today's update

I studied five chapters in geography yesterday, including topography, plus a chapter in Hindi, and one in physics. The one in physics, by the way, I did with the physics prof-cum-tutor of mine who insisted that I solve numerical questions in calorimetry from an EAMCET physics textbook. And to think that I hardly know what EAMCET even stands for, let alone what it is. All I know is that it’s for students of the 11th and 12th grades. It’s more than unfortunate that the physics professor thinks my intellectual capabilities are at par with theirs. In any case, I should like to think that my intellectual capabilities are in fact at par with theirs because I was able to do a significant portion of the questions I was imposed. The infinitesimal number of questions I wasn’t able to do was a result of my not thinking right: I could have done them if I only put an ounce more thought into it. Unfortunately I didn’t and I ended up being explained something that I ‘thought’ I knew. I made a mental note to analyze a question thoroughly and strip it naked before I start making presumptions about what concept it embodies and in which way I need to solve it. Just for the record, according to the principle of calorimetry, heat is transferred from a hot body to a colder body until they attain parity in temperature. The question was that a certain amount of steam at 100 degrees Celsius was enough to melt 3200 grams of ice at 0 degrees celcius, and I had to find that certain amount of steam. I rightly assumed that the amount of heat energy required from the steam is equal to the amount needed to melt the entire mass of ice, but I stupidly ignored the fact that the steam was expected to come down to 0 degrees as well, since the ice melts and turns into water at 0 degrees C. And I only realized the embarrassing mistake I made when my teacher incredulously corrected me. Incredulously because—although he didn’t say it out loud—I could tell he was surprised at such a trivial error being committed by me. To elucidate a few things this physics professor has an exaggerated notion of my abilities and he showers me with eulogy whenever I’m at his house and even when there are other classmates of mine around (and I’ve recently discovered that half a dozen other classmates of mine also attend his tuitions. It appears as though this prof’s running some sort of business with my school.) That’s embarrassing to say the least, and I have to exercise an enormous amount of willpower to save myself from becoming overconfident and all that. I don’t know if it’s just me whose self-confidence borders negligible or the teacher overrating me, but I have to admit—I enjoy hearing eulogy. I mean it’s not every day that someone praises you for free. Anyway, after that stupid mistake I made, I think I plummeted in the eyes of my teacher to a certain extent, and my first job the next time I go to his house is ameliorating my image in his eyes by doing something impressive with those goddamn physical formulas and other shit.

Today again I studied 2 chapters in geography and 4 in environmental education. I’ve decided to go subject-wise and finish off a certain subject in its entirety before moving on to the next. The reason I allowed that inconsistency to obtrude itself over my finishing off geography is that tomorrow the EE teacher wants to conduct a test on the aforementioned 4 chapters, and I have to be well-prepared in all of them to live up to the reputation I’ve made in that subject, among other things, including being a kissass and sucking up to the teacher to gain her favor. I may have failed to realize here that gaining her favor is not going to do me any good because, at any rate, this week’s my last week of official schooling in this school. Starting Monday, I’ll be taking my last prefinal exams, following which is a two-week-long study leave, after which I have to take the Board Exams. So anyway, suffice it to say that I studied EE for the heck of it.

While I’m on the topic of this week being my last ‘official’ week in the school I go to, today my teacher asked all of us to recount one memorable event and one that we would rather forget from our repertoire of incidents that we experienced/incurred during this year in the 10th grade. Under memorable events I recounted the trip to the Osmania Medical College (see my November post: i’m freaked out) because for the first time I saw a real dead body (of course, in my November post I thought otherwise about the visit to the college, but that was only because I was still convalescing from surprise and all those gory scenes being stuffed into my head. Now I’ve realized that dead bodies are charming—Not to be taken in the necrophilic sense.) Under the event that I’d like to forget I cited how my History teacher criticized me throughout August for no apparent reason (I alluded to this in a much earlier post in the said month), to which my classmates expressed their concurrence, since they, too, were subjected more often than I was(/am) to the History teacher’s indiscriminate vituperation.

After reading Strider’s take on Ernest Hemingway, I was curious to check it out myself. So today in the library I tentatively picked up a book by him and started reading. It didn’t take me long to realize that what Strider has said was not opinion but fact: Ernest Hemingway’s prose is indescribably dry. Okay, fine, I’ll make a brave attempt to describe it. The story opens with I think autumn leaves or something to that effect. He talks about the same goddamn autumn leaves for two whole frigging paragraphs before he wanders off into a related topic that wouldn’t pique the interest of an Egyptian Mummy that’s been lying dead and bored for thousands of years. I don’t even remember the name of the book, for that matter—even though I remember specifically reading the title so as to remember what book it was. In any case, I couldn’t go beyond the first half-page, so I put it right back on the shelf and began reading Henry V by Shakespeare instead after five minutes of my picking Hemingway’s book.

Not that I’m writing out some kind of memoir here, but just for the record, yesterday was India’s Republic Day. Our math teacher forced us to come to school on a national holiday, which is more than outrageous. I mean, it’s hardly our fault that she’s the only one lagging behind when it comes to topics to finish. So what does the genius do? She calls us over to school at 9.30 in the morning and herself arrives at 9.40. I can’t fathom how inhuman she must be on the inside—calling us to school on a national holiday that I would otherwise have spent under the covers or in my dark, dark computer room. And to think that our overly patriotic and ostensibly sensible Principal—who advocates watching national television on national holidays and festivals, and who categorically told everyone to watch the Republic Day Parade—should allow the math teacher to execute such a heinous crime is more than sad. And how much did we progress in the 2 frigging hours that we were confined in school? One goddamn chapter that spanned only 2 pages in the textbook and whose concise explanation only needed 6 short points. If the math teacher thinks she’s doing us a favor by compromising one of the few holidays that we even get for something that is ENTIRELY her fault, she’s wrong, because she isn’t. In any case my friend and I pocketed our share of payment by making the class as difficult for her as possible by wisecracking at almost every miserable sentence she uttered.

Phew, that knocked me out. I guess I’ll have to resort to writing out extra-long blog posts as a compromise for my lack of inspiration to write fan fiction. I’ve discovered today that for some fucked up reason my ability to write humor has abandoned me. And so I’ve abandoned (temporarily, yet indefinitely,) writing fan fiction.