Raw Magnetism and it’s ill effects

Taking an Electronics class for two years during my college (High school for Americans) has always led me to believe that I know a lot about the electronic world when in fact all I know is a few electronic terms.

This comes especially handy when some electronic engineer comes to me with his woes. While my head nods vigorously at every term that sounds familiar, the technician calms down thinking that someone finally understands him. After he finishes his rant on semi conductors and their conditional resistance to let current flow through them, he walks away a happier nerd. Meanwhile I have failed to see the point in those five minutes I wasted, nodding.

Anyways, as I was saying, I think I know a lot about something I really don’t know squat about it. You really can’t blame me for this as my teacher herself knew very little. She would come into the class and spell out a few ionic magical words and we would write them down promptly hoping that those exact words would someday form an answer in my upcoming exams. In a class of students, there is bound to be one that asks a tough question. At this point the teacher would become furious, and launch into more electronic terms that had no relationship with the answer but that seemed to kill the curious kid. The others in the class were simply too interested in making our scientific calculators spell English words to be bothered by such healthy discussion. I must mention, the teacher was 4 feet tall and had 4 feet long hair. So I am sure she had her own issues, and we should not really blame her for my lack of knowledge.

But the reason I bring this is up is because our class visited a MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) institute in Nashik and promptly believed that we were the local experts. Within an hour of watching somebody else’s heads and body parts on a flickering screen we decided that lunch plans were of a higher importance.

Today I had my MRI done. And if I had paid attention at the institute I would have known that it is intensely loud. They offered me ear plugs but I assure you it’s a very different kind of loudness. There are varying frequencies of hums and chatters as the magnets do their thing. During this racket, you are of course, asked to sit still and act like everything is at peace. However, you legs can feel something funny in them and are dying to itch and turn. You breathe deeply, hoping this would calm your body down and believe that the fact you are Indian gives you an automatic yogic advantage. The loudness keeps increasing and you get restless but hopelessly pinned. Eventually it stops; you dismount and imagine that some magnetism has remained behind in your body.

So an MRI is one place that I definitely recommend earplugs. Talking about earplugs, I do not recommend them at an F1 race. Half the experience in watching an F1 race is to hear 22 engines blasting your eardrums to pieces. Yes you might exit the speedway partially deaf but would you rather have the ability to hear songs that say “My pretty(lovely) lady lumps!”

Where am I going with this post? Let’s see. Electronics – MRI – Earplugs – and – Earplugs – Bad pop music – F1 racing. Remove the common factors and we arrive at the fact that there is a lot of electronics in a modern formula 1 car. Ok, we all already knew that but it doesn’t hurt to confirm what you know. Anybody nodding to this statement without any knowledge of F1 cars is already advised that nodding is a bad thing and must be left entirely to experts like me.

This post doesn’t count. I had an MRI done and expect some leeway in my writing skills.

Note: For those who actually know me more then just a desperate blogger and are worried about why I had an MRI done, please relax. It was an old knee injury that I neglected and is now coming to haunt me again. All this growing up older and wiser has obviously been bad on my body’s warrantee. However, since I cannot upgrade my lousy broken body, repairs are imminent.

For those who really want to help me out, please cook food and bring it to me. I would give anything but a magnetized left knee for some lamb and hot chapattis.

This post doesn’t really count.