PG express .......

No matter what , there is light at the end of every tunnel no matter how dark.

My faith in the above statement has been restored.
This was never meant to be a personal blog but sometimes there is no other way of explaining things except by sharing experiences.

Today I am glad to be part of PG,part of IIT.You might wonder who wont be?Well ask anyone who is there...most will complain. After a while the pressure gets to everyone.

I guess I have seen a lot in this first semester. First it was the emotional challenge of being away from closest friends....changes in life you move to different parts of respective lives is not easy.
Done.It became fine after a while.
Enjoyed my 1st TA experience a lot...enjoyed giving 1st minors,enjoyed all new methods of studying,enjoyed attending 1st seminar from here,winning in freshers,1st dinner at freshers enjoyed esp the way profs talked about us learning,getting tranformed here...felt as becoming a swan from an ugly duckling.

All this time heard complains all around but I persisted with faith...loved being here...loved the environment...

Then somewhere in between I realised things weren't stricking very well always...somewhere in between I lost my rule of "to each his own" and moved onto "share and care"...couldn't help it.
Suddnely I realised attending seminars was a luxury which we couldn't afford with assignments pilling up.....I must say I have always been secretly glad of being "herded" into the seminar hall by one prof who truly believes in knowledge for the sake of it... even in it was an hour or so before my demo!
Then came my nightmare...fibonacci heaps...seemingly a simplistic program...which never turned out that way for anyone...with it came alive my worst nightmares...
I literally lost sleep!
Then came resubmissioon...still not tooo great...
Then came...minor results....
Suddenly forgot why I was here...had it happened by mistake?Could I even think of doing a Phd?Why did I want to?Would get any kind of job at al?Would I fail?Would they kick me out?
Such thought haunted me day and night...
Then came tears and more tears....
Thne came helplessness...
Thne came part2 of that submission..the project..then came loss of confidence...a broken down spirit...3weeks no progress as too much fear.....
What helped was friends...in between even enjoyed staying up till late (night) there ....
being with frineds...having good weekends...the fest...(that was really cool)...wathcing movie in lab!

But the nightmare continued...increasing day by day...became snappy,irritable and "hyper" in short
seeing ppl breakdown after their "demo" when they seem so much brighter is anyday disheartening....
I became terrified.......shaking and wondering what would happen...all I knew was that I couldn't compromise on my values..I would be straight with the prof and own up just how little I had managed to do...

Kept remembering all the worst vivas I had given in my entire life...few in which ppl took pleasure in hurting selfpride of innocent minds.It had hurt then but that time I had a whole class almost backing me ,believing in me.
And now I didnt even seem to have myself on my side.
Tough.

Then the viva started....with general introduction...calmly enough...suddenly I found myself pouring out my fears,even saying" I like the system but don't know if the system will like me"...and felt being calmed by the teacher...being given hope...being told that marks don' t matter...that they just mean that you can learn that much more. The fact that I am here means I am good, I can only getter better...
if I am learning...if I am improving my process of thinking,if I feel that I getting all out of this system then that's all that matters.Suddenly I had hope...I could see my dreams again...I could feel my interest back,my passion back...

Then the actual viva....on confessing that I couldn't do the entire exercise,I found myself involved in a discussion about debugging techniques.And becoming so interested that forgot it was a viva...actually even being able to put forth my points without worrying whether they were right or not...

I went in tears and came back in smiles...after an hour!
Suddnely I am glad I am here..suddenly I know I will make it here and do well also...
And won't try to escape assignments but do them so as to learn and not fear them...
I may have lost marks allocated for particular points in today's viva but I gained back my hope, my confidence,my "selfsufficiency".
The journey continues.....