Mischief Managed

Finally back from Philly. An amazing experience! I'll definitely write a super-long post about it.

Let's see where my sleep deficit stands - approx 3-4 hours Thursday night, 1 hour Friday night, 8 hours Saturday night. Not that bad. I should try to sleep on time tonight. Let's see.

HW for tomorrow - Mat, Wri, and CS Exercises!

For now, the agenda looks like - dinner, econ study group, SASA Board, then Math and CS homework.

OMG

Wow. WRI sem. COS. Doesn't even feel like Spring Break was just a week back.

Dil

So I was in the bathroom some time back, and thinking about different things, when suddenly, this song from this TV show that I watched a long time back - about a group of teenagers in high school - came back to me. I was suddenly humming it, and I was so shocked when I realized where it came from!

But I always thought it was a really nice song. The lyrics of the main verse go like this -
"Dil ki yeh dhadkan,
Saason ki sargam,
Hai kehne ko beka-raar;
Tumhare rahenge hum,
Tumhari kasam!"

English Translation when I have more time! Okay, back to CS. :)

First Day, Post Spring Break!

Wow. Eventful day!

Math, where midterm papers were returned (surprisingly, did well, or at least as well as midterms go!), then computer science, where we did a really interesting concept called directed graphs.

A directed graph consists of a number of vertices, and some of these vertices are connected by directed line segments. We did really interesting problems related to such graphs, like finding out whether two given vertices are "connected" - basically requiring us to see if there's a path from one to the next. Other problems included finding that path, finding out cycles in such graphs, and looking at applications of such graphs -- from analyzing energy flow in nature's food cycles to internet website crawling, to seeing how they are used in production assemblies. Fascinating. I have a feeling it's going to be slightly to completely "wrap your mind around it" (quoting my professor, Robert Sedgewick), but it's very interesting. And hey, what's life without a few difficult challenges here and there? (:

After that, came back and organized my email, which was long overdue. Then EGR 194 lecture, where the professor talked about alternative sources of energy and primarily about solar energy, raising some thought - provoking questions --> How much of the US's present energy needs are met by solar? How many nuclear plants would we have to build to reach the current production capacity of coal, and how much time would it take to build them all? Why can't solar energy constitute more than 15-20% of total energy needs? Oh, and the professor's laptop acted funny and stopped projecting 15 odd minutes into the lecture, so he had to be extra careful that we understood the stuff he was talking about (even though it was pretty simple), given that there was no visual stimulus.

And hold your breath, the day's not over yet! So I come back to the room, read for my writing seminar, and then went off for my writing seminar (yes, I had to skip dinner). The seminar was fun today, and the professor gave us some basic instructions about our final research paper and how we should go about starting it, and she also introduced a new talisman for today's class, the "megaturd" and how we should do our best to avoid it! Fun. Oh, and then a really seventh-grade style-ish grammar exam at the end - Surprisingly, quiet a few people got all of them correct!

Then Frist for late meal, as I had missed dinner. God, I loved having the chicken quesadilla after SUCH a long time. Ran into a few friends, and had fun just making really terrible jokes with them!

PDP Elections! Zayn (current President who now steps down) and the others were really funny. Candidates fought for three positions, and overall I think the results were satisfactory.

Nice, satisfying first day. Oh, and it rained on-and-off today. Can't seem to decide whether I like so much rain. Reminds me of the Indian monsoon though (:

Still work to do. Ground to cover. First class at 11 am tomorrow though, so could work till about 2 without hitch. Sweet.

Thank you, first day, for being nice! (:

The Spring Semester Begins...

"If winter comes, can spring be far behind?"
- Percy Bysshe Shelley

Today was SUCH a nice day! It was warm and sunny, to use a cliche, and the campus was teeming with people -- students hanging out in the sun (sunbathing outside Frist/playing frisbee/ football/ going on runs etc), and it was really interesting to see the huge number of visitors we got today! There were a lot of visitors/tourists -- both teenagers as well as grown-ups, and they seemed to love the weather, and of course, seemed to love the scenic views Princeton has to offer. I had lunch at Iano's, and maybe because it was a Saturday, there were SO many people who had come to shop/window shop at the market!

Today, I actually felt, for the first time this break, that the entire campus was awake.

This spring break, from start to end, has been a bit like the transition from winter to spring. It started off relatively dull, and the weather, with rain and heavy cloud cover, contributed to that gloomy, lazy mood. Gradually though, it became more interesting - I played cricket, started being slightly (VERY slightly) more productive, and by this weekend, Saturday, we had perfect weather, the campus came alice and I actually got a lot of stuff done - stuff that was not academic work, but needed to be done anyway.

Spring break has now officially almost ended. School's going to start tomorrow!

And it really does feel, maybe it's just me, that the "spring" semester is going to start on Monday.

