The First Week of Summer!

Hi Guys,

I think my last post was a fortnight back. I thought of penning down a lot of things last Sunday, but I was out of time. I went to the movie ‘Vinnai Thandi Varuvaya’ in the morning and then I was engaged writing assignments the whole day.

Also the title of this post is ‘The First week of summer’. Last week was very hot and humid here, marking that the summer had begun. Let’s hope the summer is quite mild this year, though the chances are less due to Global Warming.

Sporting Actions

The 12th Hockey world cup is going on in Delhi from Feb 28. Though India is in very poor form these days, a lot was expected from them as it is our home ground. Our players played up to the expectations in the 1st match against Pakistan, beating them 4-1. Then in the 2nd match, Australia outplayed us 5-2. Against Spain, India played better, but they failed to convert the passes and penalty corners to goals. In the end again a 5-2 defeat. Today India played England. India dominated the scene, but as usual failed to score goals even in the last minute and lost 3-2 to give up the semi final hopes. At least they must win South Africa and fight for the 5th place.

It was great to see Sachin hit a double century in the Gwalior ODI against South Africa. I have been his fan from the days I started watching cricket. There are a lot of sporting events ahead this month. The much expected IPL III begins on March 12. There have been a lot of controversies around this event. To me, any of the 8 teams have a chance to win this event. I have been a great fan of F1 races, particularly Michael Schumacher. It’s great that he is back on track this year at the age of 41. But it is quite different to see him with the McLaren Team instead of the famous Ferrari. Let’s see how he drives in the Bahrain GP on March 14.

Events in the College

College is going on nice these days, despite the huge amount of politics happening. We had better performances in the interdepartmental culturals. We got 2nd place in the events like Skit, Vocal Solo (Siva Kumar) and theme dance. We also got the 3rd place in Western dance. There were lot of politics in the events that led to conflict and repetition of events like Folk and western dances. Finally the points were calculated based on the number of students and hence we missed the 1st place by a whisker.

The interdepartmental sports are also nearing the end. We were leading a few days before, but sadly we let it slip our hands. We can’t do a lot on that, mainly because having no girls in our department we can’t rely on the events conducted for girls. We expect compensation points based on the points we scored, but we are denied and hence Sports Shield has also become a dream. But our performance was far better than last year, both in cultural and sports.

The mood in the college is upbeat after the last semester results. Much has improved than the previous semester. Our college secured the University’s 2nd place in the overall pass percentage, missing the 1st by a mere 0.68%. Last time the difference was more than 20%.

I will keep updating about my activities.

Happy reading!!!

Nice memories of the Quiz Competition!

Hi Guys,

In my last post, I mentioned that I’ll be writing about my memories of the Quiz competition. A mixture of good fortune and misfortune yielded us the 3rd prize.

The competition occurred last Wednesday (11-2-10). There were 7 teams (1 from each department). Each team consisted of 3 members.  In our department myself, Raja and a junior (whom I didn’t know before) participated.

We didn’t prepare anything before the event. The event was by 3.30 pm in the seminar hall. We went by 3 pm. Some EEE boys were standing there reading some huge books. Naanga jollya ninnu kadha pesitu irundhom! Namakum mathavangalukum oru difference vendama?

We were called by 3.30 pm. The HOD of English department was the Quiz Master. We were team 5. There were 5 rounds in all, namely General, Science & Tech, Sports, Rapid fire and Visuals. A correct answer yields 2 points for a direct question and 1 point in case of a passing question. This applied for all the rounds except the 4th.

We didn’t score any points by the end of 1st round. In the 2nd round we scored 1 point. The question was “When Graham Bell discovered Telephone, what did he speak in the phone?” It came to us as a pass question. I remembered that he called his assistant.  I said “Please come here”. He was expecting the exact answer.  But other teams also failed to give the exact answer. So, he awarded us with the point. The actual answer was “Mr. Watson, come here! I need you”.

The next round was Sports round. We had a lot of luck in this round. A question was “When and where did India win its 1^st Olympic hockey gold medal?” I remembered it was in 1928, but I forgot where. The next team answered it was at Amsterdam. So we got .5 marks each.  Another question was “In a golf match if a ball is lost, how long will they search?” Team 6 answered “10 minutes” I guessed it was 5 and it ended as the right answer.  Another question was “In which game, the term Long and Short Corner is used?” We knew it is Hockey. Finally our direct question was “In a game of Tug of War, what is the maximum number of players?” Raja told me it was either 7 or 8. I told him to go ahead with the answer. He said 8 and it was the right answer. By the end of this round 4.5 points were added to our table. Scores of Significant teams at the end of this round were as follows

Team 1 (EC)-5… Team 2 (CS)-2… Team 5 (Mech)-5.5… Team 6 (MCA)-5.5… Team 7 (MBA)-7…

The next round was Rapid Fire. The rules were: there will be 10 questions. The answers should be in yes/no format. The team leader must answer the questions. A correct answer meant +1 and a wrong answer meant -1, whereas a pass meant 0. In this round Team 1 scored 2 points (4-2), team 2 scored 7 points (8-1).

