Social Skills

Well technically, this post is about the lack of social skills, but I am trying to be positive about things. There used to be a time when I felt I was probably the most socially awkward person in the world. Well... not anymore!
I was at an official dinner party last week, hosted by our professors, where I was doing what I usually do on such occasions- positioning myself at strategic points where I could observe the proceedings without being spotted myself. This is an art I have perfected over the years, and takes little or no effort these days.
Then came the big hurdle, the actual dinner. In this part, it is not that easy to blend into the background and, as luck would have it, I ended up standing behind a fellow student, a certain Mr. Z, at the buffet table. Z (who is now the undisputed king of SAPs- Socially Awkward Persons known to myself) turned around to look at me; more specifically at a point on my forehead. This was making me uncomfortable, so I proceeded to raise both my eyebrows (I wish I could raise just one at a time... now, that would be awesome). Anyway, that got his attention and he realized he had to respond to my unspoken question.
"Is that a headlight on your forehead?" was what he said. He might have been referring to the giant pimple right in the middle of my forehead, but I will never know for sure, because I thought it wise not to answer the question, preferring to just shrug and smile (another one of my time-tested strategies). But Z was not about to be discouraged so soon. He proceeded to ask me about my future plans, about the number and quality of the applications I had sent, whether I would like to have dinner sometime.. I had been smiling and nodding throughout. That stopped abruptly with the last question.
Thankfully, my dear, dear roommate rescued me before I had to actually say anything in response to the relentless questioning. So there were two things I found out that evening. One, that there is still hope for me, because there are other people setting the benchmark in the SAP championship, and that a friend in need is worth her weight in diamonds. (Psst, now you know why I said I'd miss you when you went home!!)

April Foolishness

I had started this post on April Fool's day. Unfortunately some foolishness on my part caused its deletion. But since this was in keeping with the spirit of the day, I have decided not to crib about it. Instead, I will reflect on all the foolishness I have been upto in the last couple of months. On second thought, that might require an entire blog, with one post on each incident, therefore I will just tell you about the foolishness I have been upto online.
I will start with facebook, which for a few days was practically where I lived. I keep getting invitations to try quizzes. I take the ones that sound interesting, then I go from there to another, and then another.. For instance, it was a revelation to learn that bartending was my true calling (yeah, I always knew deep deep down (very deep) that I wasn't cut out to be an engineer). If I were Japanese, my name should have been Ai, if my life were the movie Twilight, I would be Bella (yay!), I will die when I fall off a mountain (as if.... now that I know better, I won't go mountain climbing...haha). These are just a few examples. There is nothing in the world that's more fun than indulging in foolishness.
Nothing is without consequences though. If you foolishly add anybody who sends you a friend request on gtalk, orkut or facebook, prepare to be flooded with messages like, "I am liking to make friendship with you". Ugh.. if there is anything I can't stand, it is bad grammar. And that particular sentence always gives me a mental picture of two kids making a ship-shaped sand castle. :)
I have a telephone interview from halfway across the world in a few hours. The thing has been giving me nightmares for some days now. But I am done messing up interviews. To ensure the success of this one, I asked my friends for advice. One friend suggested swallowing an amplifier. I would, but it sounds awfully painful. There has to be an easier way to get a job...

Things I Learnt Today

I realize that I dont usually offer much by way of wisdom to my readers, so I thought I'd share some useful information with you for a change.
Lesson #1
When you book a train ticket for a journey that involves a change of trains, make sure that you make both reservations using a single reservation slip. Write the starting and final destination on the top, and then write the train number and name of the train for the first part of your journey. In the space where they ask for onward/ return journey details, enter the details for the second part of the journey. By doing this, you can actually save quite a lot of money on reservation charges, etc., as I learned this morning. They issue two separate tickets but the second is not valid without the first. Hope some of you will find this useful.

I am quite sure there were some more lessons that I'd learned today, but the only one that springs to mind is this:
Lesson #2
"Crapulous" means overindulgence in eating and drinking. For some reason, that makes me giggle every time. The reason I know this (the word, not the giggling) is that I am preparing for my GRE exam, which is on Monday. After one of my friends (not so...ok, strike that out) gently scolded me for taking interviews too lightly, I have turned over a new leaf completely. No more taking things lightly. Which brings us to..

Lesson #3
I am not incorrigible. Yipee!

Unforgettable Interview

I have lost count of the number of interviews I've been called for this year. But today's experience was something I will never forget. In fact it may by something I never want to forget. It has me in stitches every time I think about it. I consider getting out of that interview room with a straight face one of the greatest achievements of my life. Yeah, enough with the introduction, let me begin the story..
So, like all stories, it started innocently enough. We had a written test, which was a cakewalk except for the current affairs section. Current affairs, according to this company, means knowledge about the stockmarket, gold prices and expansions of acronyms. Because I usually skip the business section of the newspaper, I really did not expect to be called for an interview. This, by the way, is my only excuse for not being prepared.
So, I arrived at the venue completely unprepared and slightly out of breath (this in spite of the daily exercise I am getting..more about that later) to find that I was next on the list. I took a deep breath, entered the room and as far as I can remember, this is the way it happened.(And just so that we are clear, I did NOT say any of the things in the brackets):
Them: Hmm.. your grades are good, so you are a..
Me: Masters student
Them: (surprised) so, why did you apply here? Any special reason?
Me: (in truth mode) Not really.(Oops!)
Them: But you are in a good field. You can get better paying jobs in your core area.
Me: Yes, I realize that. But right now, the job scene doesn't look so good.(eeck)
Them: Ah, so you see this as a temporary stopover, before you get a "real" job?
Me: (Yes!) No sir, I am genuinely interested in what you do and I think I have a real talent for this kind of work.
Them: So, do you know what it is that we do?
Me: Er.. finance related work (it was the current affairs section, what was I supposed to think?). Maybe you would care to add a little to that.. (oh my God!! I'm asking them??)
Them: Maybe you should have gone through our website.
Me: Yes sir, I did, just this morning (I actually did open the page, was too lazy to read though)
Them: Thank you, we will let you know.

