Every good thing has to come to an end. Adios.

So this is it. Today is the day I’ve been waiting for the past one month. Today is my last day as an intern at Percept IBD. I can’t believe its already a month since I joined this place. I tried at over a dozen agencies for a chance to work and show my ‘skills’. Ogilvy, JWT, Rediffusion, Fresh Lime, Fingerprints, I’ve lost count. I walked from one end of Mount Road to the other looking for Saatchi (Which I later found had closed its Chennai base sometime back) , from JWT on Ethiraj Salai to Grey all the way at Chetpet. From Orchard in Alwarpet to Fresh Lime in T.Nagar and back almost the same distance to my final destination at Percept. Boy, what a journey its been, literally. I now know where half the ad agencies in Chennai are. At least I wouldn’t have to walk aimlessly when I’m looking for a proper job one year from now.

Since I have already written about my daily life at Percept in an earlier post I don’t think I have to elaborate much. I guess I’ll straightaway go the point where I am at my desk writing this post wondering what next to write. My last day started off at midnight. That’s when I contemplated writing this post. Half an hour later I began to put my thoughs about the time at Percept into words. But only for the next couple of minutes till the point I hit my recurring blogger’s block. This post thus became a draft for the next 12 hours. I woke up as usual at 8.30, brushed, shat, dressed up, ate  and was in a bus to the workplace by 10. If I haven’t mentioned my bath, that’s not because I forgot but because I felt being the last day a late-night bath would be better. I took my bath at 2 in the morning just before hitting the bed.

It’s almost lunch time here and I’m hungry as hell. Last day doesn’t mean anything special even for lunch. I’ll have to settle with some ‘Sunfeast Pasta treat’, chicken flavor. The chicken ‘flavor’ is the closest I can get to eat something ‘special’. On second thoughts, why am I in a perception that I turn 58 today and today is my retirement day? Bah. My horoscope for today on Times of India says it’s time for me to change and be independent. I agree to that part after all I’ll be independent from my non-existent office duties. But it also says that I may receive exciting news. Is it a matter of coincidence that my horoscope on Deccan Chronicle says that I may get to meet someone special? Well, its been over 2 years since I last saw the person who is ‘special’ to me. Perhaps the ‘special’ person read the poems on this blog addressed to them. God, I have high expectations. What the hell. I don’t want to spoil my last day by expecting something that’s never gonna happen. Still I hate being a pessimist.

College reopens only on the 17th. So I got exactly a week to do all the things that I wanted to do in a month long holiday. And what would these things be? I have no idea. I do have at least 7 movies waiting to be watched on my comp. But then I’m someone who took 6 full months to watch Casino Royale. Computer games, you may ask. Try telling that to my comp. The ancient machine starts whining the moment a harmless flash app on Facebook like ‘Word Challenge’ is played. Makes me wanna murder my friend who’s got a GPU worth 32 grand. Luckily my P4 has no problem when it comes to Mafia Wars unfortunately complementing my addiction for a browser game. The same friend who’s rich enough to own a 32 grand GPU had refused to play Mafia Wars citing poor ‘graphics’. No I don’t want to murder the guy, I just want to burn down his comp.

One more week of boredom for college. I say ‘Aane De’.

Peace.

No, wait a second. I forgot to thank all those at Percept for being nice to me, despite my apparent retardness.

Peace, again.

I change… Hopefully for the better

I have promised something to myself today. It happened when I came to know that a good friend of mine from school has his nice little weblog. Only then did I realise that I had a blog too, waiting for it to be scrawled upon. So here I am, to fulfill my promise. Yeah I know, I know, my blog has been nothing short of random bullshit with zero followers. But who cares, its my blog. I write about what I think about whats going on around me. Oh wait a second, when was the last time I actually wrote about MYSELF or things going on around ME? All I have been writing is about what’s going on in the news, right? Guess what,  I’ve decided to change. I’ve promised myself that I’ m gonna update this blog regularly whenever I can and not when I run out of South Park or movies. 

