2008

Today, the last working day of the semester and the academic year, marks the end of an era. Final year seniors, who had always been the people in charge with all the answers for all situations, finish their college education today. Annas-Balachandran, Sai Krishna, Venkatapathy and akkas-Krithika and Agalya who served all their responsibilities to perfection and have a got a lot of awestruck admirers like me got their offer letters today and would be leaving for their jobs very soon.

Each of them is a distinctly super-talented one and have left an inspiring influence in me.

Bala anna has always been very friendly, helpful and definitely informative and inspirational.

Sai anna has always represented a perfect man- he seemed to be cool-headed in all situations and knew a frightening amount of things. He’s nothing short of an enigma and inspiration.

Krithika akka has been a supremely multitalented and has always been willing to help. It was she, as a Sun Ambassador and a friendly guide, who introduced me to all the Sun Microsystems technologies I’ve ever known. She is a very friendly person.

Agalya akka has always been calm but does loads of work which others seldom get to know. She has been an inspiration for me to learn a lot and also to become a department topper.

Venkatapathy anna’s most disarming quality is his sense of humour which would lighten up the spirits of everyone around. He has instilled a sense of belief in me that I too can learn anything.

Unix/PP lab has always been a uneasy place for me to be in, without these great people. But with their course completion, I’ll have to endure it to eternity. With their leaving, I feel there are no people who know the things that matter. Their absence will be a irreplaceable void in the PP lab and also in the minds of people like me who have been influenced and inspired by such nice people.

The prospect of taking up the server administration from these wonderful people seems a huuuuge ask for me as I know nothing. But with the farewell to these people I can rest assured that the rest of my college life is going to be full of DNS, Exim, SQUID, LDAP, Firewall, Apache to name a few. 🙂

My salutations to all these seniors who have caused a paradigm shift in my life. Hats off to them! My sincerest wishes and prayers for a great post-college life of such unforgettable, irreplaceable people.

I installed Open Solaris Developer Edition on my notebook today, though its a bit too late and not that much significant or useful anymore. Still I installed it as I want to learn and learning is always fun irrespective of everything. I alongwith Krithika akka and Anugraha tried to install Nvidia drivers on Solaris for my Nvidia 8600M GS graphics card and then to install Compiz, but we couldn’t! 🙁 . Hopefully it’ll be sorted out soon and I can enjoy using Compiz. I must learn to put aside disappointments and misery aside and learn to be optimistic more often. Only time will tell the truth! 🙂

My misery continues and has started accumulating in my mind. I cannot share it with anyone because no one would understand or even the persons who could understand are not in a position to understand. My misery would appear a self-created one to most or it would be considered meaningless. I believe that I am a fighter to the core and that I will eventually overcome all these temporary troubles and achieve great things. I hope every thing turns out positive and I pray to God to give me the strength to face whatever comes. Om Shanti Om!

The recent few days have been totally exhausting and demoralising. Too much has happened in too little time. I got my long-awaited and long-craved, albeit expensive,laptop of my dreams. I have had too much of work to do but have been unable to do anything meaningfully. The way I’m treated by the people, the troubles that the situations, unexpected and shocking happenings give, have left me in an emotional storm. A few dreams have been realised, a few cruelly crushed, giving no emotional relaxation. Also my inability to do anything meaningful due to a variety of reasons, relationships turning slightly sour too often continue to drive me mad.

The arrival of my laptop was supposed to be a release from most of my troubles but instead i’ve scarcely had time to use it. My health has also started to play spoilsport almost everyday making daily life worse than Hell probably. 🙁 I hope things will change for better!

My parents have bought me a laptop, my dream. I have no words to express my feeling of ecstasy. I think that the arrival of the laptop will solve a lot of my problems. Configuration-wise it is a power-packed laptop and I would be able to play the latest and my favorite games without any worries. Of course, I’d be able to do some academic and extra-academic comfortably with my laptop. Here’s its configuration:

