Life Of Navin

Well, my first semester in college just ended a day ago and I spent the last twenty four hours just reminiscing some cool and some not-so-cool *stuff* that have occured over the last 5 months. So, on that note, I come out with this personal post titled "Stuff I Did This Semester".

OK, So here goes:





1) Became An Engico (woot woot!!)
I Joined College this year.....and after loads of pre-admission hoopla, and trips to NIT-K and to MANIT, I finally got into GEC, Goa. I won't lie, I did have my premonitions about the college, but all my doubts were cleared within the first two weeks in the college.

To put it simply, the college rocks, the teachers are pretty helpful and most importantly, the spirits of the GEC-ians (who're called Engicos) are at eternal highs!!

My branch (which I simply wouldn't compromise on to get into a so called "elite institution") is Computer Sciences & Engineering (duh!!) and as such I became a member of the coolest college students association: TEAM CURSOR ( Cursor stands for "Computer Students Organisation"). You can check out the cool video that the third years made about a third year Comp student's college life below.



2) Got Ragged
I dunno if you'd call what happened to me as ragging, but I guess you could call it that....The seniors tried to break me, but I guess I managed to maintain my dignity all THREE times

a) On the bus.... right up front , I ended up laughing at other blokes along with the same guys who "ragged" me!!
b) On the same bus on the same day... at the back ( Read No. 3 in my top 3 bloopers)..... My mistake, I admit!!
c) At the Nescafe, with a chocolate donut in my hand the whole time. The best part was when they asked me why I'd take Computers even though most people with ranks around mine had taken Electronics and Telecommunication (ETC) and I'd told them that I was interested in network security and practical quantum computing. Then I'd been asked to give a short intro to quantum computing, which I gladly did. I guess that I spoke pretty well coz for the next week or two, whenever I crossed paths with that group of seniors, they constantly called me 'E=MC^2'.... hehehe

3) Wrote An Sem Exam Without A Textbook
I'd heard about this kinda stuff happening in college, but I didn't expect it to happen to me in my first sem itself.... the subject was 'Applied Sciences' (Physics And Chem), and I somehow ended up with no text books to study the subject from.... the paper went pretty well... now its just a wait to see if my "tactics" worked or not.

4) Made New Homies
Once again, I had premonitions about the kinda people in GEC, but once I got here it didn't take too long for things to start clicking. I was pleasantly surprised to meet my new friends who're extremely talented and bright and I hope to strengthen bonds with them over the next few years!!

5) Broke Ties With A Really Dear Friend
I dunno how this happened, or why, but somehow I ended up completely shutting out this really close friend from my life.

6) Made Some Moolah $$$
Oh Yeah.... This sem was pretty good to me as far as raking in the money is concerned.
I made a pretty cool amount of cash, around Rs. 13000 (not counting a Rs.2000 prize I'm supposed to get for No.8) through different competitions ranging from technical ones like writing papers on Network Security, to literary ones like essay writing, to the extra curricular ones like quizzes. A special thousand bucks came for No. 12.

7) Got Myself An iPod
As I said in No. 6 I made quite a bit of cash this sem, and after considering buying a cellphone,I finally got myself an iPod nano..... but the sad part was that a month after I got my nano (3rd Gen), Steve Jobs launched the 4th Gen iPods and their price is nearly the same as the 3rd Gens!! But still, it feels great to be part of the Apple family. See my iPod here

A cellphone coming up next I guess :)

8) Wrote A Prize Winning Essay
The competition was organised by the ETC student's association of my college, ASSETS

The topic of the essay was "ENGINEERS AT HEART".
It felt good to get in touch with my literary side, and winning the competition was the cherry on the cake. You can read my essay in their monthly magazine IMPULSE here (Its a download).

9) Joined a Rock Band
Do I hear you rubbing your eyes in disbelief?? Well, its true alright...... At a College fest, my friends had planned to rock the crowd with Linkin Park's "Bleed It Out".... too bad one of the singers, the self proclaimed "e8rNl R0kr" Krishna "Kris" Sehgal had a bad case of Laryngitis two days before the big gig....

And guess who was in Bengaluru for those very four days?? Moi!! This great event occured just before college started but technically in my first semester.

I handled the chorus and with Aneesh "AD" Dhritye on the drums, Swapnil Shenoy in lead and the keyboard, and Riyaz Sheikh on the guitar, and Prakash on the synth, the show went on!!
I had barely 6 lines, 4 of them being " I bleed it out
Digging deeper just to throw it away" but the experience was totally awesome nonetheless, and people actually came up to me and said "well done" so I guess I wasn't really as bad as I'd expected to be!!

Plus, we got a cash remunerance of Rs.7000 , one-seventh of which went straight into my hands......

10) Went The Open Source Way
Somehow I suddenly realised that I had almost zero experience with open source software and so decided to go the open source way.
Starting off with a few live CD's, and slowly moving on to actual installs, I'm finally going open-source!! Even checked out some open source software and games... They rock!!

Just as I completed this post, the doorbell rang, and guess what, the postman handed me the CDs of Ubuntu and Kubuntu 8.10 that I'd ordered a month ago ....woo hoo!!

11) Set Up My Personal Site
Another personal milestone acheived.... I have my own personal site now, and I'm proud of what I've created. Not yet hosted it though....still stuck between free hosting/ paid hosting and some free webspace offered by friends in the business of web hosting. Also, some tiny kinks need to be worked out. But overall, I guess I'm all set to go live with my site.

A good friend from Delhi came up with this great idea for a site name --> Nav.In .... Cool huh??

Else, it'll probably be navinpai.com/.in/co.in/.co.nr/.org

Lets see how that shapes up!!

12) Lost My Grandmom
Not something I did, but something that has impacted me strongly. On an extremely sad note, I lost the greatest, most rocking lady I've had the opportunity to know, my grandmom, Sumitra Pai, who'd lived 84 years of the most amazing life possible. I seriously have been left with a void in my heart since she's been gone.

OK, I guess thats it, but I'd just add a few more lines under the subtitle:

TOP 3 BLOOPERS OF THE SEMESTER:

• Messed with a senior!! I learned Rule No. 1 of college life the hard way.....NEVER MESS WITH A SENIOR......It was a mistake that ended up with me becoming the butt of some pretty crude jokes one day on the bus. (Read No. 2 in the previous list)
• Confused a guy with another guy for over two months....... Even called him by the other guys name..... when I realised my mistake, I apologised, and thankfully he didn't mind too much.
• .::drumroll please::.
  OK, I can't explain this one as such, so I'll just give you the script of the conversation I had ( which is the blooper!!) with two gals, lets call them "A" and "B", in the presence of a dozen other people or so
  
  Everyone's listening to this conversation
  A: Hey Navin, You were from Peoples right?? (Peoples High School ........ my school till the 10th)
  Me: Yeah :)
  A: Do you know this teacher named XYZ??
  Me: Yeah, I know her..... She never taught me but I completely hated her
  (A dramatic pause.......everyone gasps)
  B: XYZ is my mom!!
  Me:(Oops) Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry.......( Why can't I just keep my mouth shut??)
  
  This was followed by me trying to convince everyone that I din't mean what I'd said, and thankfully "B" was a darling and sort of understood that I didn't mean to offend anyone!!

So as you can see, I'm having a lotta fun in college and do pray that life continues like this. Next sem will probably be a little slow and uneventful as compared to this one as I have "other plans" which'll keep me pre-occupied!!


(eebd-ebde-eebd) That's All Folks!!



Comments Anyone??