#I went home and studied for a cse exam after this

[talesfromthetraproom]

The Stage Techs Play Electrician for a Day, and Encounter the Wall That Eats All Things

Setting:

Concert Hall. 12 noon (the trouble apparently began before this, but I came in at 12 because my morning involved falling asleep in a computer science lecture and getting my toilet fixed).

Cast:

The student crew (Me)

The union crew (Grumpy, Twin, and Loud)

The supervisors (PM, LX, and Video)

Today's Tale Brought to You By:

A Highly Suspicious Amount of Silence

An Overengineered Game of Snakes and Ladders

The Prospect of Spiders

Really Bad Building Design (and No One is Surprised)

The object of the game: take these ethernet cables, and run them from one side of the audience to the other through the wall that separates the grand tier from the orchestra. Shouldn't be too difficult, right? Right? Wrong. When I arrived on the scene, Video, Loud, and Twin were already mostly defeated and staring at the wall like they might suddenly develop XRay vision.

Several Hours and a Multitude of Plan Bs later, we have the following collection of highlights (in no particular order):

Twin: "Quit telling me about the habitat preferences of venomous spiders when I have my hand shoved halfway up an electrical box!" Me: "I thought the warning both timely and necessary, excuuse me"

LX: [Shop Teacher], you have to understand that University students are complete idiots. Not you though, Wynn. Me (flipping him off over my shoulder): You still wouldn't trust me with a welder, to be fair. Shop Teacher: I would! LX: You shouldn't. She frequently threatens to murder people.

Video: "While I truly appreciate that PM found our missing conduits, is no one going to point out that he also ripped the entire cable box out of the wall? No? Just me? Is anyone thinking about how the cable box is gong back into the wall? No? Just me?"

Loud: "I suddenly feel the need to point out that I told you I could rip this box apart. At absolutely no point did I tell you that I could put it back together and I am in no way liable for what PM decides to do with that information."

Video: "Hey LX. Can we cut one of your network cables and use it as a guide wire?" LX: "That would be an incredibly expensive mistake." Video: "On the contrary I'm willing to bet it's about the least expensive mistake we've made today."

PM: "What's going on out here? Wynn said my presence was requested, and I believe she used the word 'shitshow' so it's gotta be serious." Loud: "Yeah. How mad would you be if we cut a slightly larger hole in this wall?"

LX: "Wynn, go turn off the footlights before PM blinds himself. They're the switch backstage that is labelled 'DO NOT TURN OFF'. Don't give me that look."

PM: "Hey Wynn you have little hands, come feel around behind this box and see if you can find the conduit." LX: "What, so we can now have two cables, a broken pull line, the retrieving snake, and Wynn's arm stuck in the wall???" PM (ignoring him): "Out of curiosity, when was your last tetanus shot?"

LX: "Oh Grumpy? Watch out for the fire alarm sensors up there, an evacuation is the last thing we need today. They're white and look like laser emitte-" *BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.* LX: "....yeah. Those ones." There are certain perks to being located directly across the street from the University Emergency Services building.

In the end and thanks to dumb luck, we did get the cable run all the way through the wall and out the other side. The concert hall, rather than being recording-ready for tomorrow, rather looks like a tornado went through the grand tier. LX got absolutely nothing done that he needed to do today. Half of the face plate screws went missing in the chaos. But I got away with only a few scrapes on my arms, and nobody encountered venomous spiders (though I'm not sure Twin will ever forgive me for that one). I think we all learned a few lessons, and gained a new level of respect for our fellow tradesmen.

[naveenkumarchandra]

MY UPSC CSE INTERVIEW

Some interesting questions and events.

UPSC CSE interview is one of those events that have reached a level that is almost of mythological and folklore proportions. By which I mean that talk to anyone and all of them have a version of their own about the thing from how to go about it to what happens in an UPSC CSE interview.

I gave 2 attempts and having faced the board twice, getting a decent score twice and a rank, twice, I think I can tell you a bit more than hearsay.

