My first official lec-dem ?!! ;-P

(Lec-Dem Date : 04-Apr-08, Venue : ASV Suntech Park)

 

It was on a fine Thursday morning, and I had just entered office. As the routine goes, I promptly opened my mailbox to only find that it was swarmed with a score of mails, half of which are always forwards, and one is always the warning that my mailbox has exceeded its storage capacity and that I should clear unnecessary mails in order to get new ones. There was this particular mail from our academy (the training centre), asking me to execute some session. Now, at the first reading, I thought I was being asked to be part of the training and attend it. Out of curiosity (since the topic mentioned wasn’t quite relevant to my domain), I called up the concerned person. He suggested that I was supposed to be “handling” and not “attending” the session. You must have imagined the look on my face. I was completely stupefied! All I managed to blurt out was a meek OK. (But why I said that, I still don’t know ).

 

While I was trying to figure out who could help me in accomplishing this mission, my darling friend Kittu came forward and gave me some vital ideas. I then decided to ask my teacher (the one who handled classes for me while I was still a trainee), for help. But as luck would have it, he was completely occupied with work that day and sent me out an apology for being unable to help me out. Moments later, my desperation and dilemma started growing. I felt I should tell the academy people that I wouldn’t be able to help them. But something inside me prevented me from doing so.  The love for meeting new people? The quest for adventure?, call it whatever…

 

I frantically started asking all my friends for help and one of them gave me positive vibes saying she knew a senior who could help me with that. I hurriedly told my Manager that I would be leaving for the day in order to prepare for the session that I was about to handle the next day. Post lunch, I took the shuttle to my friend’s office, which is pretty far from mine and headed straight to the senior she mentioned. The girl told me that what I wanted to know was nothing and she could tell me all about it in just 2 minutes. Yet another shock! Finally it came to be known that miscommunication had had its part and what I wanted to know was different from what she was about to explain to me. Then I and my friend went around her entire floor asking for help. But little hope was to be had as people were totally busy with their deliverables and releases.

 

I finally settled down in front of a computer and decided to help myself. Still unable to digest the fact that my prep for the D day was terribly poor. Why was I doing it after all??

 

In the evening, I went to stay with my friend in her hostel considering the poor health that I was running that day. Initially she was worried if I would be allowed to stay at her place and whether her landlady would object. But here at least I was lucky enough to make my way through. J

 

After a tea at the office pantry, both of us marched out of the premises and boarded a share auto to get home. Time was flying by and I dint feel a pinch of tension. It wasn’t over confidence. But what was it?? I was not able to find out…

 

Exactly half an hour after we got to her place, we experienced a black out. The current in that phase alone had gone off. The first current cut she had experienced there in all the months she has stayed there. Lucky me!!! All plans for my prep (the bundle of print outs that I had taken at office-I wanted to read them once at least), went down the drain. L

 

Hour after another passed, it was almost 10.30 at night when our other friend returned from office. All three of us were hungry and the dinner was ready. Current seemed to have mercy on us and came back for minutes. But by the time all of us got settled down in front of the dining table, again it went off. It was destined to be a candle light dinner finally.

 

At 11 p.m., the current finally came back and kept the rooms alight. I lazily opened my bunch of study material while both my friends were happily reading the newspaper. They both dozed off at 12 while I was still awake, with the bare little prep I had done thus far. I was in no mood to continue reading and went to bed at 12.30 out of the fear of having to wake up early the next morning.

 

5.30 it was and I was rudely shaken awake but the cock-a-doodle-do of the cock downstairs. My alarm was set only at 6.30. So I rolled in my bed for another hour and finally rose to get ready before my friends could wake up. It 8.30 when I left the house and both of them wished me luck.

 

I was into a share auto and the destined hour was nearing. I got a bit frightened. I could already see a few people wearing the trainee tags and entering the huge building. I wondered how many of them would be facing the brunt of my lecture that day.

 

I entered the classroom while most of the inmates were still awaited their entry. I fetched myself a marker pen, a duster and other things and rehearsed a small introduction in my mind. The class was supposed to start at 9.30 but it took a half an hour more to start with people coming in after leisurely finishing their breakfasts. J

 

I introduced myself and asked them for theirs. Surprisingly I found that their batch was a mix of people from the east, the west, the north and the south. There were Bengalis, Punjabis, Tamilians, Malayalis and few from Andhra. Wow…

 

I spoke for at full length for half an hour explaining what I knew about the topic. They already looked sheepish. So there it was, a half an hour long tea break. But at least my initial stigma was warding off.

 

I am not anything of a programmer and what was about to follow was a hands-on for those 30 odd people. I found that not even the IDE was installed in my system. I finished doing that before they came back from the break. Then there was this jar file that I needed to download and include in my build path in order that my programs compiled. Again, as luck would have it, I found that the normal proxy wouldn’t allow me do that.

So once my class was back after the break, I asked them how it could be done. One smarty-pants immediately downloaded the file and shared it with the rest of the lot. With the initial settings done, the hands-on followed in line without much difficulty. By 12.30, I found all the eager faces hungry and yes, it was the second break, for lunch.

 

I had brought some bread-jam for lunch and without anyone to chat along, sat on a table and ate away the bread when I heard someone tell a Hi from behind. I was pretty surprised. It was one of my old classmates. He was there in some other batch attending training. It was nice of him to ask me if I needed company for lunch, which I had almost finished. So we agreed to meet up for a tea late in the noon.

 

On my way back to the classroom, one fellow of the class, who was also returning from his lunch, started asking me how it felt to be in projects and what would be expected out of freshers etc. It was the same kind of questions that I and my batch mates had asked our seniors. I told him that what you would end up doing might as well be different from what you are being trained at.  That was it.

 

Back inside the class, half of them were already dozing off and I got a bit worried of having to bore them for a little more while. We continued with the hands-on exercises and I went about finding how people felt about the class and if there was anything that I could help them out with. It seemed that they all had planned for going to Ooty for the weekend with their whole batch. Some even suggested that I could join them. But I was more than glad to have been able to carry on with the session in a way I hadn’t even expected. I had imagined the whole show becoming a great flop. But my adventurous spirit wouldn’t let me deny the offer either. When I finished, I had little regrets of having accepted the offer. My love for teaching, interacting with people, had done its part, and done it well. J

 

I finally bade them all a big good-bye, wished them luck and went on to board a bus back home. I secretly smiled to myself for being able to put up a good show and awaited the feedback of the attendees. I felt thankful to my friends who reassured me that I would be able to do it successfully. And last but not the least; I thought this experience would be worth sharing with my readers!! J

 

P.S: A week later, I got a very good feedback from the people concerned. It really helped a lot in boosting my confidence and morale. Looking forward to many more such learning opportunities! J