Fear, fear .. the CAT is here!!

Well the day has finally arrived and CAT '2009 is underway. All students no matter what their age have one thing in common - 'FEAR'. The very thought of an exam petrifies us. No matter what we do, its always there, lurking in the shadows waiting to rear its ugly head and wreck havoc. Its immaterial what we do, whether its to adopt a positive attitude or just build confidence in ones abilities 'FEAR' it seems is omnipresent. But why is that some of us let it get the better of us?

Just a week ago I wrote the IIFT exam, its pattern is similar to that of CAT. Even though the paper was doable, time was not on my side. Fear of losing egged me on but it also wrecked my train of thought. I got flustered and eventually messed up big time. What people don't seem to realize is there are very few who can force fear to take a backseat and just perform brilliantly and there are some of us who are not as gifted. The key i think is to adopt a 'there is nothing to lose' attitude, for only then was I able to push fear into a small corner. Exams are stressful and when an exam like CAT is being conducted in a computerized format it presents challenges of its own. This multiplies our fears by a 1000 times at least for we have to expect the unexpected, which is the worst thing for a student.

So i thought of some things that would help students cope with fear and prepare themselves for the inevitable

• I am a born pessimist. Call me a hypocrite, but i do belive that a few positive thoughts are better than a 1000 negative ones when your about to write an exam.
• Don't put yourself down because by doing so not only are you digging your own grave your ready to jump in willingly.
• Don't be alarmed about the number of people taking the test. If you see a lot of people and start to psych yourself out just tell your self "most of them are morons, they don't even know what 'The Katrina' is!!" ( its a hurricane that hit the U.S not just the name of an actress')
• If the night before the exam you have an anxiety attack there are only two surefire solution to it.

a) Cry your heart out and get it out of your system

b) This one has proved most effective : Call your closest friend swear till your mouth hurts. Trust me this actually works plus its a lot of fun.

Frankly I'm scared to death but like I said fear is just a feeling, push it back. Dont give up on yourself no matter what happens. Be determined to pierce through the clouds of oblivion , you know what they say ' Aim for the stars and you'll reach the sky'.

On that note I wish you all the very best!! May CAT '2009 be but a minor speed bump in an otherwise fear free life.

cheers!!!

My all time favourite movies - heartbreak category

I can't for the life of me figure out why i like movies that lead to heartbreak in the end. I guess you could say these movies have captured the essence of reality. We are able to relate to these stories in different ways but somehow it has the same effect, at least on women.

TITANIC:

Nothing on earth can rival the epic spectacle and breathtaking grandeur of Titanic. The winner of 11 academy awards including best picture is one of the most compelling movies ever made. Titanic was called 'the Ship of dreams' and was thought to be unsinkable. But as fate would have it, it is in this ship Jack and Rose meet. Though separated by social class they fall in love but that wasn't the end of their troubles because the ship collides with an iceberg and sinks fast. The drama that unfolds is just so captivating and the music gets me every time. The cinematography is nothing short of brilliant. This movie is a classic that will be celebrated for all of time and it definitely has a place on my list of favorites

P.S. I LOVE YOU :

I know of people who have cried or choked up after seeing P.S. I love you. It is by far one of the most touching and heart warming movies of our age. Sure some would trash it saying its too touchy feely. But when i saw the movie I was able to feel the pain and emotion. I think any movie that is done well enough to move people to tears and makes them feel such strong emotions should feature on my list of favorites and yours. Holly Kennedy is beautiful, smart and married to the love of her life - a passionate, funny, and impetuous Irishman named Gerry. So when Gerry's dies it takes the life out of Holly. Before he died, Gerry wrote Holly a series of letters that will guide her, not only through her grief, but in rediscovering herself. In the weeks and months that follow, more letters from Gerry are delivered in surprising ways, each sending her on a new adventure and each signing off in the same way; P.S. I Love You. The narration and pure energy of the scenes comes across and grabs you. At one point Holly says " I cant breath without him " and i actually wanted to hug her. Call me crazy, but this is one movie that will have a special place in my heart and girls if all guys can be like Gerry ..wow it would be heaven on earth. So catch this movie if you have not seen it already and trust me when i say you wont regret it.

