DHAR DHAR

Life here in London is, whatz the right word… ahhh… dynamic… no… happening… no… ahhh… well, you get the picture… There is something going on somewhere, everyday all the time. LSE and its surroundings are no different.

Protests:

Protests are a way of life here. We all know how the Royal Mail workers went on a strike and caused a whole lot of inconvenience to all of us.  Just the other day, the Israeli Deputy foreign Minister Danny Ayalon came to the LSE to deliver a public lecture on “The Situation in the Middle East: The view from Israel” and it seemed as if the entire Scotland Yard and Mossad were there in the campus. I mean, com’on, when the Hungarian Prime Minster came to the campus, there wasn’t this kind of a security cordon. However, the anti-Israeli activists somehow found their way into the Sheikh Zayed theater and started protesting and chanting anti-Israeli slogans. Luckily, they were eventually brought under control by the students and the FM was able to present his point of view. Read more about it HERE

Yesterday, I was passing by the Indian Embassy in Aldwych and I saw these people protesting about the atrocities the Indian Army has committed in Kashmir and demanding that it vacates J&K as soon as possible. Now, considering all the wrong information and mis-understanding there is among the Indians and Pakistanis regarding the situation in Kashmir, who knows how justified their protest was? But, whatever it was, it lacked steam and soon the entire premises was cleared by the police.

Protesters near India House, London

Contests:

Well, there is no shortage of these either. Today morning, Ernst & Young was in the campus with their big yellow chubby piggy-bank and coin-shaped candies informing all the students about their Profitunity campaign. It is about coming up with a business plan, which if successful will be supported by E&Y and the entire proceeds will be donated to Prince’s Trust Charity. Check it out here.

E&Y Profitunity Piggy-bank

Then, LSE Student Union  Elections are going on currently. The voting is online and by tomorrow the fate of all the candidates standing for the various posts that are up for grabs will be decided by the students. I have already cast my vote but I wonder how many will participate in these elections. After all, almost half the students are from countries, which don’t follow any sort of democratic system. Anyways, we will know the outcome tomorrow and hopefully the best will win.

Sid’s Alter ego: Whatz up, man? how are you?

Sid: I am doin Ok. Got a full time job, you know…

Sid’s Alter ego: Wow, wow… where? You rock, man… where?

Sid: In my room at Sidney Webb… you see, its an online thing…

Sid’s Alter ego: Awesome, man…!! What job? tell me, tell me some more… What you do exactly? What about the mulah? he he he!! How much are u making, man?

Sid: I work for free… I apply to different companies seeking employment opportunities. You know, Job Application and s#!% like that.

Sid’s Alter ego: What? You told me you HAVE a job? What was that about?

Sid: Yaaaaa, I have a job… “Job Application” is a full time job in itself, u know.

Sid’s Alter ego: Ohhkkk… I get it, now. You are a confused man….   But tell me sometin’… Why do you need to apply for full time positions NOW?  You have been here just a mon’.

Sid: Ya man,  I know… thatz what you sign up for when you are in a 12 months programme. All the stuff that most normal people do in 2 years, we are here to do those in 9 months.

Sid’s Alter ego: but, you just said 12 months… what is all this about 9 and 12 months…?

Sid: Ohh, ya… I  knnnoow… we get 3 months vacation… ha ha…

Sid’s Alter ego:

Sid:

Sid’s Alter ego: So,… How is it going?

Sid: Its going supercalifragilisticexpialidocious…

Sid’s Alter ego: …. Wh … …

Sid’s Alter ego: What the… ? What was that?

Sid: Thatz what you start saying when you are in LSE…

Sid’s Alter ego: ??? elaborate please???

Sid: I mean, you start making things more difficult than they actually are. Instead of just saying “super cool” you say “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”.

Sid’s Alter ego: wow… you did that again… you must b out of ur mind, man… I better go now, or I will also start feeling nonsupercalifragilisticexpialidocious… Happy Applicationing…

If ever you have to watch a Hindi (Bollywood) movie, then watch Kanti Shah’s  “Gunda”. It is the perfect example of a “so bad, it’s good“. Gunda in Hindi means The Villain. The movie has Mithun Chakraborty in the lead role and a host of Bollywood’s famous bad boys as Gundas. The dialogs are  pure poetry but so bad that once you hear them, and if you are a bit tipsy, as I was, you can’t stop laughing. You will even laugh when you wake up the next day with a terrible hangover. The acting is shoddy and the direction is terrible. It is as if watching an experiment on how badly one can make a movie. Anyways, watch this trailer in Hindi. I can gurrantee one thing… It will make your day (or night).

