The results of the 3rd Semester are finally out. The date of this unexpected event turned out to be 9th June, 2009, a little less than 2 months after DCE took out their results for the 3rd Semester. As I have said in the previous posts, most students had given up on the result coming out anytime soon, hence the surprise. I did ok. Should've done better, rather, the teacher should have done better while marking my paper. Here's a piece by piece review of the course and the teachers of 3rd sem. The identities of the teachers shall remain undisclosed for reasons unknown to all:
1. Electronics I - A reasonably good teacher teaching us a not so reasonable subject. The fact that the entire course revolves around the one and only 'jugaad' book, Electronics Circuits and Devices by B. Kumar and S. Jain. Getting to know about it a day before the electronics mid sem didn't help matters. The subsequent abandoning of Sedra and Smith for this book was a decision i made, for better or worse. The net result being a score of 63. Not bad, nearly as much as I expected.
2. Circuits and System - Taught by a teacher who got an infamous reputation for giving suppli's, just because a person on lounge gave him a nickname that had a nice ring to it and had the word suppli in it. The teacher was able to some extent, but unfortunately would start becoming incomprehendable over time, with the greater complexity of his subject and verbal skills getting the better of us. However, I still appreciate the heartfelt and optimistic advice he gave me after flunking me in the mid-sems. I really felt I could change it for the better, and after working hard, I ended up with a 62.
3. Electrical Machines I - A subject with a teacher who was a guest faculty, who for all reasons of putting this conversation in the right context, was an alumni of NSIT. With a total of 7 lectures in the semester, which was the combined effect of either the students bunking or the teacher not turning up, the only things that could save us was some efforts on the part of the teacher. However, when the result came, the promises he made felt like he was rubbing salts on our wounds, and effectly ended up betraying my hopes of getting even a 70%. I could only manage a 56, although i hoped for 65+.
4. Electrical Measurements - A vast and theoretical subject with an understanding teacher, who was also coincidentally, an alumni of NSIT. For all the difficulties faced in the semester, the only teacher who helped us manage the semester in whatever way he could, was him. We all put extra efforts to ensure we did well in his subject, which i'm glad to say, I did, as did the rest. I got an 80.
5. Mathematics III - A difficult course, which had me going through the subject till 6:15 am on the day of the exam, my only disappointment apart from the fact that I would not have maths as a subject, is that I would not be taught another course by the teacher who taught us in 3rd sem. A brilliant teacher, and after knowing him over the past year, my respect for him has only grown. Had I had the aptitude, I would have seriously considered his advice to get into teaching.
Well, thats all for now. I will really have to pull up my socks for 5th sem, if i'm to make any improvement in my percentage for sitting in placements.
Adios!
Monday, June 22, 2009
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Life in the holidays - 1
4th June, 2009.
Its been 8 days since I've been "totally" free, and well, already some monotony has started to creep in. This post essentially just to remind me that I am to do something useful with my time. So what have I been upto? Here I am listing all that below:
1. The Godfather trilogy: A wonderful depiction of the Cosa Nostra and the Italian Mafia. I particularly enjoyed the first movie, although I found all three to be equally well-made. Sofia Coppola lacked a certain charm with her role in the third, but one also gets used to her as the movie progresses. Marlon Brando in it has done justice to his role, and Robert De Niro did very well in the second. Robert Duvall as Tom Hagen was one character I felt sorry for he was constantly abused for being non-Italian, for not being a blood relative to the 'family' and because of the issues Michael Corleone had with trusting the ones closest to him. My rating 9.5/10,9.5/10,9/10 for the three movies respectively.
2. Another Robert Duvall film which I happened to catch was Thank You For Smoking. Its the sort of movie that messes you up a little bit, makes you question your moral system and knows how to put up an argument. The protagonist is Aaron Eckhart, who we later saw in the role of D.A. Harvey Dent, in the unforgettable epic The Dark Knight. I'd recommend it. Rating: 9/10
3. The Big Fish: Interesting concept, adapted from the novel by Daniel Wallace of the same name. I first read about it after hearing the song, "How I Go" by Yellowcard. I loved the song the first time I heard it, and only after almost a year after first listening to it, got down to watching the movie. Thoroughly loved it. My rating:9.5/10.
4. Flight of the Conchords - This TV show is a blast. Features two New-Zealand blokes in the US, Bret and Jermaine are the two-member band that try to make ends meet, find a girl for themselves, and play at gigs, breaking into hilarious sing-song routines every time. A brilliant comedy. 9/10.
5. The Motherhood River - A Chinese short children's story, which is one in a series of books titled Journey to the West, by Yuan Fang. More here.
