Looking for the Halo

I have moved here

i'll be moving to a new blog address soon.

mainly because saintthomas was fine as a joke, but it's time for me to be me. I am not a saint, and i have no pretensions to being one, however i do aspire to be better - and i know that the journey is taking long, and there have been wrong turns on the way, but the key characteristic of this search is that it never ends.

leaving you with a snap which i really like, from the BT Acumen quiz finals at delhi, we were the west zone winners, and came within a question of being 2nd at delhi ( we were 2nd until the last round) i can only blame my medication :-) for not being sharp enough that day - also the cold was really numbing my brains, but the half an hour chat with Harsha Bhogle post the finals - at the dinner where he expressed his desire to get away from the corpo types and gave us his gyaan on sundry matters including cricket - he is a great guy - unassuming, witty and very very likeable.




see you soon, at the new address...

am off to Bangalore to celebrate christmas,

here's wishing you a merry christmas and a happy new year!

courtesy, Gaurav Mishra

"
The professor told his class one day: "Today we
will experiment with a new form called the tandem story. The process is simple. Each person will pair off with the person sitting to his or her immediate right. As homework tonight, one of you will write the first paragraph of a short story.

You will e-mail your partner that paragraph and send another copy to me.The partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story and send it back, also sending another copy to me. The first person will then add a third paragraph, and so on back-and-forth.Remember to re-read what has been written each time in order to keep the story coherent. There is to be absolutely NO talking outside of the e-mails and anything you wish to say must be written in the e-mail. The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached."

The following was actually turned in by two of
his English students: Rebecca and Gary.

-------------------------------------------

THE STORY:

(first paragraph by Rebecca)

At first, Laurie couldn't decide which kind of tea she wanted. The chamomile, which used to be her favorite for lazy evenings at home,now reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he liked chamomile. But she felt she must now, at all costs, keep her mind off Carl. His possessiveness was suffocating, and if she thought about him too much her asthma started acting up again. So chamomile was out
of the question.




(second paragraph by Gary)

Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about than the neuroses of an air-headed asthmatic bimbo named Laurie with whom he had spent one sweaty night over a year ago. " A.S. Harris to Geostation 17," he said into his transgalactic comunicator.
"Polar orbit established. No sign of resistance so far..." But before he could
sign off a bluish particle beam flashed out of nowhere and blasted a
hole through his ship's cargo bay. The jolt from the direct hit sent him flying
out of his seat and across the cockpit.



(Rebecca)


He bumped his head and died almost immediately, but not before he felt one last pang of regret for psychically brutalizing the one woman who had ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4. "Congress Passes Law Permanently Abolishing War and Space Travel," Laurie read in her newspaper one morning.

The news simultaneously excited her and bored her. She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth, when the days had passed unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspaper to read, no television to distract her from her sense of innocent wonder at all the beautiful things around her. "Why must one lose one's innocence to become a woman?" she pondered wistfully.



(Gary)


Little did she know, but she had less than 10 seconds to live.Thousands of miles above the city, the Anu'udrian mothership launched the first of its lithium fusion missiles. The dim-witted wimpy peaceniks who pushed the Unilateral Aerospace disarmament Treaty through the congress had left Earth a defenseless target for the
hostile alien empires who were determined to destroy the human race.Within two hours after the passage of the treaty the Anu'udrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying enough firepower to pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop them, they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan. The lithium fusion missile entered
the atmosphere unimpeded. The President, in his top-secret mobile submarine
headquarters on the ocean floor off the coast of Guam, felt the
inconceivably massive explosion, which vaporized poor, stupid Laurie.


(Rebecca)

This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature. My writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic semi-literate adolescent.


(Gary)


Yeah? Well, my writing partner is a self-centered tedious neurotic whose attempts at writing are the literary equivalent of Valium. "Oh, shall I have chamomile tea? Or shall I have some other sort of F--KING TEA??? Oh no, what am I to do? I'm such an air headed bimbo who reads too many Danielle Steele novels!"


(Rebecca)

A**hole.


(Gary)


Bi***


(Rebecca)

F__K YOU - YOU NEANDERTHAL!

(Gary)
Go drink some tea - wh***.



(TEACHER)
*A+ - I really liked this one.* "

I miss my old self. I used to be very simple, straightforward person and my relations too were simple and straightforward. There were people I liked, and people I admired and I didn’t waste too much time worrying about what others thought of me and what my image was.

Since my last couple of reviews were I was told that my work is good but my management of perceptions needs to improve, I have spent some time thinking about it,and also acting on it. But it leaves me unhappy.

What really matters is whether I do my work and how well I do my work. Managing image perceptions means that you spend less time working. But in my conversations with other batchmates – it seems that I am not the only one getting this feedback.

Getting back to the starting line, I am now more complicated and involved with people, thoughts, places and tasks which are not even close to the goals of simple old me. I used to be happy playing football, I used to be happy just saying hi to you across the mess, I used to be happy because my group gave kick ass case solutions which others hadn’t thought of, I used to be happy with very simple things. The grades didn’t matter and the jobs others got didn’t matter.

Now, 10% increments every six months are not enough, I am comparing my pay to those of my batchmates. The fact that I enjoy my work is not enough, I think I should be doing more. The fact that I am reading some really beautiful books is not enough, I think I am not reading enough. I haven’t played some football in a long time, I am busy trying to make money and getting the corner office. And what will I think of the days and years which I spend pursuing something which is not close to my heart’s desire.

I really miss you.

here is friend's blog, read his rants about the ramayana, fed rates and sundry other stuff..

we understand it, but we have it only occasionally

thanks to cookie, for sending me this fun link, check it out..

it's been some time, and though i am not going to start regular blogging again in the near future, i thought it might be good for me to put down the thoughts that are running through my mind

its a period of change and turmoil, and am just trying to sit back and let the dust settle

and the same question keeps coming back

am i becoming a bad person?

people i trusted have lied to me, cheated me and done things which i would never expect them to do. and i hope i never do these things to anyone, friend or stranger.

but the fact that these things happen leave me wondering, how did i invite these experiences into my life? by being less than 100% honest? or by compromising? or am i still to figure out the finer intricacies of human relationships?

just being good is not good enough? and am doing a very bad job of being good?

its time to change and renew my vow to be the best person i can be at every point in time.

and refuse to allow my virtues to be used as weapons against me, and to get rid of my many not so virtuous aspects.

it is time to let go of 'bad quality'

"Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see us squandering it. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly waking up to that fact, people. And we're very, very pissed off."

Tyler Durden, Fight Club

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