Little known amusing truths

• American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad in first class.
• The word "politics" describes the process so well: "Poli" in Latin meaning "many" and "tics" meaning "bloodsucking creatures."
• People spend about two weeks of their lives at traffic lights!
• Topless saleswomen are legal in Liverpool, England, but only in tropical fish stores.
• In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all of the world's nuclear weapons combined.
• Turtles can breathe through their butts.
• Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.
• Rats multiply so quickly that in 18 months, two rats could have over a million descendants.
• Most Zambians don't live to see their 40th birthday.
• There are no clocks in Las Vegas casinos.
• In Bahrain, a male gynecologist can only examine a woman's private parts through a mirror.
• Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors.
• Wearing headphones for just one hour will multiply the number of bacteria in your ear 700 times.
• The screwdriver was invented before the screw.
• Most lipstick contains fish scales.
• Plants that are not cared for will cry for help, a thirsty plant will make a high-pitched sound that is too high for us to hear.
• A 25 year old man from Maine is auctioning off the back of his neck as advertising space. The winner bidder can put a permanent tattoo ad on the back of Mark's neck.
• It is impossible for a human to lick their elbow.
• Like fingerprints, every one's tongue print is different.
• Heroin used to be a cough medicine for children. A German company (Bayer) registered heroin as a trademark.
• The first owner of the Marlboro Company died of lung cancer.
• Some Eskimos have been known to use refrigerators to keep their food from freezing.
• The 3 most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.
• Rather than bury or burn bodies after death, a Swedish company has come up with a chilling alternative; freezing them in liquid nitrogen, then using sound waves to smash the brittle remains into a powder.

More to come if this one turns out good... :)

Random stuff

Well having nothing better to do, I decided to return to my old passion :) and truthfully, I don't have a clue as to what I shall be writing from here. I am just making things up as I go.

So whats going on around here. I just finished watching the India - SriLanka one-dayer with over 800 runs scored and India emerging triumphant at the end. It was a thriller of a match, though I missed a chunk of it owing to throbbing pain in my toe due to my surgery earlier in the morning. Dhoni might have been complacent in the beginning of Lanka's innings but by the end, sweat creased his brows and the brows of the million Indians biting their nails glued to their TV screens. I must admit it was a brilliant effort on the Lankan's part... 400+ in a chase is nothing short of amazing.

What else... For one, the next semester for all of us in my year will be a run in for the future, for anything that anyone might choose to do. And its going to be a tough and hectic one. This will also be the last semester to "regrace" the dwindling GPA's, which appears to be an impossible task in itself. It is such a hopelessly mundane prospect coz however hard you try, you end up where you started from. Leaving aside the academic pressures there will be coachings of different shapes and colours and sizes, the most common being for CAT where people decide whether they have to join TIME or CL. To me both seem equally pointless, but nonetheless you end up joining one of them. Then there's GRE and IAS and GMAT and what not. So basically I guess we're gonna spend the semester pitying ourselves for our sad English and the virtually non-existent atmosphere of education in "English". All this is apart from the usual struggle in a semester... and upholding all the other interests one might have. But for me, the struggle would not be the struggle of coping up with these pressures. In fact, I would rather invite them, having endured torturous moments when nothing occupies my mind. The challenge would be to decide what is it that I want to coach for, what is it that shall be my bull's eye for the next year, what shall make me happy when I step out of my convocation. Once I conquer this quest all shall fall into place. Atleast, my time and my thoughts shall fall into schedule. That would suffice for the moment.

Between, suddenly out of context I am reminded of a little chat I had in a family marriage sitting in the back during some ceremonies. I was pretty impatient and was spending my time chatting. It was then that one of my shweet uncles said that you know, all the traditions and ceremonies that we honour have some reasonable basis. For example, why is there an age gap between the girl and the boy in traditional arranged marriages. It is because girls are usually more mature than guys of their own age and guys take longer to mature. In essence, guys are inherently dumber than girls. :) 

I suppose I shall take leave now :).
And hope to get back soon

Lose my way

In the whirlwind of blue devils
I struggle to not let go
Yet each moment scorches me
Entwined in austere woe

Deserted, I scream in silence
Is there someone to be
The envoy of ecstasy and love
The vicar of bliss, of life, of me..

