Continuation from the previous post ...

Even the dinner could not take away the boredom!! So started to randomly browse thru blogs ... came upon this amazing one!!

http://nitsujcm.blogspot.com/2005/10/beginning-of-beautiful-friendship.html

Its a chat between an Indian and American ... the settings of a new friendship (or whatever u might want to call it after going thru it)!!

Finally stopped laughing after quite some time ... then finally went to work and returned home at 2:30 in the morning!!

RANDOM & USELESS THOUGHTS

Have been sitting in class for the whole day today ... have finished chatting up with everyone I could have possibly chatted with from the morning, finished reading previously unread blogs, finished playing TT for the day as well and am still waiting for work!! What else would a sane brain do than ponder upon useless things?

To start with the immediate - the work for the day is to load radioactive souces into tools. Well, by radioactive I mean quite a bit dangerous ... so was wondering if I might screw up my future fatherhood!! Or even if I did not, the possibilty of bearing cancerous children!! Also kept pondering upon the impending end to a "dynasty" in case the above came true.

Went on to read some of Sandy's previous blogs (just to take my mind of these useless things) ... only started to ponder upon my "old age" instead!! Oh boy ... never thought about the fact that I did indeed look upon kids with a fatherly attitude!!

Read all the tags (DD, Sandy, Suddu ...) and started dreading the day when someone might do the same to me!!

Learnt a new word - antighinastic (don't remeber who but someone wrote that on his blog). Am yet to figure out the exact meaning, but it does sound quite dreadful!!

Got more worried about my upcoming presentation since one more guy complimented me on having developed a pronoounced Scottish accent ... well, not really complimented but more like told; but what the heck, I'll take it as a compliment!!

Saw two guys on Yahoo Msngr with status messages pertaining to end sems and then read about Sandy's realization #186. How true ... started to wonder the worst sem exams I had ever faced in Kgp. Turns out that I felt the mid sems of the 8th sem to be the worst ... always that feeling of freedom at last being "so close yet so far"!!

Used to wonder about the excellence of our 'chefs' in Kgp ... seems like they used to cook **** food than what we get here!! (tats not meant to be an abuse but they are 4 stars)!! God only knows how these guys can cook such tasteless food. As one of us says we don't feel sorry for ourselves for having to eat this shit but rather for those poor creatures who eat this from birth to death!!

Enough of senseless rantings ... gtg and have some more shit in the name of dinner!! Maybe that'll make my brain blank enough to stop thinking completely ...

REASONS TO BE HAPPY & SAD

First and foremost Scholars' Avenue is back!! Woow ... great going guys ... its one of the best things to have been started in Kgp!! And of course a big big thanks to alums like Joyjit and Roy who took enormous pains to "bug" the upper echeleons of Kgp to get things sorted out.

Some more reasons to be happy -
1. Its become unusually warm out here. After a week of 'deep-freezing' (analogy from a freezer) temperatures, its back to about 10-12 degrees!! Sweeeeeet .....

2. Finally saw a "tote" (refer to the comments on this post) in Schlumberger n will be seeing her for the next 2 weeks daily!!

3. Have been "playing back" ... don't bother what it means, except that it is a senseless way of numbing your brain at the end of 4 hours at the end of which you feel euphoric at having learnt nothing and achieved even less!! (happy because it helped me spend an otherwise boring Sunday).
In fact at the moment, I have 3 colleagues in front of me still hard at 'playing back' ... and I am deriving sadistic pleasure waching them tearing their hair apart while I blog and 'laugh' (as our instructor says)!! Not that I'm done but have no hair left to tear apart ... so gave up!!


4. Had some Jack Daniels' ... truly amazing!!

Now the sad parts -
1. Have to go back to school tommorrow once again to handle nuclear sources ... God help my babies!!

2. Went to Calgary yesterday but learnt that lap dances are illegal (please contact over yahoo msngr for further details)

3. Got 'raped' in the last practical exam we had ... of course not just myself, but the whole class in general. Hence the "second sixtieth playback session" to get things right ... damn the Scot!!

4. My friends say that I too am picking up a Scottish accent!! N my presentation is coming up shortly!!

Another problem -
A 'lady' (trying to be polite) rang up my home from my bank ... my parents could not understand her Queen's accent!! Now they have assumed for some reason that I am upto no good and are trying to make discreet enquiries about my supposed activities in this part of the world!! God help me!! Was wondering ... How come she never rang me here but rang up my parents??

SOME FUNNY MOMENTS IN "SCHOOL"

Back from the long break!! Not much of a break actually rather was slogging too hard at work to have any time to post.

