Wednesday, September 16, 2009

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.



9 comments:

Sharanya said...

Oh man, Aggie. I miss you even more everytime I come here. Shwetu was right, we can all give up writing and still survive (she was talking only about herself, but I'm generalizing), but you absolutely shouldn't. I'll ask Shwetu to command you to do this RIGHTaway.

113 with one hour of prep? I studided for a MONTH (on and off) and got a 112! Hah. This is PROOF that you're genius. Also, my net conked off during the exam (yeah. don't ask) and this was while I was doing the writing bit. Had to wait for everyone else to finish (including people in their READING section) the test before they could reboot the server. Ugh.

Amelie was fun. I wouldn't watch it again, coz these french films are so RANDOM, I completely miss the brilliance of it all, but it was a great film.

When are you coming back, Aggie? I miss you everytime I eat a chocolate cookie at Cookie Man. And I always eat the one you bought me *wipes away tear*

Tyrant said...

Alright.This Saturday,Anna it is.Lest I have to live with the sin of spending four years in VNIT and not once having chicken at Anna.

And Amelie has been on the to-do list for a while.

And...nothing.Gobbledegook:)

DeeKay said...

Finally... a post
After such a looong time.
Cool writing man.

Amelia I have been wanting to see for sumtime...will get around to doing it now.

Neway
Keep writing...ciao

Aggie M said...

@Sharan: 112 is awesome Sharan. I dont understand why they make us give it in the first place. We rock at English. We dont need these lame exams.
Im coming in October. We'll do Cookie Man. loaded chocolate style :)
Amelie is so brilliant and weird. I've seen it thrice already.

@Tyrant: O tyrannical one! Anna rocks. Sidey and cheap tho it might be.
And Amelie is awesome. Watch!!

@DK: October. I shall be there. And party much, we shall :)
How's GRE prep coming along?

Nikhil said...

TOEFL sucks bigtime and infact I consider it to be an insult of the exam-taker's intelligence and most of all a criminal waste of time :) . My personal experience of the above is not something I would want to comment on :(. Long story short , NAGPUR sucks !!

I guess any visit to Anna for me in the near future can be effectively ruled out considering I am not much of a chicken-eater :) . Altho.ur description makes my mouth water :) .

For now I am immersed in some HARD WORK @ IITM and needless to say , I'm Lovin it :D .

Cheerio ,
" The Blackest ov the Black "

SSD said...

I've never read Wodehouse. Found it too uptight.

Such! said...

Thanks.
And whats happened to you? Why this sudden deluge of calls/mails/msgs/offlines?
And guess what?! I am wearing red.
SCORE for our very own telepath service!!

Aggie M said...

@Count: Chennai ahoy!
I miss IITM suddenly. and all those long pointless strawberry flavored hours at CCD.
Anna rocks :)

@SSD: Deep breath.
PGW is mellow and funny. At least that goes for Blandings.

@Suchi: Coffee. blame it on the stupid beans man.
I like one-sided conversations with you.

William Deng-Deng K. said...

@ True Blood : I gotta ask u this. Its not some chick flick na? Not something like Desperate Housewives and Boston Legal? Pucca? I know u've told me its about vampires and blood and all but then, that movie Twilight was about vampires. :( I had to eat tonnes of some seriously dark chocolate to get back to equilibrium. :| I don't want that kinda unbalance again.

@ TOEFL : Pass.

@ Amelie!! : !! I watched it again couple of days back. :) Its so frickin awesome na? Beautiful is the word.

@ Grey Hills : I still haven't gone there. :( I suck, don't I? :|

@ Veera Manek : Awesome indeed. :) And there's Pink Floyd in the name! Seriously seriously cool.