Biology has always been an interesting subject to me since school. And so i preferred choosing it as a subject of interest in higher classes. The probable reasons why i chose it, will share in my other entries

Looking deeper into DNA, like the terms chromosome, metaphase, anaphase, duplication, replication was indeed easy to understand but hard to put on the test papers with illustration during exams (you know all that drawing stuff). We would be studying differences between DNA and RNA, that was something like a must know and write fact during tests.

Let’s look into some interesting facts of DNA that is the basis, differentiating us from among other creatures on this earth, even though every living creature has DNA. Then what is it that which makes us HUMAN?

Neanderthals are a sub species of humans or a separate species called Homo neanderthalensis.

A special prayer group would be on stage guiding the whole school in singing prayers and other patriotic songs. The main prayer is daya kar daan vidya ka and the PT teacher would notice children keeping hands in their own style (thumbs crossed while praying-You shouldn’t cross thumbs while praying) and would give a lecture on how to sync hands together in a prayer. Sometimes the main prayer group on the stage would be singing in a different tune and laughing on stage without control though the principal and music teacher would be on stage and finally we start the prayer song again from first (I was one among the main prayer group ). More of the songs that we sung were out of my understanding like the assameese song eh maati re moro mote . I don’t know any line of it further and still don’t know the meaning and the cause of singing this song. Some patriotic songs like Saare Jahan Se Acha to Hum Honge Kaamyaab were sung weekly once on a routine.

Let’s talk about Twilight-the first movie of the Saga series which was released in 2008 pretty much back I guess. It’s a romantic movie about the Vampire Edward Cullen (Robert pattinson)and his love Bella (Kristen stewart) who is a human. The film twilight focused on the development of relationship between Edward and Bella; subsequent efforts of the Cullen family to protect Bella from coven of evil vampires.

Bella, a seventeen year old girl moves to Forks with his dad Charlie to live with him, after her mom Sarah who remarries to a minor league baseball player, Phil. There she joins the new school where she makes friends quickly (can anybody tell me how to make friends so quick). Jessica (first friend in Forks) tells Bella about the Cullen’s, as they enter the café or whatever. The Cullen’s enter in pairs and Jessica explains Bella who they are. Finally when Edward enters the spot, Bella asks who he is.  Jessica replies that he is Edward Cullen and the most gorgeous guy and nobody is here good enough for him. Edward listens this and smiles. Edward has the power to read minds (hope he could read mine ) so that’s how he overhears what Jessica was telling Bella about him. Bella stares at Edward from her place. Edward looks at her in a confusing way.

Next day, Bella sits with Edward in the biology class and finds that he appears to be disgusted by her, to her confusion. He doesn’t seem to talk to her even. As soon as the bell rings, Edward leaves the class. He also enquires about other classes if they are free to move there. But he doesn’t seem to find any free class, so Edward seems like enduring sitting in the biology class. To Bella’s surprise, she gets confused and frustrated with Edward, as he was behaving very strange with Bella. (He doesn’t seem to like Bella and doesn’t want to be in the Biology class with her.)

After few days Edward returns back and Bella meets him in biology class again. Edward introduces himself and says hi to Bella and then they are a kind of talking to each other, become friends. (Bella seems interested in Edward). After the class, she notices Edwards’s eyes that were black last time but now its golden brown. She asks him if he using some contacts, but Edward refuses giving some reason like fluorescence and leaves the place. After the school gets over they both seem to look at each other in the parking lot from a distance. (This was actually romantic) Suddenly a van enters the scene thrashing, losing control, speeding towards Bella, about to crash with her. But suddenly out of view, Edward comes in between and stops the van with his hand behind and saves Bella. It was amazing and unbelievable for Bella, as Edward was standing far from the scene, on the other side of the lot. Bella is intrigued by the speed of Edward, how can he be so fast?

Bella is taken to hospital just for a simple checkup and his dad Charlie comes over there to enquire about her and the man who was actually driving the van. (He is actually a student in the same school- this guy was just repeating the same thing-“am sorry I was panicked, I tried to stop the van” and this thing was freaking to me ). Bella sees Edward in the hospital and asks him how did he get over her so fast? Edward says he was just standing right next to her. Bella refuses telling him tat he was near his car across the lot. Bella tries to know the truth out of him, but Edward asks her to just thank him and get over it. He tells her that nobody would believe her whatever she saw. He leaves her disappointed giving no answers.

