My dads sodium level came upto 124. Normally he should have become a lot more cogent. He was pretty dull though. He's also had a fever off and on (this was the original complaint when we first went to see the doctor). So some cerebro spinal fluid was taken for testing. The test results say its Tubercular Meningitis. All the antibiotics he's taken have prevented it from worsening and from tommorow he will be started on antibiotics for treating it specifically.

So now we have to wait for the TM to settle and also wait for the kidney to heal. Its pretty complicated. A bad combination of High BP, Diabetes and Infection. My father always has had high BP but he refused to go to a doctor for over 30 years, simply because they scared him. The diabetes is probably a side effect of  high BP and the infection is due to weakening of the immune system, once again due to high BP and diabetes.

All this could have been avoided if he'd just had his pressure under control, thats whats so frustrating.

I know he'll get better and that we just have to wait it out. Its really hard on the family. My mom is made of pretty strong stuff and she can cope. Its my sister who gets really upset and starts crying. Me? I'm sort of emotionally detached. I know its just a matter of time. I know the end result is going to be good and I'm prepared to wait. My schedule has gone haywire though. I havent attended my NIIT class in 2 weeks. I dont about the outcome of the Polaris interview, some of my friends have started getting calls. I might also join a course to prepare for CAT 2004. Too many things competing for my attention now.

Sodium - I think I've said that word more than a thousand times this week.

Here's what happened. I came back home from my Polaris interview on the 20'th. At around 7:30 PM when my dad was eating his dinner, he started behaving in an extremely odd fashion. He seemed to have no control over his spoon and he was spilling his food all over himself without even being aware of it. His responses to our questions were slow and sluggish. We decided to take him to the hospital immediately. Everything was delayed a bit because my dad refused to come to the hospital. We cried, pleaded, threatened and cajoled but he just sat in his chair and refused.Finally we had no choice, we carried him with the chair into the car.

He spent 2 days in the normal ward and was then transferred to the ICU because his sodium levels had fallen to 116. Its around 135 for a normal person. The ordinary saline given wasnt being absorbed by his body so a special 3% hypertonic saline solution had to be given via the jugular vein. The insertion of the drip in the jugular vein has to be done very very carefully. So my dad spent 4 days in the ICU until his sodium level came upto 127. On monday, he as shifted to a room opposite the ICU.

His sodium level dropped again to 120, but the doctor said he didnt want to give drips anymore and said we had to bring it up only with a special diet. So far his sodium levels have gone up by 1 point a day. The real complication is that his kidney has been affected by his high BP and diabetes, hence it is not able to absorb the sodium.Instead it is sending it out through the urine. Now due to low sodim levels he's pretty groggy. His facial muscles on one side have become weak and he slurs whenever he talks.

Handling my father has been really tough in these 8 days. When he was in the general ward, he'd keep pulling the IV out of his arm. One morning when my mother and I fell asleep from sheer exhaustion, he got off the bed on his own, took two steps and fell right on top of me. I woke up just to see my dad falling and caught him, badly spraining my left shoulder in the process.

After he spent 2 days in the ICU, he pulled the IV right out of the jugular vein, something really really dangerous. They had to tie him up to prevent him from injuring himself further, something which really insulted my father.

He's like a big baby now. Every move of his needs watching. He's developed a fever and whenever he feels hot he pulls all his clothes off. Everyday we wonder what his sodium level is. We've also learnt the hard way that we cannot expect him to improve from one day to the next. One day he's quite sharp mentally and the next day its difficult to wake him. For the last week we've had our hopes repeatedly raised and dashed to the ground. We just have to be patient and wait for the kidney to heal itself.

When he talks, its so crazy at times, we dont know whether to laugh or to cry. As he kept trying to take his clothes off when he felt hot, my sister held his hand and said " How can you be naked when I'm the room. You think its right for me to see you this way? ". To which he said " Of course, you are my daughter after all".

My sister seems to be at the recieving end for all his answers. A couple of days back we made him sit in the chair and talk to us. We asked him to give our birth dates. He got everybody's right but my sister's wrong. When asked if we should buy my sister some nice jewellery, he said " Let her get pregnant and then we'll get her jewellery". Needless to say, my sister wasnt the least bit pleased.

His higher faculties do seem to be in good shape though. He remembers everything about the university and his job. He remembers what he last taught my cousin last in physics. Its just his day to day behaviour that is upsetting.

In a way its a good thing I dont have a job now because I'm there to look after him. We dont know how long it will take and by the looks of it, its going to be a looong time. Guess I just have to be patient.

