Bragging

Minasan konnichiwa. Watashi wa Singharu Rawi desu. San nen sei desu. Indo jin desu. Otosan wa Singharu Radhey Shyam desu. Kare wa kaisha-in desu. Okaasan wa Singharu Manzu desu. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu. Arigato gozaimasu

English: Hi everybody! I am Lovy Singhal. I am third year student. I’m an Indian. My father’s name is Radhey Singhal. He works in a company. My mother’s name is Manju Singhal. Pardon me if I have made any mistake. Thank you.

Ya so as you must have understood by now, this post is to convey to one and all and also brag that I’ve started learning the Japanese. The above introduction is just a random sequence of otherwise meaningful sentences and are quite likely to be full of errors. In particular, I dont know how to write accented letters on WordPress. The course is being offered under the Foreign Language Programme of IITK. So I have learnt only almost this much till now in about 5 classes. :( Yeah, I accept that I wanted to learn French but the seats were occupied but nevertheless I have gr8 respect for Japan as a culture and as a nation and hence decided to learn some little bit of Japanese. Lets c how far it goes. I need not write much about the Japanese script as you can read about it on Wikipedia, but will only say that I cannot more than two three letters of their script(s). So lets c how far I go in this new endeavour of mine. As for now I can only say in part English – part Japanese: Nippon rocks!!!

P.S.: I had written a post related to LaTeX in between, but I found out that the solution had some subtle problems and therefore unpublished the post.

Some firsts

As neone amongst you who keep(s) track of this blog might have noticed, I have been making many dx-dx changes to my blog over past few days. I have included a site traffic monitor from tracemyip.org and also one from Clustrmaps. I liked the TraceMyIP widget more obviously because it provides greater detail about the visitors including their IP, exact location, browser, OS, time of visit, pages visited and whether they are online or not. And also u can block ur own IP from being counted. But it is free only for a period of one year I was wishing to do it for a while now, but could figure out today only how to go about it.

The web log from the first day surprises me in addition to the info that the WordPress Blog Stat widget has been givin over last month or so, Today, I had visitors from as far as Copenhagen, Saint George and LA. That simply amazes me. And on the top of it all, somebody amongst them had searched for my name itself. Now, this is something too flattering OK … enuf of gloating. But on a side note, people please do tell me who you are when you have searched for my name and do leave some comments

Also, I have included links to some blogs that I myself read and admire too!

In addition, I am posting today my first photograph, actually a computer generated painting that seems beautiful to me atleast. This is another of the firsts. The painting is a result of some computation carried out in connection with something in asteroseismology. I feel that this is why nature seems to be so beautiful. Such beautiful do these strokes of lines arising from some equations of physics seem. The image was generated from the numerical datae using GNUPLOT version 4.2 and then subsequently edited using GIMP 2.4.5

Signing off

General chit-chat

Ya, finally got sumwht free 2day … was trying to comprehend and modify a FORTRAN code written in French to suit my needs … took me 8 days to do so … I think I took too much time for it … it shud have been done in 1 day … newyz I think, in all probability, its settled as of now

well, I gave this title so as to allow myself the freedom to write many random unrelated things within a single post …

so lemme start by indulging in bashing my current host i.e. HBCSE, Mumbai … v have been given accomodatn in a flat which is at a 25 min walk from the workplace … the toilet thr is 2 ft x 3 feet, no light in d bathroom, no mirror in d house … I giv this elaborate description just to point out the indifferent attitude of the powers tht may b towards such undergraduate research programs … how do u xpect ppl to work in such conditions … is sumthing beyond my level of understandin … Also, in my experience, this seems to be the case wd most of the undergraduate research programs. Altho I must admit tht I m annoyed wd the administrative part of it only … rest everything is very good.

Nextly, it seems tht the most visited and the most useful (perhaps) post on my site is on LaTeX … and also the number of visits seems to have increased tremendously after I switched to the new display theme tht I am usin on my blog page i.e. Chaos Theory. Incidentally, I realised this after making my last post tht my theme is indeed Chaos Theory … now tht I m at it … I think tht d current theme is much better thn the Quentin theme I was using b4 … I had chosen tht to give d blog a royal look

I think I took too much time to write down all d ideas … hence will close it 4 now

Good Bye Sem 4

So, here I am after screwin up my Number Theory end-semester paper That too after knowin almost all of d theory …

Finally my fourth semester and with it my sophomore year at IITK is over. Much water flew down d Ganges during this while … It wud b beyond my capacity to enlist each and every event …

But a couple of important ones in a completely random order:

