Of My Pre-First Day

Today was Orientation day. A day where bright-eyed students with hopes and dreams were told . . . that they’ll be ragged on. The administration is doing everything in their power to prevent ragging, but it will still happen and you better resign yourself to it.

I went there at 9:00a.m. Dad dropped me and told me to get on a bus or a cab back to something that remotely looks like civilization.

So, I made my way to the reception office to ask where new students were supposed to report. The lady at the reception must have been thinking something pleasant because as soon as I asked her, her face contorted to something like this:Okay, well maybe a percentage of this. Anyways, point being she thought it was a silly question and without getting up, pointed out the door and said “There’s a sign. Auditorium.” I looked out expecting to see a huge sign and was even ready to kick myself for being stupid, and I saw the sign. It was one of those tiny displays you see outside hotel conference rooms that have been reserved, with a 8x6 sign saying “Auditorium”

Side Note: If I ever run a university, or any other event for that matter, I’ll make sure that I put a frosted doughnut huge sign right by the main gate that gives clear directions. Probably even light road flares along the path they’re supposed to follow.

So, 9:15 we got to sit in the auditorium. Soon as there were 17 people, the head of the Admin Department came in and started what we assumed was the actual speech. It turned out to be time-pass. It was fun, the guy clearly knew how to keep his audience interested.

Around 9:50 he started talking about ragging and how they’ve taken preventive measures. He reassured us that raggers will be dealt with strictly, as they have been for the past 3 years. True, unfortunate incidents have happened before, like once a kid had his arm broken in two places . . . (wait!! What??) Before he could continue, some random guy in a suit, wearing those huge-ass sunglasses and an equally big-ass grin abruptly burst into the room and equally abruptly burst out of the room. That ladies and gentlemen was the sign that the orientation was starting.

The President of the Institute came and spoke for 40 minutes about how hard our parents worked to send us here and how we should not let their money go to waste and basic rules of the university. He even stated that since English was the primary language of instruction at the university, everyone has to speak in it. No matter how bad you are, speak in English. Finally I learning bad Eenglish. Yey!

While President Sir talking, rest of dean and director came and take seat. One sir very smarty looking. Wearing sweater without sleeves with tie. Another sir not having spine-stick.  He sit in seat like big pile of pudding. Third sir very thirsty. Need water drink every 5 minutes. President sir say to us, send car home, you go in our bus. bus.

Hope you understood that. So, the president ended his speech and called forth the dashing gentleman in the sleeveless cardigan. This, was the Dean of Engineering.  The way he was dressed I totally expected a British accent. He was a total desi. But, he had a major redeeming quality.

He, it seems, grew up on Star Trek and majored in Aeronautics. He started talking about how we should go about our 4 years here and used airplanes as a metaphor for  our studies.

• Whether we’ll be flying the first Wright brother’s plane that never flew (i.e. immediately drop out)
• Or fly the second Wright brothers plane that flew for 50 seconds (i.e. drop out after a month)
• Or fly a rickety two-seater (i.e. stay below probation)
• Or fly a Boeing (i.e. stay on the borderline)
• Or fly a Concorde (i.e. maintain a good GPA)
• Or fly the Starship Enterprise at warp speed (i.e. get a scholarship)

Mind you, these are all my own assumptions. When he started talking about planes it took me a while to register that he meant it as a metaphor (when he got to Starship Enterprise) He repeated pretty much everything that the president said, but he presented it in an entertaining way which made pretty much everyone hang onto his every word. He did however have a distracting habit of standing on his tip-toes and spreading his arms whenever he wanted to emphasize on something (which was every 10th word or so)

So an entertaining half-hour was killed off like that. Then, the Director of Business came and spoke a few words like a train-wreck. I only caught “hat” “stars of the show” “dean” and “business” from the string of words he uttered.

The Dean of Business was the perfect case of stage-fright. He started off well, by saying “I’ll keep my speech relatively short.” This earned him some laughs from whoever was keeping track of the time. It was 11:25 now. He started off by stating nearly the same things that the President and Dean of Engg. said so, along with a few tidbits of information. Everything was punctuated with pauses and shaky hand gestures. He literally bored me to tears.

At 11:45 all us engineering students went off to the engineering building and got the fourth variation of the same lecture from the Director of Engineering.

Then we went for a very confusing tour of the campus. Our guide was obviously paid off by the seniors to make sure we would be totally lost on our first day of uni. He took us to one lab, then another lab on the next floor then the library in a different building then back to the room next to the first lab we saw and so on.

Then we submitted our library forms and ID card forms, got into our respective buses and went home.

Oh well. I crossed over the 1000 word mark (as far as I know I’ve never written such a long post.)

Cheers and See you Monday.