"50 Things"

Great great read !!

http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/life/workplay_balance_at_mit/50_things.shtml

On love and Relationship - 2

I have always been a great fan of Vatsa. In fact he was one of the people who were my source of inspiration for blogging. But lately I have been out of touch from his site. The reason – lack of shitoons. Now all of you who don’t know Vatsa, he is a great writer. he has a great site where he write about his experiences in life Plus He has a special section on his site called ‘shitoons’ where he draws cartoons depicting the shit around us. So this week, finally one more shitoon came up and I went back to site and came across this article.

Now in the article, Vatsa has beautifully and I must say daringly represented his take on his feeling about love and relationship. Now the feelings are very complicated things especially when they keep changing with time. Some people say, it’s a sign of growing and some say, you are going crazy. So whatever may be the reason, the post helped me to figure out a tones of things about myself, the side of myself from which I was not aware.

Note: From here on ‘Feeling’ represent love/pyaar/infatuation etc etc.

I had a strong bonding from feelings since I was 5 year old. it started with my first love at the age of 5, then it switched on to a English teacher, a new girl coming to school in grade 6 and many more till I get off to college.

I got into my first serious relationship during the freshmen year of my college. It went on for 2 years. One of the best time of my life. Although it ended disastrously. And it was so much horrible that the folk tales are still heard and said in the countryside areas.

But this relationship taught me so much. First thing was, she made me realized about the importance of being a good person in life. I was a really selfish, self engrossed kind of person before i met her. Always aiming for the things, for which I was not meant for. She helped me to realize, who I really am. What are my strengths and what are my weaknesses. I guess that was the first step of my life towards growing as they say.

So after my relationship ended, I didn’t feel to go in the relationship for a year. I guess I was still not over her.

But after that I felt that the best way to ‘move on’ is to get a new love. But as they say, you never get the love when you search for it. But I kept on trying. In next one year I met with a series of girl only to realize that if a girl is cute, then she don’t have sense of humor. If she has sense of humor, then she is not able to understand me. The only girl who came closest to my heart was this girl to whom I met in train last Jan. We became friend, used to talk once or twice a week. It was the last time that I really felt something for someone. It went on for 6 months. But she was committed. Never got the guts to mention anything.

After all the chatting, texting, one night stand kind of escapades, I finally realized - What I really want in a girl?

Now I am very much sure that 87.35% of guys don’t know what they want in a girl. There primary factors of evaluation are:

Cuteness and hotness.

That’s all they see and they can’t even differentiate between the two terms.

Cuteness can make your face smile while hotness brings a smile to your dick.

But during the course of time, I figured out that there is so much more which I want in girl. Factors mentioned are in priority order.
1. She must be able to talk sense and understand my nonsense. The first part is easy but trust me it’s the second one which limits my choices so much.
2. I realized that in my relationship, I can’t be the one consoling the partner. I need someone who can handle me and my weird ideas and keep me moving in the right direction. (Oh, BTW I was talking about the life in last sentence: D]
3. This factor is kind of weird. For me the voice of girl really matters. The reason I guess is, god has blessed me with such a beautiful high pitch voice that people mistake me and my mom on call so I just want to have my children a bare minimum average voice.
4. Cuteness
5. Hotness
6. Height. But it’s not more of a choice then a constraint for me.

So I guessed figuring out this thing is so much essential for a guy, because many time we see a cute girl , we put fight for her, if god is with us we might get the girl only to screw up everything since compatibility will not be there.

After figuring out who I really am knowing what I really want was a big step. I thought I know much about life and I am ready for it.

But to be true, the relationship may have ended 2 years ago but I still had feeling for my college ex-gf. I mean seeing her in college used to make my heartbeat jump like anything. There was never been a single day in my life for 2 years after the relationship ended, when I didn’t think about her.

Anyways my college was over. I was set for a job in Delhi. But the fucking recession/bad luck/talent – everything came together and I end up having a better job in Chennai.

I was back in the city again. One day, accidentally I met my college ex gf again. We started talking and hit off quite well. Initially I thought its destiny and we are soul mate, made for each other etc etc. kind of thing in my life. It went on for a couple of month. I had a decent time. We talked, we fight. Regular friendly stuff.

But one day, after spending a great day with her, I was coming back to my place and the only thought in my mind was of " how to pain Anshul". I mean there was nothing about her. This was the first time in my life, when I am not able to or wanted to think about her.

That day, I realized that I was just running for her because I never got the proper closure. We talked for 2 months and cleared a lot of things, unsaid feelings were shared and everything which was an open file was sequentially closed. This was new to me since I felt that I have changed a lot in last 2 years and I don’t want to be with her since both of us are quite different people now. We both want different things in life.

This was a big step of my life. I realized that there is nothing more important in my life then my friends and my family, who were there for me during the hardest period of my life. These are the people who have made the journey of my life, most memorable one and they are still making it.

