Category: 2019

The two day break continues. As this Tax paper gets closer and closer, all I’m thinking about is whether adults feel this way when they’re asked to file their taxes. Just, 0 clue about what is happening, but a requirement to do something compulsory that is expected of you by the Government.

Two day gaps between exams are horrific for individuals who enjoy procrastination, such as yours truly. The next exam I have is the Law of Taxation-II. I remember coming into University, and when I met fifth years, they told me how fourth year was horrible solely because of Tax as a concept. At the time, I couldn’t understand. As a student who liked Math, I looked at Tax as an opportunity to revisit numbers and concepts like percentages – all stuff I really liked. I was naive.

This is not to say that Tax is a paper that’s bad. It’s just that we were taught the subject in a manner that was rather unstructured – and none of us, for our part, paid any attention in class, which has led to information asymmetry to the extent that it is, at this point, just the Professor who knows the true extent of the portions which are included for the exam.

Sigh. Such is life. We will get through this as a batch, as we always do. The comfort of knowing that people are lost in the collective is humorous, to say the least.

In other news: I slept 4 hours in the afternoon today. So much for not getting sleep during exam time.

My morning was me oscillating from phases of “oh, I know this” to “oh, I know nothing about this”, and oscillating between my bed and my table. The exam went alright. My roommate gifted me a new fountain pen, which I used in today’s paper. I forgot what new, untested pens can do to writing paces when introduced to the system during exams itself. I wrote significantly quicker because the pen was a lot lighter than the pen I was used to writing with. I remember this being the biggest argument to switch away from fountain pens: the fact that the weight slowed you down. Which was problematic because as a left-hander I was anyway at a much slower writing pace than others. So to write slower, on purpose, was not something in my best interest. I persisted. As a consequence, in University, while my handwriting in my notebook (when I choose to write), is decent, in exams, my script tends to descend into absolute chaos by the last page. I make sure it’s legible though. To the best I can. I feel like pharmacists and University professors have the best ability to decipher new scripts. They’re probably the only ones who understand how to read the “Wingdings” script on Microsoft Word.

Speaking of Microsoft Word, I’m not certain if everyone’s systems have downloaded the patches to Office generally. But there’s a new logotype that now adorns all of the Microsoft products, in addition to the way the Microsoft files save on your desktop. There are some things in computer technology which are iconic, and the Microsoft logos was definitely one of them. The switch is something I’m getting used to, and quite enjoying. I must say, though, that I’m glad they didn’t mess around with the colours that each Office product holds. Word is still Blue, Powerpoint is still red-orange, Excel is still a green that is distinctively associated only with Excel (and the colour of the walls in the master bedroom in our Dubai apartment, circa 2007).

In other news, I got to go out for dinner with some of the people I spent a lot of time with around August-September 2018 as we tackled the shackles of the administration in unison. That was fun. The food was good. We also met for the same event’s 2019 edition, with two of my batchmates on this year’s Core. The quick realization that occurred over there is that these posts are very ceremonial: you hold them to deal with the administration, solely, and to manage and micromanage. But there’s enough people, and sets of people in each batch seem to collectively share the responsibility of specific events together, post or no-post. 6 of us do this for the Debate on campus from my batch, which is always super one. One Last Time will be too.

(That’s right. Mentioning OLT inb4 everyone else.)

Oh, also. I found this amazing documentary that I would urge everyone to watch, about Ed Sheeran’s songwriting process & everything. Really, really enjoyable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCU9hz_Xvdg

I liked it. Ended up downloading a copy on my laptop in case this gets blocked for copyright.

I spoke to my parents for a while today, and the nature of our conversation made my mother question whether or not I was actually in the middle of exams. I chuckled and responded with how normalized this entire process of writing exams has become for me. After writing maybe 93 papers so far in Law School, I’ve learnt the art of preparing for exams on short notice and writing decently enough (to the point of happiness). This doesn’t make me complacent, but it’s a skill that I’ve definitely picked up with the sheer number of papers this place makes you write.

Finally, a couple of things. We now have a new Director at our University, who will start term on July 1. I’m looking forward to that. And, I’m purchasing a MIDI keyboard! After maybe 7 years of wanting one. That’s something I’m super duper eager to use.

These one day breaks between exams really give you ample procrastination time. My policy of rewarding myself for each module that I finish has led to me sleeping far more than finishing modules. While I think that’s acceptable for papers that didn’t have portions that were heavy, it seems to be coming back to bite me, thus far, as I study for tomorrow. Guess I’ll be pulling a late-night to actually understand everything I read. Which is fair enough, I’ve brought this upon myself.