In that book I was going to write, I think this anecdote will occupy an entire chapter. But really, why bother writing anything else at all? This constitutes a fool-proof plan to not crack an interview. That said, I am still waiting for them to call me for the next round. Yes, I suppose I am shameless. :)

Inconclusive conclusions

I read a book last week. It was Roald Dahl's 'Beware of the dog'.  I pride myself on being an avid reader and it was really embarrassing for me to finish a story and not understand the ending. For the uninitiated, the story is about an fighter pilot in WW2 who is injured in action. He wakes up in a hospital and soon begins to suspect that he is in enemy territory. Although the doctors seem to be British like himself and they tell him they are in England, there are minor details that bother him like the hardness of water in the region, the nurse with shifty eyes and the sound of German fighter planes. He painfully gets to a window on one leg, and upon looking outside, sees this sign on an adjacent property, "garde au chien" which is french for 'beware of the dog'. Anyway, he remembers something his commander told him about not revealing anything more than his name, rank and squadron number in the event of capture. So, when the an officer comes to take his statement about the accident, he tells him just these three things. And there the story ends abruptly.

See, this could mean one of many things. He might have been captured by the enemy, who were trying to deceive him. If that was the case, he had done the right thing by not telling them anything. On the other hand, what if he was just delusional from the loss of blood (and one limb)? Besides, wasn't France a part of the allied forces? I couldn't rest till I found out what the author intended, so I did a google search and found a site with a discussion about this story. What I found out was that he had left the rest of the public as confused as myself. Maybe this is one of those stories where you are expected to draw your own conclusion. Well, I guess this will be eating my head for quite a while.

Rage Control

People assume I never get angry because they don't see me in that state. But the truth of the matter is that everyone loses it once in a while and although some may choose not to show it, it doesn't mean that they aren't pulling out your hair mentally. No, I don't do that. I have the greatest respect for peoples' hair. As much as I try to avoid digressions...speaking of hair, I tried henna a couple of weeks ago. My hair is probably my worst feature, which is quite an achievement for the hair, considering all the competition it has . I'm not sure how well it worked. My friend said that it would reduce hair fall, and it seems to have, but that might just be wishful thinking.
So the people who say I never lose my temper include my younger brother and some of my recent teammates. So, as you can imagine, I was floating around in my bubble...(ok, not following that train of thought) till another old friend from school, while reminiscing, informed me that I used to be quite a cat on the court and that he felt sorry for the poor people I used to yank the ball from. And I thought I was going to win the Nobel peace prize. In any case, the fantasy was good while it lasted.
But I don't see how venting of anger helps anyone. I regret every outburst of mine till date, without exception. Imho, if rage is left unexpressed, it tends to go away sooner rather than later. Venting is good only when you want to place your objection on record. Like when people assume you are fine with everything just because you don't argue forcefully.
Oh, my motivation for sharing this... please include me in your acceptance speech (for the Nobel peace prize). I know I blew my chance, but it would be just as great to bask in the reflected glory of someone else's (read 'your') greatness.

Dinner overload

I had two dinners tonight in quick succession. Not something I would encourage anybody to try- Ever. I had been invited to dinner with a friend's parents. Being myself, I totally forgot about it and was having dinner at the mess with my roommate when I heard the announcement. For some reason I am not clear about now, I remember polishing off the last bits of dessert before rushing back to my room to pick out something to wear. 'Something' turned out to be jeans and a crumpled t-shirt but that is a story for another day.
Anyway, I got dressed in record time and met the rest of the group at the entrance. Then we got into the minivan and everyone started singing songs about food. Oh, this is not as unusual as you'd think. That's just how we are. Clarification: my friend's parents were not in the van with us; it was just us 8 girls. I was hoping the introductions would take some time, just so I could digest dinner #1 before launching into the second. But as luck would have it, dinner came all too soon. I took a little of everything so that it looked as if I were...well, maybe eating a little of everything. When I type things down my actions seem less and less logical, even to myself.
So, I took my time eating so as to make sure I didn't get served again. But then, right when I was about to get up, my phone rang. It was one of my friends from college. I mumbled something about being out and calling back as soon as I got back to my room, but those few seconds made all the difference. Auntie had served me what at the time felt like a Giant portion of fish. Not wanting to be rude, I finished everything on my plate. I was just breathing a sigh of relief and congratulating myself on the feat when...yes, you've guessed it... it was time for dessert. One yummy plate of rasmalai later, I discovered it was painful to even move. But, to my immense credit nobody else present could even have guessed what I was going through.
Ironically one of my friends commented that I eat a lot for someone my size. Haha, I thought, she didn't know half the story! In any case, it doesn't look like I will be getting much sleep tonight, full stomach and all... :(