End of an era

All right all right it is just the end of the semester and not an era, but c'mon what's life without some harmless exaggerations :). So, finally, after months of toil, hard work, and studies by my classmates and a little bit by me also, we have finally reached the end of our first semester and now it's vacation time!!! For me,it will take sometime for this feeling to sink in. Even the feeling that I am studying in an IIT itself has not yet sunk in, let alone this one.

I really don't know how I feel about completing (somehow) the first semester. It seems just yesterday that we had all gathered in the Kresit hall and were introducing each one of us to each other. That day it was a hall full of strangers. Now, whenever I think about it, it was a hall filled with new found friends, some who have become very close in a short span of time. I must say time really flies fast.

I feel great on completing one semester, and looking forward to spending a few days of rest at home and catch up with all those whom I missed, and I must say I missed them a lot. Yet deep inside me I would miss this campus, even if it is for just a few days. It was truly a wonderful journey till now and hopefully it continues to be the same.

There were some memorable events that happened the whole semester. First would be our CR elections, where Aadi somehow managed to become a CR. This was followed by a "small" period of inactivity by our CR. A series of constructive feedbacks (read shoutings and name callings :D ) from our friends "inspired" him to perform his CR duties in the right spirit. Now he's doing fine :D. What all some "constructive feedbacks" can do!!!

Then there was the freshers' day party which was a special one for me (read blog posted sometime back). Description of the IIT life is incomplete without mentioning the night outs we have on the previous day of assignment and project submissions. Then there was the dept trek, the trek to our hilltop inside the campus, the volleyball tournament that we PGs won, the football matches we have in the evenings, the cursing of the mess food in one voice during lunch and dinner (usually bkfasts are skipped as a life of an IITian starts after 12 in the afternoon) and many more such sweet memories.

My last exam was over yesterday. It was one hell of a paper. It now ranks first in "my screwed up papers" list. But then who cares. Screw ups are a part of an IITian's life. We also had our birthday celebrations yesterday, to celebrate the birthdays of our classmates who had their birthdays on October and November. It was such a grand "finale" to sign off our first semester. Hopefully the joyride continues in the 2nd semester also. Will miss my friends and the campus till then.

FRIENDS or enemies

It's exam season in IIT. Wherever you look, one can see the smoke from the overheated heads of the young minds. Some interesting changes happen during exam times. Night tea is available for free after 10 pm. Earlier the internet used to get disconnected after 12 am, now it is extended till 4 am so that students can "study" online. Selected stationary shops and photostat shops will be kept open till 1 am. Fewer people are seen on the roads. All in all everyone and everything contributing to building a big scary environment.

But there was one guy who, even 2 days before the exams were to begin, was yet to show any signs of being "affected" by these changes. Yup, that's me. Yeah he did welcome the night tea change - he got tea free now....he welcomed the internet change - he could download more movies now. He didn't even bother about other changes. Why would he want to bother with photostats when he doesn't even know what to photocopy.

One month before the exams were to begin, I had downloaded the first 2 seasons of the famous FRIENDS comedy series. I had seen random episodes of this series at home when it was telecast on TV . Since then I had always wanted to see the entire series in the right order. So thus started my journey into the deep unknown unexplored mysterious adrenaline packed (c'mon no harm in a "little" exaggeration, right?) world of FRIENDS. After watching the first 2 seasons there was no stopping me. I immediately downloaded the next 3 seasons. The fact that exams were just a week away had least impact. In fact I noticed a worrisome trend as the exams were nearing. Somehow my watching rate was becoming inversely proportional to the number of days remaining for the exams.

2 days left for exam.
Exam to study for : Digital Image processing.(DIP)
Priority : Very high
Reason : Had one of the biggest screw up in the history of IIT during the mid semester exam of the
same course
Priority actually given by me : Very low
Reason : 5 more episodes of season 4 pending :(

So a "crisis" has definitely risen. Friends or DIP.
Things favouring Friends :
1) There are 2 days still left to study :D
2) Mentally prepared to getting screwed up again. Somehow what the prof teaches mostly goes over my head.

Things favouring DIP:
1) Only 2 days left to study :(
2) Accept the challenge to mentally prepare myself to not to mentally prepare myself to get screwed (if that makes any sense)

Since the factors favouring DIP were unprecedentedly high, I had no option other than to start preparing for DIP. I opened the book and started with the chapter image compression.

"Image compression is blah blah blah.....compression techniques are used in variety of applications and and and....will Ross and Rachel break up...na they can't break up right, they are so great together....and hoho, that chandler is funny"
"Whoaaaa dudeee what the ****, concentrateeeeeee."
I was like" hey who's this".
Then I realized it was coming from inside my head itself.
"C'mon dude we need to see the next episode and see whether they are really breaking up"
"Hey hey now who is this"
Again I realized it was coming from inside my head itself.
Oho 2 contradicting voices from the same head. Only 1 explanation for this. It's the white angel (WA) versus the Red Devil (RD) contest once again. (Do I watch too many tom and jerry shows???)
WA : Image processing is tough
RD : But FRIENDS is funny
WA : You need to get a good grade
RD : Na, u can always make it up in others
WA : RD sucks
RD : I rock.

