50 Not Out !

The following content may appear gibberish ... so viewer discretion is requested. Myriad of thing have happened in last 50 days of my life. Yes, these are my first 50 days, outside India or inside US. And today i'm standing 50 not out, in/on this land. Let the words speak for themselves -

Delta 17, NY, Number 23, Atlanta, Delta 4389, Gainesville, UF, Hub, Book-Store, CISE, Gator1 card, RTS rides, Arbor Park, 16^th Avenue, Walmart, #355, T-mobile, Soccer on basketball court, Computer Networks, ISA, Graduate Student Orientations, Cricket, Advance Data Structures, E220, College football craze, Vending machines, E118, Gatorade, ICEC, Badminton, Computer Networks and Security, Career Fair, Surprise quizzes, Samsung SGH X495, Subway veggie delight, Assignments, Table tennis, Scrubs, HP tx1000z, Projects, Lake Arbor, Mashed potatoes, Video lectures, Bedbugs, Poker, Oaks mall, night walks, Strawberry shake, Dahi Handi, Laundromat, Paneer or rather Tofu Makhanwala, Winn Dixie, Pingo, India Bazaar, Route 16, Ganesh Pooja, Rubiks cube, ....................................... , Go Gators!!!

My F1 Visa Experience

Place: Mumbai Consulate Day & Time: 13^th June 2007, 8:15AM

Got to the counter for interview at around 9:30AM
Visa Officer (VO): A cute and co-operative, blonde lady

VO: Hi (smile)
Me: Hi (full smile)
VO: What are you going to do in the US?
Me: Master’s in Computer Engineering
(She repeated after me … Master’s in Computer Engineering … typed something)
VO: OK, so who is going to sponsor your education?
Me: My grandfather and father are jointly going to sponsor my education. I’ve also borrowed an educational loan of 4 lacs and have got a 40% tuition waver from the University
VO: What does your father do?
Me: He is in business
VO: What type of business?
Me: Both my father and grandfather are commission agents of food grains and jaggery.
VO: Do you know what your father’s annual income is?
Me: The combined income of my father and grandfather is over X lacs per annum.
VO: OK, How much do you have in savings?
Me: XX lacs
(She typed something again …I guess she calculated the amount in dollars …)
VO: So how are you going to manage for your second year’s education?
Me: As I said mam, I have borrowed educational loan of 4 lacs and I’ve got a 40% tuition waver from UFL so the total tuition fees for my entire MS course is around 16K dollars… (Before I finished she asked another question...)
VO: What did you do in your UG?
Me: Masters … sorry BE in Computer Science and Engineering (nervous smile)
VO: When did you finish your BE?
Me: In 2005
VO: What did you do after that?
Me: I’m working in XXX since then.
VO: What is your annual income?
Me: over X lacs per annum
VO: ok, your visa is approved (smile)
Me: Thank you (smile)
(I was in a hurry to leave the darn chamber... wasn’t expecting such a long interview)
VO: Have a great day
Me: Same to you mam (a huge smile again)

Came out of the consulate, was a feeling like having won a battle.

I believe I had such a long interview because I was the last one in the queue, nobody was waiting and she had all the time in the world to interrogate me. Besides this, I think she didn’t’ understand my father’s business.

An Incident Worth Remembering

One motto I believe in is – “Nothing is impossible”.
If you give your best you can achieve what you want.

One of the challenges that I tackled successfully is the incident of scoring high marks in the last semester of my engineering.

It went like this – I had written my first semester papers very well and was expecting a score of more than 70%. But when the result for first semester was out, I was shocked. I had secured 66%, my lowest score in last five semesters (but fortunately, high enough to be distinction). One may think how can one be shocked even after a distinction but this is what i am. This was something unexpected. I had decided at the beginning of my engineering to score better marks every year. I was quite successful doing this. My marks were as follows –
First year – 65.86%
Second year – 70.33 %
Third year – 71.40 %
So to achieve my target of being better every year, I had to score more than 76.8% in the final semester which was a huge ask. During the same time period one of my friend gave me another challenge, he asked me whether I could make my average of engineering count more than 70% which meant I would have to score a mammoth 79% to do that. I accepted that challenge.

I gave my heart and soul for doing this. I slept for 5 hours a day in the final month of my exam. I got so anxious that I used to talk in my sleep about the subjects I was studying (according to my cousin). I secluded myself for that one month. I kept saying to myself that I should never let my hopes die. Finally I finished the exam. I didn’t know how much I would score. What I knew was I had given my best efforts.

When the final results came out my joy knew no bounds. I had secured 79.86% in my final semester. So my final year score was 73.46% which was better than my all other scores. To add to that I even managed to get my aggregate of engineering count more than 70%.
Thus I was able to confront and overcome the challenge I had accepted.

Finally I would like to say - “If we start doing what we should and then what we can, we will find out someday that we are doing what is supposed to be the impossible.”