Big Colleges Big Problems

Proprietary Quote by Ramani (PQR):
"Life : kicks you in the ass, and kicks you in the *cough cough*, depending on how you decide to face it"
Note: The author does not assume responsibilty for the consequences of reproducing his work. Or simply put, dude if you think this is funny, either you cannot think, or you need to think again.

I was on the phone with an employee of the company I am thinking of working for. After the usual 'Do you like your work?' type questions the conversation meandered into discussing a very weird issue - big name schools like MIT and Caltech have among the highest suicide rates in the US. In MIT the windows in the dorms are made so small that it is barely possible to look out, let alone jump. There are no grades for the first year of college, and if they notice that you might have done badly on an exam, you are escorted back to the dorm and put on watch. Serious stuff.
Oh well, me being me, I had to wonder about the classical chicken and hen problem, does MIT drive you crazy or is it because most people who get in are so crazy that either they are suicidal in the first place or seeing them you want to kill yourself. Then that guy then asked 'Mr IIT' (me) how it was in IIT. I told him, that we guys are smarter, so smart infact that, we have realized that instead of killing ourselves, its healthier for you to kill everyone else. Think about it. Adolf Hitler did cause a lot of carnage, and it would have been better for everyone else if he had killed himself pre-carnage instead of post-carnage, but he sure had a fun ride with his secret police, concentration camps and razing of assorted cities!!
Jokes apart, I wonder why this is so. Isn't it strange that people at the highest level of achievement are the hardest hit by failure? Or is it natural ? The fear of failure is the reason why they tend to be so driven to succeed. Actually, if you think about it a bit, it doesn't help! Things only get worse! Your expectations of yourself, and hence your definition of failure (performing below expectations), are pushed up a few notches, so the next time when things dont work out it hits much harder.

Le Porc

The Pig
In England once there lived a big
And wonderfully clever pig.
To everybody it was plain
That Piggy had a massive brain.
He worked out sums inside his head,
There was no book he hadn't read.
He knew what made an airplane fly,
He knew how engines worked and why.
He knew all this, but in the end
One question drove him round the bend:
He simply couldn't puzzle out
What LIFE was really all about.
What was the reason for his birth?
Why was he placed upon this earth?
His giant brain went round and round.
Alas, no answer could be found.
Till suddenly one wondrous night.
All in a flash he saw the light.
He jumped up like a ballet dancer
And yelled, "By gum, I've got the answer!"
"They want my bacon slice by slice"
To sell at a tremendous price!"
They want my tender juicy chops"
To put in all the butcher's shops!"
They want my pork to make a roast"
And that's the part'll cost the most!"
They want my sausages in strings!"
They even want my chitterlings!"
The butcher's shop! The carving knife!"
That is the reason for my life!"
Such thoughts as these are not designed
To give a pig great piece of mind.
Next morning, in comes Farmer Bland,
A pail of pigswill in his hand,
And piggy with a mighty roar,
Bashes the farmer to the floor…
Now comes the rather grizzly bit
So let's not make too much of it,
Except that you must understand
That Piggy did eat Farmer Bland,
He ate him up from head to toe,
Chewing the pieces nice and slow.
It took an hour to reach the feet,
Because there was so much to eat,
And when he finished, Pig, of course,
Felt absolutely no remorse.
lowly he scratched his brainy head
And with a little smile he said,"
I had a fairly powerful hunch"
That he might have me for his lunch."
And so, because I feared the worst,"
I thought I'd better eat him first."
Roald Dahl

Childish, inane, silly, deep, chilling. Roald Dahl in addition to being a children's writer, wrote horror stories. I remember reading one of his collections. The first short story of that collection was about an old woman who feeds a travel weary man - with food laced with cyanide, and then stuffs him. It was in my hostel room late into the night, so no points for guessing what I was thinking the next couple of times I ate in the mess.

Pig
Go, stalk the red deer o'er the heather,
Ride, follow the fox if you can!
But, for pleasure and profit together,
Allow me the hunting of Man--
The chase of the Human, the search for the Soul
To its ruin--the hunting of Man.
Rudyard Kipling

What does this poem mean? Is he speaking from the perspective of the pig?

Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
George Orwell (Closing lines, Animal Farm)

Surprisingly, I have never read the book. My father used to tell me the story of this book when I was young and used to finish it off with these lines. I have never read Clockwork Orange or One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest. But, thanks to my father I know them in excruciating detail. I did see the movies though. Clockwork Orange is quite shocking, I never could get past the gore and understand the point it was trying to make.
Well anyway, if you don't know the story, Animal Farm is about a bunch of animals in a farm run by a farmer. The animals protest about the farmer 'exploiting' them, and hence overthrow him and take over. The pigs take up the helm under the promise of equality. But, there is none. It's the old system in a new form. This is a parallel to the Bolshevik Revolution of the 1917 when the Romanovs were over thrown by the Communists headed by Lenin. Lenin and then Stalin turn out to be just as despotic as the Tsars. In the book the pigs grow increasingly decadent over time and behave exactly like the farmer did - actually worse. They even decide to form an alliance with the farmer in the end. While the pigs are negotiating with him in the farmhouse, the other animals look in through the window and wonder... Doesn't this remind one of this someone's effort to spread 'democracy' throughout the world? - by force, how hypocritic is that, freedom through violence. Sadly, it's the people that lose. 'Democracy' is just as bad as 'Socialism' if used as an excuse by a select few to further their agenda.

HTTHTTH - Random

Well, random.

• Do you know that I am going to spend the coming weekend with an extremely fine woman? Let's just say that she gets paid very very well to do whatever she does. She smiles, agrees to everything you say and makes you feel good about yourself ; like she should. But, I am looking for more. I need a specific position. I might have to push pretty hard, and it's not going to be pretty. To err is human it is said, and I am but human. It is usually said in hindsight, but I exhibit such extraordinary foresight that I predict hindsight. Well anyway, before your dirty minds go amuck, and start saying very mean things about me, I just feel that, to even think of leaving a world of research is a shame. All said, I need to clear up on a couple of things with the HR rep.
• This customercare wishing happy diwali business is getting on my nerves. Over the last few days, I have had eBay, shaadi.com, relianceindiacall.com, sulekha.com and a zillion other sites wish me a happy diwali. Whats up with them? Can't someone realize it's very difficult to have your face light up with a smile when you KNOW it's a server somewhere in Kansas wishing you a happy diwali. Atleast if it says Anjan or Anjana or something like that it can pass off as something.
• Oh well, another thing to complain about. I am a teaching assistant for arguably one of the toughest courses on campus. This has endeared me to most of my friends of campus. Or, shall I say most of my new friends on campus. Anyway, my plan with this was different. It hinged on the fact that since the course is so obviously tough, most of the students would get soo frustrated by the 3rd week or so that they would drop it, and I wouldn't have any work to do. But, little did I think that these students could take revenge, instead of dropping the course, continue on, and drive poor souls like me mad. Nagging your TA when your somewhat non-zero score depends on him is not a cool strategy. I could go on to write a thesis about the trauma I go through as a TA - I didn't realize that it was possible to be so creative with math, so much 'new' math. Have you ever tried reading through a 2 page inductive proof (maybe they could have thrown in Hilbert Spaces and Martingale Theory for safe measure) for a sub-section of a problem worth 2 points and needs exactly 2 sentences to be answered correctly? Lets just say that I have quite a bit to say on this topic, most of which cannot be said without getting me in trouble.
• A friend of mine recieved a big bunch of flowers the other day from a secret admirer. It was soo romantic. Such a surprise. So thoughtful. In such good taste. Such deep passion. We were moved. Who could it be? Well, the SQL Optimizer Division at Microsoft does try it's best to woo new hires! I don't know why they didn't send an XBox or something! Btw, this is an 'on request' blog post.
  

Disclaimer: If you are some legal type person reading this, this sentence is a legal disclaimer to whatever you think I should be disclaiming. So, there.

