05/12/2014

05/12/2014; 00:13:

Right before people left to go home, on the 30th, there were meetings held, to come up with parameters to evaluate the SAC-C and the SAC-T. Each club coordinator had to come up with a set of parameters according to which the members would be evaluated in the future. The club members had to come up with a similar set for the evaluation of the coordinator. All this is being done as part of the efforts to draft the IPM Constitution. It feels good to be in the Drafting Assembly!
The selection process for selecting next year’s Atharv team was discussed in another of the series of meetings that evening. The final meeting of the evening detailed the recently approved Sports Fest proposal. Ranbhoomi- the IPM Sports Fest is set to happen in the last week of February, tentatively from the 27th to the 1st of March. We hope to draw in participation from across the country! Almost all of December shall be spent planning!

It’s been a leisurely four days, with the December vacation in full swing. Some people (like my room-mate) had a paper on the 1st; I didn’t. I spent most of Monday (1st) sleeping; evening was spent playing volleyball and then having dinner at Pishori – we ate mostly Tandoori Chicken. An institute-wide initiative has been undertaken, in the form of Oscar Wilde’s play ‘The Importance of being Earnest. Auditions were called for, at 7 p.m. on the 2nd of December. Practice is now in full swing!
At 8:00 p.m., the Activity Club had arranged for the screening of the movie ‘Inglorious Bastards’. I have no clue why they suddenly did so; people did, however enjoy the movie.


After sleeping in excess on Monday, I was up in time to get some breakfast, on Tuesday. The FST- Foundation in Science & Technology paper is on the 6th- it’s the only compulsory paper as part of the BDP (Bachelor’s Degree Programme) 2nd year curriculum. I pulled out the books on Tuesday, mainly to ascertain their number. There are a total of 8 books; hopefully, we’ll read through them all, before the paper. We did read them in bits and pieces to solve the assignments, but never once through.
After the All-IPM meet, where the Khargone project was discussed, a volunteer form was sent across to everyone. Later in the evening, the music club sent out a mail detailing its newest idea- practice groups- to hone different talents including singing and playing different musical instruments.

On Wednesday, we put together a 3-member team to conduct the skill-building workshop in Khargone. Another set of volunteers was organized to interact with the children at Aasthagram.
By mid-night, we also received a good number of entries for the Journalist Face-Off event that Media Comm. is planning to hold.
i-Help has been in the process of picking out the team that shall call the shots, next year. Basically, we’re getting old and it’s time to hand over the reins to the junior batch! As part of this, every week, a different set of interested juniors are appointed to interim coordinator roles – 2 coordinators and one vertical head each for the HR, Media & PR and Academic verticals. Everyone is thus being given a chance to actually put their skills to a practical test, because that’s what is finally needed! Everyone is taking their roles seriously and working really hard; the Academic vertical has been meticulously preparing worksheets, Media & PR has been preparing weekly reports and HR has been working and re-working the time-table to get the perfect fit!

We left for Khargone at 7:30 on Thursday (4th) morning in a white ‘traveller’. The traveller was also unique- the last row of seats had been replaced by a bed! Of course, since it was early morning, to people immediately settled in to sleep! We stopped en route for poha-jalebi and once to click photographs. Once at Khargone, we split into the two assigned teams. We headed to open the registration desk for the workshop while the other team headed straight for the kids! The workshop covered the whole job application process – finding the right job, filling out an application, preparing a résumé and facing the interview. The participants included students of the Government P.G. College at Khargone. Their feedback (after an almost 5 hour long workshop!) suggested that we did manage to do a fairly okay job of making them aware and guiding them.
Meanwhile elsewhere, our other team visited the Sports & Cultural Competition that was being organized for the differently abled children, on the occasion of World Disability day which was on the 3rd of December. They also spent time with the other children, playing games like Fire on the Mountain and Dog & the Bone.
The whole Khargone experience just makes everyone who goes there so happy; by the end of the day, you’re tired and yet unwilling to leave, promising to come back; of course, on the way back everyone falls asleep (except my room-mate!). We were back on campus by around 9 p.m. post which dinner was had. A large amount of vanilla ice-cream followed! We took good advantage of the newly launched sachets of Hershey’s chocolate syrup while we were at eating the ice-cream!

While we’ve been having a gala time, what with the vacations and everything, both the junior batches have been writing an assortment of quizzes and mid-term exams! And, a play is being prepared for Christmas Eve, by the junior batches! Christmas Eve is fun time, with mid-night carol singing, cake-cutting, movie screenings and even a theme-based play, this time around!
In other news, Chiraag, our very own IPM E-magazine has sent out its monthly call for articles. They seem to have this thing for all the unusual themes that one could possibly come up with! The theme this time is ‘Hard to get’. It’s been rather hard to get what exactly this latest theme could mean; I’ll probably figure something out and write out a piece!