Sights and Sounds of MEC

While I admit that I'm still not too upbeat about my college, there have been a handful of colourful characters and a smattering of small incidents that have made these past 1 and a half months an interesting period.

Firstly, my fellow 1st year hostelers are a group I have come to really appreciate. Contrary to my expectations, not one of them has given me the sort of bad vibes that I'd imagined I would encounter. After all, no matter how friendly or nice you try to be, not everyone in the crowd can communicate with you on the same wavelength. There are a few, above others, who I've taken a liking to. Firstly, my roommates, Sebin and Nikhil, are probably the best I could've hoped for. They're neither ultra-padipist nor brainless twits, which gives me the freedom to stay loose while at the same time keeping track of my academic goals. Admittedly, our study schedules aren't as jam-packed as those of some of the other hostelers, but then I feel we'll make it through when the series tests come along. The other 1st-yr hostelers are all decent folk, but a few of them, most notably the guys of the infamous room no. 104, seem destined to raise the roof post-Freshers' Day in February. This gives me hope that irrespective of the atmosphere in the college, hostel life will be truly worth cherishing.

On the college front, a number of my classmates have made an impression on me already. In those terms, I'm blessed, for it appears our CS-B batch has possibly the most potential for fun among all the 1st-year batches this year, besides EC-B. Joel, Rony, Sreeram, Sachin, Shafath, Toby, Sidharth and Sooraj and a few others have become fair friends of mine over the past few weeks. Classes haven't been all that interesting, but a few good jokes in between a thousand bad ones generally tend to lift my spirits. Our faculty isn't all that impressive, but a few characters are so unique that I feel I might truly miss them once I pass out from under their tutorship. Most notable among them, is our Chemistry Ma'am, who has arguably the thickest accent I've ever heard, making her words sometimes purely incomprehensible. Our Mechanics and Maths Sirs are probably the best teachers among the lot, and hence, those two subjects remain the prime focus of my very limited study routine.

To some, these mite be the faintest of silver linings among dark clouds too ominous to ignore, but to me, they still auger well for the future. College is meant to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, never replicated, never understood, never explained.....it should be unlike the times gone by, and the times that lie ahead, and what it means to each and every one of us depends on how we perceive it. To that extent, I hope, an optimistic and ever-hopeful view of an at-times gray and confusing time will help make the experience far more memorable.