Tales From the Crypt: Academic Success , Rigorous endeavours in college and other Fairy Stories

 

As a child , growing up in a family where academic  success and learning were considered extremely important it was common to constantly hearing of cousins who just finished their post-doc work from MIT or uncles who casually were doing doctoral dissertations at Princeton etc.

it was fairly well understood (at home!! )the path I would take.  IIT or some such graduate program followed by  a masters from an IVY league school and then of course a doctorate etc etc.

Showing a strong streak of individualism however I choose a somewhat different path. While my academic um experience was conceptually similar to obtaining an Phd.  from an Ivy league school it should be pointed out I was never able to explain that concept to anyone else , even my dog seems amused and suspicious when I tell him about “conceptually similar” and my grandfather when he heard OF IIPS ( my college ) responded with telling his friends Don’t Ask Don't Tell.

In a league of their own. QUITE SO !

Anyway IIPS well um er quite so was six years of interesting times including the super-heroic efforts me and my friends made to keep getting a passing grade, Without further ado I  proudly present

“Scenes From a classroom 2 Vignettes ”

1) United we Stand :  Differential equations or some such ghastly paper, Messrs Shailesh and Anurag come with a truly brilliant idea to combat the forces of Evil ( that would be Dr Saxena our math teacher ) As part of IIPS’ commitment to continuous hahahaahahahaha excellence the entire term consisted of mini tests what have you  and for this paper we were set a syllabus involving  two  chapters.

I had managed to study none of them  another classmate Prashant would not come right out and say it but there was suspicion that he actually enjoyed this shit and might even have prepared for this exam.

The other two clowns in this story ( see above )  had decided to split up the load and study one chapter each  thus each would solve one question each and er ahem help the other person with the other question ( there is a technical term for this sort of on the spot helping during an exam but I forget what we call it ).

Cometh the hour cometh the man , as I am sure the intelligent reader has guessed by now nether of our intrepid duo was able to solve the problem in the area they had agreed to tackle.  It was a treat to watch them furiously yell and scream about each others sheer incompetence. Of course since  no actual talking was allowed all the yelling and screaming had to be done using eyebrow gestures only . You have no idea how much contempt and anger you can exchange via eyebrow wriggling till you sayw these guys go at it. Oh Prashi did well in the test, we all kicked his ass later. It was good.    

Moral :    They key to happiness is low expectations

 

2) Mnemonics, buttocks and high political Office :  Last Day prior to an end sem. No one has any clue as what the syllabus was or even what damn paper was about. Only thing to do then yup parrtyyyy. Drinks at my place so on and so forth.

 

At sometime early in the evening Prashi finally decides its to study ( side note: he did well in the paper as we would later learn yup we had to kick his ass again ). In time immemorial form we resorted to mnemonic shortcuts to try and memorize Stuff.

At this point we need to make a brief diversion to talk about a young lady ( one of our juniors ) who used to study in our college , for reason involving whatever I’ll just say that her initials were VJ and well she had an ass that was um not  easily  forgotten and so of course it seemed totally natural that I came up with NPVJSJPM as an answer to some god forsaken list of things to remember ( Nangi Pungi VJ Shailesh Joshi Prime Minister )So far so good so , much more drinking cursing yelling and finally next day arriveth and we’re off to the races  and yeah wouldn't you know it that question shows up and we are all thrilled that we know one at least.

Except Shailu …. You see Showing a rare degree of honesty his subconscious mid simply refused to accept him as a PM and so Shailu of course remembered the mnemonic as ( Nangi Pungi VJ Shailesh Joshi CHIEF Minister ) and that boys and girls screwed things up somewhat

Moral: I like big butts and I cannot lie

The Story of my Life : Part Three

MaKe Believe press and whatwereyouthinking Inc proudly present  “Mr. Chandran in the 21st Century” a joyous threnody in 3  parts a veritable magnum opus , New York Times says “What can we say”

In Part One we learnt almost nothing an  in Part two I see no reason to change that situation

Part Three : 2009 – Present

Started working for myself and boy was that super scary. Yes there were no mid term reviews or annual ones and no exhortations to do more with less, the mandatory sexual harassment videos were no more ( just to be clear , as an employee in the past, these videos were opposed to sexual harassment they were not a training in how to sexually harass people ) but also there was no time off , ESPP health benefits blah blah blah all very interesting

Also in early 2010 after meeting with a doctor who pointed out my weight situation was going to make saving for retirement irrelevant since I would almost certainly move to becoming worm food before I was 65, I decided to try something out. ITs a work in progress in about 6 months I lost a total of 48 pounds, since then however have managed to gain about 21 of it back. DAMN DAMN DAMN. Oh well !!