Bereft of him I smile
To see the naked face thats mine
Gripped with fear at every move,
Yet says
Oh! Leave me alone, I'm fine!

Alas, there's no looking back
No U-turns on the road unknown
The universe conspires for what shall be
'Til then, I walk the monotone

I cry
I bleed
I lose myself

But now I pledge
It shall soon end
Few million seconds henceforth they say
I''l be myself again

I dare
I wish
I hope
I pray

I don't lose my way
I don't lose my way

Where it all began

The morning was a haze of activity and anxiety, excitement and expectation, impatience and impediments, obsession and oomph, unrest and uncertainty. All the same for all my peers, I guess. Yet there was a strange calmness in me, a ray of hope and a bubble of optimism, that kept me sane. Still half unconscious, I had walked down to the phone as early as my slumber had permitted. And had been squirming on the couch in its proximity as long as my memory goes.

'Oh my god! I'm biting my nails.. what is up with me!! .. I need to walk... I need to keep my cool.. C'mon its k'

Looking back now, as though at a camera shot, each moment is still so clear and pulsating in my head, I cannot believe how I kept afloat through all the apprehension. The trepidation was so thick in the air you could cut it with a knife. My singly most epochal moment. Wuff! Remarkably courageous of me I must say ( :) ).. either that or I was bewitched by blissful ignorance.

Pacing restlessly all around the house, I was juggling three phones, waiting and waiting for the mysterious objects to swagger off their genius. And then it flashed! 'Dad calling'. Everything stopped. I supported myself on the edge of the dining table. My mom sat in front of me on the sofas facing opposite along with Mamu. I picked up so fast that even the ringer did not go off. My end sounded this way.

(Anticipation)
'Ya'

'Oh'

(Impatience)
'Oh Daddy! Don't fool around'

'Uhuh'

(No change of expression whatsoever)
'Uhuh'

(I stood frozen)
'Uhuh'

And I hung up the phone. Nine pairs of nervous eyes were staring at me intently.

'92'

All I caught a glimpse of before drowning in a flurry of warm hugs and affectionate huddles were the nine pairs of eyes skyrocketing towards me. And within seconds I was on phone with a hundred people, a measure of whom were absolute strangers. My insides were somersaulting and anon my appetite ricocheted back.

Some weight had simply eased of my shoulders. I wasn't quite sure what was happening though, seemed like there had been an explosion. A salvo of people. I was stupefied by the exuberance and the felicity, savoring the 'joie de vivre' of my loved ones. I smiled. Like I had never done in the past few days.

Somewhere down the line, much later, it struck me what it had meant 'to clear the JEE'.

Weird Facts about Germans

My First Train Journey

Somethings that I have being dazzled with time and again here in Germany... but its really superkool...

