Arctuan Megadonkey Soup for the Vogon Soul

No post on aischronicles lately. We’ve all been busy. Thats partly coz of exams, but mostly because of last month’s tragedy. Our sales rep died of asphyxiation on Rupert — we had to stop posting to mourn his death.

[What? We didn't have one??Oops, my bad!]

Yes, there is a new exciting section coming up here, and its called–you guessed it–Grumbling Vogon.

Concept Art [Not for the Vogon Soul- It's illegal for art and Vogon to be within 200 m of each other

The section is a column by a Vogon who’s stuck in Amity Saket. For those non-galactically aware readers out there, the Guide’s entry on Vogons is as follows:

Vogons are one of the most unpleasant races in the galaxy. Not actually evil, but bad-tempered, bureaucratic, officious and callous. They wouldn’t even lift a finger to save their own grandmothers from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal without orders signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters. The best way to get a drink out of a Vogon is to stick your finger down his throat, and the best way to irritate him is to feed his grandmother to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal. On no account should you allow a Vogon to read poetry to you.

Our columnist is the revered Vogon who served Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz in his command ship and was ex-Chief of Screaming Operations (It is rumoured that his “Resistance is useless” cry can make brave Vogons cry). Inspired by his captain’s literary prowess, he decided to start writing. His work, however, was not appreciated by any sapient being he met (or tried to meet). Hope was about to run out.

But that was until he saw those two earthmen [though one was actually from Betelgeuse] who had appreciated Prostetnic Jeltz’s poetry. Their motivational comments inspired him to move to planet Earth, which he realized was the only place in the galaxy where they hadn’t quite forgotten how to appreciate good art.

The rest, as galactic time-travellers say, ‘will have been history’.

So long and thanks for all the flu [Well, sort of!]

WARNING: The following article is rated ‘R’ for Vogon audiences due to presence of words such as ‘thanks’ and ’sweet’. If you are under the age of 278, i.e. not a legal Vogon adult, please turn back immediately. Also, the blog doesnot take responsibility for possibly offensive words like ‘think’ or ‘thought’. You may now proceed at your own risk.

[From a guy who gets to miss his terminals cause of the Ol 'wine Flu]

So long and thanks for all the flu
So glad that it should come to this
I tried to warn you all but oh dear?

You may not share my tamiflu
Which will spell exams for all of you
Special thanks to the bloke who
infected me in school

So long, so long and thanks
for all the flu

The school’s about to be closed down
There’s no point running out of town
Lie back and let the H1N1 take its toll

Despite the bubblegum under the seat
I thought that most of you were sweet
I’ll miss the creepy teachers and surely
the nice ones too

So long, so long, so long, so long, so long
So long, so long, so long, so long, so long

So long, so long and thanks
for all the flu

(yeah)

So long and thanks for all the flu
So glad that it should come to this
I tried to warn you all but oh dear?

(oh dear)

Despite those those epic worksheets
I thought that most of you were sweet
Especially people of sorts and your
Creepy red bricks

So long, so long, so long, so long, so long
So long, so long, so long, so long, so long

So long, so long and thanks
for all the flu

School Update: MUN Time!

Yeah, so the earthlings at Amity came up with a brilliant light-bulb-like-glowing-idea to start an MUN in the school to give the children an opportunity to participate in such an event. The AMUN is one of its kind which will move to becoming an interschool event in the future. Chairs rock, committees rock harder. Although the emergencies are hard to believe, they (organising committee) won’t really agree to that and believe its reality which is getting its facts wrong.

Committees? Yeah, we’ve got 4 of ‘em. The Security Council, the General Assembly (which it now is, seeing that it has over a 100 delegates :O WTH!), The Historical Security Council where people will try change what happened a decade or two, maybe three back. I’m serious. Its reality which is getting its facts wrong – take this committee to be a perfect case for the same. The last committee being for the junior kids – the UNESCO.

So what’s the current situation? The Student Council is running around helter-skelter and trying to work although many deadlines have whooshed past in the last week (I love deadlines, I like the way they whoosh past). Assigning countries, making lists, designing certificates and trophies, making more lists again, giving briefing sessions to the newbies to MUN, running around making more lists again (yeesh! There are too many lists!) and a lotta stuff.

