For us the exam-de-resistance is, as you might be aware, are the Engineering Council examinations. However, there is another variety of the malaise, under rated but nevertheless capable of springing nasty surprises at inopportune moments. It is this malaise that the author is convalscing from, at present.

Well the story goes thus. I am a firstee in or rather was in the 2^nd semester (optimistically speaking ). How I negotiated my 1^st semesters is still beyond my comprehension. The shocker came in the next sem. It was aberrant from the percept because our semester exams were held after the EC exams were over. After giving EC exams, a general feeling of relaxation and complacency (read sleep) swept over me. But IRIMEE authorities obviously thought otherwise. The flexibility in the course structure that IRIMEE boasts of worked against us. Computer courses, electronic courses, control systems, economics, fluid mechanics, electrical technology, electrical machinery were all paraded before my eyes (read sleepy eyes). To me they appeared to be instruments of medieval torture or equivalent there of. It was all through out a fight against time-I was fighting time because my watch seemed to be moving with exonerable, agonizing, slowness. There seemed to be no method to this madness. Then came the news that our semester exams will be held in the last week of june. Ah ! No exam had gladdened my heart ever so. I rejoiced as no other. I started my psychological preparations for the exams (stocked up on my sleep ). I issued all the requisite books from the library. I even got down to opening the contents page. But IRIMEE could not stand my happiness. It all turned out to be a devastating subterfuge. The exams were postponed by a month with barely a week to go for any deliverance to come.

I was shattered but IRIMEE wasn’t. Classes resumed with their un erring regularity (not to mention monotonity ). I regret I can not describe that period to you because you see everything passed in a daze. To compound my problems, my nightly sojourns with my favourite football teams now robbed me of my quota of shut-eye which I endeavoured to complete while under the combined assault of learned professors of Bhagalpur&Jamalpur.

Then came the news that semester-exams were to be held in the end of july. Ha ! I thought, they wont catch me with that one again. But as the D-Day (rather E-Day ) drew closer, I was less & less sure of my self. I saw a golden oppurtunity in getting the exams postponed once again because many of our teaching faculty were out of station. But all my efforts came to nought. The exams were destined to be held. My deliverance turned out to be no deliverance, after all. Resigned to fate, I realised that I did not know the syllabus. But neither did any one else, since our teachers were out. Okay I said, lets find out who set the papers at least, so that we can prepare according to the psychological profile (i.e. his tastes, preferences, and past papers) of the paper setter. But alas ! No one knew who's set the papers- the regular faculty or the visiting lecturers. I began my preparations in earnest spending more time at the semester pole and also sometimes touchuing the supplimentary pole when in a melancholy mood. The saving grace about the exams, I surmised, was that they were being held in the computer room class (air-conditioning of course) and if I failed to do any thing worthwhile, I could at least have a good snooze!

Alls well that ends well, well even though my semesters didn’t end well, all's well because they have finally ended. Well the joy, the exhiliration, the freedom that I feel is un-paralleled. After sleepless nights & sleepy examinations, life seems rosy indeed. But not for long. My shop tests are just around the corner & - - - - - - -