This post is just an attempt to restart my blog, I deleted my old posts because I wanted a fresh start. If you are one among my ten benevolent followers you might have noticed the slight change in the website address. You can now access this site directly by typing my name and adding a ‘.com’ to the end of it instead of pulpymasala.wordpress.com.

And as you can notice this blog is still a work in progress in terms of design and customization, so sorry if the design and layout feels a little weird, I figured I’d fill this blog up with a couple of posts first and then think about the look of this blog, that way it’s also a more accurate way to know what the blog will look like, because it’s difficult to gauge the design when there’s no posts.

I bought this domain because this way the blog feels professional, and it also works for me as a smack in the head to take this seriously and push me to write. It’s almost 3 a.m. as I am writing this, I had been feeling low yesterday because my classes were supposed to start, but my department postponed it to the 20th, they did however send me a couple of documents and called it a ‘welcome kit’ so that it would seem appealing, but no matter how you disguise it it’s still a bunch of PDFs, and Word documents which instantly triggers memories of past trauma with online classes and loads of assignments. This ‘welcome kit’ had course descriptions of the courses I will be having in my first semester, and a PowerPoint presentation about the grade allotment system, the ppt was made with red color and bold font, this was either tone-deafness by whoever made it, or a sick way of making us feel more intimidated about the grades.

The courses that were offered to me this semester seemed fine, except one course which is Audio/Video production, the course description mentioned the need for a laptop and mobile phone, and also described the things that are supposed to be taught to us, and these involved camera angles, video editing, audio recording and shooting. This annoyed me further because this whole course is the kind that requires practical experience, and teaching that doesn’t involve someone instructing you through your laptop screen. This is making me wonder if this whole course is going to be slapdash, because pandemic has terribly messed up traditional classrooms anyway, and this is the kind of course that can’t really be taught online, is my department merely trying to rush through the semester? And if this pandemic situation gets worse, is this going to be the case with me for this entire academic year? or worse will my entire postgraduate experience will be done online? Maybe I am sounding too entitled, but it’s so sad how people getting into new universities or colleges are missing out on the ‘fresher’ experience- a new place, new people, new experiences. With this pandemic, it’s just going to be the same boring bedroom, but new faces, and these new faces will be of new professors, who are well, still professors. There’s barely going to be any interaction with new batchmates, everyone’s already too tired of online conversations (or is it just me?) and online conversations are no replacement for real life interactions.

If there’s one thing I am seriously hoping would occur after this pandemic is for people to finally get tired of staring at their phones and finding interest in socializing with people in the old school and natural way – vis-a-vis. Which is ironic because the department I joined into is about digital media and that’s basically a subject on what and how to keep people hooked to their screens.

Anyway, I will keep you posted and will let you know if I come across anything interesting.

Thanks for reading! and Welcome to my blog (again!).