My interview...well I wont say I stared blankly at the interviewer, nor will I say I
knew the answer to everything. Trouble was that it was a purely technical
interview, no frills at all, nothing I could answer breezily and show him how
confident I was. No questions like " Tell me about yourself, family, goals..blah
blah" or " Why should we hire you? ". No sir, all questions dealt with C and C++.
Not even the fundemental concepts but more fuzzy ones like pointers and linked
lists. I could answer his questions for each concept initially but as he went deeper
into the topic, I found myself floundering until he went on to the next topic. If I
didnt know it, I said so .

My friends who attended the interview last week said the whole thing had been
quite an informal affair, not very techie. Mine was totally the opposite.

Then the interviewer carefully scanned my marksheet and said " You seem to be
answering well but how you come you dont have such great marks in C? ". Tough one to answer eh? So I said I didnt believe that my marks really reflected
my abilities. He nodded his head and said " Maybe so, but you cant use it as an
excuse." I grinned and said I totally agreed with him but insisted I was telling the
truth when it came to that particular paper. I didnt know what else to say.

So I'm not really sure how I've done. I knew something but nothing hardcore. I
was a lil dissapointed however my friends cheered me up saying that I was after
all an electrical engineering student and that Polaris wouldnt expect me to know C
and C++ inside out. I dont know if I can take comfort in that...

Its not in my hands anymore, if I get it, then well and good. If not, there's always
the CAT.

Well, I'm off to my interview...I'm not as nervous as I usually am...but I am still a teeny weeny bit nervous :P. I just hope it goes well.

I usually settle down well at the actual interview...its just until the interview that I'm all jittery. My mind comes up wth a dozen questions I dont have the answer to and then I panic for a while.
Anyway, come what may, even if I dont know a thing, I'm going to be positive and confident. I think that should help. Wish me luck.

There's some  good news and there's some bad news.
 
The good news is that I've been shortlisted for the second round of interview by Polaris. My interview is on Tuesday at 11:00 AM. Its supposed to be technical. Wish me luck. These guys do move slow... I attended the first interview sometime in May.
 
The bad news...well we just found out that my dad has both high blood pressure as well as diabates. We've been in and out of hospitals and clinics for the past week, taking blood samples, urine samples, having tests done and having tests confirmed....well now we know whats bothering him.
 
My mom has taken some severe measures when it comes to food. No oil, no ghee, no sugar, microscopic amounts of salt...well its been very hard on my dad. He sulks at the dinner table and hardly eats anything.
 
Hmmm, I also learned to make rice...I make some pretty decent rice I think...I'm learning more everyday...

I've quit fretting about my job status. It will come when it has to come. Might as well do things that are within my control like preparing for the CAT. I have a feeling I'll clear the aptitude test for CTS. The interview is supposed to be tough, so I've started brushing up my engineering.

Among other things, My cousin Prashant works at the Taj Coromandel. Poor chap leaves the house at 6:00 AM and returns at 10:00 PM. Anyway, he usually has an interesting story to tell every night. Right now the Indian cricket team is staying at the Taj, so Prashant gets to see them pretty often. (He's cleaned Dravid's room and folded Yuvraj's underwear..."Theyre all Reebok" he tells me.)

Anyway, Zaheer Khan comes to the front desk. The place is filled with kids and their parents who are screaming for his autograph. Zaheer Khan has forgotten his room number, so he asks the receptionist for it. The receptionist gets real nervous and goes into some kind of trance.

Zaheer Khan : " I've forgotten my room number, can you tell me what it is? "

Receptionist (dazedly): " One moment sir. What is your name sir? "

Sepulchral silence.

Zaheer Khan (looking her up and down): "Uhm, Zaheer Khan..."

Nothing else for now. I've started studying with my friend Archie for the CAT. Helps to have a partner esp when all you want to do is sleep in the afternoon. This way I'm more productive when I'm least productive and I dont feel guilty about wasting my time at the end of the day.

K,you know what? I'm getting sick of the Penis Enlargement ads that cram my inbox. Everyday I have to patiently clean out a dozen emails that claim that if I buy their
product, I will be able to satisfy a blue whale. Pills, powders, rubber thingies, secret Arabian techniques.....apparently there's this technique called the "Arabian Jelq"
or something which is taught by Arabian fathers to their Arabian sons so that they may use their thingies more effectively to produce more Arabian sons and thus pass
on the ancient jelq tradition. Now why do I want to know all this? After all, size does not matter when

a)you never have got any
b)you arent getting any
c)you are not likely to get any for a while...

