Hyderabad Hues

All India Microsoft Boot Camp (6th-8th March)

It all started with a mail from the Microsoft Academic team, mentioning about the "All India Boot Camp" that was gonna happen in Hyderabad for all the Microsoft Student Partners (minus the ones in their final years except for a select few)

Just the thing i wanted ;)

Was all excited and eager, after i successfully scraped up 150 activity points(one of the criteria that had to be satisfied to be eligible for the boot camp)

Time was moving ridiculously slow ... but eventually the day had to come and it came :)
We Chennai MSPs lot gathered up at Chennai Central and took the train to Hyderabad.

i was sound asleep by around 10 pm, but then one really caring friend of mine decided to wake me up somewhere in the middle of the night to wish me for my journey (Sigh!)
looked around and found that three nocturnals were still actively talking and talking and talking.(Sigh! again) With some difficulty, i switched back to Sleep mode.

Next morning, me, JG and phoenix were all having a conversation by the open door of the rail coach, feeling the wind gently slapping our faces;
me and phoenix then took out our digicams and started snapping. With some tips from phoenix on aperture, exposure and white balance settings, i was suddenly snapping away psychedelic beauties.

Check em out over here->

My Flickr page

People were suggesting that the Charminar express had a reputation of running late. But surprisingly, ours was early.
Me, JG and Kanishk got down at Secunderabad and parted ways ...

Phew! Thanks to my mediocre hindi speaking capabilities, i was able to manage with the autorickshaw-walahs ...








Reached "Ellaa Suites" in the evening, a lil bit late. Got the electronic key to my room from the lobby, asked them to take my luggage over to my room and hurried out to get onto the last shuttle bus to the Microsoft-India Development Center (MSIDC) ...
I thought i'd be missing the Internship test, as it was supposed to start at 5pm and i was still at the hotel at 5.15 ...
Got some company to talk to in the bus, in the form of one Chennai MSP(TEK) and the other, the most happening MSP in India, the one with the highest number of activity points, the "then naattu singam" lol ;)

MSIDC was just a kilometer away from Ellaa; was glad to find out that the test hadnt started off yet (i dunno if i was really glad :|) ... The MSIDC campus was a treat to the eye. The Interiors were so out of the world (atleast from what i'd seen so far) ... After a small presentation, finally came the Internship test.
Just 3 questions; 75 minutes. I wondered why they had given us so much time.
But at the end of the 75 minutes, i wasnt wondering :D
Lets just say i did the test pretty well except for a Data Structures question involving Circular Queues.
All rite, All rite!!! i'll not get into all that stuff :D

We had dinner at the IDC and then got back to the hotel ...
Incidentally, my roommate, an MSP from Mumbai was a tamilian too ...
After watching tv for some time, i dozed off smiling to myself with memories of all that had happened in the day ...


The Next day at the IDC was full of techie sessions.
Starting with a keynote from Pratima Amonkar(Director-Academia)
Then came a session on SQL Server 2008, which was as dry as my friend hari's bath towel. lol :D
The next session was delivered by Abhinav Gujjar on Windows Mobile Application Development. The guy was racing against time to cover everything within the allotted time and yet did an impressive job ...
Next came a photoshoot with all the MSPs in the amphitheatre ...
Followed by "networking lunch" with Microsoft employees. We got the opportunity to have candid discussions with some of them :)

We sat for a sessions on Cloud Computing(Windows Azure to be specific) by Archis Gore and Application Security by Varun Sharma with our stomachs full and heads fuzzy. :D
The last sessions for the day were on Windows7, IE8 & a 9 question survey by the three Musketeers.

A surprise party was announced for later in the night.

We got back to the hotel and headed to ASG's room.
What happened in there was bloody violence! Each of us guys were lifted one-by-one and our asses were made targets of football practice. I wriggled out of their hold the first time. But then they caught me again when i least expected it. Ouch! :D

Later it was time for MSPs to rock the dance floor. I was wearing the best party attire ever experimented with - Shorts :|
Anyways, the time at the dance floor saw me completely freaking out !!! \m/ :)

We had dinner by the poolside. I had scoops and heaps of icecream :D
This particular jackass got 2-3 of us drenched in water ... (i eventually had my revenge though ;))

We all watched KungFu Panda on the plasma tv (Phoenix had interfaced it with his lappie) before signing off ...

The final day at the IDC was devoted to Q&A sessions on MS academic programs and other stuff ...

Me, Sid and the jackass left the IDC campus halfway through and we headed out ...
Sid and me had one hell of an experience, travelling ;)








Later, i got on the train back to Chennai ...
Some freakomaniacs (have to give Watson, a mention here) were still discussing the internship test questions and trying to solve them. (Sigh! yet again) ...
I mulled over the events of the previous days, sitting near the coach door and with my legs hanging out...

The train arrived late next morning, enough for me to skip college ... lol :)

P.S.: This Blog post is incomplete and some portions have been left blank intentionally ;)