In our turn I made blunders. The 1st question was right, 2nd one was “New York was once known as New Amsterdam”. I should have passed, but I answered yes. It was wrong. The 3rd one was right. 4th one was “Atlantic ocean is the largest ocean in the world”. It was very clear that Pacific Ocean is the largest. I was going to answer No, my junior team mate said yes to me and I blurted yes. The 5th question was “James Cook discovered Australia” I was quite sure he did, but I was not dead sure. So, I passed, but the answer was yes. We were 0. My mind was clouded by then. I was not even able to listen to the questions. Raja told me the answer and I repeated them. We scored 4points (6-2). Team 6 confused more than us. They finished with 0 points (4-4). Team 7 scored 9 points (9-0). The scores were

Team 1 (EC)-7… Team 2 (CS)-9… Team 5 (Mech)-9.5… Team 6 (MCA)-5.5… Team 7 (MBA)-16…

It was clear Team 7 was the winner. The competition was for the 2nd prize. The 5th round was visuals. A photo will be displayed and we needed to identify who it was. We identified it correctly getting 2 points.  But team 2 got a pass question and also answered their direct question scoring 3 points. So the result was

1st: Team 7 with 18 points

2nd: Team 2 with 12 points

3rd: Team 5 with 11.5 points.

We could have got the 2nd place with a little effort. But it was all mind game. You need to be cool. A good lesson learnt at the end of the day.

Anyway it was good to win the 3rd prize. There were appreciations from my classmates. Even the faculty members appreciated us and it was quite unexpected!

Happy Reading!!!

P.S: Some Interesting information from the Quiz:

• The animal that sleeps standing is horse.
• Albert Einstein got his Nobel Prize for Photoelectric effect, not for the Relativity Theory.
• Nobel Prizes are given from 1901.
• India got a chance to participate in the 1950 Brazilian football world cup. But they didn’t participate since they didn’t know to play with football boots.
• 1 Nautical Mile= 1.115 kms.

The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well!

Hi Guys,

In this post I’ll be writing about the illegal things that are happening in the college cultural competitions.

Interdepartmental Cultural competitions are taking place in our college from last Tuesday.  There will be lot of competitions like Skit, Dance, Song, Adzap, Quiz, etc. The competitions are scheduled up to next Friday. The winner gets 10 points, runner 5 and the 3^rd place team/individual 3 points. These points will be added to the department table and whoever tops the table gets the Cultural shield for that year.

This year CS was dominating the tables from the 1^st day. I was wondering how they came to the limelight all of a sudden. Today I got a chance to coordinate the Ad Zap event and thereby I came to know all the things they were doing to steal the points.

The event in charge for Ad Zap event was a senior lecturer from our department. So he just called me, Bala, Vimal and Santosh to coordinate the event. Santosh was there in our Ad Zap team and hence the other 3 of us were there managing the venue and keeping the time. The judge was the AHM from school. Time allotment was 4 minutes for preparation and 4 minutes for presentation. There was a boy’s team and a girl’s team from each department.

The event was conducted in the drawing hall. Audiences other than participants were not allowed to watch the event. There were 4 staff members from the CS department including their HOD (there was none from the other departments). When the CS girls’ team came there was a loud applause from the CS boys’ team and the staffs. Whenever they did something idiotic they laughed and clapped as if they had no brains. That was enough to stir the judge.

Now CS HOD told their boys’ team to go last (teams were allowed to choose their lot). She came to the event coordinator and said that they will take 3 minutes for preparation and 5 minutes for presentation. That was beyond the rules but we had no other go but to accept. They were the last which meant they had enough time to prepare since they knew what their topic was, when the previous team came. The preparation time was meant for the 6 members, but many others assisted them.

Within this time a lot of students rushed in the hall from nowhere. What is to be noted is they were all CS students. When their team came they clapped, shouted and did whatever was possible to encourage them. Whenever something humorous was said, they shouted. That was enough to impress the judge. After the end of their presentation, they were yelling ‘CS, CS’ which is considered in disciplinary (in our college!!!). Last year when our guys did something like this in folk dance competition we were disqualified from the event for the same. Today it went just like that!

Today was one of the worse victories I’ve ever seen. I just remember what Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of modern Olympics said

L'important dans la vie ce n'est point le triomphe, mais le combat, l'essentiel ce n'est pas d'avoir vaincu mais de s'être bien battu (which means)

The important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle, the essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.

After all, these things will yield them the prizes and may be the shield, but I’m damn sure that they will never have the satisfaction or pleasure of winning! But we will have the pleasure of having fought so well.

Also, I would like to congratulate Sundar who has won III prize in the Pencil Art competition. I was present in our team that won the III prize in Quiz. I’ll write those nice experiences in my next post.

Happy Reading!!!