Chapter-II

The first semester at BITS got over quite quickly.

It was by means of cricket that I had started to know some of the people in the wing. I was good at cricket so I had a reason to be with them. Also the people in the wing below ours had challenged us at cricket. So I was brought into the picture. I was very passionate about the game and probably a bit aggressive too. We played quite a few matches, the matches were almost all evenly poised. We called ourselves Alpha-Q and they called themselves The JinXd.

The second semester started afresh. New hopes and expectations were there. A bit of anxiety related to the courses. I had secured a mediocre GPA in the 1st semester so I wasn't in the race for discipline transfer then. And it was for the same reason that I started neglecting my acads. The sincerity which i had possessed in the prior semester was all gone. I started bunking classes and almost completely forgot about studying.

It was at that time that I was influenced by a first person shooter game, Counter-Strike. A few of my wingees used to play it on LAN. I was fascinated by the game, as i love adventure and especially guns. So i started playing the game myself. Even though I was not very good at it, I was hell bent on improving. It was as if I wanted to be good at it. That was going to happen soon.

I remember now, it was my first class of maths. If it wouldn't have been a first, I would have bunked it. But since it was the first I thought of attending it. It was then that I saw this girl. In some way she seemed very different from others. She was someone whom I had noticed after quite a time. As I got to notice, she hardly spoke to anyone. She had an ambience which was compelling and she carried herself with utmost perfection. I was immediately drawn to her. I was scared to death of even looking her in the eye. So just for the sake of seeing her, I decided to attend every maths class.

Another development which happened was the technical festival of BITS, APOGEE. The majority of the 1st yearites were going home. But upon attending a few of chemical association meetings, I had decided to stay and so had Bhuvan. We decided to work on one of the projects that had failed for the past two years. It appeared to be a challenge and we decided to take it. The seniors were inspiring and helpful. The co-ordinator of the team, Jagan was very helpful. He was there for any and everyone at anytime.

It was then that I saw her again. She was in my own discipline! I had never known. Luckily for me, she was working on some project too. Now i started seeing her almost everyday. I even remember having talked to her. She seemed like a nice person.

As it happened our project leader injured himself. So we were supposed to abandon the project. Now we were supposed to assist the co-ordinator with his project. I was a bit dissapointed but the idea of working with the co-ordinator excited me. He was working on some new idea. We were supposed to give shape to the idea. He was so busy with all other projects that he left his project totally to us. We barely managed to complete it a few hours before the unveiling ceremony. The director of IIT chennai was the chief guest. And i remember that we(me and bhuvan) looked like zombies. We hadn't slept nicely for a few days now. Anyways our project was quite a success. Although we didn't manage to win anything, it was a good learning experience and our work was appreciated.

During apogee I joined the social networking site Orkut. And as people had said, it was quite addictive. I'd sit for quite long spells of time doing nothing but orkutting. I even found her on orkut.

Academics were not going well at all. With all the work from APOGEE, my joining orkut and my negligence of studies, I was heading for a fiasco. People say that "All's well that ends well". That end seemed quite far back then.

The comprehensive exams ended. It was a terrible experience. Getting the marks during the course of the tests was an even more gruesome thing. I had managed to successfully lower my CGPA below 7 with my extraordinary hard work.

Do keep reading.