A change

So they finally changed a flavour. And I got to have "Malted Chocolate Fudge". This one's bliss. Let me emphasise again, This one was bliss! 

Random reason - I got a new flavour to try! :D

Dead End

Well the store hasn't renewed the flavours, and I've tasted all that are available. I guess, we'll have to pause this challenge for now! :(( 

Minty Mint

Late last night, I tried Mint Milk Chocolate. I was really dreading this flavour but it turned out to be not that bad. Ofcourse, it tasted a lot like toothpaste, as one of my friends had cautioned. 

Reason : I forgot to brush in the morning! xD

Rolling away in Mississippi Mud!

This is probably THE BEST offered by Baskin robins! The chocolate, the chunks of brownie, everything about it screams Divine! 

I added chocolate chips and for a change had a large scoop! :D 

Reason: Needed energy to walk back home ;) (Taken from the board!)

Splish Splash

Oh my god, I tried the electric blue icecream named Splish Splash! And let me be honest, it is not made for my taste buds! However, there are a lot many people who specifically have this! :O I guess I'll have to develop my taste! :D 

Random Reason - The sky was grey with clouds, I missed the blue!

Day 9

9th Day : I tried a chocolate flavour called "World Class Chocolate". It had portions of vanilla swirled in together with the chocolate. Not exactly "world class" as the name boasts. But, it wasn't too bad either! 

Random Excuse - The ACs didn't function at my gym today! o.O

A new week begins

On Day 8, I went with my dad to the parlour. You see, I really don't want to gain weight right before my birthday, and I had already eaten a few slices from a really cheesy pizza, so I decided to share this icecream with my dad! :D 

This one's Hopscotch Butterscotch! Try saying that really fast. 

Excuse : I could share it with another person, and not gain weight! :D

Bitter Praline

On Day 7 (Yes, a week's over!), I tried Praline and Cream. It had a pretty average, over-creamy taste. I wasn't very "pleased". But, it wasn't all that bad! :) Plus, the thunderstorm and rain outside, made everything bearable. :D 

I've also brought home an icecream cake. *_* 

Random excuse - This ice-cream looked just like honey crunch, I was basically deceived. -_- :P

Come out of your "Cone"

On Day 6 I tried Honey Nut Crunch. And it was amaaaazing! Of course, you have to have a bit of luck by your side so that you get lots of nuts in your scoop! :D

You see, ever since I started exploring new flavours, I've realised that it's okay to come out your shell (*cone*). True, you'll come across things like "Cotton Candy", but you'll also find "Litchi Gold" and "Honey Nut Crunch". 

In simple words, step out of your comfort zone. Take up new adventures. Enjoy the thrill. There's life beyond that little "cone" of yours. Explore. Be Mesmerized. 

It started raining when I was walking back home! <3 

Random Reason to have an icecream - I turn 18 in less than a month! Woo-hoo!

Icecream Overload

Day 5: Fruit Overload 

Oh yum yum yum! The best fruit flavour yet! Tiny colourful embellishments on an otherwise plain colored icecream. It may look simple, but tastes incredible! 

Reason - Dory found her way back home! 

Choc chip mousse - completing goals

On my Fourth Day, I tried Chocolate Chip Mousse flavor of icecream. 

Yes, it's not a very experimental choice.

Yes, it was really good.

No, it DID NOT have chocolate chips! Yeah, that's just bad! :P

Random Reason - I didn't have to hunt for larger sizes at the store today :P

Completing Goals with Litchi Gold

xD

Sorry for that absolutely stupid name for a post. 

Anyways, 3rd day of icecream, and I choose Litchi Gold. :D And contrary to my expectations, it was pretty good! The good thing about fruit icecreams is that you'll always find chunks mingled with cream. Bliss! <3

Ramdomest reason (stolen from the board in the parlour) - I lost my husband at the supermarket. xD

Completing Goals..

#1 Ice Creams

Day 2: Today I tried Alphonso Gold. Subtle yellow colored, smooth, mango-like icecream. As bonus, it had little chunks of mango.

Farrrr better than Cotton Candy. It's actually one of mum's favourite. So, I wasn't unacquainted with the flavour. 

Here's an original picture.