Next day, the school takes all the students to some nature admiring spot, for some sort of study on plants. Mike, who was behind Bella, asks her if she could come with him for the prom. But she refuses saying that she has already planned to go Jacksonville for some work. After reaching the spot, Edward tries to talk to Bella and asks her what’s in Jacksonville? Bella just dint answer him because Edward didn’t answer to her questions about the van crash. Edward tells Bella that they shouldn’t be friends. Bella says he should have told this earlier. Edward is unable to tell her the secret behind it. He leaves the scene with his crew members, the Cullen’s.

Bella’s friends plan to go and hang out on the La Push beach to have fun. Edward comes near to Bella and talks to her, Bella tells him that his mood swings a lot and he is giving her whiplash. Edward again refused to tell the truth when Bella asks about the secret. Finally Bella calls him over the La push beach to just come and have fun. Edward refuses to go there, says its little bit crowded.

Friends enjoy at the beach and Jacob comes over there with his two friends. Jacob is Charlie’s friend’s son. Bella’s friends tell them that she called Edward but he didn’t show up. For this, Jacob’s friends tell that the Cullen’s don’t come here. Bella asks Jacob about what his friends meant that “the Cullen’s don’t come here”. Jacob tells her that he is not supposed to tell her that. But since Bella asks again, Jacob tells her that it’s an old scary story, where the Quileute’s are supposed to be descended from the wolves. And his grandfather found some people hunting wolves, but since those people claimed to be something different (Cullen’s), they made a treaty. Bella gets more intrigued about the Cullen’s now. She googles’ about the Quileute legends. She buys a book on it too. And while she is on her way to home (it’s late), gets caught up with some roadside guys who follows her. Suddenly, a car comes in with a rush and here’s who, it’s Edward. He warns those guys and takes Bella with him. Edward thought to go back and chop off the heads of those guys, but Bella asks him not to. Edward tells her that they were thinking very bad and repulsive things. Bella asks him how he knew? But for Edward it was not hard to guess.

Bella asks Edward how did he knew that where she was and did he follow her? He tells her that he didn’t know where she was. Bella gets frustrated with his answers and tries to leave the restaurant; Edward stops her from leaving her. He says he feels protective of her and he read the evil minds of those guys and so he came up there to protect her. Edward tells her that he can read the minds of everyone except hers. They eventually fell in love with each other. Now they are in the car, Edward is going to drop her to her place. Bella finds that Edward’s hand is cold. They get over to the police station in between because they find both of their dads car being parked so they pull in to enquire. The doctor (Edwards’s dad-Carlisle) tells them that someone is attacked by an animal and he died. Bella finds information on the cold ones, she goggles’ about it and finally comes to know the truth behind Edward that he is a vampire. She meets Edward in the meadow and Bella asks him about his age and how long he has been that age.  Edward tells her everything after she finds it on her own. Bella seems no way afraid of Edward after knowing that he is vampire. Edward shows her that how he sparkles in sun like diamonds all over his body, so he do not appear to come out when the weather is fine. He tells her that it’s not the life he wants to live, rather he don’t want to be a monster. In all the ways he tries to warn Bella that he is the most dangerous predator in the world and he had killed people before but Bella seems no way afraid of Edward. Bella already liked Edward and even now she likes him. They both make love in the woods finally.

Next day Edward and Bella come to school together and everybody stares at them as they were never been together like this before. Edward tells Bella about how he turned to a vampire since 1918 and Carlisle is responsible for his vampirism. And that’s how belle comes to know much about Edwards’s life. Then Edward takes Bella to his home to introduce his family. His family mingles with Bella well except one lady Rosalie who warns Bella the consequences if the vampire family secret is out because of Bella. But Bella assures everybody that she would not tell the secret to anybody.

The other day, Edward and Bella make love in Bella’s bedroom. Later the next day she introduces him to his dad Charlie. Edward gets permission from Charlie to take Bella out to play baseball with his family.

