The Black Mamba

I finally got a Laptop out of desperation. My Desktop and MacBook were both giving me problems, the desktop used to freeze out of no reason after and even after spending 2k on the diagnostic of the MacBook all I got to know was that the Motherboard was dead and desktop’s hard disk and motherboard were failing frequently. So out of hate and frustration I decided to get a new laptop as my father's notebook was an epitome of failure as a Laptop.

After surveying the markets for a couple of days, I decided Nehru place would be the best place to buy a new laptop as I was not too keen on online shopping of expensive commodities. Next came in the survey which took me about an hour or so. Tired and dejected I realized there wasn’t much of a difference in Laptop prices in the market. Another thing I realized that the Laptops had become more expensive by 2-3 k in the past month which was also disheartening.

Finally I Settled for i3 processor as my budget would get upset by an i5. 500 Gb of HDD seemed fine but 2 gigs of ram seem a little low. I’ll get it upgraded later. Looked up a lots of laptops I would advise everybody to buy a Lenovo but my heart settled on a ASUS x54c 15.6 or as I like to call it “the Black mamba “. I had first decided to look for a 14 inch laptop as I didn’t want to carry much but I guess that didn’t happen. The Stunning exterior of the asus gave me in and I didn’t bargain much on the price, however I got a carry bag and some accessories so it pretty much cost the same as the online price.

The Hills are Alive

After a Long period of time we were discussing about a taking a break from our dismay lives. Finally after months of contemplating and failed attempts to convince our friends to tag along , we were Off to the Hills without giving a F**k who came along . The journey began in the middle of the night when i reached a train station and got a bus after snooping around . The bus want exactly a deluxe heaven with the ac leaking water overhead giving us the idea that it was raining and we had already escaped the humid wretched environment of the city.The bus journey was awkward as the head rest was short, making it hard to sleep and the over sized human who sat next to me wasn't exactly comprising on space. So we finally reached mid way at early morning with my friend coming to pick me up at the depot.

We crashed at his home and slept like babies as the bus journey didn't give us a minute of sleep we wanted. In the afternoon we decided to leave for the hills as planned although we were already behind schedule. So we were off ...off to the hills as planned....leaving all our miseries behind and the first thing that came to my mind was ALCOHOL . Got a couple of beers and a bottle of rum and lucky me, all the driving was to be done by a teetotaler . Drinking the booze the journey seemed a blur but after some time the curvy road did take a toll on my stomach.We made our first stop at a car service station where we met along a couple of friends who had come to get their car serviced. We made it to a place called paragon , which was a nice restaurant. After strolling through the main market for a couple of hours we decided to take off,cause we didn't want to travel in the night.

We set off and the hills kept on throwing us its curious roads at each bend. Finally we reached the forest resort where we had decided to stay for the trip. It had beautiful rooms and unluckily my friend got bit by the dog of forest ranger who he decided to visit. a unlucky start but we somehow managed to get the shots done and my friend decide he didn't want to dampen our spirits so he encouraged us to go to the mall. A couple of drinks at a local pub and we were all feeling alive, which was followed by a nice dinner comprising of chilli paneer and chicken. Tired and wary we decide to crash at the resort. The next day was a pleasure to wake up to with the amazing weather beckoning us to set foot and enjoy the view at the top of the mountain. The mist was flowing through the hill as a river passing through a rock , giving it a surreal felling of heaven. The next day was also planned to be spent on the mall. After a couple of hours we were all so tired we decided to head back to the resort and pick something on the way to eat. We set ourselves for dinner and binge drinking , a friend of mine who had tagged along gave us the scare of the century when he woke in the middle of the night, sweating and saying these exact word " I Need Medical Help " . Me and my other friend tried to calm him down and told him to go for a walk to beat out the heat he got under the covers.

The next day our friend decided to leave as he wasn't comfortable and his anxiety was building on us. So we decided to visit our old friend and chatted . Then we hit the mall with the same old routine of drinking and eating. This time gin with lemon surprised me as it turned out to be an awesome drink. Realizing our journey was coming to an end we were a little sad but we decided to love for some cheap love but it turned out to be nightmarishly hideous so we were back on the road, and back to the same old routine we dreaded. An escape to the hills gave us a realization of life can be short so Keep it pleasant.