UPSC CSE interviews are very famous for being unpredictable and can easily surprise you. They are truly based on a syllabus which covers “everything under the sun and beyond.” I had a similar experience, as in, some of the questions asked to me were truly out of this world and beyond my expectations. In both my interviews, I was asked certain questions, though completely understandable and legitimate, I was not expecting. One of them was, the very first question. Having given many mocks, I was, like everyone, used to answering basic questions, from the background, education, family, past experience etc at the beginning and only after that does the board get into the details of the DAF. But, to my absolute surprise, the very first question asked to me, was, in my first interview was, “Tell me Gandhiji’s economic philosophy in one word”. Now, it might seem tough even in a written exam but to have it as your opening question on the day of your actual personality test was just something else. Imagine expecting a question like, “Tell me the meaning of your name” or “Why did you go to IIT if it was IAS you wanted” or “What are your hobbies” and getting this instead.

I was surely in a state of shock for exactly 3–4 seconds, I did regain my senses and took a deep breath and smiled. Having studied Gandhiji and his philosophy in my preparation, I gave the answer and they were satisfied with it. Now, the question is perfectly legitimate and the interviewer had many reasons to ask it, from Political Science being my optional to Reading being my hobby, from Gandhiji having a profound impact on almost every aspect of Indian existence to this being an UPSC CSE interview and Gandhiji’s value being a driving force of all public services and much more. But, it was still a surprise for a first question.

But this made me ready for just anything.

I clearly remember that in my second attempt, one gentleman from the North East, he himself told me later in the interview, asked me around 25 questions on football, it being the sport I have loved and played and also mentioned in the DAF. He asked me questions like, “Who were the finalists in the World Cup held in 1974?”, “Who is credited with inventing Tiki-Taka?” etc This was such an amazing and fulfilling spell as I was prepared for all of this, and not just because of the interview but being a football lover I have over the years read so much about football that these questions were a pleasure for me to answer.

Another instant from the interview which comes to my mind was from my second attempt, but a brief background first. The Chairman of my interview board was Shri B.S. Bassi, IPS (Retd.) and it was a coincidence that the chairman of my first interview board was also him. Now, it happens rarely but it does. He had given me good marks the last time so as soon as I entered the room, I gave a slight sigh of relief, as human nature would have anyone doing it. I still wonder sometimes if he recognised me but that look he gave did say, “oh, I have seen home before.” But, I can’t say it for certain. So, I sat down and after the chairman and a few others have asked their questions, I was asked, “Can you name a few Polymers used in Space?”. Now, Polymer Science is my graduation subject and so this was not a big deal. But, I took a pause to recollect my thoughts, as I didn’t want to just blurt out the first few names that came into my mind. But as I was naming them and their use, Bassi sir intervened, “Come in, that’s not used in space, that’s not good enough for Earth”, apparently referring to one of the polymers I named. Now, when your interview is going smoothly and suddenly you have the chairman intervene, you know it’s not normal, that’s too him saying something which is against what you were saying, more reasons to get worried. But, I was confident and said, “Sir, I am sure that it is used in space exploration vehicles.” He said, “okay, if you are sure then I might be wrong.” I am sure that he was testing if I was confident about what I was speaking and how early do I give up on my answer, a factual one, from my field of study. Anyways, it went well and he gave me good marks in my second interview as well.

Now, there is lesson for all the aspirants here. Mocks are good but then it’s your presence of mind and your calm that makes you sail through the interview.

[remoonusarchive]

a thing called love;

Most men are like me, they struggle and doubt They trouble their minds day in and day out Too busy with living to worry about A little word like love But when I see a mother's tenderness As she holds her young close to her breast Then I thank God that the world's been blessed With a thing called love

Summary: Snippets from each summer between Hogwarts years, exploring Remus’ muggle education and relationship with his parents. Self-para; closed

1972

Only his dad was there to meet him off the Hogwarts Express. Remus wasn’t surprised but it meant he didn’t want to take too much time saying goodbye to his friends because Lyall had always been more wary than Hope over Remus having close friends. He settled for a smile and wave to each James, Sirius and Pete before he took Lyall’s proffered arm and was take side-along apparition with a crack. He hadn’t made an effort to befriend anybody else that first year.

