Prelude to tucchadom

Read a report in the Express (I think) today about the rail budget. Seems like a serious overhaul of train schedules is in the offing. The Bombay-Delhi Rajdhani, for example, is going to be speeded up from its present time of 17 hours to 15. Trains are also likely to be lengthened to a standard of 24 coaches. All this is meant to increase capacity, reduce turn around times for rakes, speed up travel and cut running costs by about 20%. Go Indian Railways! Don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I really admire the people who run the train network despite all the financial and political constraints they work under. And for all the venom that I am ready to spew at Laloo Yadav for what he did in Bihar; as Railway minister, his performance has not been all that bad. He hasn't used IR as a gravy train to the extent that might have been feared. IR has a long, long way to go yet, but the improvements over the last 10 years give me hope.

To smaller matters then. My 'vacation' in WIMWI continues. Soon I'll be in a state where a day with only one outing would count as a quiet one :) Assuming of course that my Dad continues to fund my extravagance. Today I went to Sugar and Spices, a small fast food joint somewhere near NID, with Kammo, Thoku and Pankhi. Yesterday, it was Upper Crust. A day before it was Rang de Basanti at Fun Republic (the same movie I saw a week before at the same theatre!)

Needless to say, the effects on my studies have been telling. In term 1, there were hardly any days when I reached class without having read each paragraph of every assigned reading. In this term, knowing the title of the case is a big achievement. Given that I haven't got any F's or D's yet, it's very clear though that there is little correlation between knowledge, preparation and grades :)

Maths classes are optional and I have attended only 3 out of 7 or 8. On Saturday, the maths open-book quiz was about to begin in another 30 minutes. I thought that I might just want to introduce myself to chapter 10 of the textbook (9 and 10 were to be tested - and I'd read 9 in the morning, in a 20 min break between classes). I quickly flipped the pages to arrive at chapter 10. In bold letters, it read,"Quality Control." I don't know any quant, but something wasn't right. Decided to look at the cover once again. Operations Management, it said. How lovely! Just run back the entire campus length from Section D to Dorm 18, and fetch the maths book, I smiled to myself. Finally opened the book 10 minutes before the quiz. Since the quiz was open-book, I enjoyed searching through the book like I was giving a foreign language reading comprehension exam and trying to match words in the questions to those in the passage, and scribbling down whatever seemed to be required without understanding a word of it!

The Chaos entry will have to wait a bit. But in the meanwhile, I have to report my selection into the core teams of LSD - the literary activities club, and Insight - the marketing research fair. After the disappointing (if very exciting) results of the dorm placecommer election and failing to get into the Stargazers (astronomy) club, LSD and Insight were the few remaining clubs/events which I was genuinely interested in joining. My vacation will probably end soon when my work in both of these starts in earnest. I enjoyed working in Chaos, and I am sure I'll enjoy my activities in these teams too.

A request to all the 3-4 people who frequent this blog regularly. Please leave a comment about some posts. Just curious to know my readers...