Monday, December 8, 2008

Sg days III

this post must be jinxed....im writing this for the 3rd time...both the times the comp crashed...my laptop crashed for the 2nd time evr! :(

ok..neways, school started on 2nd jan. we went to skul dressed in 4mals...(make a gud impression :P)..ppl must hav thot we were lusers..lol...neways, we showed up at school, n we were told that NJ had NO record of us..at all. that was quite a shock. so we spent half n hour convincing them that we really belonged to the school, and wernt sum random vagabonds. then they put us in our OGs (Orientation groups)...for the next three days, I have no clue what i did..thsoe three days are lyk lost to me..i dunno what i did...where i went...whom i spoke with in my OG..i remember nuthing...n i dun even hav ne pix..i just know that we had to sign up for our subject combinations...and i launched a minor campaign to try n reinstate computing as a subject. we also had to take stupid selection exams for sum of the suubjects...accelerated maths...KI (Knowledge n Inquiry..aka...philosphy)..i wanted to take the KI xam..but i was sleeping during test time...so...
neways..then i got put in my permanent class..OG19...with shashank..apparently we had passed the acc. math xam...my class was a lotta fun...the orientashun games were amazing..n our class techer was lyk one of the coolest froods ever. i had a lotta fun in the amazing race type thing that we did as a class,,,n we came second in the school! the dance was kinda depressing...cuz i do NOT like to dance..n it ws soooo tiring..n repetitive after a while...but the dance party that ended orientashun week ws a bomb! prolly the highlight of orientashun week...oh n we also had a waterballoon fight, where we could pretty much hit ne1 we wanted with filled water balloons :) yep, it was prty much all out war...rofl
then, school officially started...every1 got down to studying...xcept me...cuz it was basically revision for me...cum on...i had to do vector scalar product... :-| i zzzed in every lecture except economics...my econs teacher is god...all i used to do in those days was cum to school, sleep in the library, n play tennis. the tennis court was the only place where i would wake up...cuz we really had sum really good players this year...seniors who passed out this year... the first three months are usually called the "honeymoon period" cuz theres really no pressure of academics...we used to go out almost every day...i chked out a lot of CCAs(co-curricular activities)...doing totally pointless things..i remember i bunked 8 consecutive weeks of GP (english) lessons...the first term...is lyk a blank to me..its lyk i was on a permanent drug-fuelled high...cuz i dun remeber nething much we did then...which is gud, cuz i dun think i did nething productive then
all the direct scholars were pr8y much jobless..we went down to the city pretty often...n we would randomly meet up...discussing JC life...n prety much enjoying it...
but then march arrived, and it was tym 4 me to go home...jus 4 a week...but that was gud enuf...i needed supplies...n to recharge...so, i came home...n then i went back...the week passed lyk a flash...i was back before i knew it.
when i came back, i had enrichment week. that was another fun week. we went to sentossa for the camp challenge. we built rafts..my raft broke up in the middle of the sea, and we had to swim back to shore...laughing all the way...it was amazing...great fun...i also went bowling...i learnt how to bowl...too bad i dont remember any of the techniques i learnt there. then i went for a movie...where there was so much free food...i cudnt finish it..lol.
n then the screwage started...
1. nanyang research project...i got involved in a computing project that just sapped all my energy..n still is...n worse, its an A level graded project..so i cant slack on it
2. PW..project work...it is the saddest thing ever.
3. studies did get a lil tuff....i mean not the level of education..its jus that i cudnt answer a cuple of questions in every tutorial...at first i just shrugged it off...but then it became worrying..my IIT training didnt help me in these questions...which wernt sums...but questions required paragraph length answers...
April was the so-called killer month. I had tennis national championships...cricket nationals...weekly class tests....maths accelerated program classes...maths olympiad trainings..weekly research meetings...science olympiad trainings...i remembered pranav n I would encourage each other...just 3 more weeks to go b4 april ends...cuz pranav had just as punishing a routine as i did....I used to cum back 4m school at 8 every night...n collapse on the bed...doing tutorials n studying wasnt even in the picture...we passed april...alive...n suddenly life seemed so much easier...
April was the litmus test. things didnt get much worse than april...after we survived that we knew that the rest of our stay wud be comparatively smoother...may was ok...mostly Pw to work on.. tennis training was 'deintensified'...lol...i started getting home earlier...around 6...haha. then i got involved in the national day parade..and all of my saturdays had to be wasted there. so, my workload was pretty evenly distributed throughout the week. PW was a disaster...our group was the most disorganised one...everyone was unique...uniquely disturbed..maybe thats y, when we did get down to work, we made such amazing progress...cuz no1s abilities overlapped each othes. we all had unique talents tat we used to the max...n then the may vacations rolled around...a month long break from school...in theory...

