Me and murphy- part 2

A day in the life of Soni

This story is NOT a work of fiction. I only wish it were. Or maybe not. Today has been a spectacular day. More like one in a septillion. But then again, such days have become part and parcel of my life. Only these surprises keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.

Hope you got the intent. So what all happened today? Lets find out

The day was a promising one for me as I had to go to school, give a Unit Test (on Physics) of 30 marks, attend 3 more periods of classes and then go to represent my school in a Science Quiz that was to be held after that somewhere in the city. So, it seemed that everything was fine. But wasn’t going to be...

Just two days ago, there was the Children’s day celebrations in our school and as it happens on children’s day, the school park (usually belonging only to the junior school) was open and many senior boys were also hanging and toying around with the swings etc. Naturally, I and my friends also went to the park to play and we played a bit. After some time, I took the critical decision to sit on the dreaded “Swing”. As it turned out, I had tried to fly (letting myself go of the swing and then let the inertia of motion of me and the swing still keep us together until I landed back at the swing). However, little did I know that the FAA had grounded all flights then. I went forward and the swing came crashing into my back as I hurt it terribly. Even now, I still have a lot of pain in my back.

It was in such a physical condition that I was studying yesterday night in my room (or rather my grandmother’s room [which was empty] as my own room was too dirty to be fit for studying) in the night, preparing for my Unit Test. That, my dear friend, is a distinction in itself, as I have been studying hardly any Physics these days as I seem to have lost my interest for the subject (part of the blame lies on the syllabus and the greater part on Physics teacher we got [No further comments on this one]) somewhat too. (Not that I study a lot of the other subjects but ...) So necessity became the mother of ... voila... Rote learning. (I hate rote learning like anything but was forced to try it out for the sake of the common good. Of my marks, that is.)

Back to the room. So there I was, trying to get one of the three chapters in the syllabus into my head for the very first time, when I made the error or grossly underestimating. Or rather overestimating. Or both. Overestimating my own capabilities and underestimating the syllabus, that is. I had thought that it was possible for me to do the syllabus in 2 hours maximum doing it completely well (since the chapters were supposed to be easy and the other guys told me that it should not be much [Note that I had previously completed parts of my ICSE syllabus in 10 minutes what others would take a couple of hours for. Then again, I did not have a lot of choice at 5 am on the morning of the examination. Necessity is the mother of invention. Yet again. So I was confident to easily complete it. But I had underestimated my role as a perfectionist, which almost cost me. Again.]) But two hours into studying and I had done only 1 chapter when I fell asleep at 2 am in the night. So totally me!

So I woke up again at 7 am and got ready superfast (as I was late to leave already) and got another 10-15 minutes of studying for myself so I could finish off the second chapter. Two down, one more to go. Knowing that the test will be held in the 1^st period in any case (thanks to me), I had to keep those precious minutes of study for the time in the auto rickshaw we had before we got to school. Which was precisely 15 minutes, give or take a 5 minutes (That is after subtracting the time lost in miscellany and the fact that we are moving while studying. Or trying to study. [Not to forget the fact that I have a problem with studying while in a moving vehicle. I get severe headaches when I try to do so. But had to study anyways then.])

So I studied and studied, but with one slight problem. One of the boys in the auto (in our school, but a junior to me) wished to have the songs on the auto on, which I promptly refused. But again, he was sitting behind in the auto, while I was sitting in front and I could not study well if I was still sitting in front. So I made a quick deal with the guy to exchange the seats in return that he could listen to the songs. A good bargain, according to me. So I just got into my book while he started playing the songs. Which was a torture to me. How can they expect anyone to listen to Enrique? If it was rock, then it would have been different but Enrique? Come on. Soliloquys are a torture in every parallel universe.

Thankfully, I did the third chapter in time to try to get almost everything into my head and go through it over and over again to just hope that I would remember them when I will need them. Now was show time. So I just submitted my cell phone at the office (Had brought it as I was to go to the Quiz) and braced myself for the Unit Test. When I saw the paper, I was literally Shell-shocked.

I knew the answers. Every single one of them. Except a single 3-mark answer that I made up anyways, but yes. I knew it. (Such an achievement was really mentionable especially for Physics, in my case) So I had a great test and then went out of the exam hall saying “Eureka! I did it”

That was it for the Test. Now was time for the Quiz.

Now this quiz was a science quiz for classes 9-12 for which 2 teams of our school were supposed to go. Of them, one of them was from Class 12 while the other team was ours, from class 11. We had overall a very balanced and great team which covered all types of aptitudes and topics and we were hoping to get some very fine results with our great team. We had even prepared quite a bit for this quiz with every member (including me, which is very rare) doing his bit to rock this quiz. In the end, we were all set and revved up for the quiz on the day.

Only there was ONE small problem.

Today, midway through the 4^th period, one of the members of the class 12 team called me outside the class to meet him. When I went outside he just said three words “Quiz is cancelled”. And when I returned back, my English teacher was teaching the following line from Macbeth “Things have been happening in weird ways” One in a septillion moment!

So WTF happened? I seriously don’t have the slightest clue. Of course, if you are looking for the lame excuse life gave me to cover up yet another trick up its sleeve, here it is- The quiz was only for 9-10 and the paper given to the schools mistakenly said that it was for 9-12. And they called up our Principal in the morning to inform that the quiz was only for 9-10 and so our school decided not to send any team to the quiz (Not that they had any choice at that moment)

As a neat epilogue to the entire matter, I called up the guys in charge of the entire quiz and asked whether the quiz was actually for 9-10 and well, just find out things. It was there that i found out that there WERE teams from 11-12 that participated in the quiz and that they also will be selected. Only their marks “will be taken care of”.

