appreciating disability

To really appreciate what it feels like to be blind all you have to do is to try and get through 1 day, or even half a day, awake and with only 1 eye patched up.

You can still see, and even so you feel so helpless when one of your vital organs have been taken away from you. The reasons for this is another fairly long story so I guess thats not important.

I'll be back to 2 eyes, although with sunglasses, soon. But what I experienced in those few hours, I will never forget.

free as in free coffee & sigmund freud

everybody has humble beginnings! richard stallman started off with his printer, i started off with a presentation !

(i love comparisons where i come off with more hair than i have now!)


well a couple of days ago (as usual, i'm late on the blog) i went to the school round the corner from my house to talk to a bunch of kids about free software by virtue of being the only soul in the vicinity who was, fortunately or unfortunately, doing computer science engineering, was in the final year and was at a great college.

it was the school's computer club and there was a class-room full of kids from 5th to 9th and 10th - about 45 in all. from the outset i saw it as a very difficult proposition to get the small kids to understand about the concept of switching over from a free and pirated Operating System (read windows) to a free and not-pirated Operating System (read linux). so i thought about focussing on the fun stuff...

i was in appropriate attire - lousy cargoes and my "free" Linux T-shirt!


like all events its about want you take back. i got 4 things to take - the first 2 were realizations.

first, would be that to get a kids attention you have to use analogies he/she understands. i garnished the presentation with as many original analogies as i could. the one which i did borrow was from a mr. randy pausch and i'm sure he would be only too glad about my plagiarism. analogies ranged from cricket to food, if you were wondering to what extent i could go!

And next would be that kids are very intelligent nowadays. whether its just the internet or whether having tech savvy siblings/parents, i don't know, but surprise surprise a good number of them are already using free software (and were aware of that fact - in 5th grade!!) - albeit on windows. they've heard of the vlc player, mozilla firefox and even open office (though they have used only the first 2) .

there were some unexpected material gains (read goodies) for me from this whole thing...
i got my evening tea (though i normally have boost - secret of my energy :P ) and along with that a book as well! the unexpectedness-grade goes up a notch because the book was a sigmund freud! (i'm pretty sure it wasn't intended for me)

so all in all - worth my while :D

catted

just back from Kozhikode after writing the CAT exam, the most selective exam in the whole wide world.

it was an OK exam. i say that despite the fact that no exam is ever "OK". the entire experience lasted all of 35 hours. up, down (on the map) and all the way back home.

if you are looking for a description of the two and a half hour ordeal in the exam hall, you're at the wrong place. on the other hand, if you are interested in an examinee's take on everything kozhikod'ian (if there is a usage) over the last day then read on mates (make sure to use an aussie accent with the 'mates'.. prevents the gay-ness)

cheap

kozhikode is one of the cheapest cities i have been to! now i can't compare it to far flung cities like calcutta or bangkok, not becasue i don't know them, but because of the suddenness of the change. its just a 4 hour train ride from cochin city - which is in a way comparable in cost of living to places which are far flung e.g tokyo :), and to reach a place as cheap as kozhikode is something unique.

a one and a half kilometre ride in an auto-rickshaw set me back only Rs.10! i would've given him 20 just because he was such an honest guy who runs by the metre!!

the people are nice and that, from someone who has stayed in cochin, is saying something. it just gave further backing to the theory that:

" people become nicer as you go further north"

this rule holds absolutely true only in keral, as far as i know. any addons about theories in other states/countries are welcome!

the picture is one of my many unlawful acts i performed. hehe.

i still don't understand the ban on taking pictures at railway stations or airports. it makes you a silent observer unable to do anything to capture your moments! this picture was of the train we were taking to reach there, as we got off.

there were people at the test centre varying from the very determined and brilliant, to the ones who came just for the fun of it. (i would probably fall somewher in between the two). there was one particularly interesting chap who marked 120 answers in the OMR sheet blindly when there were only 90 questions in the answer sheet! sheer genius!

i don't think i did this well enough to get anything out of it. another year till the next CAT. till then, meow.

hm.. my blog is long way away from the hey - days a few months ago.
the number of posts has dwindled and so have the comments (naturally).
i also lost the awesum layout and design i had.

i have an exam tomorrow on advanced architecture and parallel processing.

wonder how thats going to pan out.