Annie Hall

Annie Hall (Diane Keaton) is Avi's (Woody Allen's) love interest and the movie essentially traces their relationship. They were actually together in real life, and broke up in 1970. Keaton's birthname was Diane Hall and her nickname was Annie. Not so surprisingly the movie is semi-autobiographical. It was made in 1977. The humor is classy and cutting. The movie has the greatest number of quotable one-liners that I have ever come across. It is to American comedy what the Yes Minister series has been to British comedy.

The movie starts off with Woody Allen commenting about his life to no one in particular.

Two elderly women are at a Catskill Mountain resort. And one of 'em says: 'Boy, the food in this place is really terrible.' The other one says: 'Yeah, I know. And such small portions.' Well, that's essentially how I feel about life. Full of loneliness and misery and suffering and unhappiness, and it's all over much too quickly.

The other important joke for me is one that's usually attributed to Groucho Marx but I think it appears originally in Freud's Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious - and it goes like this. I'm paraphrasing. I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member. That's the key joke of my adult life, in terms of my relationships with women.

There is one scene from Woody's childhood, where he is in kindergarten class. He irritates one of the girls, and she complains to the teacher, who starts castigating him. Suddenly, this 10 year old kid is replaced by the adult Woody Allen (still sitting in the tiny desk), who responds :

Alvy (young): What did I do?
Teacher: You should be ashamed of yourself.
Alvy (adult): Why, I was just expressing a healthy sexual curiosity.
Teacher: Six year old boys don't have girls on their minds.
Alvy (adult): I did.
Girl: For god's sakes, Alvy, even Freud speaks of a latency period.
Alvy (adult): Well I never had a latency period. I can't help it.
Teacher: Why couldn't you have been more like Donald? Now there was a model boy.

The camera then moves on to the other children into the class, who go on to comment on their adult persona.

Boy 1- "I run a profitable dress company."
Boy 2- "I'm president of the Pinkus Plumbing Company."
Boy 3- "I sell tallises."
A normal-looking kid: "I used to be a heroin addict. Now I'm a methadone addict."
A mousey-looking girl: "I'm into leather."

Another brilliant scene, Woody grew up in a house under a roller-coaster in Brooklyn. He was very depressed, so his mother took him to see a psychiatrist.

Alvy's mother: He's been depressed. All of a sudden, he can't do anything.
Doctor: Why are you depressed, Alvy?
Alvy's mother: Tell Dr. Flicker. (To the doctor) It's something he read.
Doctor: Something he read, huh?
Alvy: The universe is expanding...Well, the universe is everything, and if it's expanding, some day it will break apart and that will be the end of everything.
Alvy's mother: What is that your business? (To the doctor) He stopped doing his homework.
Alvy: What's the point?
Alvy's mother: What has the universe got to do with it? You're here in Brooklyn. Brooklyn is not expanding.
Doctor: It won't be expanding for billions of years, yet Alvy. And we've got to try to enjoy ourselves while we're here, huh, huh? Ha, ha, ha. (He gives an artificial laugh before taking another drag on his cigarette)

The movie has a lot of semi-autobiographical elements. You cannot make out which is fact and which is fiction.

Alvy: Jesus, what did ya do? Come by way of the Panama Canal?
Annie: I'm in a bad mood, OK?
Alvy: Bad mood? I'm standing with the cast of The Godfather.
Annie: You're gonna have to learn to deal with it.
Alvy: I'm dealin' with two guys named Cheech.

Diane Keaton did play the role of Michael Corleone's (Al Pacino) wife in the Godfather!

One of the most striking features of the movie is this digression where one of the characters starts recollecting a scene from the past, and the movie rolls into re-enacting the scene, then there is a pause and the character from the present walks into the past and casually comments on it. It captures what each and every one of us do - look back on the past from the perspective of the present. Such scenes make it very easy to relate to the movie. Avi's cynicism is endearing and it is not too hard to see a little bit of yourself in many of the things that he says. It is the kind of comedy a professor of theatre might make - intelligent, articulate and very tastefully done. One of the best movies I have seen in recent times. I suggest you see it! To end, another great bunch of lines.

Avi's (later ex)wife(at a party ) : X is a Chair of History at Famous College 1, Y is a Chair of Art at Famous College 2, you should talk to them.
Avi: 2 more chairs and we can have a dining set.