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

SG days...Part II of ?

People Profyl...
Ankit Ganla... first friend...met him on the bus that was upposed to take me sumwhere...very first day...im trying to sleep...n this bald hairy guy ( dun ask me hw u can b bald n hairy at d same time) cums n says im ankit...i thot he was the tour guide or sumthing...so i went back to sleep...or tried to... cuz he sat ryt nex to me...n kept pestering me with questions...well, I learnt that he was always gonna b that irritating...n also that he was my rommmate..so it tried to put up with him...still putting up...12 months later :P..
ankit is the happy go lucky guy...spks inglis with the same wannabe amrikan axent that 1/2 of india tries to emulate... speaks marathi with the same axent that... ok i better not continue...
student councillor...does a lotta crzy stuff...has more hair on his face at any given time than I have on my ntyr body

Plackerwal.. i am told that his real name is sumthing else...but i dun remeber it :P... his lyf has 2 modes...sleeping n running. When placky is in natural state...he is horizontal on his bed..when placky is in P +6 state, he is on the track, rotating around it. Placky sleeps when im awake and plackyz awake when im sleeping...This arrangement evolved cuz neither of us fit in our beds...so our legs inevitably end up on the wrong bed :P plackyz prolly the 2nd best CS player ever...the best DoTA player ive seen...n basically gawdlyk in every sport known to man..n some unknown to man...till recently he was in NJC track n field...but then he became jealous of my $60 roland garros tennis team t shurt..so hes in NJ tennis now...lol... so now we r the "indians in tennis".. when both of us are plying... the entire singpaore police is deployed with snipers trained on us. this dude is up 4 nething..as long as he gets to go 2 sleep after doing it...oh, n to everyone in NJ, we both look the same...ppl think we r twins... cuz we r both tall, dark n not-so-handsome.

Shashank: "Shashank ek anokha prani hai...issey mainak aur ankit ke roommey paya jata" - anonymous. for the first part of the year, shashank - aka shashi- slept in our room. for the next part, he slept on the couch in the common area...dun ask me why. shashi is my classmate. the only other indian in my class..or atleast he is..whenever he comes to school. shashi has taken more medical certificates of absence in a week  than i have in a year...
maths teacher: mainak is shashank sick?
me: i hope so...cuz he definitely has a certificate saying he's sick
that d00d is lazier than I am...n thats saying sumthing...his only CCA is Cricket...cum on...who joins cricket openly? thats lyk saying i cum from bihar in front of bal thackerays house...its suicide. oh...n hes got a robot called Alex

Bong Yi Ping: the first day...im jetlagged n sleepy...n im sitting in a comfy chair that is EXTREMELY conducive to sleep...n suddenly this lady booms "bong"...my first reaction is to stand at attention...but then i decide its too much effort...if she really wants to call me she shud call my name..nt my state's...to my surprise a very shrill voice screams something...im like...bong is a person? more importantly, bong is a girl? hu the crap names their kid bong? neway turned out bong was her last name...she is NOT bengali...n shes totally embarrased abt her name...cum on hu wudnt be?
she givs me food...when im hungry..in other wods..ALL the time...smart gal...gud dancer...way b8r than i am :P

Yeo Minli: for the first few days i thot she had the kewlest name EVER...i mean..her name was yo! then i found out it was her surname.. that was a depressing event...lol. prolly the smartest person i know...gonna get a gold in bio olympiad after studying for lyk 2 mths...owns every1 in NJ lol

Soon Yin Wei: SAT! thats the name i gave him cuz he was always talking abt the SAT and when we would be giving it...he was obsessed with teh SAT...everyday he wud cum down to the comp lab n chk the daily SAT question...i wud b chatting on gtalk..n he wud cum..n do the question n then go away..after the first month he was posted to my class....n then he got into orion with me n shashank...so we were lyk thrown together quite a lot.. then he was in my PW group. My sad sad pathetic in the beginning and then amazing in the end PW group...infact he was the one who provided the idea for my groups project...that guy was a smart dude. Then suddenly in the middle of the holidays, I got a call telling me that he was leaving SG to go to the US. n then my world came crashing down around me...ryt there in the Singapore zoo, in the bird enclosure, i was lyk: there is no way...wat happens to our PW group? But yeah, we pulled through in the end..so thats alright. Ironically, I talked more with him after he left than when we were classmates. even though we did go out together quite a lot too, being like the only direct scholars, we were different from the rest...i guess u never really estimate the worth of a person until he or she leaves...i think college day was the last time we really hung out.. now the dudes in malaysia doing sum bridging course 4 the US. The moral of the story is: If u wanna make it to the US, get insulted by me :P

SG days... part I of ?

