281209 - The Mysore & Ooty Trip

My sister came to Bangalore a few days back to enjoy the holidays. We planned to visit Mysore and Ooty for Christmas. We went to Mysore on 24th and conveniently stayed in Hotel SreeRam before planning for the next days visit to the city. When bachelors are on a trip there's not much to concern about but its exactly the opposite when you are on a family trip. We thought it better to book a travel agency Bus. We knew that our decision was bad mid-way into the next day.

We were ready bang-on-time next day morning but the Indian Bus came an hour late. And guess what? First, it was a Khatara Bus and second, we were the first to be pickedup which meant some more time wastage. The Khatara finished pickingup everyone by 10:20.

We first visited the Art Gallery which was no different than its twins. Then the zoo where we saw the giraffes and had to walk a lot. After that we went to Chamundi hills to give a visit to the temple. They were nice. In the afternoon, we went to visit the Mysore Palace which was simply awesome. In the evening, we headed towards the Brindavan Gardens where we enjoyed the musical night after struggling hard with the traffic.

Next day, we planned to go Ooty. The sad part of the plan was that we thought of coming back the same day and it was Chritmas time. We didn't get any seat in any of the buses and there were o cabs available for hire. We wasted our time uselessly near the bus Stand. By the time we got tickets in a bus @ 3 pm, there was no time left to visit any place in Mysore. So we went to sandlewood shop and the Mysore silk saaree shop.

We started for Ooty in the afternoon and reached there nearly mdnight. Next day, we booked a taxi and visited a few places. Boating was the centre of attraction as it was an awesome ride through the clean water of the Lake. We somehow managed to visit the important places except the Dodabetta point.

Overall Mysore is a nice place worth a proper visit. Ooty is also nice but not better than Munnar. I would like to give one more visit to Mysore, a couple of days infact.

061209

6th December, the C-Day. While filling up the form 88 days back, there were so many doubts about the conduct of online CAT in mind which only increased when I faced the Prometric interface for the registration. With a few technical glitches, unexpected from an international testing company, it was just an optimistic hope that the CAT will be conducted properly this year.

I reached the centre, RVIM by 1:20 pm, 10 minutes before we were expected to reach. But we were made to stand in the sun (Thanks God its Bangalore and Winter season) and the gate was opened only @ around 1:50. Then our photo-id, cat voucher and admit card were checked and we were let inside. After depositing our belongings in a separate security desks we proceeded towards the testing lab. There we had Biometric tests where in they took our photograph and finger Print scan.

We have had enough time to relax and get used to the testing environment (and the system). The process started before time and it really took more time than it should have. Disobeying the rule, I had to look into the screens of others to check whether its just me or everyone else. After a few steps of logins and clicks, we finally got to the screen where the buttons of staring the exam and the tutorial was there.

I started my tutorial and though I knew what all are there in that tutorial, I looked at it properly for any changes. None were there. I pressed the 'End Tutorial' button to end it. It asked a confirmation and got back to the page from where I went to the tutorial.

I started relaxing as my next step was to start the test. After about a couple of minutes, I looked at my screen which showed a button called 'Resume Test' and below it 'Time Left 0:00:00'. Though it was mentioned in the instructions not to look at others' screen, I looked at the screen of the two guys sitting next to me in both directions. Both had buttons called 'Start Test'.

I could find no other way out than to call the invigilator. Thank God that he knew the solution of that particular problem and he re-logged and restarted the entire process. By the time I started mine, almost everyone in my room were 15 minutes into their test. I knew that I was going to be tested psychologically in the last 15 minutes.

The rest of the test went on smoothly and when I finished, I saw that I still had 14 minutes and a few seconds left for my test to b over. I started to revise my weakest section - Verbal. Just then, the others finished their tests and were told to remain seated in their seats until everybody finished. After about 7 minutes, they were asked to leave and only one guy apart from me was left in the room.

I finished mine and came out with a broad smile on my face. The test went f9 and attempting all questions was surely going to boost my confidence.

I enjoyed the rest of the day.