Suitcase and guitar in hand

Because everyone seems to running off to Banaglore and Bombay and getting chewed by the sadistic heads behind the tables there, I'll be doing it too soon, with lesser frequency than my luckier friends, and because I've decided that I'm going to learn at least one new thing this semester. I'm going to be, in two months, the one 'sitting in the railway station, looking for my destination, on a tour of one night stands (figurative, of course :D) with a suitcase and guitar in hand...' Oh I hope it turns out alright.

Latest additions to my meagre (but not so bad for a beginner/auto-didact) repertoire: Can't help falling in love with you (Presley). Yeah I know I'd tried to learn it long, long ago, but with renewed confidence in my strumming (read basic coordination) abilities, it sounds much better now. Visions of you (Cliff Richard). One of those perpetuities from my childhood, along with the Carpenters, that I know will remain so. Are you lonesome tonight (Also Presley). His songs are easy to ad-lib :D I don't need to worry about finger-picking et al with them. And 'dooba dooba' (Silk Route). *Giggle*

It's too bad the college 'management', if you can call it that, seems to be taking decisions ad-hoc, in their usual authoritarian style again. I can't pretend that I care anymore, I have no faith in the faculty's listening or grasping skills. I doubt that they even understand the concept of a consensus. Their MO has and will always be - Decide. Announce. Ignore Opposition. The few professors I have some respect left for either are not motivated enough to twist the system around to being what the management pretends it is, or feel that since all this is not really concerned with academics, and since this is an academic institution, there is no need to become tied up in knots about it. It is unfortunate that what could have evolved into a progressive style of functioning is now a dredge of the democratic process the 'administration' keep harping about. I can't help the quotes, honestly. Those words mean nothing in this place. I wish corporate-style take-overs and M&As were possible among educational institutions as well. Perhaps then some of the professionalism that seems to be everyone's dream will have a chance to lift its head. Not that I' complaining. I'm thrilled with the freedom in the air, that lets me live like a fourth year in every sense of the term. And I am not in a place where I want to obsess about a godforsaken state of affairs. I only hope the people I do approach with my ideas and thoughts give some consideration to them. The ones who really matter I can't go to, because I don't trust them, or their capabilities as managers and leaders.

The structure is fine, it is the objectives that are at fault. The vision of a '100 Ph.D.s by 2015' means nothing to 90% of the students in this insitute, because nobody bothers to translate that into technolgical objectives and goals. Noone has tried to see the concomitant improvement that must happen culturally and socially. Each lab concentrates on projects that were started years ago, that keep getting rehashed and might never see the outsides of this institute. How many brand new ideas have emerged in the last 3 years? How many projects involve ideas that might in any way be used? Perhaps it is time for a strategic overhaul. I would suggest a thorough analysis of all the information we have as of now, and for that we need to integrate that information. Hire an MBA, make him the CEO or an MD or something, hire someone who knows the ins and outs of organizations, how they can function most efficiently and effectively, how the principles of organizations can be applied to our college to make it a well-defined and stable structure. It's been seven years, and we have moved through multiple paths in a maze that doesn't seem to be get any simpler. Simplify objectives and implementation. I for one think the college used to run far more smoothly when there was less red-tape. But perhaps they feel that the number of rules ought to increase in direct variation with the increase in the number of students.

Hm, while on it, I wish the self-appointed reporters of college happenings did a little less to showcase the bad apples here and a little more to sow the seeds for good ones.

Had a nice time going through the stuff I've written for various humanities courses over the semesters.. was especially enlightening to go over the Systems Thinking and English Literature stuff. Sys, MoMM and Globla are probably the ones that will carry farthest. Sys, for all the organized methodologies, MoMM for the number of doors it opened (Freud, Ramanujam, Mayo, Mill, World Wars, Western Science, Nazism et al) and Globla for giving me the first glimpse into how important it is that I know as much as I can about the world around me. Given that the 9 humanities courses are the only ones I've actually liked studying for and doing assignments in, it isn't much of a surprise. I must've set some kind of a record here. Afaik, the only ones I havent done are Hindi/Telugu Lit., and Advanced Sculpting or something like that. Oh and also Philosophy and Ethics because the teacher was quite terrible at his job. I hope they are scattered enough on the grade sheet for the interviewers not to notice the core subjects. And an eighth semester that more than lives up to its predecessors. STS, LP and EIS. Almost too good to believe.