They apparated straight into their back garden where Hope was lounging in a garden chair, a cigarette between her fingers. Music Remus didn’t recognise drifted out through the open kitchen window. It must be a new album.

“Remus bach, cariad! How was it? Tell me all.”

And he did. As he talked, the Welsh accent that had mostly faded over the course of the year came back in strength and his eyes lit up as he described each of his classes. Lyall went inside with a mutter about it being cold, but Remus barely noticed. It was his mam he wanted to tell about Hogwarts.

“And you have friends?” Hope asked, taking out another cigarette.

“I do,” Remus said his eyes distractedly fixed on the spent cigarette butts in the ash tray. “Mam, can I try one now?”

“Remus, we’ve talked about this before. When you’re older.”

“I’m fourteen, I am. I’ve seen pictures of you smoking at fourteen.”

“Oh, that’s true, like.”

“Hope!” Lyall’s sharp reproach came from the kitchen.

“I mean, what the fuck, Remus, you’re fourteen, of course you can’t have a cigarette,” Hope said.

“Hope.”

This time, Hope frowned and lowered her voice so her husband wouldn’t hear from in the house. “What did I do?”

“You said fuck,” Remus told her, “but it’s okay, that just made me look cooler at school.”

“You’re cool anyway, fy machgen i. So your friends?”

“Yeah! James and Sirius and Peter. I share a dorm with them. We share with another boy, Gideon, but I didn’t talk to him as much, I guess. I just tagged on with the other three, really.” Or maybe ‘was dragged along with’ would be a more representative phrasing.

“And… do they know…?”

“No.” Remus shook his head vehemently and didn’t offer up the fact that sometimes he worried that they were suspicious of where he went each month.

Hope sat back in clear relief. “Well how about you take that trunk of yours upstairs and unpack. You can relax the rest of this week and we’ll start lessons on Monday.”

“Lessons?”

“Just because you’ve gone to Hogwarts, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t study for O Levels. I want you to have all the chances you can when you leave school and that might be easier in the Muggle world.”

Remus nodded. It made sense, and he supposed that it wasn’t like they were going on holiday like so many of his classmates. At least school would pass the time.

1973

She had caved this year. They were in the garden, smoking and studying an Atlas. It was all official, now: Remus was registered as a home-schooled student who would take his O Levels in the summer of ‘74, as soon as he returned from Hogwarts. He would be taking English, Welsh, Maths, Science, Latin and Geography and a CSE in Art. Not History, as he sometimes confused what the muggles knew about and what they didn’t and not any other subjects as they didn’t have the time to go in enough depth.

“Was it really okay?” Hope asked.

Remus looked up from his work. He had thought they weren’t going to talk about it but perhaps Hope had just been waiting until Lyall was at work. He took a drag before he replied, “It really was. They were great. I told you they worked it out, but they didn’t go and tell anybody else. Well, except talking to each other about it, I guess, but nobody else. They promised they wouldn’t tell anyone else. And then when they told me they just said I was still their friend and it was fine. Nothing really changed. Except that they were coming and visiting me in the Hospital Wing more the morning after and taking notes for me in classes I missed. They were really great.”

“I’m so happy you’ve got good friends, fy machgen i.”

Remus beamed. His dad hadn’t seemed so happy that James, Sirius and Pete had found out about his lycanthropy. Lyall worried so much. “Me too.”

1974

“Who are you?”

Remus blinked at the student in his impeccable muggle uniform. He tugged on his second-hand jumper self-consciously. “I’m home-schooled, I am. I’m just here to sit my exams.”

