It’s always an interesting day at XIE. When you have lectures that get you down, you have colourful sights and sounds that cheer you up for a while.

I didn’t really expect you to get the colour-full sentence hint, but I guess you should get it by now.

Of course, there’s a whole lot more about colour than just that little joke. Today, a few painters were colouring the walls of the ground floor. They painted one side yellow (that’s the side towards the workshop) and another side as Diluted Pink (the side having the office).

And just when the two colours start baffling you, something else comes in and you can finally see the light, literally. There were lit tubelights on the floor near the Yellow coloured side. Now, wtf was that for? I dunno about you, but I sure can’t think of a reason why a tubelight would be needed : 1) at noon time during the brightest hour of day and 2) when placed on the floor.

I mean seriously, pink? It’s even okay if it’s pink-pink, this one looks as if it’s blood splattered all across the wall as if trying to keep up with the whole serial blasts across the cities thing.

Well, I guess I freaked out a little too much about the bloody-pink wall. I walked upstairs to the BEE lab hoping to see something interesting and guess what, I did.

Who would have ever thought that our BEE lab secretly doubles up as a miniature kitchen? I couldn’t really figure out what was being cooked out there. It could even have been some melting solder in a pot but I’m really not that great at identifying food.

Neat, isn’t it?

Now this one is totally different. Our neighbouring college, XTECH has erected a new board (read:hoarding) only for XIE students. They placed it in such a way that nobody else can see it, but us.

The image isn’t clear, but you can still make out what I’m trying to convey. I don’t know whose idea this was, but damn, this is by far the lamest thing I’ve ever seen.

Anyway, on a much more serious note, our college has posted the Fee structure on the notice board and it looks really weird. Check it out. (You can click any picture on this blog to see an enlarged version)

Rs.38581 seems rather a bit less doesn’t it? I’m not complaining but I’d still like to know why.

Some people say that they reduced the annual fee while another school of thought believes that they will ask for the rest after the results are declared.

Speaking of which, it is rumoured by almost-very-reliable sources that the results are tomorrow.

All the Best!

<sarcasm>This day couldn’t have been more awesome.</sarcasm> (Apparently, some of you don’t get it)

Rains have been pissing down like never before and it hasn’t stopped since yesterday evening. It’s 6pm at the time of writing and things seem pretty much the same.

I reached college at 7.50 am, a time when it was still raining like crazy and when there aren’t many people at the station. Check this out:

It’s a beautiful experience when the weather is nice and cold and when there’s hardly anybody around. I wanted to walk to college, but thanks to the rains, The cab-driver made some extra bucks.

The first thing I noticed when I entered college was a notice on the Electronic Display Board asking interested students to help out in the Computer Lab by assembling PCs. That’s a pretty good deal for the college, I mean think about it. It’s cost-effective (doesn’t cost a buck) and it’s an amazing opportunity for the students to learn how to assemble a computer from scratch.

Next up, was the notice board which mentioned something about Fees, but I was late and couldn’t afford to read that notice at that moment and so I headed towards the Digital Communication Lab for our practicals. There were a few people inside, all sitting quietly for some reason. I knew something was wrong but couldn’t find a reason to justify my intuition. All I saw was a student (who quite frankly, looked like a drop student) standing next to a desk. I didn’t realise that she was our prof until she started speaking. Compared to most prof’s, she has an authoritative voice, displays female favouritism in an extremely subtle manner and as a consequence, is strict.

We knew the experiments were going to be long, boring and tedious. But guess what, XIE has bought new equipment for all electrical and electronic related subjects. We now sport Programmable CROs with support for USB and Parallel ports. Check out the pictures:

Kick-ass aren’t they?

Well anyway, we had another lecture after that followed by the break. Now, there’s something I don’t quite understand. The entire college has a break at the same time. The sights in the canteen aren’t far too different from what you notice in a 2nd class compartment of a train at peak hours at Dadar, inclusive of sights, sounds and smell. How can XIE time-share our classrooms but not the canteen? I could only think of one answer, it isn’t pretty but I’ll quote it: "XIE is an Engineering College, not a Management one."

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen worse goof-ups even by IIMs, NM College and others who specialize in Management.

Now since we can’t eat at the canteen, we chose to find another spot. Remember the the thatched enclosure outside the canteen? Well, to our surprise it wasn’t really useful in this case and we could guess why nobody was sitting there.

The rain was falling inside the enclosure, even with a roof on top. I shit you not, I tried taking a picture to capture this scene, but I doubt you can make anything out from this picture:

But again, don’t get me wrong. The roof isn’t totally useless. At least it acts as a filter before it lets the water pass through. Kudos to whosoever put up the roof!

Things were bad enough as it is. We headed for the railway station, I caught a Fast train at Mahim (Yeah, thanks to the rains, it halted there) and made by way back home through slightly flooded roads.

If things keep going on at the same pace, I doubt we’ll have college tomorrow. Well, at least I doubt my attendance

Keep Visiting and Stay Dry

P.S : It’s up to you to decide which incident is the good, the bad and the ugly LOL!

Being very excited with the prospect of seeing a renovated college, I reached college at 7.50 am today.

