Now and Then

One of my friends suggested that I think about what I would do different and what I would do the same, if I was back in college - sort of a loose "learn from your mistakes" thing .So here goes...[For those of you who don't know our college, bear with me here!]

10. CHANGE - Go to the gym or do something to take care of my body. I hardly ate breakfast, never got up before 8:00 and my only past time was reading books. I really wish I would have gotten into some of the "working out" stuff. I do that fairly regularly now. The only physical workout I got was when I had to run to catch my bus every weekend [although I have to admit that the TN public bus service did require some awesome aerobics to board].

9. CHANGE - Made an effort to get to know more people. This is especially true for my college. I knew people, but never got to know some people very well. In fact, I think I can speak for all of us when I say that we have gotten to know some folks better when we have gotten out of college as compared to the four years we were actually in class with them! Now part of this is because of the hot and happening place our college was, but a lot of it was due to all these damn in-class politics, and I know that personally I could have taken the effort to get acquainted with some others. My loss I guess...

8. NO CHANGE - Hostel life was awesome man. I'm not talking about the food or the facilities, but the very experience of living with a bunch of horny undergrads was worth every second. I learned a lot about what it takes to adjust and adapt to a different way of living. I'm sure I'll carry those lessons throughout my life.

7. NO CHANGE - My department. This was back in the good ol' days when we picked departments based on how much "fun" they were. Whatever the reason, I'm glad that I joined the ECE department. The faculty, the labs and the general atmosphere left not too much to complain about.

6. CHANGE - Acquire some knowledge. I do agree that our syllabus and stuff was good, but we hardly learned anything of worth. All these 20 marks questions got us great percentages, but at the end of the day, zero knowledge gain. I really wish I could have done some more, maybe gone to some paper presentations or whatever, to at least grasp the significance of what we were studying.Maybe done a better project or done some internships somewhere.

5. NO CHANGE - Tours. Did we have fun or what? I think we went on four or five of these, and it was like a small capsule of life each time. We let loose and had the best time ever. It was even more fun to plan and plot each tour and guise it as a industrial visit. To give you an idea of how much "industrial" it was, I recall that we went to see this TV Station at Kodaikanal. Only fifteen of the fifty or so people actually went in, and some facility staff dude was showing us all the equipment. One of our guys [perhaps slightly drunk], goes up to him and asks this question: "Do you have Surya TV?"

4. CHANGE - A steady girlfriend. Contrary to what many of you who know me think, I did not have a girlfriend in college. I was close, but never quite there :-). A classic case of right things happening at the wrong time, or wrong things occuring at the right time! I know that there is someone for me out there, but man I wish I would have recognized her some time back. Life would have been more exciting...

3. NO CHANGE - Weekly bus trips to all corners of TN. I know that whenever I get on a bus in TN, I'm going to think back of those trips. It was a great gang, and those three hours seemed to fly. Of course, it was the place to be if you wanted to chat up girls. But more than that, it was great fun to travel as a group of ten or twenty people and just enjoy everyone's company.

2. CHANGE - Misunderstandings, fights and some unfinished business. I had a lot of these, especially one, that I still would like to clear up. To everyone of you who has been exposed to my anger, wave when you see me next! Life goes on.

1. NO CHANGE - My friends.Thank you for finding me!