Random Reason - I was just bored! :P

More to come! :D

 

Completing Goals.

#1. Taste all the 31 flavours of ice-cream available at Baskin Robins 

Yesterday, I walked up to the icecream parlour near my house. I looked at all the options available. You see, I have a few flavours of ice-cream that I stick to. You wouldn't find me experimenting with others. So, I always asked for a scoop of Bavarian Chocolate, Mississippi mud or the Belgian one. I never went beyond these few choices. 

However, when you decide to try all flavours, you need to subject your taste buds to a few unpalatable ones! Yikes! And so I decided to try the first one there. It's called "Cotton Candy". It's priced less, for obvious reasons! It tastes sooo sweet, and reminded me of the pink fluffy things that were sold outside my school. They would stick around my mouth. And taste like the most horribly sweet thing in the world!!

The color of the ice cream is Pink with Purple patches. However, I've only seen Pink and White cotton candies. Neverthesless, thanks to the Purple of the ice-cream, my lips were a weird shade of purplish blue after finishing my scoop. :P

I forgot to take a picture of the Ice-cream. I really wanted to. It just makes the whole goal completing thing more fun! :D But, here's a picture I found online for your reference. :D 

I've still got 30 more icecreams to taste. 

Oh, and I've also decided to provide a random reason for eating an icecream. 

So, the reason for eating yesterday's icecream was - I spent 25 minutes on the treadmill, which is 5 minutes more than my usual duration. :D

Carrying a few extra kilos.

You are not fat till being it starts killing you. You are not fat till the adipose starts choking your existence and the cholesterol starts clogging your blood supply. 

How do you differentiate between fat and thin? The basic answer goes like this: You are thin because your collar bones peep out of your shirt or because you've got a mere rib cage for an abdomen. 

And if this is the definition of being "ideal", I refuse to be a part of the bandwagon. 

The world's filled with people suffering from anorexia and bulimia. Apart from genetics, one of the most important reasons behind people suffering from such issues, is low self confidence. And who is responsible for this? The people around them. One doesn't have to be skinny to sport a dress. So what if the curves show through a tight fitted LBD? Does that make you inhuman? You don't have to have worked out abs to don a crop top. There's a reason why companies manufacture larger sizes. If ALL people weren't meant to wear them, they wouldn't have been made in the first place! 

People will say. They'll talk. Not just behind your back but on your face. The best way to deal with that? Be confident. Are you dying because you happen to have a few extra pounds? Is it making you less courageous, less smart, less beautiful from within? If the answer to these questions is "No", then don't pay heed to what anyone says. You're just fine the way you are. You don't have to change as long as you're healthy. If others have a problem, let them. You can't change someone's opinion. You can't change what people think, or how poorly they do. 

It's your life in the end and you only have to be HAPPY.

Realities of PMT-2016

First of all, I'm still not sure whether it's NEET 2016 or AIPMT 2016, and that's weird because I gave the test on Sunday, 1st May. Let's just stick to AIPMT 2016.

For the last two years, I had been studying for AIPMT 2016. The OMRs at coaching institutions have this space which asks your target exam. I always bubbled AIPMT 2016, only to realise two days before the "D-Day" that it has got a new name! :O 

It's not exactly a very big issue because I stay in a state that stopped conducting the state pmt two years ago. But, there was SO much confusion! We were going nuts!! Will the exam be conducted at all? Are we supposed to give two stages? What about the other exams? (We don't know the answer to the last question as yet). To be honest, this whole confusion could've been avoided. I don't know how the Supreme Court works, but I'm pretty sure this issue could've been discussed months ago! 

After the shocking cheating incidents that took place last year (leading to RE-AIPMT 2015), it seems like the conducting authorities have lost faith in students! We were not allowed to take bottles, pens, had to follow a strict dress code and were subjected to a good amount of frisking at the centres. 

The one major issue I had was the unavailabilty of drinking water. There was no person who would come to class periodically to provide us with water. In many centres, students were supposed to get up and go out to quench their thirsts midway through probably the MOST important exam of their lives. 

As for the analysis of the paper, I'm going to let official sites of Allen, Aakash and Resonance guide you. ;) 

Well, it's all over and I'm sure it comes as a huge respite to all of us preparing after a lot of hardwork!

