I am Write!

Last night saw Madagascar, and Batman Begins. Back to back, on the big screen. Had loads of fun, and at the end of the movie, had pang of hunger striking my belly. Hitesh and I rushed back to our homes, only to realise that there was an England vs. Australia ODI on TV. Now, being an ardent cricket fan that every Indian is supposed to be, be what-ever cast/creed/religion he follows, I sat infront of the tele for the next 3 to 3 1/2 hours, to watch Australia make 261 for the loss of 9 wickets. But the highlight of the innings wasn't the knock by Symonds, or the partnership that he had with Hussey, it was the confrontation between Simon Jones, an English fast bowler, new on the ODI circuit, and the bulky Matthew Hayden. Here's a snapshot of what happened, courtsey www.crickinfo.com.

Well this pic shows the aftermath between Paul Collingwood and Hayden, but this was just a small part of the huge tiff off :) Awesome fun :P:P
But like all cricket matches, this one too was boring so I kept switching to watch Wimbledon. First the match between Sharapova and Petrova, then between Mary Pierce and Venus Williams, and finally between Davenport and Kuznetsova, all were pretty keenly fought, and they provided me enough support to get through an innings of cricket, in the dead of the night. Nice stuff, and good to watch.

But wait a sec, why am I talking about this? Oh yes, thats b'coz I have to submit my report in a few days time, and have nothing done as yet, and have zero enthusiasm to pursue it. :P So am leaving for the city, to look and snoop around.

-aashish

Well just came back from lunch. Had a weird noodle dish called something like Laksa, with a little bit of a vegetarian touch to it. Hmmm.... Was nice, liked the baby corn, and the sprouts, and carrots, and the more than occasional noodles. :)

But this post is destined to mention about my escapades in Melbourne. Reaching Melbourne on the 17th of June had just one reason: to attend the Good Food and Wine Festival that was being held in the Melbourne Exhibition Centre. Reaching Melbourne, or in short Melb, at 8.30 AM on the 17th of June was more tough a task than I imagined. Traveling to a place with a girl is one of the toughest jobs at hand. And if your flight/train leaves in the wee hours of the morning, assume that you shall be racing your ass out to make it to the airport/train station on time. I have seen this happen with my sister, my mother, and even lots of my friends. My case was no different. I decided to stay at Indrie's place overnight, so that she would not miss the flight. She had not slept properly for the past few days, because of a report submission! (And we at IIT would just put one nightout and be happy :D)
I did manage to getup at 4.30, a full 2h30m before the scheduled departure of the flight. I wake her up, and made the mistake of thinking that she would be ready in no time. Indrie takes a full 2 hours to get ready, and apply an infinite amount of makeup, not even realizing that when we get into the cab, there are just 30 minutes for the plane to depart, and none for boarding to close! :O I have been late for flights/trains, but never in my life have I been so late! The cabbie being a master of Sydney roads, took us to the airport in less than 10 minutes, a distance that I thought would take a little over 15 to cover! I hurried to get the boarding passes for both of us, and viola, the flight is 5 minutes delayed, and we are the last passengers on the flight! Whoa! Base one cleared!
So much for an eventful morning. I should have been writing so much for the complete day! Now coming back to the the food and wine festival. I suggest everyone to go to one such festival atleast. For a mere $15.5 or so, you can feast on almost everything you can think of in eating. Drinking though is limited to wine and beer only :( But I guess it's a good make do :P Well, to say the least, I ate and drank for the whole day, non-stop. Eating pies, and pasta, and pizza and loads of local produce, and then washing it down with red & white wine, and the occasional beer! An awesome day for my stomach ;)
But the icing of the cake was when Indrie managed to get hold of a $50 worth voucher of a Seafood Restaurant somewhere in the city. But then, we both being veggies, decided to give the restaurant a try, and their chefs a pain in the ass :D For the record, this was the first time I ate in a restraunt with a maitre d' and a head chef! We were offered the drinks menu. More of a classical photograph album, it took most of the place in front of me, and after more than 15 minutes into the pages, I still came up with no sure choice. So, we asked the much helpful waitress for a pick, and she suggested a local Aussie Shiraz, and we gleefully accepted :)
Ordering some starters, we made the going tough for the chef, when we disclosed that we won't be having any of their famous fish, but just something veg. Only ONE dish in the menu catered to us! So, the head chef made an entry out of the kitchen, and offered to cookup a pasta-fettachini something, and I found that tempting enough, mainly because of my lately acquired taste for pastas! But the pasta came out raw, and after sending it back, and another plate coming in front of me, the cooking didn't change.
Totally giving up on the much wanted pasta, we were going to wrap up, (the bill had already crossed $50), when the maitre d' offered his apologies, and a chance to have dessert and a hot drink on the house! ;) Now, now, now. As most of my batchmates/seniors/juniors would agree, that is onething that you should not do to an IITian. Offering free food suddenly opens up space in the much filled stomach. I ordered a granita, Indrie a choc Souffle, and then to top it all, 2 cups of hot chocolate. After dowsing all this into my already full stomach, from the days outing, and from the little food that I ate, we were just about to take out the voucher, when the ever-pleasing maitre d' offered us to let go the bill, because of all the trouble that we had encountered in the course of the meal. Aaah!! Now that is a feeling of satisfaction. Ain't it?