There’s another thing to it: The International Press. They are the source for all *gossip* in the MUN; the source for all candid pics, chit smuggling and…and…ask the IP yaar, I’m just a delegate!

AMUN ‘o9: Its bigger, better and way lot cooler than a lotta things put together.

Dates: 1st, 2nd, 3rd August.

Contact persons: Sumedh sir, Akhil B, Rajat, Nikhil A, Arjun Hans

Hitchhiker’s Guide to Amity – 3: [Mini] Middle School Student Guide

Anyone who has been in school knows that surviving amongst students is NOT easy. And even more so in Amity Saket. So how are middle school students in Amity? According to our chairperson, all Amitians are the same- you can recognize one just by their behaviour. Par ma’am, we are not Salman Khans in Dus Ka Dum’s ads. Things are never so easy in Sector ZZ 9 plural Z Alpha, and even more in Amity Saket.  So, what could info-hungry students do? They could, of course, get a Sub Etha Sens-O-Matic shipped from the Betelguese star system, but intergalactic shipping costs are space-rocketing these days  , and the Betelguesians don’t even accept Earth currency. But right when all hope was lost, a saviour came: “Is it a  newsletter?” “Is it a mutilated Sens-O-Matic?” Nope. It is our Mini Student Guide for the Middle School, so read on!

There is an abundance of children on our school which belong to the so-called gay category [the cheerful kind, sometimes the other kind too ]. These kids are extremely lazy- they wouldn’t get off their ass to save their grandmothers from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal. But on the bright [cheerful/gay] side, they are extremely cheery at all times- will do anything to help you as long as it doesn’t involve any physical activity.

Then there are those for which you don’t need a guide to tell you that they are armed and dangerous. All they need is the tiniest of provocations [like writing "I love reading" on the back of their House T-Shirts] and they’ll have a whack at you.  Never, ever provoke them. And never, ever try to READ anything WRITTEN by them. Though such an occassion is rare, swerve if you ever see even a hint of such material. Like Vogon poetry or the Dementor’s Kiss, death would definitely be better.

Unfortunately,even after extensive debate by Ami-sociologists, the name of the next category of middle-school amitians has not been decided. Sompe people call them Homo Socialitis, others prefer Garêmï Rüfez while many Ami-sociologists just refer to this category as “Hey! Nice Tie!” [If we knew why, we would know much more about the universe than we do now].  These are the Amitians who are really nice and fun to be with. They try to help others as much as possible, but unfortunately they either shift to another country or die of hysteria gas just when they become really close to you.

And lastly, there are those children who are the unfortunate byproduct of the  effort put in by NCERT, CBSE and the Indian education system. Ask them WHAT ‘imagination’ is and they will say “the faculty of imagining, or of forming mental images or concepts of what is not actually present to the senses.” Ask them WHERE their imagination is and they’ll say that its right there, in their school bag! [They probably mean their dictionary- who cares anyways?] These are those children dedicated to mugging up books, notes, the teacher’s instructions and the stuff that’s written in small font on their pencil boxes. Their rates in schools have alrmingly risen over the past decade and this issue has been popularly voted “The Most Ignored Issue of National Concern”.

So that’s it for our middle school student guide. Rumours have it that the Senior Student Guide is on its way- so stay glued!

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Amity – 2: The Mini-teacher guide

Teachers here in Amity are not those who’ve been picked up directly from the assembly lines – they’re gems altogether. But yes, there are a lot of different species – some may be like Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz who can kill with their poetry and looks – brilliant I must say.

Speaking of the vogons, there is a classic teacher category who’d fit into their criterion, only the fact that the teachers don’t have green rubbery skins and a large domed nose rising above a small forehead. Its just that the forces of evolution have given up on them and then had turned away in disgust and written them off as an unfortunate error. They never evolved again. The fact that they still survived is a tribute to their utter stubbornness. Evolution? Who needs it? This category houses the teachers who’re really back in the days of simple exams, old methods of writing and speaking to memorize and memorizing in general to produce it all on the paper. No new tech, no presentations, nothing. But their methods STILL work. A tribute to their stubbornness indeed.