Its been a real hectic week starting from Tuesday and finally came to an end today. There were exams and practicals as usual ... no wonder people call this "school"!! Teachers try to be nasty all for the excuse of simulating real life environment in fields and how bad clients can be and not to mention how uncooperative they can be at times. Here's our instructor's favourite line ....

"I'm not your fa(tf)er, not your mo(tf)er, not your slave, not your assistant ... am only here to facilitate your learni(nf)!!" (read that in a Scottish accent, which makes even the Queen's accent seem better)

Sounds logical? ... imagine when he keeps uttering that when you are in a spot of bother and desperately want some help ... out he comes whistling as if it was the pleasantest day in the year and tells you that!!

When someone told him on his face (at the start of school) that no one could understand fully what he said, thanks to his accent, his retort went like ...
"Thats ok ... almost no one outside Scotland ever did ... but since I'm your instructor, you have just 2 days to try and pick up as much of it as possible!!"

Not sure if he was trying to be funny.

Once I seemed to get the better of him in class, only to realize this guy wasn' t so easy to get by ... pat came the reply -
"I may be ol(df), I may be bal(df), I may wear glasses but I am not fu***ng stupid, Souvik!!"

Once we had been given a lot of work to do by our instructor and one of us was trying to delay the stuff on grounds that all of us were not there at the moment. Of course, he got snubbed. He tried to fight it out a little longer saying that we beleived in team work and that of course we wouldn't like to really do so much work without involving our entire class. The retort was classic - He sniffed the air thrice and ... "That smells like proper bullshit to me, Jaime!!"

Once we were logging (thats the term for what we do) in a truck and there was some problems sending down power to the tools. Of all people to appear at that moment (talk of Murphy's law), in came our instructor ....
"OOOOHHHHH, diiiisaaaaster!!! What shall we doooo?? Who shall we call ... 911??" (again in that Scottish accent)

But the best of all goof-ups ....
There's a guy called Osama K in another school batch, also at our location. Incidentally we all landed in this paranoid place on Sept 11th!! So in comes this guy to immigration and shows his passport. Immediately eyebrows shoot up ... ahem, ahem!!
Imm: "Well Mr. K, I need to ask you a few questions ... What is your purpose of visit?"
Osama: "Training program for SLB"
Imm: "Do you have some proof of the same?"
Osama: "Ya of course - my RADIATION BADGE!!" (dunno why someone would be so crazy)
Imm: "Did I hear you say radiation?"
Osama: "Ya!!"
Imm: "And may I ask why you need that for?"
Osama: "Sure ... we will be trained on radioactive sources and exploisves as a part of the curriculum!!"
Imm: "Could you please step this way please ... we need to have a little chat!!"
The poor guy spent almost 7 hours after this clearing immigration!! Not sure he enjoyed it!!


Disclaimer - This is purely written in a sense of humour ... with all the pressure, I really appreciate our tutor's sense of humour ... life would have so much more bland without it!!

STARTING A NEW PHASE

Its been just less than a month we moved out of our apartment at Red Deer. Needless to say it was real fun there. It was the first time I was sharing an apartment with someone other than my parents. Add to that the fact that we were four young guys together from all parts of the world!! Cooking used to be one of our specialities .... ok ok i know u guys dont want to believe it, but the fact is I am a good cook (:p)!! ... add to that the party and the adda sessions!!

It was back to the same old 'boring' hotel in Airdrie at the end of October, with nothing but a 'panoramic' view of cars zooming by on the highway with some grub that would remind you of your days at the hostels of IIT Kgp!! So when our manager asked for volunteers to shift to the newly acquired apartments, we jumped at the offer ... and here we are, "Starting a new phase".

Some other updates -
Yesterday, we went to a party hosted by our bosses in Calgary. The venue was a Mongolian Restaurant (of course with nice waitresses!!). But the concept was pretty innovative. They have a raw spread of lots of stuff ... from meat to sea food to noodles to vegetables and of course a whole lot of spices and sauces. The idea is simple; you grab a bowl and pile on whatever you like; try to fill up your bowl as much as possible. Once you are done, the cooks weigh the stuff and charge you on the weight!! Then they fry the bowl for you n serve piping hot!! MMMmmmm....





Choosing your platter
















The 1st one was mine






The day before yesterday we went to a Greek restaurant. The food was pretty good; and we got some free desserts by impressing the waitresses as well!!

IN A WHITE WORLD

Its -6 deg C outside at the moment ... one does not need to be a rocket scientist to be able to conclude that water all around is frozen. Its been snowing since last week. Remember the glorious scenes in the movies - heroes and kids, ski-ing and making snow men in bewildering white wilderness; thats really for the movies. The real experience is not quite the same. Spent 5 hours yesterday in an open snowing area trying to get a tool to warm up to a constant temperature; four more today morning in -3 degC!!