• If you have been flabbergasted everytime something threw the word 'Yafa' at you, relax they probably mean 'Java', they pronounce 'J' as 'Y' and 'V' as 'F'...
• If its not clean, its not Germany.
• Chicken is as rare as vegetarian food :P ... Pigs ( ... Yuuuck) rule the roost.
• They believe that somehow their sheer will power to make you understand what they say, will really do it, even though it is apparent you do not know German.
• They have a cute way of saying bye.. "Tchuss" .. which is pronounced as 'Chioos' and thanks.. which is 'Dankashen' :)
• When they say 'Sex' they mean '6'.. Ah! what a disappointment... :P
• Gear up to drink from a toilet tap (Ewwww...) or forget about it... coz ' Water - 4 euros' .. and 'Coke - 1.5 euros'... So you almost always end up buying iced tea ( For all Nescafe lovers ) which by the way is the cheapest :)
• 'Bread' is the only known kind of food known to this species
• Friday, 11.00 am, International Office - " Oh my God! Stop calling! For God's sake , its Friday Afternoon, its weekend!
• They have Beer with breakfast, Beer with lunch and Beer with dinner... and Beer with any other meal they choose to have.. All their 'Fests' are without question and doubt, as an unwritten rule, 'Beer fests' and in a supermarket, you will find more space and time dedicated to Beer than anything else.. (atleast in Bavaria)
• The easiest way to get a visa extension, without even moving your lips and that too for the rest of your lives is to lose the 'Keys' to your office coz its worth a 30,000 euros... even your apartment might not be worth that much...!
• 20 bucks might take you as far as 6 miles or as far as 600 miles by the same train
• Maybe these people painted the globe, with crystal clear blue and so natural green, coz living in India, you always wondered it must be brown.
• You might be staring out of the window of the fastest trains at cars swooshing past at breakneck speeds.
• Bikes rock big time!
• It is deeply humiliating to find that the old lady next to you is hailing her bike in the train for a mountain hiking trip with all the top-notch cycling gear that you can imagine :)

If I have missed out on some really interesting stuff, do put in the comment, so that I can update the 'peculiar German race characteristics' for the mass benefit ( read: Next year lucky ones..)

The Crazy Eurotrip - Part 1

Train to Dresden, Germany

4.12 am : Suddenly awake, yawning and stretching, makes a move to shut the laptop and put it back, when a certain offliner catches her eye
Oh Man! What the ** ?? How can she cancel the plan now!! We have to leave in another hour! I can't believe it... I so wanted to go to Prague. What now? THIS IS SO NOT FAIR... I will kill her... Ab kya karun..?? Jana hai jana hai jana hai! ( No use overreacting, nothing can be done now! :( :( ) I might as well just go to sleep and think it over in the morning..

4.25 am : Searching the train website and the Prague websites
Maybe I should go alone.. I'll be fun.. But alone!! No I don't want to go alone. In any case, the Prague train I gotta catch is outta reach now. And Prague is not safe, going alone is not a good idea. (Hey hey hey! Whom are you kidding?? You are just too snoozy ). I haven't packed, I haven't done anything and its in an hour and a half.. Well, I can make it, if I want to, but I think I'm way too lazy...

5.09 am : Still searching..
I definitely cannot make it now. ( :P Yipppeeee.. I won't have to get up!!) Lemme look for someplace else. How about Berlin... or maybe, Dresden, lets check out all the trains and stuff.. Guess that should be easier. But still I would have to go alone! Though that would a total adventure :). Perfect tourist kinds... Only this time, I am in Europe with a bag slung over the shoulder and an icecream in one hand and a camera in the other... Should be superkool :P

5.36 am : Deep slumber awaits... Unbelievably sluggish
I reckon I should leave it to be decided automatically, if I get up then I'll go, or otherwise.. bad luck! :( . Should I go alone though... I don't know. Going alone might turn out to be superb.... OR a disaster. ( :) Wo! I can sleep for the whole day if I don't go! ) ( Loser! You know you aren't gonna get up, why even pretend )

7.15 am : Another wake up routine
Omg! Its 7.15 and my train is at 7.28. Oh no! Oh no! Oh no! ( Oh yes! Oh yes! Oh yes! ) I've missed it, no way can I make it... why didn't I get up.. I am so pathetic... Umm... Maybe I shouldn't have gone at all, I can take a weekend off, can't I? ( Oh cut the crap.. Just accept you are damn damn lazy... nothing else ) But I am really tired... and broke ( Wateva!! Stupid Reasons! ) chalo chill pill... no use getting up now ( :P ) Back to sleep... ( Oh I am such an a** )

8.54 am : Encore
You lazy bugger!! Time to rise.. You are going to Dresden, thats it. No discussions. And I don't care what happens. You are going, you may not know anything, you might be robbed, you might be stranded, you might die but YOU ARE GOING. And you will have an awesome day, trust me. It will be "legendary" :P. ( Ha ha ha... Do you really believe you can go now??? See the time miss... )

