The past one week has been quite interesting. Things that never crossed my mind, seem to have happened, and no amount of pinching myself seems to change things, which certainly proves that all this is real. In one part of the world, Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace prize. While this seems to have generated quite a furore, the media looks like they're enjoying every bit of it. Check out these cartoons to get an idea of why people think he shouldn't have won the award. Mahatma Gandhi was nominated five times for the same award without winning it, yet, people like Jimmy Carter, Al Gore and Yasser Arafa found a way through. Sigh. Anyways, to all those of you who think he didn't deserve this, at least be happy that it wasn't given off to his predecessor. That thought kind of works for me. :)

Diametrically across the planet, in a hostel room numbered 4/24, of a university named MNIT-Jaipur, something strange has happened as well. In what seems like a bizarre case of insanity, I am actually _slogging_ for a change. No, this is not another one of those mid term exams (which should be aptly renamed to something like take-a-break-from-whatever-you're-doing exams; makes more sense that way), nor does it have anything to do with assignment submissions either. Neither of those take up much of my time anyway (final year stereotype I'd say). What seems to have got me bogged down, is an exam, which I'm bound to write if I wish to fulfill a destiny I've chosen for myself. I'm talking about the Graduate Record Examination (GRE). By the way, this is supposed to be gee-ar-ee and not gree (which rhymes with glee). There's a reason why I've mentioned this here, because there are people in this institute who're known to say stuff like, "I'm going to write gree, toofil and iltus" (referring to GRE, TOEFL and IELTS), and they are _not_ trying to be funny. So if one of you guys stumble upon this, please do get it right from here on. Anyways, so here I am going through word list after word list, passage after passage and silly math problems that make you so over confident, you end up getting them wrong. Man I wouldn't wish this upon my worst enemy, or wait, maybe I would.

The best part about the whole idea behind the GRE is that it isn't the sole factor that determines your admission to a foreign university. Your academic profiles and recommendations matter the most so yes, if you're one of those guys who people look at and say OMG-I-WISH-I-HAD-A-PROFILE-LIKE-HIS, then relax, an average GRE score will do as well. :)

I've gotten into a good deal with my conscience, and we've both decided to give the where'll-I-be-after-I-graduate thoughts a one way ticket to /dev/null. To all you non techies, you can say those thoughts were sent to hell. :)  The amount of attributes that affect the answer to that question is overwhelming, all the way from the N masters programmes you could apply to, to the companies you could work for and finally to the roadside shops you could open. It's options galore!  For me, the question still remains unanswered but yes, there seem to be little sprouts of options coming up, although, they're far from bearing fruit. The day it _does_, I'm treating myself to a drink, maybe more. :)

I'll be glad after this phase is over, until then, I'm getting back to my word lists... duress, dutiful, dwindle, dynamic, dyspeptic...

Wow, I'm excited already.