There are very few things in my life and in the world whom I love so much but can not do anything about them.

Milk is one of them. I don’t understand why but I tend to forget that drinking excessive milk makes me sick. I get sour throat due to cough.

Last couple of days I am been using my friend’s trade mill and life is going smooth the way it should. Now I am sure that I can do few certain things that will help me to reduce the fats I have accumulated since just last few months, test if my stamina still persists and if not then work on it.

So last Saturday I did watch Avatar along with my friends and then did go to one get-together. On Sunday I decided that I will try to clean up my digestion system(!) and then had a lot of milk. I did drink approx 1 ltr of milk every day for next couple of days. I have complete setup for almost every need of mine, the fridge to store milk, electric induction heat plate with timer to boil the milk, horlicks – bourn vita – boost to add flavor to milk and then a set of beer mugs to drink the milk. What else is needed !

I remember 4-5 months back I indulged myself in excessive milk drinking activity. I tend to enjoy my time watching the serial ‘Friends’ till late night and sometime at 2 or 3 am I used to have a lot of bread toasts with milk. UMMMM that was awesome. But again I got severe cough and I had to prepare some sort of boiled liquid (we call it as KADHA in Marathi). I have a rough recipe for the same. Some JAVAS, SUNTHA, JESHTAMADHU, KHADI SAKHAR needs to be boiled for making the perfect drink. I had many liters of the drink to get rid of the cough and sour throat.

This time I mixed some turmeric powder into the warm milk still it didn’t help. I have to be careful next time, I can not afford to be sick this year when I have decided time as one of the most crucial resource for me. Oh I didn’t post my resolutions for 2010 !! Sachin Pednekar is working on them.

I have been thinking about the after life a lot after what happened with my Goldie.. I am not big on after life or superstition or even God, so for me to believe in after live is a shock to even me. I guess its my way in wanting to prolong her stay here, in wanting to feel her around me, wanting to feel her presence.. Sometimes, without realizing, I enter Amma’s house and shout “Chinchupokliiiii” (my crazy pet name for her, apparently its a name of a place) and then I feel foolish.. When I am driving, I think she is sitting in the back and say “baby, kichi (kiss)” and lean back and when I don feel a lick on my neck or behind my ear, I break down.. But one thing I know without a doubt is that she had a fabulous life and for that I am grateful that we could afford to give it to her as well..

This also brings me to that stupid show on TV, “Raaz Pichle Janam Ka“.. It really feels fake and looks staged.. But I know for a fact that people believe in it and seriously, out of morbid curiosity I want to take part in it as well.. The DH is appalled with my idea and says that this would be one of those reasons where he would leave me without a backward glance.. Oh well, I anyway don’t really have a fear that cripples me either..

Do you believe in past life and after life etc? Do you think its possible? What makes you think it exists?

I am curious because I want to learn and understand if things have happened on a supernatural level for anyone reading here? It has never happened to me.. The only thing even remotely supernatural about me is that I have an uncanny sense of intuition.. I can sense if something bad is going to happen to me.. I never seem to know exactly, just that unsettling feeling comes over me.. But it’s not so special because I have heard and read that it happens to everyone too.. The MIL says that by doing pooja’s or homa’s we can ward something from happening.. That is honestly bullshit for me.. All this good time, bad time etc.. As Christians we get married at the date and time of our convenience and I have seen marriages that are so strong, nothing can shake them.. And I firmly believe that if your time has come to go, you gotta go

So, go on tell me.. What do you think?

Constructive criticism is a myth… or is it? In my many varied observations, I’ve noted how almost all criticism is….. harsh, to say the last. The problem comes with the general notion of feedback, where invitations for the same are treated as open invitations for abusing(read: raping) the hell out of the subject. “This sucks … that sucks… you suck…. everybody sucks….” Whoa …. whatever happened to good old suggestions where not only are problems pointed out but solutions suggested as well. I was at the point of classifying all feedback as stuff you learn to ignore when I got the mail… Pandey’s mail. Read and understand:

Hey guys
Straight to the point. Lots of action happening on BITS Pilani Media WordPress.
But I am confused as to what is the reader supposed to take from it. And the reason I am putting in this mail is because I feel there is a lot more which could be achieved out of this blog and that you guys would listen.
This post has triggered this mail. Unfortunately I do not know the dude who typed this, else I would’ve surely ccd him.
For one, what is this post aiming to achieve. SEL came to OASIS played some rocking songs and people loved it. Makes sense, but “It was then that the people present shifted into a psychedelic state swinging themselves from side to side, head banging to every drum beat, and shouting the complete lyrics at the top of their voices. On exiting the auditorium and interviewing a few students, they said,” We can no longer feel our ears and legs. It was the most amazing concert ever.”  just makes me wonder if the blog is supposed to be a freelance journalistic view of BITS Pilani and the events that happen there. There is a mention of interviewing students and the rest of the text is just standard sixth stuff.
Not that I have a problem with standard six text, it just doesn’t deserve to be on BITS Pilani blog, probably on our shitty personal blogs, but not there. I had conveyed my concerns regd. a previous post about a BITSian winning an obscure competition in VNIT Nagpur to Prateik, which he found were genuine (probably that has buoyed me to type this). But I digress.
I see a definite lack of focus in the posts on the blog. I think it would really help the blog’s cause if some questions were answered, such as:

