Choose us. Choose life

O shwetu!

Thy wish is my command :)

Blog. Don’t blog. Write. Suck at writing. Give up. Come back.

And then listen to Shwetu.

So here we are. A few brain cells lighter. Where is our mojo?

This post is about a lot of things, TOEFL, spoons, condescending voices, pretty boys, weird food and Veera Manek.

The latter three of which are seriously amazing.

Eric

Fickle heart. I think I just fall in and out of love a little too rapidly.

this is Eric. From True Blood.
I cant look at him directly. All that hotness is too much for my tiny brain.

TOEFL

General gyaan for anyone who wants a 115+ in this most moronic of exams with exactly one hour of preparation. I'm assuming of course that you have a basic grasp of English here(read at least one PG Wodehouse, know the meaning of zeitgeist and wince when you hear a resident of Nagpur speak)

What you need for TOEFL is phenomenal will-power, Hippo chips and the ability to ignore annoying voices that deliver pointless instructions while assuming that you are a retard.

I had no clue about any of this when I went to the centre. Most of this is through the efforts of Gopalkrishnan, Indumati and Akshat Malu.

Section 1: this is the reading section. They'll give you 3 passages(easy ones. No culture and anthropology crap here)ask you lame questions and mostly you wont be too bored.

Unless of course, they go all psycho on you and decide that 5 passages will test your skills better.

Beware of the dreaded 8. yes, it happens.

The questions are very simple. Most answers are directly from the passage and there are some pretty interesting question formats as well.

No sweat.

Section 2: Listening.

There are three listening exercises. One is a conversation, and two lectures( I think). Take notes and listen carefully while battling sleep.

The number of listening sets vary. I got three. This was a true test of character. All survival instincts operate on full swing mode.

Section3: Speaking.

This was the one I fucked up majorly. They want you to comment/summarise/give opinions.

What you need to do is think fast and not stare into space.

This for instance is how my first exercise went

Lady(in a sloowww voice) : you have 15 seconds to prepare and 45 seconds to speak. You may start preparing now.

Me: 15 seconds? How long is that? 15? 14? Huh?

Lady: You may speak now.

Me: What? Oh? Culture is blah. Blah.

Don’t do that. Train yourself to know exactly how long 15 seconds are. And crap to rustle up in that itsy-bitsy interval.

This is the only section that need a wee bit of prep. Don’t screw it up.

Section 4: Writing.

Ha. Joke.

The chips come in handy since this is a 4 hour exam and you don’t want the growling of your stomach to overpower the annoying microphone voices.

I managed a 113 after screwing up speaking. Its easy to get much more than that.

One hour. Just do it.

Amelie

She's in my head. If I ever made a movie, this is exactly what I'd want it to look like. Its charming, weird and has undercurrents of the funniest sort of love. I like Nino, his vespa, his quirky photo collection. And Amelie, with her need to make the people around her happy, her cat, her fear of facing the man she loves , I cant get enough of her.

Watch this. This is the only movie I've seen that spoke to me of orange days. I used to think that was solely between me and the voices in my head.

Trainspotting

So i read it. Made it through the Scots and the drugs and the puke. Bits of my sanity are neatly pressed between the pages of Trainspotting. Some books take too much out of you.

Choose us. Choose life.

Haunting. Scary and weird.

Irvine Welsh is cruelly funny. And all of them, Renton, Sick Boy. Begbie. Spud, Tommy, they'll stay with you for days after.

Grey Hills

After 3 years of living 250 meters away from it and inhaling its fried chicken-onion odors, we caved in and went to the erstwhile Anna. I figured out that the average chicken means more to me than half the people I know.

Chicken makes me happy. Throw Veera into the equation and I'm slightly trippy with joy.