Some of these emails have very detailed diagrams too....not something you want to see when

1) you are straight
2) you are frantically going through your email in search of a letter from a prospective employer.

Ofcourse there is the case of one of these penis enlargement companies is looking for a fresh BE graduate in the field of electrical engineering for a challenging and
exciting career in penis enlargement all for a "huge" salary...Now that I might consider....

What can I say? I miss her so bad.

Got this off an email forward:

Question: What is the height of globalization?

Answer: Princess Diana's death
Question: How come?

Answer: An English princess with an Egyptian boyfriend crashes in a French
tunnel, driving a German car with a Dutch engine, driven by a Belgian who
was high on Scottish whiskey, followed closely by Italian Paparazzi, on
Japanese motorcycles, treated by an American doctor, using Brazilian
medicines! And this is sent to you by an Indian, using Bill Gates'
technology which he stole from the Japanese. And you are probably reading
this on one of the IBM clones that use Philippine-made chips, and Korean
made monitors, assembled by Bangladeshi workers in a Singapore plant,
transported by lorries driven by Malaysians, hijacked by Indonesians and
finally sold to you by a Chinese!

That's Globalization

Whew! So I'm finally an engineer :-). Results came out today, I got 83% :-D.
Highest I ever scored in my engineering (come to think of it, all my life:P). Now all I need is a job :P

I dont think I've come online so often before. Sure there was the time when I just got my internet connection and I realised there was a whole world of porn waiting to be explored. Porn got boring after a few years, after all, there's only so much 2 people can do (and 3 people and 4 people and...n people...and sometimes not even people....I wont go into the details).

Since I am kinda jobless,I log on every 2 hours to see if some company out there has decided to hire me and pay me a fat salary. So far, no company has..but I've got my hopes up.

What I dislike right now is not having a schedule or a purpose for the day. You know that somethings wrong when the weekend is no different from the weekday.

I keep telling myself that I should sit down and study for the CAT again..but finding motivation is hard, esp because I'm also hoping to get a job. I've got confused goals now. I thought I had it all figured out when I told myself " I'll prepare for the CAT and if I get a job then well and good ". Trouble is,I didnt bother to account for all the heartbreaks, the tension, the jealousy that an intensive job search brings along. Its very distracting. Besides the thought of going through all that preparation again for the CAT isint attractive.

I guess I have no choice though.I really have to study...here's wishing I'll stick with it.

Well, nothing worth mentioning has happened in the last couple of days. I might get a call from ICICI Infotech..but dont wanna go into the details of it. The last time I got too excited about a job, I paid for it.

Watched Anger Management...not too great a movie. Not really funny..

Hmm, CTS keeps postponing the date of its aptitude test. Now I have to check my status again on July 13th. They've been postponing it since May 12th!

Among other things...I just wish July 4th would never arrive. I hope we get caught in some kinda time warp and that its now December 18th 2003 :-(

Here's a nice article I got off Rediff:

The truth about IT cats & dogs

June 24, 2004


There are two kinds of engineering students in India -- the cats whom all companies run after, and the underdogs, who are running after the companies. The cats usually bag the cool jobs which pay you well, send you abroad and keep you far far away from sweaty industrial shopfloors. 55,000 such cats found employment with the likes of Infosys, Wipro, TCS and other such companies in 2003-2004, by Nasscom estimates. But considering that India produces over 300,000 engineers annually, it's a dog's life for many fresh graduates out there.

So, what is it that separates the IT cats from the dogs? It's a question that needs to be asked, as yet another admissions season is upon us. The mad rush for engineering seats continues fuelled by this simple logic: Engineering has more value in the job market than an 'ordinary' BSc. And the jobs that are fuelling this perception are the lucrative software careers. Few would be happy building roads and bridges or working in factories -- as previous generations of engineers did.

Let's face it -- an engineering degree is a means to an end, not an end in itself. But it can turn into a dead end if you don't keep the following facts in mind:

* It's not what you study, but where you study that counts: Always, always choose college over branch. The reputation of a college is what determines campus placement prospects. This might mean doing civil engineering at VJTI although you have little interest in the subject. Live with it. At the end of 4 years, a bunch of software companies will visit the campus. If you pass their aptitude test and interviews, you're in.

