IBM Tech Day = 1 Scratch Pad + 1 Pen + 5 Samosas + 4 Ice-creams!

So I’ll start off this blog with a post about today…ie. 12/09/09...

So we had the IBM Technology Day, organised by IBM in collaboration with our college – the one and only, NIT Warangal. All of the III year B.Tech students were asked to attend compulsorily, but not even half of them turned up – I was among those who did turn up at 8:30 in the morning. As expected, the event didn’t start before 9:30 (I think we need to remember – nothing starts on time except classes and exams).

“Where are the kits we were promised!?”
So we were told we would be given kits worth 500 bucks. But all we got was a scratch pad and a pen – I think all-in-all they would be worth 15 bucks – maybe I misheard the numeric value. Nevertheless, it wasn’t that bad of an experience – frankly speaking, I was reading Shakespeare throughout the first lecture. After that, I was really thankful for the tea break – I don’t drink tea, but I did get to eat 5 samosas. The second lecture on data warehousing was good enough to divert me from my reading and captivate my attention for an hour or so. But as expected, an hour was too little to teach too much – so just the basics and then it was time for lunch.

“Does anything ever start on time here!?”
So we went for lunch, having been told to get back by 1:15. But going there we realize we won’t be able to start eating only by 1:15. That too a rice-only lunch, with the curries going horribly wrong. It would’ve been a catastrophe but for the ice-cream. “I scream ice-cream!” It was worth it, even though it was only vanilla (I prefer butterscotch).

So we finish our lunch and by the time we had finished it, very few in III year were still interested to get back to the seminar hall. The majority of us dragged our feet back to our hostel rooms.

“Why did I go back!?”
I had just changed my clothes and came online when James pings me on Gtalk and says they’re distributing free T-shirts at 4pm. Course I wanted to check it, at least outta curiosity. So we go all the way back to the seminar hall – for nothing! The T-shirts were prizes for a technical quiz – and I knew I had made a grave mistake by coming back, considering the level of my technical knowledge! Anyways, I decide to stay on – I felt too lazy to go back alone. On top of all this, we had an extempore – well, something which they called an extempore – it didn’t fit my definition of an extempore. Followed by a hell of a quiz (it was hell for me coz I knew nothing), but still many managed to get hold of T-shirts. Then finally, after all this – if you think they let us leave, you are mistaken. They wanted feedback from us – which took another half an hour!


All-in-all, something worth attending if you have free time, but definitely not worth the Saturday before the mid-semester exams….