The Exam Checklist (Minstrel Style!)

image source: news.bbc.co.uk

Okay..so exams are slowly approaching and finally you have the jitters wondering what to do..or soon will! No fear! The Minstrel is here to help you with the top 10 things to keep in mind before going in to write that exam! Nah, nah don't thank me, it's my pleasure! ;) Yes, you can courier me those chocolates! no worries!

1. Two cups of espresso in the morning is essential. You don't want to doze off on your paper and drool all over the answer sheet! Seriously! That would smudge the ink and make the answers impossible to read! Wait...come to think of it, ain't such a bad idea eh? ;)

 image source: zedge.net

2. Check the pens, pencils and blah blah blah. You don't want to crawl on your knees and beg those around you to pass you that stuff!

3. ADMIT CARD! Dude, without that you're freakin' screwed! Even if you forget to take your pen, don't forget this! Freakin' hell would break loose! How else would you remember the 52 digit exam roll no assigned to you???? :P:P:P

4. If you have a window seat or one near the door, carry horse blinders! Even if you look ridiculous, at least you won't be distracted! Coz the best and most hilarious things cross your vision exactly when you have no time to see them!

image source: stratesql.com

5. If you did not sleep well last night, instruct the person sitting behind you to give you a nice kick in your bum or throw an eraser at you (whatever works!) in case you fall asleep over the paper!

6. Carry your watch no matter what! Don't have a watch, take an alarm clock! At least you'll know when to begin scribbling frantically madly! That is when your memory is at its peak and you remember all that you didn't before that. At least you'll be prepared! ( usually 5 minutes before time's up!)

7. Carry water with you. When you don't remember the answers or get confused take a swig. No, it won't help you remember, but at least it'll keep you looking busy unlike that idiot staring at the ceiling looking like he is trying real hard to hold in his pee! :P

 image source: http://www.corbisimages.com

8. That hot classmate will not vanish into thin air after the exam is over! Stop staring! Horse blinders will help you here as well! :P

9. Do not listen to crappy songs on the radio in the morning before the exam if you don't want to haunted by Munni badnaam hui as you try to remember what Ophelia's brother's damn name was! :P

10. Last but no the least, STUDY! It really works! ;)

All the best! :D :)

P.S: To those who forget the rule no.10 like me, creativity always works! Make up what you don't know! :P:P:P:P 

Dearest...

 image source: http://browardlawblog.blogspot.com/

Dearest Blog,

How are you doing? Hope this letter finds you in good health. I know I haven't been too kind to you recently and you have been feeling neglected but I am so sorry, I have been forced into this by the monster in my life right now- Masters syllabus (MS). MS has me trapped, has me on a leash all the time, morning to night, heck he even invades my dreams (or nightmares!). It is a dungeon that I am stranded in dear blog. It does not mean I do not care for you, I swear I do. It's only a matter of some more time dearest...and I shall be all yours. Until then, wait for me. I'll try my best too, I'll sneak out and run to you when MS isn't watching (although he'll drag me right back!). It's a matter of some more time..Wait for me..I miss you..

Loads of love,

MI

P.S- You just wait and watch MS. I shall have the last laugh. You'll see... :P:P 

How to get through boring lectures- A few brilliant ideas from an English Honours student!

[No offense to the teachers intended! Please don't cut my marks for this! You guys rock! :)]

So you're stuck in a boring lecture (damn the attendance!). No escape from the four walls that bind you, the heat is unbearable (thanks to the fans that refuse to give any sense of cooling no matter what and more often than not, don't really work anyways!), the second hand on your watch seems to count to nine hundred ninety nine before moving forwards and what is being said is Greek to you. What to do?

No fear, the Minstrel is going to divulge some well kept secrets to get through droning lectures alive! These tips and situations may I clarify have no resemblance to real life and even if they do it's purely incidental!

Alright, who am I kidding? Yes, this blog is inspired by the real lives of real people I know! But ha! I shall not divulge the identities so fear not fellow comrades in crime!

So here goes:

1) Grow your hair. No, seriously. Grow it up to shoulder-length and then leave it open. It's a miracle to those who just want to run away from class. It has two practical uses that I know of, and do let me know if there are more:
a) You can just have the flicks out in front of your face which can be a real cover-up in case you doze off!
b) The long tresses can also cover up for your MP3 player headphones that you can sneak in through your top into your ears! Just make sure your eyes are on the teacher and you pretend well that you're listening to the lecture, else if caught unawares you can be in deep shit!

2) Technology as a weapon! Your cellphones can be lifesavers! There is so much to do- play Asphalt or whatever game you like, text your partners in distress attending the same lecture and contemplating jumping out of the window, or text your friends outside your class and crib your heart out, do Facebooking, read PDF books, watch silly videos, whatever!!

