Wednesday, July 23, 2008

To the coasts of Karnataka( Day 3)

14-7-2008

This was the most crucial day for me. I was quite familiar with place by then but my dad still was confused. The arrangement of the buildings was like a maze. If one has a look at the map, there were buildings spread wide apart and it was not so easy to know the nook and corner of the campus. VIT had been built later and the plan was chalked out well. The major difference was that Manipal University was spread at a larger area than VIT but the way VIT has been constructed is good enough to attract the crowd. We were almost in time to the waiting hall when I met some of my friends whom I had met during the examination. There were new faces only and from different parts of the country. We entered the counselling hall. The procedure seemed familiar and even the staff were the same. When the Director Admission started announcing the rules, I started feeling void. They had not put the chart showing the number of seats available yet. That was unusual. Thirty minutes passed. I shut my eyes tightly. I didn’t know how to react. The number of seats would decide today whether I could make it or not. It was there the very next moment. My dad took out his glasses and started reading. My first choice was Bio Chemistry; it had 21 seats in Manipal and 25 seats in Mangalore. It was the same for others like Anatomy, Physiology, Microbiology and Pharmacology. Molecular Biology and Human Genetics had been reduced to 2 years and it had only 5 seats. I had no hopes with that though it seemed lucrative. After filling the forms they called out the ranks. It started with 17.

Phew... I heaved a sigh of relief. 16 candidates absent and I had better chances. I strained my ears to hear every part of the announcement they made. In another 20 minutes I was called. Now I was confident. The seat is mine. Still there were only 3 seats allotted for Medical Bio Chemistry. The seats got filled for Molecular Biology first then Microbiology started its pace along with Bio Chemistry. In between I was surprised to see that people were willing taking Anatomy and Physiology. I felt really good to see people with varied interests. I spoke to many in this 20 minutes wait till my name was called and of course my old friends were there who had written the exam with me at the Kolkata center. I was happy. My dad was still stuck to the screen but relaxed. I paid the fees, got my admission letter and then the first thing I did was I spoke to my mom. My dad kept watching people. He refused to speak anything. He told me, “Do your work fast. Don’t waste time in talking. I am sitting here.”

It was all done by 1 pm. The hostel, the admission and we also got a chance to see one of the flats which we could get. The first impression of the look was: VIT hostels are the best. I still hadn’t visited many girls’ hostels but when I went to some they looked okay to me but not bad either. Still as I said, too early to say anything as I had seen only 3 or 4 of them. It was a relaxed day altogether. We also met a professor and for the first time I entered the Bio Chemistry Department. I realized that I was in a place with an atmosphere that made me feel I was in a hospital. All future doctors with lab coats and stethoscopes walking here and there, some with a badge bearing their names and some without them I liked it in fact I had always wanted to study this course in a medical college. Medical Bio Chemistry was something I had wanted from the time I was in B.Sc and my dream college was JIPMER, Pondicherry. Still, KMC was none the less.

I was on which cloud I don’t know myself. I don’t think it was 9. I beg to differ, it must be more.

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