Processor type Intel® Centrino® Duo processor technology
• Intel® Core™2 Duo processor T7250
• 2.0 GHz , 2 MB L2 Cache, 800 MHz FSB
• Intel® PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection
Operating system installed Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium
Standard memory 2048 MB
Memory type DDR2 667MHz
Memory layout (2 x 1024 MB)
Maximum memory Supports up to 4GB DDR2 memory (Dual Channel Memory Support; For 4 GB memory configuration, up to 1 GB may not be available with 32-bit operating systems due to system resource requirements)
Internal drives
Internal hard disk drive 250 GB
Hard disk controller SATA Hard Disk Drive
Hard disk drive speed 5400 rpm
Optical drive type LightScribe SuperMulti 8X DVD±RW with Double Layer Support
System features
Memory card device 5-in-1 integrated Digital Media Reader for Secure Digital cards, MultiMedia cards, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, or xD Picture cards
Modem High speed 56K modem
Network interface Integrated 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN
Wireless technologies Intel® PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection
Wireless capability Bluetooth® wireless networking
External I/O ports 3 USB 2.0, 1 HDMI, 1 VGA, 1 RJ11, 1 RJ45, TV-Out (S-video), Expansion Port 3, 2 Headphones out, 1 Microphone in, 1 IEEE 1394 Firewire, Consumer IR, AC Adapter, integrated Fingerprint reader
Video capture interface IEEE 1394 FireWire® Interface
Expansion slots One ExpressCard/54 slot (also supports ExpressCard/34)
Display size 17″ WXGA+ High Definition BrightView Widescreen
Display resolution 1440 x 900
Video adapter NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8600M GS
Video RAM up to 1279MB total graphics memory with 512MB dedicated
Speakers and microphone Altec Lansing® speakers
Keyboard Notebook keyboard with scroll bar and integrated numeric keypad
Pointing device Touch Pad with On/Off button and dedicated vertical Scroll Up/Down pad, volume control, mute buttons, 2 Quick Launch Buttons
Power supply type 90 W AC Power Adapter
Webcam HP Pavilion WebCam with Integrated Microphone
Dimensions / weight / warranty
Weight 3.55 kg (7.8 lbs)
Dimensions (W x D x H) 28.50 cm (L) x 39.60 cm (W) x 3.16 cm (min) H / 4.18 cm (max) H
Package dimensions (W x D x H) 480 x 170 x 350 mm
Warranty statement 1 year, parts and labour

For the past few days, I realise of the existence of an invisible threshold circle around everyone of us. It defines the boundary of what we can do normally and what we cannot. It is there for good things and bad things as well. A big herculean effort or hi-octane inspiration is needed to break through the threshold and do something meaningful. More and more we delay making the efforts to break through, the circle keeps closing in and at one point starts choking us that even the normal day-to-day activities seem a big ask. The negative part of the threshold is very smart and shrinks in a certain areas and elongates in a certain areas thereby bringing badder things into our capability zone.

Its just similar to earth’s gravity. It keeps us grounded and similarly the threshold keeps us from bad things. A lot of force is required for breaking through the threshold for bad actions as well. But as it inhibits good actions and development, it must be enslaved. The power of a rocket or a space shuttle is needed to break free of the earth’s gravity. Similarly extremely powerful force is needed to break through the barrier, which when done leads to great things.

I’m getting to face a lot of undesirable things due to my threshold circle closing in. I have had the desire and interest to learn a lot of things like Cryptography, Python, Web design, CSS, PHP, JavaScript, Linux and more. But in each of these, I get stuck at the threshold level. It could be because of lack sustained focus, inspiration but also a lot of other factors have contributed to it. A bit of guidance and help, or maybe even spoonfeeding till there is reasonable familiarity with these stuff, from learned persons can always be the clinching factor. Also lonely efforts are more difficult and difficult to sustain. The company of like-minded persons will surely do wonders, but the key is in finding the right company.

I realise that once the threshold starts shrinking, it grows powerful and is more difficult to break. Often breaching the threshold turns out to be the difference between achievers who take it all and the triers. Here the will power to keep going on and on, unperturbed by obstacles and difficulties, is very much essential as is patience. Development takes its own time and never happens in an eyeblink. It is almost impossible for most of us to accept such an obvious truth. Many people like me have spurts of inspiration and the will to do things and hence are easily disappointed if things do not happen within the duration of the spurts. Such things usually take a lot out of me and cause huge disappointments which take quite some time to heal. The key here is ‘sustained focus’ and oodles of ‘patience’.

Let me pray for people including me to realise that there is a great world outside the good threshold where sky is the limit!

The one month holiday and the fortnight after it was spent in suffering and recovering from Jaundice. Though Jaundice hadn’t fully gone off, I decided to return to college after Pongal holidays and the doctor gave me clearance. But the flipside of coming to Madurai, staying at hostel and attending the college is that with the severe food restrictions imposed, what I can eat and what is being served in the hostel mess never ever overlap. So I’m restricted to eating my favourite curd rice for lunch and dinner and whatever is served for breakfast(Curd rice will not be served for breakfast 🙁 ). It includes eating the restricted food stuff. I fear something very bad will happen to my health due to it. I’m too lazy and have loads of works often that I cannot find time to go out and eat Idlis in the hotel for breakfast 🙁

The first few days of my return included 4 hectic working days(Saturday and Sunday included). I had virtually no time to breath lest cope with the missed lessons. Then there was the first internal test which came and went in a jiffy and I wrote all my exams without conviction and of course without any sort of preparation. Hence very poor marks can be expected, good marks should be a shock! 🙂

I also decided against going home for the weekend so that I could stay in hostel, relax, enjoy with my laziness and of course do some reading and catching up. In the midst of all these I will have to visit my Diabetologist, update him on my health condition and get his advice and opinions. Praying for progress in my health!