In Retrospect: Semester 2

Fresh from winter vacations, I was very happy about my second semester. I had decided to get a laptop so that I could devote more time to programming (thats what I thought :) ). That was the turning point. It did not matter because of the laptop and the accompanying pleasures but because I had started moving away from the curriculum. I had decided to do what made me happy. Thus started the golden period of my history at IITK. I started bunking classes. It seemed to me as if nothing else matters. How wrong I was. My academic performace took the plunge. First mid-sems came too soon for my comfort. I was, however, still not ready to realize what was wrong. The month of February arrived and with it the only thing that I had waited for since hearing about it - 'Techkriti'. I teamed up with Ashish Bhatia and we made it a point to test ourselves in all the software events. Three days passed and we had had no success. I had resigned myself to brood over it and my mid-sem's performance. Yet, while I was brooding on the last day, Ashish Bhatia pinged me on gtalk that the final software event was going to start. It was chaos. No, It's name was Chaos. When I reached Computer Centre, the event had already started, I was five minutes late. So I was brushed up on rules by Ashish and then we started solving. Believe it or not, we solved all the problems with more than half hour to spare. That was the moment which brought me back to my shell (pun intended, for geeks ;) ). I was high on my success in my first year. I decided going to classes is not as exciting and rewarding. So, yet again, I bunked classes and soon I recieved a call to visit Prof. Onkar Dixit who was the then Counselling Service Head. The reason was that my Physics tutor, Prof. M. K. Harbola, had decided to report my lack of attendance to counselling service. I did not like it then but today I greatly appreciate it. This way, cases of severe depression can be brought to notice and I believe that was his motive. So, as it happened, I met Prof. Onkar Dixit and he listened to my problem that I was not interested in my department. He went on to advice me that I should look at all the opportunities available which I had overlooked (of course, I had no idea what all department was about). When I reached for the second mid-sems, I was shouted at by Prof. Harbola. I dont remember what I told him but I guess it had something to do with being sorry :) . After second-mids, I decided it would not be good to stretch things too far and I started being the studious fellow who goes to classes. At the end of semester I had passed all my courses, much to my surprise. Of all my semesters here, second sem was the one with the most highs and lows.