The Craziest Week - Part 3

Day 5: Tuesday

I was supposed to leave Goa in the afternoon today and travel by bus to Bangalore. However, at 0030 I got a call from home asking me to come to Mumbai by the first available flight to attent to some urgent business. It is said that "A Friend in need is a Friend indeed". This indeed turned out to be true in my case. In my time of need, both Ara and Addu came to the rescue. Thankfully, Addu had a working printer and he also at an unearthly time of 0130 contacted a cab to take me to the airport at 0500. I slept very sparingly. Having had a bath (thankfully BITS has fitted water heaters) I headed to the airport. The entire journey is like a dream to me. I don't remember anything after I took my seat in the airplane. No recollection of take-off, the flight time or the landing.

I had some breakfast at home, attended to the work I had come to Mumbai for and spent the rest of the day catching up with my lost sleep. I also booked a 0615 flight to Bangalore the following day as I had to go to work.

Since I had a 185 rank in GATE, I decided that it would be only sensible to apply to IISc, a prestigious research institute in Bangalore for higher education. Unfortunately the deadline for the online application was Wednesday, and a demand draft was required before one could apply. Unfortunately, it was a bank holiday and I could not get the draft that day.

Day 6: Wednesday

I woke up early and packed all my belongings. My parents dropped me at the airport well in time for the flight to Bangalore. Thankfully, I was awake during this flight, though still a bit groggy. The in-flight entertainment system played a Hindi movie called "Aladin" which I watched. After landing, I took a city bus to my home which took an awful lot of time to reach. Having dropped my luggage, I headed to the nearest bank branch to get a demand draft for my IISc application. Unfortunately, the printer there was out of order, and I had to take a bus to another branch to get my work done. It took almost the entire morning to get the draft. In the meanwhile, a fellow intern from my workplace called me to ask if I would be able to make it to team lunch that day.

My Engineering Manager had chosen that exact day to take my team out to lunch (:-|) I still had not started the IISc application and that day was the deadline. Half an hour after I came in to work, we headed out for a team lunch to a fancy French place called Medici about fifteen minutes away by car. We took our time chatting and ordering food. We started with starters, then soup, then the main course and finally deserts. We had an awesome time, but I was worried about my application. We got back only at around 1630. To my relief, I found that the application page was still active. I quickly entered all my details and completed my application. Phew!

My PS instructor had set the day for my mid-semester presentation and report submission that Friday and I hadn't even started on either of them. I also had to make a project prototype to demonstrate to higher managers at my workplace early next week. I started making my presentation and made a few slides, but was exhausted by then. That was about all I could manage that day.

Day 7: Thursday

Well, I basically spent my day balancing the coding for the prototype I was to demonstrate next week and preparing the mid-sem presentation and the mid-sem report. I had heard that the new PS instructor was very strict, so I had decided to put considerable effort into the report. I also sent the hard copy of my IISc application through courier that day. Luckily, I managed to complete all three tasks by the end of the day.

Thankfully, the presentation went well and my PS instructor was actually impressed with my presentation. She also didn't see anything out of place with my report (phew!!!) I still have to present the prototype (tomorrow) but I am confident that it will go well too...

Thus ended the craziest week of my life (till now)