8.55 am : Outta bed... finally.. still rubbing eyes and yawning but finally in senses and really gearing up to make history
Oh God! So many things to be done, pack backpack, change, brush, clean the room, have breakfast, and the most IMP - Money, Passport, Eurail, Camera and Keys... I'd better hurry up if I wanna give it a shot :P

9.01 am : Out of the Apartment
9.03 am : Onto the Bursbahnhof
9.04 am : Driving in the bus
9.24 am : Rushing to the Hauptbahnhof
9.28 am : On the train to Dresden :)
Whew! One hell of a morning, wasn't it?

( to be continued..)

A day off

Well, this is not what the second post was to be, but just wanted to write today, so ..... doing it. Just her day's itinerary.
She had an awesome day... like the usual. Got up to find out that she was late, very late. Dressed up and missed breakfast. Went to office, got bored, came back for lunch. Didnt go back again. Watched and watched Friends. Got depressed and cried. Called up a friend and Murphy's laws always holds. Connection problems, did not get through. Decided to go out shopping. Did not find anything that she needed. Lost the way in a foreign country in pretty low temperatures on the way back and the best thing, it started raining. Found her way home and cooked pizza. It had too much tomato. Opened the mail to find an accusation which wasnt even her fault. Frustrated. Cut her hand and went to sleep. Forever.

One Morning

A Reflection - Fachhochschule Hof, Germany

She woke up to an aching head and puffy eyes. Her head spun terribly. It took her a moment to steady herself and to keep from falling into bed again. But she could not remember anything. She tried to recollect the night's incidents, but it was too much stress for her already splitting head, so she dropped it and decided to go in for a hot shower. While she ruffled through her stuff, the open laptop on the bed caught her eye and it all came back to her in a rush.

She had been awfully upset last night. But now that she had calmed down and slept over it, she thought, was it right to be pissed off at him? In fact she wondered whether she was pissed off or just disconcerted. But all this thought could wait till the shower, b'cause she desperately needed a calming drugging effect. If then she felt, it had been unreasonable, she could forget the whole thing and get back to normal as if nothing had happened. It was easy because she had never told him she was frantic, so for him nothing had anyways changed.

She gathered all her things and was off to bathe. The warm shower pacified her instantly. Ritualistically, as always, weird incidents played through her head and following them a sequence of imaginations, observations and analysis. During one of these eccentric moments, a bizarre thought struck her abruptly. A thought which destroyed the entire life ahead of her. She stood there, unaware of the hot water spraying down her back. A moment too late, it hurt and she pulled herself back, rallying in a state of semi-consciousness. Everything else wiped off her mind for those few minutes.It seemed ages since she had woken up. Her whole world had suddenly turned upside down. How could she not have realized for all these times. And now it had caught her off-guard. She surely did not need any more impending debacles at this point of time. She had enough spice in her mortal existence to go on for years. She wanted to cry out loud but no voice came out.

She stood there, numb. She had just realized that in the recent past she had been living a hollow life entirely. Why did she need to 'think' what she must feel? Wasn't feeling and emotion spontaneous? Yes they were, until a while ago, the time she had crossed dead ends everywhere, had confronted disappointment in every venture. Not monetary or ambitious ventures, emotional ones. She was faced with pain and humiliation of the kind she had never experienced before and it crushed her. But eventually she arose a new person, changed, then she thought, for the better. She suppressed her heartfelt intuitions and trained herself to follow the path which made 'others' happy or which was 'right', regardless of what it meant for her. She succeeded.

