Today started off like a morning most people dream of. I got out of bed, exercised, had a bath, came back, read news on the Internet, then ate breakfast, and got down to studying.
Until I felt tired around noon.
A check on my vitals and I figured out why. A tablet and 6 hours of sleep later, I was back to normal functioning. Which was good, I’m grateful for the sleep – but it annoyed me ever so slightly that I missed out on the studying.
See, I tackle/propose to tackle my studying with some method. There’s an Excel sheet on my desktop that reads “Exam Timetable” devoted to how much time I spend per subject. Accounting for my general (un)productivity, I give myself more time than I usually need to cover modules.
The sleep now means I still have a good part of my portion left for an examination that is on Monday.
But no stress. We will stress only if we have not studied and the exam is in less than 10 minutes. Then we will stress.
Maybe we will cry like we did in 7th Grade when we thought we failed a Geography test because we didn’t study for it (but miraculously passed). But we shall not stress.
Another excellent thing to report from Gandhinagar. I rediscovered Sidin’s blog. Now, some of you may ask: who is Sidin? Why do you address him by his first name? Are you friends? Is he remotely important?
To those questions, I present to ye his blog link: http://www.whatay.com
Go, read, be entertained by some wit. Also, see if you can catch aTEDx talk of his regarding skepticism.
I discovered his writing around 2011 – when my aunt gifted my mother his debut novel. It has a joke on every page and made me laugh like only comic books did back then. I remember completing the book in a sitting.
I ran this blog on Blogspot back then and vaguely remember attempting to mimic his writing style by being conversationally humorous. I failed gloriously but understood how tough it is to portray comedic imagery, if we can call it that.
A couple of things: I have a terrible sense of humour, say every pun that I think of, and occasionally am able to make people around me laugh. It’s quite satisfying. At one point, I dabbled with the thought of attempting stand-up comedy (at an open mic) – my fear of getting a tomato thrown on my jeans scared me away, so for now, that remains an unfulfilled dream. Maybe next year.
Every time I write though, and I actively try sneaking in some form of humour in these posts, I come to realise that it is tough to belt out jokes when you aren’t feeling ‘in the mood’ to be funny, so to speak. Second, you realise that some references work only in your head, and are based so much on personal perception and experience, that it is likely the joke will not make anybody laugh – since it is not a generalised experience or view.
Which means that people who successfully create pieces of humour: stand-up comedians, writers, etc, are able to tap into the general experience, and common themes of a general experience, add their own personal views and create nuanced imagery that makes people laugh.
That’s what makes Sidin cool.
But chuck that – in addition to being supremely funny on the Internet, he writes Cricket pieces for Cricinfo and pieces for the Mint. That’s something I admire and aspire to reach with this blog or some form of writing someday: to be able to write about things I love on multiple platforms.
I squirrelled away from answering questions, so: I don’t know why I address him by his first name, I think it’s because of his Twitter(?), no we aren’t friends, and yes, he’s a little important in terms of the inspiration he’s been behind me writing a whole lot more. A small bit of appreciation and doff of the writing hat to you, Sire.
The only negative to all of this is, a that he supports Arsenal, but I can forgive that, methinks.
I still have my entire portion left to study.
Tejas Rao 