“Was that your mam?” The boy craned his head to look at Hope’s retreating figure. Remus nodded, feeling a little uncomfortable. He didn’t often go out in public with her. Lyall always took him to and from Kings Cross and otherwise he didn’t really ever leave home during the summer. He knew she turned heads, with her long wavy hair and her thin frame, that constant cigarette between her fingers and dark red lips. Remus loved his mam. He loved how she laughed herself into a coughing fit whenever he told her what he and his friends got up to at school. He loved how she had bought him his own lighter, in Gryffindor colours. He loved that she couldn’t bear to be in a room with a record player that wasn’t playing. She was the embodiment of a cool parent, but he had been used to not having to share her with anybody except his dad and he didn’t like the look in the boy’s eyes. “I’m Remus,” he said, holding out a hand.

“Weird name,” the boy said. “David.”

“How Welsh,” Remus replied as David shook his hand. “Are you taking O Level Maths today, too?”

*

He finished the exam early. It was pretty easy compared to the year of Arithmancy he had done and he was even allowed a calculator. In the time while he waited for everybody else to finish, he started writing some letters.

James,

Muggle exams are so boring. There’s so much writing and all the desks are creaky and this bloke keeps walking past me with squeaky shoes. I prefer the practical exams we get in some of our subjects at Hogwarts. Wouldn’t it have been cool this year if our DADA exam had been more of an obstacle course of all the dark creatures we studied (except for werewolves and vampires of course) instead of just demonstrating the spells without the actual creature there. Prof really missed a trick there. I’m glad it won’t be him next year. Summer’s boring already and it’s only been a week. Can’t wait until September. Have a great holiday.

Remus

P.S. When would be a good time to go to Diagon Alley?

Sirius,

We’ve come to this school in Swansea today so I can do my muggle exams (I know, I know, school during the summer, but it wasn’t my choice, I solemnly swear!) and there was someone on a motorcycle who looked just like you. You’re definitely still in London, right? I’d be surprised if you’d managed to learn how to ride a motorcycle and get to Swansea but seriously I’m still half-convinced it was you. Hope your parents aren’t being too shite this summer. I’d say you can escape to mine if you want, but my dad’s still being weird about the fact that you know about my furry little problem as if it hasn’t been NEARLY TWO YEARS now. I swear he doesn’t care this much about Pete knowing; it’s ridiculous. Anyway, we’ll have to try and coordinate Diagon Alley this year and sneak you away from your family for a bit.

Remus

Pete,

I need all the details of your holiday so I can live vicariously through you. I’ll repay you in chocolate. When do you get back? I know not for ages and we won’t get our letters for even longer but I want to try and coordinate a Diagon Alley trip with the others and I have nothing else to look forward to before September.

Remus

1975

If Remus had been born ten years earlier, he would be a legal adult now. Instead, he was still stuck at home, unable to apparate, unable to do any magic outside of school, and studying A Level material for English, Geography and Maths. Hope’s cough had become as constant as Lou Reed’s new album in the background and Remus had noticed that sometimes she pressed her hand to her chest as if it hurt but they still smoked together and she didn’t blink when he admitted to using weed before a full moon to help with the pain. She went out, supposedly to buy teabags, and came back with cannabis. Remus never asked where she got it. Neither of them told Lyall.

When he was alone, Remus buried himself in research about Animagi. Not the technicalities of how to become one — they were fairly confident on that by now even if it was going to be a long and difficult process — but attempting to work out if their assumptions were correct and that his friends would be safe around the wolf if they were successful.

He hoped the animals they turned into would be useful.

A part of him was jealous that he would never be able to join them in that particular quest but the idea of getting the wolf to put a mandrake leaf in its mouth and not swallow it was ludicrous.

1976

The July full moon was almost immediate after the end of fifth year so Remus had returned home and instantly gone to bed. He had spent the moon in the usual way in the basement but it felt so restrictive and more painful than before, perhaps because he could now compare it to the freedom and ease of transforming with his friends. With Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs, Moony was able to run free in the forest and no longer took out his anger on himself. He was less angry, because he wasn’t contained.