It had been about a month since I last visited college and naturally, I was excited to see how the college had changed over this period. To be honest, I was expecting new facilities, infrastructure, laboratory renovations, greener grounds, increased canteen space and obviously, a larger variety of available food on the canteen menu. But to be really honest, I knew it would be rather difficult to realize them all.

I searched for the Comp Engg. Time Table and I noticed that only the EXTC schedule was put up on the notice board. EXTC had always been punctual when it came to notices, so it came as no surprise. However, what did surprise was their college timings, 10am to 6pm everyday sans weekends. Which parochial person thought of this? How can they expect anybody (in the right frame of mind) to sit till 6pm? In any case, I had no reason to complain as being a comp student it didn’t apply to me (I still feel sorry for the EXTC folks though)

Meanwhile, I heard that the freshers were having an introduction seminar in the Drawing Hall and that’s what kept most of the staff occupied.

About a half-hour later, the Computer and IT timetables were put up on the notice board. I obviously saw the timings first hoping that they would be more propitious than EXTC’s schedule. 8am to 4pm (5pm once for 1 batch) + (Saturday, for 1 batch) isn’t really that bad since we finish off early but I’m not too happy about the lectures on Saturday. Unfortunately, we have no choice but to put up with it as Suruchi Ma’am and Jaichand Sir aren’t available on other days due to their M.E commitments (If anybody wants to know, they are studying at Thadomal).

The timetable also mentioned that our classroom was LH-7, which was weird as that class was already occupied by SE. Computers at that time. I learnt later that since some labs and classrooms weren’t available due to their ’renovation’, we had to timeshare our classrooms. That also explained why our timings from the other branches are so dissimilar.

About an hour later, the lecture was over and LH-7 was finally vacant. Almost immediately, a mob of professors asked us to seat ourselves. They began their usual introduction on how semester 5 is different from sem4, what our priorities should be, blah…blah…blah. After they were done (I really had to put it that way), Melvin sir stayed back (is he our class teacher? Hmm…) and told us to treat the CAT/GRE as an extra subject and advised us to start preparations slowly, but steadily. And almost as if it were a reverie, he asked us when he wanted us to have our next lectures. Everybody retorted "next week" and it was soon carved in stone. Comp students are now supposed to attend college next on 28th July!!! (I can’t help but wonder how this will affect the wheedling retinue of professors who attend every single lecture)

That’s all. I left with a few friends to Bandra to have a nice Subway meal while the rest either did something similar or returned home.

But hey, I totally forgot about checking out the new changes in college during this one-month period. I made a beeline back to college and tried searching for changes. This is what I could notice from the 10 minutes I spent looking for modifications.

• The BEE laboratory on the third floor is under serious renovation. Apparently it looks as if they are trying to emulate the computer lab design.
• The roof of the outdoor ’canteen’ has been completed, but it stops at that.
• Old notices (really old ones) still remain on the notice boards.
  

• New fences have been placed outside the college to protect shrubs and plants from being unintentionally destroyed.
• Almost every classroom now (finally) includes two more fans (circled in image)
  

• The Ground is full of uncut, almost overgrown grass (read: weed)

I didn’t check the computer labs nor the canteen so I’m totally aware of any changes out there.

No news about the results yet although Melvin sir is anticipating them to be declared anytime from the end of this week to early next week.

That’s all that happened on Day-1. Keep Visiting and enjoy the blog! Do write suggestions, comments or criticisms (anonymously if you wish), I’m all ears…err…eyes

P.S : You can click each picture to view it in its original size.

If there’s anything that the XIE Management loves to do, it’s ruining their students fun during their vacations.

They start with extra classes followed by practicals and even seminars but we could take it as long as they stuck to this list.

This time however, XIE are playing mind-games intended to obliterate our vacations. No, they aren’t starting any new classes, lectures or anything or the sort.

They issued a notice mentioning that the Sem-IV results would be declared on the 10th of July, which is 11 days before the next academic session commences.

I don’t know about you guys, but now that XIE played the result card, I tried to cram in every bit of enjoyment into these remaining pre-result-declaration days (20th June to 9th July).

Students from other colleges aren’t even talking about the results as to them, results coming out after college reopens is a given. And here we are, constantly wondering why they decided to declare them prematurely.

And just as you think you’ve hit rock-bottom, XIE throws you a shovel.

On the 10th of July, no results were declared. Some students called college to enquire about the results and learnt that it would be declared in the next few days.

11th, 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th pass and yet no results are declared. The College still maintains that the results will be declared shortly.

16th and 17th July pass by and display no change on XIE’s notice board.

Then on the 18th, the office staff (finally) mentioned that the result date is not confirmed and will be put up sometime next week. Next Week? That’s almost a week after college reopens.

Now was there any reason for them to even remotely mention that the results would be declared on the 10th although they were fully aware of its infeasibility?

WTF was their intention? It they intended to nettle us, they pretty much succeeded and left everyone befuddled and flustered.

People now feel that the reopening day of the next academic session is set to spell ’Doomsday’ for us.

While I’m sincerely hoping that they are wrong, I’m also looking forward to attending college again (I honestly can’t remember the last time I was present for a lecture)

Now that college is scheduled to start from monday, there will be loads of stuff to write about, so keep visiting and All the Best for your results!