Life at Trivandrum!

I have just spent a week at Trivandrum, Kerala for training in TCS. Having spent a lenient school and college life, I had my share of fears about entering the office-goer's life. But rest assured, my fears were baseless. I enjoy coding programs and I seem to be slightly above average at this. This combined with my love for typing in a keyboard and sitting in-front of computers, has made the whole experience a dream. Then again, this is just training.

Learning here is a completely different approach compared to our educational system. We are not taught in classes here; that is, not completely. Corporates practice self-learning. That is, they will teach you the basics, but it is you who has to learn on a daily basis. Meaning, we get a computer (in the lab) and we are given time to practice the art of coding. We are given questions but no answers. We have to figure it out ourselves. Our educational system never teaches us to think. We were given questions and the answers. Education should in fact teach us to think, not restrict us by giving us finite amount of answers for finite amount of questions.

Let me also mention about the life and the climate. This is completely a new experience for me in this aspect. Shops here shut down by 9.30 or 10pm. Waking up at 5 in the morning daily and having to wash some of my clothes by myself is a new experience (but I've got a shower!! :D) There are lots of book stores, opticals and liquor stores. The roads are like hill slopes and I see a lot of Bullets and Volkswagens and Fiats. Guess the people here have a good taste at least when it comes to automobiles.. :P That kinda sums up Trivandrum, in my perspective at least. The climate is extremely pleasant at times and a little hot at times. But most of the time, it is just good enough.

Life here is pretty good then. I just wish I had a laptop and an internet connection. But hey, I ain't complaining!

Our Sword!

As expected, the trip to Hyderabad was an experience which I won't forget anytime soon. The trip was not about winning but was about having fun together. We managed to do just that. Actually, forget Hyderabad; we had so much fun together on the train at night that we couldn't stop laughing for an hour. I'm sure our co-passengers weren't very fond of the noise we were making but we couldn't really help it!

The trip was awesome fun, the place was quite good, the climate was comfortable and the facilities were good enough. Though the bandh threatened to ruin it, it really couldn't stop us from having fun. Apart from all this, hanging out with players like Prasad aka Gizmo and Deb aka RiZr who are simply the best in the country, is simply superb. Ravi as usual was an awesome host. We came Third in DotA which ain't bad though our performance against the Runner-ups JnP was dismal to say the least.

The icing on the cake is definitely the prize. We were offered either Rs.800 cash or Rs.1000 worth mouse-pads and we opted for the mouse-pads. In our team, we call it Paai (tamil for mattress). Though we have been gamers for the past 5 years, we never really had much of the usual gaming gears like costly mouse, mouse-pads and headphones. Every time we go to a tourney somewhere and we see our opponent pulling out his Paai from his bag, we go "Ok, game over".. It is because, the gear represents not just professionalism but a stronger desire to win. It shows that they are more dedicated, they have the time & money to spend on gaming and they are better equipped. After seeing our opponents pull out their sword-like Paai for five long years, we have finally got a sword of our own. It is one huge Steelseries Qck+ mouse-pad.. Too bad that my gaming career is gonna come to an end very soon. Or so, I think..

Here is a link to the pictures we took in our trip - Picasa

Hyderabad Here We Come!

I think my prediction is going to fail. I expected someone to drop out at the last moment and it hasn't happened yet. Actually, more people got added and now 8 of us are going to Hyderabad. The tickets have been booked and the train leaves today. Apart from the last ImbaGamer tournament, only four or five of us attended the other tournaments. ImbaGamer with the Atl guys was awesome.. Its again with 8 people now. So, time to have fun..

A Preview of the trip to Hyderabad!

Weirdly, the very next day after I posted about how we used to make videos of our games to study them, Praveen took videos of a game from the encounter between Gdn and Atl. This proved to me that he is indeed serious about this. So, I got my motivation back and we are back to put up a fight. The only difference is that, this time, its not just about winning. This time, its about having fun together one last time. So, I could say that I'm having the time of my life..

We decided to have a practise session against Chennai's best team 0mF. Thus, we had a night-out at a cafe located in the other side of Chennai. If this little trip is a preview of our trip to Hyderabad, then I really can't wait for it. We lost three games & won the last one. But never during our entire night of gaming were we upset or tensed. We enjoyed every second of it and the first two games were rather close too.

On the way back early morning, it was drizzling. Though my tinted helmet made me blind, I had a nice ride back home. Sadly though, by the time I reached home, I was completely soaked. The most amazing part is probably that none of us felt tired at the end of the 6 hour gaming session. We usually get beaten so badly that everyone feels tired and bored. But this little trip, was an exception. At this rate, the trip to Hyderabad should be a blast!