End or the beginning.............?

I know I blog in sporadic bursts, but ACJ has taken most of my time. Which is also the reason why am blogging in the midst of all the chaos and pending work that is due on March 31st.

Yes, thats my last day for submission of all my work in order to obtain my Journalism degree, but like most things in ACJ dont think all our assignments will meet this deadline. They cant blame us, they have overloaded us with soooooooooooooooo much work that at two different points in my final term, I wanted to quit ACJ and give it up.

But common sense prevailed and shouts like "Are you mad? You are this close to getting your degree and you want to quit? Crazy girl!" from various corners of the room were reasons for me to go on.

Now that the end of life in ACJ seems so near, I am actually missing the dread of meeting deadlines and the labs seem lifeless.

The past few days that I have spent in labs 3 and 4, make me feel so lonely that I cant sit there for more than a few minutes at a stretch. The labs are empty without the 'staff'' of Digantik working on the site. There is no hollering out, "Is that story in? Where is the damn reporter?" and the frustration creeping in, "Why is the damn style sheet not attached? Why are the links not working?". The tension, "Are MJ and Gita going to approve of this headline? Is the banner all right?" All of this is gone, to be replaced my silence. Although most of us were stressed out with the tension in our news rooms or in this case, news labs.. we used to thrive on it too. We made scores of mistakes and our two Hitlers ensured that we learnt from them.

The postmortems as MJ and Gita liked to call it, but Manikandan, our software prof, thought it was uncool and unfair to call it that as he felt that we were creating something (our site) and not killing it. Nevertheless, all three of them joined hands when it came to ripping the site apart and pointing out our mistakes. Of course, after asking us what our problems were. But at most times I thought that was just a formality and the true reason was that they were eager to get their teeth in.

ACJ is/was stressful annd I have had my moments when I wanted to tear someone else's hair out (mine is too good ;) ), but I also learnt to tame myself and keep my short temper in check.

Alas, it has to end. But there is also a beginning.. to life outside of ACJ which begins with our placements on April 1st. And like a true ACJian, am looking forward to the fun of sitting it a room with media bigwigs and although I did like to tell them that we are a bunch of crazy people to the all that we do, I shall sedately sit there and sell my talents to them. In this case, my ACJ degree will do most of the selling for me. :D

Team India go kick lots of Aussie A****

After Bhajji's hearing on Tuesday, all of us - Indians - heaved a sigh of relief and were jubliant. But OZ media played spoilsport like their team. It is hard to believe that the very same media who was backing Bhajji up after the Sydney test are the ones who say that Hansen's verdict is crap and its a "pressure n money" verdict coz of BCCI.

Thats just utter crap! Why cant they, both the Australian team and the Media face it that we got what we deserved? Is it too hard for them to face the fact that we are now giving back as good as we get? They just crying like babies.

Why are the Australians and even a few other former english players forgetting that Symonds the MONKEY!!) was the one to start the verbal assault?? Bhajji just retorted back like any other human being. But here lies the problem, the aussies are just stuck-up snobs who refuse to be beaten at their own game - be it Cricket or sledging! And that too coming from an Indian. No ways, they are not the ones to sit back and say "Bring it on"

There is evidence from the stump-mic that proves that Symonds (MONKEY) was the initiator of what turned the cricket field to a dirty sledging arena.

They should learn from their mistakes and I hope that Bhajji decides to sue Symonds for defamation. That ought to teach the Aussies a lesson even if this episode hasn't!

My first Podcast

We had this workshop on podcasting today. It was fun n frustrating. Fun coz it was creativity at its best aand we learnt a whole lotta cool stuff that I wldnt have known of or learnt, if not for this wkshop.

Frustrating coz de damn PC i sat on was jus jinxed to quote Unni and James. Firstly de damn Audacity player didnt wk, had to record on a friends laptop. Then got it transferred ONLY to realise the damn Audacity player was a different version than my friend's and hence couldnt do much with the recorded piece. So she converted it to MP3 format. After which I signed up with Podomatic to upload the podcast.. And i'm still waiting for it to be uploaded. Hence the time to post this blog. Once its done, I shall upload my FIRST EVER podcast here.

So wait and listen.

MISSION COMPLETION

I know its been a long time since I posted a blog, but cant help it. Life has been hell for the past one week.

We have been working 13 hours a day on getting our site ready. And all the hard work and tension has finally caught up with both the edit and site design teams. With tempraments changing as fast as F1 races and tempers rising, we have made lab 3 and lab 4 our homes. MJ trying to keep every one calm and collected and getting haggled herself.

Just cant wait for the site to be completed and uploaded tomorrow. After that a respite until the next gruelling work shop on multimedia begins next week.

Yes i shall blog a detailed account of my deprivation trip with lots of opinions over the weekend. And my articles too will be up on the blog. But please do visit our site, coz u have many more stories there.

Link to the site once its uploaded.

Cranky, sleepy, murderous and deprived!

Okaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy... I'm suffering from one of my mood swings. Lots of reasons and then again nothing in particular for my mood!

Spent all afternoon listening to Kishore Kumar with a few other friends while writing our stories. Yea, the covering deprivation trip (more details on that when I'm done writing the stories) does that to you. I came back with an allergy (is what I think), but the dermatologist says its an "exaggerated insect bite!". Yea right, thats why I've been itching all over for the last few days?? BULL CRAP! I feel like a tomato field with red boils all over me.

Now for the cranky and sleepy part, add the above reason to the fact that I havent slept well in the past few days. This also for the reason mentioned above. I'm on this weird allergy (insect allergy?? ask the doc!) antibiotic which makes me drowsy at the wrong times. Like for instance, when I have got this sudden urge to write my story and its all flowing through my head. But the left part of my brain argues with the right part and the Winner isssssssssssss the Left! Have a few hundred stories to write and am suffering from WRITER"S BLOCK. Okay. I agree few hundred is pulling it a bit too much, but it's ummmm well you can definitely count them on your fingers! :P

Murderous cause whatever I've written until now is just not acceptable. It has to be revised, re-revised, re-re-revised and then edited and then loads more editing. Argggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.. Trust me it sounds much more simpler than it really is!

Deprived - cause I want sleep, I want a non-itchy body and I want Peruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.