It’s been a very bittersweet day for me. It’s my penultimate day at my final Exun. Don’t ask me why I’m getting sentimental – it probably has something to do with the fact that the last Exun means almost as much to me as does the last Code Wars.
I’ve been coming to this symposium for the past 3-4 years, and I’ve always taken away something special – usually memories and trophies, but a good number of both. And it saddens me to think that this’ll be the last time I’ll get the opportunity to do that.
I participated in 4 events today – creative event, senior quiz, crossword and group discussion. I was able to get myself registered for GD only because this time, there wasn’t too big a clash between the quiz and GD. Usually, this is a problem which plagues most symposium schedules.
I’ve been feeling very guilty over the last few days before Exun – usually, the days preceding the event are marked by frantic flipping through archives and scanning news sources. I’ve managed to do none of that.
I was at DPS RK Puram. I was sporting the nCRYPT T-shirt under my sweater – Rashmita ma’am had agreed to this when we placed the order for the shirts during nCRYPT Symposium. She only agreed to this because Exun is a weekend-only event, meaning that we don’t need to turn up at school before the event.
We had arrived quite early and soon, the others showed up as well, and we proceeded to the AVH to take our reserved row (left of the aisle, second from the stage). It’s not really reserved, it’s just that it’s our lucky row – we tend to win Exun quite a lot when we sit there.
The intro video was amazing, as always. Ah well, there’s only so much one human can do in two days.
The Exun 2010 Intro Video
After the ceremony, I took aside the team for creative event and told them the plan for the day. Basically, the event was about designing material for an auto expo. We were supposed to put together a two-side one-page brochure and a website. Today, only the brochure was to be made. I told the guys to get started on a 2-crease folding pamphlet. Anyway, I’d be joining them after giving my crossword, so I instructed them to get started after lunch, when I would be busy at the crossword.
The senior quiz was fun enough – 20 questions + 1 bonus question. We answered around 12-13 of them. The pattern was unlike earlier Exun papers – it consisted of long passage-based questions, including the identify X types, as compared to short one-liners seen in earlier editions of the event. But a good workable quiz overall. Kudos to Anuj Bhardwaj, who I believe is the brains behind this one. (? I think)
After this, I dashed to the AVH for the GD. When I arrived, only the second of the four rounds was commencing – I was in the fourth. I sat around to observe the debates and to mentally prepare myself. I was going for a GD after a gap of several years, and I didn’t trust myself to be able to sound convincing on stage. However, my topic was quite predictable – iOS v/s Android. I was defending Android, as was everybody else on the stage, which led to a very interesting GD with the judges/moderators taking up the gauntlet for the iOS.
I was relieved to find out that I’d qualified for the finals of the GD. The final debate was an extended one – almost 30 minutes, and the topic was intriguing as well – if I was Manmohan Singh, and had to do something with the 10,000 crore rupees that the government received from the the 3G spectrum auction a few months ago, would I spend it on creating a country-wide fibre optic network, or set up ~300 hospitals in rural areas.
I went for the latter, as I felt that it was something that I could defend convincingly, and provided a reasonably good argument for my case, without being obnoxious or interrupting anybody else too much. This resulted in my winning the 2nd prize at the GD. Now this is a first for me – I’ve participated in one GD in the past, at Modem (I forget which year), but I didn’t make it past the preliminary stage. This time however, I’m reasonable happy with myself.
Next came the lunch. We had Domino’s – which is now officially the staple lunch for all participants at Exun. Unfortunately, the food was not made on-the-spot, as is preferred. Instead, it was pre-made pizzas, shipped in vehicles, which were being distributed to the participants. Nevertheless, as we were munching through those personal pan pizzas, I realised that the Exun Clan must’ve had to forego their tradition Exun T-shirts to feed us this stuff. I made it a point to thank Aditya for that later.
Next up was the crossword, which was not easy. Eshaan and I spent half of our time solving the clues, and rest debating whether we would qualify for the finals or not. Eventually, we managed to answer only about 14-15 of the 29 clue crossword, and our hopes were pretty low.
But I had no time to ponder about the crossword, as I was soon scurrying towards the computer labs for the creative event. I found that after more than an hour without me, Nitin and Vaibhav had only managed to get somewhere close to finishing one of the two sides of the pamphlet. I replaced Vaibhav and started to work with Nitin, who I have to say, is remarkable at working in the Photoshop environment. It’s evident that he knows his way around, as he nimbly plays around with the keyboard shortcuts. So, we managed to get together the entire pamphlet on time.
With that, I come to the close of Day 1 at Exun. DPS Sushant Lok is in a decent position at the moment – qualifications for crossword, senior quiz and gaming, along with a win in group discussion. Got rest of creative event on day 2, not to mention finals for a the three events.
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