College Chronicles - Part 4

Its been about two weeks since my 4th sem exams came to an end. I suppose its time to look back upon the semester gone by.

This sem was supposed to be the time to relax - as a friend of mine put it - "We'd be having more free hours than classes". Boy, was he (the little guy in the middle with glasses ) wrong.
And how wrong. Things went wrong even before reopening day. Initially reopening was scheduled for December, giving us something like 4 days of vacation (why did they even call it a vacation) before college began for the 4th sem. Lo and behold it poured forth from the sky and one of our exams was postponed to a much later date, leading to a delayed opening in January. Then we had a week or so off for our department's international level conference TIMA followed by Madras Institute of Technology campus' Silver Jubilee celebration (another 4-5 days). Besides that, we had a gala time during the weeks that the government decided to declare holidays here in Tamil Nadu "in protest against the Sri Lankan Government's handling of the Tamil issue." They started calling it Ceylon jubilee, LOL.

Right before the reopening we were shit-scared of the results, cos the kinda feedback we'd given to some professor, we'd expected half the class to fail. Thankfully, most of us passed, though the grades were noticeably lower.

There was one saving grace however, in the form of MITAFEST - 2009. I was on the writing team for the event's website. Gave me a chance to write my heart out, and almost all the stuff under the Events section (among some others) is what I had written. The website is still up at www.mitafest.com. The event itself was something else!!! Celebrities were popping in and out of college (who cares!), people with faces painted, quizzers and orators, fashionistas, dancers, singers and gamers - whatever your forte, you had a stage to showcase your talent. To top it all off, highlights included the concerts by Anuradha Sriram and Karthik with renowned instrumentalists accompanying them on stage (I procured the videos via a friend). The atmosphere was saturated with excitement.


We had some fun in the Transducers Lab too, even took time out between experiments to catch some snaps.


The little guy with big brains, Mr Sundaram, kept up his routine act of writing "Today Aps Class" this semester too.






Remba padicha idhaan aagum (study too much and this is what happens) --->

You start seeing rhombuses and geometric shapes where you never thought you would before.


Once all this was over, our HOD left no stone unturned in ensuring we knew the urgency of the situation, that we were short of time. Alas our skulls were too thick for this vital piece of information to permeate, though this was on expected lines :D . So we ended up having classes even on Saturdays - and full days at that. Every free period was taken, we were so busy we didn't have the time to scratch our arses. Lab tests and assessment dates overlapped and intertwined. Projects found their way from the "We'll definitely do it" to the "trash the idea" bin. Industrial visits were canceled too.

Now the general student population had a hard time in our department this semester, but our representative was a day-scholar Jayaram a.k.a Baja. I pity the tough time he had. The professors grilled him for free periods like lions fighting for their share of the kill. No one would let go of their piece of the pie, so poor Baja was caught in the crossfire. I suppose he got depressed and did this to his hair (yeah, he's the one in the center with the strange haircut).

I'm just kidding though, he and our girls rep Karpaga did a marvellous job arranging classes and even a guest lecture in the midst of the shitstorm.




On a personal note, I hit a rather quirky odometer reading in my Accent. 34567 , refer the photo for proof ----> .

The sem dragged on, and the portions piled up after each assessment. The erstwhile rumours kept us supplied with enough gossip, especially bits of paper like this one below.











When asked to confirm above mentioned and other worthwhile rumours, most people shied away. Some said "no, nothing of that sort", others would go "oh, really!!". Still some important people like the Professor below would say "No, Comment".



The exams were soon looming over us, and all other thoughts were left behind. While some of my classmates were cooped up and performing the ancient art of "combined studies", I spent time alone in the evenings (when I was free from the arduous task of wasting time) in the below room (no that's not my room). It was once my cousin's room, and you guessed it right, he was an Aishwarya Rai oops Aishwarya Bachchan fanatic. Just click play and it will loop the slideshow. No wonder I studied so slowly this time around.......



Some people were studying really hard as evidenced by the following pictures. Our ex-rep and "project boy" Vigneshwaran takes a nap with his book still open, while the Dragon (yeah right, a.k.a Sardarji) Praveen wakes up from his reverie on a table to find the camera in his face.




















And so began the torture. From April 27th to May 11th, sleep was a scarce commodity, atleast for me. You may observe the below photograph, it shows you my best friend and saviour during this period (Gave me wings alright).














This picture on the right was one of those moments of nostalgia I had on the morning / night / midnight / unearthly hour before an exam (try guessing what subject from the picture). This little cup was something which I had used long long long ago when I was in Kindergarten. The big mug you see in the background is full of another of my saviours - coffee. Coffee and Red Bull kept me awake the whole night sometimes. With not an ounce of sleep in my body. Surprisingly, I wrote my exams pretty well even with the abject lack of sleep, neither did it affect my drive to college each day before the test. Rather brash on my part you say? Brash??? No, no, no, not at all. "Suicidal" would have been the right word. :D

In the midst of these god-forsaken exams, my house was full of relatives too, what with there being a close relative's marriage in Chennai. Had a nice time, though I ended up studying only right before each exam day cos of the above mentioned marriage.

Thus passed the wonderful, glorious, god-given opportunity to prove my mettle (yeah, everyone's a critic) and now beyond me stands a month's worth of holidays.

This sem there was a personal milestone for me - I turned 20 this March, now no longer a teenager, so took a trip down to Le Royal Meridien to celebrate. Here's a snap of the cake (this was one AWESOME cake).


A few upgrades to the PC, plenty of sleep, a number of IPL matches, and a cheesecake later, here I am concluding this long long article, reminiscing upon the sem just past.



<---- A well earned (says me) break at the Taj, Mount Road after the exams.












Yours Truly,
The Lone Wolf