Thats not a basket ball court - its a field where I stood for those 5 hours!!

Some people prefer to be covered from head to toe but 2 months here have made me feel that the best way to acclimatise is to make love to the weather!! The moment you open up and accept it as it is, the warmer you feel ... sounds familiar?? :-)


Try and make love to the weather - no point shielding youself!!

The most horrible feeling comes when you realize that you'll be working in an open field with metal tools in falling snow ... touch it with your bare hand and before you realize it, you have no skin on your hand!! Mark the words 'before you realize it' ... they literally hold true coz you have no feeling of your skin peeling off!!

Sometimes its hard to hard to believe that I actually work in such conditions. But the human brain is an amazing piece of art (or maybe evolution!!) ... it always looks on the shinier side of the coin. Countless times I've felt daunted having to go out and stand for hours in the white open fields but each time the experience has been adventurous.

But as my blog theme goes, adventure is the spice of life ... the challenge to master the most extreme conditions and yet provide customer service of the highest quality. Imagine a worser situation ... working in the sun at midday in temperatures exceeding 55 degC. Come cold and you can pad yourself up with as many layers as you want but come heat, you can't really strip off to bare skin!!

Of course, there are countless ways to convince yourself. One among us keeps telling himself "today isn't as bad as a day when the temperature dips to -40 degC ... when it does, i'll take my vacation due!!". Yet another consoles himself thinking about the pay.

But the best among all these is the arguement that we are working in the purest environment possible ... u can even eat snow!! Some brains do become numb!! ;-)

MISSION CAPTURE THE FLAG

Another day off ... got to have something to do outside this desolate highway town of Airdrie. A sudden spark of creative genius - Lets play Quake!! The suggestion came from a fellow IIT-ian but then this would be whole new game of Quake 3. For those uninitiated to the concept of paint-ball, read on.

Sunday morning and off we were to the battlefield. Reached there at 12 to be greeted by two huge cats ... one quite friendly!! Five more minutes and we all were ready for the battle - the aim to capture your opponent's "flag". Donned in military gear, with hundreds of paint balls (little fibre balls filled with oil paint that explodes onto you as it hits you) and air-guns pressurized upto 4500 psi (ok ok ... i cheated, the limit was 3000 psi; but then all's fair in love and war!!) off we went - the red and the yellow teams in jungle terrain with two forts to win the war!!




The rules ... pretty simple - take up a good position, work as a team, never be alone, shoot your 'enemy' at sight and cover him with paint; of course, Get the hell out the moment you get hit!!

So there we were, playing a real life Quake (or maybe CS). Need I say who won, specially after spending countless hours watching my brethren in CFW practising and playing the games over the "academic network" the institute so kindly provided to us!! For the more cynical, my count in the first encounter was four!!

End of round one; time for lunch. Hot dogs and juices galore!!



Back to the arena - round 2. This time an open field. Take your base; start running for cover the moment the game starts; your only cover - in the middle of the field behind a wall of tyres and broken cars. Sadly, had never seen such an arena ever before ... more disaster, my gun malfunctioned; we lost.

No problems - round 3. Change of teams as well. But in a jungle its familiar territory ...

Thus went on the rest of the afternoon - we completed a total of 8 courses in about 4 hours, spending close to 1000 paint balls, running for most of the time, taking out our frustrations on fellow human beings!!

End of the day I realized the childish thrill which people derive from playing the computer games for hours!! Or was it something else ...

RE-LIVING DIWALI

Suddenly DD buzzed me in the middle of the class yelling that we won gold in illu and rangoli. I almost started to write "F*** u" when the words sunk in ... i sat there too stunned to believe!!

Diwali ... that festival had lost relevance to me since after Std X!! 4 yrs in Kgp meant an absolute nightmare during Diwali when the whole campus would look condescendingly at us!! Even with the "full tAmpo" and all fundaes we never seemed to impress any judges. Sometimes made me wonder whether all the trouble and expenses was worth it!!

Naturally when DJ mailed a few months back screaming about what all efforts he was putting in we bullshitted him!! But hats off to you guys man ... awesome work is the only phrase that comes to my mind at the moment. In your achievement, we as alumni feel the glory and the pride that must be a part of the hall at the moment. To be very frank, having spent a lonely work filled DP, I expected nothing from Diwali. But this is indeed a very very special moment ... and though am not a hall mate any more to u guys, the writing on the mess wall still remains!! Indeed a vicarious pleasure ...

Let this be another of those milestones which will take u guys forward in your efforts to bury the reputation of LLR!! And once again my heartiest congratulations to all of you!!
LLR ka tempo high hai ... but this time let not any one accuse you of using unfair means.