Category: Blog

Remember all those plans I had yesterday that I wanted to execute? The whole wake up and be active and run errands bit. I managed all of that today, and I don’t think I could have done much else in my power to make this a good day. Which, to me, signifies the greatest possibility of a good day being achieved.

Essentially: I accomplished the bank stuff I had to get done, I cooked myself pasta, played basketball for an hour, and chilled out at home. Managed to also copy-paste most of the blog posts I’ve written through exam season from Microsoft Word onto WordPress. I know that sounds extremely lazy, but trust me, the exercise of copy-pasting gets a lot harder when you have to generate individual posts and justify them, rather than being able to copy-paste directly.

Cooking pasta for myself has always brought a lot of quiet comfort with it, especially when I am alone in the kitchen. There is no part of the process I do not enjoy. Right from the start, where I boil pasta, to the end, where I grate mozzarella cheese onto my plate and make a mess of the black granite in my kitchen, it’s a very, very fun process. It’s even more fun when I’m experimenting with ingredients. Today, I added another element by watching The Avengers while waiting on things to boil and cook. I know for a fact that I will be cooking pasta again before my mother returns to spoil me with her cooking. Then I will cook the pasta for her. While rasam and curd rice is the comfort food of my soul, pasta is the comfort food of my hands. One day I want to stop relying on store-bought pasta. That will be my greatest accomplishment in the short-run.

Anyway, you see how I said I went and played basketball? That wasn’t originally a part of today’s plan at all. I wanted to swim. Honestly, because the weather is well-suited for the activity, but also because, what’s the point of having access to a facility if you aren’t going to use it? I had suited up and everything and confidently strutted to the Club House, only to be met with prohibitive pricing and politics that is far too intricate to be detailed on this blog. I’ll put it simply: adult egos make children suffer every time where community interests are at play. This is because of a few reasons: (a) the betterment of future residents of the community is given a lower priority than an immediate, short-term fix, (b) future residents of the community are not considered stakeholders in any decision-making processes involving the community, (c) funds are spent on mechanisms that are not necessarily likely to succeed in securing community interests, but rather on mechanisms that are backed by a larger proportion of the politically active members of the community.

There’s a lot more to that rant, and I can express it to several individuals who I believe are responsible for my inability to access the Club House. However, I have 3 weeks here, my mother lands next week. It is a topic that is worth discussion after more information is received.

(I am strongly opinionated because I was prohibited from accessing the Childrens’ Park 10 years ago, when I was a 10 year old, amongst other decisions that I have fully, vehemently disagreed with – in their intent, framing, and execution.)

Man, I had massive plans for today. I thought I’d wake up, go run, and then run some bank errands that I had pending in the morning. Then I had plans of cooking myself some good lunch, and then heading out again for a swim, or some basketball. Coming home, working, and then cooking dinner and sleeping.

I did maybe 10% of that.

See, whenever I come home, I come home to teething problems of a house resurging from being shut to becoming fully operable. So we’ve got a standard run of checks we run as a family: electricity everywhere, water everywhere, WiFi, the stove, the fridge, and a couple of other things. If everything’s green, we’re good to go. If one thing goes kaput, we deal with it and figure out how to get it up and running.

I woke up this morning and the electricity was what chose to go kaput. Thus started a day of waiting on people and hurrying people to fix a problem – mostly because I wanted access to the comfort of my air conditioner again. It isn’t even that hot in Bangalore, but having access to an electronic gadget is a privilege that I have been afforded, so ensuring I am able to have the option of whether or not to exercise that privilege (choosing the negative response more often than not) is not an option I will easily let go of. Atleast not without some attempt to ensure I can get things functioning.

I’m pleased to say that everything’s up and running now. About 5 hours of waiting later.

I did my waiting on the couch, because the only room with the electricity working was the hall – so I was able to use my fan, which rocked.

Anyway, speaking of electronics, I must tell you what I purchased for my birthday. Using some money I had earned as a result of my internship at WIMWI, I purchased a Novation Launchkey Mini. This is a MIDI Keyboard, a keyboard that you connect to your computer, and use a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) to trigger sounds on the keyboard and record and make music. It’s a device that I’ve longed for since Grade 9/10, when I first started recording piano covers – and then when I went into using FL Studio to make orchestral music. I’m looking forward to learning how to use Ableton Live over the next 3-4 months and then starting to upload music again on my Soundcloud without being called out for copyright violations by the community owing to sampling.

