Darkness turns to light, it ends tonight, it ends tonight.

D day is here and yes I have a smile on my face. Its been a while coming. My Masters ends today, not bad for a lazy fat boy. I want to blog this down so that I can look at it in a few years from now when I don't remember the experience. I came to NEU happy that I had got into a fairly good college but really uncertain what this school and this place had in store for me. What I was most uncertain about was whether I'll match up to the people I meet here. I remember my fist semester and that fact that all my roommates spent hours in the library and I slept. That's what I did on-campus work and sleep and barely enough work to do well in my assignments. I knew that the education(or the lack of it) I got at B.V.C.O.E was going to hurt me and I needed to really knuckle down but habits that had built up over years are really hard to break. Then the first semester results came out and I was happy but people around me weren't . I really felt bad for them, to be so far away from home , to give it all you have and then to get bad grades, just doesn't seem fair. I’ve had this feeling before when my first semester undergrad results were put up and I was the only one in the group who got away without a kt , I spent hours with my friends on Belapur sea shore talking about “the meaning of life” even had a chat with a couple of their parents and told that I had flunked just as everyone else just to make it look like the exams were not fair.
In the second semester I found my self in two pretty difficult courses and all of a sudden people paid attention to the fact that maybe I had a brain and wasn’t a lazy butthead I appeared to be. That semester was hard and I did develop a little of a work ethic going through it. No matter how much shit I gave Prabhu (my project partner) both of us deserved a B and at the end of the day I was happy to get it. I’m sure if I had a crack at it now I’d do better (famous last words). I wasn’t really happy about walking away from the other course with an A-. Relative to the rest of the class I aced it but only the kid who the professor knew by name got an A (more factors may have been at play but lets just say I’ll give the professor the benefit of the doubt).
Then when the second semester ended I found myself without a co op, nightmare coming true. I remember thinking what I had to offer and why no one would want me. I think “A------“ this was the third interview I had I was just happy that they though I was worth hiring.

My first couple of weeks were a nightmare I had no help or supervision and lets just say the guy I was reporting to didn’t like me and told me that I was wasn’t to ask any questions or bother any of the software guys in the company . I was thrown at a 50,000 like of code monstrosity without the any idea what it did and told to make it scriptable. The only saving grace was this way may 05 and my project was due by December. Then on in it got better I finally started interacting with the engineers and found out that it was a nice place to work after all. By August I was done with my project I had time till December for and by October I had a full time offer that I couldn’t accept because there were no H1’s available.
My third semester back in school was just about all right. I was still working (full time for all practical purposes except I wasn’t allowed to do so getting paid only for part time work). I wish I had done a couple of things differently, I'd actually worked to get decent project partners because the ones I had were just piggy backing to make sure I did the work and got them through the semester. I also wish I had more time I really like network security and maybe if I had I could’ve gone down that career path.

Then there was summer 06 were Mr S--- made sure I couldn’t work, he had a point to prove and I was going to be the example. So with no courses and no opportunity to work I headed home to my surprise my manager (by now I had a real manager and they guy who gave me all the shit to being with was taking orders from me) asked me to work form India. So stay in Mumbai and earn dollars, it was fairy tale time. It didn’t really turn out like that , I din’t enjoy working from home all alone staring at a laptop all day but being back home had its benefit. Living with Pishkun was brilliant . We had our arguments but I am convinced this is the chick for me I cant wait for her to get here. Hanging out with Pandya was great , even tough I get the feeling Pishkun and Pandya were competing in some silly game and I was the umpire I think they are my closest friends and always will be . I just need to figure out how to make them get along. Metting pipi and bhau-bhau was nice as well I hope those guys all the luck in the world. I finally met sid , rohan and cheena after so long. I think I’ll always have a special place for sid, he is my definition of a younger brother. Rohans coming along great and I’m sure he’ll do all of us proud and Cheena’s getting married. Then there was Oscar , I had him to all to myself again. I miss oscar I think he’s the best pooch in the world. I hope he’s still around by the time I get to go abck again.


Enough with the flash back, current semester Fall 07. Two challenging courses and full time work (I got my H1 so no more obstacles from college). I can honestly say I’ve worked my ass off this time and even tough grades come out next week I think I’ll be fine. I think this transition in me ,even tough I maintain to everyone that asks that I’m still the lazy fat boy I was is a good thing. Just in case you think that I’m all grown up I'm getting myself a car soon with my savings , guess something’s don’t change.