GMAT i-horror

I had been preparing for GMAT for a while, I started my gmat preparation in May and I am generally very weak in aptitude that is why I couldn’t break into the IT industry and still stuck in call centers even with an engineering degree. So I tried to break the jinx with motivating myself to go for it with all guns blazing. So I quit my job and started preparing for the GMAT I got the OG, Kaplan and Princeton books and even joined a tutoring course. After a period of 2 months I thought I was in the region of 600-650 so I gave a GMAT prep and ended up with a dismal score of 550 which came as a shock to me as I was hopeful to get a 650 as I had done the og books, Kaplan and Princeton. From this I realized that the stuff I was doing was not at all helpful the og math is a complete waste of time with only some superior questions in it but you need to build up the basics so you need to start from scratch my friends. The second thing was RC; I just can’t make out reasoning comprehension passages if they use high end languages. It’s a mental gap which comes in and I can’t draw a picture in my mind. I was good at CR and ok ok at SC. The tutoring course was of little help because all they used to do was give me an exercise from Kaplan and hope I get it all right. Kaplan’s tests are the toughest tests for beginners and I would say to skip them completely as they are of no use.

The next thing I did was postpone my GMAT for one and a half months hoping I would reach 650 by then. So I made up my mind and used to go the library and study from 11-5 for the GMAT and usually chill at home. I re did the OG and Kaplan books and started joining GMAT forums like gmatclub.com and pagalguy.com. Forums are the best place to find help and make a study plan. So after 1 month of dedicated study I took GMAT prep 2 and got a 580. I was heartbroken and realized that my dreams of getting are over, my friend with me who had given the test after two months of study got a 710 Q51 V34.This lead to frustrations which no one can imagine as you tend to give up and become a negative person with suicidal tendencies of course you wish the other person was dead instead of you..ha ha…that was dark ..Was it not…screw you guys….:-D.So I borrowed from books from my friends who had joined other institute for gmat and started doing their math books. A big mistake was I was just focusing on 700 level questions which made me give up my enthusiasm. I tried doing 1000 rc and was usually pretty good at it scoring at in the 70% range .So I decided to give my gmat Prep again and got a 610 a little disappointed as I was hoping for a 640 .This was wrong on my part as quite a few questions were similar and that is why I scored 48 on math but still I was weak in RC , I just can’t get a mental picture of what the author is trying to convey. I guess all that years of goofing around paid off…:-D.

So again I postponed my exam for a month hoping for a 650 and started working on redoing the og , kaplan and princeton books. I am telling you I can tell you the answers without even looking at them in OG I studied the OG so many times and started doing the tough 700 level question somehow and tried to remember how I did them. 10 days before the exam I retook the gmat prep 2 and got a 590 I skipped the RC questions cause I thought I was good at it as I was doing well in 1000 RC’s. I was confident enough to score a 650 now so I in the end days I just redid the OG and learnt the idioms and redid the sentence correction exercise’s.

So on the 30 of September I was all ready to give my GMAT .I prepared myself for it and learnt all the idioms. So there I was all ready and on the go for the GMAT. Arrived at the centre did the formalities and then started off with the awa’s .The argument was weird, I wrote shit, the essay was ok I guess. Then stated off with math’s till the 7th question I was doing well after that came the downfall, all questions I was getting were trick questions which you have to able to make out and it took me a lot of time to understand the concept before I could break the solution and I dread DS and I got a hell lot of ds which I couldn’t make out. I got so frustrated I started skipping long questions because I was short on time. I somehow managed to finish the math exam guessing on my ds and moving up on the last 7 questions. The math part was tough compared to the GMAT prep as it took me longer because the questions were a level tougher than the prep. Not giving up hope I moved onto the English section and thinking of getting a 38-40 excited me so I washed my face and got onto the verbal section. I was doing well until the 11th questions where I got a tough rc , I just couldn’t make out the meaning after reading it twice and focusing on every detail. The tough part was all the questions were inferences which were to be drawn out and I am bad at that so I think I screwed up my 2nd passage and went on to the sentence corrections one’s .I think the sc were a little tough but they were ok the main problem came when I came to the third RC I just couldn’t make it out, I tried it twice but no hope so I tried my best thinking that it will be alright. After that I knew I was short on time so I started hurrying up and the fourth rc was very simple as I knew I fucked up in making consecutive mistakes but tried my best till the end of the last question. I thought of cancelling the score but people with 450’s don’t cancel the score so I thought I will around 550 so I clicked on report my scores.

The result was a huge disappointment I got a 520 .Even the questions I guessed I think were wrong and there was no luck for me on that wretched day. Trying to focus on my humongous failure gave a feeling of quitting the GMAT and never applying for any university. This silly little boy couldn’t bear it any more, the thought of going back to call centers seem likes the best option as this silly little boy is not a scholar but an artiste. I tried to hide my face, but even the GMAT administrator noticed and he said

that’s impossible

,felt like kicking him in the nose but all I could do was smile and left the test centre with a devastated look of a person discovering he has lost his future battle. I am hoping to join a IT course or a call centre and hope to give the gmat again as my parents are still postivo that their silly little son will do well…………Well I hope so………