An Outlet: Part 8

24 November, 2019.

(One of) India's toughest entrance exams is upon us.

I woke up around 6AM and left by 6:45. The centre for today's exam was in a known locality so dad didn't have to accompany me this time.

I reached the place at around 7:30AM and there were already a lot of aspirants ready to enter the school/college premises.

I located my floor and room and went and stood at the end of that long line. I honestly went with no expectations so I wasn't nervous at all.

I really liked the way they (IIM Kozhikode I'm guessing cause they're named as this year's CAT organisers) handled everything.

Every one had to enter in a line and re-check their respective floors/rooms before entering. The exam rules are super strict so the only thing you're allowed to take inside the exam room are your admit card and identity proof. So they first led us to some rooms where we had to keep all our belongings, including our footwear.

After getting frisked, we were asked to stand in yet another line where the person in charge would check our admit card and show us the general direction of our respective room. Of course, there were a couple others to help us navigate and get to our rooms.

By room, I mean the computer labs or just rooms with computers. We had to stand in a line outside the room, get called in one by one, go through biometrics and get directed to our seats.

I don't know if my thumb is really small or I just have terrible luck with thumb scanners but the damn machine just wouldn't pick up my thumb print. Even the offical got confused. It took me a good 7-8 tries to finally get that print.

The room was small and the seating situation was similar to NMAT. We still had around 45 mins for the exam to begin. That's when I realised that compared to my degree exam centres, every person appearing for this exam was really peaceful. There was hardly any noise the entire time.

My paper began and oh boy, it was tough. And I'm referring to English cause I was only ever prepared for this section. The level of vocab was too high and because I wasn't that serious about this exam, I enjoyed reading all of them. LRDI was again a disappointment. I was only able to attempt 4 questions with 100% accuracy. And let's not even get into quants, shall we?

Robot called while I was waiting for a train to go back home. He asked if I'd like to come over and talk about things when I told him that my days aren't going well. Sweet boy.

I came back home and after having lunch, sat for work. Yep, I don't know when will there be a day when I'm at home but not working.

One of dad's college friends came over in the evening. We had a good chat with him. He lives in the States so he spoke to Alex about the Universities there and gave his advice on how he should go about with certain things.

He spoke to me about work life and it's pros and cons and I guess I was glad I could relate to quite a few incidents that he shared.

He seems to be super proud of his kids (who are also twins). He told us all about their current activities and also showed us some pictures.

He stayed for a about an hour, post which I continued with my work.

I just finished having a really energetic and relieving dance session where I rocked away to a lot of English songs that I used to listen. Felt so so good.