Thursday, 23rd January 2k14.
These days its really tough to get up. Especially with my stupid not-so-healthy life style and because of the cold. If it was something about studies, I might have never woken up. But this one is something i love to do. And as usual I was damn excited. Well, I reached Perumbavoor at 5.00 AM, I was expecting Brenta and Diksha there, they also told me that some of their friends will be coming. What was surprising was that all of them where gals, not just one or two, more than 15 of ’em. No dudes at all. Man! Next one hour was hard for me, cuz munnar is just 100 Kms off my place and I have seen enough of the things outside. But when the weather started to change after a while, things became interesting, except for the 18 degree temperature. For my international readers, “I’m not a guy who is subjected to very low temperature, like 10 or 5, I live in the tropics! less than 20 is a big deal for me. Period.” But hey, its cool to watch the morning lights splashing on the mountains. I tried to sleep but I couldnt. I met some guys from SCMS, the same college in which Brenta and Diksha is studying. After reaching Munnar, we had to take a Jeep to College of Engineering, Munnar. KAIZEN 2.0 is a national level IEEE symposium on technology and management, And I did miss KAIZEN 1.0 something that I am still regretting about. Getting to travel is one of the things that I love about IEEE. There were 12 Members from our college. After all the usual Blah blah like the registration and stuff, I went to the auditorium, I met Deepthi there, she is studying in Adi Shankara, Kaladi, Ernakulam. And I met her for the first time in Bangalore, a month back. We had a usual chit chat. In no time, The Microsoft Developer Campaign started. Boring stuff… I hate MicroSoft, the only thing I like about microsoft is the windows XP and 8.1. Instead of listening, me and Deepthi watched some videos in laptop. And then came the lunch. It was yucky! one the worstest food I have ever eaten in any event. We all decided to bunk the afternoon session. My dad, since last year is working in Devikulam (6 Kms from Munnar.) as the TSO (Thaluk Supply Officer). He had to visit Adimali that day, so one the way back, he picked me. After reaching my dad’s place I slept for a while, so that me and my devices can recharge. And I came back at 4.45 PM. By the time I the MicroSoft guy was gone and they already started the Ice breaking session. There were 6 teams, the team were selected by the month in which they are born, that is, a guy who was born in the month of march belonged to the group March-April. 12 Months so 6 teams. I came late so I got into July-August instead of May-June. My bad. We had some fun making things. We then had Poori for dinner and it was good as compared to the lunch. The hotel that we checked in was at Devikulam, right near my dad’s quarters. After watching Monster’s University (2013), I got shut down.
DAY – 2
Next morning was crazy cuz of the cold and the scarcity of bathrooms. I felt a bit relived as it wasnt mcuh cold after the bath. Me, Shahul, Nidin (from TOC-H, Ernakulam) and others went out and had a tea, which was surprisingly the best I have had in some time. Soon the bus was off to college. We went back and met this interesting lady, Akshara from Adi Shankara. Infact, in two days, I met a lot of people whom I already know and new ones too. The list is huge. After having breakfast me, Akshara, Anshoo ( I kinda started calling her “shoo…” “shoo..” And she is the only one in the whole KAIZEN, I guess who do not like the Ice Breaking Sessions) and Anjali thought of getting some air. I soon realized that Akshara wants to climb on all huge rocks she find. We climbed a small one.
TREKKING. We had two options, 1. Visit Mattupetty Dam and Eco-Point 2. Climb up the hill above the College. I choose the second. Boy! it was so cool and fun, there are a lot to talk about that. Infact, due to hand freeze and RSI, my arms are hurting now, So I’m thinking, why don’t I let the Photos Speak?
After the trekking, which took more than three hours, we were all back in college and yes, it was Lunch time. The food was the same as the very last day, except that we had a Fish Fry, which turned out to be awesome.
After all this was the Inaugration ceremony of KAIZEN 2.0 After some boring speeches about IEEE, <dramatic voice> I love IEEE, but i hate presentations on IEEE </dramatic voice> We had an Ice breaking sessions again. Then, I lost my camera. In life, there are some points were all your happiness comes to an end at a single point. Bang! My heart was flying and I was scared as shit. At the same time, there was this game going on, in which the group had to find things whose name that starts with all the 26 English alphabets. I was way out off that thing. God gives you some experiences to realise that how your own team and friends become ignorant about your crysis. Although, I made a volunteer announce it through the mic, no one seem to care, half of them never even heard. I had mixed emotions – Angry, Sad and everything you feel when you are in hell. The one that gave me most pain was the realization that, for my dear friends a ‘pick-some-things’ game was more important than their friend’s $180 Camera. Finally, by the time, the game was over, I got it back. But, the moment I lost the camera, I kinda lost my mind too. I love my stuff and How do you know that I love something? I will call it by name, My camera is ‘BE’ (came from ‘Bird’s Eye’. One of the first photo that i shot with it was a hen’s eye :-p), laptop is Ma’at, the workstation in my home, Atum. I even have names for each of my hard disk’s local disks. Crazy, eh? Yeah, now beat that.
