ABANDON ALL HOPE, YE WHO ENTER HERE

BUT TARRY… LOOK NOT YONDER, BUT WITHIN

The inscription over the gates of hell in Dante’s ‘Inferno’!! Perhaps, it was once intended to be intimidating, cautionary. Perhaps the words once carried power, the ability to chill to the bone the unlucky human upon which they were bestowed. But no more! The once feared words have become merely an expression of frustration, of despair, not brought upon by a fear for ones life or soul, but for ones mind and consciousness.

Yes, the words depict with perfection the infinite boredom that has become the life of those belonging to my species, an engineering student. Whither are the star-crossed gazes and the high dreams armed with which I set out to do battle in the battlefield of battlefields, the classroom (and to a lesser extent, the laboratory). I dreamed it would be a place of revelations, of mysteries unfolded. I dreamt it would be a place where the smoked glass through which I was perceiving life would magically clear up. Imagine my consternation when I found out that not only is the aforesaid is a scientific impossibility, but one that unlike many other such phenomena, has never been known to occur . As if that wasn’t sufficient, something occurred which left me tearing my hair out (figuratively, of course, I love my hair too much), it somehow, defying all that is good and holy in this crappy world, turned to SHEET METAL.

What have I gained so far by coming over here? That shouldn’t take too long. Let’s see……. Hmmmm.. This is tougher than I thought. I sleep more, somehow manage to find more time to relax. Hmmm.. not too bad so far, what say you?? And my music has broadened like the event horizon of a black hole in a particularly dense region of the universe. (not that I can sing or perform, of course; that’s like asking a Harley-Davidson with only one wheel to climb a tree) Hey, what do you know, I haven’t done too badly here!! Maybe its not the academic haven I hoped it to be, but, frankly, I couldn’t have done better. Maybe, its time for a rethink.

So, for you, my perceptive reader, do not yet abandon all hope, but do not cling to it too dearly.

(Frankly, there was a point to this blog apart from cribbing about life in general, but it has temporarily escaped the chroniclers mind.)

I BIT OFF MORE THAN I COULD CHEW

To you, perceptive reader, I bequeath my misery.
What is it that deflates a man’s enthusiasm for a…. shall we say… project?? Is it just something every person has to contend with at some time or the other?? Or is it something exclusive to certain individuals??
Take my case for example. My HOD here gave our class something called a CFA, or a Choose, Focus, Analyze exercise. I had the whole wide world to pick an appropriate topic and get myself a half-decent grade in the course.
Instead of basing my decision on the feasibility of doing a good job on the topic I chose, I instead went for what I the thought was ‘The high road’. That, namely, is going for a topic whose matrix of data I could merely perceive vaguely, and was yet fascinated by it. Little did I know that the matrix had dimensions which I didn’t see. Not only that, the interconnections are so intricate, and yet so crucial, that the dimensions of the mistake I made is so gigantic, that I cannot still see completely what’s coming towards me at speeds unimaginable…..
What am I going to do?? I do not want to give up, but it is going to be very difficult. Again, I have no clue as to why I am writing this. Perhaps it is simply the desire to see my problems in print.
To you, perceptive reader, I bequeath my misery.