My first day in UoG

As every good thing comes to an end, inevitably this wonderful time that I spent in Glasgow had to end and so it did. But nevertheless left behind some very precious and cherishing memories that would be treasured in my heart for the rest of my life. First tings first. lets see how it all started ...........

My first day in UoG, 22^nd September 2011, yes I was a couple days late and probably the only two classes that I missed in the entire year. So, my first day, a bit nervous as I walked into the mammoth structure of the University of Glasgow main building. I met AMT and with that glittering smile of her's, she guided me to room 250 in the Gilbert Scott Building, a class with students from all corners of the world, was expected to be so, but could never imagine how it would be without actually experiencing it. I was all set for my first ever encounter with such a multi-ethnic class. As I looked around I saw unfamiliar but friendly faces, and things gradually started switching from nervousness to excitement. I walked down to the second last row and sat beside a tall no actually very tall guy. The Big Bastian, eventually the first one in the class I interacted with. Helpful as he is, he passed on the slide copies and directed me to the proceedings of the class. Guess I had made a friend already J. So the class went on and emotions within me started to calm down. Things were different -  the teaching pattern, use of electronic medium, and even before I could come to terms with what was happening, Prof. Marian Jones calls me up and says I shall be injected into one of the groups for the course work (now as I was late, the groups were already formed and I was to be adjusted somewhere). So she finally assigns me to Group 5. As she asked the members of the group to raise hands so that I can know who I am with, a reluctant hand in the first row went up in rather discontent (probably I wasn’t quite wanted). But then it was to be and I got into my first group to start with.

After a while we had a recess and we all went down to the café to grab some food. It was quite good, had a very few veggie options though. Here I got a chance to interact with a few of my classmates. A brisk inttro with all and we went back to the class and this time with another new student entering along. It was hmmmmmmm Li or Tmac or Tracy ah whatever. I sat with him this time at the front right hand corner and I made this second friend J. Time went by at rocket speed or may be because it was so eventful a day that i could not keep pace with time. Finally the class got over and I was about to leave when the apparent ‘C.E.O’ of my group calls me from behind and informs that we are supposed to have a group meeting right away. Cool, so be it. Hence, we, a group of six, i.e. Andy, Anand, Lili, Madina, Poornima and me, walked back to the café where the meeting was scheduled. Guess I was really lucky to have been a part of the team as in spite of entering an already formed group, I gelled in quite easily (would like to thank them all for accepting the cranky). After a brief discussion we called it day, and we dispersed back home.

 The day wasn’t yet over though as I had to meet yet another classmate of mine, not in the class but at the corridor of the place I was living in. While walking back to my room I came across this guy, with a lot of shopping bags, struggling near the lift, trying to make his way into the Flat. We started moving together and to our greatest astonishment, we eventually entered the same flat. The best thing that could happen, I was to stay with my classmate – Fahd. Had a bit of a chat and then entered our respective rooms. Guess what? right adjacent to each other J. Third friend I guess. So an eventful day thus came to an end, a perfect start to a perfect year that was in store for me. 

Has Man succumbed to Technology?

If I remember correctly, it was class four, our first computer class and the first thing my teacher told us was - “computer is the dumbest servant. It does what you tell it to do, follows your command blindly and has no intelligence of its own.” So basically man had made a machine which would follow what s/he says and would do the task thus ‘ordered’. Technology, machines, gadgets were all made by human for its convenience, betterment and accuracy in work but of late things seems to have changed. With recurring growth in technology, high dependence of man on machine has somewhat generated an inferiority complex in humans.  All of a sudden people have started questioning their own intelligence and capabilities when compared to these inventions.

Recently I came across this random event whereby there would be a tea time discussion on the fact that ‘is your smart phone smarter than you?’ This event made me think of the situation where we are almost giving up in front of technology, which, not to be forgotten, has been developed by man. It might just be a random get together having some casual talk about the matter. But the whole idea of discussing over the given topic of whether the smart phone is smarter than man himself, does leave a spark in my brains which suggests that somewhere or the other may be at the farthest corner of the heart but man do today feel that technology is overtaking his intelligence. Now, this is just one f the many such events happening around us. One basic example can be the promotional activities of Google. Every now and then we come across phrases like – ‘if your name is not google, stop behaving as if you know everything’ or may be ‘the only thing google has failed to do till now is, fail!’. This certainly demands a lot of thought to be put in. For something which was made by us for our convenience and betterment of work to overdo us, this fear in man’s life can be dreadful. May be in this case it’s a marketing proposition by these smart phone manufacturers or even on other instances a marketing gimmick to promote their product but somewhere somehow such a promotional pattern can strongly effect human psychology and for no good.

This kind of an ideology, according to me can probably have one of the two repercussions. Either we will try to uplift our morals and test our abilities and intelligence every now and then which shall make us even better and proficient. On the contrary (rather what is actually happening) we shall succumb to the technology and accept the fact that we are nowhere in competition with machine. This would make us more and more dependent on them rather than believing in ourselves. Why do we tend to forget that the smart phone thus made with all those features is still made by man, or all the information we find on google is filled in there by man. It is not the site or the machine that works or does things it is made to do things and man makes the machine do it. I am not against growth in technology but I would just want to rephrase what Sir George Barnard Shaw once said – Man maketh machine, machine does not maketh man. 