The others may just be all looks, you know those fit for a swayamvar but not really the best for teaching – they’re just all about looks, that’s it! They’ll always have the best clothes on, the biggest of purses, the makeup which can be used by a whole town together and hairdos which can make them look as if they’re 6 feet plus and had an overdose of Complan when they were young. They’re awesome when you first see them, but the moment they open their mouth, its over. Its just that light travels faster than sound – people appear bright till the moment they start to speak.

The third category of teachers are those who’re the simple yet efficient ones – the ones who actually take sincere pains to teach us everything we need and don’t really bother about how they look – they dress up for school, not for a Page3 party and still look great. And these teachers can be the best people you can talk to. Intellect, wit and everything else – the teachers we all need.

The last category has teachers (a few actually) who have all that the category above mentions and also are teachers who are super friendly with the kids. Teachers who are LIKE the kids – found on Facebook, the latest cellphone, tech savvy and making their subject the most interesting even if its something like History or English Lit. These teachers can make your day – interactive discussions, no boring lectures, lots of joking around etc. Some of them also have their fan groups on Facebook. The complete teachers.

Finally we come to the “bosses”. The top tier of the school, who can be fun if you’re in their good books, or can spell disaster if they don’t like you and you’re caught doing something you shouldn’t have been doing. These teachers have a cool life: they can have the best coffee in school, enjoy an AC that works, and interact with students at the same time! And some do bother getting chocolates for students like us when they go abroad. =D But yes, there are some who can be strict, really strict. They can shout and scream at you till either their throat goes hoarse or your ears goes bust. It might be entertaining for the others, it can be terrifying for the person hearing the ‘talk’.

 

So that’s basically about the teachers. We’ll return with a Student Guide soon!

How We Came About

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun, being orbited by a small blue-green planet.

On this planet lies an utterly mystifying and remarkable little red brick school whose inner workings are so deep, people get their Ph.D.s writing theses on this stuff. But this school has – or rather had – a problem, which was this: most of the people on it were unsatisfied for pretty much of the time because of the lack of a good guide to help them make their way around it. Even the most experienced students were constantly baffled by new things here.  Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but none of these were ever realistic in the slightest sense.

And so the problem remained; lots of the people were confused, and most of them were miserable, including the staff.

Many were increasingly of the opinion that they’d all made a big mistake in being promoted from nursery [Ah! The Blissful years]. And some said that even nursery had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left their homes for any kind of an institution.

And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, someone lazing in front of his computer and alternating between Facebook and Photoshop finally had the idea of making a blog the likes of which no-one had ever seen before. This blog would have student contributors and writers put together all their experience and would serve as the ultimate reference for any Amitian, new to school or not.

Luckily, however, before he could dump this idea into the back of his mind like all the others, he shared it with another nice fellow Amitian.

And the Guide was born.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Amity Saket – 1

DISCLAIMER:

No particular references to schools mentioned below actually refer to them, just that they sound really good to the ears. Written in good spirits, take it the same way.

 

Ahh…the Hitchhiker’s Guide to Amity Saket, where people still consider digital watches to be a pretty neat thing, is really a wonderful place. Although I could never get the hang of Thursdays here (some have been REALLY good, some not so good), the place is surprisingly run by humans, actually great humans and not rats as one might have thought, the masters of this earth. This book is a rather successful one – more famous than the Things to do with a mobile in DPS , better selling than Ways to get good girls in Modern and more controversial than Where Mother’s went wrong, Some of more Modern’s Greatest Mistakes and What is DPS anyway?

The Guide has already supplanted the newsletters as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or atleast wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestions work in two important respects. First, it is free and second it has DONT PANIC written in large friendly letters on its cover. You’d rather NOT panic and save that for the exams.

The Guide will tell you about what’s there in the school, how a newbie can find his/her way around the school and enjoy its ambience without spending a fortune. Oh wait, you won’t really spend a fortune anyways.

Firstly, from the gates, after coming through the King’s Way (or just the security check gate), one can see the topper’s boards (people with 100 in their boards) and going left, you can reach the OAT with its BIG steps and having a swings section attached. Going right from the board and passing the TREE where all meet after school has ended, you will see the BIG ground (ok, no exaggerations, its pretty compact. ) Going straight on our path we reach the canteen. Mind you, the canteen is no ordinary place. Its cheap, tasty and can give you the odd stomach problem (never happened to me ) This is ONE of the ideal bunk zones but is quite high risk seeing the fact that firstly, teachers go to the office and come back, so the canteen’s on the way. Secondly, its right opposite the ground, so the sports teachers can kick some butt if you’re caught.

