Linux

Ahoy all you OSS users! Please welcome the newest newbie! (I guess you must be getting a lot of us lately, since Ubuntu) Really, I am very impressed with the result of a collective effort on the command-shell and on ubuntu as a GUI. Also, the help groups and the skin groups are very helpful and fun. Am really enjoying my first few days as an ubuntero!

Well, these things always come with a price. Sadly. If I have to get the internet connection in my room (which sadly is something Ubuntu cannot live without) then, I'll have drag my 3 kilo laptop for three kilometers to their dingy 'internet provider' dugout. (Strangely I had a feeling that any place with computers was supposed to be porche!)

Well, as a matter of confession, the main reason why I am using linux instead of windows is because my ageing P4 is behaving like a P2! So, I decided to load a lighter OS. There is a slight improvement now. And since the computers at the Sociology Centre have decent internet and don't block Ubuntu sites, I don't have much of a problem yet :)

I fill up space: Therefore, I am

Here is a write-up that tries to be self-reflective and inspiring. All readers are warned that the following lines are NOT self-reflective and inspiring. Well, in my eyes, it's plain bull-shit. Just a lot of huge words put together in a salad.

If JNU has done any good to me these last years, it has made me think. People around here love to talk about issues that make you realize how bad this world is, and how fortunate I should consider myself for being born in an upper-class family. It made me realize how fortunate I was to not worry about my next meal, or my safety. I realize now, how difficult it would have been for me to laugh at the silly jokes we still crack if I lived in a refugee camp or as a dalit woman in an Indian village.

Well, selfish that I am, I have thought much about how fortunate I am! I have occasionally felt extremely angry at myself, and extremely guilty for my being so careless with my stuff. It occasionally even hurts when I waste my food. What have I ever done for those who need my help? All I have done is help people of my own class. (Obviously with the hope that the person will return the favor) I occasionally even think about all the not-so-well-off friends in college I rarely talk to.

I'm again in one of those 'occasional' thinking moods. Just yesterday, I saw the movie 'Freedom Writers', and I was impressed, mainly because a movie with such a cliched name didn't really draw high expectations on my side. But I was really 'touched' by the movie. Mainly because of two things. The life 14, 15 and 16 year old kids in the streets are so tough, that if I was in their place, I really don't know what could have made me go to school! Also, the teacher in the movie had the will-power and the guts of someone larger than life. (I always wish I had that 'Never say Die' attitude in me, especially when I realize that I have not done most of what I wanted to do because I either 'just didn't have the mood', or because 'I had more important work to do'. (the catch was, I never find myself in the mood, and I rarely attempt the 'other important work' during that time!

Well, I think almost everybody is blessed with a vision, a purpose or a burden in life. It is up to us to do something about it. We will be faced with resistance from the very start. But by God's grace, it is up to us to push on.

Busy Busy busy...

There has been a lot happening now a days. Most of us here in JNU have been working our heads off for the past few days. The course work, the social life and work with the CF, don't seem to be letting down, and there won't be a lot of rest in the near future. A friend of mine (who I shall identify as the person with the fetish for green t-shirts) has been working so much he has given up on his blog. (Like so many other less persistent internet freaks) He has done well to do so, because I have to make a lot of compromises on my reading and my general academic development by coming online and spending my time posting blogs that talk on completely superficial issues.

Another friend (whom I shall identify as the 'Angry old man') said, that certain people may not be cut out for academic work like some others. Well, I am not the one to say if I am cut out for academic work. I haven't reached that stage of self-knowing yet, but whatever I am made for, I don't find so much interest in academics at the moment. I seem to like dealing with societies and people in a more practical way than reading about them from books at the moment.

I have been getting a lot of books to read, but I just haven't been finding the time or the motivation to read them. Confessions of an Economic Hitman, Freakonomics (yes, I haven't read that yet) Wretched of the Earth, and The Poet of the Underworld. Besides this, there are other uninteresting (let's remind ourselves that the adjective used is a purely subjective one) textbooks on Gramsci.

