Ten Reasons Why I like Examinations ...

1. You get to catch up with all the sleep you have been missing all these days.
2. More importantly, you sleep in your bed instead of the uncomfortable classroom benches.
3. You don't have to see the face of all those professors and listen to their soporific lectures delivered over a single harmonic, whose only aim in life is to torment students. You have no assignments to submit !
   
4. You start finding hidden treasures in your room, from uncountable number of pens of different hues and textures to old books and newspapers which somehow fascinate you more than ever.
5. You watch all those movies and your favourite sitcoms, from Friends (its over alas!) to Smallville to Life as We Know It and Two and a Half Men.
6. An ideal time for honing your management fundae, be it optimal deployment of resources based on the Examination Resource Planning (ERP), or core-competence of various students, or targeted placement of the products (students) in the market (examination hall) or finally using the latest video-conferencing facility you acquired in the face of this very hurdle, using goodwill to pump up the valuation of your answer sheet, building your brand so that professors preferably mark you in future ;) or even the "Work Hard, Party Harder" ethic. [Actually I should have written ten subpoints here!]
   
7. The sessions in the library are fun, an ideal place for scandal mongering and for locating the newest couples in the campus. And if the library is air-conditioned, it adds to the fun !
   
8. The canteen is open till late in the night.
9. You start to realize how much better the world would have been had Google been your professor !
10. You actually look forward to the future.

Landmarks

I have been away for a long time, and that is because I have been really busy over the last fortnight. And I have been really happy over the last fortnight as well. To enumerate a few highlights:

1. Kshitij - Kshitij, is the annual techno-management festival of IIT Kharagpur. It was repackaged last year, and has grown this year into an international event. I was involved with the core organization last year, its first year. This year, I was organizing Overnite, a night long programming contest. Despite a lot of last minute hiccups, the contest went well, the winners were well rewarded, a night well spent!
2. My Sister's marriage - A landmark event in my life, and obviously in her's. The wedding was a great success, both the bride and the groom were looking their best, and were very happy to be in each other's company. A lot of relatives and friends joined us in this moment of happiness, and the house got a festive makeover. That we had a lot of dancing, a lot of teasing my sister, a lot of fun and frolic goes without saying. I wish her all the best in her new life.
3. A new internship offer - This time from a company in the north-west United States - My Dream Internship. Great work, wonderful exposure (both to a different culture as well as to technology), very good friends for company (4 people selected from IITKGP) and a helluva lot of money! The making of a dream summer! Only regret: I will not be able to stay under the shade of the Swiss Alps; I had been looking forward to it.

All of it garnished with assignments and tests.

Exams are coming, cleaning their feet on the doormat. I gotta start working ... and fast!