The good thing though is that I’ll have nice music to keep me company. Vampire Weekend released their new album today. They had released 2 singles off the album onto YouTube, which had really HD music videos, but I didn’t know what to make of the songs themselves. However, upon my first listen, I have figured that I really like the new album because of how diverse the songs on the record are. Each one appears to come from a different place, a different background. That’s exciting because of the fact that there’s an unfamiliar melody/countermelody that’s running through the song, as well as instruments which aren’t so popular in pop music today. Reminds me a lot of why “Redbone” by Childish Gambino had so much success.

Coming back to examination stuff. I think that it’s pretty hilarious that we engage in so much piracy and study for Intellectual Property Rights examinations. Rather enjoyable: to download an entire movie off the internet, but then study the Law that’s supposed to prevent these things from happening.

Back to the books I go. Or is back to my bed?

Yes, I read the title out loud exactly the way T-Swift would have if this was a Taylor Swift song. Unfortunately, it is merely a blog post, and you’re stuck with a mock T-Swift, a T-Rao, if you would. I have the same amount of swag, though. Don’t be fooled.

The cycle of rewarding  myself with naps after each module I completed continued onto today, the day of the exam. So, with about 4 hours to go to the exam, I think I napped for a good one hour. I played nap roulette. Slept without an alarm, fully confident that if anything happened, my roommate would ensure I would wake up. What I did not factor in was his potential to sleep as well. So sleep we did.

In either case, the paper went well. I’m pretty happy with the kind of papers that have been set this semester. They’re broad, with testing coming from across the syllabus. Which makes studying this much portion actually worth it – because you know atleast one question will be asked from the module. Kudos to our Professors. And they’re fun questions also. But this is only one-third the way through my exams, so we’ll see how the other papers turn out.

The sleep cycle has been turned on its head by the exams being in the afternoon, but I’m loving every minute of it. I came back from my exam at 5pm and slept till 8:30pm. Woke up for dinner, and then began my day as if it’s the morning: eating, then catching up with the news and music, and everything I usually do.

CBSE results were apparently announced today and we’re celebrating toppers on national television, but what’s notable is also that the number of candidates appearing for exams, in addition to the pass percentage has both gone up. These are good indications. What’ll be interesting to see is whether the number of candidates has gone up merely because of demographics or because there are more people enrolled in schools from this age group rather than last year’s graduates, or even as compared to 5 years ago. I don’t exactly know how the mechanics of such a study can be designed, but it’ll be interesting data for sure.

I’m also getting super into Marie Kondo’s show now. Her philosophy is very interesting. I’m curious to see whether I actually end up implementing it when I get home in summer.

Yup, it’s officially May now. Which means GloPoWriMo has come to an end, and you will no longer be subject to an infrequent post list which ends up with you getting around 8  notifications when I post 4 days worth of content.

You’re blessed. You’re welcome.

Today is labour day, and I woke up in the morning forgetting the rest of the country would be on holiday. Hence a few texts were sent in the morning wondering whether people had left for home, and wondering if I should call to wake them up: in the event they overslept and missed their alarm. I’m glad I didn’t. In the evening, however, I discovered that today wasn’t a holiday in the United States of America. At first, I thought it was a natural consequence of capitalism: why celebrate your labourers at all. It seemed fairly plausible that America had taken this to the extreme. A quick Google search revealed they celebrated labour day in September, on the first Monday.

This led to me thinking two things.

First, different countries shouldn’t be allowed to celebrate the same thing on different days. It’s so weird. This happened to me this year, because it was Mothers’ Day in the UAE when I was there (March), and I refused to gift my mum, telling her I’d wish her when it was Mothers’ Day in India (May). But imagine you’re a globetrotter. The number of times you’d celebrate the same holiday is incredulous to me. Also, standardizing the holiday around the world will allow for a more wholesome celebration, in my head – because you can compare the different ways in which each tradition celebrates the same day.

Second, America got this one right. See, we celebrate this on May 1st, a date. And in India, we have a lot of “date” holidays. As a consequence of this, we don’t get some holidays – because they’ll fall on a Saturday or a Sunday. Which means inevitably we lose one holiday in the year. We should switch to “day” based holidays. First Monday of September. Second Monday of June. Tejas’ birthday must always be a working day and celebrated as Tejas Jayanti. Just throwing these ideas out there.

