Review the Paycheck --- looks good!

I just finished watching the movie "Paycheck" on TV and was simply blown away by the plot. Starring Ben Affleck and Uma Thurman, the story is about a guy who creates a machine which shows the future. But then as he says - "Once you show people the future, they don't have a future" and puts it perfectly towards the end with "Having seen the future, people will make it happen"......

He decides to destroy the machine for the greater good, but the chaps he works for get wind of this and try to stop him and save the machine. The rest of the plot is about how they try to kill him, and in the words of his boss, "how he transformed himself from an ordinary engineer to an escape artiste"..... So did he succeed in the end ? Go watch the movie!

Of course, Ben did use the machine to foresee some of the attacks on him, and find ways to escape. To help his future self, he sends himself an envelope containing ordinary everyday items. Later, the way he uses them to figure out the next step he should take in his quest is simply awesome. Each time, he uses up one item from the envelope, until all he has left with him is a wrist-watch. The story is beautifully woven together with good acting all round. An absolute must-watch.

Tour de Bangalore!

After four years of hibernation from cycling, during which time my already ancient cycle became a museum piece, I finally got back in the saddle yesterday. I went to the good old shop where I had bought the last one, and got myself a snazzy new dirt bike. And what other color would I choose - it had to be a blue, and a metallic caustic blue at that.

The start was anything but auspicious coz on my way home itself, the left pedal managed to unscrew itself and fell off right in the middle of a busy intersection! After watching a car drive over it, I retrieved it and tried to put it back on. Apparently giving my sweat and blood in the attempt (yeah, I managed to cut my thumb in the process) wasn't good enough coz it fell right off a few dozen yards later.

Finally, I made my way home by alternately kicking off from the pavement on flat and downhill stretches and walking on uphill terrain. And doing all this in the blazing hot afternoon sun is no joke. After getting the errant pedal fixed at the local repair shop, I took it for a test ride this morning. To my chagrin, I realized soon enough that the strength in the legs was long gone, and my stamina also had fallen considerably. Mein kya karoon ram, mein to budda ho gaya!

As a miserable side-effect, I got so tired that I went straight back to bed and slept for a few hours after the ride. That about decides it that my grandiose plans of riding it to college at least once must be shelved until a future date. But how long will it take for me to regain some of my old strength ? I've given myself a target of this month-end to get back into shape. Hoping to pull it off...... God bless!

Damn - they are right !

Four down, two to go! Its amazing how time seems to fly! And shockingly enough, I am appalled at my attitude towards my exams. Of the four so far, I found myself concentrating properly while studying for only one of them. As far as CN - 2 was concerned, it was a joke! My preparation for it was minimal to say the least. I wonder by how much my performance would shoot up if I choose to put my full efforts towards the exams rather than just enough to clear them respectably! Ah, that will only remain a thought coz I know that I am totally incapable of it.......

There are always those teachers who blame the placement of the students in various companies for the drop in performance post-placement. There are also those who see no connection between the two. I gotta admit - though rather grudgingly - that the former are probably right. This is the first time that my exam prep has been so casual, its scary to say the least. Though being placed in Cisco has neither put a crown on my head, nor caused horns to sprout, I know that it has played its part. It has, atleast in my case, dunno about rest of janta though I am sure its true to different extents with all of us, whether we would like to admit it or not.

Strangely enough, a splitting headache seems to grip me after each exam, rendering me incapable of doing anything the rest of the evening. I do put my brain under tremendous pressure during those three hours to come up with convincing stories for the five questions so that the evaluators buy them. Probably that explains the post-exam reaction. After holding it together for three stressful hours, it just gives way, and unfailingly at that.

Here's that headache again! That's it for now. More in my next.

Reflective ruminations......

A temporary setback for my CAT aspirations. Did not make it through to the GD/PI rounds of any IIM. Seeing the scores of a couple of the selected few, I guess I probably had a good enough total, but probably missed out on sectional cutoffs in Verbal Ability which irritated me a bit coz I seem to consider my English pretty decent.

Ah well, clearly not in my destiny to study in an IIM immediately after my B.E. from PESIT. So I just gotta put it behind me and get on with the rest of my life. After all, whatever happens, happens for one's own good. Cisco is gonna be a great place to work and me looking forward to having a memorable time there.