Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Four years of college - Retrospection

B. Sayee Prasaad, Chemical Engineering, Batch 2004-2008

Time has come for me to say this with a heavy heart.... Or so, i do feel... I am now officially an alumnus of this college and I now look back at the four years I have spent here... It may be a repetition from the numerous blogs some may have already read, but here's mine...

First Year: Too homesick, trips to BHEL and Chennai very frequent, not accustomed to Mess food, got stomach problems, Section Dhamaka

Second Year: Homesick (again), Trips to Chennai, Diamond room 32 Camp, Mokka rankings, Department friends, great class rep (thanks Praveen !!!), Pragyan, NITTFEST, Alchemy

Third year: Homesick (yet again), Trips to Chennai, Class rep duties (ME !!!), Great IV trip to cochin, Garnet 112 Camp, Garnet LAN, CPC, football matches in TV room, Pragyan, Alchemy

Fourth year: Homesick (ob again), Trips to Chennai, CPC co-ord, Pragyan, NITTFEST, apping, Alchemy, football matches in TV room, Garnet LAN, great set of dedicated friends to stick together for everything...

This summed up my entire four years of college... This is what others say when they hear I'm an NITTian - "Wow, NITT, too good... What else? Higher studies? Great job???" People say this college has been a pillar of strength to them, but seriously I dont find all of it true. A bit more motivation towards research and education can work wonders with the students and here's hoping this can take place soon so that this college can truly achieve the status of the IIT's and probably beyond...

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Exams Over !!!

Wohoo !!! Exams over at last. A well deserved holidays is now on the cards. Or is it, since most of us didnt take them seriously and fooled around utilizing most of the study to do some "useful" stuff. There were a few of us from the chemical engineering department who totally wasted our time seeing moies like Om Shanti Om, Azagiya Tamil Magan (again !!!), Polladavan and had AOE tournaments. Exams always for me has been enjoyable. Usually I go to Saravana's room and there are other people also like Lokesh, Pradeep, Gopal, Gowrish, Samavedi, etc... Saravana is undoubtely the Tech Fundoo of the class, and he understands concepts in a jiffy. Therez a lot of other GD's going on in the room once we start to read as we digress from one topic to another. So the main purpose of combined studies is lost. I guess, thats why its called so.

Ok, gots lotsa work to do: see football, catch up some other movies, and eat and sleep !!!

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Football continues...

Football as discussed in my previous post, is slowly picking up viewership in India. But is it loosing its sheen and style as it was before is the question now posed...

There used to be a time, where some players were magicians, out of nowhere could they create magic and lift all the hearts watching them play. There was Maradona, Pele, Bobby Charlton, Johan Cruijff, Di Stefano, George Best, Beckenbauer, Lev Yashin etc. But when we look at the current crop of players, how many would you think would fit into the shoes of these players. I dont think we can ever find the next Pele or George Best ( yeah, even though some "people" said Hleb is the next George Best which is one of the most stupidest thing I have ever heard or seen, those "people" must have never seen George Best play !!!). We can see the names of upcoming young stars like "the next Ronaldinho, the next Kaka, the next Zidane" and so on, we can never compare them to the all time greats.

Football - a new religion ???

Just as I was browsing thru today's Economic Times newspaper, I came across this article about the head of ESPN asking John Abraham to promote EPL and also his movie Goal. Now as mentioned in the article, he says the viewership ratings have increased a lot for the EPL matches. This is certainly a welcome change in a country like India where the sports mantra seems to be only cricket, in fact its a religion.

Football viewership in India has always been very selective. In my college, though there are a few football fanatics. Srikkanth, Pradeep and me belonged to that elite club. Since all of us are in the same department, we used to discuss football right thru the classes much to the annoyance of others. Unfortunately I am a die-hard Man Utd supporter and the other two are Arsenal fans. So there used to be a tussle everytime a topic comes up concerning both the clubs. There are also others like Aravind Thayat who supports Liverpool with all his heart, C who supports AC Milan and Lokesh who fancies Chelsea to be his club of choice but these people are not maniacs like us, sitting throughout the night watching every EPL, laLiga, Serie A or Champions League match. You can say because of football, we changed our activities to more on the nocturnal basis.

Contemplation....

Now is the time when most people, I'm referring to the final year college students, feel it is the right time to choose their paths in life. This is indeed the time when a section of population sweat out their brains in attempting (lol) the CAT exam and a few other management exams too... Tomorrow is the D-Day for such people and suddenly they seem to be in the fore light, preparing hard, discussing questions with others and also live TV shows who capture some jobless MBA grad to answer some of the most dumbest questions ever asked... (Will the paper be easier than the last years or is it very lengthy or what are the cutoffs... seriously people, get a hang of it. Do your best and then worry about cutoffs or the paper being easy and stuff. Believe me, knowing the answers to these questions will just not suffice to get through to the IIM's, there are a lot of other ravines to cross too... Saying this I wish everyone writing all the best...

And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it. ----- The Alchemist

Some other chunk of people feel that a job is all what they really need in life... Most of them would have secured jobs already, but there will be some more yet to find a suitable job of their choice. There is no dearth for jobs in India (this is my perception) and I feel everyone is uniquely qualified to take up any job and excel in it...

For the others, like me, who have other thoughts about higher studies like MS, M.Tech, PhD, well, the case is even more complicated... The process of getting oriented towards which degree to choose from, its pros and cons, whether its suitable for a person like me, will I get funding (you see, its a very important factor), what is my area of interest, etc. itself is a tedious task. Coupled with this is the main work of choosing the right colleges (ones which we may have more probability to get an admit, preferably with funding) and applying to them is another huge headache, probably surpassing the CAT hype (again my perception although I know many who are applying will agree to this)... But unfortunately or fortunately, we are not given the publicity or hype than the aspirants of CAT get... That's Life for you...

Friday, November 16, 2007

Movie musings

After writing my first post, I feel more confident enough to venture into writing some other posts as well...

My friend ,Roshan and I saw Azhagiya Tamil Magan on tuesday. Fondly dubbed as ATM by the tamil media, who seem to jump to different conclusions right after the promos and hyping it beyond barriers, much was expected from the movie. Well, to say, when a scientific flavour is inducted into a tamil movie, we all know what would be the result. Rightly so, the movie was yet another has-released ones (barring the fact vijay did a double action role, having esp to predict calamities - final destination anyone? , fighting villains the matrix style, and both our hero and heroine trading punch dialogues in the climax) the climax or to say the anti-climax was the major highlighting factor. It is arguable to state that the climax was suited to preserve the image of vijay, but it was a huge let down for many.

Actually, Om Shanti Om was touted to be a better movie among the diwali releases but that shall be verified only after november end... Till then, its ATM all the way !!!

Intro

Hi...
This is my first post, so gotta be more informative here (at least)...

I am Sayee Prasaad hailing from the Land of Temples - Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. I am basically a chemical engineer, which is why one of the reasons why my blog seems to have the title Alchemist, the other being my other "chosen" names were already chosen.

My passions are reading books (OK, Alchemist is included in here too...), watching football (or soccer as my dear american friends would call it), listening to music (sometimes, no particular preference on the genre), play computer games (hell yeah, AOE 2 rocks !!!)... I do try to play football in my leisure time, and I support Manchester United with all my heart...