Halfway through Boards 2016

It's the 6th of March, which means that I've already answered roughly a hundred questions or more (including the bits and all). I've got another three to go and more than half a month for that. God, this is long. Well on the other side of this, I've got my FINAL Pre medical preparations, so I really shouldn't complain much! ;)

I'm really not going to provide an insight into the Board papers of 2016 or give you a detailed analysis with pie charts and graphs between difficulty level and number of questions in each category. You've got plenty of other sites for that! :P

Did you know the answer booklet has 32 pages. 32!! Well, I used all of them for Physics and ten less for English. Oh, yes, I do keep an account of that. In fact my personal diary (which only has 10 pages filled so far) contains the code and set number of my question papers. xD

Before the boards, we had our practicals. "Practical" is just a fancy new term synonymous with useless cramming, faking and team work! I am serious. All we got to do is cram up the Laboratory Manuals and do a little bit of fake experimenting. It's fake 'cause the external examiner hardly ever cares to look,  fake because we've seen the same bottles and salts a milion times, and fake because, c'mon, we don't even do it properly. The popular notion is if you can write it, you're going to be just fine. It doesn't matter if you get a Red Sea instead of a Blue Lake so long as you can WRITE 10 other tests for Aluminum cation without performing them. Actually, you don't even have to do anything at all! Why? 'Cause it's the biggest platform for exhibiting your skills of working together as a team. I've had to help absolute nut cases who don't even know what the aim of the experiment is! I mean, seriously?!

Well, I can't really do anything but complain. There is this incredible Terribly Tiny Tale on the Indian Education System. I can't find it right now, but you should really look for it. I think it's on the word "change", not very sure. 

Well, that's about it. The myth about practicals busted. There are a lot of other things that are yet to be discussed. It's just that times are a bit hectic. Slow and steady ;)

Life of a Pre-Med student

Alert: You can relate to this post if you happen to be a student preparing for one of the few competitive exams in India. Also, you're about to be exposed to a whole lot of cribbing and whining. Bear with it. 

It's the 20th of February, 2016. Siri says it's a pleasant day outside. The sun's shining bright and the temperature is neither too high nor too low. Just perfect. 

How do I care? The temperature for me is what the room temperature thermometer shows (it's perpetually stuck at 27 degrees celcius ever since I remember). The only bright light that I get is the one provided by my ever glowing 40 watt Philips tubelight (@Philips, you can sponsor my blog, just saying!) and it's only as pleasant as it has been for the last two years. 

Hello! My name is Manya. I'm a 12th standard student. Preparing for one of the "toughest examinations", the Pre Medical Test, 2016. Well, to be honest, one cannot simply prepare for just PMT! It's just that we say it this way 'cause it sounds cool and very much like the ones who say that they're preparing for IIT (Truth is they're preparing for a lot more other exams too!). 

I've been trying to make myself a place in this rat race for the last two years. You know how guys from books and television say about life being a roller coaster ride? Well, if you want a first-hand experience, get into this world. You'll have your ups and downs. Your bouts of depression (a hell lot of it) and joy! There will be points you score and points you lose. 

For those who're just beginning, let me tell you, it's going to be a lo-million Os-ng journey. But there will come a time, maybe the 20th of February 20xy, when you'll realise that it is truly coming to an end. That the other side is almost visible. 

Look, let's be honest, when you read these blogs about "how to prepare for PMT", you get a hell lot of advice about "making short notes, revising everyday" and blah blah blah. But, if you're really serious, you already know all this stuff. What you don't know is what you should know. 

If you've somehow, by some chance of luck, reached my blog and you happen to be one of my kind, I think you're in for what really preparing for a competitive exam means. Any competitive exam. Since I'm approaching the finish line of my little race, I may not be very regular right now. But, yes, this is one thing that I'm definitely going to do. I'm going to take you through this journey and tear down every stupid myth ever heard (Spoiler Alert : This has a lot to do with boards!). 

Be a little patient. I promise to be back.

Till then, keep working hard. 

"You're most tempted to quit when you're closest to your calling". - Anonymous

"Khao, piyo, mast raho." - Mom xD (Translation: Eat, Drink, Stay jolly!)