He curled up on the sofa the next day, sipping on tea and watching Lyall read the Sunday Prophet.

“Werewolf attack at Cwm Rheidol,” Lyall said to Hope. Remus frowned and picked up an A Level Maths textbook that he knew he wouldn’t actually read. He couldn’t concentrate on the law of sines when his body ached from last night’s transformation and his parents were casually discussing werewolves in Wales and when his brain was still fried from OWLs and when the terror over what could have happened because of Sirius’ prank on Snape earlier in the year was still fresh in his mind.

“Was it him?” Hope asked.

Remus’s frown deepened.

“Doesn’t say, but probably. Child was seven. Parents are blood traitors.”

“Probably who?” Remus blurted. Both his parents turned to him, looking surprised that he was following their conversation. Even without his friends, recovery was quicker this summer. He could tell they didn’t want to answer him and he could only think of one reason why they wouldn’t, even though it didn’t line up with what they had led him to believe in the past.

Another young victim.

A reason for the attack.

“I thought it was just a random attack where I was bitten. It wasn’t, was it?”

“Remus, don’t be—” Lyall started in a tone of impatience.

“No, fy machgen,” Hope cut in. She looked so tired. “It wasn’t random.”

“Why me?”

Hope gave Lyall a significant look. Lyall sighed and set the newspaper to the side. “You were attacked by a werewolf named Fenrir Greyback…”

The story was hard to swallow. Remus listened as his father explained how he had come to his job in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Remus already knew Lyall had attempted to tighten protocol surrounding the Werewolf Registry in the past but he had not realised that his father had also overseen to trials of those suspected to be involved in werewolf attacks. His stomach turned when Lyall repeated the words that had angered Greyback.

“Not that I still think that, of course,” Lyall said, seeing the distress on Remus’s face, “but that was why he plotted to hurt you.”

Remus didn’t respond. His mind was whirring at ninety miles an hour. He thought of Lyall’s constant fear that Remus’s lycanthropy would be discovered. He thought of Hope’s secrecy when it came to asking about full moons at Hogwarts — she always waited until Lyall was at work and even the letters she sent during the year, she wrote in Welsh. He thought of how many times they had moved house in the past and how he was never allowed to stray too far from home, except for school. He even got the impression that Lyall didn’t think he should be taking muggle exams. Where Hope thought he might have a better chance of holding down a job in the muggle world, where nobody would ever suspect what he truly was, Lyall thought it was reckless and that Remus would be better to be hired by somebody who knew the whole story and could make accommodations. As if anybody would hire him.

Part of Remus wondered if his father really thought he would be better off without a job at all, and had simply said that so that Remus wouldn’t give up on school altogether.

He thought of his parents, obsessed for so long with finding a cure and keeping others safe from him. Maybe if Hope had known more of what she could have done to help him, she would have, just as she got him the weed and slipped cigarette boxes into the care packages she sent to Hogwarts. Lyall, though… Remus could only imagine how horrified his father would be if he knew that Remus’s best friends were illegal Animagi and that they actually helped. Lyall still looked scared and a little queasy whenever it came up that James, Sirius and Pete knew at all, however much Remus insisted that they accepted him regardless.

Sometimes, Remus wondered where he would be if Dumbledore had never turned up and offered him a place at Hogwarts. His childhood had been lonely and friendless and there had been no signs of change until that fateful day. Probably, his father had intended to keep him isolated and why should it matter if he was, in fact, dangerous and soulless.

“It’s to keep everyone safe,” Lyall had always told him when he was little and wanted to go and play with the children riding their bikes down the road. But there was no danger if it wasn’t a full moon and Remus was only just, at eighteen, realising how brainwashed he had been to have accepted the explanation without question.

“Remus?” Hope’s raspy voice brought him out of his reverie.

“A childhood like that really messes a person up, you know,” Remus told them. His eyes were wet, he noticed.

“I know,” Hope said. “It worries me that he’s back in Wales. Maybe we should think about moving again. Perhaps somewhere on the East coast.”