I love the feeling in the air - two things are contributing to this - firstly, the weather, and secondly, the fact that students are now returning to campus. I ran into good friend of mine (who lives in my hallway) when I was exiting my room, and who had gone away for a course field trip (to ROME!!), and I literally jumped because I was seeing her after such a long time!! And then, other people returned too - the two resident aliens, RAs of my room, and one of my roommates, who had gone to Boston to visit a friend's place. The dining hall is going to see a lot more people tomorrow, and I have a feeling Rocky - Mathey's servery will open for dinner, as it's the Sunday before school starts! (I think I learned about this last break - during intercession - that all dining halls open up the final day - the day break ends). It seems that everyone is refreshed, everyone is ready to take on the challenges of the post - break semester. And I think, so am I. (:

I need to be working on assignments today, but somehow that feeling of uneasiness associated usually with pending work is not there. Maybe it's an illusion created by the break - a dangerous illusion at that - but I like it. I do realize the importance of finishing it on time though, and I'm going to try my best to get a lot of stuff done today.

With that, let the madness begin!!!

PICSim 2010 -- All Your Base Are Belong To Us

Princeton played host to students from colleges across the US and from different parts of the world, including India, Singapore, China and Germany for this year's Princeton Interactive Crisis Simulation (PICSim 2010), held on 25th - 28th February, 2010.

PICSim is an annual conference organized by the International Relations Council (IRC), and though it comes close, it's slightly different from Model UN. Delegates are assigned different committees (which are countries in this conference). Each delegate within each committee is assigned a position -- say, Minister of Finance, Minister of Defence - you get the idea. 3 - 4 committee sessions are held everyday. In these committee sessions, pressing issues of international as well as national importance are discussed. Topics range from epidemic outbreaks to local riots, from pain-in-the-butt neighbors and border disputes to nuclear weapons and concerns about them. A live conference website carries details -- press releases by the various countries involved, press articles which provide a third person view of the goings-on in an area, news videos that simulate various situations (for example, riots in an area leading to escalating local tension).

So yes, it does get pretty intense. You can see the potential.

I participated in PICSim 2010 as I'm a part of the IRC, and I was looking forward to PICSim. I had helped organize PMUNC 2009, Princeton's Model UN conference for high-school students held in November 2009. While that was a great experience, it was a conference of high - school students, and ccl-ing (fellow-organizers will get this term) is not really the most fun thing to do. [To the person who actually wrote all those humongous LEGAL papers and resolutions, I'm still looking for you!!] So I was positive about playing a more active and instrumental role in PICSim, and interviewed for positions in mid - December.

I came to know in December itself that I had been appointed to be the Director of India, and that did get me excited. It was finals-time however, so I didn't really have time to give much thought to this appointment at that time.

I had to skip the first evening of PICSmi (a Thursday) as I would be missing all classes on Friday, and I had shifted some of them to that Thursday, and I wanted to get as many pending things done as I could before I began the conference.

Coming into the first day, I didn't really know what to expect. I was certainly expecting debate of good quality, knowing that delegates from reputed universities from all over were in attendance. I was also feeling slightly guilty, as I hadn't done as much research as I should have on my region - India, but that turned out to be okay because I knew enough already. Oh, and I was slightly heckled because of the reporting time for the staff - 8.30 am. Yes, when it was snowing outside. Plus, I had a writing seminar final paper due - no joke - Friday at 6 pm. So yes, a lot of things went through my mind as I came in for my first session as director on Friday, the 26th.

Slowly, the room (the "Den" at Campus Club) filled in. It seemed to be a nice group and I could definitely see the scope for some good discussions in the following sessions. Meanwhile, I familiarized myself with my role as the director -- confirming what was required of me, and trying to get comfortable with the many things I was supposed to be managing. Oh, and how can I forget the projector -- every time we shifted, there was a new projector, and you had to figure out how to set it up all over again. Evan, serving on the technical staff, seemed as clueless as I was the first time I called him at the Den, but we finally managed to get the projector up and running in that first session and even in the subsequent sessions.

Introductions, slight overview by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh a.k.a. Vinayak Venkataraman, ELE Junior. (who I thought was really well suited to the role, by the way, given how soft-spoken he is and how he can keep his cool when all around him are loosing theirs). Went through a few action orders, I think a couple of press releases, and that was about it.

Our entire committee went out for dinner to Thai Village, which turned out to be fun. You could sense the energy, and the excitement of the delegates. At dinner, I talked more with delegates in my committee from India and Germany. Post dinner, another session, and then I went back, glad to be home after a long day out.

Day 2
Day 2 was THE most exciting day.

To be continued..

So much

for my attempts at sleeping early. It's already 4 am. I'm looking at episodes of Dance India Dance. I'll then watch 24 for the first time, as I have heard a lot about it and want to check it out!

5.10 pm, Monday. Let's get our act together! Snack, Dinner, then Gym, then ORGANIZE!

Limp Bizkit is rockin' the set

So I was just listening to this OLD song from Limp Bizkit, a mission impossible theme. I used to listen to this song quiet a lot in school and suddenly felt like listening to it right now.

