The Wise......

Long time since I wrote.... Grad school has gotten the better of me too.....Never thought I would let it happen... I guess I was only
delaying the inevitable.... Now that I am done with school I can sit back and relax and look back upon the good, bad and ugly times.

Decided to write a story as people have asked me to write one since the end of spring semester..

Note: Any characters other than myself in the story are purely hypothetical and any resemblance to any one is purely co-incidental and you have
to believe me cos I say so and its my story so you don't have a choice...hahaha ;-)



Location: Some where in Avocet Apartments...
Time: Some time in December 2006


She: "Purushotham, what courses are you planning to take this spring?"

I: "I don't know dear, planning to take Software Engg, BioInformatics and Advanced Computer Security"

She: "SE with project I guess???"

I: "Yes, planning to do the project with Satish, that's if he agrees"

She: " I will take the one without project... I don't think I can manage to code and its also my placement requirement and don't want to screw it up"

I: "I couldn't agree less"

This was how things were before fall semester ended...

The semester ended and Satish agreed to do the project with me to my good luck....

Then came the week before Spring semester where we frantically studied for the Placement Exam and Satish and I cleared the placement test.

Spring semester started and we attended a couple of classes of SE.

She: "Purushotham, I dont think I can manage the course... there are too many assignments and he doesnt seem to be a nice guy. Its my placement
requirement also and if I dont clear it I will get terminated....So is it ok if I could do the project with you"

This was the time by which Satish and I had decided about the project and kinda decided what we were going to do and how we were gonna go about it.
So I has to make the call as I had already screwed up my first semester grades and didn't want to do it again. Glad that I made the call then.
Ended up with a 3.6 GPA this time and I couldn't have asked for anything better.

I:" But then you said all the while that you wanted to take the theory course cos you couldn't code"

She: " I thought so but its got too many assignments and looks like a lot of work... I thought if I could do it with you guys then you could help me..."

There was some background to this I skipped.... I usually tend not to speak about what I have done for others... I feel it looks cheap to do so...
but you will miss the next part if I don't go over the background which I call The begging for thou neighbour....

This was during the fag end of fall.

I had screwed up one assignment for the course she and I had taken. We got a bad grade on it and she ended up getting a bad grade... It wasn't a
screw up really just that I had forgotten to submit some part which I felt was insignificant but the prof thought otherwise... not that the
bad grade in the assignment mattered all that much to me as much as my partner and she was away in Tumbuktu....So I had to go beg him for points
and tell him to increase it by a bit so that she would get a better grade.. I had to be humiliated by him in front of people where he said "Speak for
yourself... Let her come and speak for herself...." but obviously she couldn't do that...So I had to meet him quiet a few times and he didn't agree
to relent... (Note: Asians usually don't relent)....

So much for the background....

With this guilt I had to tell her to go her ways as I felt I was responsible for her poor grade... this also being her placement requirement I didn't
want to be part of the mess for her and I didn't want the guilt again.....

She: "But what will go wrong"

I: "Thats the whole point I dont know what could go wrong... also if three people to do it then there could be a lot more work and I am not sure
I am ready for that... "

I must agree that I was being professional...or rather selfish...

Yes I was being selfish....but then who isn't... I have rarely met people who are not and none of them are of this material world...

I told her I was selfish... she was selfish for her cause which she doesn't agree even to this day...but I agree that I was.... I wanted to
do the project with Satish as he is one of the best I have met and I knew we would do well....I WAS SELFISH

Then the usual started... she cried... I persuaded.... went on for some time... but in the end she had to give up cos I don't.... I can be stubborn
to my grave....

In between all this Satish got stuck because of me and I feel bad for him cos he didn't need it....

Anyways we didn't talk for a couple of days or rather she didn't talk to me...

After that she hugged me and said " Purushotham, I spoke to my sister and she said what you were doing was better for me"

She: " Sorry that I was angry with you.. I hope you are not angry with me"

I guess at this age I ought to have some amount of professionalism and I did.... I guess its also about my upbringing which wasn't any and no one
told me how to be and also my decisions have been my own and not influenced by Tom (Somewhere in Tamil Nadu), Dick(Somewhere in California) and Harry
(Somewhere in California)....

My mom used to tell me "People from small places think small in reference to herself cos she said she was narrow minded and I wasn't cos she was
from a small place and I was always brought up in a big place"
This didn't make sense to me until these sequence of events.. Mom also said "Education of people usually doesn't determine how they are... on the
contrary people which higher education think cheaper cos they can think better"


There was also one small event that happened... Guys usually have a pretty bad sense of time/events and same is the case with me... She once said "I will
take Design Patterns in Summer".... for which I said "Robert isn't gonna be here in summer... so you wont be able to take the course". Why this is
relevant will unfold..

Things went on normally for the rest of the semester... the project turned out a lot easier than I had assumed... I ended up doing almost nothing
and Satish did everything.....we kinda screwed up the project and I am sure it was cos of my fault... not that I didn't know what was needed.. I just
didn't do anything... why I didn't I don't know... I regret it even now cos I screwed up Satish's grades cos of my laziness....


Continued in the next part...

The OtherWise....