Things that crossed my way!

Hi guys,

I have finished four of my six exams. I have done the exams quite well. Now I have my remaining two exams in middle of my holidays. Confused? Read further.

First University, now Government

Actually my exams were scheduled on May 19. But at the last minute, due to some unforeseen reasons (???) our exams were postponed to June 10. So we had 20 days of additional preparation time (actually we treated them as vacation). Exams were to be over on june 26. Now here comes the Tamil Semmozhi Manadu. For this function from June 23 to 27, Government has announced holidays from june 23 to June 25 (june26, 27 are Saturday and Sunday). So, our exam on June 23 has been postponed to July 2. But, the funny side is that the exam on June 26 remains.

Government’s plan is that Saturday and Sunday will be holiday in all universities and so it is unnecessary to say June 26 as holiday. Our intelligent guys in the university have got it all wrong. So we have exams with lot of holidays (or holidays with two exams in between). So probably with all these postponements, we won’t be having any vacation this semester (may be 1 week will be there). My view is that if the exam on June 26 was also postponed, it would have given us a good 10 day vacation. Particularly, students residing in hostel would have got a good stay in their home. Whatever it is, our vacation has been spoiled.

Amazing Steels

Today I had my Engineering Materials and Metallurgy exam. I had a chapter about Ferrous and Non Ferrous metals. Steels covered one third of that unit. When I was studying, I just pondered outside the subject. I was mesmerized about how a small amount of Carbon can change the properties of Iron. Steels are nothing but Iron having carbon content less than 2%. Depending on the amount of carbon, steels are further classified. For every 0.1% of carbon added, there is a dramatic change. Steels are used in all places. To further improve the properties, other materials are also added (called alloy steels).

Stainless steels are one such type of steels. It contains minimum 12% of chromium. The chromium forms a thin but strong chromium oxide layer, which doesn’t allow other things to get in and thus avoids rust. If it gets less than 12% the corrosion rate increases steeply. Just as I went through the steels it was amazing. Everything ranging from razor blades, pins to construction bars, bridges, railway lines are using steels. But raw iron is not used generally in anything (if iron contains more than 2% carbon, it is called cast iron and it is also widely used in machinery).

Mosquito Menace

It’s being raining here (more drizzling than raining) now and then. It hasn’t reduced the heat to a large extent, but it has got mosquitoes into action. It’s just June and it’s annoying to see mosquitoes now itself. Don’t know how things are going to worsen in the upcoming days.

Improvements in cinema theatres

After the advent of Big Cinema’s cinema halls into Madurai, a lot has improved in other theatres too. Many theaters have done renovation works and are completely new with good air conditioning effect and very good seats. Most of the theatres have divided the olden theatre into 2 or 3 new screens. A few theatres that have been renovated include Thangaregal, Ambiga Theatre (screen II alone), Guru and Mani Impala. All these were very poor a few years ago.

This means that people are going for more comfort than price. Though these theatres cost you more, the comfort level is very high. Also the splitting of screens means that, the crowd has dramatically decreased. Of these all, I like Big Cinema’s theatre, plainly because they charge you the same price whether you go on the first day or last day (where else can u see a movie for Rs. 65 on the opening day).

Not only theatres, Madurai seems to be developing in all aspects day by day. Things that were once dreams are coming true now. Initially I thought these things won’t last long here but now it seems that I got it all wrong. Today’s people are ready to spend and enjoy (for example, last week I read in newspaper that the newly opened Domino’s pizza is a great hit here). It’s all good going here.

That’s it for now!

Happy Reading!!!