But then again, the same question. The girl was perfect for me in terms of the criteria, I had in mind. I thought I wanted her for my lifetime. Both my belief were shaken. I was still standing with the same question: who am I and what I want?

In the past 3 months and specially in last 3 nights after reading the Vatsa's post, I have been able to figure out that people change in life. They grow. Their expectation changes.I can be whoever I want, If I am serious about it. You strengths can turn out to be your weakness and you can convert tour weakness into strength. So important thing is to know, what you want in life. I am sure that Family and Friends tops the list by miles. Rest of the things will be figured out with time.

About the relationships, I met a lot of girls in last 2 years. Some of them were really wonderful but I chickened out every single time. Sometime because they don’t use to fit in the profile of the girl I wanted, other time because I guess I was afraid to go into relationship. And not to mention, there were times when I was ditched in a plain and simple manner.

In general, I like to behave as a desperate guy because this is the part of my image, my friends are well aware of and they enjoy it. I also enjoy it when they enjoy Plus I guess I was a little desperate in order to get over the feelings of my ex-gf.

But now I feel that, I don’t have any emotional baggage. I am enjoying my single life. I have got great friends. Yeah I agree sometimes I feel that it would be better if i have someone with me. But that feeling comes and goes. The best thing for me is when I go to sleep, I don’t have any thoughts. I am getting the most calm sleep of my life.

What I know is, I am not going to try for any girl. If I ever come across an interesting girl, and we hit it well then I am not going to chicken out and I am not going to measure her with my 6 point criteria.

I will go where the life takes me because I enjoy the uncertain flow of life.

Sleeping off and 2010

Dear Friends,

Hope all is well at your end. I am fine here too. First of all I want to wish you all a great great 2010 filled with hope, success, joy, promotion, bonus, salary hikes, sex and liquor. I had a great starting for this New Year where I partied with all of my friends (nearly) and my cousins. I am really keen to know about your celebrations and New Year resolutions.

This December has been the busiest, eventful and one of the greatest period of my life. During December I travelled across places, met new people, saw my bhai getting married to one of the coolest girl I have I ever known. I went to 5 of the 6 METRO cities of India – Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Kolkata

It all started with the first weekend of December when I went to Mumbai for my exam, followed by a trip to Kolkata next weekend to attend the marriage of my bro, travelled to Kota via Jaipur to attend the reception and spend a week at home and blew the steam off. The following 3rd weekend was in Delhi where I catch up with so many of my old friends. The last weekend was comparatively chiller when I saw 5 movies, slept 16 hours a day. A typical Chennai weekend. This one was again a rocking one when people from over the place gathered in Bangalore for the New Year celebration and I got chance to catch up with friends and family again.

Anyways my point is - In the last 1 month I have been sleeping at all sort of places except my bed. I have been sleeping in chair, train, flight, bus, auto, tempo, car and even on bike. All these travelling and sleeping escapades have taught me so many things which I have jotted down for all you people.

Key Take Away Points:

1. Do not ever, Never drink before the night of travel or you may or you will end up filling 5 air sickness bag on-board

2. Sleeping while sitting behind a bike is a really bad idea especially when you wear a specs. Keywords: Bump on road, friends shoulder, specs, nose+eyes

3. Before sleeping, Explain clearly in written form to autowallah where u want to go. Particularly in Chennai. otherwise invariably in all other cases you will end up in T. Nagar

4. Always remember to pee before a long bus journey especially while traveling in night during December. You moving on your seat in anxiety of a mid way stoppage can be viewed as an obscene act by the fellow passengers.

5. Never forget to carry a mp3 player along with you because “Numerical statistics on snoring shows at least 30% of the adult population and perhaps as many as 50% of people in some demographics snore”

6. Always get a background check on the person from the bride side facilitating liquor in the marriage (off course in a hidden manner, in the corner behind the tent) because sometimes he may turn out to be the father of the girl you are trying hitting.

7. Chutiya is not an acceptable form of swearing at home, no matters what argument you say in the favor, you may end up apologizing to a sobbing mother, all night long.

I strongly believe that all the learning’s will help me grow intellectually and become a strong sleeper and traveler in the coming time. I wish you again a great comforting and safe 2010.

Have fun

Thanks and regards,

Pratik Gupta

PS: after all said and done, there is nothing like sharing a single fag among 3 friends in the calm chilly night. Savor these moments while you can.

Campus Placement Preparation Tips

This is part II of my promise which I am posting now. Placement preparation is the most important thing if you want to get placed in first few days. Many of us ignore this but I realized during the course of my placement that every single thing you prepare matters and the only thing which matters least is your CG. Lets go topic wise:

Company test: This is the most important part as 50-60% companies are open for all and they take aptitude test to shortlist the students. The best thing is to prepare for for cat seriously. In every college 30-40% people prepare seriously for cat and these pool of people keep getting short-listed again and again. So it’s better to be in the pool. All your preparation, interns, resumes, CG is a waste if you are not getting short- listed. So I will suggest start preparing for cat or atleast start giving some practice cat test to brush up your concept and increase your speed.

