Interesting Facts

Today, I had my semester practical examination in Internet Programming lab, which turned out to be quite special in many ways. I must admit, I didn't invest much time in preparing for it; only about 30 minutes earlier in the morning, from 6:15 to 6:45. The lab required us to create a chat program, the only one that needed some prior preparation. However, my mind was still lingering on the excitement of watching Champions League T20 games and playing International Cricket Captain the previous day, where I was delighted to see another team from IPL making it to the next round. With my thoughts on cricket and fun, I wasn't exactly in the mood to study.

Eventually, I did manage to get myself to study, but I ended up playing International Cricket Captain until 8:00 AM. Consequently, I left home quite late, at 8:15 AM, but thanks to my trusty Getz and the uncrowded road, I reached college by 8:25 AM. The exam was scheduled to start at 8:30 AM, and although I didn't even bother to study the other programs, I felt oddly confident about this exam—similar to how I had felt during my OOPS lab exam.

As I entered the lab, I had to pick my lucky draw from a stack of sheets, signed in on the attendance sheet, and glanced at the questions. One question required creating a simple HTML page, while the other involved displaying the date and time as the mouse moved. Initially, I thought it would be a piece of cake, and I took my seat with optimism. However, the second question had a slight twist—it demanded the date and time to move along with the cursor of the mouse. It was then that my brain conjured up a solution involving the use of "document.getElementId('component').style.left = '100px'," but I had forgotten this detail, which I later recalled after some time. I eventually managed to add a div and set the innerHTML so that a span inside the div moved accordingly. It took some trial and error, but I eventually got it to work.

By 10:15 AM, I had completed both programs. This lab was the second most challenging one I've encountered, with the first being data structures during my third semester. I still remember the pleasure of doing something different from the usual routine while grouping a set of numbers based on the number of digits repeating in the numbers. As luck would have it, I had only prepared the chat program for this exam, and it turned out that I didn't even get that one. It seems this kind of luck follows me since a couple of semesters back, I had painstakingly learned 8086 Microprocessor programs, even simplifying some given by my Ma'am to the class, but during the exam, I ended up with the simpler 8085 programs.

Today's lab marked the end of my B.E. degree labs, and I can't help but feel a tinge of sadness knowing that I won't be experiencing labs again. Nevertheless, this last lab exam will be etched in my memory, mainly due to that tricky mouse question that challenged me to think creatively.