Rush

Unlike last week, when things went at a leisurely pace, life became rather more hectic this week. There are projects and assignments due in HR, ID and Computers. In addition Accounts has suddenly turned into a wayward creature that appears docile one minute, then completely uncontrollable a minute later. Accounts classes pass by with many of us trying our best but yet unable to completely internalise the professor's repeated explanations of the same topics. And the CAs inform us that their accounts were many times more complicated than this. I finally see why CAs are held in such high regard.

I have had a great time this week though. Ever since I was part of (rather, an observer of) a most interesting discussion about various Bollywood movies by Moti, Chhedi and Prostee, I have come to appreciate my classmates much more. Here they were - three people talking so confidently about rather arcane details about movies of the 70s and 60s that one would think they had done nothing but watch movies throughout their lives. But of course, they had done a lot, lot more. Prostee, DSE grad, has worked for two years with the Asian Development Bank, Moti, a high ranker in IIT-Kanpur, has left a plum post at HLL to come here and Chhedi had been offered a job at Oracle. Almost everyone here has such deep knowledge about one or more fields outside their study area. Though, much to my annoyance, most of our time is spent in chatting mindlessly over silly topics, even these glimpses into the real intellectual capacities of the people here are very impressive. And this last week, I sensed that in the future, I will be able to have more 'real' conversations with friends here than I did in the first two months.

Many exchange students from abroad are now arriving on campus. Three have already come into our dorm in place of the two exchange students who've now left and the 5 seniors who will spent next term abroad. All together some 50 foreigners are expected to study in WIMWI in the next term.

On a side note, I realised that I had really stopped watching TV when I caught a few moments of CNN today and actually detected a clear foreign accent. I had become so used to Star World and BBC in the last 8-10 years that I hardly realized that there is a fair difference in their accents and those in which we talk.

In the same broadcast I saw the terrible pictures of New Orleans. Reminded me of the tragedy Bombay suffered last month. This seems much worse though, as the levees will take weeks to be repaired, from what I understand.