November 29th

Yesterday evening I left home for my friend's house. I was there till 12:20 am! We wanted to study but hardly did. We spoke on many things ... many many actually. During that time my cousin visited my house and all I could do was talk to her on phone. She is leaving for Gulbarga tomorrow.

Today, after, fajar, I woke up very late. I had my breakfast when the time was for lunch. I didn't do much after that except for reading a cousin's blog. Then a friend called and said that he would be coming to my house to have some combined studies. I hope I do it this time. I should be here in another 30 minutes.

I have my last theory external on Friday. It's about Managerial Economics and Accountancy. I like the subject and I like reading all that the subject has to offer. Learning it to write exams is something that makes me go lazy! I need to manage somehow and get decent marks just to keep up my aggregate around average. The previous exams were not satisfying except one or two.

I do not know if I will be updating the blog today evening or even tomorrow. I will try to.

November 26th

Sunday morning I finally woke up at quarter-to-10. I had to wash my clothes and I loaded them into the machine and forgot! My friend came to pick me up at 12:15 pm and we were at Ohri's at 12:35. I had a wonderful time there. I was there to celebrate my birthday with my friends.

Till the time we all assembled it was already 2:30. One of my friend had another party to attend so joined us a little late. There was a cake brought there by my friends, a part of which was 'decorated' on my face! I was given some gifts and the best of those was a nice watch. I got lots of chocolates and Encarta 2006 too. My hearty thanks to everybody. They all made my day. I am going to cherish every single memory of my time at Ohri's on November 26th, 2006.

That was not the end. There were 15 of us at the party and after that, we 7 people went to Necklace road. From there we took a boat to the Buddha statue. We spent some time there and took a boat back. I have been seeing Buddha for past 20 years but this is for the first time I got so close to it. It was amazing standing there surrounded by water on all sides and having my best friends with me. It was a good experience in the boat. On the return ride, I sat in the front part that was jetting into the air above water. It was amazing.

It was the best birthday I celebrated till now. The last time I celebrated was when I turned 10. It was a party at home with all my relatives invited. After that there were times when my father had taken out to some restaurant for dinner. But that had only 4 of us. Many times it so happened that my tests were going on and there was no chance of doing anything. Twice I remember, we had to attend some function somewhere else.

Even on 26th it was a bit similar. The day had a perfect ending. We had a function to attend at my aunt's house in the evening. My cousin sister from Gulbarga had come. Just before leaving from there, I went inside to meet everybody and it was only she and another aunt who wished me. Others followed. Not that I wanted anybody to wish, but she being there was something I had wanted. Long back she had already told me that she will be here on 26th and she was.

I reached home at 11 pm. I didn't feel like writing anything for my blog. I spent a lot of time with the computer chatting and listening to music but wrote nothing. Yesterday too I didn't write anything for this blog. I wrote one for Flowing Emotions. I completed the post I had posted by title 'A Guy Like Me'. I continued from where I had stopped on the blog. Yesterday night I wrote almost 5000 words at a stretch. But I couldn't give much importance to the words and the language I was using. I wrote what came on mind mind and all that I tried to think about. I wish I had given a little thought to the way I was forming sentences. But that could have taken a lot of time. And yes, I am sure, I wrote a few things openly ... something that I had never thought of writing. There are many more though. I think I have improved on my typing speed.

I thank all my friends for being with me on Sunday and making me feel important. Happiness is obtained in these kind of occasions and is cherished for long. It will make me happy every time I think about it. I am glad to have such nice people around me. I thank Allah for everything.

November 25th

Just a few minutes back (it's 11:13 pm now) I had my dinner. I had been to watch the movie Dhoom - 2 in the evening with 4 of my friends. One of them called me in the afternoon and asked if I would come with him. I was leaving for my aunt's house but still I decided to go with him. He picked me up from my aunt's house at 5:30 pm. e bought tickets in black. The movie was good. I don't like Rithik Roshan though.

