The continuation of the previous post has news on the eventful December 2003!  This is not presented week-wise, rather, the dates are grouped contextually.

• Mon-Thu, 1-4 Dec: On 1st I wrote the Management Accounting End Term exam, after which I scanned a drawing of the Linkin Park band members I had done (in a Marketing class, hehe).  In the evening I played a couple of the Doom maps I had downloaded earlier, the terrific Nickel Electroplate Facility (probably better known as kaiser_5) and Vrack 3... after which me and a few friends watched Memento.  The next couple of days went in preparation for the next major event at TAPMI, the annual inter-college fest, Atharva 2003.  For Atharva, the Systems Committee had made the website, and also was supposed to make a Control Room software (which would store the details of the participants and various events) and an intranet site.  This was done in time for the event, which started on 5th.
• Fri-Sun, 5-7 Dec (Atharva 2003): Day 1 of Atharva had several of the Management games conducted by the various fora of our college.  I wrote a CD with some stuff grabbed from the network and also some MP3s and various things from my friend Vikas's computer - including pictures taken at Downtown a couple of days before, where our entire BrandScan Team UB went for dinner.  Day 2 of Atharva featured the most famous event of all, the Quiz on the Beach, which was well, a quiz (the quizmaster was Arun Mani, who is part of the Karnataka Quiz Association) on a beach!  Lots of audience gifts were given away, and I got a gift coupon at Café Coffee Day for answering a question related to Ian McKellen/Gandalf.  The main event of Day 3 was Funtakshari in the evening, after which me and a group of friends went to Café Coffee Day.
• Mon/Tue, 8/9 Dec: I sent some of the above mentioned (BrandScan, Downtown) photos to my family and friends.  Also, I read Varun's latest update at his site, and on 9th, I worked on an assignment for Macroeconomics.
• Wed-Mon, 10-15 Dec (10 Years of Doom): Doom celebrated it's 10th Anniversary on December 10th, and as I mentioned in an earlier update, Doomworld had several special features at their 10 Years of Doom site to celebrate the occasion.  Over the next few days I saved all these special article pages, and downloaded all the latest releases (Daedalus: Alien Defense, ZDoom 2.0.60, etc. for example).  The particulars are mentioned in another post.  On 12th, the Best WADs of 2002 list was put up, and I was honoured to find that my level Congestion Control was among the WADs there.  In this period I managed to download lots of Doom stuff, though it was one of the most hectic weeks at college.  On 14th I had Macroeconomics presentation, and had to work on the Marketing CRA (Concurrently Running Assignment).  On Sunday we had the GAMAR3 Marketing game, and after that me and my group worked through the night and next morning for the Marketing presentation the next day.  Also, the Operations Research project report was submitted.  I downloaded several WADs from that week's edition of the Doomworld /newstuff Chronicles.  All the stuff I downloaded over the past week, I coupled with some Atharva photos, and wrote them all on a CD!
• Tue-Sat, 16-20 Dec: On 16th evening, myself and Ramakrishna went to Udupi to buy stuff for the Outbound programme that we would be attending from 21st onwards.  I also got a cool cap which I wore a lot of the time in the hostel as well as much of the time at Outbound.  Before the Outbound programme started though, there was one thing to take care of - the End Term Exams!  On 18th was Financial Management 1 (9:30 AM - 11:30 AM), Written Analysis & Communication 2 (12 PM - 1 PM) and Operations Research (2:30 PM - 4:30 PM).  Next day it was Macroeconomics (10 AM - 12 PM) and Operations Management 1 (2:30 PM - 5 PM), and finally on 20th it was Organisational Behaviour (10 AM - 12 PM) and Marketing (2:30 PM - 4:30 PM).  That night itself (9 PM), 54 of us left on the bus to Nataraja Gurukula where we would spend the next seven days at the Outbound programme.
• Sun-Sat, 21-27 Dec (Outbound): We reached Nataraja Gurukula (it's about 30 kilometres from Bangalore) at around 9 in the morning.  The first day of the Outbound programme had Cave Exploration, where we walked to, went through and walked back from a cave in some mountains.  Day 2 had us going through an Obstacle course and climbing various rocks.  On Day 3, we walked a whole lot for Day Navigation - we were given bearings and we had to climb one mountain, get our second destination, climb a small hill, go down a valley, climb another mountain to complete the task - and finally climb down it and walk back to the camp!  This was followed by a demo of River Crossing, Zoomering and Rappelling which we actually did on Day 4.  On Day 5 we climbed up a mountain (300 feet high) and camped there for the night.  The afternoon of Day 6, we rappelled down (about 120 feet compared to 40 the other day) on one of the slopes and other than that basically relaxed.  That night (8 PM or so) we started Night Navigation, where we walked about 12 kilometres to our destination and climbed most of the way.  On Day 7 we did the final climb, came down again and walked back to the camp (another 12 kilometres in about 4 and a half hours).  That evening, I got on the bus eagerly to Bangalore, because I would be headed home after that!  In Outbound we were all divided into 4 teams (Everest, K2, Kilimanjaro and Fuji), I was in Everest along with the really cool guys so I had a lot of fun.  In the evenings I was a "storyteller" - as in I used to narrate entire movies (Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill Vol. 1, From Dusk Till Dawn, Minority Report) to an audience of a few friends near the tents!  Other remarkable experiences include the "shit pit" (no toilets!), the "water point", the "horror stories", our "cooks", the "6:15 AM jogging", etc.
• Sun-Wed, 28-31 Dec: On 28th morning, I reached home!  I dumped all the CDs I had brought with me on the computer at home, watched Varun play Half-Life, played some of Chris Hansen's and Paul Corfiatis's Bella II, a little bit of Doom64: Absolution, Aardappel's latest version of Cube, saw that my site had crossed 20,000 hits (thanks everyone!), ATE HOME FOOD, and most of all, I was with my family!  On 29th, I watched The Matrix Revolutions on an IMAX screen, and later wrote several CDs (many of them Linux install discs - Red Hat 9, Mandrake 9.1 and Knoppix 3.2 - from the Digit August 2003 Linux Special DVD), and also downloaded Doom Builder v1.03.  On 30th, I watched Varun build the final room in his E4M7 for The Ninth Gate, made a New Year Card and sent it to several people, and watched Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles.  On 31st evening, I boarded the train that would take me to Bangalore.  This was a too-short vacation at home!

The news of January 2004 is written in the next post.

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