An old man turned ninety-eight
He won the lottery and died the next day
It's a black fly in your Chardonnay
It's a death row pardon two minutes too late
And isn't it ironic... don't you think

It's like rain on your wedding day
It's a free ride when you've already paid
It's the good advice that you just didn't take
Who would've thought... it figures

Mr. Play It Safe was afraid to fly
He packed his suitcase and kissed his kids goodbye
He waited his whole damn life to take that flight
And as the plane crashed down he thought
"Well isn't this nice..."
And isn't it ironic... don't you think

It's like rain on your wedding day
It's a free ride when you've already paid
It's the good advice that you just didn't take
Who would've thought... it figures

Well life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
When you think everything's okay and everything's going right
And life has a funny way of helping you out when
You think everything's gone wrong and everything blows up
In your face

A traffic jam when you're already late
A no-smoking sign on your cigarette break
It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife
It's meeting the man of my dreams
And then meeting his beautiful wife
And isn't it ironic...don't you think
A little too ironic...and, yeah, I really do think...

It's like rain on your wedding day
It's a free ride when you've already paid
It's the good advice that you just didn't take
Who would've thought... it figures

Life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
Life has a funny, funny way of helping you out
Helping you out

-Ironic, Alanis Morrisette

In High School: A huge fan of Lonely Planet and a life that promised adventure and a sense of nascent joy every day. Told my mom, I am going to work for the Discovery channel someday!

Second Year: While working on a project i'd keep coming across a website when searching for a new term or concept.. it was hosted by Cornell
Constantly referred to the papers of a research group at Cornell
Secretly prayed: If only I could study there

Third Year: Didnt apply for any company that came for internship in the first half. Went for the walk-in interviews conducted by reliance. Wasn't selected. Felt crushed. Someone said, "You deserve better". A few months later, read a mail for an internship application for a company called Schlumberger, read the job profile and loved it!
Secretly hoped to get it.

blah blah..Well I eventually ended up having some of my wishes fulfilled. Life has a funny funny way of helping you out.

May/June 2008: Last few days in IIT, and over chat i was sharing rather discussing my feelings on leaving IIT with a friend I call Loo. "The worst thing is that we will give up everything we have now, move away from people we care about and so many things and places that have touched our lives to be lost in the mundane events of our new life. It will not be a lack of feelings or love or whatever binds people that will separate us but our inability to escape the mundane things that drive our existence that will tie us down. Survival may have become simpler but it does exact the same chunk from our lives that it probably did decades back", I said (or something to that effect). And since 'life has a way of sneaking up on you', it made me realize the importance of everything that I referred to as mundane and everyday. Stuck in limbo, with a total loss of a schedule or a routine, I do now respect the mundaneness of life and probably will embrace it with the same respect once I earn it.