We both happily agreed, and I let Indrie use the voucher the next day, with a friend of hers she was supposed to be visiting. Indrie did mention that it was worth seeing the face of the maitre d' and the waitresses when she entered, but then there are always times that you miss out on the fun, ain't it? :((

The other two remaining days at Melb weren't as eventful as the first, and so I guess I can go without describing them. But yes, the dinner was awesome ;)

Was away for the weekend to Melbourne. Thought the place was a crap. Don't even know why they call it a city. And there I lost another friend of mine. Guess I have learnt how Aussies live. People here are just friends over beer. And once the night's over, they aren't friends anymore. Not what I was taught in school though. I thought friends are for life. And just when I thought I had made one more, in an unknown country, it all turned around, in one trip. Just one trip. Lost a person, because I was being to be too good. Wow! And so much of learning that friends last for-ever.
I remember, I always used to fight with my dad on the issue of how should friends be treated. He said, that friends are just around till your success last, and other similar things, and I said they are for life. Till today, I thought I was right. Now I think my dads experience said it all. I am really depressed with what happenned in the past weekend. Hope that never happens again. It seems that life without friends would have been so much easier.
So, from this trip to Australia, I have learnt quite a lot of stuff. Chemical Engg. isn't meant for me. Australians are just friends over beer (more-or-less like a one night stand).
I thought I would be writing about the city of Melbourne, but it seems that life is in too much of a turmoil to write anything. But yes, Melbourne shall have a special place in my head (not heart). Here's where I lost a friend, I thought I had for life.
I have decided to take a rest from blogging for the next few weeks, till I get back to India, set up my comp and re-construct my life again.

Till then, adios.

-aashish

The weekend was awesome. Slight rain, not too cold temperatures, a car in hand, and 3 friends to go around in the car with. And with no limits on exploring this country-continent we set out for a road trip, first in Sydney, and then in the nearby Blue Mountains.

The first thing that we did was pick-up our rental car, a white Hyundai Elantra. Then after picking up the remaining two fellows, Hitesh and I set off to see what the Royal National Park is famous for. Amazing views, and awesome roads, this park is only accessible to vehicles.

lookout point for 3 sisters @ katoomba

skyline around the 3 sisters @ katoomba

fog near the 3 sisters @ katoomba

a ranch off the highway, on the way to the jenolan caves

a look at the blue mountains

a hilly ranch with cows grazing

Taking a stopover at Katoomba to checkout the 3 sisters, and then made progress to the main target of the day: Jenolan Caves. The road from the highway to the caves area, a good stretch of 45+ km, is a winding road around the hills, and has some really hairpin bends. With speed limits of just around 60 kmph, it sure would sound as a not so safe place to speed. But Hitesh made sure that everyone had their heart in their mouths as he turned one after the other at speeds of 80-100 kmph! Finally, when we made it to the caves, the view was breathtaking :) But the parking area wasn't. X(

We made our way from the car, to the ticket counter, only to realise that we had under-estimated the ticket cost of the tours. With each tour not less than $16, and the good-ones going upto $28.5, we were left scrambling for cash (this place didn't accept credit/debit cards). We just about scraped through the $28.5 walk, finally taking the river trail to explore. The walk was amazing, and we managed to see some really great chambers, created by an underground river, rain and limestone. Finishing off this took a little over 2 hours, and we finally made it out of the cave. On reaching land above sea-level, we realised that it had rained, and some more could be on its way. We ran all the way to the car, and then sped off, trying to cover as much distance before the rain slowed us down. The rain beat us to the highway, and we recieved a huge downpour throught out the drive on the hilly terrain. And with Hitesh not slowing down, the doom seemed closer. Finally, the car skid, and everyone started shouting at the driver to slow or get his ass kicked :) He preferred the second, and we all were happy :) Reaching the highway, we stopped at Katoomba, for dinner, and then I took the wheel, and tried to see what speeds I could achieve, now that the roads had dried. Hitting 140 was pretty easy, and we finally made it to Sydney by 10 PM.