Her sagacity had ruined her. It had been so easy just to single out the conscientious avenue each time she was confronted with a fork. Exceptionally perceptive of the mind's psychology and the human brain's emotions, she was wise and her wisdom had made the task simpler. She just hadn't stopped to think what did 'she feel'. And now that she had, she found herself devoid of sentiment, of zeal, of empathy. She had no feeling left in her any more. Today, she risked the ordeal, endeavored to discern herself, but it dawned on her, she was neither upset nor outraged, she was nothing, just an empty vacuum space. It did not really bother her what would ensue next. But she had 'believed' all this time that she was grieved 'cause that's what she had habituated herself to do, when destiny had been very mean to her. It had been her rapprochement. And now she had paid a huge price for it. She had traded her soul, irretrievably and painfully.

Then, she had not known, it would approach this juncture. It had just been a transient panacea for reconciliation. Now the only seam of her present and past were her eyes. Her serene, vacant eyes were surged with a spasm of emotion. She looked into the mirror and dressed herself. Her old self looked back at her and blinked. She could do nothing, she was paralyzed. She stole away from herself and with one last glance into her eyes, she turned and headed to work.

The Reason

THAT'S ME WITH "THE WORLD" !! :) - Salzburg Museum, Austria

If you are wondering this has something to do with Hoobastank - The Reason, No is the answer. Though I am unusually fond of the song and somehow the song is in perfect resonance with my emotional vibes at times, this post has not been inspired by it at. Now back to where we should be. I wondered what would score to be the most appropriate post as 'The First Post' to my blog which mind you, I am planning to follow up for a long time, unlike some of my other prospects. I thought I would answer some of the questions right at kickoff, which include my selections and primarily why I chose an alias, Kristen. ( Ah! Pen Name if you like it that way. ) Plus this post would betray a lot about me to the people who are perceptive to it. Nothing is random, nothing is arbitrary ( For IIT janta: read arbit). Everything is symbolic and has a reason.

CAUTION: Read only if you really think you want to. Else it might incur permanent damage to the brain.

I guess the blog title demands the prime spot. The first sight of the 'Blog title' text bar, bang at the onset initiated a chain reaction of thoughts through me (Pah! I cannot help be a science gal). I scrolled everything and anything through my mind in search of just the right one. I sifted through 'Missing the drive' to indicate as to what the content might turn out to be, but somehow it did not fit. I wondered whether it should be something more optimistic or maybe it should reveal my disposition. Such thoughts streamed through at the speed of light until...it struck me! Why do I wish to blog at all? And hence the hurdle was crossed, the tough jump over the first chasm.

Seemingly less cogent, but highly so, was the template selection. The color was to sketch my person, mirror my temperament. Lightly breezing through all the alternatives, I found two of them to my taste. One black, the shade of me over the past few days, and the other, dotted with a white background, symbolizing positivity and hope, each color spelling a unique virtue to me. ( And also it was just cute!! in a girly sort of way ). But then... both seemed incomplete. So I resumed the search. And would you believe it! Miraculously there it was, right in the end, the blend of dark and color. I am still dumbfounded.

And now, time for the pinnacle change. Kristen. To be frank, I do not know why. It might be because, its the most outward reason, I do not connect to my name. I don't know how many of you will bind sense to it, but those who have been confronted with it, will understand. ( And Kristen appeals to me, I associate myself to it, somehow... Cute name na :) ). But somewhere deep inside I know, the story does not end here. Here is where the clouds, the confusion, the delusion surfaces. I guess I am just trying to run away from myself. Make no mistake, not because I dont like being me or my character or my faults. No. I accept them and learn from them. Just the circumstances. I want to view myself from the outside. ( You might get a glimpse of it in the next post, what I mean by this. ) Get away from everything and see, what brought me to this edge, was I right or was I wrong. It is much the same as doping, but I prefer this way. Just to detach myself from me. Disengage from all the agitation, annoyance and anxiety. Again, I am unsure what good that would do. But nevertheless, it gives me some time out from the dilemma and torment. A vent to let off the steam....

It marks another beginning... For a change, let it be a positive one.

PS: Too much! Whew! I must be intelligent :P . How can my brain process so much thought. I am surprised...