Yesterday I finally had my computer fixed. Along with 2 of my friends, I planned what all we had to do. While deciding all that I looked to me that we won't be able to do it successfully. We did it.

I wasn't able to boot windows. It was saying that some .dll file was missing. We opened the cabinet and attached another hard-drive belonging to my friend. We had his drive as master and mine as slave. It didn't work. We were not able to access any of the disks. We tried to change some setting with those jumpers and also from BIOS. Still nothing happened. We were prepared for this.

We took a bootable CD of pirated WinXP and installed it on my system. We didn't format the main partition but deleted the HP recovery partition. It took some 25 minutes. Then we reattached my friend's hard-drive as slave and transferred all my data into it. This took 1 hour. Then I took my HP recovery disks and ran them. This time I chose the option that formats the hard-drive completely and reinstalls the operating system, drivers and all the softwares that HP ships along with its computers. I was afraid that it would show me the result it has shown a few days back - a few days back I went for partial recovery and that didn't allow me access the operating system. But this time, as it was full recovery, things worked. My computer was made into what it was when I purchased it on September 14th, 2004! I am now working on a computer with is as good as new.

Then I had to configure it to connect it to internet. I had already taken a printout of what all I would be needing. Then we installed the Sify broadband client and successfully connected to internet. I had to download Yahoo messenger. Then I installed Windows SP 2 from its original CD which I had ordered online more than a year back. Then I installed IE 7 and few other things. I still have to remove some useless softwares which HP had shipped and install few more including the drivers from my printer.

By doing all this I removed the worm that had been troubling me. It was slowing down my computer using 100% of CPU utilization and also restarting my computer by itself. Even the shortcuts on my wireless keyboard are working perfectly. Things like ping, msconfig and msinfo are working fine too.

It works

Along with 2 of my friends, I fixed my computer. On Wednesday, when I tried to run HP system recovery with partial recovery, it messed with my windows OS. I tried it twice and it didn't work. Today we took more than 4 hours and set everything right. Presently I am working on a computer which is as good as new! I will write more tomorrow.

First problems with my computer in 2 years

It was 7:50 am today when my brother complained of some indigestion problem. My father had already left for his work and mother, of course, is not home. I was already worried for my exam when my brother said this. I was confused for some time because I thought it would not be proper to ask him to leave for his college anyway and if I ask him to stay back at home, I can't leave him alone. So, I called my aunt and told her that I would be sending my brother to her house and requested her to take care of him. She was fine.

I told my brother at least 4 times that he shold call me the moment he reaches there. He said he will. I also repeatedly told him that that in no way should mother come to know that he is not well. If she does she would be worried and that would be bad. I said the same to my aunt and also my grandparents. My brother left home at 8:09 am sharp. I remember looking at the wall clock that time. I told him again to call me the moment he reaches there.

I was busy with my studies and also looking at the work being done by the servant maid. The time was 8:50 am then. I got tensed even more because he didn't call me up to inform meabout his safe arrival there. I spent a few very tensed before calling up my aunt. I was told that hehad reached there sometime back already. I spoke to him and scolded him. I had to; it was not my nager but my worry ... worry of 2 things to be precise - exam and also his not calling me up. He is fine now.

The exam didn't go well. I just pray to Allah that I am not humiliated in front of myself. I reached home aroun 1:55 pm with few of my friends. We got CDs from outside and watched 2 movies - Pink Panther and some other one whose name I don't remember. Both of them enlish - of course.

After my friends left, I sat down to see if I could do something to the virus (worm) that has effected my computer. My computer has slowed down and even restarts by itself at times. I thought of several things but first, I installed partition magic and recovered the Linux ext3 partition and converted it into FAT32 and saved some files on that. I tried to do some resizing to the existing primary partition but it didn't happen. All I could do was to secure some of my data which is primarily some (more than 3 GB) of music video files and audio files.