I just think that some of the lyrics are nice --

"Life's just a blast cuz its movin' really fast
So ya better stay on top or life'll kick you in the a**
...
Does anybody really know the secret
Or the combination for this life and where they keep it
It's kinda sad when you don't know the meaning
But everything happens for a reason!"
(Courtesy : songmeanings.net)

haha.. strange how they tried to imbibe philosophy into the song.

Spring break - Day 1

Woke up at 2.30. First meal at 5, at Forbes. SUCH a long walk in the rain. And the rain and the wind that came along with it was SO chilly. But I guess I enjoyed it. Ran into friends at dinner at Forbes, and then hung out with a few of them, watching a movie in their room. Came back, and stopped at the Wa to pick up something, and ran into a completely flustered friend whose attempts to travel had been foiled, to her frustration, by the weather. Later came back to the room, finished the second part of The Elegant Universe, went on Facebook for a bit. It's now 6 am. Sleeping just doesn't seem a good idea after midterms, Haha... but I can't afford to make this a habit. You're going to be sleeping on time tomorrow, come what may.

So all in all, a very relaxed start to the break. Leading days should be more productive.

Spring Break!

Spring Break’s here!

You know how it feels when there are a lot of things going on, you’re tearing your hair out, running from place to place, having to manage a zillion things in your mind, being tense about a billion other things and then suddenly, you hit the pause button? That feeling is such a void - ish feeling. It’s similar to, say, a free - fall - > you’re falling wildly, arms flailing, scared out of your mind or maybe enjoying yourself a bit, and then suddenly, time just freezes. As if that universal remote Adam Sandler has in Click really existed and some crazy guy pressed the pause button.

Spring Break at Princeton is SO much like that.

Princeton has an amazingly grand daily scheme of events and classes. Princeton’s infrastructure is mind - boggling. It blows my mind when I think about the logistics of it all - on any given weekday when classes are being held, so many lectures, precepts, labs, sessions and appointments are happening simultaneously. How that system runs, and so efficiently at that, is really amazing. Every student is managing his or her own set of classes, going about his own routine scheduled for that day. And all the different components of this brilliant system fit together seamlessly, or at least seem to. Just like clockwork.

So when this system comes to a halt, albeit a temporary halt, you’re left confused. And dazed. That’s quite how I feel right now. The system that was running at full steam till yesterday (my last class before break was yesterday) just paused itself - paused itself so you could take a break. For nine days, it’s not going to dictate or surround your life. You have those nine days to do whatever you want to do.

I may seem to be going on about this, but that’s how it is - I am having some difficult wrapping my mind around this concept.

A list of stuff I have to do over Spring Break à upload long - due pictures, write a few articles, update my blog, sleep a LOT so I can make up the sleep deficit I have accumulated, play table tennis and tennis as frequently as can be managed, organize my room better, organize my weekly schedule better, watch some movies that I wanted to earlier but couldn’t, hang out with friends who are still on campus, possibly read a couple of books, and if time still remains, study a bit and catch up on those classes where I need to catch up.

Spring break is officially here, in another 45 minutes. But for some reason, I don’t feel that excited. Maybe it’s because I just finished watching “Dead Poets’ Society”, a particularly intense movie that has the potential to partially depress you and put you in a contemplative mood. Or maybe it’s because when I went to Dillon for playing table tennis (and I had not played for some time and was really looking forward to it), the table tennis club actually wasn’t playing then -- the room was closed and the tables weren’t even set up, even though they had mentioned in an earlier email that they would be holding practice tonight. Or maybe it’s because I’m not going home / sunny California / Vegas / Venice / Italy / Germany / Sydney / Bali / Hawaii (the list is totally random -- these locations really don’t have a link between them, nor do I have friends that are going to each of these places :P). Or because I have to take ALL my meals this coming week at Forbes (Yes, ALL. I totally don’t get why they did this. Maybe they want to make some of the students on campus aware that the place exists.) -- now that means I will be crossing into a different zip code thrice a day, something that I don’t get to do that often here. Or because there’s going to be no late meal at Frist in the coming week. Ah. BINGO. I guess it’s the last reason I mentioned. I remember pondering over the significance of this fact and the dire implications it was going to have for all of us, or at least for me, as I was consuming my quesadilla at late lunch today -- my final quesadilla for nine days. That’s 9 * 24 hours. That’s a long time.

Having said that, I plan to ring in the Spring Break in style, or at least as much style I can manage after having watched that terribly heavy movie. I totally did not want this piece to take the tone it did, but I couldn’t help it. [Mental note - write a more positive entry about Spring break, sometime soon.]

And guess what? It’s Charter Friday. (:

Future Blog Topics

1. Midterms!! (Only if I have the time)
2. Looking Back - The Year Gone By
(with a slightly less cliche title)
3. Finding Time at Princeton
4. Plans for the next semester
5. Plans for the summer
6. Semester 1 -- Recap
7. PICSim 2010
8. Of Deadlines
9. Unpredictable?
10.Outdoor Action '09
11.International Pre Orientation