Me : Aaahh stop itttt you two....I will watch FRIENDS for 10 minutes and then study...what harm will come in not studying 10 minutes.
Next "10" minutes went in watching a whole 25 minutes FRIENDS episode.
Fine at least now get down to study...it was already noon and have done nothing yet
Back to image processing...

"There are different types of compression techniques : LZW compression, the JPEG compression, GIF compression,Rachel compression, Ross compression...Aaaahhh not againnnnn"

Now I had some serious trouble. I just can't concentrate on my studies as long as I have the FRIENDS series pending (and I had 5 more seasons to go, that means 24 episodes in each season and each episode around 20 minutes). O crap I need to do something about it.
I packed my bags and went to the lab (each mtech guy gets a personnel PC here).
Things started getting better after that, though concentrating was still tough. But since I didn't have FRIENDS in my lab PC, I had no other choice than to continue studying.

This was my routine for the next 2 days. Go to lab, sit there till night and then come back to the room. Soon the exam day arrived. I went confidently to the exam hall. 5 minutes later the question paper was distributed. One look at the question paper and I knew it....It's screw up time once again. The 2 days time that I had sacrificed for the sake of preparing for this paper could well have been "well utilised" at finding out whether Monica would really get a boyfriend or whether Joey would pass his audition. Suddenly from inside my head came the reply
" I told ya so".
Yeah I know. RD is always right. Fine whatever, I need to go back to the room and make up for the lost time and find out the answers to the above questions before my next exam.See ya.

Inner reflections

All my posts till now were of non-serious genre. So this time I thought why not a serious one. Yeah ,me and serious, it sounds oxymoron to most of the people I know. But then hey, lemme atleast give it a try. Through this journey of life, I have encountered many wonderful people who have been my source of inspiration and at the same time my source of fun and happiness. I want to dedicate this post to all of them.

Some of the people I have known at some point or the other, will tell that I am a jovial fun loving person to be with, while some may say I am a non-serious guy, loves teasing people...while others go a little more forward and tell that I am an immature guy who likes making fun of others. It's not always that the people have told me these things, though sometimes they do tell. But mostly it is the impression that I get when I am with them or may have heard from others.

I am one person who cannot survive without friends. Friendship is one thing I treasure a lot. Different people have different methods to express their affection to the ones they love and care. It maybe just a smile for one person, for someone else it may be buying gifts whereas for others it may be a hug and so on. For me it's none of these. I have this peculiar character that the more close I feel to a person, the more I tease him/her. Even now, there are many people, whom I have known for a long time, who doesn't know this or, to put it better, haven't realized it.

But there is one major problem with this character of mine. I always assume that all people are easy-going or take-it-easy characters like me. I often tend to forget, that people are different and that I may actually end up hurting some people's sentiments due to this, though I may not realize it. And this is what hurts me most. And it's very hard for me if I come to know that knowingly or unknowingly I caused hurt to others since,whenever I tease my friends, it's due to the feeling of closeness I feel, and when that ends up hurting that very closeness, I feel guilty about it.

These types of miscommunication occurs mainly due to my crossing the invisible laxman rekha. Though I would love to have that line at infinity, that is not possible in the practical sense. I may not realize it then when it is happening, but later on I somehow get the feeling that I did cross the line. For some close friends, the line to cross is far and I can go a long distance before I reach that limit. But for others, the limit is reached too fast and I cross it even before I realize it.

Some of my close friends really put up with me even after I tease them like anything. One of them is Roshini. She's my neighbor, in my hometown, and is now happily settled in US with her hubby Vikas. She is a great dancer and has a great passion for it. But I tease her precisely on her dancing, making all kinds of silly comments on her different dance steps. I don't know whether it's true, but I had always got the feeling that though I am teasing her, she understands that it's really my way of telling how much I appreciate her dancing. Maybe I am wrong, but she has never given me a chance to think otherwise :).

Some of the closest friends that I have are the ones that I made in college. Yegnesh, Ashok, Murali, Varun, Sabari, Vinod, Rajappan, Komalan (Some are nick names :D ) are some of them and these guys are very close to my heart. When in a group, we make fun of each other and laugh at each one's expense. In fact in the group I end up being the target often, though I am "left alone" when sabari is there in the group :D.

In our class in IIT, 3 people whom I tease a lot is Aadi, Prashima and Meenu. Though Aadi has never told me anything as such, I get the feeling that he sometimes gets hurt by it. Aadi, sorry dude if I have hurt you in any way. Same goes for Prashima. She is one of the most bholi bhali girl that I have come across. I tease for almost anything. If she goes to library I tease her about studying too hard though I too go to the library, if she comes in jeans and top I tease her saying she is trying to impress someone and so on. She does smile through all these comments, but I really don't know whether I have ever crossed the line. As for Meenu, I think she somehow knows how this is how I am since, I guess most of her college friends have the same character :D.

One guy, in our class, who is my baap in the teasing department is Adil. This is one guy whom, I know, I can put my laxman rekha at infinity . I tease him like anything and he gives it back to me with interest. But mostly he wins the contest :D.

Last, but not the least, this post is intended for all those people who I may have ended up hurting with this stupid character of mine. I am really sorry if I have hurt you guys in anyway. Just know that the more hurt you may have felt, that much more I loved you guys.