Edward takes her to play baseball when it’s thundering out. Everybody starts playing baseball and it goes well until the evil vampires cross their field. Alice has the power to see the future and so she finds these evil vampires crossing their field, she asks everybody to stop playing. The three vampires namely; James, Victoria and Laurent arrive at the spot.

Edward regrets for bringing Bella for the game as these vampires would not leave her if they come to know that she is a human (snack). The three vampires ask the Edward family if they could join the baseball game with them. The evil vampires dint knew that Bella is a human because she just put her hair down in fronts as told by Edward to hide from the nomadic vampires, as they can smell the human very fast. The tracker vampire James is intrigued by Edwards’s protectiveness towards a human and he wanted to hunt Bella for sport. When the breeze swings in, the tracker finds that Bella is a human and he tries to attack Bella. But the Edwards family protects Bella from the evil vampires. They do not cross each other territory.

Edward and his family make sure that Bella is safe but the tracker follows Bella and finally makes her to meet him alone, threatening her that he has her mom in his custody. And her hurts Bella when she arrives to meet him alone. Edward and his family come on the spot to save Bella, but before that the vampire bites Bella’s wrist hard. Alice and other members manage the evil vampire and put him in fire to destroy him.

Bella is severely injured on her legs, and she is in a critical situation due to the evil vampires bite. Now it’s in the hands of the Edward either to let her go with the transformation or save her. Carlisle asks Edward to suck James venom out of her body, but Edward is afraid if he could not stop sucking blood once he starts then she will be in danger. But he finds the will to stop sucking once Carlisle tells him that her blood is clean. That’s how Bella still remains a human and Edward didn’t let go the transformation to happen. Soon, severely injured Bella is taken to the hospital.

Bella is now safe. Upon returning to Forks they attend the school prom, while there Bella expresses her interest to become a vampire, so that she can stay with him together everlasting. And she is ready right now to let the transformation by him. But Edward refuses. They make love dancing together. The movie ends with Victoria secretly watching the pair dancing, plotting revenge for her lover James’ murder.

Watch New moon for the story further..i haven’t left that too..thats you know why, its because of Robert Pattinson 

Now, for those who know tools better, I would like to show you that its very easy to design something, once you implement it on your self like me.

In this section am going to tell you step by step procedure to make an ace of spades card that is pretty old. I have learned it from online ofcourse, from great designers tutorials. But i thought to put it in my blog, not by just copying things from there, but by implementing it on my own in photoshop. And that made me to write this post. I will be updating my blog with more and more photoshop tricks and easy tips for the effect for the new users out there and for those who think  “its only for those great designers”. Nop.. Lets start up with the tutorial.

Here i will give it the look of an aged card with using several layer and styles, giving it some texture and color. You can also get same kind of card look just like mine. Just follow simple steps with me.

Step1 : Open up a blank document in photoshop sized 540×480 pixels.

Step 2 : Make the base for the card

Select the Rounded rectangle tool and set radius to 20. Pick the foreground color as #c9a862and make a rectangle assuming the size of the card. This will make a rectangle filled with the color #c9a862. Name this layer as cardbott.

Step 3 : Duplicate layer and overlay Now select the cardbott layer in layers pallette and then duplicate this layer by using Cntrl+J. Name the new layer as cardtop and fill it with #ffebc6. Now lock the cardtop layer in the layers pallette and start adjusting the cardbott layer (below the cardtop layer), move it 1 pixel to the right and bottom wrt. cardtop.

Step 4 : Texturising cardtop

Unlock the cardtop layer and press Cntrl+layer thumbnail to select the cardtop layer like below.

Now we are going to give some effects to the cardtop layer. Before that set the foreground color as #ffebc6 and background color as #f1d39b To give the effect of old card we need to add some effects  as below From the main menu Go to Filter–>Render–>Clouds. This would make the cardtop look mixed with colors.

Again we will add some noise. Filter–>Noise–>Add noise. Set level 2 with gaussian and monochromatic selected. After adding noise the cardtop shows some real texture and to smoothen it out, we would blur the layer. Filter–>Blur–>Gaussian Blur. Set level 1

Step 5: Shadow effect and inner glow effect

Give some shadow effect to the cardtop layer by selecting the layer in the layers palette and double clicking to the right of layer and select blending options from the drop down menu. Set the levels for drop shadow as shown below.