Going into the school, you have the Amity Wall of fame and the stairs to the first basement, the music room, the ideal hangout zone where we all play music, talk and enjoy. It also has the FAMOUS train where….won’t get into this here! The second basement has the computer labs and the art room where one plays Dirt Bike, CS (sometimes) and just completes their pending assignments. Hot zone before exams. Another hot zone during the exams is the xerox room.

Going to all floors now, the ground floor is relatively safe except for the area near and around the auditorium because that area also hosts our principal and you wouldn’t want to get her all angry if you’re bunking. She’s really sweet, a fun teacher!

First floor is a toughie because the only good place you can go to is the counsellor’s room which is locked most of the times. The floor also has the staff room with a billion teachers and that could spell trouble.

Second floor is really safe. Just the headmistress’ room to be careful about. The rest of the floor is free all the time.

Third floor is tough too. Why? First is the presence of the vice-principal. You don’t want to get her angry or she’s gonna scream at you till her voice goes hoarse. She’s a nice teacher overall but no one likes their students to bunk around and SHE doesn’t really like that. The hideout on the floor? The B.Ed section. Too bad no one’s ever been there. And the last place is the room on the roof, really hot there. So that’s about what you need to survive in school – a map of the whole school with its danger zones and how to avoid them.

There are a few teachers who you MIGHT find scary and difficult to handle. Keep a low profile, do what you’re asked to do and don’t do stuff which the teacher doesn’t like, specially in THOSE classes. You’d be preparing for a big suicide attempt. Most of them are relatively cool and are happy enough if you get your homework on time and fare well in the tests.

More updates in a new post. Coming soon to a blog near you. Oh wait. Its gonna be on aischronicles  itself!

You know you are/were in Amity International, Saket when…

:: DISCLAIMER::
The following write-up was written for the sake of writing. The contents are not meant to HARM anyone or are NOT being used to harass someone. Please take it as a joke… (Or whatever you want to take it like…Honestly)

1. You know CP Ma’am’s speech by heart – “HIP HIP HURRAY”

2. You’re never in proper school uniform.

3. The Eleventh and Twelfth Girls have to wear Salwaar-Kameez and HATE it.

4. Food always gets over before the lunch break.

5. No one ever gets money to the canteen and yet is not ashamed of asking the juniors.

6. Basements still remain the ideal bunk zones and always will.

7. You take part in as many competitions as possible just to be away from the school, even if you have no idea what the competition is all about.

8. You bunk classes saying you have to practice for the upcoming competition and end up loitering around the school.

9. Your total school population is equal to one batch of DPS.

10. Till 2007 you had a nice coordinator called Divya maam.

11. Your school DOES bother taking you to a movie or two once in a while and even picnics. Espescially Manesar !!!

12. Some of your teachers interfere in all your personal issues. And you HATE it!

13. Most of your teachers are sweet and understanding. Amity Saket has some of the best teachers one could get. Really !

14. You trust Meenu maam and Sumedh Sir more than your friends.

15. Your class is the most silent and organized, almost non-existent during Priti/Bandeep Maam’s class.

16. You never have enough chalks in class and and you go to other sections very frequently for “a small piece of “chalk” please !!!

17. Your class has been to the Principal’s/VP’s office at least once and all for the wrong reasons.

18. When you’ve strained your ears to hear what Ritu Ma’am was saying.

19. You sleep/sit on the stairs or the corridors in a group and the teachers have to excuse themselves to pass through and still everyone is least bothered.

20. Lest the Principal comes along, everyone just vanishes then.

21. You run for cover like there’s a bomb scare when you hear the principal shouting at someone nearby!

22. Half the school population wears Reebok or any other sport shoe though we are suppose 2 wear black shoes (Liberty, Glider, Funfoot…do they even exist nowadays??)

23. You crave that your school had a swimming pool. Rather than the Toddlers pool cum Duck Pond.

24. You Always end up doing your H.W.either in the class teacher period or during the classes.

25. Only 10 out of 40 students in a class carry a pen to school and the rest are either borrowing or end up looking for one.

26. You go to the water cooler thinking to grab a glass of water but end up getting wet top to bottom! Thanks to the water fights!