There is just one Hindi proverb that would have fitted perfectly into this situation – “Dhobi ka kutaa, na ghar ka naa ghat ka” (Roughly translates to “Washerman’s  dog; neither of the house nor of the washing ghats” [A more accurate translation, would however be “Neither here nor there” or “On the fence” ])

So this recent “event” completes the second trinity of such happenings with me and quizzing for this year. (In other words, I got very weird things happenings all over quizzes this year.) The following are a list of them –

The quiz club week for our school was held before my first terminal examinations in July-August. In it, there were three events, of which I was a part of all three-

•   First was the inter club quiz. I was a part of the team, but had to later withdraw my name because I had to go to IIT-KGP that very day of the event.
•   Next was an open quiz where again, I was participating. Here, the questions were too tough and we could not do well at all. So I learnt from my mistake and prepared very well for the third quiz (and other subsequent quizzes)
•   Finally was the inter class quiz, in which we had a very strong team and had been preparing quite well. However, by yet another coup de grace, the quiz was postponed till after the first terminal examinations for some inexplicable reasons.

Then, in the second term (ie after the first terminal examinations), opportunities again soared as I got a chance to be there in (yet again) three quizzes.

•   The first was an inter-school quiz of 2 member teams. My partner and I had prepared for the quiz very well and hoped to do good. But (there is always a big fat but [no pun intended]), instead of a normal quiz, it turned out to be a “Nature” Quiz, fully based on EVS (Environmental Sciences). Gonecased.
•   The next was the inter class quiz (postponed from the above). Again, we were string and had prepared well. For a change, we even had a great quiz. BUT, again, we failed to win any certificate because of a major stroke of bad luck and bad placement(more on that later)
•   The third was this science quiz where, ... well you know what happened.

To anyone who does not find such happenings intriguing, please contact me. I would really want to know who in the world can have such an eventful life as to not appreciate the weirdness of the situations.

And btw, I can say with absolute conviction that this is yet another golden example of MURPHY’S LAW. In action.

Now the question of how we lost the inter class quiz. As I said, we had a strong team, which not only was good, but was also well prepared. During the quiz, we knew a lot of answers, we synced with each other perfectly well, gave some brilliant answers and made some superb connections. The only thing was that out of the 4 infinite bounds (or is it bounce?) rounds of quizzing, 3 were clockwise and our closest competitor was the class just before us. Which meant that they answered some questions of which we “knew” the answers. So we asked the quizmaster and he had the last round anticlockwise. But this last round turned out to be so hard that we could not cope well enough. (There was one question where we again knew the answers and nobody before us answered. When it just came to the class before us, they made a random guess at the correct answer, thus robbing us of our points) In the meantime, another of the competitors made a late comeback to win the 1^st place, while the other competitors made an even later comeback (as in last question) to win the 2^nd place.

The final result – Winners 100. Runners up 90. Us 85. And we lost at least 50-60 points to this placement. (Please note that I am NOT blaming anybody or giving a reason for us not winning. All I am trying to say that the things have happened in weird ways and this was yet another example)

So back to the day today. (Yup. The day is not over until it is over) So we attended the last 4 classes, even though we had taken the “Early departure” from the school for going to the quiz. In the 6th period, ma’am again came to me to ask if I was interested in participating in yet another quiz to be held soon. As usual, I said yes. *fingers crossed* [When life takes away 3 opportunities, it gives back 1]

And after school, there was a meeting for all the boys who had given their names for science exhibition and as usual, we had also given our names along with a project that was just a formality. We knew that we were going to be selected and since the other projects were not that good enough at all, we easily were going to win. Only there was one problem. Our project was too good to be taken for the exhibition, as the younger boys were most certainly not going to be able to understand heads or tails out of it. So, instead of participating in the exhibition, we will be part of a science seminar, where we will be giving a lecture of sorts (with a powerpoint presentation) to the senior boys of the school! That sounds simply great! :D Am really looking forward to it. *Fingers doubly crossed, redoubled as if to recreate another klein bottle* (Tried to make something out of a line from Macbeth Act 1 Scene 2) Lets just hope that we pull it off well enough. [I mend my previous words. When life takes away 3 opportunities, it gives back 3.1415 opportunities.]

That was it for the “one in a septillion“ day. Lets just see what the future holds for me. Till then , ciao.

Cheers. \m/

Regards,

The Original Soni

15^th of November, 2011.

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* My story has been labelled as 15th, but is posted on the 17th for the simple reason that I did not get internet access during this time due to a malfunctioning modem that was fixed only today.

# I may or may not have written this post had AP not forced me into thinking that it was "something worth writing". So thank you AP.

^ If anyone can actually make the appropriate Fermi Calculations, then please tell me "What are the chances of all these happening?"

$ On the very same day, RP was also having a one of a kind days where everything was going to his favour. He came to school late and the teacher standing at the line gave him a chocolate (last day was Children's day here.) He also had two tests on the day, one being an internal assessment for all the sections and the other just a class test. While he had prepared only one chapter for the internals, he did not prepare for the class test at all. And the internals were held during the very period the class test was going to be held! Whats more, the questions were only from the chapter he had studied!! And then, he had a Physics file to submit (which he did not do), which was postponed to the end of the day, giving him enough time to finish it.

Now that's something. Isn't it? [Had AP been reading this right now, he would have said "Yes. Yes it is" Some people are just so obsessed with Phineas and Ferb]