Tuesday Morning Blues

Its 1:30 AM on Tuesday and I don't have time to sleep. I have 2 assignments due this week and 1 quiz tommorow. For the uninitated, student life in America is not similar to student life in India. That coming from a guy who doesn't even have an on-campus / part-time job yet. When you study in India, you basically allocate that time of your life towards studies. If you're working, you quit and join college. You put your 100% time into attending college and/or college related actvities. I can't say you put your 100% into studying because of the kind of life I lived during my bachelors. 

Out here, any kind of study is pretty complicated. Lots of people work and study at the same time. I know three 50 yr old engineers who've come to do their Masters during the economic crisi. Generally, everyone has to refer 2 books, know how to use google effectively and put your mind into studying even if you are going to do so only for half hour. The course scheduling is pretty minimal for the week and almost all the subjects are your choice of what you want to study about. I am not yet in a position to say if this system is better than what we have in India, but its much more effective or effectively run than back at home.

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What is it with accents? I'm trying hard not to develop an accent but its really hard to control not speaking without an accent especially after having seen so many hollywood movies all my life, listening to rap/rock music for about 15 years, watching every stand-up comic on bootlegged videos. When I talk with friends and other folks from India, I speak normally. But that urge to speak much slower and with a slight American accent is getting the better of me when I speak to my American compatriots. Hopefully, I shall make sure my desi accent stays.

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During these recession times, I still see many people buying new things. I don't know how they calculate the bad economy but I don't see many homeless people on the roads. I see people living less lavishly than what they were used to. I see people buying one packet of Frito Lay instead four. 

Demand has come down and people are finding it hard to afford spending. However, things are faaaaaar more, let me get the right word, systematic than what you see in a developing country. I don't find much difference in many things actually. I've seen dogs poop on the road. I've seen people asking me for a 'quarter' (25c) or 'money for beer'. I've seen drivers honking. I've seen cars emitting too much smoke. I've seen bikes and motorcycles. I've seen nepotism. I've seen partiality.

I've seen too much I guess. Gotta hit the books again. Formal languages and automata theory mixed with Standard ML along with a dose of Software Metrics and hot black colombian coffee await me. O' insane world, you continue to puzzle me.

What's in a name?

Finally. Realistically Real has undergone the name change after making its debut 4 years back. Technically 6 years back, when I first debuted this blog and deleted it in 2005 only to make a big comeback again.  It was during my Infosys stint that I reached my "Blogging Peak" or scaled heights or some other cliche adjective you would use to describe it. I figured a small part of me is fixed with the place I love. My mind & spirit still lives in good ol' Madras. The tagline Bessie's Big Boy has stuck with me. It is one of those things I should learn to live with. As for Realistically Real, it will find its place in my memoirs as one of the most interesting writing experiences I had.

Madras Tales was the blog I had in InfyBlogs and it gives me immense pride to rename my external blog to Madras Tales too. Keep this one bookmarked, as I would increase the frequency of my posts from now on. 

I have many Sacramento Tales to tell the world about. The great procrastinator that I am, I shall save them for later. Oh Bessie, I really miss your beach!

Trash talkin'

I gotta let you guys in on a dirty little secret. I'm sitting on a couch taken from the trash. A week back, the guys (meaning me, my roommates and the guys in the nearby room) picked up a huge haul of furniture from the trash.

Now before you pop your eyes out, let me explain. In America, the cost to transport a piece of furniture is about 70% of the cost of buying a brand new one. Especially if it is defective, people don't care about fixing broken things. So, they leave it outside the smelly trash bin. Right outside it actually. It is generally very clean.

Here's where the student community, the heroes of the apartment complex, come in. The paupers that we are, we go and do a "1,2,3.. lift.. hai-saaa". I don't know if I spelt "hai-saa" correctly. Maybe it is "hail-a-saa" or "ai-la-saa". I meant to say what Prabhu Deva says in that 'Sooriyan' movie (Lalakku dol dappi maa song). You get the picture. So, we scavenge on great things like tables, lamps, chairs, couches, door mats etc. Most of these scavenged items are in pretty good condition except a scratch or two.

Our main competition is homeless people. These guys (and gals I must add, for I don't want to be painted a sexist) are amazing. They have bicycles which have a small trailer box attached to them. They come to our apartment complex in the night with a small bulb on their cap, look through the trash and collect all plastics and other things that can be pulled with the help of a cycle. In America, any job is a job. People do it religiously without grudges. That's a small thing I've learned in my short stint here.

The house is now full with good furniture, obtained for free thanks to people trashing repairable things. Long live Trash! Long live scavengers!

P.S : We once got a TV and vaccum cleaner from the trash. The TV didn't work, it was broken into half. The vaccum cleaner was blowing air out, the opposite of what a vaccum cleaner must do. Well, not all things you pick up from the trash work. Its a science. I must publish a paper on the theory of picking good stuff from the trash with an optimal rate of success. I shall save it for future generation of scavengers to admire this art, naay, science of "Trash Scavenging"