Haven't blogged for a long time even though a lot has happened.
My excuse : 5 quizzes and a similar number of assignments to break my head over.

We had our third mechanics of solids quiz today. After that the usual classes until 12 when I had to go to the Kanpur Airport to receive a company representative who was coming for a pre placement talk. So I put on my full suit and went to the SPO office, got into the Esteem, sat in the AC for an hour till we reached the airport.

The flight was an hour late but finally it arrived at about 2:45. We were then supposed to go to the Visitors Hostel but he wanted to have lunch at a 5 star hotel and so I took him to Landmark :D I had a pizza and some lime juice. Then I dropped him at the VH and it was about 5 pm then... and I reached my COM 200 class in the same formal suit (because of which Dr DS made a comment). After COM, I went back to the VH and took him to L2 for the pre placement talk which I found pretty interesting.

After that I took him to meet the SPO chairman, Dr VT. After that, I took him back to VH, put him in the car and told the driver to take him to the station.

Then I went to the mess (after changing of course!!) and had dinner. Now I'm feeling tired. I'm supposed to go to the SAC at 11pm for another SPO Team meeting. Why do they have to keep these meetings at such deadly timings???

Its a good thing that its a holiday tommorow... now I can rest in peace for three days.

Things have finally returned to normal in the past 5 days.

About three months ago an IITK alumnus from the batch of 76 had requested me to put up some pictures of the campus, so I did that on Sunday... the URL is http://www.iitk.ac.in/hall2/iitktour/

Three quizzes so far... two went well, one not so well. Monday was Independence Day... so we had flag hoisting in the morning at 8 am, followed by distribution of cakes (Black Forest!!).

A Group Discussion session was held the other day in Hall 2... it was pretty interesting with a pretty good turnout... I just hope it manages to sustain itself.

I will most likely end up going to Bell Labs at Bangalore for a felicitation party next month... finally found dates when both my co scholar and I were free... September... just after our midsems.

Now Im wondering what to do about my communication skills assignment... which is to take 5 cartoon strips which has to be funny because of a misunderstanding...we have to write 50 words on the misunderstanding.... these days I find it so tough to find cartoons/jokes which make me laugh and now I have to find one which is funny and also involves a misunderstanding? Help!!

Things are finally starting to settle down. Room is somewhat organized now, eyes have stopped giving trouble, the SPO work went smoothly.

I had an ESO204/moss quiz today morning...it went ok...hope to get full. Now I have another quiz tomorrow morning (batti).

We got a very interesting assignment in COM 200... collecting 5 cartoons and explaining the misunderstanding in them. Yesterday we had a quiz in COM class.. I really have no idea why they give these quizzes....its just a very elaborate way of taking attendance...the questions were mostly simple and the once that weren't were totally unrelated to communication skills (like one where they asked for the author of a phrase which had been quoted during the lecture).

Now I have a three day weekend... just what the doctor ordered. for me :)

So I'll close by posting a letter one of the Y5 batch students had posted on the door of the Hall 2 mess. I showed it to a couple of people who said that there was some degree of truth in it....

Well, I have been extremely busy for the past few days. I don't like being extremely busy since I am unable to spend time talking to friends and also feel a bit strained.

Anyway, it all started less than 48 hours after I reached Kanpur coming from a place which was 8 hours behind Indian Standard time (so I suffered from plenty of jetlag).
The next day I was asked if I could do some coding for partial automation of the placement registration process for this year. I agreed to that and spent most of my time till This Saturday doing that. At the same time, I didn't miss a single class (barring one maths tutorial, cos of late registration). So that left me with basically no time for anything else.

Then my SG wants me to make a site for the Society of Civil Engineers (SOCE as it is known in IITK circles) and finally to complete the list, I have to maintain the Science and Technology Council.

Anyway presently my Inbox has been flooded by over 100 mails in less than 24 hours, all of them related to the placement registration. Problems range from not being able to open the PDF application file/submitting the form 10 times/wanting to change the form information/people who have done a Diploma instead of 12th .... and a variety of other problems including people who fill in their mail id wront in the mail client and so, when I click reply to author and send a mail, it bounces back and then I have to go and extract the message, replace iik.ac.in with iitk.ac.in and again send it.. and the problem is that I have to reply to each of those 100 mails in a polite tone. Its a good thing that a) I am doing a communication skills course and b)can type reasonably fast.

It feels a bit wierd when an Mtech student mails me addressing me as "Respected Sir" (I have to stifle a grin then). Anyway...so far about 300 people have registered for placement... the SPO is expecting some 700 people to apply for placement...I guess the remaining plan to apply in typical "IIT style"... at 7:59 am tommorow morning.

My CPI dropped by one whole point after my second semester sem so when I came to IITK I had decided to just focus on acads and not do anything and one week later... I have no idea what is happening. I am able to follow everything in class but don't have time to do the assignments.... and people still say "He is a Lucent Scholar/IITian, he can manage all this".

Even as I am typing out this, another 10 mails have come into my inbox.. 9 related to placement and one from a friend. Now what will happen is that I willl reply to the 9 emails and leave out the reply to the friends email (since its not a priority, Ill reply later and that later will never come most likely).

Next thing to worry about is the CC. Everyone is asking about the CC printer, now that the CC is open and running fine...and everyone is happy with the timings (6 am to 2 am).