“Why does it matter? He can hardly do anything else to me.”

“He might try to recruit you to his pack. A lot of the werewolves are working for He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, now.”

Remus automatically looked at his mam in time to see her stubbornly mouth ‘Voldemort’. She thought wizards were ridiculous for avoiding his name. “And you didn’t think I needed to know sooner? He could have tried to recruit me at any time, if he prefers to raise his pack himself. He’s not going to sit around and wait for me to turn nineteen.”

“It was because we love you. We were trying—”

Remus stood before he could hear another of his father’s excuses. “I’m going to have a bath.”

He was a little surprised to find it was Sirius he wanted to talk to the most. After the Snape incident, things had been a little tense even after he had decided to forgive and move on and allow Padfoot to join him for the next full moon. If anyone was going to understand how he felt, it would be Sirius. Remus wasn’t exaggerating when he said a childhood in fear and isolation messed a person up and Sirius, too, had suffered traumas in his past and an expectation that one day he would join the Dark side, just because of who he was. A Black and a werewolf. Both expected to be sorted into Slytherin. Both were relieved beyond words when they had ended up in Gryffindor instead. And both still bore the weight of their upbringing. Remus considered a new perspective on the incident last term. Sirius had made one mistake because he didn’t think, and he had been guilty and apologetic afterwards. Lyall, though older and more highly educated, had made a series of mistakes and continued to defend his decisions.

Remus knew who he could forgive more easily.

1977

If it weren’t for the Order and finally having his apparition licence, Remus wouldn’t know what to do with himself for the summer. For the first time since he was four years old, he had no lessons, no school, a real summer holiday, even if it was only a holiday off doing work and not a holiday that involved going anywhere interesting. They now lived in Essex but Remus spent much of the summer at the Potters’ or going to Order meetings. There wasn’t much in the way of assignments for those of them still in school but they could focus on practising magic that would help them and learning to cast corporeal Patronuses for communication.

Really, Remus was happy that he wasn’t being asked to do anything specific yet, because he knew by now that when he was asked, it would involve other werewolves. He wasn’t ready for that yet. He wasn’t ready to meet Greyback.

“I barely see you these days,” Hope said to him over lunch one day.

“Sorry, mam. I just want to spend time with my friends.”

Her eyes softened. “I know. I’m happy for you, I am. I just miss you as well.”

“Do you not want to go back to work?”

Hope didn’t reply straight away. Instead she was taken with a coughing fit that Remus waited to subside. “Remus bach, I’m not well enough.”

He blinked. “What do you mean?”

“I’m not very well, fy machgen i.”

“It’s just a cough, isn’t it?”

There was pity in her eyes and Remus’s heart sunk. He should have seen it sooner. Perhaps a part of him already knew. After all, for a while he had felt bad whenever he told his classmates that he was visiting his sick mother during the full moon and instead had fallen back on excuses of his own health suffering, even though that felt more risky. “Mam…” All of a sudden he felt like a small, scared child. He could have been five years old again, asking why everything hurt; clinging onto his mam in St Mungo’s while a specialised Healer talked to them in whispers.

“I’ll be fine, bach. I’m just too tired to work. Don’t worry about me.”

“Is it my fault? Is it stress?”

“Your dad says it’s because I smoke,” Hope told him, but the way she hesitated and the hint of worry in her eyes convinced Remus that stress did play a part. “I told him I’m just allergic to the stick up his arse.”

Remus’s lips quirked but he couldn’t quite bring himself to laugh. “I’m sorry, mam.”

“No. Remus, no. It’s not your fault. And I’m fine. I’m still going to watch you grow old, I am. Not that it’ll be long! Only one year left of Hogwarts! Look at you, all grown up.”

“Mam,” Remus protested, his cheeks colouring and his worries temporarily dissipating. She laughed and changed the album on the record player. She poured them both a glass of whiskey with a wink and Remus leaned back to listen as that same 1972 Johnny Cash album that had greeted him from school after first year filled the room.