Also made a trip to India after ages

was super super fun . You can read about it here and here and here . SURPRISE !!! also here.

and that boys and girls is it for now

The story of my Life –Phase Two

MaKe Believe press and whatwereyouthinking Inc proudly present  “Mr. Chandran in the 21st Century” a joyous threnody in 3  parts a veritable magnum opus , New York Times says “What can we say”

In Part One we learnt almost nothing. Thus it only makes sense that I write about Part two.

Part Two: Going to California (2005-2009 )

By early 2005 it was clear to me that my job at that time was running its course .  Since I  still believed that software developers changed the world ( sometimes twice in a day )  and clearly the thing for me to do was to achieve even greater levels of meaningful impact I did the only thing possible—I went to work On Vista ( in all fairness to me it was still called Longhorn at that time , had I known it would eventually become Vista… :-) )

Just for the record if you have ever been er um lucky ( you heard me ) enough to own a Vista laptop and then you had to connect to a wireless network then the charming little wizard thingy that got you there would be me . Now that that is behind us..

So I’m at work one day( in early 2006)  listening to “going to California” by (who else ) Led Zep  when I get an email from an ex-softie who is apparently heading up a team in Intuit and they are doing some fabulously exciting amazing new cutting edge stuff. It sounded awesome although a little probing confirmed that yeah it was still tax software but not the regular boring 1040 or Schedule K1 boring fuddy-duddy stuff but the new improved amazingly flavoured taxtacular stuff . Well I mean how could I say no  to that.

Moving to California and thusly out of the ‘soft was probably one of the hardest decisions' I have made , for all its fault Microsoft is an amazing amazing company and it definitely made me a much much better developer and gave me a look at the challenges involved in shipping real software to millions of users There is a famous quote “A one in a million bug at MSFT means by end of day tomorrow “  and that is so true. It really is an incredible ride and I would recommend it everyone ( unless you are doing anything else of course :- )). But apart from that there's Seattle.

its kind of hard to describe but I love the Pacific northwest and at the time I knew we would miss it but hey CALIFORNIA YEAH !!

Also sometime  after I left so did BrianV ( rumour has it his new compensation package was slightly different than mine ) so I guess I was way ahead of the curve

Ok I am going to keep the California thing short except to say i) I HATED IT and ii) I HATED IT .

apart from everything else having to pay a 10% state income tax really sticks in my craw when nothing fucking works in that state. if wanted to be taxed to the bone and get no govt services why I could have just stayed back in India

A couple of really important things did happen while I was there though. It turned out that, EVEN IF you hire nekkid cheerleaders to come to the office everyday and massage you , tax software was about as exciting as watching paint dry  and just to be clear Intuit did not hire the cheerleaders and there were fairly clear that they weren't going to expense them either  so in 2007 I switched jobs again and joined a startup

By early 2009 we were so fed up of San Diego and wanted to come back to Seattle so badly that in June of 09 I convinced my boss to let me work remotely from Seattle and we moved back ( loud cheering) Cannot explain how thrilled I am to be back

In late 2009 it was obvious my startup was running out of cash to the point where they could no longer afford me , and then I did something which is still not fully sinking in – I decided to go to work for myself and you know exploit cheap labour back in India etc. It turned out Intuit was good for something after all I incorporated etc etc

But that boys and girls will be all nicely rounded of in Part 3

The story of My Life ( subtitles optional )

 

Ted Chiang is an amazing sic-fi short story writer . He really hasn't published that much maybe like 10 odd short stories but each of them is an amazing I mean amazing gem . One of them which I personally love is a novella titled “The Story of your Life” ( read it today )

Phew getting through a meaningless introduction to a blog post that seems mildly relevant and sufficiently gravitastic ( not a word.. meaning loaded with gravitas )is hard I tell ya

