Good that I named my blog "writers block". So nobody can blame me for not being on board.... for god knows for how long I havent even thought of writing. Even now I dont think I have anything to write about....... this semester has been only a roller-coaster ride of assignments and projects and mid-terms and messing each one up. But I know I want to write and for the time being and to fill the space up :) - this reason should suffice.
I had always thought I was not meant for computer science. After XIIth, "people" all around me had opinions like how engineering or medical were the only careers to be in. Even in that, one should take engineering bcoz you wont have to work too much and whatever you have studied in XI-XII should be enough to see you through. You can call me lazy-bones or whatever but I followed "peoples'" opinions letter for letter. The thought of not having to work too much was so enticing. Ended up taking something I didnt know about (I have never had had computer courses even in school) but according to people was the in-thing to be in, with less work and lots of money. Whole of my engineering life, thats all I have done. Frittered away my time. Grades in exams more or less came easy even after not listening in class. So I somehow never took interest in the subjects. Programming never seemed to work for me, and true to my "less-work" nature I managed most of the programs by ftp. :) (And for the record, shall we restrict that bit of information only till here.) I should have atleast found out how the programs worked, but as long as they ran when I had to show the output, I didn't care. Don't start about girls getting away with all this bcoz there were a good number of guys too who did the same.
I should have known life always gets even with you. Master's hit me full in the face. After a year of only pl/sql programming in Oracle, and having lost touch with even the little programming that I knew in college, I was totally drowning in my first semester. There must have been some rescue ship smwhr that I have managed to make it to the third semester. :) But it really took me a year - 1. to settle down and like the place 2. to love the subject that I had taken by choice but never understood.
There were so many details that make computer science interesting and alive. I first came to learn how young it was. :) (sorry for being such a romantic, but thats how I connect with things), I came to know that while I was being born what was happening in the field. That there were new languages and discoveries springing up in my subject even as I was uttering my first words.
People here know it like the back of their hand bcoz they have been through it. They have worked on the first mainframes and seen the first personal computers take the world by storm.
They have worked side by side with students, many of whom have gone on to make the next discoveries and I am part of that world as long as I am in academia.
Had I been given a choice when I was in XIIth I might probably have chosen english honors. I might have loved it or shirked it when I found the load of learning Chaucer and Shakespeare and Tennyson. But I have grown up loving books and I hardly think I would have not loved any of it.
That however will always be one of those I could have been ..........
I watched a spate of movies in between all this and I loved all of them except ahista ahista, either bcoz of assignment hangovers, or bcoz I was plain just taking time off from studies. Bas ek pal, kabhi alvida naa kehna, dor, lage raho munnabhai, don, ahista ahista....................... most of them were about relationships and hence were very close to my heart. Don was a little off beat and plus I missed the real twist , so I didnt end up liking it.
(On re-reading the entire post, it seems like the spluttering of a car which is reluctant to start, I think I have lost touch completely with writing, and it will take a lot of time and work to get back :).)