OK that was the easy part. What now? I’ve already hit a bloggers block. Damn, I am supposed to be a wannabe copywriter but can’t think of anything interesting to write. Speaking of being a copywriter, my internship is in full swing. I joined this ad agency called ‘Percept IBD‘. Nice place, nice people, quite happy with how its been so far. The only thing thats been a pain in the ass, or rather two things, the weather and the transport. I have returned to the days whenI wrote about the green and white public limousines of Chennai in one of my early posts. I wake up early in the morning at 8. Yes you heard it right, EIGHT is early for someone who wakes up only at 10:30 during college time. By the time I crap, bathe, eat, leave home and I finally reach the bus stand its already 9.30. And 9.30 is when the 41D I take to my office everyday if I wanna be there by 11, reach Ambathur OT bus stand. I more than usually reach the bus stand only at 9.31 and the 41D driver unfortunately is strangely enough, keen on punctuality. And so I catch  the next bus which leaves 15 minutes later. At least on this I don’t have to worry about standing halfway through my journey as I always manage to find a place to sit and read my Times of India newspaper. By the time I reach Anna Nagar I would’ve fallen asleep and be dreaming of my beloved till I wake up at Gemini. Gemini, maybe because of the endangered chicks of Chennai who sometimes walk in and out of Isphani. 15 minutes later and after the usual practise of giving the finger to Karunanidhi’s and Stalin’s posters at the DMK office in Mount Road, I reach my office at R.A.Puram. Nobody really cares about what time I come. So I just walk upto my seat and start working (read Mafia Wars, random wiki articles). I sit there till lunch. A hearty meal of some of mom’s meat specials later I decide to get down to some real business. So I walk upto my boss and ask for exercises to do. He gives me some interesting work which keeps me occupied for, well, the next couple of days. Sometimes I work, sometimes I pretend, but truth is I’ve learned here in 3 weeks more than what I learned in Sara’s Ad Basics classes for a whole semester. We discuss politics, ads, cricket, what all. I was even the official political commentator of the office while the World’s Largest reality show was on. By 6.30 people start leaving, but for some reason I always choose to stick till 7 or 7.30 when boss usually leaves. Well, I do need good remarks from him for my internship report. Not that my boss won’t give me a 10 on 10 if I ask for, but then a good impression always remains a good impression. And then there is the minimum of 150 working hours to complete to. We say good-bye; I catch another 41D from Mandaveli depot and 2 hours of occasional closing of eyes and dreaming later I reach home. Now, thats the best part of my internship. Reaching home after a really long day. 

Today though was different. A new guy joined as a copywriter and I had to vacate my place for him. I moved back to my old comp which surprisingly is pathetic than my comp back at home. Thought I’d never find a slower comp. It doesn’t have Windows XP and I miss Google chrome.  I’ve nothing against Firefox but I’ve fallen in absolute love with this marvel from Google. Boss asked me to approach the new guy for exercises. He gives me some and I proceed to ‘work’, till I’m reminded that today is my game in the office chess tournament. And so I’m up against one of the chicks in the office. “There is no way I’m gonna lose to a chick” – or so I thought. The game took an hour to complete and I even missed my coffee, only to lose. I did not win because she was more intelligent than me, rather because I was more stupider than her. One of the guys commented,“There is nothing wrong when 2 people who know to play chess, play. There is nothing wrong when 1 guy knows and the other doesn’t. But never let 2 people who can’t play chess for nuts face off.” I say to myself, “There is nothing wrong in losing to a woman. Only makes you a champion in women’s rights for equality”. 

That more or less sums up my day. I guess I’ll put up a list of wiki topics that I explored while in office today. This explains how random I can be. 

1. The Great Schism in the Catholic Church and the Protestant Reformation

2. Bangladesh Cricket Team 

3. LGBT rights in Nazi Germany. (I’m neither gay, nor homophobic)

4. Major religions of the World

5. Politics of Myanmar. 

6. Tiananmen Square massacre. (Today is the 20th anniversary)

7. List of WCW World Heavyweight Champions. 

8. State of Alaska