Anyway re-connected with an old friend after years on line ( can you guess which site this was on hmm anyone , anyone no ..ok I‘ll give you hint it rhymes with SpaceCrook ) and of course there was the usual hey what have you been up to, where are you, with have you achieved, my car is bigger than yours I hope etc etc :-)

Since I am hoping that I keep meeting old friends who will keep asking these questions from now on I plan to point them to this post.  MaKe Believe press and whatwereyouthinking Inc proudly present  “Mr Chandran in the 21st Century” a joyous threnody in 3  parts a veritable magnum opus , New York Times says “What can we say”

PART ONE : THE EARLY YEARS ( 2000-2004)

Midnight Dec 31st ( or is it Jan 1st I never can tell  ) , I am in New York with Anurag , Ram and other assorted drunks. Anurag has convinced me that Rum and milk is actually not only a cocktail but also healthy for the liver. I am convinced and proceed to test this theory thoroughly. Elsewhere in Anurag’s “spectacular view of the Hudson thus signifying material wealth and success and therefore hoping that said apartment will behave like pussy magnet” apartment  I hear someone describe with considerable verve and animation how they saved the world by contributing to the Y2k rescue effort. I am comforted in the  knowledge that they will probably never breed!!!.

OK they the new century is upon and and by golly I even have a cell phone from sprint PCS (TM) to prove it.  Wife joins me in a few months and I start my work at Microsoft which if I understood the recruiting brochure correctly would change the world, realign the solar system make the milky way more beautiful on alternate nights and allow Stephen Hawing to come up with a Theory Of Everything as a series of PowerPoint slides”

<GEEK> : Did work on distributed transactions and business frameworks . slowly started realizing that it was exactly as geeky as it sounded</GEEK>

Also in late 2004 we got what was probably the best thing ever both our dogs

 

   

The Zumba Experience

Zumba: From the Latin for “ to make a fool of yourself in public while being simultaneously aware of your pelvis in ways you have never been aware of before “.

alt-def: HA like that ‘s what you're going to believe ???

So our local gym offers Zumba in two flavours , there's the paid , “if you have some sense of rhythm and wont make an absolute ass of yourself” version ( Yes!! this would be the one where the instructor looked at me and went “Er yes certainly well that is to say if you must participate well I mean I suppose technically er that is , I mean we could dim the lights, ha ha , or maybe you could stand in the corner and not move too much my dear fellow” when I asked him if this was the Zumba class.)

In sooth verily as the man said it is better to give than receive for when I gave him the news that I was asking for someone else and not me his relief was a joy to behold , made me feel like Santa Claus it did

And then there is the Fridays Night Free Zumba or as I like to call it “Darwin’s Theory explained in 15 easy pelvic Thrusts aka the strong will whirl and twirl the weak not so much”

Some months ago after some incredible arm twisting ( we’re talking “ if you love you then you would” arm twisting ) I consented to drop in on one of these Friday night shindigs. It did not go well.

<Editors Note: For privacy issues as well as our ongoing commitment to a cleaner nobler America and so that we may continue to support any and all efforts to save the kids , the actual events of the class have been regretfully censored>.

As a PSA I decided to categorize most of the participants there

< Editors Note: The author has assured us that his wife has a separate category ( the incredibly gorgeous one ) and so does not fit into any of the categories discussed below>

i) The Crazies I mean super passionate: These are the people who turn up early so that they can get a spot right up front to ahem “observe the instructors foot moments” a little better. While more study is required the author is convinced these are the same people who sat in the first bench during school and kept raising their hands when asked rhetorical questions during presentations.

ii) The competent: Show up on alternate weeks and have a grim look of someone who is about fight a WWF match but don't remember who was supposed to win . Every once in a while members of this group will show some flair and instead of treating a twirl as a structured 360 moment without losing balance will add a nice pelvic moment at the end. On certain occasions show a sense of “rhythm” as well . Some members of this group will eventually migrate to Group i

iii) Humans are born with a sense of rhythm and refutation thereof: This would be the group , which if I worked really hard like for a few years, I might get admission into, currently they keep mumbling about not being a good cultural fit

iv) The looky-loos : Toned women bending and grinding....MEN !!! ‘nuff said

Oh Well…

but since that night on quite a few occasions when I am feeling low and blue I stroll over to the viewing area to watch people Zumba( see Latin defn above ) and cheer myself up .