Back at home, I went off to sleep, and with a dreamless night, I woke up at a little after 10, made a rush for lab, and got back to work. But the icing on the cake was when I was browsing through some free coupons on my desk last night. One of them stared out in my face. It read: One Free Admission to Jenolan Caves when the second is bought for equal or greater price. I felt so screwed :(

I started this entry, with the thought of something else, but it seems I just went on to describe the road-trip. Who cares :)

Blogging. Something that I feel I suck at. Actually, I guess, I suck at most writing activities. No wonder, I find it easier maintaining a photoblog which people say is much tougher, since you need fresh pics each and every day. Don't know why they say that. All one needs is to take a pic a day. And, I end up with atleast 10-20 a day, and then need to pick off them.
But coming to blogging. People mention lyrics, because they follow that. They mention poetry, because they write that. And then we have the pseud people like Bolli, G (don't know why, but G seems to be changing templates and blog name so frequently, I am unable to locate his blog at the 1st instant in my aggregator!), and Golaxxx, who write great pieces which are worthy of being read more than once. And then there are people like, me, who crib, and chill (???), and waste infinitesimal space in the infinitely large internet. And then, there are some people, who better left unmentioned, just blog some real crap stuff, cut-copy-paste material from sites, that is mostly nonsense to read.

Aah! Coming back to me. This blog is mine. So, I can write crap, and bull shit out here :) Well, I have no idea, why am I writing this. It's 5.37 in the morning. Am at a friend's place. He and another chap are sleeping next to the keyboard. Another is off to sweet slumber on the couch. And, with no space left to stretch my back, I am on this bad-for-spine-chair trying to make head and tail of some vague TOI columnist articles (Evolution or dilution?, What's up, Doc?, and A week in reverse gear), chat with a bunch of unknown people on my Yahoo! list, and read loads of blogs, and check out photoblogs. But then, I have been doing that for the past 2 hours now. And with two double short blacks down my gulp, I doubt if I have had this much of caffeine in me since JEE-mains in May 2002 (oops, the mention of the double short blacks was to say that sleep shall elude me for another 8-10 hours or so). Looks like, this is my first proper nightout in Sydney! Thank God! I haven't got out of this habit. And yes, before I forget, at this hour, I am definitely missing maddu. Man, maddu rocks. But oz land sucks, at 5 in the morning.
Now coming to one of the biggest regrests of the day. Actually 2 regrets. I screwed up with Indrie. And then didn't go to the Jazz festival at Darling Harbour. And yes, I am was not a Jazz fan. But heard some yesterday, and found it nice. So wanted to go today too :(. Fcuk! And then, tomorrow today we are to go to Blue Mountains, and I am a driver for one segment! Damn! Now how shall I manage that? Man! I am dead tired.

Get up, you suckers. You have slept enough. Now get behind the wheel, and lets get rolling!

-aashish

P.S.: learnt how to strike though in blogger :) if u don't know, here's how: < 's' > (minus the quotes and the spaces) tag b4 the text, and a < '/s' > tag after. That's pretty much basic HTML, but, then, I never used this before.

Yesterday, while I was on my way to lunch, heard a construction worker talk on his radio:

Hey Mate, ask Pete to put 2 inches of peanut butter on my sandwich. Last time he put one inch of normal butter, and one of peanut, and it tasted awful, man! Make sure that he doesn't repeat that, else I'll kick some ASS!!! Over and Out!

