The past few months

It's the end of the year and time to look at all the things i didn't write about. That's almost everything! The advent of November signaled the beginning of the 'This decides where I'm gonna end up' period. The first week, I began in earnest with the MS applications (how late can one be!). It reminds me of the movie 'Run Lola Run!' (or 'Lola Rennt!'). It was nerve-wracking - zeroing in on Universities and finding out if they insisted on online recommendation letters, running after professors to get the paper letters signed and the forms filled, sealing transcripts in the microprocessors lab as the clock struck 5 pm; I thought it was going to take forever. Professor Daruwala even said 'Yeh bas karo abhi! Tumko exam mein fail honeka hai kya?'.

The end semester test started on the 13th of November. I had appeared for the last AIMCAT (Time's mock CAT series) clutching a tome called 'Handbook of Biomedical Instrumentation', written by R.S.Khandpur, and people were wondering if this was more important for me than the CAT. The endsems were certainly a more daunting prospect than the CAT. I ended up completing about 80% of the paper on an average, usually getting fed up with the incessant writing, midway through the paper. The result was an abyssmal 6 point something (my GPA graph is a triangular waveform; this is the lowest point ever!)

In the middle of the carnage was the CAT- the holy grail of engineers in their final year. I did well, just as I was sure I would do. If only the endsems were about darkening ovals! More about the CAT in a later post. Fast forward to December first week. I started with the actual online applications for MS; I wrote the Statement of Purpose and reworked it for each university. The work had consumed me - I was oblivious to the time of the day, having dinner at 3 am and staying up as late as 6 am! But I loved it nonetheless; I got to know about all the current research being done at the American Universities. For a moment I was there- on a campus in California, soaking in the historical buildings and looking forward to all that I was about to discover. So, is MS the way to go for me? Time will tell. In the meantime, I got placed again. A bigger pay-packet, an investment banking firm, and my sister's 'wow!'. This presents an alternate path, and it's very attractive for a reason I cannot mention here.

I'm also taking driving lessons. I have not mowed down someone yet, though I still fumble with the gear changes. It's now that I understand that a lack of coordination between hands, legs and the mind can pose a challenge in activities other than dancing. I'm wondering when we'll have auto-transmission in all our cars.

January too promises a lot of action and I am all geared up (no pun intended) for the new year. Hope it will see me blogging regularly.