Code Wars 2006, soBIG.E kicked off this year. Must say that the turnout was disappointing, but then, it’s pretty late into the year, and many schools reportedly did not receive our invites.
All teams seemed to be pretty rusty, since most ended up with binary scores in the quiz and crossword prelims made by me. Do I make too tough papers? Hmmm. In fact, situation was so bad that I had to reduce the number of teams qualifying for the crossword finals since the other papers were too PATHETIC. Can’t dilute the standard of the contest.
Oh, and I was made to participate in the group discussion by our HoD. I had come totally unprepared, but the topics given were artificial intelligence and Second Life, a virtual reality game. Fortunately (phew!) I knew about both and did well. AND I came first too. Naturally, being from the host school, I was made to decline gracefully and give the spot up to the next team. Not that I mind. Loads of trophies at home already!
Day 1 refreshments were pathetic (though the muffins were good). Really downgrades symposium standard.
Quiz and crossword were tough, and liked by all teams. Made them go ‘oooh…’ when I told the answers. It had been made in such a way as to attack a teams strengths and weaknesses, and force them to commit mistakes. Both had teams scratching their scalp off (I wanted them to adopt my hair[less]style), but I was disappointed at teams not doing well in such simple papers.
Day 2 finals were by two alumni, Dhruv Chopra and Eeshan Malhotra, and I must say, it was awesome! Being the scorer / compere, it took a great effort to stop myself from not shouting out the answers on the mic. Plus, I got pissed of at Quiz Club members since they didn’t turn up to watch, when I’d called. DC and EE’s finals were original, tougher and definitely more entertaining than Exun.
Day 2 refreshments were the tiniest pizza I’ve ever seen, and didn’t get that too (“first we’ll serve our guests, then…”). We finally bought three pizzas from the school canteen (paying for only two in the melee). Later, lunch was slightly better, but we were practically chased out since we came late.
Nothing more later, except bear Prannoy as he shot clips for his ‘vidddeo’. The valedictory function had to be delayed too for that, since the vidddeo was being rendered. It was AWESOME though, kudos to the CW vidddeo team.
Going away from protocol, I was called upon to present the annual report during the awards ceremony – generally VP, CW does that. It took a quick dash to I-lab to get a print from CW site, and some help from MIS team (who knew more about CW than our members).
In the awards ceremony, our principal decided to be frank an actually said “…I’m a bad principal, I wasn’t allowing Code Wars earlier…”. Then came my report, where I’d requested all teams to guffaw when I said ‘excellent performance throughout the year’, but to my dismay nobody did. However, the compere (not me) provided some comic relief by saying “…now I call the principal to present the awards to our worthy opponents, oops, participants…” (he actually SAID that; LMAO).
Anyway, the ‘vidddeo’ was liked by all, and it was really good, featuring lots of shots of my egghead. Then we had the awards given away, were participants coming first got extra balls for themselves (pun intended); 2nd & 3rd walked away looking smug with a better looking trophy than 1st; and the principal projected his ass on the screen. Never mind, the best was left for the last, when DPS RKP got a trophy which had written on it ‘Ovarall Winners’. How sweet, we are different you know! 😛
Then after that, there were alumni mumbling insults (the school gave them planners – paper ones, not electronic), and how can I forget, ‘LAN testing’. 😀
I’ll be back next year, organising soBIG.F, which I want to be fucking good!!!
Oh, and this post was bigger, funnier, and more sarcastic than presently, except for the fact that my UPS decided to take a break when electricity RETURNED. What an irony, not when power WENT, but when it came BACK. Life is so cruel…