Punctuality is no conformity

‘You are late man, you missed the bus.’ This is a common statement made by people to justify that if we are not on time me will miss the happening. But in the last couple of days I with three of my friends (Riku, May and Pink) experienced something completely dramatic which proved that you can miss the bus even if you are well ahead of time.

It all started on this Monday as we planned to visit the isles of Arran for cycling along the shores on a sunny day. The biggest concern to start with was that, everybody reaches the station on time to catch the train (which was supposed to leave at 8.34 A.M.).  To our greatest astonishment, all four of us were at Glasgow central station by 8:20. Well ahead of the time. We moved up to platform 12 from where the train was scheduled to leave for Ardrossan Harbour. So we were all standing in front of the train on platform 12, waiting for the gates to open and allow us in. Meanwhile, Riku narrated his past experience, where he along with a couple of friends was to go to the same place and missed the train by a whisker and thus had to catch the other one which stops a couple of stations ahead of our destination and then they took a cab from there to the harbour. While we were busy laughing out on the silly mistake of him and his friends, all of a sudden he stops and points towards this moving  train right behind the one we were waiting to enter and exclaims the tragic words “why does the sign on the train say Ardrossan Harbour?”. We thought he was kidding us but no….. it actually did, though being well ahead of time we had missed the train!! As they say ‘History repeated itself’ and we had to catch the other train to Ardrossan beach, waiting right across on platform 11 (as if it was positioned knowing exactly what was to happen).

Well we got down at Ardrossan Beach at about 9:26 and were still on time to catch the ferry which was to leave at 9:45. We rushed to the cab, and asked the driver to zoom in to the harbour so that we can catch the scheduled ferry. While blazing down the road, there it was, a bright ‘red light’ at the signal, but we stopped for barely a few seconds as it turned green, now the car in front could not start until the signal turned red again. No big deal, you can’t blame the driver, it’s a machine, can break down (arrrrrrggghhhh). Anyway the signal turned green again and we moved ahead. We reached the harbour exactly at 9:45, only to hear a rude man saying “you have missed it, wait for the next one.” No! not again, within a timespan of about 2 hours, this was the second time we missed out on the vessel even being on time. Then suddenly a voice from behind says “alright open the gates, let them in “.  ‘Yes!’ We exclaimed in joy and went on board as every passenger gazed at us ready to pounce.

Now things looked good as we thought luck was on our side and from therein nothing should go wrong (maybe we were too early to reach to such a conclusion). So were landed at Brodick, and as ‘Planed’, hired the bikes to go about the Island. We were to cycle for about 30 Kms which according to our captain (riku) was uphill in the start while ‘eventually’ we shall be going downhill which would be a lot of fun. Almost midway, we were to stop at the Whiting Bay to take a dip in the ocean and freshen up. ‘As per the plan’ we should be done with all of it by 6.30 P.M., return the bikes and there after catch the last ferry which leaves at 7:20. Sounds good but knowing how things were shaping up since morning, ‘Plan’ was something we were rather scared of. Somehow we reached Whiting Bay at 5:30 and had an hour at the beach from where we planned to take a bus to the harbour. At 6:20 we were done with the refreshing beach party and were all set at the bus stop. The bus arrives on time, the door opens, ready to embrace us but then a person who happens to be sitting on the driving seat says, “No bikes on the bus” (what? are you out of your mind? where do leave these then, you junky bloody a*****e). He gives a damn, shuts the door and leaves. Now what? The next bus is at 7:00, even if we get on that we shall never be on time – fantastic !! it happened all over again, we are on time, but we miss the bus.

We get on the next bus leaving the bikes behind, hoping against hope that the ferry would be a half an hour late (I don’t think that was unreasonable on our part? : p). But we reach the harbour to find out that we have missed the last ferry by quite a distance. Disgusted as we stood outside the harbour, God’s Own Angel or should I say Pink’s ‘My man’ walks out of the ticketing office and guess what his name was – John ‘Devine’. We tell him the problem and looking at our pitiful faces, he enchants, ‘not an issue, come down tomorrow anytime and I shall validate your tickets (which were same day return) so that you can use them tomorrow as well”

Nevertheless, ‘we still had not had enough’. So we were to stay there for yet another day and explore more. (No, not even in our dreams were we going for another cycling round) We hired a car and went on the exploration. Well not to describe the journey which was rather fabulous, lets come down to the topic. So we were to return the car at 5:30 and catch the second last ferry this time at 6:00 (giving ourselves an option to catch the last one if we miss this). As usual we were way ahead of time and unusually, this time the ferry was late by about half an hour (if only this happened yesterday). Finally we get on board and move to Ardrossan harbour to catch the train at 8:30. We were at the harbour at 7:30 well ahead again, so we thought “no point wasting time sitting at the station lets go grab a pint each” (brave hearts, one must say).  While having this pint we suddenly realise it’s well about time and the train was already there on the platform. This brought us to the perfect end of the trip as we ran for our lives to get on to the train before we could miss yet another one.

All I can say is, being punctual is good, but doesn’t mean that you will certainly get what you are there for. But yeah was fun and adventurous, looking forward to yet another similar trip where ‘history would repeat itself’.