2007, the Year in Review…
Posted by Prashanth | Filed under FIITJEE Pinnacle, General, Headshot, School Life
A brief summary of whatever happened in, around and slightly beyond me in an almost chronological order can be read below. But before that, have a look at the most noticeable change for me in this year, a new TFT Monitor which gives a totally new look to my room…
The Bored Exams
Here in India, the exams in the end of class 10th are conducted by the Govt. and a common paper is attempted by the masses. This gives everyone a wide platform to evaluate the relative scores. Its a very crucial exam in terms of career making. CBSE is world-recognised standard of examination. Delhi, has a unique paper for itself though. For this big test, our schools prepare us with a series of exams called the Pre-Boreds, where our teachers keep the difficulty sky-high and check the paper without the use of their spectacles. So we end up scoring embarrassing marks looking at which we burn our butts and dive into our books.
Many in my batch left everything, attained Nirvana and started burning butts since the beginning of the year. I, the laziest, the most carefree didn’t have the bell ringing 5 days before the actual bored exam. When it finally rung, I did a good amount of quality study and my exams went well with me scoring a decent 86.4% as the average of the five subjects. If it wasn’t for my English, which is as bad as Russian is to a South American, I would have scored a comfortable 90%+ of a score… anyway, how does it matter today..?? I have a decent score in the subjects that matter…
@ the Pinnacle…
Here in India, there is an engineering institution which has the capacity of around 5000 freshers. And it turns out that almost each and every dámnëd science student wants to be one of those 5000. So they filter the excess students out with the world’s toughest Engineering Entrance Exam called the IIT-JEE. People drop out from schools, attain Nirvana in their coaching institutes, sacrifice and leave everything behind to prepare and do well in this test of wit, knowledge, intelligence, aptitude and patience.
It seems that I am supposed to be one of these people and I leave my old school Ramjas behind to join a full-time IIT-JEE training camp called the Pinnacle, by the pioneers themselves - FIITJEE. With lots of nostalgia, hesitation and doubt, I was inside FIITJEE. FIITJEE stands for Forget Forum for IIT-JEE. At my new school, I study with some of the brightest minds coming from different corners of the country, the most brilliant of teachers I might have ever come across, and periodically give in some of the most gruelling tests to keep me grinding till I get sharp enough to make fine cuts through the IIT-JEE paper. From here, starts a new section dedicated to my time @ the Pinnacle.
ThinkQuest 07: A flop show!
Not that Jaspal Bhatti won it, but then sincere efforts of a website were failed. Anyway, we aimed at finishing a 7 month long project in 13 days after the boreds. But even then, we had quite a blast making stuff up for the site with me leading the content. We got a Certificate of Achievement by Oracle for this and not for Participation even though we lost it as they were impressed by the work we did in such a short time, et all.
End of DX, begining of GeekeD!
Right from here started a close bond with Varun Mishra, Gaurav Marmat and a few more geeks not widely seen in the symposium arena. They had talent. Varun and Gaurav were master web-spinners and painters. Me, with a little bit of grinding might do something in quizzes/crosswords/GDs. We decided to band up and represent Mouse Caramel in all symposiums of 2007. We called ourselves GeekeD! and although we had ambitious plans that didn’t work out, 2007 was a great start to our clan.
School Quizzing and IIT-Prep…
At my new school, I found a bunch of NTSE Scholars, School Quizzers, BQC national champs, and guys with tons of talent and aptitude. Forming a new quizzing team, we banded together to go in for the school quizzes happening all around Delhi. We gave our shot at SCOQ, ATF-E, and Fundamental. We couldn’t make to quite a few due to several reasons. The results were encouraging though. This was the first time that these guys were exposed to trivia and workoutable quizzes from the conventional fact-based quizzes.
Parellally, we stuck a balance with our IIT Prep. Class 11th and IIT Prep are entirely different from the way people prepare for the boreds. IIT is a mind game, a person has to be observant, analytical, and smart. That means every concept about Physics, Chemistry and Maths should be crystal clear. That takes a different approach altogether, a different way of study. And I just love it… 
LuminaR grows and becomes The LuminaR…
LuminaR becomes a blog owned by two people now. Uma, a close friend, a deep thinker, and a witty writer makes LuminaR her home in cyber-space alongside me. LuminaR then goes forward to become the 3rd blog in the world to review Rowling’s last book.
LuminaR, due to quite a few reasons, shifts from its home in the Wordpress.com servers to a personal home at Dreamhost. Courtesy Roshan, a person who changed my life in more than one way, cooperated to share his host with me and now I no longer had complains with my blog. I purchased a custom domain from GoDaddy and an all new blog, with an all new feel is presented in front of you!
DynamiX 2007, We grew up!
We people, i.e the current students of Ramjas independently organized the DynamiX 2007 Symposium which was unexpectedly a success. Both contributors from The LuminaR were deeply involved in its organization. It was a wonderful experience for both me and Uma.
Achievements/memories in the end…
With not much success with school quizzes, and Uma not there with me in tech quizzes, I didn’t expect much from symposiums. In the first 3 symposiums I attended, I got nothing but disappointment. But later, with a little bit more patience, we won a PC for ourselves at Code Wars, which was a turning point. Later at Access, I came runners up in the quiz single handedly. There I learnt that the field is almost open for me this year; with just a handful of schools to beat next year, I leave my last symposium of the year with hopes of me becoming the king of the ring next year, in both computer symposiums and school quizzes. A total of 6 trophies, and prizes worth nearly 20k in all, 2007 was a nice year for me to remember…
Tons of new friends, hoards of new people, some of the older ones got closer, few drifted. I loved the way things went in the year 2007. I just hope it gets even better this time… Wish the same for everyone.
For my fantastic family, friends, film makers, FOSS, and a few forgotten fellas… may fun, frolic and freedom flow freely as a fish or a flying finch. Phew! Finally Finishes.
PS: I found the New Year’s Google Doodle quite interesting. Nice to see how one picture signifies celebration for the year 2008, and the 25th year of TCP/IP together. Check it up… 
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5 Responses to “2007, the Year in Review…”
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Uma Says:
January 2nd, 2008 at 1:35 pmQuite an interesting year and post I’d say.You have a lot more to achieve next year like you said in the last para.Go get ‘em tiger :-D.
BTW my/our cyber “home” seems to have gone through quite some changes since the last time I visited.Nice work. -
Prashanth Says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 2:13 amThanks, and when do you plan to post about your design classes and stuff..?? It can prove to be of great viewership if you post it, there is hardly any Art Students çûm Bloggers, especially Indian ones…
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Ramit Singal Says:
January 10th, 2008 at 12:13 amAn eventful year that, and a neat room. And as far as IIT is concerned, the spots available are around 4,000
And I am not even excluding the reserved seats 
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Prashanth Says:
January 18th, 2008 at 11:46 pm@Ramit:
Thanks mate! And no thanks for the bad data… sheesh yaar, looks like its easier to get into MIT than IIT! Who would like to study in a way inferior institute after facing way higher competition? -
Ramit Singal Says:
January 23rd, 2008 at 9:01 pmThe exorbitant fees.
And secondly, for an Indian student, getting into MIT is far tougher than getting into an IIT. Ofcourse, you cannot ignore the fact that even apart from MIT, there are around 15 US universities which rank higher than the IITs.