So the ‘camera-lost-incident’, as it will be known from today, took a huge toll on me, I went on to the Angry-Sad mode. I just wanted to run and run and run… And I couldn’t. I just on the corner of a corridor and just listened to my music. And even through my ‘TekFusion Twin Woofer’ AKA BassMachine, even through the dumb-steps and metal guitars I felt my heart’s beats. For me, every moment was like the world is gonna end in the very next minute. By the time, i recovered a bit, it was too late to pick up a girl… I mean, for the dance ball that was about to start in a few minutes. I guess, ‘pairing up for the ball’ might be a better term to use. I had to sit in a corner. I was a POST ( again, dear international readers, please take a note, POST – The guy or gal who is alone, mainly due to their friends. It’s the term which had it’s origin from Electric Post, which stands still.) So, I was a POST until I saw some ‘single’ guys, who were dancing togather. My devil mind swing into action, “If I can’t eat, why should I let other’s?” Duh… I wanted to crash the ball. And i joined them. I guess everyone with me were thinking the same, Infact, its the Mallu gene thats working… We managed to sing and dance in a huge round, we went so above the speaker volume, that they had to cancel the ball after a few minutes. He he ha ha… Singles happy, Couples sad, and me with a “Bitch Please…” face. That was the switch, the switch that turned off my ‘Sad-Angry Mode’ and the ‘Devil Mode’. Then I went hyper. After a while, we (the single guys ) danced in the stage. I was more than happy. Later, every one moved on to have dinner and the camp fire, we danced around a bit. And then, left for the hostel. I was actually planning to stay with my dad. And I did. Me, the adorable Joe, very happy. 😀 ( The Adorable Joe – a term coined by my ex-teacher, Suja TP) <happy puppy face>
DAY 3 I had to walk 200 Meters to get from my dad’s quarters to the hotel in which i was staying, i thought of meeting up with my friends there. Day 3 at Kaizen at was all about HTML for me, the session was about 5 hours from morning 10.30 to evening 5.00. It wasn’t bad after all, except that I didn’t learn anything new. The session was taken by Rahul Ramesh, An young Entrepreneur, A pass-out from my college and my buddy. At the lunch, we all – All the 12 of us, shahul – our senior, Rahul Ramesh, Ajin Baby ( Director of Operations at Veeble, also a passout from college. His team created the app called Locomapia.), Vijay S Paul ( CEO, Ize Creative.) planned to go out in evening. At 4, Rahul Chettan told us. (Me, Asish and Rony) to go out one by one… And he will join us soon. We took an auto to the Hydel Park. Ron, Irine and Aiswarya tried the water ball, it was so fun seeing them trying to balance in that ball and we tried hard to make sure that they don’t. We hanged out had fun. And later from a restaurant near by I had a Biriyani.
I got a ride from hydel park to college in Vijay’s bike. By the time we reached there, they were serving dinner. And the music was on. After a bit, The DJ was playing it hard, and we were rocking harder every moment. It’s an awesome feeling when your body aches but still deep inside you still wanna dance. The party was over for everyone by 10.30 PM. But not for CECians. One of our special party was about to start. 26th January was her Birthday. By the time we got out of Hydel park we were thinking about it. So, Shahul and Rahul Chettan went to buy cake a while before we went into the restaurant. We were keeping our bags in the clock room. So, after the party when Irine came into the room.. Surprise!! You people must have seen her expressions, Boy! it was cool. On the way back to our hotel in the bus, we sang some songs, especially the malayalam folk songs.
DAY – 4
The next day, I was thinking about going home early. At 10 AM or something. But, after a while, I decided I should not. There were two important sessions by Vijay and Ajin. Vijay chettan talked about “Why I’m sure you will fail.” And Ajin chettan, “Generations”. Both of them gave away some very important things to think on and contemplate. After the sessions, we had lunch, it was the most awesome part of Kaizen. After a while, we served the volunteers. I left Munnar by 3.30 in the evening.
Updated :: The video that I created…