Now! Isn't that the best way to use a radio? :D

Long time since the last post. A week I guess. A lot has happened in the last one week. So thought I'll mention all that conspired, in one go.
The weekend was the first time that I spent as a tourist in Sydney. With friends coming from NewCastle, I decided to see Sydney, the basic tourist way. Took out the Sydney City Guide, that I picked up from the airport, when I landed on the most odd day of the year. 1st of Jan. Now, no getting me on that.
We started of with the Taronga Zoo, spending more than 3 hours looking at animals, and that was surely the most boring part, for me atleast. Having seen atleast 3 other wildlife parks, this one was no different. So, nothing much to gain from the 33$ ticket (boo hoo!! :((( could have done so much with that much cash :(( ) Back from the zoo, we made our way to the Opera House, only to be told that both the main halls were showcasing performances, and hence wouldn't be shown on the tour that day. So, we made our way to grab some pizza, and then to the Sydney City Tower. The view from 250m above sealevel sure is gr8! ;) Have put up some panoramas. Worth seeing my guess.
Final trip of the tourist day out was at the Sydney Aquarium, famous for its shark enclosures, and the great barrier reef collection. But, having already seen the reef first hand, this was no comparision, and so the 18$ ticket was only good for the sharks :(( Late into the night, we trodded on the forbidden paths of Sydney: Kings Cross. Known for all that shit that all IITians love since day 1 of their stay in the campus ;), the first hand experience (my 2nd time in Sydney) was amazing :D:D A walk from the city, to the Kings X , just showed what Shrini and Machi have so far preached. Being in the bare essentials, is the best thing in life ;) A long night ahead of us, we cut our first deal. With 6 stags entering a night club, it was highly obvious that we were going to be charged an entry fee. But being shrewd and money minded baniyas that we all are, we sure managed to scrape through with minimum casualty to our pockets. And heaven it was what we entered. Atleast for most of us ;) One IITD chap, had the guts to doze off here, and later on said, all that he was doing was just taking small naps :O:O With such places all over the road, we made sure we check out a bunch of other places too. This is where Bansal got the time of his life. A real sick female, playing the role of a stripper (:O:O) in an attempt to give him a lap dance, took off his specs and gave it a nice-cool brush around her genitals ;):) And Bansal had the enthu to put them on again! Man! That was something =))
Getting up on day 2 of being the tourist in a city where you've lived for 5 months ain't the best thing. We decided to go for the Opera House Tour, and the plays playing there surely interested me. Am actually looking forward to seeing one soon. Aah! Coming back to the tour. Awesome construction. And the Main Performance Hall is the best. With an Organ instrument that took 10 years to make, 2 years to tune, and takes 3 weeks to tune everytime needed for a performance, its surely a masterpiece! Finally, with all 5 of us tired, we decided to call it the quits, and I left everyone to do their souvenir shopping at Paddy's Market, China Town. I was thinking of going for the Little Italy Food Festival, that was on, but decided against it. That can be seen with the fact that I landed on my bed at 6 PM and the next thing I know is checking my watch at 7 AM, Monday! I lost 13 hours! Damn!!!
Monday being un-eventful, Tuesday saw me watching 2 movies one after the other, for the price of one :) Tuesday is the student's day out. With tickets as low as $6.5 per movie, (as against a normal of $12) this is the best day to watch a flick. Hitesh, Mayank and I were at the Hoyts, Eastgardens Westfield, we saw The Longest Yard, and then sneaked into the theatre playing A Lot Like Love :D So much for sneaking into movies.

Guess that rounds up the events of the week. So, till something else crops up here, ciao

-aashish

P.S.: did anyone realise that in Australia there is a website for everything that is there to see around this place? Ain't that odd?

Ever wondered how it must feel to be an evaluator of presentations being given by students? Students who are much more qualified than you are? :D:D

And how it feels from the student perspective to get judged by an undergrad, when he himself is finishing his masters, or even pursuing a PhD?

Well, to say the least, I did just that today, for 2 complete hours, and shall repeat the routine next Thursday :) Today was the evaluation time of assignment presentations of 8 students of the Membrane Sc. and Tech. research group course. This course is taken by loads of students from the Enviro. deptt. and the deptt. of Chemical Engg! And working in the membrane sc. research group gives the invitation to have a chance to grade the presentations of these students :)

So, today, I was very much glad with myself at evaluating work of seniors in the same field. But then, my know-how in the field, being zero (or very close to it), just let me check on their presentation skills, and other basic aspects. I hardly could check on the content and other stuff. But then, I guess its fine for a start :) So much for today!

-aashish

Last night, I received a mail from my friend M. A friend whom I thought was close to me. But, today, I don't feel the same anymore. It makes me feel that our friendship was weaker than the bond between two people who need money to make conversation. And, I used to think that friends were above money issues. If I owe someone, he/she can always rely that I shall pay up. I expect the same and hence don't think of the money again, unless in dire straits for the same :)

Coming back to the the mail. M also wrote that M would be busy for the coming next months and wont have time to meet up. But does M even know where am I at this moment? Not in Bombay or Delhi, but in Sydney, a land far far away! But then I didn't even tell many people as to where I would be in the coming time. But again, isn't it odd that M didn't even enquire about my co-ordinates before such a mail?

The mail also had a mention of a very-very petty sum of money, that I had once given over to cover for meal that was supposed to be a treat from M. Now if M is so busy worrying about treat money, and that too not such a huge sum, then I am sorry for my choice of friends. I guess I made a big mistake. As I said earlier, money ain't an issue till I am in dire needs of some. But if poeple think that all thoughts revolve around money, then I am sorry. They've found the wrong person for that. In that case, you aren't a friend. Just something more than a stranger. A colleague, a batchmate, or just a person who can recognise me by name and face.

With no access to net all night, I thought I would blog a lot more of anti sentiments and feelings against M. But just like pranav, and pritam, I too tasted the agony of losing words, as soon as I sat before the computer. Though I think I did manage to pen down loads. hmmm.... I guess my friendship with M is over, or on the verge of falling down the cliff, unless M tries to cover the steps that M pursued to screw in the first place!

And then, in the IITian way, I guess I am willing to forget it over a nice meal :):D

-aashish