As I sit here listening to Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 24, I wonder why no modern composer can produce anything even remotely like it. Any music that is written today is garishly grotesque and lacking in any melody. While preference towards music is highly subjective, few would disagree that the difference between the kind of music that is being produced today and what was written during the classical period seems stark. And things have only gotten worse with time. Now it might seem a little unfair to compare anyone with Mozart, but modern composers don't even attempt to write music that is pleasant, playful, often "simple" yet melodious that characterized the likes of Mozart.

Back In(-)Action

There comes a time in a man's life when he's gotta do what he's gotta do. So when the occasion is as momentous as two of your comrades being part of the blogosphere simultaneously, it's time to get your act together. I've decided to get mine together. So here's the first post after a long time.

When you're in grad school studying economics there's not much to write about without sounding hateful towards everything in life. So I shall write. Because I want to be hateful.

I hate having to spend 6 hours everyday trying to figure out why a correspondence is upper hemicontinuous, why a compact set is sequentially compact, why the return function must be strictly concave for the solution to the functional equation to be strictly concave, why it does not matter even if your return function is not bounded, why that sequence of random vectors converges to something almost surely, why the expenditure function exists irrespective of one of the goods being indivisible, why the subjective probabaility is actually a utility while the utility of an objective lottery is actually a probability, why the...*sniff*...*sniff*...

I am not really sure when I last sensed that feeling you get when you have absolutely nothing to do for the foreseeable future. I vaguely remember feeling that way for a 3 month period 4 years back; after finishing with high school and before starting college. What bliss I felt then. What would I not give to relive those times when the only challenge everyday was to correctly guess what day and date it was.

What would I not give to go back a couple of years. This is when Ellis Boyd Redding and what he said come to mind: "I look back at the way I was then. A young stupid kid, who committed that stupid crime (of wanting a PhD in economics) . I want to talk to him. I want to try and talk some sense into him. Tell him the way things are...But I can't. That kid's long gone, this old man is all that's left..."

It has been one year...

Typical of me, I lost interest in blogging after the first few entries.

It's not like I haven't had the time; It's just that I seemed to have had more time before.
It's not like I haven't had things to write about; It's just that I haven't been inspired enough.
It's not like I've had better things to do; It's just that it didn't feel like the thing to do.

I hope to put down my thoughts more often. I hope it's not too much to hope for. After all it's me...

Lousy 23 yr Old

I just realised what a lousy 23 year old I am. I have come to note that I hate doing almost everything that my age group enjoys!
I guess just like there's supposed to be a little child in all of us, there's a boring, kid loving, teetotalling middle aged man in me. This blog has already got "Young women get repelled" all over it. And perhaps for the same reason I seem to appeal more to women who are atleast twice my age than those who are younger. Now don't get me wrong. I just seem sweet to all those older women. And that's not a good thing because I have to live up to that image everytime. It's not easy at all. I hate going to pubs, discos, bars or any other place which seems like "fun" to the average 23 yr old. I can't stand smoking or alcohol. It's not like I haven't tried them. But I just dont like them. Something's seriously wrong. I can't wait to be 40.

Free Riders

I admire free riders. It's not too surprising since I'm not really a "hard-worker". My ideal world, just like yours, would be the one of a free rider's. One in which the rewards I reap grossly outstrip my efforts. I'm going to try to make a list of some free riders I can think of.

a) Roommates who can't to cook

b) Passive weed smokers

c) Rich families' dogs (any of their uncaged pets for that matter)

d) The reserves in World Cup winning teams

e) Beach lifegaurds

f) People acting as lifeguards

g) That black musician in the Tonight's Show. (What's he doing there??...ummm..getting famous!)

h) Immigrant Kids

i) Women Bill Clinton knew (Come on! They got Clinton!)

Please add to the list if you can think of more.

Acting Busy

Being busy makes you seem important. And the closest most of us will get to seeming important is while acting busy. There's a certain art in making people believe you are busy. You cannot blog for a while and make it seem like you are really busy. But that is obviously based on the premise that your blogs are read by a lot of people. So if you have a blog thats as unpopular as mine (which I suspect is the case with you if you are reading this) or if you don't even have one, you have one less option.

Over time I have employed several other strategies.

Ignoring phone calls - This is probably the most common and it tops the list

Ignoring phone calls only to call back later - This quite neat because you don't end up looking rude. Of course I wouldn't employ this tactic on weekdays, unless its between 7am and7pm (US cellular calls are free at these times).

Using monosyllables to respond - Quite useful both over the phone or online.

Using Monosyllables to respond while pretending to be on the phone - This is great to fool more than one person. The person on the phone and people around me.

Sitting in libraries - Some of my most unproductive hours have been spent in the library. Yet I have somehow managed to look important AND smart to a lot of people by just being there. Thats an added advantage of being in libraries.

Over the years I have come to realise the several advantages in seeming busy to people when I'm not. Try it out. It's great!

The Median Student

The median student (not the average topper, not the average loser, but the average, average guy in any classroom) is a funny species. What goes through our minds is idiosyncratic to our kind and if you are not one, you cannot appreciate it. So this blog is dedicated to those of you who fall under the "Average Joe in class" category.

The first few days of a new year or semester are always interesting. Everyone is smiling. The average topper is thrilled with the prospects of being introduced to things he probably already knows.He sits in class with that annoying smirk which Alexander (the Great. Not Captain Vijaykanth) might have had on his face when he found out that the next kingdom he planned to conquer was ruled by South Indian Brahmins (we are not the fighting type...just give us some food and we are happy).

The average loser (there was a time when I belonged to this) is smiling. Semesters don't matter to him. His is a case of bliss induced by ignorance. And he knows how to enjoy it. He knows that its going to be another semester of trying to learn things that he will not learn. Another semester of being in a trance in the classroom. He knows it's funny. And he smiles.

The median student is also smiling but it's an uncomfortable smile. I will tell you why. We are glad that the first few days will be spent on pointless things in class. New subjects will be introduced and basics will be run over. We feel like kings. "Hey! I know this!". We are happy that things seem easy. We are mildly happy that we may come across things that sounded so cool when others spoke about them. We know that we will be introduced to things we've probably only heard of. We know that we can cling to most of what's being said in class but we always need the "kind average topper's (an endangered species)" helping hand soon. We are worried that shortly we will write tests. Again, a time when we seem happy just before the test and disappointed soon after we start writing it (Of course the other groups are happy before and after). We know that "I think I'll do well this time" feeling too well to fall for it again. We know that we will punch the keys on calculators over and over thinking we have made mistakes in keying the number in.We believe that this semester is going to be different from all but we also know that the odds of that happening are pretty grim. We know it all.

It's not easy being the median student. It takes one to empathise. And I feel sorry for all my fellowmen. As for the rest of you...stay where you are. The grass IS greener there!