First semester, Exam trivia and the poor little fresher.
My life confined to two buildings, more precisely two rooms. I spent 6.5 hours of the day at the university, remaining 13 in my room. Rest of the time was wasted in dinner, power cutoffs and commuting. My room gave a look of a detention camp. It is a 13 x 12 feet cubicle, with stuff loaded inch by inch. Standing at the door, first I had to figure out a way to get to my bed, where I usually disarmed myself. – disarming is putting of my wrist watch, ID Tag , handkerchief, mobile phone etc…._ then after moving around a little starring at the book shelf , I relaxed about half an hour waiting for lunch, after that I was back in my detention room. My room has 6 windows so I used the sun as my clock. The place where I studied was one eiderdown with a support of the bookshelf and books everywhere. So I was immersed in a sea if books and notes. It is said that most distractions intervene when you are trying to concentrate, it was true in my case, but for countering it I had hanged the date sheet right in front of me. The fact that only 5 days were left, ran a chill in my spine. It was not until 6 o clock, when I used to get up for some tea, tea charges me up. Even with the teacup in my hand i was reading. The newspaper. Sometimes I felt all the world has turned white with everything in black characters- that was a severe case of late night studies-. Lat night studies had become a routine. A Nobel laureate once advised that your mind works best at 2 0 clock so was with my case, much of my concepts cleared at this time or was it the pressure factor, I can’t say. My sleeping hours had reduced, and this sucked the most. But whenever I took a nap it was very refreshing. Because of this mascara circles appeared under my eyes, with a huge hairdo and a face turned white by shaving daily, I looked like a living corpse. Here I would clarify that I was not all the time studying and preparing for exams, it was the assignments, the quizzes and the projects that took much of the time so my pace was somewhat lethargic. Although I had scored well in the OHT’s – One Hour Tests – but this didn’t appease my tensions. It had become more a matter of repute than that of future. I needed to preserve it very badly. But outperforming people who have better track records in previous registered degrees irrespective of the fact that I had given them tough time throughout the semester seemed to be dawning on me. Actually I never knew before that my peers had that good track record. I was actually underestimating them throughout the semester. And along came the sarcastic remarks when all the folks knew where I stood. Adding more to my damnation, this information was revealed to me only 4 days before ESE’s. I couldn’t do anything about it. The only thing on my mind was that I should have reined my horses earlier so I may have countered such situations. This top notch of the class, wherever found has some typical characteristics, including concealment of their studying activities and of never uncovering the amount of course they have covered. The same was happening here. I was expecting a huge retaliation from the folks. With things not going my way either I was sure I was going to crash and this had developed a tremendous and an insurmountable pressure on my life. Expectations were high from all sides, although I am not a bright student, to hell with the future I didn’t want to face the world even. The ESE had become a very challenging task. I wanted an ‘A’ in all majors and I wanted it bad. At the same time I never prepared for the minors.
The date sheet was killing stuff. No holidays, how much worse it had to get. We also had some hard luck regarding the fact that some over smart brat had complained about our physics teacher, without realizing that this wasn’t the right time and consequently he was interrogated. He had an edge over us underlying the fact that he was now under observation. I was expecting very ghastly in the paper from him. And those GCSE system students are masters for solving these kinds of horror striking papers and again, I was the little one with a plain old FSc. They kept telling me that it would be difficult for everybody. My group of friends was all at mollifying my tensions and worries. It was not such a burden, i had made it one. I could see it coming and it looked dreadful.
This university is a very political place. People mock right on the face with such an expert skill that you are bewildered. Initially I wasn’t familiar with this so I had been under influence of many people, and accepted them as my well-wishers. I also began to admire them – mostly girls, no regrets J–. I don’t know how I realized that I was wrong; the reality struck me like a bolt that I was not here for match making. Along started the catharses with the question: Is this my purpose of coming here? And after this revolution did finish inside me, I became one of them, a hypocrite and an echo chamber. This was the payback time and I found my symptoms – mascara circles, weirdo face- quite helpful in making people believe that I was worried and not studying but the truth was contrary to this. Here in the university I learned and perfected the art of double standards. I implemented it and there was a time when Mr. Hyde had come out of dr. jackal completely. I only mocked people who mocked me. Tit for tat. I was still loyal to my friends. The last day was also worrying, I slept the afternoon then came the moment of truth, the papers.
My rule was to finish the paper; call the driver in advance; so when I got out of the exam hall, the car was parked in front of the gate. Precisely I hurried home. I never wanted to stay in the premises and add to my anxieties by discussing the paper. However I stayed in the university after the first paper to crank jokes, the paper was very easy, I along with my group of friends told people the wrong answers and told lies about their authenticity. Forged proofs and stuff, all and all we just tried to cool down things. I even posted wrong answers on orkut. Soon this was over.
From the second paper I followed my rule. I rarely met people. The papers went fine just little bottle necks at one or two subjects created a havoc otherwise they were fine. I even went shopping in the papers. The last paper wasn’t such a relief don’t know why. But we partied to keep the spirit of being the junior most alive. And did the craziest things ever. We bought balloons had some photos with them and then later on set them free in front of the campus. We also paid a visit to McDonalds. My class is full of wacky people. We were looking like kids from nursery. We even raced cars. It was fun.
The first semester taught me a lot more than the engineering course. I learned to be more organized. I had habit of avoiding bathing as much as possible, now it’s the inverse case. I have a proper shutdown sequence at the end of the day, which comprises of 7 steps including selection and ironing of clothes, polishing of shoes, brushing teeth, changing my kit, putting necessary things(USB, Wallet, my Favorite pens and a handkerchief) in one place – see the environment teaches you to bend with it- . On the other hand I had an experience of becoming a hypocrite, a bad person, though I changed again to normal. I became quick witted although I still am silent but I have learned how to navigate through the dynamics of the university. The loyalties, the friendship, priorities, favoritism, nepotism, and the attitude nothing is constant here. They all change from time to time. Most of the people after reading this will consider me as a bad person, but I might have a tactic involved in this. A conspiracy may be, or an attempt to take cover in the shadow of evil. Huh. With the hefty papers went the pressure I slept for hours and satisfied my hunger for sleep. In a few words I learned the university in the last week, rest of the time I was sleeping. First semester in the university was an exhilarating joyride experience, and that is the beauty of it.
Written by:
Iftikhar Ahmed
BICSE-5/A
Big Foot 