Indian PI

The only thing that was more pathetic than my PI was the Indian Cricket Team’s performance against Pakistan on Sunday. Strangely enough, that depressed me to even be in the same league as those guys! We are down with the blues :(
Both the team and me have the same story-latent potential but not yet good enough.
How was I supposed to know that the wise men of IIMB would ask me to solve probability sums (2 in number) and ask me to state Baye’s theorem (for which I floundered like Ganguly fielding without contact lenses)?
They effectively brought out my most embarrassing facets – my DOTE ranking reading like the result of population census, the fact that I am a reluctant Engineer [read she couldn’t get Medicine. She is me] and that I quit Wipro after only 5 months for no satisfactory reason. Needless to say I was akin to a very unsettled Tendulkar, who soon gets out and looks relieved when the heat is off him.
Next they asked me my interests – a clichéd yet can’t-go-wrong question, to which I responded laying great emphasis on Blogging (a interview leading bait-courtesy Niyas), which they (predictably) brushed off as useless ranting. I told them they were unaware of the social responsibility exhibited by Bloggers during the Tsunami, but in light of this post, I realize they are right too. I am ranting; St.Lamentine is undergoing treatment to recover from fatigue, sleep deprivation, over work and under nourishment.
But in all fairness, it was not a stress test or mental molestation as I have been advised to expect. It was a perfectly fine thing that I messed up. Very Indian cricket team thing to do-snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Ordinarily I’d say the experience is worth a zillion PI lessons in an institute and consider myself in the right track for the feline test in November, unfortunately my PM, PL and TLs are all aware of this prestigious call and are eagerly awaiting the results.
Perhaps too eagerly; you see there isn’t much comedy in the life of IT people, so resources like me, are very much in demand to supply the much needed laughs, even if unwittingly so.
Jai mentioned some really flattering trait that she generously said that the three of us possessed (me, her and B). I wanted to live up to that image but right now I have cover

When talking is tough…

I am a talker. Never at a loss of words unless in an really awkward state, that is the catch. Interviews will be friendly if the interviewer wants you, if he is trying to eliminate you, I believe it will be somewhat in a negative vein, naa?
People from the training institutes like TIME, IMS and Career Launcher. etc. will for a fee teach you the nuances of making your interview work for you. But I haven’t parted with my parents’ money and given it to them in any previous occasion like say my GRE or CAT exams [Which, let me assure you, are not easy] so I didn’t take their help.
I have given 2 interviews so far, both for jobs (hence irrelevant here), both went too smoothly, thus not giving me any sort of experience in handling the situation with the s*%t hits the fan. So as far as my parents and friends are concerned I shall sail through easily.
All the more because, no one in my school & college would recognize me without a mic in front of my face. You see, I talked a lot there too. In fact, popular opinion is that, that is about all I did in those might institutions of learning.
Haa…we arrive at the problem, I am a public speaker who has the following advantages – No one asks you any questions, No one responds to you by talking back- only ‘Boos’ or clapping, you usually have to talk about only one subject, its not personal.
When I next face an interview I cannot escape the following facts:
· The panel people are infinitely cooler and know better about everything than me.
· They are not easily impressed and have cheerfully made older, extremely brilliant and talented junta cry tears of blood.
· I don’t have the sound volume propagation properties of a microphone to make them listen to me. [Usually volume accomplishes the work that reason cannot]
· There are 2 of them and only one of me. [Just in case, things get down to strength in numbers level]
· They don’t need me. Only I need them.
So you can see how the odds are so heavily in my favor. QED.
*Fervently praying to all the kind aspects of God and reading newspapers and old college books*
Rain