Life cycle of an Engineer: "At the Lab"

This is a very interesting(not informative) part in the life cycle of an Engineer. Lab work or 'practicals' as we call it is meant to offer the student, hands on practical training. I am just going to describe some very common situations which we would have come across in our labs.

First year(At the phyiscs lab): This is the final semester lab exam.

Prof: You all can start picking your ticket from the lots here to decide what experiment you need to perform today.

This is the most crucial part as most of us would have definitely not done all experiments during the regular lab hours, and over that some of us would not have even gone through the procedure to perform certain experiments.

B1(koncham orupadara paiyan): Dei machi, enakku rendu experiment panna theriyadhu da.. adhu vandha sangu dhan..

B2(suthama orupadatha paiyan): Koncham amaidhi maintain pannu, ennaku rendu kooda seriya panna theriydadhu.

B1: Theva dhanda, semester fulla onnoda batchla irukara rendu ponnugaloda kadala pottta illa, dei kadavula pathu kudutha aapu da.

B2: Nee vera, nanay tensionla irukkaen, anga paaru da andha ponnugalan ennama mug adhichitu revise pannaraganu

They pick their tickets, B2 gets the simple pendulam experiment(one of 2 he knows) and unfortunately B1 gets the viscosity experiment(one of the 2 he does not know). B2's very happy and know he will def get through this exam.

B2 smiles and waves at B1... kadavula pathu kodutha varam da :)

B2 starts working on the experiment, sets things up and starts taking readings. B1 tries to gather as much information about what he needs to from people arnd him and is desperately trying to make up some stuff.

LA(lab attender) , now here is a guy who can play major havoc in your lives. In most cases, he will be a man. This guy will most likely tend to be a whacko with loads of attitude. The probability of you being in good terms with him is almost zero. He can literally wreak havoc with your experiments even if you know how to do them. You want to know how.. lets say by giving you instruments with wrong caliberations. You see a 5mm reading but hey all that you see is not true, it will actually be 8mm. Thanks to the evil genius, you are now screwed. Oh..I forgot to mention, they are so nice to girls and always lend a helping hand even if not asked for(dont ask me why).

B1 tries to signal for the LA and he comes to B1's table.

B1: Anna, kapathingu.. nenga dhan deivam mari enna help pannanum.

LA: Ennadhu, oh ippo nan deivama, dei pona varam yennoda vandiyila kaathu yerakki vetta gumballa neeyum oru aal dhane da.

B1: Anna, illa anna, neenga yedho thappa purinjukittu yirukaenga.. onga sidela support panni andha asanga kaiya pesinadhu na dhanga..

LA: Nalla kadha solra... onnum konja neram thadavu, appa dhan ennoda arumai theriyum.


To be continued........

Life cycle of an Engineer: Phase I

I will briefly go through the cycle in the life of a typical Engineering college student (if this below cycle does not apply to you, I am sorry to say this, but you are not a complete Engineer).

Semester Begins: You are highly pumped up after the vacation and are eagerly waiting for classes to begin. You decide that you are going to learn something and prove yourself to your parents(who periodically keep reminding that you are fit for nothing). You get to classes on time, even try to take notes occasionally and hey, you even try to take a shower daily in the hostel. You stick to all the rules, stop passing comments at teachers and fellow students. You control all your instincts with extreme difficulty. This phase lasts for about 48 hours. The lecturers are so skillful that by now, they usually are successful in convincing you that nothing has changed. They give you a mocking smile in class as if to say " Hey Moron, what did you think, just because it is a new semester now I should start teaching you real engineering ".

So, all the adrenalin that had been over pumped for the wrong reasons come back to their normal levels now. But, we should not be blamed for end of phase I, as we did not burst the bubble.

Cable Karan Koothu ! a.k.a. Cable Guy Fiasco ! (Engliphish)

This is one amazing incident that happened during my college days. The hostel in my engineering college could be best described as a concenration camp. The facilities were so crappy that Hitler himself would have approved this shit-hole. Some of the stduents could not survive the camp conditions and they would slowly move out and stay in nearby residential areas. I accepted defeat during my second year and me along with Thatha and SuKu moved out into a small house nearby. By this time, the foolish notions that we would learn quality courses and become "real" engineers was also quickly dispelled. After giving up on academics and by moving out of camp, we suddenly had so much time in hand and the freedom to do what we wanted.

The engineering brains in me and Thatha started to work and we came up with this brilliant idea of buying a TV and to put cable. This might sound really trivial now, but in those days(making me sound old) this was shunned by society and out of the question as students were only supposed to study. Getting caught by our parents meant, BACK TO CAMP, as we had promised that the very point of moving out was to concenrate and study better as we were getting distracted in the hostel ;).We put some major fight and after saving up, we got ourselves a small 19' color TV. We could afford even this because of the major discount we got on the TV as it had a nice dent like the scar on Harry Potter's forehead. Hey, but who cares, we now had a color TV and thats all that mattered.

The third guy with us Suku, was not exactly receptive to the idea of the TV and put a major scene. So, just me and thatha decided to share the Tv cost and the monthly cable bill. Suku ended up watching more TV than us after intially giving us a lot of gyan. The problem really came when Suku's father was going to visit us for a few days. We tried real hard to foil his visit, but all in vain. We then disconnected the TV and cable wire and locked it up in the loft(these lofts are a life saver). So, for the first day of uncle's visit, everything went to plan. It was the second day evening now and uncle was leaving the next morning. We were playing cricket in the mottai madi and suddenly we heard a lot of noise comming from downstairs.

The cable karan had come to collect his monthly dues and was having a heated argument with Suku's father. Everything around me just froze for second and there were just about a zillion imgaes flashing across my mind.....

Uncle thrashing Suku right in front of us...

Me standing before my parents and my father going nuts at me after hearing abt this and declaring for the "Nth" time that I will never achieve anything in life and Orupadavaemataenu ...........blah blah...

and worst of all I am back in CAMP...that was brutal


and that is when I came back to reality and listened to what was going down below.

Uncle: Intha vetla cable kidayathu pa, thappana addressku vandhurka

Cable guy: Illa saar, masa masam inga than vasool panraen saar.

Uncle: Idhu padikara college pasanga irrukara vedu pa, inga cable illa pa (felt like someone just slapped us)

Cable guy(just lost his cool): Nan enna kaenaya, adhan solraen illa indha vootla cable irukku nu.

Uncle (getting pissed too): Olla vaya, nan vena katraen pathuko, inga TV yae kidayathunu evalvu tharava solradhu onakku.

The situation looked totally lost and I could feel the end nearing. Me and Thatha luckily made eye contact from the mottai-madi with the cable guy and he recognized us. The next words from his mouth would have been "Call those boys and ask them itself" before which we made one final move which came so naturally(thanks to our politicians).

We folded both our hands together with an apology written all over our faces. And then I sliightly waved my hand(in a gesture asking him to leave). The cable guy got the cue and was very gracious and helped us out. He apologized to Uncle saying, maybe he did get the wrong house and he just left. We just could not believe how close we had come to getting caught.

All thanks to the magnanimous Cable Guy, I still owe you one.