all right, after a long time, i have a LOT of free time....actually...nt free time per se, just too lazy to do anything right now. i'm supposed to writing my research report...my college apps....my essays...preping for SAT...and studying econs..but who cares?
I know the readership of this blog is now perfectly 0 ( even i dont check nemore), so it has become more of a place i would like to share my feelings and thoughts right now. Something of a time capsule, come back to it a couple of years 4m now ( hopefully, logging in 4m a country in the western hemisphere) and see how my thought processes have changed...
this is not gonna be a funny post...more of a metahorical reflective assessment of the past 12 months ( u can see ive been practising for the SAT :P)
MY journey from the 17th of december, 2007...how ironic i remember the date of my KVPY interview but not that of many more important things in my life.
In the morning I had my KVPY interview.. my recomendation letter was written by my bio teacher..hwn i had clearly stated that i did NOT wish to be tested on bio...a mismatch that did NOT go unnoticed by the professors. the interview did not go well at all, the questions that they asked were of a kind that I had never heard before ( what do u expect? I had never had a technical interview before!) I blubbered thru the questions...
prof: how is a rainbow formed? me: light hits water...it bounces off at 62 degrees...makes rainbow. prof: can u elaborate further? me: no
prof: :-| plz try. me: (thinks in bengali) how am  i supposed to try if i dunno nething at all?
prof2: ok, prove this...gives this huge trigo sum...
me: i'm sorry, can I have another sum, I have no clue abt this...
prof2 prolly thinks: no future..
The next professor was kinder, He asked me a question about light...something i remember i gave a coherent rreply to...then i was told i could go
when I came out, i was DRENCHED in sweat...the only time in my life i was ever THAT nervous...the interview..comprising of only 3 technical questions...had taken 25 minutes...but it had felt like 30 seconds...
I remember telling my dad in the car( the first time that my dad accompanied me newhere) that it was a good experience...n that i was prolly gonna be the lowest scorer in the entire nation... come to think of it..i had given the examination without a calculator....i had had to derive the value of sin 50 by hand...what do u expect? lol
neway, my flight to bangalore was in a couple of hours..and my passport couldnt be found. every1 was searching for it, and i was doing pushups...just to get rid of the interview stress....even my SIA interview had not been nearly as stressful even though the stakes had been MUCH MUCH higher ( I knew i wasnt eligible for KVPY :( ) neways, we found my passport...and we set off for the airport...
my mom dad n bro all had come to the airport...India's the only country where three people come to see of 1 person at the airport...actually 2...cuz dad was coming too...the flight was short...didnt get hijacked.... then it was the long wait at banglaore...during which i wondered y i was travellign 4m bangalore...when there was a flight at the exact same time out of calcutta... some mysteries just cant be solved.
neway, another flight later, i arrived, thoroughly sleepy and jetlagged. The MOE officer told me i was going to Hwa Chong Boarding School, and I was over the moon, thinking I was going to Hwa Chong JC...a couple of hours later my hopes were dashed when my scholarship letter told me i was goin to someplace called national Jc... something i hadnt even heard of till then. That first day I met all the Indian scholars....arnd 20 of us in total....and I tried to teach a couple of malaysians my name....with some not so pleasing results....
Side story: My Name
my name has always been a bone of contention...with a lot of ppl confusing it with mayank....
To bengalis: My name is M o i nak Ghosh
To non-bengalis: My name is M ay nak Ghosh
To all the peoples living east of India : My name has become Maaai Naak Gosh :|

neways...back to my pathetic life..i was so depressed i asked my dad to buy tickets back home, and he told me to hold on for a couple more weeks till school started and then make a decision...so thats the point where i became stuck in sg lol
Orientation lasted arnd a week... It was fun....we went around doing extremely pointless things... things which I thought were so childish...but later (now) i realise,, they were so essential in getting us bonded together. Friendship has been refined to a science there, unlike in india, where the best way to make friends is to insult that person n hope that he or she will take some notice of u... :P The historical tours of SG...so boring then, were necessary, to understand the cultural perspectives of the people, the adventure camp at Sentosa...really helped us work as a team...altho half of us (including me )cudnt run the whole thing. The leadership camp thing...we had a lot of fun....doing the bhangra...while the others looked on....wondering wat these jokers were doing... the trip to little india was scary... i havent seen that much dirt in the REAL India 8D...and then Chinatown, where I was told my name cudnt be spelt in Chinese :(
Looking back, I wish I had made more friends then and NOT lost all the pictures... moe orientation was the favourite part of my stay in SG...cuz we had absolutely no cares...all we had to do was njoy the (free) ride...the whole hostel belonged to us...we could run arnd..doing watever we wanted... all we did was move around...meeting frnds...chatting ( the bengali term is adda..)... I think we must have visited all the other hostels atleast 5 times each during those 2 weeks... heheh...but yeah...after school began...the trips slowly wound down...