3) It is also the perfect time to transfer that song you wanted from your best friend via Bluetooth! And the new pictures you clicked yesterday in the canteen, and a pic of her latest crush, the games you wanted so bad- whatever! These 45 minutes(or however long your lectures are!) are priceless for this stuff! Go utilise it to the max!

4) Make sure your buddies are sitting near you, pass that notebook's last page around and have your own personal wall gossip. These will someday be priceless reminders of your days in class later on when you become old and withered like I have! :P (@ How Rude: You must must make copies of those!)

5) Put your head in your hands and stare at the book and zone out! Keep your eyes open though! (Unless you have The Hair- Shield! Refer to point 1)

6) It's the perfect time to indulge the writer in you. The classroom, along with the loo are like the most inspirational zones for budding artists, writers and poets! Let the creativity burst out! I have written some of my best poems and made some of my best sketches in class and I testify to this fact myself! And as icing on the cake you can pass on the brilliant product of your creative genius around in class to give the others a respite from their misery! Getting some free publicity in the process! (Gosh I'm brilliant!Lol!)

7) The Window: This is a total stress-free zone in class. If you manage to grab the window seat there is nothing like it in the Advanced Skills In Not Paying Attention In Class (ASINPAIC, in short!) There is so much outside the window to focus your mind on that you won't even have to bother wondering what to do to while away your time!

8) Concentrate on the Refreshments. Okay, I'm assuming that you're teachers are as nice as mine were and allow you to get food into class. Grab that cup of cold coffee and a big bag of chips and voila! you're ready for the day! Enjoy the coffee, have fun munching, while looking absolutely attentive and nod everytime the teacher looks at you.

9) Go the Romantics way and let your Imagination overpower your Reason. Forget reality and let your mind sweep you away into distant lands to do wonderful and brilliant things that you might never really get to do in real life! ;)

10) This point is crucial to all the above stated points and thus I'm stating it again. Look absolutely attentive throughout and nod every time the teacher looks at you. Look at your desk when she asks a question or you'll become the sacrificial lamb!Brush up on acting skills if required.

More tips are welcome. A final tip though as a parting word- pay attention if the teacher talks sense! It helps with the marks! :P Yea, really!


P.S.- Another productive use of an unproductive class! Mission Accomplished! :)

Nothing like exams to kill the creativity!

I know it's been a long time!!! And my apologies! My only tryst with words has been what i have to study! Does your brain refuse to function the way you want it to? Do the professor's lectures swim in your head even in your sleep? Does each day that comes to a close send shivers down your spine? Do you read and read and still feel you have much to read still! Then you too have the "system-draining-my-system-syndrome"! It should be a punishable offense really- this ruthless murder of creativity! 

I'm sorry if I sound doped right now but there is so much Wordsworth in my system that my brain protests against all this unfair labour! I mean, where on earth did he find the time to write all that man! It's such a pain to read his poetry (no offence to the Wordsworth lovers!!!)! The Prelude is just a prelude to my misery! There is still so much to do! This sabbatical is uncalled for! I can't even think of something funny to write! Sheesh! I give up! 

 

P.S.- Lord deliver me from this misery but if it is Thy will to torture me thus, atleast make me a little more tolerant with the syllabus (my task at hand!)! Please!!!!Pretty please!!!!!!!      

So what's with all the noise???

I went to East Delhi the other day..so I have a lot of things to crib about. Firstly, HOW ON EARTH DO PEOPLE LIVE THERE!!!! N the noise was just so unbearable..Actually there is this Book Publishing course started by IGNOU and two of my friends and I joined it, I did coz I want to take up publishing as a career! Zooks coz she has it as an option. And Don...well...Don?I seriously have no clue about why exactly she took it up!!!Hehe! And I don't think she does either..The plan was that by the time our Masters get over, we would be ready for a career. Atleast that was the plan..until we saw that the IGNOU folks have something else on their minds...More about that later though!

So well we set off from Miranda House, not knowing that we were going to live the most unproductive day of our lives! After going all the way to North Campus for nothing really (tutorials cancelled!), we set off mumbling n grumbling towards Rajiv Chowk. The High Command was supposed to send a car but that didn't happen so we decided to just carry on via the metro. N that was Mistake no. 1. The Dopey Spanish Chick (lucky bitch!) went off skipping to have lunch with Enna Rascala and How Rude! Meanwhile, Zooks, Don and I stood staring at the crowd on the platform wondering how on earth all these people would fit into that one metro! 

We needn't have bothered!The crowd just pushed us in, and suffocated and sandwiched, we somehow reached Yamuna Bank, where Zooks had said we would apparently get a Metro Feeder bus! Mistake No.2.
The Metro feeder crap had been transferred to Nirman Vihar and we three stood blinking in disbelief at this God-forsaken place in the middle of nowhere! Autos ready to loot, leching freaks ready to hoot, we wondered what to do. Trudging back to the station we took the next one and 2 stations of suffocation later, we reached the damn place! Mistake No. 3. Coz there was no Feeder Bus!