1. I’m gonna get my first F (fakka) of my degree this sem in d course bout which I mntnd in my last post … Probability & Statistics … its sumwht sad considerin tht I never xpected myself 2 be gettin an F … but nevertheless I’ve taken it in my stride. As a result, my whole planning of nxt semester requires a review … lets c
2. One more suicide this yr at IITK … its sad but in no manner was it shockin … as I do c many suicides-tht-may-happen-netime roaming around … and certainly thr r too many cases of suicides-tht-might-have-been … Go on increasing the seats … continue takin students without enuf knowledge and upkeep the screwed up entrance procedures combined with the wonderful environment tht is over here. Btw, wht hasnt been told much in the media is tht the boy was a category student, as is the word goin amongst the ppl who actually knew d guy … he got depressed in his 1st sem after the “institute-organized informal interactn”, and tht the suicide happened due to hanging himself with the door of his room open … I hope tht gives some of u wannabe IITians … a sneak peak in2 life at IITs
3. I did work a lot on my physical fitness in between for a while during the sem … I think tht was actually d most sincere effort towards a goal tht I made durin this entire sem … I m a guy who has never been too much in2 sports … but this sem I did reach a fitness level whr I can run for 5 kms at a stretch, cycle 34 kms within 3 hrs … and such things … how was I to know tht even such a sincere and determined effort wont get me success … this damn hierarchical way of things over here :X
4. Saw a lot of good movies and some bad ones too. Firstly d good ones (again in no order) … Dharm, Khuda Ke liye, Taare Zameen Par, Angoor, Lamhe, Mr & Mrs Iyer, Dor, Proof, Guide, Kitaab (Gulzaar), Golmaal (1979), Maqbool, Pinjar, Sardar (2005), Akele hum Akele tum, Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi and I guess many more aisi … among the bad ones … thnx 2 our Bollywood distributors and financers, thr wr many too … watch thm at ur own risk … Sheesha, Tashan, One Two Three, U Me aur Hum, Race, Krazzy 4 and others I dont even remember … but yes many of tht category too But all in all, I will thnk IITK forever for d numerous gud movies tht I saw over here and hence refinin my concept of life.
5. The insti also witnessed d annual Gymkhana elections this sem and I curious to hav a closer look … became a part of Election Council – the student body responsible for free and fair conduct of elections … but I was actually shocked and yet not shocked to see the amount of politics being played here … d truth is elections here r fought on regional sentiments, narrow-minded hall loyalties, involves bribery and intimidation of voters, voter impersonation … and havin one’s men inside the election council, play of cards by prominent students, no regards at all to the Lyngdoh Commission and Hon’ble Supreme Court’s guidelines … no regards to the insti rules themselves … and many more of such things
6. Got my passport made finally, a plan I had in my mind since 2nd sem … only 2 get n error in it … and due 2 no fault of mine … I think idiots or creatures worse thn tht sit in d concerned and many such offices :X:X
7. Then thr was Techkriti’08 … simply awesum … d best fest tht I witnessed at IITK … tho it certainly did not escape its share of corruptn, drainin away of money … but thr wr plus points too … got to listen many Nobel laureates … I think tht was precisely one of d very important reason y I wanted to b inside in IIT … but d students had 2 b lured with nothing less thn i-Pods … so as 2 attend such lecs :X
8. In betn, I went to Delhi for a short while after a long gap … saw Delhi Metro and was hooked onto it … symbol for perfectn … I did not mind travellin in a Metro even if tht needed 4 me to take a longer route … salute Padamshri E. Shreedharan … such r d (wo)men India and d world in general needs in plenty … actually only they r (wo)men … rest r just Homo Sapiens
9. then 2day, my WordPress dashboard tells me tht one of my post has been searched by ppl quite often as compared to the performance of my blog till now … thts good and as u can urself c, thts a reason gud enuf for me 2 increase d frequency of my posts
   

Tht is all tht I remember bout d sem as 4 now … I guess I will not b posting nething soon … goin 2 home … and I m not sure if I’ll get as gud net connectivity over thr … another reason y I like IITK

now comin 2 2day … did screw up my NT paprer as said above … got 27/60 pretty bad as per my self-assessment … I fare far above … thn I did carry out 2day after a long time … many of my activities as per d plans made … after d damn xam, shaved myself after around 1.5 mnths … got my bicycle repaired after not attendin 2 it for 2 mnths … thn after around 1 yr or so, got a haircut … and thn as per plans, am also bloggin right now … now I guess I shud pack up,

Home calling … with arms held wide open … but this rooom has 2 b vacated

Signing off,

Lovy

Busy not-mugging

Ok … so it has been a return after a long time wd a very few of my frnds complainin at times tht I hav not been writin ne posts … as a matter of fact I did write in between a few unpublished posts tht r not yet complete Things r not at all fine obviously wd end-sems going on … and tommorrow is yet another boring paper ESO 209: Probability & Statistics … I feel tht tho the subject is gud enuf, the prof is one of d worst things tht can happen to such a nice topic … In all probability, he is not ever gonna read this

Did rather poorly in Algebra … and am quite upset wd myself over it … considerin tht I liked d subject and the instructor … not nemore as far as d instructor is concerned as he made sum remarks tht were not-called-for. Psychology and Discrete maths turned out to be so & so.

am quite bored wd these end-sems … I dont know wht purpose do these mid-sems and end-sems serve as far as my educatn is concerned … OK I wont start wd the same old topic again … made a deal on Olympics stamp today at around 67% premium costin my pocket 3000 INR

xpectin to leave for home on 2nd … so again thr might b a long gap b4 my next post happens. Lookin fwd to spendin some quality time at home wd lots of crucial decsns to b made this time … also n exit from this rather boring place called IITK but will miss my dear friend computer too

Now I should go back after havin vented out sum of my frustration

Lovy