Modem 2006: Day 1

Modem 2006 started off at Modern School, Vasant Vihar today, with a really bald guy from Evil Microsoft (who also happen to be the sponsors, damn!) giving a really boring speech (typical Microsoft management). Felt like doing some ‘Linux Rules’ sloganeering, but then, dropped the idea.

Although I’ve gone to the school before, I haven’t commented on it yet, so here goes. Nice building with an old-world sort of look, and intriguing to find quite a few hot girls (ahem) roaming around all the time (as in, who attends the classes then?). Embarrassing toilets with no dividers, and a psychic water dispenser system that activated itself whenever I stood in front of it (without any IR detectors, that too). Cozy auditorium, and their computer labs seemed to be good.

My first event was the Mod Challenge Quiz, with Prannoy as my teammate, in which we had 20 questions. Pretty easy, although we did make a silly mistake or two, and could have done better. Anyway, we rocked in the prelims of the quiz, and qualified for the finals, which will be held tomorrow.

After a bit of a break, where I’d my refreshments gobbled up by piranha fishes roaming around (rather, our gamer Bombardo), and funny canteen which doesn’t sell anything to outsiders. Talk about xenophobia! Lemme see how THEY go back with full stomachs when they come for Code Wars.

I had the Group Discussion event then, with Raj on team, and we were in the second batch for the prelims. But due to a shortage of teams, the GD prelims were reconducted with all participating teams present on the topic ‘BPO, KPO…What next?’. I had the unfortunate task of kickstarting the discussion, but we did well together. Participating teams were really good, and we had an engaging discussion on the topic. We made it to the top four teams that made it to the GD finals.

After a buffet lunch (where Bombardo cooked up a food shortage crisis), I had the GD finals, held on stage, (I really love staring into a glaring spotlight) with the topic this time as ‘Information Technology – India is in boom, but what about the challenge from the East?’. The other teams were all jingoistic in their support for India as an IT superpower, but our team was pretty clear that we would oppose it and say that India has not YET reached the level that China has, and we still have some way to go. Gave convincing points from our side, but we still came second, just ONE point behind the winners (the judge said that) DPS Rohini. I guess I was a bit arrogant or irritating on stage, sort of cross questioning (which wasn’t allowed) and jumping into conversations. Or maybe it’s a habit I haven’t shaken off from quizzing, where I HAVE TO be the fastest one to buzz in, and disputes with quizmasters on stage is as common as snow in Alaska, so maybe that’s where I get my butting in and cross questioning talent from.

Our school also came third in the Crossword (in which I couldn’t participate, since it was a junior event). Looking forward to finals tomorrow, let’s see what happens…