Engineering has been quite monotonous so far. At least 6 hours of  classes everyday and sometimes up to 8 hours. Thankfully, you only have to be stuck with each subject for less than 5 months. After the semester exams, a bunch of us close friends headed off to Gokarna, a small town in the Karwar district which has some really beautiful beaches that attract a lot of foreigners.

We initially wanted to go by train, but the train timings were such that we would reach Shimoga in the middle of the night, and from there, we would need to take a bus to Gokarna. Instead we took a sleeper coach bus right from Bangalore itself. The bus was an hour late! En route, our dear friend Somo made the bus wait for a good 10 whole minutes as he came running from home.

We reached Gokarna at 7 in the morning. What was surprising was that there was almost no humidity despite being a coastal town. The weather was excellent!

Once at Gokarna, we had to hire autorickshaws to Om Beach. The beach is pretty far from the bus stand and 100 bucks for the rick is worth it. En route the tiny ghat section, you will see Gokarna’s other beaches which are equally as beautiful as Om Beach. Once at Om Beach, we had to walk till the end of the beach to find a place to stay as every other shack was either booked or available only to foreigners. Apparently, charging foreigners a large amount for a lousy shack is how these people manage to keep the price cheap for us.

The entire stay for 2 days was just brilliant. Day 1 went away with exploring the geography of the place, lazying by the beach, and a visit to the temple. On day 2, we trekked quite a lot in the somewhat hot sun and found a stunning spot where we could see a panoramic view of the sea. Sadly we hadn’t taken our cameras on the trek. The rest of the day was spent floating in the sea, playing catch in the water, and losing precious stuff.

Budget wise, I had expected us to spend close to Rs.2,500 like the last trip to Mangalore. Surprisingly though, the whole thing worked out at exactly Rs.1,600 per head! Here’s the run down for those planning to go to Gokarna:

• Travel – by bus (to and fro), sleeper coach (Seabird) — Rs.800
• Accommodation – Sunset Cafe — Rs.300 per room (2 people in a room with maximum 3 allowed)
• Food – this was the costliest because we did not skimp on our non-veg craving, and yes, ’cause we’re hogs, lol – Rs.450
• Autorickshaw – the only way to travel from the beach to the town — Rs.200

I haven’t gone into much detail about the trip due to lack of time and patience. Gokarna is overall a very nice place to visit. Om Beach is calm, quiet, and a privy place away from hooligans. Contrary to recent rumors, the beaches are kept really clean and morally well looked after.

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To begin with, a very happy new year to all of you. I’m late, but it’s better late than never.

Coming to the topic, I have never rooted for the under dog in Formula One before, that is, until Adrian Sutil came along. The Force India driver is one of the few drivers I like in the politics rocked sport.

A professional racing driver who wants to be a stuntman sometime in the future, Adrian Sutil is a big fan of Metallica and Indian food. Quote, “I love Indian food especially chicken tikka and chicken jalfrezi. I absolutely love gulab jamuns and yes, naan is yummy”. And even though he hasn’t actually won a race yet, the mere fact that he took the VJM02, a much inferior car compared to the McLaren and Brawn cars that dominated 2009, and raced it to 4th position in the Italian Grand Prix; or the second place in the German Grand Prix (that was eventually lost to Raikonnen thanks to a crash the Finn caused), definitely proves that he has potential.

The simple, yet outspoken guy that he is, I haven’t ever read an interview of Sutil like this one that the Times of India published yesterday. I thought it required a mention on my blog, given that Sutil has spoken so candidly about his life and his thoughts about almost everything. Give it a read. If you’re short of time, you might want to skip to the second page.

Come 2010, I’m sure things will turn around better for the German. An exciting season ahead with all the new teams, regulations, and of course, the return of the F1 Legend – Michael Schumacher. I can’t wait for it to start.

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A week has passed since I moved into my new room at SIT, Tumkur. In the 7 days there, I’ve made a bunch of awesome friends, besides knowing everybody staying in the hostel. It’s just great. North Indians and South Indians are bonding together pretty well for now.

Now about SIT. Hats off to the Principal and to the Director. Two amazing men who have gotten together to organize Personality Developmen Programmes to everybody at the hostel. It sounded lame at first, listening to a guy speak about how great he is and all that. But a few hours past, all of us were glued. The speaker, Arjun Devaiah, an international athlete, was absolutely BRILLIANT. It was evident when I spoke to Prashanth HN that I had already changed in just a couple of days. More on this some other time. For now, I’m enjoying classes and the PDP classes as well. SIT is probably the best thing to happen in my life (yet).

P.S. I wrote this in a hurry on my iPod. Leaving back to Tumkur in a couple of hours. So do excuse the lack of information, photos and what not.

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From the past 6 weeks, I can confidently say that I’ve been having the best days of my life, (yet). I’ve gone out with friends instead of being stuck up at home in front of the computer all day. I’ve taken part in some really nice experiences like Paintball (yes, I’ll talk about it a hundred times and still won’t get tired of it. So what?) and Tweetups of different kinds. I even made it a point to meet up all of my old friends at least once.

In June, I was always at home, either watching movies or doing something not at all worthwhile. I was repeatedly told to leave the house and go out a little.

In July though, the complaint was that I was constantly away from home. I would leave at noon, having gotten up only at 10am, and then come back home only past 10pm. There were quite a few times that I had to stay over at a friend’s place because it was too late.

I watched six movies at the theatres in the span of a fortnight, almost each with a different group of friends. Finished watching at least a dozen different TV shows. A couple of hundred movies still left. Gotten high a dozen times. Lost my mind at least a couple of times. Killed my iPod Touch once. Resurrected my iPod Touch once. Almost killed myself once. Waatevaaah!

As with all things, this damn 6-week long run comes to an end. On Saturday, I bid goodbye to Bangalore, at least for another 4 years, as I move to Tumkur,  a town that’s around 70kms away from Bangalore. And although close, I still won’t be able to come down to Bangalore as much as I would like to. I’ve never left the Garden City for more than a couple of weeks. And I’ve never really lived by myself either. This is going to be… weird.

I’m not leaving depressed or even a bit sad. I’m actually looking forward to this part of my life. A whole new friends circle is something that has gotten me excited as well. That doesn’t mean that I forget or leave my present friends circle. Nope. It just means we get closer. The fact that each and everybody close to me has said that they would ‘miss me’ (surprisingly, even the guys!), an emotional phrase that none of them had ever come even slightly close to uttering before, just brought us all closer than ever.

Well that’s that, it’s time to bid goodbye to Bangalore…

Image source: karenebiggs.

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Completely random post written at 2.30 in the middle of an awesome night.

• My English writing skills are terrible.
• People who tweet ads and enter contests on Twitter are jackasses. Period.
• KFC Krushers belong to #foodporn.
• I need a haircut.
• And a shave. I look like a baboon.
• Pissing off autorickshaw drivers is fun!
• Pissing off girls is not.
• But you know what, I don’t care!
• 3 Doors Down are GODs. Nothing short.
• Flickr sucks donkey balls.
• The exact words of this post exist as a category on Priya’s blog. TOTAL coincidence. NO, RLY!

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