Ships in harbor are safe; but that is not what they are built for.

This is a famous quote by John .A. Shedd. What he's really trying to say is your safe and comfortable where you are and that you need to break out of the shell and explore the world. Ships are not meant to be docked they are meant to travel, explore and marvel.

Ships are limited in a way that humans are not, for they can explore only the sea. But for us the world is at our feet.

You might be wondering why I'm dishing out this kind of stuff... well its because i want you to be inspired to do something... anything that would let people know your not passive.

We as people are not meant to be ordinary. Every human being has something extraordinary to offer to this world, the key is to wake up and realize you could be different. One has to have the hunger and thirst for change. The over growing desire to be surrounded by new things.

Recognise that you are gifted, for you have the ability to learn, the passion to follow your dreams and the determination to achieve greatness. Explore the world around you, find new tastes, places, information. Strive to be different from others in every way possible.

We above all are people. We hope, we dream, we persevere and above all we feel. That my friends is our greatest strength. We feel the passion, the hunger, the thing that drives us to be what we are.

We change, evolve, transform constantly. Twenty years ago the idea of a cell phone was ridiculous but look at us now. Had it not been for the strong desire of few individuals to find better ways to communicate we would not be where we are today. Even though many are being given the benefit of basic education, there is still a vast majority that remain ignorant. These people may actually posses the ability to contribute something significant but their talent lays dormant and useless as they are crippled by ignorance. There are many people from an underprivileged background who have made it in the real world only because they wanted to be something more than just the average Joe. Take for example Mr. Sarath Babu, he was the son of a women who sold idlies for a living. He wanted to be extraordinary and against all odds he found himself entering the Ivy league of Indian schools IIM, Ahemadabad. Even though he received many lucrative offers from MNC's after his graduation he chose a different path. He started his own business and now owns FOOD KING, one of the leaders in the catering business in India. We need people like him to come up, speak up and dare to do the impossible. People like him serve as an inspiration for the rest of us.

The need for change is the only thing that will always be constant in this world.

So remember...

You see, You learn, You change.

REVIEW OF DAN BROWNS THE LOST SYMBOL .....HEADLINES TODAY : DAN BROWN arrested for numbing the mind of a million people.

Let me tell you my friends, ignorance is bliss. This is true in case you are planning to read the 509 page long epic mistake titled 'THE LOST SYMBOL' by DAN BROWN(DB). If you have already read Brown and enjoyed his previous books namely 'Angels and demons, Digital fortress and the Da Vinci code'

, you will probably be horrified by The Lost Symbol. Robert Langdon's third adventure is another fast paced thriller that involves secrets in art, architecture and history. Brown does not break any new ground, but he does provide some good beach reading because you can fall asleep anytime and get a nice tan in the process. Though the book picks up after 20 or so pages, you will find that the book dulls its pace in all the wrong moments. Be it the overly descriptive nature of DB's writing or the unnecessary two page explanation for every word or symbol, you will soon discover that you have wasted your time, energy and money on a lousy book.

Robert's dear friend and mentor Peter Solomon has been kidnapped and to save him he must now decipher the code on the pyramid which would reveal information about 'the Ancient Mysteries'. Soon the CIA are involved and the director insists that solving the pyramid's code is a matter of national security (SHOCK). As you would have guessed by now there has to be a female accompanying Langdon.. what story is complete without a female lead? It's none other than Katherine Solomon , Peter's sister a brilliant scientist whose research proves that the human soul is quantifiable. For some odd reason the villain is threatened by her research. So he does what villains do best, destroys it and tries to kill her. After a narrow escape from death, she unites finally with our FEARLESS HERO (he's claustrophobic wink*wink*). Ironically, this is the unsolved mystery in the book, for one cannot figure out till the end why the villain chose to destroy her research, as it is of no consequence to him.

There are parts in the book that really lack logic. It's baffling, the CIA in the climax concentrate on waiting for the villain to turn up at location for 40 min before calling it quits. When they receive no word from their agent who has accompanied Langdon and Katherin to an unknown location they don't even seem to be the least bit worried. But miraculously after 40 min they seem to care about Langdon and track the GPS on the car. One would think an agency with such power would have more common sense. It reminded me of those tacky Tamil movies where the cops would show up after everything was over!!!! Has the CIA not heard of Multi tasking????

