Good Morning, Good Morning

And it all whizzed past.

New year wasn’t exactly party time for me. However, mom’s cooking can, and does, qualify as a celebration. Was too cold out in Noida, and mom had to go out for a Puja at someone’s place. And though I was allowed a ‘bath holiday’, I somehow made uo my mind to go ahead with it. New year’s day is new year’s day, after all. My only resolution this year: to lose weight.

THE post

Yes, I know. I’d vanished all of a sudden from blogosphere, and that is unfair. See, the thing was that something utterly unexpected had happened (I’ll tell you why it was unexpected in the next post), and I was simply blown over; life suddenly became king-size (well, almost) and it is only now that things are coming back to normal. The euphoria remains, though. But I’m back on here.

The Longest Day of my Life: Part I

It’s tomorrow. The Reliance recruitment. Written test followed by personal interview. I want to crack it. I need to crack it.

In Pursuit of their Skulls

Counterstrike 1.6, better known as CS, is the favourite past-time of most guys out here, and I’m no exception. If you’ve not heard of it, you’re probably farther from LAN gaming than Indian villagers are from potable water. Though one of the most popular LAN games, it’s quite simple: somebody creates the server on his comp, you join either the terrorists (T for short) or the counter-terrorists (CT, for short), buy a gun with the money you have (the money here is virtual, and depends on how many of the opposite team you kill, your team’s overall performance, etc), pack some grenades and you’re off. I’m no MVP (that’s most valuable player for the uninitiated), but I do score quite a good number of headshots (that’s the mark of a good player: a shot to the head which kills the enemy instantly).

If the number of players is small, the one running the server selects a smaller map with a simple objective: kill the players of the other team. A round ends when all members of a team are killed; the other team, naturally, wins the round. These rounds last only a few minutes, and most of the time the battle boils down to a one-on-one between the last survivors of each team. You don’t have to buy anything here, you just pick the weapons up from the ground. My tactics here are varied: I may run berserk with a Benelli XM shotgun, or go steady with one of my (and most everybody’s) favs: the Sig 552, the Colt or the AUG. Sometimes I get frustrated and pick up the MP5 too, often with devilish consequences.

Then we have the ‘bomb’ formats, where the Ts have to plant the C4 at a bombsite, and the CTs have to stop them from doing so; they must also defuse any planted bomb. This is the most popular format of the game, and you may choose any role you like: from a room-clearer to a sniper. I love the more versatile clan role: using the Sig or the Colt, depending on whether I’m a T or a CT, respectively. Sometimes I pick up the tactical shield coupled with a DEagle, just for fun. There’s the ‘hostage’ format  too, but for some reason it’s not that popular here.

And then there’s the deathmatch: no objectives, 50 or more players, complete mayhem. You either kill, or die and respawn. And yes, I’m the king of this format. All I need is the Colt, and I’m happily spilling enemy blood all over the map with my burst fire. Sometimes they catch me from behind, and I actually manage to turn and take out their skulls. Of course I’d never forget the last time I played a deathmatch, a few days ago. For a change, I picked up an AWP and started sniping. I was surprised when I discovered I was still on top.

To sum it up, CS is always fun, and an effective way to take a break from the real life and unleash the primeval animal instincts. In a peaceful way, that is.

Just Another Day

Quite a lot has happened in the past few days. First, I bombed at the Shell technical interview. It was a project interview, rather, and the interviewers weren’t particularly impressed with it. It was quite obvious, and I knew I wouldn’t make it to the round I was supposedly made for: the case study. But then, among the rejectees were people who’d done path-breaking work, people who were praised by the interviewers for being innovative, even someone who was given a card by one of the interviewers. After the case study, there were two left, and after what they called group activity, they decided only one made the cut. And for all this, they made us fill that stupid application form (took hours), prepare for that telephonic interview (took a day, many took a week), and then grill us over a project. To hell with Shell, then.

Today, sat out the Cairn recruitment. No point in it, I reckoned, when all they see is whether the candidate is among the top ten. Instead, I went shopping for the one thing missing in my wardrobe: a red necktie. Found the perfect one at the Raymond’s outlet. Came back and tied a knot. Perfect. I love ties. Shortly afterwards, my batchies came back all spent from T&P, and bingo. Second question of the written test: your GPA till the last semester. To hell with Cairn too. Next stop: Reliance.

No, I’m not arrogant at all.

The Defeatist

Inside every optimist lurks a defeatist. A coward who contemplates a meek surrender in the face of odds. The fact that the job at hand is of paramount importance and, if accomplished, might become the single most vital feat in one’s life simply magnifyies the woes of the defeatist.

I read an article in today’s newspaper which stressed on living in the present; the past is history and the future is uncertain. But what can you do when you involuntarily keep brooding about the future till it becomes a mania of sorts? Ironically, it is not something impossible, but to a coward everything difficult seems impossible.

The same thing is happening to me. Inside my brain, there are a hundred thoughts right now. The Jekyll-Hyde confrontation further complicates things. And in the midst of all this, the one vital source of strength is missing. But then that doesn’t mean I surrender to this coward inside me. Because I didn’t do it last time.

I have but one prey, and one bullet to hunt it with. Do I pursue it, or just watch it slip into the horizon and beyond?

Sleep Deprivation

My daily sleep requirement is six hours, but I always tend to undersleep; even if I sleep after midnight, my eyes strangely open at daybreak, and, since I love the tranquil mornings, I don’t feel like going back to sleep. Which means I often tend to undersleep, and this in turn leads to grogginess after breakfast, which I hate.

This happened today too, and right now the blood vessels in my head seem haplessly dilated. So I’m going off to sleep. Again. But sleep is always pure bliss, so who’s complaining?