01-June-2006, 01:14 EST (Writing about 31st May)
Today (I am talking about 31st May) was another ordinary day in my life. Except for the fact that today I started writing and the fact that I spent more than 12 hours in office.
Finally, I have begun. I have been thinking of this since the day I learned to write, I guess. Or may be even before that. I always wanted to write. But thanks to the royal laziness that I am gifted with, I decided that I will begin only when I get a secretary to write down whatever I say or a magic machine that would write whatever I thought. (Books like the Harry Potter series really spoil your thinking.) But one fine day, while I was crossing the street, I saw a hotdog shop on the other end and the thought of overcoming my laziness struck me. (No relation there. I was just practicing the art of making the reader visualize the situation). Anyway, so the thought struck me and bam!... 5 years later I started writing.
So here I am, in my bed, in an air conditioned room, leaning cosily on my back, which is resting against two huge pillows, lower half of my body under the blanket(upper half is bare) and this idiot box on my lap (yeah, I have a laptop now...). You know, this is the way I used to sit and study during engineering as well (now you know that I am an engineer). No wonder I flunked ‘n’ number of times in ‘m’ number of exams during engineering. So, considering that there are 'x' theory exams, 'y' practicals and 'z' term works, I must have appeared for [(x+y)*m] ^n + z + c exams in all. (Where c is a universal constant having value 2.4175 * 10^ - 4.7)... Now, you would believe that I am an engineer. Not that engineers are smart enough to derive such formulae, which make absolutely no sense, are of no necessity or use and are spooky to normal humans, but that their life is hollow without such mathematical formulae. They miss these formulae much more than a paralyzed human misses his limbs. Well, can you blame them? First, for four years, mugged up such formulae only to score at least 2 marks in the exam for getting at least the formulae right if not the whole numerical to be able to reach at least the score of 40 (or in some cases 30 i.e. if there is a chance of a jaykar). The repetitive use of "at least" shows how engineering students are not greedy and are very, very content with whatever they get. An "all clear" is all that they hope for, work for and pray for. (Except in final year, when they desperately need a first class and for that need at least 95% marks in the project and at least 85% in term work.) Then, for another year or a year and a half, study such formulae to be able to solve problems from Shakuntala Devi's and George Summers' books so that they can crack the aptitude test of a software company and be among the 50 short-listed candidates, 49 out of which are probably picked up randomly from a lot of 5000. The one who got selected because he deserved it is you. Unlike other books these books really have in them what their names suggest - "Puzzles to puzzle you" and "Brain Teasers". So, in short, don’t get all freaked out if you encounter such formulae in any of the writings of an engineer and more importantly, never attempt to make sense out of it.
Here I begin...