Ah, I’m home.

I flew Air India into Bangalore this morning – taking a very early flight to reach home in Whitefield just before 7AM. What an experience that was. Ahmedabad airport has to be one of the strangest airports I’ve ever flown through – especially the international terminal. The last time I was there, and I flew to Dubai, the immigration counter was just for a few hours. As a result, even though I had finished checking-in and I had my boarding pass, I couldn’t go through security checks, nor could I access my boarding gate. Additionally, my friend and I noticed how much better the domestic terminal was in comparison to the international terminal in terms of the food options and vibe generally – you felt more like a traveler in the domestic airport than in the international one, which was something I found odd.

This time, however, the sheer number of flights taking off within the same time-slot caught me off guard. There was a massive, massive rush to get through a baggage X-Ray (a procedure which is inconsistent across airports in India, and probably needs to get relooked at by some authority or the other) because there were 10 international flights operating larger aircraft models, all scheduled to depart within the same 2 hour slot. Most of them were connecting flights with through check-ins, but were distinct codes nonetheless, so the crowd was ridiculous. Coupled with the understaffing at the airport, the experience wasn’t all that great.

However, flying Air India was the best decision I made, flight-wise. The Indian aviation sector has been hit pretty badly after Jet Airways tanked, operations wise (and I spotted a SpiceJet flight running the Jet Airways colourway). As a result, flight prices have skyrocketed, and direct flights connecting popular ports have been affected, with airlines scrambling to target markets and routes on which Jet was popular by introducing stopovers. For example, where Jet operated an Ahmedabad-Hyderabad service, Indigo added a Hyderabad stopover to their Bangalore route – incurring a lower overhead to operate a distinct route.

I can’t do that stopover life, and I’m not willing to pay exorbitant fares to fly. Air India gave me a 50% discount (because I’m a student), flew direct, and allowed 25kg checked baggage. And, it departed on time, gave me some food, and got me safely to my destination. There’s not much else I would have asked for when I chose to fly the airline. I don’t even remember the last time I flew it – I’m guessing somewhere in 2005/06. So coming back, to me, means I’m here to stay.

Landing at home is a beautiful feeling. Every single time.

Meeting people you haven’t met for 4-5 months, but wanted to meet every single day is also indescribable.

Celebrating your birthday one day late with pizza, banoffee pie, great company, and with my semester done?

Priceless.

Guess who is Twenty-One years old now? That’s right, yours truly.

The day’s started off with some black forest ice-cream cake at midnight, followed by an intense study-sleep-wake up dazed cycle, a good exam, and then some lying around on my bed, followed by some pizza, and packing to wrap up the semester.

Which is a pretty great day to me. Finishing the semester on my birthday wasn’t ideal, because I was hoping to be in Bangalore or Dubai to celebrate, but it turned out pretty well.

I don’t really feel any different being twenty-one to be honest. The only thing I’ve now attained is the ability to purchase liquor if I wish to, by giving my own identity card, and second, the ability to legally be married under Indian Law. It’s a strange set of rights for the State to recognize, and I’m sure there are more, but turning 21 doesn’t feel any different from any of my earlier birthdays. I’m sure the effects of being this old will hit me at some point later on, but that’s for another day.

For now, I’m happy to be at the airport on my way back to Bangalore.

Second last day on campus, even semester 2019. Waah.

So the last exam I have is Air and Space Law, which is a super fun subject that deals with the laws pertaining to aviation and outer space. It essentially lays down several tenets, including the fact that civil aviation aircraft must not be shot down by countries, and also that no country should attempt to claim some part of the moon as their own. It’s a subject I’ve been fascinated by since I did my first moot court competition in my first year of Law School, and something I’m hoping to get to apply in the future – so studying it is very easy for me, as a result of the natural interest I have in the subject, and the kind of legal regime countries have been able to agree on for (literally) a world we do not entirely know of as yet.

I’m enjoying reading through everything. What I like (and dislike) about the course is the kind of context that’s been built into our classes. It’s really enjoyable because it makes the Law feel accessible, and practical. At times, however, the amount of context we’ve learnt outweights the amount of Law we’ve read or been taught, as a result of which a lot of my understanding of this Law is in the abstract. That’s not something I’m particularly fond of. However, I must say, if there was one class I was always awake in, it was this one. That, for my fourth year, is quite the achievement, and thus deserves high praise.

