Movies

1. Bride Wars

Cast: Kate Hudson, Anne Hathaway, Candice Bergen
Rating: 2/5

In my defense, I was really bored. A week of vacation, followed by the announcement that our first terms had been merged with the second terms, left me no incentive whatsoever to study. In any case, I somehow find it impossible to study at home. Now I know what the hostelers at school kept talking about.
So even though I knew Imma get ultra-fucked in my second terms because now they have double the marks and double the course, which means a devastatingly vast one, I couldn't find it in myself to pick up a book out of the huge pile I had brought home with the intention and resolve of studying from, and open it, let alone read a few lines of it.

But I digress. The point is, I knew this movie was bound to be an archetypal chick flick, which is one genre of movie I don't like very much. But I figured it would provide some time-pass entertainment at the very least. Besides, both the main protagonists (Hudson and Hathaway) are known to be decent actors.

I couldn't have been farther from the truth.

2. Secretary

Cast: James Spader, Maggie Gyllenaal
Rating: 4/5

This movie follows the story of a mentally disturbed young woman who has just recently been released from a mental hospital but continues to suffer from an extreme case of masochism, which manifests itself in the form of self-injury. She is soon employed as the secretary of an attorney, who is a ruthless workaholic, but also has his own problems of sadism. He is sexually aroused by her submission, as it enables him to be the dominant personality in their complicated relationship.

The good thing about this movie is that it showcases a completely new approach to the subject of sadomasochism. It is neither trying to be overtly humorous (case in point: I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry, which approached the slightly tricky subject of homosexuality with eyeglasses tainted with crass and vulgar humour. Not that there's anything wrong with that), nor overtly preachy. It makes a rather bold statement, but in the subtlest of ways. And the acting on both the main characters' parts is par excellence, especially Gyllenhaal's. This was a major breakthrough for her as an actress, and she has done a good job of proving herself and her skills to the Hollywood community at large.

Tee Hee :)

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

Dearly beloved, are you listening?
I can't remember a word that you were saying.
Are we demented or am I disturbed?
The space that's in between insane and insecure.

Oh therapy, can you please fill the void?
Am I retarded or am I just overjoyed?
Nobody's perfect and I stand accused
For lack of a better word and that's my best excuse.

On why I love swine flu

4 people on our campus tested positive for swine flu. May they get well soon.

Our college declared a week's holiday thanks to the scare. And specifically directed the students to "vacate the hostels as soon as possible." The dates for the exams that were to be held this week are yet to be revised and notified.

I have never adored a disease so completely and with all my heart.

Too excited to think of a title for this one

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Me soo haeppppppppppy!!!

Random Shit

Finally saw Inception a coupla weeks back. Fucking awesome. Totally deserves #3 ranking on the IMDb Top 250.

I also recently had the chance to read Haroun and the Sea of Stories (Salman Rushdie) (As you can see, I'm not concerned about my acads at all. And this after I've "promised" both my parents and the VC good results. In rather concrete terms). I liked it. Quite a bit.

Nallud Part 2

There's a couple more quirky faculty members I'd forgotten to write about in the last post. I shall do that here.

English teacher: Calls the girls of the class "May-dum." Has no idea how to control the class. Insists we do not clap or bang our desks after a horrendous experience with the aforementioned activities on our first day. Does not know how to handle excessive participation and involvement in plays. Has no idea what to assign as research papers to us and asks US to come up with ideas instead. Insists we make PowerPoint presentations on pointless topics like what is an adjective and where to use a hyphen instead of a dash.

HLCD Teacher (For those of you not in the know (which I guess would be all of you), HLCD is History of Legal and Constitutional Development): For some reason, is known as Chintu among the students. Is much like the Torts teacher. Is also quite possibly the most boring and soporific person I have ever had the misfortune to meet in my life.

Also, the VC in his interview had asked us to sign on a particular target percentage for the first semester. And warned us that if we did not achieve it, he would be setting the bar even higher for the next semester and "upping the ante," so to speak. I made the mistake of quoting an impossibly high percentage. And here I am blogging away to glory while the first terms are only a week away.

One thing I'm really happy about is my roommate. She shall hereby be referred to as S (for that is the letter her name begins with (obviously)). She has great taste in music, movies, books and pretty much everything else that really matters. Wodehouse fan, ardent admirer of almost all Star World shows, and appreciator of good cinema. The other day she wanted to kill me for not having watched Iron Man. =D

To top it all off, she's responsible. She's got her priorities right. She studies, but not too much (unlike me, who has neglected to even TOUCH a book since college started, unless it's fiction), remembers to clean the room once in a while, and yet finds time to read a lot of fanfiction and watch a movie when she feels like it. I need someone like that. I shudder to think what would have happened had I had a roommate even remotely like me. That is, crazy and irresponsible, and without an iota of room-sense, if you know what I mean. We would prolly have had filthy vermin crawling all over our beds.

Then there's I. She lives across the hall from me, with N. But I, S and me hang out together most of the time. There's nothing extraordinary about I. She's just a loud, fun and big-hearted girl. But what I love most is irritating her with dirty jokes and gross talk. She's not used to such things, somehow. She used to get completely scandalized, but I think I'm growing on her. Now she can even handle it if I drop an F-bomb every 20 seconds.

So since I'm already exceeding the word limit for normal-sized blog posts, I shall stop here. Now that I have a laptop, hopefully it'll be configured soon and I'll be able to post more often. Unless I decide to actually study for the first terms.

But that's not likely at all.

Nallud

That's the name of my college by the way. NLUD. I got sick of calling it that, letter by letter. It's so long and drawn out.
Not that anyone I know calls it Nallud. That's just my own creation.

So in this post I'll be telling you a little about Nallud.
1. VC: Tends to talk sense but also tends to ramble on a bit. During the Orientation, his speech lasted for about an hour and a half. And the few classes he's taken, he's spent the whole 45 minutes trying to explain a concept for which a mere quarter of an hour would have sufficed. So yeah, just a tad verbose.

2. Chief Warden: Is also a teacher of economics by profession. But all she knows to talk about is how we have imbibed all the evil tendencies of Western culture and forgotten our own pure, holier-than-thou "Indian tradition." Even in her economics class, according to what the seniors tell us. Has an extreme aversion to ANY kind of interaction between the freshers and their seniors, which she calls ragging. Insists we call our seniors bhaiyyas and didis. Which pretty much rules out any possibilities of a junior and senior dating. Not that that's happened. Yet.

3. Assistant Warden for the girls hostel: Goes by the motto "I shall only smile in the presence of those members of society who have a penis." Is female. Of course.

4. Boys Hostel wardens: Incapable of facial expressions and voice modulation.

5. Torts teacher: Speaks bullshit just to check if anyone's listening. Which they aren't. Her sentences aren't gramatically correct by a long shot, let alone being correct on points of law. Always ends her class by assigning homework because she knows the students' ears will perk up at this and enjoys the satisfaction of people listening to her even if it is only for a few seconds everyday. Teacher whose class it is easiest to maaro-fy proxy in because she goes by roll number and never looks up from the attendance sheet.

And that's the faculty. The eccentric (for want of a better word) ones, at least.