• Target audience: No, the entire internet does not count because you have folks ranging from passionate BITSians alums to wannabe BITSians reading your blog (I hope so). And you cannot talk to all of them at the same time.
• Style: Which brings me to the point of how do you actually put your posts. This really cool way of just describing events informally just doesn’t work. I wish not to read three paras about one quiz/ concert. Why not make attempts at brevity, condense the facts, use more numbers, and cut the nonsense (including the obviously fake one line interviews).
• Branding: Related to former is structuring the posts such that one is left wanting while getting minimal reqd. info. That means having all posts such that the reader goes “Man Wish I was at BITS”. That should not include lines like “BITS Pilani is such an awesome place” or “This is just the beginning..”.

Hence I think a to-the-point smart reporting of stuff could really help (along with a cooler template), something that makes it sound classy with all images photoshopped in a certain way, all posts following a typical formatting (not just writing style), in short unifromity across posts and writers. I think the CMU News blog fits the bill. There would be more which you could google for.
Would that be boring? Suppose so. But then most of us are anyways past the read-whatever-you-see-on-the-internet phase of second year, and pretty soon no one will have time to skim through paras of text.
A reply would be sincerely appreciated. Sorry if the mail sounds too much about me and my likes, I’m working on that.
But I’m trying hard to follow the blog and it’s objectives but keep failing.
Yours
Vineet Pandey
2006A7PS054P

Now, why is this is so effective? Its because of a couple of factors: first, it offers solutions to nearly all the problems pointed out and the second is the spirit. While Pandey is a personal friend and hence could take out time to give such precise and effective suggestions, I wouldnt expect a normal respondent to replicate his effort. However, if they can manage to ensure that the benefit of the initiative remains the highest priority, I believe that any criticism would be constructive criticism. All I’m saying is study his mail, If you can duplicate it, that’s great , if you cant at least try to comprehend the spirit in which it was written. I’m sure it will help you deliver criticism to your peers, a vital networking tool.

About Pandey: Vineet ‘Pandey’ is a Computer Science Undergrad Student at the Birla Institute of Technology and Science(BITS), Pilani. Formerly an avid blogger, Pandey is now too incensed with the ways of the world to bother about the so-called sharing of opinions and ideas. He used to rant here and currently doubles up as the Student President of the Computer Science Association.

South Africa has, due to its cultural, political and historical background, a far wider difference in individual risk perception, and as such, this would have a much greater impact on health and safety (H&S) management than other western countries. The purpose of the study is to determine what influence the individual’s perception of risk has on H&S practices in the South African electrical industry… (more)

According to the Orlando Sentinel, hundreds of guests were trapped on the monorail at the Walt Disney World Magic Kingdom park Sunday morning.  Just after about 1:10 am Sunday morning, the monorail’s power outage went out, leaving guests on board until 3:50 am without any lights or air conditioning.  Guests were safely escorted out of the monorail at around 3:50 am the same morning, and the system was back up and running by 7:45 am.  Supposedly, the cause of this accident was a failed computer hard drive in the monorail’s computer control system.  Disney had tried normal emergency procedures for a while, but that did nothing, so they had to call the nearby fire department for help.

Few months back, my friend Rajan and I went to a Chinese restaurant, ‘Peking Palace’ in Hyderabad. As we are always curious to taste the unknown, we opted for an item which we haven’t tried until then. We chose ‘Chinese tea’. Contrary to our expectation, our experiment failed. The tea wasn’t appealing to our tongue.

Few weeks back, we went to another Chinese restaurant ‘Bowl-O-China’. Again as usual we chose the unusual. We picked the ‘unknown’ dish called ‘Phuket fish’. The cost was expensive but the dish was awesome. It was a lip-smacking experience. Our experiment was successful.

The above two situations exemplify the two possible results that can happen when anyone ventures into the unknown. Either your adventure can yield a success or a failure. Either it can be a Phuket Fish or a Chinese tea. That’s it, there is nothing in between. No ‘Ifs’ No ‘Buts’ or even no ‘May be’s’

I am a curious cat. I always try new things whether it’s a casual walk to an unknown street, or trying a new dish or learning an unknown skill. The diversity in our choices will reflect in our actions. I love the unknown. It may bring a failure or success, it may turn out to be a negative or a positive experience. The result doesn’t matter. What remains with me is the experience of tasting the unknown.

What ever knowledge I have, What ever actions I take, it is the accumulated result of my practice of experimenting with the unknown. Only the unknown brings you new wisdom, only the unknown gives you new insights. If not, what else would do so?

The sign of freedom is not dealing with the known but having guts to venture into the unknown. Only then you are called a ‘free bird’, else you are just caged. Exploring the unknown sets you free; Free from the ignorance and free from the past. It is the symbol of flowering and the fruition of freedom within you.