It sounds illogical but companies look at it this way. "We believe in the generic concept of learnability," says Hema Ravichander, Senior VP (HR) at Infosys. "This, we define as the ability of the individual to derive generic knowledge from specific experiences and apply the same to future contexts." So when the company visits a campus engineers from any stream are welcome to apply for the aptitude test. All recruits are subsequently put through 14 1/2 weeks of intense training.

The scene at Wipro is similar. "At one time, we insisted on BE Electronics/Computer Science," says Ranjan Acharya, corporate VP, HRD, Wipro. "Now we look at basic analytical ability, understanding and grasping power." Wipro has a 45-day training program for computer engineers, and a longer one of 70-days for those from other streams.

Here's the catch, though. Infosys visits 60 to 70 engineering colleges for campus placements annually. IITs, NITs and a few top colleges in every state make up that list. "Historical relationship, performance of hires from a particular campus, ratio of offers made:joined are the main factors which determine which colleges we visit for placement year after year," says Ms Ravichander. Wipro visits 120 colleges, but its intake is less than Infy. TCS is the other large recruiter which visits about 130 colleges.

A relatively new recruiter -- Cognizant Technologies -- has also started hiring aggressively from premier engineering campuses. The company planned to pick up 60% of its targetted 4,000 new recruits for 2004 through campus placements.

* Performance does matter: The top software companies are pretty sticky when it comes to grades. It's not enough to just get into a great college, you must perform once you get there. Consistency is a very important -- companies will look at your grades right from class X onwards and expect to see a first class through all years of engineering. ATKTs (Allowed To Keep Term despite failing a subject) or dropped years are a strict no no.

This is a tall order, especially in some universities like Mumbai known for its vagaries, which often affect even the brightest students. As a popular shayari on Mumbai engineering campuses goes: Woh baap hi kya jiski beti nahin... Woh engineer hi kya jiski ATKT nahin.

Jokes apart, performance is key even if you get into a college which doesn't have attractive campus placements. A 60% throughout your engineering career ensures you still have a shot at your dream job. You can apply when these companies conduct aptitude tests off-campus.

The story goes like this. Companies have to make offers through the campus placement route, 12 to 15 months before the actual joining date. A lot can happen during this period -- often requirements drastically change. So a certain % of freshers are taken in at a later date, through off campus hiring. Infosys for example will visit various cities and test up to 10,000 applicants in a single day. Graduates from any engineering college can apply, as long as they have a first class throughout.

Aptitude tests normally cover arithmetic and analytical skills, GDs (group discussions) gauge communication skills and in the interview applicants are usually quizzed on basics from their core subjects. Any project work you may have done, as well as extra technical knowledge, eg having leant a popular programming language could help tip the scales in your favour.

Since many engineers are eventually put on the project management track, qualities such as leadership skills, teamwork and all round personality also matter.

* The year you graduate matters: An engineering course takes 4 years to complete. A lot can happen in the IT world in that time.

Some factors are simply not in your control. The graduating class of 2002 had a tough time finding jobs. 2003 was better, and the current year -- 2004 -- has seen a boom in demand for freshers. Infosys alone recruited 10,000 employees, a majority of them straight from engineering campuses. At Bangalore's RV College of Engineering 43% of the 460 students seeking placement were recruited by just 4 software companies -- Infy, TCS, Syntel and Cognizant.

This upward trend is expected to continue. But if you are entering an engineering college today, it's hard to tell exactly what the job scene will look like in 2008. Especially since the ups and downs in the US economy directly affect the fortunes of Indian software companies.

In boom years, students have more choices and better prospects. For example, at IIT Chennai last year, a strange thing happened. Less than half of the 450 eligible students took the TCS aptitude test. And there wasn't a single computer science student in that lot. Why? The salaries offered by Indian software companies (in the Rs 1.8 lakh to Rs 4 lakh per annum range) weren't attractive enough compared to other recruiters like McKinsey (Rs 7 lakhs pa), Intel and HLL (both offered Rs 4.6 lakhs pa).

In a tough year such as 2002 there was a major hue and cry when Infosys hinted it was reconsidering some of the offers made on the IIT campus several months earlier. The offers were later honoured. Companies realise that some years are hard on freshers. For example, in February 2004 TCS continued to invite entry level applications from engineers who had graduated in 2002 and 2003, as long as they had not been interviewed by the company within the last 6 months.

* You're no 22, try harder: It's true that graduating from a lesser known engineering school may mean you leave campus without a job. But it's not the end of the world. It simply means you have to conduct your own jobhunt. Respond to ads in newspapers, upload your resume on job sites and start doing the rounds of companies. Staying in touch with friends and seniors who've already got jobs is a great way to get to know about openings and entrance tests. Some companies actually prefer to recruit through employee referrals.

