Its Seminar Day

There are days when you wake up for class at 1:00 hoping to enter at 1:15 and get attendance. But what happens when class is dismissed at 1:10 pm ? Do you head back to the room disappointed ? Or do you get back up , toughen up and make something of your day ?

This was the choice I was faced with a couple of weeks back in college. I had decided to lay down and just go back to room to sleep. But one my friends from Computer Engineering was going to attend his seminar ...and I asked him.."Will it be held in an Air Conditioned room ? "...and five minutes later I was sitting in an AC room on a revolving chair...what better conditions to sleep can a man ask for ?.

So before I describe the seminar to you. Let me give you a layman's account of what these seminars are. Basically a bunch of people turn up with their "uber-cool" power-point presentations on some technical papers they read up and are supposed to give their "analysis" of these papers. The rest of their class mates have to bear this torture while three or more teachers are looking blankly at the Projector screen trying to figure out why the child in front of them is NOT speaking anything and WHY on earth would someone put Yellow text on a White background.

Anyway , I was sitting with a bunch of my friends who were all looking to have some fun. (In good spirit of course ). I don't know why one of them wrote my name on the attendance sheet and I had to somehow grab it and fiercely ink my name out. The seminar started , the first topic was pretty interesting about how everything around us can be connected to the Internet and we can actually have Home appliances connected to each other and a central computer in the home. But I guess soon as the lights went out everyone started pretty much doing their own thing.
(Something about lights going off, everyone gets "naughty") As soon as the lights went up again...PEOPLE GAVE A THUNDEROUS APPLAUSE ..as if everyone was listening intently. I swear I saw a teacher just wake up from sleep. The worst part was one of the teachers kept looking back to see if anyone is talking and she constantly thought I was the head of the group. I had to constantly nod my head in approval...showing that I am actually listening to why HIDDEN MARKOV MODELS were applied to a GOAT.

Another cool part of these seminars is the Question and Answer session. Now every speaker supposedly gets extra marks if he answers questions positively after the talk. Needless to say students fix their friends as the guys who ask questions and I heard questions such as "What is Google CAPTCHA ?" and "What was the first online MULTIPLAYER game ? "...these are answered by the speaker in such a suave manner that the teacher is left impressed...and of course...THE CROWD GIVES THUNDEROUS APPLAUSE. :-)


One of my friends also decided to enter the field hoping to help some mates by asking questions and increasing their marks. One of his questions was "How would I decrypt passwords I got from a friend's computer ? ", to this the Speaker replied "You wouldn't need to decrypt it, just Copy and Paste". Applause Followed. I was having a good time now . So the next time even I asked a question. The Topic was on Smart Cards...and I ended up taking out my wallet and flashing my Metro card. I started off by asking..."See I have a Smart Card..I mean I charge it to 500 Rs and everytime I end up breaking it I lose my money...How will you counter that ? Who takes responsibility ? "....I got a little over-emotional I think. The teacher was giving me weird looks after that.

Seminar ended after that. It was a fun afternoon. Just goes to show what a man can do for an Air-Conditioner.

Hope you liked it. More ramblings next time !!

P.S- My Seminar is on Monday