Today a few seniors I am close to are leaving campus. With this batch, the leaving doesn’t feel as dramatic as past years’, mostly because I know that several of the friendships I have with these seniors are ones that can seamlessly transit to a friendship outside of the confines of our campus life.

Tomorrow is my birthday. I’ll be turning 21! Quite excited. Let’s see how the day pans out, for it’s definitely going to involve an exam.

Well, that didn’t go poorly at all. In fact, I think it was probably the best paper I’ve written this semester. Hopefully my marks reflect that. Even if they don’t, the happiness I derived from that paper means a lot to me. But wow, did I walk out with a bruised hand at the end of it. See, as a left-hander, I write really weirdly. My hand bends at the wrist to form a ninety degree angle with my arm. So where paper is not printed well, or is cut poorly, my little finger bears the brunt of the paper cuts. That’s pretty much what happened today.

A long nap later, what dawned on me was that I was three days from going home. Hearing that news has made me immensely happy.

Yeah, the sentiment from yesterday has carried on to today. I definitely feel like my exams are over, albeit with the full knowledge that I have two more papers to give. This, as I stated yesterday is solely owing to the fact that the toughest exam in my repertoire of six subjects this semester has finished up. This is not to take away from the difficulty of other subjects I have remaining: they’re equally difficult in terms of how the papers could end up being. But none of them have been as poorly taught or structured. Moreover, none of the subjects I have remaining is as far removed from what I am interested in, that Tax was.

Which is the core of my argument for why the toughest paper ought to be either the first paper or the last paper that students give. If it’s the first paper, students will get the most amount of time to prepare for the exam. Moreover, being done with the paper will be more relief than anything else, and won’t really affect how they view the rest of the papers. Atleast nobody will feel like exams are over, because there are far too many left for you to feel like the entire exercise is done with. However, the downside to this is having a bad first paper may make everyone feel like trash, and the likelihood of having a bad paper when the subject is difficult is higher than it is with a relatively easy subject.

So I’d advocate for the toughest paper to be last. Probably an unpopular opinion, but my procrastination today has taught me atleast this much.

Also, what is up with modules being deceptively long. How does one subject have 6 modules but have the same amount of course as a subject with 3 modules? Why is the world like this? Prima facie it looks like the course is easy. Then you start studying and there’s layers to what you are expected to know. Then you find out it’s an application-based paper.

I really should have started earlier, but I regret nothing. My Tax break was well-earned, and I cooked some amazing pasta today.

I am done with Taxation Laws forever.

I didn’t need too many marks on the end-semester exam to pass, as a consequence of which I know I’ll definitely pass, considering that I attempted every question on the exam. However, my goal at Law School hasn’t been to just pass. Whether I’ll meet up to my expectations is something on which I’ll leave the jury out, but I think that I genuinely prepared for this exam as best as I could. What I mean by this is that for a poorly taught, terribly unstructured course, I did my best to structure everything in a form that I could understand. I learnt all the sections and their applicability to the best of my ability. I tried remembering as much as I could. And I slept a little. Which caps off the best preparation I think I could have done.

The only thing I slipped up on my judgment prior to the exam is that I chose to study and glance through the pre mid-semester portions. This, although the professor teaching the course had indicated that “questions once asked would not be repeated”. But she continued to include those portions in the end-sem portions too, and I don’t really trust her, so I thought it was worth spending some time on.

In either case, the course is over forever, and this is a truly joyous moment. The work I had done at my internships had introduced me to the subject in a completely different light, and I genuinely looked forward to learning how Taxation systems worked and the principles on which they were based. Unfortunately, that was only one module, after which the intricacies of tax calculation and other allied subjects took over our studying aside from how the Law worked.

So I celebrated post-exam, by rewarding myself with a 5-hour long nap, and 2 hours worth of binge watching on YouTube. My mother chuckled again because she was no longer sure whether I was in exam season. To me, to be honest, I think I’m done. I have 2 more papers, but finding motivation is going to be pretty difficult. I know it’ll come, it’s just that finishing the toughest paper in your entire course gives you relief like much else does in life.

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?