows!! There is always the eternal backup of youtube.com with anything under the sky being available, but the videos have a time limit of 10 mins each and the quality borders on the irritable limit.
If you think that I am a movie or sitcom freak all the way, you would have been right two years ago. Living without music is equally difficult!! Over the past two years, I have developed a huge liking for genres of music I never knew of - techno, trance, house, electronica, rock, metal etcetra etcetra..Well to be accurate, I did know of rock and metal stuff earlier but was repulsed by the ear-shattering decibel levels and the crazy looking people who made up the bands. My earlier music diet consisted of whatever was shown on MTV or [V] and was a continuous parade of pop. (Thank you college and random internet sites for opening my eyes, and ears also!) To listen to new stuff, I usually access some Internet radio site, like Yahoo Launchcast, Winamp, AOL etc....free usage is definitely not top of the line, but refreshing anyways!! But, what do you know, even thats not accessible right now! Damn the college lan firewall!! Will have to wait till the sem starts to configure something on my comp, when internet (alongwith it life) restarts. Till then it is the same old, overheard music that is sitting on my hard drive and iPod. So don't be surprised if I know the lyrics of a lot of songs at once! Thankfully there is a hindi music radio player that I can access in the internet room, which keeps me from pulling out whatever is left of my hair (short right now and anyways falling off like autumn leaves, guess the water here is too clean!!).
Till then, cheers to Joey, Scrubs and whatever else I can grab my mouse on (pardon the weird alteration).
PS : If anyone is even a wee-bit sympathetic, don't just leave your comments, send me some good music files via my google id...and kurt cobain (wherever he is) will bless you with a 'rocking' life.

The information bottleneck

Recently (in my case recent can date back to 6 months) I had read something about people in general suffering from information overload. With the television at our constant disposal, the internet becoming the attendant that can be queried anytime and the world, in general, banging down on our doors....it is hell broke loose. In such a situation one can lose track of his personal bearings and everything happens at a breakneck pace. At the end of the day you are pretty much like a zombie going mechanically from one thing to another. At that time I fully understood the pertinence of the article and in retrospect, found myself just another victim. Thankfully or unthankfully that cannot be said of now. My typical day here consists of getting up late (man..the bed is so confortable), scrouging around for food in my room, taking a walk around the hostel, trying to clear the mental cobwebs by surfing the net, making glorious plans of exploring all the European tourist hotspots and some permutation of the above for the rest of the day. Hey, where did all the information inputs go to. If and when I pick up a newspaper here..half of my time goes in understanding what exactly is written instead of the actual news..its a vocabulary binge. Books are now a thing of the past for me as I haven't seen an english one for ages. E-books, that too shared by a friend, are the only things that come close to reading for leisure. Television...what's that now?? The only time I got a decent (relatively speaking) watch was during the French course in Nantes when they showed us a beefed up version of 'The Bold and the Beautiful' which went from scene to scene in mind-boggling plots. I have just the internet here in the common room but the speed, both the computer and internet, irritate me to the hilt. Part of the reason why I have started blogging!! Have I taken a detour from the information superhighway?? Seems like the dark ages with internet!!
So now.. the situation is that I am waiting eagerly for the semester to start so that the ol' factory rejuvenates and perhaps you all (victims of my mindless and uninformative blogs) will get some better stuff. WARNING : The above claim is subject to sudden change. I do not, in any way, take responsibility of any hidden hopes of better-things-to-come being rekindled.

My online abroad 'sejour' starts

It has been over a month since I arrived here in france amidst, initially, all the confusion, anxiety, fear, and the various emotions one associates with panic. Needless to say, the situation has not changed drastically from this initial chaos. The first stopover was Nantes, for my French language course, which was recommended to us very, very 'strongly'. I would normally not mention such a thing, but the fees for this was an eye-popping 1000 Euros. All you European readers (if any) don't scoff at this. It is a huge amount for us to comprehend, atleast for a one-time payment. So the start itself was financially daunting and overwhelming. I prayed desperately for a lastingly fruitful course.
Seems like my prayers were 'presque' answered (Presque is the french counterpart of approximately - I have a fetish for this word..more to follow!). With us being 10 in all (and iitians at that), company was always ever-present. Our coursemates were 20 or so chinese students, all of them who looked below their mentioned ages (in some ways a desirable feature). I follow the 'presque' rule that whatever they mention, take 5 of it and they look realistic. But one has got to give it to them for their exemplary politeness...courteous, soft-spoken and 'toujour' (always!)cheerful. Their enthusiasm and zest in general cannot be questioned - they were ever-ready for all the course activities. Compared to them, we are raucous and totally outrageous beings!! OK..back to the course, the one thing that scared the wits out of us was the fine of 1 Euro (at the minimum) for anyone who would walk in late or would be caught talking in english (the latter rule was slackened during the latter stages). Imagine walking in 1 min late and having to shell out 1 Euro (60 rupees sounds more dramatic!) against all your wishes. But later we found that it was all in good cause as at the end we were given cute parting souvenirs, bought with the money collected. Our classes (all-indian) were taken by Madame Faezeh (was confounded by the name at first). Turned out that she was very helpful, encouraging and fun-loving; she made learning the language much easier and sort of a desirable side-effect of having fun. The oral comprehension and phonetique sessions were irritating at first (cause there was nothing comprehendable) and a tele-serial called 'Plus belle la vie' turned out to be hilarious even though it is a popular drama soap. It was later nicknamed 'Poubelle la vie' - check out a dictionary for this joke! The coursework all-in-all was slightly heavy but manageable. The best thing about the course was definitely the plethora of trips organized in and around Nantes. The best one (according to most of the people) was the one to the nearby vignoble. For the uninitiated these are sort of farms where wines are made, and that includes growing the grapes (raisins as they call them), waiting, waiting, still waiting and then collecting the ripe ones (using a really cool machine) and so on. I'll get to the interesting part : they served us white (not exactly vintage) wine and boy was it good !! I had five glasses in total which sent me into a world of my own....well not exactly but I remember feeling really light-headed. Then I sort of remember having a great time on the way back when we all (the indian folk) really let ourselves go.....please verbally only!!
And now that I am a little amazed at how much I have written (plus a little tired also) I will finish off this post. Stay tuned for more!!!