:)

i was preparing my CV for the summer internship process here and there was that achievements and awards heading to fill up. people often think that i'd consider getting into IIT as my biggest achievement. but i don't. i dropped a year for IIT and still managed only rank 2148, which i don't think is good. according to me, i barely got through.

the accomplishments that i do consider my biggest ones were both surprise ones.

the first one is the NTSE scholarship i got. to be more specific, the first round. it was special coz i never expected to get through [:P]! i didn't study a word for it, while many of my friends really put in hours. no, i wasn't a stud. it's just that on the day of the test, the logical reasoning questions somehow seemed easy! my general knowledge in those days used to be pretty okay and so i could crack most of the history questions as well.

of course, i didn't push my luck after clearing the first round. i studied and i must have scored pretty well in the second written round (they don't release the scores) coz my interview went pretty bad and still i got through!!

the second one is when i came 9th in an all-india essay competition organised by ICSE. it was open to students from 9th to 12th and i was in 9th when i secured a place in the top 15 - the number of essays that came out in the form of a booklet !! we were given about two hours to write the essay. we were sent to the library to do this and i was so convinced that i didn't stand a chance that i spent more than half the time reading a novel [:P]. it was an erle stanley gardener one, i think! anyways, with half an hour to go, my friend convinced me that it would look pretty bad if i turned in a botched attempt! so i wrote something. to be honest, it was shit!! what worked though was that i started it with a joke. something about corruption and the indian culture. my principal liked it and sent it as the school's entry. i was more than happy at this point of time because the other entry from the school was by the school's english stud. and he was in std 12!! it was indeed a yahoo moment for me!! and when i came to know, my essay had been selected, it was a google moment [:P]! okki, bad joke!!

i think i should get back to finishing that CV now [:)]!