Anyway, off to study Labour Law now. It’s hilarious that I’m studying Labour in Gujarat on Labour Day and Gujarat Day. I’ve made this joke several times over the last 24 hours and it gets me every time. The subject’s very whatever. Can’t wait to be done, and get 1/3rd the way through exams. Closer to the end of fourth year with each passing day.

I’ve conquered one exam, and with it, bought my April to a close. May being here is the start of a holiday I am both excited and nervous for.

The exam was good, I can’t really complain about it. The thing with Insurance Law is that it’s super principle-oriented and operates on facts really well (to be honest, this is how all Law is, but not taught that way). So studying for it got boring as principles repeated themselves, but writing the paper was fun, because it tested us on a range of principles. Plus, even though the facts lifted from case law we had read, the specificity of the questions meant I didn’t really have to think too much about how best I could fill up pages – they filled themselves for me as time went on. The only thing I had to be strategic about today was when I chose to utilize the washroom, because I ran out of water pretty early on, and felt my bladder filling up, but had I gone immediately, I’d be left with more than half the paper’s duration to survive without using the washroom. So I speed wrote and went slightly later. I timed myself well, I think. I was able to enjoy the rest of the paper without thinking about water at all. This, despite the fact that marine insurance was a subject-matter I was tested on today.

Post-exam, I slept and woke up feeling very confused about what time it was.

And then I took a walk where I discovered that our campus sold Britannia’s Little Hearts, which is a snack that is etched in my childhood memory. My mum used to love these so much, and we used to buy the small packets and share them with each other while we watched some rubbish on the television. That’s honestly my only memory of this snack. I remember it in no other context. The advertisements and packaging just stood out, as did the snacks’ name and sugar content.

Delightful.

So of course I bought two packets and have now devoured both of them. I am a monster.

I have exactly one day before the first exam of this end-semester season. So naturally lots of thoughts are panning through my head. At this point, I’m just looking for excuses not to study, so all of these thoughts are definitely helping.

The first, is attendance. Attendance got declared this afternoon for us, and we’re writing exams tomorrow. I think it’s pretty sad that we had to wait so late to find out whether or not we’d be able to write exams the next day. Additionally, for those provisionally detained, they lost easily an hour or more of studying time having to go and speak to the Examination Department. And these are all issues we can resolve. However, resolving them also means a more transparent system for attendance, and I’m not entirely sure I want that.

I miss classes to complete other work that I’ve prioritized for the day ahead of classes – I’m not going to lie about that. And more often than not I get that done. I took advantage of that this semester more than I ever have before, so I was a little on edge about the attendance list and was very grateful to have made it past.

The second is the TV Show F.R.I.E.N.D.S. As one of the first sitcoms I was exposed to, I remember really enjoying most of the series and falling in love with the characters and the story arc. As I grew up and rewatched clips of the show on YouTube, I realized how well the dynamic between six very talented cast members was portrayed, but I also realized how poor some plot arcs were. And though poor, they inspired an entire generation of sitcoms and memes and tropes – which is not something I think the show gets enough credit for. I was introduced to How I Met Your Mother in Grade 7, when I think it was in its second season – and I followed it along on the television, learning several things about current American pop culture along the way. You can’t deny that there’s clear elements of “Inspiration” from F.R.I.EN.D.S. on the HIMYM set, and the HIMYM plot. You also can’t deny that they were originally meant for two completely distinct set of audiences.

There’s merit to each show that deserves some acclaim. And as I binge-watch F.RI.E.N.D.S. on Netflix, to keep myself away from the doldrums of heat and exams, I realize that a little more.

As time at University has passed I’ve found it a lot easier to assert requests that I make to my parents. This isn’t to say that it wasn’t easy before, or that they aren’t approachable human beings who wouldn’t listen to my requests. It’s just that there was always this question that lingered in the back of my head – asking me “why” I was asking them for something. Like, I always felt, and this is something I think I conjured out of my imagination, that I had to justify every request I made to them.

See, it’s likely that this arose because of how I was brought up. But it’s also something I could have grown out of a lot quicker. I’m glad, however, that I didn’t. Because now when I think about requests I make to people: like asking for help, I think about why I’m asking or reaching out for it. In my head, and I don’t know how to explain it – it makes it easier to reach out to people and ask for things, because I know I’m not asking things without purpose or reason.

And it’s very strange.

But asserting bigger requests with my parents – like purchasing things, has gotten way easier since I’ve come to college. By this I mean that there’s more of a discussion on whether to purchase something, or whether alternatives are available, and such – rather than questioning about why I want something. That’s something I’m appreciative of, today. It’s taught me a fair bit.