Tata, Birla!

Its the final fortnight of my Bitsian life. Compres are under way, and familiar exam-time scenes are now not too infrequent. 

I'd be lying if i said that this sem has not been a bit boring. The fact that half our batch is actually not in campus adds to the 'emptiness' thats largely what this sem felt like. Nevertheless, it has been a wondrous journey, not just this sem, but the entire 4 years at Bits. 

Statutory Warning: This is gonna be a long post, so bear with me. You have been warned!

I remember when i first came to the campus, all excited about living a hostel life for the first time, meeting new people, expecting to learn from some really awesome profs in such a renowned institute, that too in goa, the land of beaches. It would be fair to say that the first few weeks were really exciting, to say the least. Those were the days when my attendance per unit time was at never to be seen levels. Well, that was prolly the case with everyone at that time. 

My antics in one of the first classes, prob stats, taken by a certain SKG, saw me getting nicknamed with a really hilarious nick, of which i wasnt to learn until much later :P. Well, the attendance curve soon became precipitous, falling to zero within a couple of weeks. I remember the system of surprise quizzes and tests that really screwed me upside down, primarily because i attended almost none. Hostel life changed my sleeping patterns, i became , like most others, a creature of teh night. Well, in November, i got my comp, and there started my gaming addiction. There was no LAN at that time, still i managed to  get hooked on to comp gaming. It was perhaps due to the fact that i never had any exposure to any kind of gaming, except perhaps the occasional bouts of mario at home. Anyways, GTA san andreas was the first game to catch my fancy. For the uninitiated, it is a really huge game. It consists of a set of three cities in which you can roam about, almost like in the real world. People moving about, cars, traffic, shops, and all that. Well, the point is that it takes a while to complete it, and take a while it did.

Enter 2nd sem, and my GTA addiction continued, even though my CGPA was screaming for improvement. Well, who cares about marks, right? This is college, for heavens sake!

With that optimistic attitude, i played GTA like there was no tomorrow. I made some good friends, all of whom seemed to find classes a unnecessary pain. The scrapping of the insane surprise quizzes and mini tests did nothing to change that point of view. This was also the sem which i managed to pass without buying a single text book. How i did it, i dunno, but somehow at that time i felt books were unnecessary expenditure. In retrospect, i should have utilized those times better. What else happened in that sem, largely remains a blur, primarily because i dont think i did anything at all except play GTA on my comp. Come sem-end, and partial LAN was up, and all the excitement was about when full lan would come. Needless to say, i performed no better this sem, though it hardly caused a flutter.

2-1, perhaps, gaming wise, the most efficient sem. A large number of people got introduced to that mother of all acad-screwers, Counter Strike. Coupled with the timely arrival of lan, this sem saw me engrossed in the game, so thoroughly that i wondered how i had survived the previous year. Clans were made, forging friendships that would last a lifetime. lan was my life at that time. Sometimes i feel i kind of overdid it, but then, it was an experience. Something that i perhaps will never experience again. acads were as neglected as ever. Many people say 2-1 was the best sem of their bits life. for me, it was a lot of fun, though not the best one. DC was introduced to the campus, and i was one of the early hosts of the Titan hub. It brought with it a plethora of possibilities.

2-2 brought along with it, the shadow of the CDCs. A couple of courses that were sort of alarm bells for the dreaded core subjects on their way to engulf us. They however, did little to drive home any sense into me. This was the sem when i would get sort of tired of CS, and get introduced to what i still feel is the greatest game ever made - World of warcraft. 

This was also the sem when i would truly become an integral part of my corridor, which was made up of the strangest specimens that bits could come up with. Im thankful for the wonderful corridor that i had been allotted. Those were some of the most fun days of my bits life. Well, WoW came and stayed, and i gradually got really hooked on to it. Waves 07 was one of the most memorable times of my life. Exam times were most fun, when the entire corridor came out, hurling insults at the mundane subjects, shouting at the top of our voices, discussing absolutely unrelated topics with tremendous enthusiasm, and in the process often disturbing the more serious 9Ps who were at it trying to conquer yet another subject. And so went on another sem.

Then came PS1. My preference of PS station caused large scale laughter mingled with pity. Bitsunami, chennai, one of my top 3 options, i was allotted. Braving widespread ridicule, i went to chennai in not-so-high spirits. PS1 however, turned out to be the best 2 months for me in bits. I might have cribbed and crabbed, but i thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it. Trips to remote villages, roaming about chennai with friends, exploring the city like never before, taking random buses to wherever, falling in love with the city in the process, it was a most unique experience. _/\_ bits for including this in the curriculum.

3-1 came, and my WoW playing consumed almost the entire sem. Music club occupied a major part of my non-wow time, and i at last started to look at a life beyond my 17 inch screen. At the end of the sem, the realization dawned upon me that cg does matter, and i forced myself to develop an interest in my core subjects. The CDCs were unrelenting, yet classes largely remained an ignored entity. It was this sem that i decided that i would try my hand at actually doing some justice to the 'engineer' tag. The Pilani trip, my attempt at learning french, the realization that electronics wasnt as bad as it was made out to be, all these made this sem unforgettable. 

So began 3-2, a sem that was made up of very less gaming, a non-zero attendance curve, a desperate attempt to change my sleeping patterns (in vain ) , the sudden addiction to trivia on dc mainchat, the desperate attempts at doing something in electronics, and a steep increase in the gpa curve. That sem was largely made up of electronics and music club, and then some more of both. Projects in the core domain, CY and DSP clubs, labs, etc formed a part of my daily routine. Frequent meetings of the music club, Waves committee meetings, and in general, the non-gaming part of college life is what i will remember. Then came the part which i feel is the most stupid thing in bits. Farewell, given a whole year early. It was an emotional time, knowing that half the batch perhaps i might never meet again.  The farewell, with all the suits and sarees was, again, one of those unforgettable moments in bits. But i feel, as do most others, that it was a year too soon. In the end, it was goodbye time for the batch. 

PS2,well, i got screwed. To keep it simple, it wasn't the most thrilling of experiences. Nevertheless,  it was a different one. 

With the anticipation of 4-2 being the most fun sem of all, what with the almost nil load and the unlimited free time, people were most looking forward to this sem. For me, it has not lived upto the expectations. To be fair though, expectations were a little too high, and PS changed a lot of people. Those who usually revelled in doing nothing actually wanted to do something useful. Hardcore gamers left gaming, lazy joles started working dilligently, and people were a lot more serious about the future. Its like growing up, this system of PS. suddenly you are catapulted into the big bad world, and you experience first hand how life is gonna be hereafter. For me, this is the sem when i'v spent the least time on campus. More often than not, i was either in Bangalore or Mumbai. Its been fun, to say the least. But the time in campus, it's sort of suffocating. Well, the only thing is that im now savoring the time i have left on campus. Frankly, im not too big a fan of the campus. Neither do i find goa to live up to even a fraction of the hype that it is usually given. I shall, however, miss the people. All the bitsians, who have been part of this wonderful journey, the friends and acquaintances and strangers, the seniors and juniors, my batchmates, profs, the  mess guys, monginis, nescafe, the jhopdi that i seldom visited, shop C guy, the miser aunty, and everyone else who made these 4 years, an unforgettable vacation :P

This sem is not over, yet. Who knows, it might yet throw up a few more surprises. This is prolly the last time i'll be posting from college, however. So ends, my time here. 

Tata, Birla!