The most excruciating part is, when your willing for the book to end, DB gives you a 3 page explanation on oxygen deprivation tanks and torture techniques. Its astonishingly long so don't be fooled by the font.. just the sheer volume will drive you crazy. Even the solving of the clues is not all that intelligent. The ultimate revelation of what the anticent mysteries is all about falls flat and adds to the agony of reading a disappointing book.

It starts off on a positive note giving the reader hope that this is going to be a thriller like none other. But one soon realizes that what started out as a dream has turned into a perfect nightmare.

Chaos,Anarchy,and Beauty

Clausius and carnot, in the middle of last century, formulated the entropy law, or second law of thermodynamics. Entropy, in essence, was the degree of randomness, or chaos of a system. Chaos that is every increasing and uncontrollable. In theory, the very words you are reading now, is ever increasing chaos.

Scientists found chaos so alluring,so fascinating, that they dedicated an entire class of scientific persuasion is dedicated to studying chaos, also referred to as The Butterfly Effect. We have all heard the old wives tale, how a butterfly flapping its wings can cause a hurricane elsewhere. Choas, it turns out, has distinct order to it. And we have found that, despite all the complexities and randomness of nature and world we live in, there is still beauty to be found in it.Laws we have been taught to accept, Ohm's Law and the kinetic theory of gases are descriptions of a large number of micro events, each of which are random , and none of which is entire predictable. The mathematical theory of probability arose from the need to give randomness a shape.

It is in fact, down to pure random chance, the humans ourselves came into being. The primordial soup, as they say, was made in the perfect kitchen.It is pure random chance that the right ingredients were in the right place, at the right time, in the right amounts, with the right catalyst, and with the right environment. And then came you. Natures' natural selection, a prime example of working chaos, has ensured that it is our species that evolved in the way it did, to bring us here. Take a good look at the mirror, and remark at the beauty of chaos, and its inimitable ways. To this date, scientists employ randomness in Genetic Algorithms to recreate natures' holy chaos.

Humans have been fascinated by chaos to such a degree, that they become enamoured by it. That they revel in being part of the infinte chaos. Dice games, and gambling, all were created to satiate the appetite humans have for randomness. Random number generators are increasingly used by computers for data encryption, selecting random samples from large data sets.

The theory of chaos has always fascinated humans. It appears we are all just 6 year old children, playing with a test tube of unknown chemicals, just to see what turns out.

Anarchists believe that in the absense of a government or ruling body, in the resulting chaos, common sense would prevail, allowing people to come together to form a functional society. They belived that despite all the randomness, there would still be functional order.

Randomness has even been introduced in music, generating arbitrary sounds to imbibe an ambient effect, a genre referred to as post-modern.

A popular cult-comic character, The Joker, an arch nemesis, of Batman, claimed himself to be an agent of chaos. He believed, that there was never really justice in the justice system, and only true fairness was to be found in blind chance, the toss of coin. The plain glee with which the anarchist explained his philosophy found an admirer of choas, in me. And got me to write this article.

LOst..season continues

Well sorry to disappoint but this is not a review of the serial LOST (which btw is unbelievably still on air. For those less informed its the U.S counterpart of our local superhit Tamil serial "KOLANGAL". I guess there is no logical explanation for why they have been running around an Island half naked most of the time (not that i mind :):))for 6 seasons now.

but enough of that...

I dedicate this my first post to all the people in the world who feel as lost and confused as me. To those people who have no idea what to do with their lives, where they are headed or just plain clueless. I guess you can say I fall under the 'Cukoo' category where u will find the slightly crazy and confused. What am I confused about? even to that I have no answers.

Even now i have no idea what to write about and you still see me rambling on about something inconsequential. I must admit I was a bit apprehensive about starting a blog. But now that i have started writing i feel liberated.

I look forward to writing some wonderful posts in the days to come. I end now with a quote that serves as a source of inspiration to me and is close to my heart,

"All your dreams can come true if you have the courage to pursue them. - Walt Disney"

Ciao :D