Of nostalgia and more

I seem to be really jobless today...exams are over and hols have started...here i am sitting in my lab in front of a kernel build thinking about things that have whizzed past in my life. College life is supposed to be real fun and play. I am not really sure If I can say the same about mine. I never thought that I really had fun in my college. Ofcourse it could be partially because that I never take fun out of anything in life. I am a serious guy even when I try to be funny.
Now when sitting before this blog and trying to remember all the nice things that have happened to me in my college life...I am amazed at the number of things that come into my mind.... I must definitely record them now lest I shall never get to meet them again in my self assumed busy schedule.. (kernel interrupts..gotta go...save my draft....it has got enough work to do now...lets continue)

Where was I...Yes college life...it has been quite a great time in college, though i never realized it when I was there. Now that I am having my hols and have nothing much to do... I have decided to post a series of episodes in my college life (Hmm...one more of those commitments that I do not care about)... The best experiences in college life...Lets start with what happened an year before this post.... ICPC... yeah we got a chance to go to the Inter Collegiate Programming Contest to be held at Amrita Vishwa Vidya Peetam in coimbatore.

One thing that gave a real change to my interest in CS was the introduction to programming contests in my second year.... I never realized that there were so many intelligent people in this planet(yeah...i am a egoistic maniac...I think too much of me and get away with it times though I know that I am nothing in this world my mind simply hates to accept the truth). I have always aggressively wanted to be a smart guy and thought I could make some fanfare through programming. It was interesting, we had lots of contests and they were all simulating. Memories are still fresh in mind of the days when we used to get ready for the contest from 4 in the evening, sitting under the bodhi tree, meeting up with friends and anxiously waiting for the contest. Once the contest starts we are in a different world. I was never a great programmer but always pretend to be one...one more thing that my devilish mind never wants to give up. We code and mostly we lose, my mind being the evil thing that it is will never want take that it lost. I will therefore ask the others as to how they did things, aggressively arguing about questions...our discussions last well into the night and we reach back home at 10 not having done much useful that evening.

My programming got a new face when Leo started solving contest problems in online judge, madhan and varadhu followed suit. As usual the egoist stepped up, I spent hours and hours doing those problems...like I told you earlier I am no great programmer but there was that feeling of competition. I spent a lot of my time and finally ended up in the top of my batch...but could not do more..I just admired at the people in the top..Like I told you I am a no good programmer.

These programming episodes led to a bit of programming experience. We ended up first in the local selection contest, we were definitely not the best team, lenin's team was better but I guess luck had it that we got an extra problem in the kitty when they got stuck in a wrong one. I was a happy that day that we made it to the first place but my good half of the mind said that may be we really did not deserve it.

The online prelims were up for two asia regionals one in kanpur and one in coimbatore. The better teams will eventually end up in a better place, lenin's team got through to the kanpur regionals...they got the fifth place there..hats off to them. The coimbatore prelims was an eyewash and they wanted as many teams as possible. We packed our bags to coimbatore. I can still remember that night, when I boarded the train hoping to make it big (The egoist in me is still hoping he is the best).

I got a good sleep in that train, me and prasad had seats close by in the same compartment while madhan, lenin's team, vijay and pradeep were in a different coach. I woke up really early in the train, I am not so much of a sleeper in moving vehicles besides I was excited too.. Prasad came around and met me sitting in the sear next to the compartment door. He asked me how much it will take from there to coimbatore, I actually did not know... but the egoist in me never says that out in the public... I said "one hour" and kept on secretly hoping that the train would reach there in an hour... As you can guess it took much more than that.

We reached coimbatore and the group gathered. It seems those guys had some arbit food at midnight in salem and were not feeling so great. Praveen was on the phone all the time, supposedly talking to a friend. We came out of the station, went to the hotel opposite and had some food. After muching some hot idlis (man..do I have a good memory) we stepped into a taxi. Praveen's friend had come, I thought he was talking to some silly friend who wanted to meet him but this guy had come to take us to amrita. That poor guy parked his vehicle in the wrong place and had to pay a fine. He offered a ride to half the group. I was with the juniors on a taxi. As we reached amrita, the place got greener and the air was fresher. We waited for some goods train to pass by, It was a beautiful campus....

My fingers are numb...so the post stops here...
I never wanted to record much of the facts above, but my guilt needed an outlet lest it may never see the outside world. Putting this post in a blog that no one will supposedly read will gimme some satisfaction that I never buried the true facts in my life.

To blog or not to blog

I dunno why I want to write these blogs...I dont write interestingly, neither do I write regularly...then why do I write this damn silly blogs....waste of time ofcourse. I would love to keep a record of what interesting things happen in my daily life...but what If some of it is too personal to go public. It would be cool to share some of the information with my friends though..but then again who the heck is going to be even bothered to read into my blog in this busy world.
Blogging is a nice way of maintaining a record of your sweet and not so sweet memories. Life may not shine itself in full brightness all the time but when it does do so, it is great to have a record of it. It would basically be a lot of fun later on when you are free....(may be when you are retired) to go through your posts and look at how life has treated you. It would be the best way to relive your youth, cherish your life and satisfy yourself.
Blogs are also cool ways to express your thoughts and dreams. It gives publishing power to pundits and pranksters alike. I am not too much of a dreamer or a writer but there are lots of them out there in the blogspace who have really great talents. I still remember those days when I spent hours and hours reading blogs of helmet and kabi. These guys are awesome bloggers and they have a natural flow of thoughts and command over the language to blog on....It was then that I got this childish desire to blog. I have never been a regular or successful blogger but when I want to kill time I am sure that my blog comes to my rescue.
I think when I want to spend some time, I must come visit my blog and pour some arbit nonsense as I always do.....