Hmm... Well, some of you might be wondering what interests I actually have. Well, let me warn you, that I am up to no good. Nothing financially suitable, nothing that will bring the world (or even other arm-chair thinkers) greater good (books). Well, I just stumbled upon a few sites today. So, here are the sites I usually frequent...

www.jugglingdb.com
www.superhandz.com
www.pentrix.com

Of course, I am not good at anything, nor am I a part of any occult... Yet... But at least you guys know where my interests are...

and I (try to) read more 'mature sites' like
www.overcomingbias.com
www.kottle.org (Yes, I do read Kottle)
www.wholenote.com (Whenever I want to read tips on dusting my guitar)
www.juggle.tv (When I need inspiration)

Quotes I liked... (A random post again)

One handful with tranquilty
Is better than two handfuls
With toiling and chasing after the wind - Ecclesiastes

It's only when you have lost everything that you are free to do anything - Fight Club

The floating leaf - revisited

Well, this is more of a continuation with my previous post, The Floating Leaf. I got a lot of positive comments on this particular post, but that didn't do much to my feelings, volatile as they are. God hasn't let me down yet, and I've had a great time learning how to let my life completely into God's hands. The more I put myself into Him, the better I feel about myself and the world around me. Even though the latter thinks I've lost it completely.

I was speaking with a friend who recently decided to do everything what God wanted him to do. There was so much happiness in that person's voice, though he was still recovering from the shock of letting go of something he had been holding to himself for so many years. That overwhelming rush of freedom went through him as it did me when I made that decision many years ago.

Well, to me, I find it better to plan one day at a time instead of directing your life toward a larger goal. You don't have to go through so much of planning, all you have to do is give your best at the task at hand. Everything will fall into place in it's own time. Of course, there is that motion sickness you need to deal with, because this kind of life usually has steep drops and climbs. But once you're able to stomach it, God at the engine doesn't seem such a bad idea at all!

Ranting at sociology!

To all my professors and research scholars, please don't take the following seriously. I'm merely an ignorant ranter! If you are not used to taking things lightly, I suggest you click the 'next blog' link on the top of the page.

Life is more complex that Pierre Bordeaux's writing...
Well, of course, you would respond with a cheery grin saying that if life was actually as easy to understand (and as boring) as J.K.Rowling, it wouldn't be worth living. Hmm... You've made your point there, my man. But I have a feeling that this not-so-simple life definitely doesn't need to be studied so much, at least the way we're doing at the School of Social Sciences, JNU! The amount of theories desperate bored thinkers have put into mere sociology is mindboggling! I thought these theories would relate more to practical life, where we would get to use these theories for the greater good of human-kind! But no! For the past two-hundred years, great thinkers have come and gone, giving their 'seminal contributions' to the world of philosophy, sociology, and what not, and what has that helped!

Wake up all you academicians! (I consider myself a 'wide-awake, half-baked' academician) Don't you realize that no one is investing in you! They know that you don't have anything practical to offer to the world, for the betterment of human-kind! Most of us merely want to have our head in the clouds, and take an arial view of society, history, and life itself! All you know to do is to criticize everything in society, and form utopias in your heads and in your fat books! But c'mon do you all actually think that the rest of the world is that stupid! Well, they also want utopia to exist, you know, but they have already figured out that if it hasn't happened for the past so many years, it never will. So why bother trying!

Do you also realize that you are mere parasites to the world! Tell me one great contribution to the world! (If you mumble about some great work by some great bearded moss-laden thinker, please stuff a dozen copies of that book down your throat before you do so) All you have fed the world is great thought! And you consider yourself great learned people! There are so many people working hard, scratching the surface, trying to make the world a better place, while you berate them about their ignorance! We don't need great thought. We need action. If you can shed some light and get you hands dirty, maybe, you'll begin to respect youself!

Well, all steam has been released, and now I'll have to get back to reading "The Habermas Reader" by William Outhwaite (1996) Thanks for reading!

The summer heat

This is just to inform all my faithful readers (and those of you who have wandered here by dire accident) that the weather in Delhi is as fickle as the heart of a bumble bee! There was a time not so long ago, when a human being could walk for a kilometer in the middle of the day without going insane, but today, it took a herculean effort to just get to the cyber-cafe just behind my hostel! I'm absolutely sure I've darkened three shades during this short walk.

This is also to inform you all that life is going to get extremely busy in the next few days. Classes have shifted into third gear, and one particular professor had used the strangest metaphor when he described his course. He compared our class with pregnancy! Where after we go through a painful struggle for over 4 months, we'll produce material that we will be proud of for a long time! As a half-baked academician, I'm not so sure if I want that for myself. But let's see how things move on!

I'd rather get a job for myself as soon as possible. In this modern version of Survival of the Fittest, I'll soon have to get into a state of economic stability, at least after I finish my Degree. Hope to find some new avenues to gain work experience, and new contacts, by the time a month is up. But for that I have to start looking! The smarter among my readers would have found out by now that I am not that kind of a person. But well, if I can walk for 3 kilometers in the hot Delhi sun without kissing the ground even once, I should be able to do this too!