Adios Orkut!

You have 3 new scraps, 2 friend requests and one new fan!

Does this kind of a notification sound familiar? Or do we know only likes, comments and wall posts?

I am not sure how many of my readers have used Orkut or if any of you will miss it when it shuts down on September 30^th. It was the first experience of social networking that I had. Finding old friends , writing scraps and rating friends were all favorite things to do.

Your popularity went a notch higher with the number of fans you had or the cool ratings you got! * Blame the hormones man :P* The scraps turned out to be like chat windows * Damn, my orkut scraps are so embarrassing now that I can’t help wonder what an idiot I was then :D .Not that things have changed massively now: P *

Making new friends through mutual friends was common .Orkut was in fact our first play ground where we started stalking. But it wasn’t sneaky initially *Sigh it was quite, late by the time I realized that Orkut gives each of its users the names of the users who view their profiles unless you deactivate your privacy settings* But nevertheless stalking people was an interesting past time *Oh please! Save the look! All of us did/still do it :P*

It was the new shiny website which we got attracted to! I remember wondering what  xoxo ,tc ,hf,muah, and umpteen other abbreviations were at one point of time. Slowly it became a part of life but I guess we were less obsessed by it unlike Facebook these days. I mean we didn’t have to like each other’s pictures or comments, we didn’t necessarily scream out to the world when we were having lunch or visiting fancy hotels but we still kept in touch with our far flung friends * I know not all of us do it ,but there’s still a vast majority who do. I mean no offence to anyone who is very socially active :P* .I am sure, had Fb not taken over the social networking arena  Orkut would have brought in these features.

 Friends poured out all the love in their hearts through testimonials which brightened our days. It gave us the sheer joy of connecting with old friends , stalking on our crushes, reading feel good testimonials  and then one fine day Facebook replaced its hot spot!

Walls became definitely cooler than Scraps ,Pokes more fun than Fans,Albums and Tagging replaced photo sharing   and we all quickly gave our ‘likes’ of approval to Fb . That’s exactly when Orkut started becoming a memory.With this fast paced life where we quickly adopt new technology , Orkut was replaced very soon in a way that we hardly ever go back to it . *If Twitter was active when Orkut was forgotten a new hash tag trend would have been created : #RIPOrkut #FbFTW .*

                                

This post was for the generation who advanced from Orkut to Facebook and still remembers fondly the initial days of introduction to social networking *And all the stupidity we did then :P*. If you guys also have such memories share them with me. 

Till my next post,keep smiling*friendly glee *and have fun . 

OMG !! It's Board Exams :O

It’s been long since my last post and it’s high time I wrote a new post and here it comes!

 Oh it was  the last day of the shortest month in the calendar and this day has been a nightmare for me during two years once in 2007 and the other in 2009,reason Board exams * I can already sense a feeling of solidarity from my readers: D *.

Before I unravel the misery of my board exams, I will tell you about my ignorance towards this pressure point date. Having an elder sibling in the house who has been through it before equips both your parents and your sibling with unfathomable expertise on the subject. And clearly when my sister wrote her first boards in 10^th and fretted a bit about her exams, me being  the primary school kid - was laughing at it * yes, quite a pain in the neck sister I was, my sister still strongly feels that way! :P!*

And belonging to a family where academics is given high priority, it’s an unspoken rule that you need to score good marks*yeah that’s the scenario at almost every house!* .This is the score card at home:

·         90 % and above is extraordinary- You will be suffocated with love, surprises and what not! All this is hypothetical coz I haven’t ever got there!:D

·         85 % above is very good – You get lesser benefits than the above one but still can’t complain :P

·         80% - 85% we are satisfied but you could do better – in this situation I will be under scrutiny over why the marks went down.

·         Below 80%- I really don’t want to write it here: P and I have been in there quite a few times!

So when I was in 10^th, pretty much my school, parents and friends were enough to make me understand the seriousness of Board exams. The scary stories of my answer sheets being evaluated by some teacher in some corner of India and that they might not understand my handwriting*oh yeah my handwriting is worse than the one on a doctor’s prescription:D*,then the nightmare of not attaching the graph sheets, followed by my sisters expert advice that I should use black ,blue  ink, underlining, writing in points so on and so forth!

And one of my best friends in school was also the topper of my batch, so you can imagine my state.  She would be well prepared, all set for the exam and I will be looking for my text book just then! She used to get a little nervous and that was my cue that I am totally underprepared! She was a positive influence I must say * Thank you J *!

So after all the model exams conducted by my school which is like the toughest exam you could give before facing boards coz it will make you feel like an idiot and that you don’t even have a chance of getting 80 percent in boards *yeah, those model exams are meant to scare you and make us work harder *!

Eventually, I  actually started studying only in February making up a plan and trying hard to follow it. That was my month of hibernation; I like to think of it like giving my brain breathing space for the rest of the year and making it work under pressure for just two months! Its effective, at least for me:D*My mom hates that though! Consistency is her motto! *

                                   

My dad pretty much gave me the end rule – I expect you to score well-I don’t care how you do it!

So Feb 28, was the last day before exams when everyone’s worried and wondering how the exams are going to be. It’s also the day I analyzed how effective my planning for Feb has been * I ain’t going to tell you how successful it was*. Both in my 10^th and 12^th grades  Feb 28^th was filled with good luck wishes and calls from near and dear ones who seemed more worried than me! And their constant advice – Don’t get tensed, you’ll forget what you learnt so just relax and go and the best part is revise all that you learnt!  I so wanted to tell them that, firstly I need to know something to forget when I get tensed and secondly that “Revision” is something I can ever find time to do because to revise you need to learn first, which I do only last minute hence I combine learning and revision together *multi tasking:P* . And I am sure that Feb 28 is one of the busiest days for the Gods as he/she will be bombarded with lot of prayers from fretting kids, and anticipating parents &teachers.

This blog post is to all the students who are writing their board exams and to all those who have been through this pressurizing experience: P. And this is just a funny take on these exams from a person who underwent the grueling CBSE Board exam experience and did pretty ok in terms of grades *grueling is a hard word,I would say over accentuated*

All the very best to all those who are writing examsJ. Do your best and you will pass with great grades J.And finally don’t get tensed, after all its not the end of the world and board exams are pretty over hyped! And one of my favorite things to do in my exam halls were to smile at my examiners as they will be all serious *Boards duh!* and they also expect us to be tensed. By smiling at them they would come make conversation and help me get into ease :D *Please do not try this unless you can make meaningless social small talk :D ,coz else it will be plain awkwardness *

Till my next post keeeep smiling and have lots of fun J .And don’t forget to share your memories of your exams  J.

Live life Carpe diem  ;) *oh yeaah!I am using fancy vocabulary!Thats just a new word I learned ,it means  Enjoy the present !