Heart Breaking Stuff and a trip down memory lane to school day exams!!

It’s a heartbreaking story again. Though some success still comes in the picture, but it almost blurs out the holistic picture. Total result stands out as failure and not as expected. When you miss anything by say 1 % or 1 mark or even within a whisker, it rankles. At best can be termed as bad luck. Luck can’t be blamed if it happens for 2 exams in row. Last fortnight I had missed out Java certification exam by 2 marks or 3 %. Today I missed out on the PM Elite certification (process management in software projects) by 1%. Passing was 65% and I got 64%.

Multiple choice have never been my forte. I have always faltered in them. Engineering entrance was a failure 2 times in a row 12 years back. Could never crack the GATE to be in a range where I could get good PG insti (read IIT). If it was a descriptive exam to write the answers, I am up for it. I always stood amongst the toppers all through my school and college. I could elaborate the descriptive papers like no one. Write, write and write. Though not taking too many supplementary copies like some people do to impress the examiner. I did basic decorating stuff like draw ruler lines on both sides of the page, underline the question mark, number, write PTO at the end and all that stuff. Few of my competitors in school who were girls decorated like hell. I couldn’t never do that. They had multiple color pencils and pens. I always believed blue / black is for you, red is for the checker and the green lies for the principal. But few of my classmates used all this colors with huge discount. Of course the impression helped. The teachers were intelligent enough to gauge whose answer copy it was by studying the writing. May be some bias helped, but when it came to MATHEMATICS, I ruled.

Guptas and we (me and my cousins) ruled the batch of 98. Me and my cousin alternated with the top rank. And then it was Gupta’s. Kirti and Manisha. Amazing hand writing, amazing Hindi vocab and overall good impression. Needless for me to say we always were at loggerheads during early school days only to laugh at when we reached the stage at 12^th to part the ways. Lost the touch thereafter only to come to know that Manishaji is in my own company and Kirtiji is a collector in some district in MP (she cracked tough IAS). And wow, myself a lousy Programmer Analyst in Indian IT company and my cousin a smart about to be manager in MNC based in Chicago.

My exam began at 930 AM. I had been in the exam mindset since today morning. Got up @ 530 Am and read out Servlets – the topic I missed out last time. Also chatted with my niece Aishu online on gtalk. In the long run the topic didn’t help much in scoring. First exam was PM elite till 1030 AM and then next one to follow was Java Bridge from 1030 to 1130 AM. I began the exam Sehwag way – bang bang boom. Done in 25 mins. Double check in next 5 mins and at 32 mins I clicked submit with a hope to clear it. The result said it was heartbreak for me. Yet again. 64 %. 1 short of passing.

Being out at 1005 AM with 25 mins to go for the next exam, I went to the food court dejected and had a Butter Milk to pep myself up. Next exam I sat till the last second of 60 mins and analyzed and analyzed. Chopped off the sure questions, double checked the doubtful ones. In the end when I clicked submit, I got the error message “Exception while saving to the database. Please retry”. After checking with Admin, I came to know of the result. It said 72% and I cleared the exam. Cut off was 65%. I was relieved.

2008 even in its parting stage stamped up its authority for me. A year of misses and near hits. Near hits in the sense I made up almost only to lose in the end. Something which I have to rectify in 2009 and be like India team of 2008 in 2009. My first new year resolution comes in form of a defeat……