Jigrii Dushman - The return of the Killer "Local Author"

One of the best parts of the new "independent" regime at COEP, has been forwarding of subjects ahead by one semester, thereby cramming Automata theory in second year, and Computer Organisation in the 5th semester and suchlike. Today, friends, Romans, Countrymen - I'm going to write the last paper of this semester in about 4 hours. Why, then do you ask, I'm writing this in spite of cramming as much as I can into my short-term memory banks? The answer? Nostalgia.

Nostalgia, can make you do strange things - and now as I'm writing this, I'm least bothered about trivial matters like "doing well" or "getting good grades". These things happen to me, rather than any conscious effort on my part.(rarely of course) What I am bothered about, is the fact that owing to the aforementioned prefetching of future subjects, my next semester is virtually free. Sure, there is the pesky project(which I aim to do with utmost sincerity, O lord of project guides!) and the stupid elective(which is very likely to be "Advanced Entrepreneurship Development" mwahahaa!) - but it basically means - no day-to-day college! Sure, this has been my routine anyway for at least the last two years - but gone will be the burden of using all my charm and diplomatic abilities to ensure that I do not attend and still stay relatively safe. I must say, that it came very close this semester - but it seems like I'll make it.

Anyway, the nostalgia is basically that this will be my last turbulent stream that I will cross with the help of my trusted Nirali (ok, ok it's TechMax today, but you get the drift). As it sits in the corner, horribly used, edges frayed, line after line highlighted(all by some chap called Vikram Kamble, His Noodly Appendage bless his soul!) staring at me - all I can say is thank you! You have given me the confidence to step into today's "Advanced Computer Architecture" exam, having no freakin' idea what separates a Vector Processor from a Scalar processor. Sure, I know 10 points of differentiation, and am hoping this question will feature in the paper - but if by some freak chance my future employers put me in charge of the "Vector/Scalar Processor" department of their company (ah, choose this boy, he had good ACA grades) I will have no chance of facing my juniors with a straight face.

And what is important, is that, this has been pretty much the pattern of my whole undergraduate study. I've technically studied Computer Networks, Automata Theory, Compiler Construction and Digital Signal Processing. Tomorrow, when I go out to work in the domain, it will be on the basis of such extremely volatile education - which is brilliant, because my employers are anyway going to erase my easily destroyed EPROM and program me to their requirements. Now you know why COEP engineers are so much in demand!

Anyway, I want to end by basically saying thank you -- thank you to all you "Godse-Bakshis", "Bhutiyani-Joshis" and "Prasad-Prasads". You guys are no less than any super-hero combo!

(PS: Coming Soon! The Sequel : Killer Local Author in "The Revenge of the Firgans" )

(PPS: This post was supposed to go online with the entire contents at 11 am today, but thanks to blogger quirks on Konqueror and my Firefox being down, it goes up now)