27. You’re hungry, you could eat food from anyone’s lunch box. Some even go to other classes and take food from random bags.

28. You know that getting to the canteen window at recess requires lot of courage due to everyone pushing and crowding around and the guard helplessly looking. Why is he there anyways? As if in his presence , fights don’t happen ?!!!

29. You get caught playing even after the break or you come in late to class after break, you say that you only have 20 minutes of break and start whining.

30. The guys are sent to the nearest barber (in J block market) for a haircut.

31. Most people want to get in the student council for the BLUE tie!!!

32. After the school gets over, you would find half the seniors at Rozana/PVR/Citywalk

33. You write more stuff on others shirts and class desks than you do in your own notebook.

34. You think of going to the library to study but end up gossiping (no silence please).

35. You use the “DIGITAL CORNER” instead of studying in the library.

36. Inside the desks you would find rotten food. Yes that’s very true.

37. Near the reception there is an exhibition of the lost and found property which is for auction – If you see your blazer / tie , etc lying in the cupboard/locker,

38. And sometimes you go to take ties, belts from there so that you can be in proper uniform and put them back later for reuse.

39. You go to the M.I room not because you are ill , but because you want to bunk the class or sleep.

40. 8th graders have had more bf’s/gf’s than their seniors have.

41. 8th, 9th and 10th have been the bestest and enriching years of your school life.

42. Half the teachers are busy eating away before the recess in the staff room.

43. You think Vikas sir is the most sophisticated teacher in the entire school.

44. You greet Sumedh sir (History/Pol. Sc teacher) like he’s your Friend.

45. When Moksha Ma’am passes, You have atleast looked twice at her, smiled and wished you were in study centre.

46. You write Apology letters very frequently and for every vague reason. Eating Food in class, Long hair, bunking(most popular), coming late to school, misbehaving(another popular one), damaging school property (desks chair which are already in a pitiable state).

47. Suspension letters are randomly distributed like leaflets.

48. At the end of the day or week either a chair, table, light, window or a fan is broken!

49. Whenever you have a doubt or problem. Most of you land up to Meenu maam. Your Friend, Guide, Counselor and Savior in disguise of a teacher.

50. You spend all your free time [throughout the entire year] looking forward to the carnival, esp. the Columbus and the JAM!

51. When you know the entire school is on Facebook/Hi5/Orkut. Even the teachers including the Principal. Yes, Now even she can be found here on Facebook.

52. When the school website is so well programmed that it doesn’t open properly on any browser except IE (considering more people use Firefox or opera). The links don’t work, there is no information, and that everything else seems highly uncongenial.

53. It takes YEARS to update the school website.

54. Our school has the worst audio system one could wish for.

55. More than half the USB ports of all the computers in the computer labs are busted along with the systems.

56. When the Computer labs are so stuffy and messy that you keep cribbing about it but can still spend you entire day there.

57. When you enter any of the computer labs at any given time, you can see all the children secretly playing ‘Dirt Bike’ or trying to access social networking and other such sites as they have recently been blocked by managers at Noida….boohoo some of us can *still* access these sites.

58. You love/loved the karate room with the huge large mirror where you could make funny faces and laugh [for a certain creed of students - you like/liked it because you enjoy admiring yourself] !

59. You LIKE sitting right in front of the pandit ji during Havans simply because you like putting ’samagri’ into the fire and having the rare share of laddo meant to be put into the fire.

60. You love observing the ducks (or are they geese?) and feeding the pigeons with scraps of left-over food you don’t want to have, and sometimes you even get to watch people running after the ducks and pigeons yelling “Hurr hurr!”

61. Every morning you gather in the volleyball court to chat and gossip until Raman Sir comes along and shoo’s you away.

.

Special thanks to Rajat Rai Handa [Another Amitian, obviously ] for these points. We would be nowhere without these. No seriously.

Life, the Universe and Just About Everything

Ah, finally… aischronicles is up and running. Well actually it didn’t take me much time, 5 minutes after I got the idea after and voila- we have a Blog. And not just any blog. A blog about the uniquest experiences in the coolest non A/C institutions of them all, Amity Saket! Here is the first aischronicles themed art:

GTA Amity- Sneak Preview

PS: I will be posting a tutorial later