I again have some problem with my eyes... they sometimes become red and then it starts itching and then I have to blink and then I can't concentrate for some time. So I went to the HC for that and also since there was some rash developing on my feet. The doctor gave me some eyedrops and some tablets...I told my Dad this and apparently he was expecting them to take a blood test or something. Brrrr this sounds serious but I hope it isnt.

Anyway look at the positive things, I finally got back my original sleeping schedule (10 pm to 530 am) which I like the most since I do not feel one bit sleepy in the 8'o clock class (though it's a total misfit for IITK life)

Ok now its back to my emailing. I feel a bit tired but I must not give up...not giving up is what helped me clear JEE despite the fact that noone who did his 12th outside India had gotten a rank < 2000 before me. But yes, sometimes I wish I was what I was 17 years ago... when all I had to do in life was eat sleep and make noise.

Thats it for now.

A week over... a very busy one... For three consecutive days, I had 5 hours of non stop classes in the morning.

The CC is finally open, since all the repairs are over. Ahhhh the Hall CC felt like heaven as I waked into it from the hot and humid corridor. I am a bit tied up these days, doing some PHP programming to partially automate the placement process. Apart from that there are other things to do too... like unpacking.... I still haven't unpacked my luggage fully.

This semester, I am doing a course on communication skills. So far it has been pretty interesting. The only thing I didn't like was the role playing, where a group of us would have to act out a scenario like "A Dad promises to be back home at 6 and take his wife and son out but he ends up at 8". The students have to act out what they thought would happen after the Dad reached his home.
It was interesting to watch but for some reason I find it a bit artificial...and so am not able to think of anything to say in that situation since I'm not really in that situation..... I mean even if I don't think of anything to say, I know that nothing deadly will happen to me and hence my mind decides to become lazy and not think any further.

But I'm reasonably sure that if something like this happens in real life, I will be able to handle it... or at least I have been able to handle such things....the most recent one being when my Bombay-Delhi flight got cancelled, and I got stuck at Bombay airport... it went pretty ok... I went and met a few of the airport officials and got a seat on board another flight.

Today was the registration... a bit frustrating since I was among the first to submit the form and so it ended up at the bottom of a stack....and just when my form was about to be processed, another stack of forms were put on top and the whole thing was turned upside down. Anyway, in the end I managed to complete my registration.

Now a weekend ahead of me....but still have a lot of things to do tomorrow.
Thats it for now.

July 29th

8 pm local time, New York : Delta Flight Number 118 took off.
9 am local time, Paris : I landed in Paris (transit).
11 am local time, Paris : Flight leaves Paris, scheduled to reach Bombay at 1230 am.
12:30 am local time : We are 32 km from Bombay airport (at an altitude of 10 km... you can use Pythagoras theorem to find the third parameter)

Suddenly, the "estimated time to land" increased from 6 minutes to 1 hour and 40 minutes. Some passengers pointed this out to the airhostess who said she hoped it was an error.

We kept circling around at a height of 36,000 feet. Then the captain made an announcement...that there were a lot of planes roaming around above Bombay hoping to land and that our plane had gotten a slot an hour away.

Finally we landed at 2 am. It was just like one of those movies involving air crafts... a storm was brewing... thunder, lightning, wind ... and a plane trying to land. We landed safely and the passengers clapped.

It took another 40 min to get the luggage and clear customs. Then I went to a relative's house to stay for the night. On the way I got to see the damage caused by floods. Lots of people had dumped their furniture which had been spoiled by the rain.. there were a few abandoned cars which had been washed away by the floods. We passed by Amitabh Bachchan's house which was also flooded.

I slept for 6 hours before returning to the airport at 1130 am for my flight. I ended up meeting my co-scholar there. Her flight was scheduled at 6 am but all morning flights had been delayed due to poor visibility.

My flight to Delhi had been cancelled, so I went and got a seat on a plane which was originally supposed to depart at 8 am but had been rescheduled for 3:30 pm. The situation at the airport was really bad... with several frustrated passengers shouting at the airport staff who had to bear with it. One of the flights initially didn't take of cos they had a plane but no crew... then by the time they got a crew, the plane had been used for a different flight so now there was a crew but no plane. The passengers on that flight must've been really frustrated.

They literally were using the planes like taxis... one official suddenly phoned someone and says "IC 164 ko nikalo aur Delhi jaane ke liye taiyaar kaaro".

Anyway my 330 flight finally took off at 730 pm. We landed in Delhi at 9:30 pm then I went to the station, grabbed a burger and fries at Wimpy's for dinner and got on the train.

The train reached Kanpur at 6:15. I got on the van waiting for me and reached the insti at 7:15 am. I somehow managed to unpack a bit and then head for my 8 am Mechanics of Solids lecture. I had breakfast during the 9am -10am break and returned for the lectures after that.

Back at the hostel, I'm having trouble with the Hall CC... apparently noone knew where the key was so they broke open the door yesterday. The inside is a total mess.... with three big patches on the wall where the photography people had put the switchboards.

Both AC's aren't working. Two tubelights are fused and another tubelight is missing.The floor is covered with dust. So in the end I guess the cc won't open for another few days. I complained about it. Hopefully, the electrical people will come tommorow for the repair work.

Anyway Im feeling pretty tired thanks to jetlag and of course dragging all the luggage from the ground floor to the 2nd floor.