Happy Diwali

wow!! had a wonderful time with hostel mates from Sidney Webb tonight. We went to Sagar’s at Covent Garden and after gormandizing on an awesome south Indian dinner, got a really really big king size dosa from the restaurant management free of charge.

Ankit looking through the King Dosa

We then roamed around Covent Garden for some time enjoying the sights and surroundings on a Friday night. (I was more covered than all the party girls put together there). Came back to Borough and went straight for a beer to the “The Black Horse” pub next door to SW.  After that, thanks to Vasudha and Aarti, we celebrated our mini diwali by lighting small candles and lighters. What a way to celebrate the festival of light… 5000 miles from home…

I am learning all the time.  The tombstone will be my diploma.  ~Eartha Kitt

Now a days, every new day brings with it a whole lot of, well new things. Each day is a new learning experience. So, what have I learned today?

• hmmm, first, never, and I have to repeat this, NEVER, underestimate the use and power of salt in your food. It is better to put less of it than to ruin the food by putting loads.
• Second, the word “accounting” comes from word account, which comes from the Middle-English word acounte, accompte, which comes from the Anglo-French word acunte. What a mouthful??
• Thirdly, Game Theory is not about designing and playing computer games. It is just a fancy name invented by crazy scientists for some thoery that has got something to do with strategising and that uses some sort of logical table  to do some otherwise very mundane things which even my granny can do with her octogenarian brain. huh!!
• Fourthly, I shall have to leave my habit of procrastination behind if I want to survive at the LSE. Feeling lost and moronic in a class full of geniuses is the last thing I want to remember myself by. (and drawing your lecturer’s face in the notebook is not called modern art)
• and finally, LSE is turning out to be just too much for me… its almost time to press the SOS button… anybody out there!! please help… HELP!!

Wow, finally it is done… I have completed my migration from wordpress.com to my custom domain dhardhar.com… Awesome!! Though the process takes no more than a couple of hours, it took me about a weeks time to get everything from my earlier domain to the new one… huhh!!

Actually, things were put into motion when I shifted my blog from blogger.com to wordpress.com. That was the first step.

After that, I purchased the domain name and a 12 months hosting plan from GoDaddy.com and things really started moving.
and today, with the complete transfer the movement of things has ended. From now on, I am a WordPress.org blogger… ha ha ha!!!

BTW, GoDaddy.com has some really good and cheap (the Meatball Marinara sub at Subway costs more) hosting plans with 5 minutes easy to use WordPress installation. Highly recommended…

Image Courtesy:

WordPress http://saij.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/wordpress.jpg

GoDaddy http://www.covenanteyes.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/go-daddy1.jpg

Subway http://www.subway33335.co.uk/shop/images/Meatball%20Marinara.jpg

I have been at the LSE for about a month now and I have met lots of people here. You go to any party, occasion or gathering and the chances are that all the people chatting with you will be from differrent countries.

What I find amazing is that human emotions are same everywhere.  It is beyond colour, creed, religion and everything in between. Interacting with the people from all over the world has been a real eye opener. All the prejudices and pre-conceptions have to be flushed down the gutter once you experience the kind of internationalism that you find here.

Thanks to all my LSE mates  for introducing me to this wonderful world. Let’s hope we will be able to make the most of it.

This is an imported version of the original post. The actual post was posted on September 2, 2009.

Yesterday, after more than a month, my UK Student Visa finally arrived. The scary thing is that it arrived just at the very last minute. I was almost ready to cancel my ticket and re-plan my travel itinerary, when it finally showed up and spared me the travails.

I have put up a photo of the visa with all my personal details covered (pardon me for this). All the captions are self-explanatory, but I am including a brief summary of the various fields.

1) Visa Number: The unique number each visa carries with it.

2) Place of Issue: The British High Commission from where the visa was issued.

2) Valid from: The day from which you are allowed to enter UK.

3) Valid until: The day till which you are allowed to stay within UK.

4) Number of Entries: The number of times you are allowed to enter and exit the country within the validity period without needing to apply for a fresh visa. (MULT means multiple times.)

5) Type: The type of visa issued. Here it is Tier 4 General student visa. This field also notes the License Number of the sponsor, generally the University.

6) Name, Passport Number, Sex, DOB and Nationality are quite obvious.

7) Obsrv: Here, they spell out the restrictions imposed in the visa. For example, I am not allowed to  have any access to public funds, which are generally reserved for Citizens and other permanent residents. They  also mention here whether one is allowed to work or not. I am required to follow the Work/Business guidelines meant of the Tier 4 Visa catagory. (No more than 20 hrs of work during the term time and full time work during the vacations). This is the place where they also mention whether you need to register with the police on arrival or not. (Apparently, I don’t)

8) Number of Dependents: If you are accompanied by your family or relatives, then this section includes their details and other information.