The story is as the title says - about a river that makes anyone who drinks it pregnant. A solution to this conundrum is in the form of another river, drinking whose water aborts the child.
It was a pretty unique story with the monkey, pig, friar and the king as the main characters. Its a bit funny, especially the illustrations of the pig bloated and squirming, screaming he's going into labour etc... but overall a bit ridiculous at my age. :-)
6. Presently reading Imam and the Indian by Amitav Ghosh. Its a collection of short stories which he wrote sporadically over the course of several years and in between the various works that he published.
My personal favourite from the ones that I have read till now is The ghosts of Mrs. Gandhi, in which he gives his personal account of the '84 genocide, why he could not bring himself to write about it till now, and why other writers from that time are also reluctant to do the same. However, it makes for some sad reading, one that left me dejected and angry. Time may pass by, but such instances keep occuring, with the assistance of the official bodies that have been put in charge to prevent them. The '84 riots and 2002 riots were both genocides, mass-murders that were organized and planned attempts at eliminating certain minority groups and the fact that we continue to attach the misnomer of 'riots' to these events shows that we have accepted them as that, and given the guilty an easy escape route. In fact, there is plenty of material available online with regard to those horrific days when these mass-murders took place.
My present addiction is Lexulous, that online scrabble game that was made by the Agarwala brothers as Scrabulous, which got itself into legal troubles for trademark infringement. Its an entertaining way of passing time, and helps improve thy vocab, no? ;-)
Adios!
Its been 8 days since I've been "totally" free, and well, already some monotony has started to creep in. This post essentially just to remind me that I am to do something useful with my time. So what have I been upto? Here I am listing all that below:
1. The Godfather trilogy: A wonderful depiction of the Cosa Nostra and the Italian Mafia. I particularly enjoyed the first movie, although I found all three to be equally well-made. Sofia Coppola lacked a certain charm with her role in the third, but one also gets used to her as the movie progresses. Marlon Brando in it has done justice to his role, and Robert De Niro did very well in the second. Robert Duvall as Tom Hagen was one character I felt sorry for he was constantly abused for being non-Italian, for not being a blood relative to the 'family' and because of the issues Michael Corleone had with trusting the ones closest to him. My rating 9.5/10,9.5/10,9/10 for the three movies respectively.
2. Another Robert Duvall film which I happened to catch was Thank You For Smoking. Its the sort of movie that messes you up a little bit, makes you question your moral system and knows how to put up an argument. The protagonist is Aaron Eckhart, who we later saw in the role of D.A. Harvey Dent, in the unforgettable epic The Dark Knight. I'd recommend it. Rating: 9/10
3. The Big Fish: Interesting concept, adapted from the novel by Daniel Wallace of the same name. I first read about it after hearing the song, "How I Go" by Yellowcard. I loved the song the first time I heard it, and only after almost a year after first listening to it, got down to watching the movie. Thoroughly loved it. My rating:9.5/10.
4. Flight of the Conchords - This TV show is a blast. Features two New-Zealand blokes in the US, Bret and Jermaine are the two-member band that try to make ends meet, find a girl for themselves, and play at gigs, breaking into hilarious sing-song routines every time. A brilliant comedy. 9/10.
5. The Motherhood River - A Chinese short children's story, which is one in a series of books titled Journey to the West, by Yuan Fang. More here.
The story is as the title says - about a river that makes anyone who drinks it pregnant. A solution to this conundrum is in the form of another river, drinking whose water aborts the child.
It was a pretty unique story with the monkey, pig, friar and the king as the main characters. Its a bit funny, especially the illustrations of the pig bloated and squirming, screaming he's going into labour etc... but overall a bit ridiculous at my age. :-)
6. Presently reading Imam and the Indian by Amitav Ghosh. Its a collection of short stories which he wrote sporadically over the course of several years and in between the various works that he published.
My personal favourite from the ones that I have read till now is The ghosts of Mrs. Gandhi, in which he gives his personal account of the '84 genocide, why he could not bring himself to write about it till now, and why other writers from that time are also reluctant to do the same. However, it makes for some sad reading, one that left me dejected and angry. Time may pass by, but such instances keep occuring, with the assistance of the official bodies that have been put in charge to prevent them. The '84 riots and 2002 riots were both genocides, mass-murders that were organized and planned attempts at eliminating certain minority groups and the fact that we continue to attach the misnomer of 'riots' to these events shows that we have accepted them as that, and given the guilty an easy escape route. In fact, there is plenty of material available online with regard to those horrific days when these mass-murders took place.
My present addiction is Lexulous, that online scrabble game that was made by the Agarwala brothers as Scrabulous, which got itself into legal troubles for trademark infringement. Its an entertaining way of passing time, and helps improve thy vocab, no? ;-)
Adios!
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