Introspection after a long day

3 Mar 2026
song: On Track - Tame Impala

Alright, so let me begin this online journal by saying something atrocious: 'I think college is quite easy.' I mean, to be honest, objectively speaking, it is true. All you need is consistency and a half-decent work ethic. That is basically all you need for things to go smoothly. There is one other condition I have not mentioned though, and that is you can't really have a life. Now that is quite subjective. For me, living life doesn't really have much to do with academics. I'm not really lucky enough to call it one of my passions.

I feel like everything that has happened to me that is meaningful in any way, shape or form in college has happened outside of classrooms. It's funny in its own right. Now, all the random thoughts aside, the reason for me writing this is mainly two things. One is the things that happened today and how it made me feel, and the other is to share my experience organising a hackathon. Let's start with today. well yesterday to be exact. So initially I had to submit some lecture notes which I didn't write in class because I couldn't be bothered (why the fuck is economics a 3 credit course). So it was a continuous evaluation thing, and I hadn't submitted the first 2 times. Since the marks taken would be the best of 3 I had to do something. So I write and write the fucking notes which I borrowed from my mate. Then I go to class only to realize that the submission date is tomorrow and I'm only halfway done. Then I had lab; as I sat down for the viva, I wasn't tense at all. Honestly, I was trying my best not to laugh because I did not know a single fucking thing, but for some reason the faculty asked the most basic things.

Then I had to deal with my microcontroller project, which was due the day after tomorrow. For some fucking reason the thing decided to stop working, and my LCD display just got fucked over. So me and my team mates dealt with that. After everything was done, it was 8.30 pm, and I bought myself an energy drink out of spite. I just felt very empty and stressed. If having and maintaining a job is anything like this, I will absolutely end up becoming an alcoholic or a chain smoker or both. For engineering its like a week or two in every semester that fucks you up by not giving you space to breathe. I cant imagine how diabolical it's going to be when i'll have a job. I mean, honestly speaking, all of this could have been avoided by having proper time management, but then again, all that music won't exist by itself; someone has to make it.

Then I just sat down in my room. On the floor with drink in hand, listening to Malcom Todd. I wanted to talk about the weirdness of it all to someone else, but then I realised that all of these people are in similar conditions. Thus I decided not to call anyone, hence me going on about it here. I don't really have a point to tell to be honest, I just wanted to let it out somewhere. These things are strangely stressful; it's kind of ironic considering how I go on and on about how I don't care about academics.

Now let's talk about the hackathon; that was an entire journey in its own. So initially in the morning I bunked most all of my classes, as none of the permissions for classrooms were fully done. So I walked around campus collecting signatures of faculties like fucking Pokémon. Then after lunch I spent the time with volunteers setting up the hall in which the thing was to be conducted. Now truth be told, as the event started at 5pm, I was fucking drained. As my mate was saying the inauguration speech, all I could think was, 'Fuck, I can't do this.' Thankfully I had a bunch of people I have the pleasure of calling my friends with me. They kind of turned the whole thing into one of the best nights ever. Minus the drama, of course; Zishan and Sriya can vouch for that. That being said, in retrospect the whole thing was kind of funny.

Then there is the whole bunch of shit that happened, like Anandu failing to open a soft drink, whatever the fuck all of us were doing at 2pm on the ground, making people drink extremely strong coffee that Zishan made (everyone hated the coffee; it was hilarious), the video call at 3 in the morning and so on. That being said, the best moment of the event, the one I won't forget, was chatting with Sathya about life. So basically after 4am I sat down with my guitar, and Zishan played me these 2 chords that I really liked earlier, and I was trying to come up with lyrics. So Sathya just sat next to me quietly like a cat, listening to whatever the fuck I was doing. He didn't really speak; he just listened. So I performed one of the songs I wrote. Then I told him the story behind it and everything. It was just us sharing a bunch of our stories and then me nerding out quite heavily about music.

It was fucking beautiful. During the hackathon a good friend of mine talked to me about how her way of relaxing is always going out with her mates and having a laugh. It was kind of fascinating to me because my first instinct when I don't feel that great is to lock myself up in a room. It takes strength to believe in people. I don't really know how to do that, funny enough. I suppose that is the reason why I'm always surprised when people cheer me up.

This essay doesn't really have a conclusion, to be honest. People are cool, and sometimes I struggle with things. That's about it, nothing too grand and glamorous, kind of like life in a way.

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