Finally taking a cycle rickshaw (3 seater btw!with Zooks getting the boot!) we headed towards this place that no one knew "Maharishi Valmiki College of Education". Believe me, NO ONE knew where the HELL it was!!! and according to Don, unki self confidence toh dekho! Bina address ke naam de diya..as if its some hot spot jo khud mil jayega! Anyways, so endless rounds of Geeta Colony and god knows how many other colonies followed! Hey, if I wanted a tour of East Delhi I would have asked for it na!!! 


And so we come to the point of focus (which is actually quite lost now, come to think of it!) The NOISE! People were honking away as if their lives depended on it! As if the minute they would stop it they would fall to the ground and die!

HONK!HONK!PE PEIN! I wanted to slap all of them! I got a headache with all of it! How the heck would it help if you honk at a red light, pray, plz enlighten me someone! The gaalis that come out like songs are the other grand feature peculiar to Dilli!Lol! The maas n behens all come in to the picture suddenly, the poor souls! :p

I wish people would consider the plight of the hapless people who daily go deaf in installments thanks to the pepepein and cut it down! PLZ!!! N what about the people who live there? What do they do to get a little peace of mind? Earplugs maybe? I have no clue! I do wish I had one that  day though! 



So what happened? After all the gallis and nukkads being scouted for this god-knows-where-place near the Shamshaan Ghat across the Shiv Mandir ahead of the Sabji Mandi after going laal batti ke aage and a left and a right and a U turn and a billion more, we finally (YES, FINALLY!!!) reached it. And hullo, Mistake No.4 Wahan pe jaake koi fayda nai tha! The place we had to go to was to Raj Ghat.! I was ready to tear my hair out by now!


Auto nai mila, I suggested the phatphatiya shit called Phatphat Sewa. Seeing the people inside Zooks refused to enter it and swore to disown us both if we even thought of it. So we hiked some more..and finally found an auto and reached the damn place! Mistake No. 5. The bullshit day that it was, we stood in this stupid line for nothing, the person sitting at the info counter was a MORON! The Minstrel finally was about to get violent finally! I wanted to just ram my fist into his freakin nose! Right in the vicinity of Gandhiji! I swear, the statue of Gandhiji that is outside that building also looks maha pareshan and vexed like we were! I shall definitely click a pic next time to show. 


And there too another piece of crap! The IGNOU people hadn't even sent the first batch of material even though it has been 6 months since this thing started. So another fruitless trip. Hapless we cancelled our plans to go to CP for lunch as our limbs were on strike against the torture we had just inflicted on them. Long walk to the main road, Don and Zooks sitting on the footpath waiting for the auto, clicking pics to remember this Ace Bullshit Moment, Finally an auto to I.P, then sandwiched in the metro again and back home.


A few crocins and a lot of Vicks later, and a long nap, I woke up ready to face the world, cussing everthing around me and here I vent it out. You know what the Baap of All Mistakes was? Going through all this crap in the first place! Sheesh! Bugger! Why??? 


So here I once more break my vow not to crib! ( Sorry sweetheart!Hehe!) I'll keep trying.. But there's so much to crib about! Gawd awful mess that we get daily! And whoa..more and more of it to come..!Hence not my fault! :P :)




(P.S.- I'm sure had I been saying all this aloud you would have been hunting out your earplugs by now!Lol! So much for the noise pollution bit! :) )

My First Post

Alright..here goes. It's been sometime since i wrote a blog. The last one was a little too personal and too bakwaas so will try and attempt to write better here. And for heaven's sake, don't ever read my old blog!Lol! Way too embarrassing! So what am I going to write about? I don't know right now really. Let's just see how it goes. 

Something tells me I should introduce myself, I'm a normal, everyday, non-teenager adult who still feels like a kid! Hehe! I am doing my Masters in English from Delhi University but in my second semester now, I am already regretting my decision! Education is bullshit these days, acquiring knowledge is something that has taken a backseat. In my graduation years there was this love for what we were studying. We went into class to learn something new, no matter how much we cribbed, we came out as enlightened idiots! Idiots because we didn't realize at that time as we do now, how important it would be and how precious. Now I wonder where it all disappeared! No more assignments, analysis, brain storming sessions, discussions; postgrad classes pass in a single drone. 

Oh no!My cribbing sessions have already begun. I have been told by someone that I crib and complain a lot! :) And here I go again proving that point. I'll cut that down, but there's so much to crib about! It's a syndrome without medication. Its called icribcozicantstop. Hehe! I promise to control this tendency of mine! My friends had started blogging so that's how I thought of starting again. Maybe this could be the beginning of a renewed affair with words and verse! :)