7 more days to go

with the official completion of my project 2 days back, i'm into the last leg of the BITS summer special, Practice School 1. and how do i feel about that? frankly, relieved, i would say. this last lap, its just like that of a return journey from coll - the stations are all on home ground - but from arakkonam to good ol' chennai central, the last hour DRAGS so, home tantalizingly far away.
its been a mixed bag of feelings, most of them negative to be honest. just so i can relive this whole experience everytime i read it, im going chronologically, right from day 1 up to day- well, up to today. u do the math.
those first few days were of fresh hope and maybe the slightest enthusiasm for whatever fancy project would land on our plates, before we had any idea what to expect from ceeri. they're remarkably quick here about allotting projects, and so, it progressed to a mild curiosity about the topic of my project, shortly thereafter, that lasted for about a week, the one, the only week i was to have no pressure at all, as my scientist guide assured me. i must admit, though, that the curiosity and interest rapidly diminished to plain bewilderment and panic, as i continued to listlessly read the two books he handed me, to get myself acquainted with what was to come.

the next few weeks are best summarised as ones of intense hopelessness at the task in hand(venky just gave me a deadline and went off for some hi-flying conference for a week, and boy, the word deadline had never been more apt), despair, major self-deprecation, lots and LOTS of whining, cribbing, wishful thinking about some other, any other ps. yes, we(me, gow, pavi, shrini) were quite fanatic in our belief that we had it worst off. predictably, we were not amused by the line on the quote-of-the-day notice board (which btw does not change for at least a week) -

Things are never so bad that they cant get any worse

-From the movie, The African Queen.

add to all this misery, our beloved instructor, n rajesh, ps-division in-charge, pilani - the embodiment of sincerity, discipline and everything else u really really dont want in ur ps instructor. ur doctor, maybe, or ur banker(or is it accountant?? i wouldnt know) but not ur ps instructor, for gods sake! having solemnly informed us that we were to strictly follow organizational timings, workdays, holidays, yadda yadda, and that he wouldnt be repeating it, he proceeded to do just that in every visit of his. punctuality was the one goddamn organizational virtue he didnt possess- we routinely waited for at least half an hour thrice a week when he was scheduled to visit us.

if my scientist (who, incidentally has the gift of the gab, and can talk about any subject for hours, knowledgeably, or at least so it seems) had any notions about BITSians and hence of me, whether due to previous batches or otherwise, i was here to disillusion him, and quickly. as his pop quizzes soon revealed, i may have read and i may have written, but remember i dont, cos learn i did not, in quite a few cases, which sadly were all the subjects he liked to quiz us about.

with more and more of my project completed, every stage faster than the previous, thanks to the increasing familiarity, the end actually seemed near. there was a time when my project was always 'almost over'. while that did improve my mood ever-so-slightly, the blues were still there; the earlier hopelessness was simply replaced by an inability to feel a sense of satisfaction or pride - i wished, still wish, i could be happy about being a smart-worker than a blah, sincere(sort of) hard-worker, slaving like i did with all that data and the same few functions over and over again, for different sets of numbers, doing, in my opinion, nothing more than a glorified data analysis.

but it is now time for photos,final reports, feedback forms, and last minute paperwork. the optimist is me is fighting back, after a lonng time, and even as i struggle to recap the summer in a positive light, i know the the memories, good or bad, will make me smile - skiving off to join the others in 213 the moment venky leaves the room, and those endless minesweeper games there, the only non-scientist territory.. lunches at ascendas, to lunches at ceeri followed by chumma hanging out in ascendas..learning the hard way how to un-hide files on a comp.. getting caught by n ra at the bus stop, and haplessly watch 5c leave without us as as he lectures us on the road.. leaving for lunch as the lunchtime-over-bell sounds and returning as the tea break starts..having venky actually compliment my typing speed as im alternating between gmail chat windows and matlab, all with his blessings, no less :D.. ceeri-clri meetings at hot chips and ascendas.. move from feeling annoyed to feeling sorry for n ra, the ambi of our times.. those 2 days of bliss with no scientists, no labs and no libraries.. the coinstructor tow of whose every three sentences would begin with 'i'm not paid to do all that'.. dd and fg and glasgow and mobile phones(LOLEST)...

7 more days to go.
so close, no matter how far.