I woke up, pretty satisfied with myself. I’d qualified for all three events that I’d taken part in (keeping aside the Surprise Event). But, senior quiz, junior quiz and crossword were the main events I had planned on winning.

Things were going as planned, so far. I had come back at around 4:30 to 5 PM on Day 1, after sharing an auto with Agrim of Amity Saket. The funny thing is that we’d been living in the same colony (OK…different blocks), had been meeting each other at competitions and had no clue whatsoever that we were a stone’s throw from each other’s houses.

Actually you’d need someone like Abhimanyu to throw the stone.

So, in the morning, I prepped a bit more, played a bit of NFS:U2 to calm my nerves (Mum was asleep, obviously) and then got ready to go (kinda late). I had got Agrim’s number last day, so I called him up, to find that he was even more late than I was. So, I set out to find his house. He’d told me C-241, but for some strange reason, I automatically assumed it was C-421, till I remembered.

Agrim was pretty pally with the auto drivers nearby, mainly because of the number of times he’d have to catch one, when he missed his bus, as he tells me. A bit of haggling later, we were all set to go. He later told me that the father of a girl in his class worked for AirTel, and they’d got an 8 MBPS unlimited connection, which, frankly, is quite shocking. And all she used it for, was checking her mail and also Facebook.

After reaching there, found that Karthick beat me to it, again, and we checked the registrations, and then went to the AVH to wait for the events to start. Abhishek and Deepit were already there, as were Ponnappa, Aditya and Anirudh. Anyway, the problem was that Feroze and Abhimanyu weren’t…and they were to go for gaming. Feroze was on the way, but there wasn’t any way to contact Manyu. We had got to know by then that the games were Fifa 2009 and Crysis Warhead. Since their gaming event was being sponsored by Extreme Gaming, which in turn was sponsored by EA Games, they had got some pretty tricked out PCs to run these games. And you would need tricked out PCs, because Crysis Warhead isn’t a game for all PCs.

Anyway, Feroze soon turned up, and he handled the rest, about getting Manyu some extra time. By this time, I had to go for the Junior Quiz, which for some reason, they had decided to start off early. Unheard of! So, my commentary for gaming ends there.

Now, this was the last time I would be giving the Junior Quiz. The Junior category ends at 10th. So, I wanted to end this phase with a bang. Actually, I’d been in the Junior category for about 4-5 years now, so, it was a momentous occasion.

Anyway, before the JQ, I followed by rule of full bladder gives best results. I made sure, in the morning, before leaving, that I had downed 2 glasses of water, which had worked their way around my body and were now ready to leave.

The Junior Quiz was pretty good. Hardly any acronyms…and if any were asked, there was an accompanying question, so I was pretty happy about that, after what happened last year. The quiz was conducted by Gursartaj Singh and Akshay Aggarwal. By the way, just as we got on stage, Ankur walked in. He had gotten up, early in the morning just to come to Exun and watch. Gursartaj did tell him to keep his mouth shut, but later gave him the job of acting as the usual Exun camera during the buzzer round, which we failed at horribly, as usual. The worst thing was that it was a visual round and buzzer round combined, which meant that it was double jeopardy for us. On the whole, pretty good quality stuff. First was RK Puram, but since they were non-competitive, they couldn’t get the position, which was passed on to us.

The best way to sign off JQ.

Actually, exiting the Junior category also helps me in a way. This means that at all future events, I won’t need to choose between different events, or at least the choice would be narrowed down, to an extent.

I was now in a bit of a fix. I had the crossword, which was after lunch, and a full bladder. Should I wait, and have an uncomfortable lunch or go ahead and attend to the call of nature. When I learnt that Ankur was ordering pizzas for us all, I decided on the latter. We ordered 3 double cheese family sizes. Not a problem since Abhimanyu was soon free to join us. He’d come first in the gaming finals for Crysis. We were getting ready to watch him chase the pizzaman, like last Roboknights, where the pizzaman went to the wrong gate.

Watching Abhimanyu run is a rare phenomenon, and if anyone gets it on camera, please contact me immediately.

Ankur has a big problem with spice, so that’s why he ordered the double cheese plain pizza. Also, it would be lighter on his pocket. He simply wasn’t letting anyone else pay, even a bit. Really nice of him, but still, he had to shell out a lot. I guess that’s his way of contributing to the win! Downed a couple of glasses of water to fill myself up for the crossword.

Anyway, the crossword was next. Me and Arjun were up for that one. The crossword was also really great, with me having a few moments of sudden enlightenment, which are so common in crosswords. “Airy little French island” was Corsair, and “Samsung’s wine” was Bordeaux. We won that one too, after RKP Team 1 graciously handed down the 1st position. My bladder was full after the crossword, but decided to preserve for SQ.

Two wins in the bag. One more to go.

The SQ was altogether quite different, compared to the JQ and Crossword. To be perfectly honest, there were one too many long winding answers, where one team gave a part of the answer, another team contested that, and then the quizmaster came back to the first team, and gave them 42% points for that answer or something like that. A quiz should be a fast-paced thriller, where you just keep looking at the scoreboard or something. I actually ended up yawning on stage quite a few times, unintentionally! But, it wasn’t all like that. There were quite a few good ones. Again, we shared first prize with RK Puram.

By now, we were pretty much set up for the overall…which…frankly was a bit of a disappointment. I like a nail-biting finish, where we’re supposed to be neck and neck with another school, but eventually pull through by a point or something. Anyway, that was not to happen.

Next came the prize distribution. The individual trophies they gave are pretty good, especially since I’ve got 3…:-P…but I can’t say the same about the overall. The top’s gold, then silver in the middle and then gold at the bottom. Makes it seem as if they ran out of money halfway through making the trophy.

One thing that pepped me up was a couple of CDs lying on a table during prize distribution. EA had indirectly sponsored the event, and I was expecting some good stuff. Unfortunately, that was not to be. All we got were Command and Conquer (Tiberiun Sun or something, and Red Alert 2). Thing is, I’m not that great a fan of Real Time Strategy games, and as these games were simply gothic (16MB visual memory…now where am I going to get that!), I haven’t even tried them yet, nor do I think I will in the coming future.

On the whole, a pretty good event. I look forward to coming again for Exun 2009, and please…god PLEASE get Dominoe’s back!