The good news is, a sustained effort of 3 to 6 months usually gets you a job. The important thing is to stay optimistic! As an underdog, you may end up joining an underdog company, ie a smaller outfit. But with the right experience and skills picked up along the way you can always hop, skip and jump your way to the software company of your dreams.

* Engineers@call centres: Last but not the least -- the call centre option. BPO outfits such as Wipro Spectramind actively recruit engineers, paying them higher salaries than regular graduates. And they have no dearth of applicants. But most engineers see call centre jobs -- even if they're in technical support -- only as a short term option.

If things don't work out on the software front, there's always the option of going in for higher studies. Which for most, boils down to an MBA. But remember, there are two kinds of MBA students in India -- the cats whom all companies run after, and the underdogs, who are running after the companies... But that, is another story waiting to be old.

Rashmi Bansal is an IIM Ahmedabad graduate and founder-editor of the popular youth magazine JAM www.jammag.com

She can be reached at rashmi@jammag.com

Watched "Brother Bear" with a friend today. Good movie, quite touching. Its a nice family sort of movie, go watch it if you can.

Couple of things I should mention:

1)Nice to meet you Taruni. After 8 months of knowing you, it was nice to finally meet you :D

2)Congrats Shobha for getting a job with Barry Weh Mlller, you owe me a treat (and dont tell me you cant get cash because your dad put it in the bank)

3) Thank you 9444------ for a most exciting june 19th ;-)

Dropped off my resume at the L&T office on Mount Road yesterday.Also modified my resume because it was too big and didnt look professional.Kinda happy with the new one.

I also registered with a few job sites like www.chetna-jobs.com and www.monsterindia.com
I've heard that they send tons of email, so I created a new email id:
employdd@rediffmail.com . Please dont mail me there, its meant only for prospective employers :P

My parents went to Coimbatore for the weekend, so my cousin Prashant and I lived a very bachelors life for 2 days. We ate outside, didnt bother about personal hygiene, didnt bother to boil water, so there was no drinking water available until I went and bought some :P. Prashant got a dozen cd's to watch. I watched only one though(spiderman), I'm not too into movies.

I've bought myself a Terry Pratchet book, reading it now.

I love the number 6. I just hope it becomes 12 and multiples of 12 thereafter. If you dont understand this, dont bother.I know someone else out there does :-)

He He, the moment Gmail came out with its 1 GB account, Yahoo made itself a 100 MB account and now rediff is offering 1 GB too! What will I do with all that memory space?

I'm beginning to enjoy the benifits of unemployment. To do nothing all day seems like sheer bliss to me. However, 2 conditions have to be satisfied before I start basking in the luxury of idleness :

1) My dad has to go to work in Pondicherry
2) My mom has to go to work in school.

See, once the two people who worry the most about my future are out of the way, I automatically start relaxing a bit. This is not to say I dont worry about my future.In fact all I do these days is worry about my future.Its just that after a while worrying about your future starts getting on your nerves and you cant do anything without feeling like a burden to your parents.

Tamizh slang has the perfect word to describe my current status-" Dhanda Soru". For my very english friends, literally translated it means "Waste Food" (ie) an idle person who eats the food his parents provide and does nothing all day to deserve the food. My only consolation at the moment is most of my classmates are in the same boat:P.

Getting a job would be a major ego booster for me now. It would mean financial freedom, perhaps a vehicle of my own, a cellphone and most important of all, it would send a strong signal to my parents that I have grown up and can look after myself.

IGATE had another exam in Eashwari engineering college. I didnt go because I had attended the test in DG Vaishnav college a couple of weeks earlier and they had asked for Rs.29000 as training fees. So when I heard they were having another exam, I didnt bother to go. Now I get the awful news that no mention of the training fees was made yesterday :-(. A few of my classmates have got through the initial rounds...damn! Why didnt I write the exam! Its a missed opportunity and I feel terrible about it.

Here's what I plan to do with my life for the next 5 months ( sorry AJ, I had to flick your code idea :P )

void main( )
{
while (unemployed)
{
if (status= = employed)
{
cout<<" HALLELUJAH!!!";
break;

}

studyforCAT( );

goforcomputercourse( );

readthedamnnewspaperfindoutwhoprimeministeris( );

gym( );

}

}

A depressing birthday, but a happy ending nevertheless. And hey! my blog is a 100 posts old!