Tomorrow I will try few more things. I will uninstall Norton AV, install McAfee, get its updates (download them even before removing NAV because my internet connection doesn't work with any pirated software), install all the latest virus definition for McAfee and scan my system. As far as I think, things should be solved. If I don;t get the right definitions, then I will be calling for some technical support from HP people. I hope they help me. If that doesn't work, then the last resort would be to reinstall Windows which will most probably result in the removal of the original licenced copy of the operating system. I don;t want to have any pirated operating systems on my computer. It's not that I hate thins particular, but just because I like to flaunt my orginal software!!!

If McAfee works, then I will have a successful scan and remove McAfee and reinstall NAV. My updates for NAV has expired long back so I can't use it to better my computer. The name of the virus is something like bron.tok... It is doing a lot of damage to my computer eve when it's alert according to several websites is 'low' and 'medium'. I just hope that I continue with my original XP and don't loose any date.

Microprocessor Systems and Interfacing

Yesterday though I used the computer twice, I had to leave it abruptly without writing anything. I wokpe up late and was busy all time. In the afternoon I went to a friend's house to take some papers and in the ivening it was some shopping wiht my father. At 11 pm my friends came to my house to study and we were together till 3 am. We hardly studied.

I had to wake up early in the morning. My father and brother left home at 7:40 am. Then the servant maid came and I had to keep an eye on her. I slept after she left. I was a disturbed sleep and I finally woke up at 12:30 pm. IN a short while I will take a bath, have my food, go for prayers and finally start with my studies!

I do not know how long will it take for me to finish the syllabus. For the last exam I had to study till 3 am and wake up again at 5:30 am. Even that wasn't enough. I hope this time things go fine. All I need is marks. It all depends on what Allah wills.

Today is the third day after my mother left. 3 more days to go before she arrives. I am a kind of missing her too. We have already spoken on phone several times since she left. It will be the worst for me when I won't find her home in the evening today as I am used to see her daily coming from her office around 7:30 pm. I will be seeing 3 of such evening without her.

Networking

I took along with my father to the Nampally railway station to see my mother off to Kochi. I didn't know how I was supposed to feel when mother was leaving, but it was something different. I miss her now. When there were just 7 minutes for the train to leave she called my father saying that she could see us from inside the boogie. My father and I were standing just outside the boogie when she was inside looking at us through the window. The window was one-way see-through. Only she could see us and we couldn't. She didn't know about that and she called sitting from inside. Within few minutes the big box started moving and for a few second I couldn't believe that it was moving. It was moving away from me making no noise and making the small distance between my mother and me larger every second until I had to turn away and leave.

I had a look at the railway station after a almost 3 years. The last time was when I had been to Warangal to meet my mother's uncle there. Trains have always interested me. The machinery used, the boogies and especially the engine. I have always wondered about the power and wight of the engine that pulls the complete length of the train at such great speeds. Definitely locomotives have been one of the greatest inventions of the 19th century. The whole working of the railways too is amazing and wonderful - it is such a big network with so many people working for it.

After that I reached my grandparents' house and spent the rest of the day there. I had planned to spend some time with my friends and study but that couldn't happen. I didn't make it happen actually; I wasn't serious enough. Later in the evening I attended a reception function and had a heavy meal full of chicken, fish and sweet-meals.

I drove to the function hall which is at a distance of around 3 kilometers from my house. For the first time I had an experience called 'sudden brake'. The car in front stopped suddenly so even I had to stop. I was successful! I had some practice of driving with slow moving traffic and I did it well to my satisfaction. Only while crossing the ring road I was a bit reckless and my father was there to correct me.

Today is the first of the 5 nights I have to spend without my mother. I will feel the difference only tomorrow when I would not have had seen her all day. Just a few minutes I started a post for Flowing Emotions. I stopped without even finishing it because I do not know what all I have to right. To be precise, I have planned a few things but presently I am too lazy to put into words. I have already published whatever I have completed. Rest will come soon. InshAllah. Definitely!