Deep Shit

I’ve known a lot of people who hate Monday mornings…I used to be one of them too, till recently. What caused this recent change of heart, you ask me? No, I assure you, it is certainly not any special interest that I might have in attending English lab which is the first class of the day. It is more of the fact that I don’t have to attend English lab, me having taken up German. That leaves me with one free hour in which I can prepare for the experiment, if it is the chemistry lab that follows the first hour or complete writing my observation and record, if it is the physics lab that follows.

Last Monday I was completing my physics observation in this free hour I have so high a regard for, it being the physics lab that I had to attend the next hour and two. I was waiting outside the physics lab promptly at 8.24, which I must tell you is not only being unusually punctual, but in fact a whole minute earlier than the 'scheduled time'. This is highly unusual in my case because it is always the physics lab that waits for me, and not I for it. And no! Before the reader comes to disastrous conclusions like those involving me turning over a new leaf and deciding to be in time for classes, I’ll tell you the reason I was early for lab. We first year students have eight experiments that we are supposed to complete in the two semesters, in our physics lab classes. One semester has passed and so has the second, almost, and I still have four of those eight experiments to complete and two lab classes to complete them. In other words, what had taken me the rest of the year to complete, I had to do it in two lab classes...that’s six hours. How I was planning to complete the feat, you ask me? Well, the course of action I had planned was quite simple…two experiments in this lab class, and two in the next. As simple as that. No complications provided everything was done on time. ON TIME. The magic words. I really had to stick to those two words if I intended passing my lab. And it was for this very valid reason that I was ON TIME to lab class.

I started off with one of the two experiments that I intended to complete that day, without any delay, for time was really precious to me right then. Had taken a couple of readings just when the others (rest of the class) entered and our lecturer made the fateful announcement, “Listen everyone, you won’t be having your next lab class. So you’ll have to complete two experiments today. And you’ll also have to complete all your pending experiments, if you have any, by today.”

I blinked.

I blinked again.

I was about to do it a third time when the bloke with whom I was doing my experiment asked me if I had any pending experiments to complete. I turned towards him and replied, “Two more. Four experiments in total to be completed today.”

Well, if I’d been blinking, it was nothing compared to what he was doing now. “Four?” he mouthed. Yes four, I told him.

Suddenly we both got back to our senses. FOUR GODDAMN EXPERIMENTS TO COMPLETE!!! I did not waste a single moment. Finished the experiment I was doing as fast as I could and hopped on from table to table, looking for the apparatus I required to complete my other experiments. I found one at last, only to find that its resistance boxes weren’t working. I called one of the lecturers there and told him about the strange values I was getting. He told me that it was perfectly alright and to enter the reading even if the galvanometer showed a value little greater or lesser than the required one. I didn’t need any further encouragement. Filled in my own values, got a reading attested, and moved on to the next experiment.

Logic gates, their implementation. I never saw the point in implementing logic gates when the IC’s that contain them do not work. But today, they simply HAD TO WORK. Another guy who had a considerable amount of implementing left to do with logic gates joined me. We got the results right for all the gates but one and informed the lecturer. He attested the values one by one, without even going near the apparatus. We had only one more gate to complete. We didn’t get the result. And it was this particular gate that the lecturer insisted on us showing the result to him. “Damn it!” I thought. After a considerable amount of time, we discovered where the fault lay, corrected it and informed the lecturer. Now he wasn’t interested in seeing the gate work and signed our observations, right away. I cursed to my self again, irritated.

Only one more experiment to complete and ten more minutes left. But the experiment was a rather easy one…logic gates again, but this time it involved their study. I finished it in 6 minutes, one for each gate and got the values attested. It was with a huge sigh of relief that I left the lab that day…

Attended a business quiz that afternoon, after having got my On Duty slip, which meant I wouldn’t be in trouble for bunking ED that afternoon, having bunked a considerable amount of it already. I came back to my room only to find that I’d misplaced my observation, in which I’d got two of the four experiments that I’d completed that day, attested. But I got it back the next day, thankfully.

It has been a week since, and I now have one reason to celebrate and one to feel sorry for.

Reason to celebrate: I got really good marks for all the experiments that I completed that day.

Reason to feel sorry for: I’ve lost my physics lab record, in which I’m supposed to enter all the experiments and results. Sigh…hope I’ll find it…failing which I’ll be in what you’d call DEEP SHIT.