Resume: It took me 2-3 months to prepare my resume. Keep following points in mind:
1)Prepare 2 types of resume. 1 Tech oriented and other for general firms. Tech resume can be of 2 page with a greater description of departmental projects. But the general resume should not exceed 1 page.
2)Fill the space completely. Its either 1 page or 2 page. There is nothing like 1.5 pages.
3)See the resume in print format and 80% space of the page should be filled.
4)Once you are done with resume ,send it to your seniors and friends for editing and make necessary changes.
5)While describing your interns, projects, extra-curricular follow the order – Aim( what was given to you), your efforts( what you did for that/ what you learned and applied) Result ( what was the final outcome and its result on the company or in your festival) Example: I was given the responsibility of……I learned and applied……The final result was ……
6)Avoid objective, interest, hobbies…these are very generic. Try to save as much space as you can for relevant things.
7)You should be very sure and comfortable with all the things you are mentioning in the resume because all your interview is going to go around your resume only.
My resumes for references:
Resume for general firms- 1 page format
Resume for core firms- 2 page format

Interview: the best and the only way to do this is to make an excel sheet like this and fill your answers. Send it for editing and mug it completely. Its better not to trust that spontaneous answers look more real. Mug the pre-written answers and try to deliver them as if they are spontaneous. Speak in front of mirror, or ask your friend take your mock interview.

GD: get a group of good friend s who are seriously preparing for interview. Pick any random topic. There are many GD Topics on net. Try to have practice GD among yourself. The rules of GD are: speak more, try to dominate the discussion but don’t get aggressive with your body language. You should look cool but try to grab the most of the speaking times. Good points do matter but not much. The only thing I felt that matters is your cumulative speaking times.

Technical knowledge: Contact your seniors who have got placed in the companies you are targeting and ask them about the areas in which the respective companies were interested and start preparing on the same line.

The preparation is endless but the most important thing is not to loose focus and keep preparing constantly. So All the best guys!! May You score your respective Dream jobs.

Cat Prep Tips

I promised someone that I will blog about this issue long time back and finally I was reminded again so here I am, fulfilling my promise. I will start off with my scores and preparation. I prepared seriously for 5 months, joined couple of test series and attempted the material of TIME and CL. I scored 44 in quant, 46 in DI and 28 in verbal with the percentile 97.5(something). It was disappointing but I learned a lot of things about cat preparation which I want to share. First I will go by small things which we generally miss or we don’t focus

The most important thing is time management. You should have a definite strategy for 150 mins. I tried 40-40-40-30 and 45-45-45-15 where first 3 entries is the time given to individual subject and the last entry being the time left for going over to the not attempted questions. This is very important to figure out that which time distribution maximizes your score. And even more important is the determination to change the section when the time is over. I have seen people dwelling over a particular section for 60-80 mins.I will suggest, experiment the distributions for 3-4 test and then decide which one suit you best.

The second most important thing is the order of section. I used to attempt quant first because I was able to attempt decent number of questions in it and it gives me confidence, followed by verbal and then DI because I was good in DI and in last if time gets crunch, I was sure that I can wrap up the things in 30 mins also. Again try various orders for few tests and then fix an order and stick to it.

Now let me go subject wise:

Quant: The best way is to practice more. Practice and read the solution for the questions you didn’t get. It’s very important that you keep noting the good shortcuts and smart formulas in some notebook and mug them properly. This will give you atleast 2 additional questions in final exams.

DI: The smartest way to prepare for DI is to solve 10 years cat paper. There are very limited set of questions in DI. Let’s say 50. If you are through with the 10 years exam papers you will cover like 30-35 types and rest you can learn while you give test and prepare at room. Trust me this is the best way and you will see instantaneous improvement but just keep in mind to read the solution of not attempted/ wrong questions and learn the trick behind them.

English: to be very true I don’t have much of an idea how to improve this. The only thing I knew is you should be able to solve a comprehension in 6 mins and try both the way of solving comprehension i.e. reading passage first and questions later and vice versa. For me reading questions first and passage later was more helpful because in that way I can look for the required answers and keep marking them as I read. I will suggest you this wordlist to mug completely. This is the most comprehensive wordlist I go through. Just 800 words and trust me it covers like 70-80% of the cat words.

About the material: I found the CL material to be best but the TIME provided me with sample test in last moments which were also quite useful. Practice from CL, Practice room test from TIME. There are many things which you should kept in mind while preparing for Cat. Cat is not about hard work, it’s about smart work.