A day to remember....or not.

Today has got to be one of the most interesting days I've ever had, in more ways than one. Here's how it was supposed to go:

1. Wake up at 7:20. Leave for college a little over an hour later, getting there in good time for the Computer Graphics practical exam and orals at 10.
2. Write whatever program they hand me - hopefully in about 45 mins to an hour.
3. Answer whatever questions the external examiner throws at me(these are the aforementioned orals) and wind up.
4. Head back home. Depending on how long 2 and 3 take(and taking into account the elastic nature of Indian Standard Time), this would be anything between 1 to 3.

All fine and dandy so far. Here's what actually happened:

Act 1:
The Big Rush
1. Cellphone alarm went off at 7:20. I hit the quit button and did my usual wake up ritual, which consists of lying around for about 10 mins getting progressively more awake. Like I've done several hundred times before, I closed my eyes for a second.
2. Eyes opened, glanced at time on cellphone. 8:30!!! Holy crap!!!(These are the exact thoughts that went through my mind at that instant.)
3. In the next few minutes, I made Olympic runners look like lazy snails as I rushed through the morning routine - bathing, shaving in 10 mins flat(for those who think this is normal - my facial hair are more like titanium than keratin) and getting ready to leave.
4. House all locked up(since parents and sis in Malaysia on vacation), ready to go. Time: 9:10.
5. Rushed down to the bus stop. Watched helplessly as the bus sped by just before I got there.
6. No time to lose - emergency procedures - grabbed the nearest taxi and prayed that I'd get there in time.
7. Finally got to college, with 3 minutes to spare. No sign of prof...AARGH!


Act 2:
Anticlimax
1. The entire exam group(35 of us) are waiting for the prof to turn up. People are frantically mugging programs(how the hell do they do that?) Meanwhile, I'm reviewing derivations that I'll have to do so I can figure out how to write a few progs. I strongly urge a friend of mine to do so - he succumbs to the lure of the majority and mugs end products instead...I decide to give it a try - and give up 10 mins later. Too hard on the memory and too much chance of screwing up. Better to know how the guy who invented the algorithm thought instead.
2. Prof turned up - must have been 10:30. Mentally kick myself for wasting money on the taxi. Yeesh.
3. External turned up while prof is giving out papers(each one has a little chit in it with the program name on it). Turns out I'm the last guy in the batch...guess who has to wait 15 minutes while the mob gets their progs? Mentally reviewed a prog while waiting(techies - this would be Bresenham's ellipse algorithm).
4. My turn. Just one paper left - looks like I don't get to choose. Open it up - hey, two chits! Prof says pick any one - I do so.

Act 3:
The Last Laugh
1. And my program turns out to be....DDA line drawing??!! This is the easiest computer graphics prog in the book! Actually, it's probably just the easiest one worthy of being called a program, which may or may not amount to the same thing.
2. Got on the assigned comp and started pounding keys.
3. Program done - coding, debugging, testing - the whole schmeer. Time taken: 5 mins, 30 seconds. Thank you TopCoder! Scribble the algorithm on the paper as ordered.
4. Time to call over the prof. She gives a bunch of inputs and pronounces the prog perfect. Sends over external.
5. External does the same thing and asks a bunch of trivial questions. Why? Because it's a trivial program.
6. I'm off! Stop in the next lab to pick up my bag, astounding a bunch of classmates who frantically fire queries about the examiner and the kind of questions she asked. Turns out no one else is done. I'm reminded of a stack - Last In, First Out!
7. Back home at 1, celebrate by playing on cousin's PS2, and several slices of his sister's birthday cake. Yum, chocolate!
8. That's all folks. Rest of the day isn't remotely as interesting.

Just goes to show - as the poet Burns used to say - "The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley."(If you're not a Wodehouse fan, you probably won't get the allusion behind the allusion, so just ignore it.)

Lessons we can all learn from this:
1. For heaven's sake, use snooze on your alarm clocks! If you're desperate, use Clocky.
2. It's never really as bad as you think it will be. Well, almost never.

And that winds up today's post. Stay tuned for more news of my exasperated attemps to finish off our submissions - then get through the vivas - and finally study for the exams. Back to the rat race...