Give inner glow effect by setting the blend mode to color burn, opacity around 30 and noise level to 10.

Step 6: Add burn effect

Add a new layer above the cardtop layer by selecting this layer and then click the new layer icon in the layers palette. Name this layer burn. Select the burn layer and reduce the opacity to 20%. Now clip this burn layer to the cardtop layer by pressing ALT and clicking in the middle of the two layers (cardtop and burn) in the layers palette.

Now select a round paint brush with 70px in diameter and hardness setting of 0. Keep the blend mode to color burn. Now mark some dark areas on the burn layer with this brush to give the effect as depicted below.

Step 7: Dodge effect with chalk brush

Make a new layer above burn layer, name it dodge. Create clipping mask with this layer as well. (both the burn and dodge layer must be clipped to the cardtop layer). Now select the Chalk brush with 60px, set the brush to normal blend and opacity of 30%.

With the chalk brush, paint the edges of the card lightly to make the card look worn or torn from corners.

Step 8: Shine effect

Since the center of the card doesn’t get much hurt and only the corners get, we are going to give a shine effect at the center. Now create a new layer about the dodge layer, name it shine and make a clipping mask with the cardtop. Select the gradient tool from the tool bar, and set the foreground color to white and the gradient settings to Foreground-Transparent. Also select the radial gradient. Now drag the gradient at the center of the card to the top or bottom of the card. This gives a fine highlight effect at the center of the card.

Step 9: Grunge effect

Finally we are about the add some grunge effect to the card to make it more worn or damaged. Make a new layer above the shine layer and name it grunge. Change the layer blending mode to color burn as shown below. Drop the opacity to 60%.  Clip this layer too with the cardtop.

Now choose set of corner grunge brushes and give fine details to the corner of the card as shown.

Step 10: Add Vector Image to the card

Now that we finished giving the card a fantastic look, am now going to add another layer above the grunge layer and name it vector image. Clip this layer too. Download the vector image from other websites for Ace of spades and add it over this layer. Drop the opacity of the vector image layer to 75%. Set the layer’s blending mode to linear burn to give it an old look like how i got.

Note: When you make this card the specified levels may not match with the one as mentioned here, you need to take care what levels of opacity or fill to set for each layer to make it look real as i did.

It’s hardly surprising then, that its usually best friends who see you in your most wicked element. Just as one chooses a suitable career, one must choose the right kind of friends and respect them. It is while we are in school and college that we make friends for life. In fact, these friendships are in a sense the best of both worlds. We make many friends as we are in our learning phase of life, but only few take part and prove to be pillars of our life when we are down. They should be more than just co-passengers in our journey.

Even as, education enlightens you with academic knowledge and qualifications to break into a successful career, friends broaden our perspective and offer life-long encouragement. They can also prove to be a minefield of knowledge that will help us for the rest of our lives.

In fact, I caught up with two best buddies in my life without them I might have lost myself somewhere! They share the most half of me. This friendship began during my college days apparently not very much like friends at the beginning but as some kind of strange relation which everyone feels when joining college first time. Usually when you are a new joiner, you make lot of friends who may be accompanying you to hang around, bunk classes and sit in the coffee shop or canteen. But only few would be with you to look after you with care, when you are depressed or down and they are the “best friends”. They would just help you out in any situation and see that you are feeling good.  I am lucky to get two such dazzling and sparkling diamonds in my life. Someone has said it true that friendships need time to grow strong. And it’s been four years since we are friends from college days. I hope it continues till life ends.

Recently, a new study has revealed that Friendships that begin during college days last for a lifetime. Purdue University communication expert Glenn Sparks said that “Maintaining quality long-term friendships is difficult today because people move frequently and there are many technological and media distractions,” says Glenn Sparks, a professor of communication who studied the 19-year friendships of a group of 1983 college graduates.

“The geographic and personal distance between people continues to grow, and there are some harmful effects for those who lack quality relationships. Friends are essential because they provide emotional stability in a person’s life. Making friends is like managing a bank account. You must make investments, and it is never too early to start,’ Sparks added.

 I have moved distances and to places around for about 7 to 8 times in last fifteen years and I couldn’t maintain any friendships that began in school. In today’s world with the huge network of computers around, one can easily be in touch at least. But what we would know in school when we were just kids…