College days

Came across 4 college magazines while clearing up some old stuff. They catapulted me back to the evergreen years spent in college.Outlined are some quaint recollections. They remain a source of extreme excitement even today. (All of them conciously written in present tense :))

BRAZEN

Venue: A computer practical laboratory equipped (?) with semi and non-working PCs alike.
Participants: A group of 15 students. A sour (almost rotten) tempered Prof. who derives sadistic pleasure by banning floppies and expecting students to complete lengthy programs on the available equipment in the lab.
Happennings: Almost everyone has colluded to load programs pre-done @ ~ on the machines and is busy in this "illegal" act. Prof. makes a surprise entry and gives a sinister laugh on having caught the culprits red-handed. Unfortunately, I am the one caught with my floppy and being called by the Prof. . I walk up (expecting a slap) and get threatened for my "deeds" instead. And within a split second the Prof. snaps my IBM 1.44 MB into two. The aluminium is seperated and the floppy is torn.
But for the first time in my life I am not at all ashamed on being scolded by a teacher.

EXECUTION TO EDITING

Venue: Same as above; only a batch of students are supposed to face an external examinor for their practical exams.
Additional Arrangements: The LAN programs have gone awry and the Cobol compiler is missing/corrupted/just-not-available.
Participants: A panicked lot of students, an ill-tempered (female) Prof. and and external examinor having the demeanor of an avenging bull.
Happennings: Students and the internal understand that no programs will execute (forget execute), will not compile and link, but yes, can be "edited". Students edit programs, staple print-outs, face the external and the entire batch scrapes through at 20/50 borderline for this feat.

OWL ON THE PROWL
(This one always evokes a mixture of laughter and terror alike)

Venue: A classroom with 1 door, 2 windows to host an examination.
Participants: Students getting ready for their LCA (Linear circuit analysis) final paper. Guys are cracking jokes and girls are revising formulae.
Guest Appearance: A clueless, huge owl.
Happennings: Papers are just being distributed when the noise of wings startles everybody.
To everyone's "shock and awe" a pretty scary, quite big (and blind) owl gets trapped in the class. There is uproar, terror and the atmosphere is filled with shrieks. We start running helter skelter. The owl, surely not deaf, panics and starts madly flying about the class.
Time is ticking and the tension of the paper starts mounting. Efforts are made to pacify the creature and it finally sits on the hung tubelight above my neighbour's bench. The paper begins.As my bird-brain struggles with the LCA problems (being fully aware of my poor aptitude in maths and allied "problematic" subjects); the actual bird looms large just a few feet away.Then due to terror, the poor bird does exactly what it was not supposed to do and my disgruntled neighbour has to move to another bench on a priority basis.
After a few minutes of silence the owl begins it "Act -2" and this time swooshes between the rows almost touching the floor. After some more minutes of drama and amidst screams the owl leaves the class after holding stage for almost 20 minutes.
One of the frightening yet funny experiences.

College gave an opportunity do many things for the first time in life: like watching morning show of a movie during off pracs and going triple seat on a single scooty in frantic search of printer papers for a next day submission.
All in all, college life was fruitful, gaining rich and varied experiences, some great and talented friends and the outlook to embrace future.