Sorry for the Hiatus...

I am really sorry for the hiatus I took from blogger for quite some time. My holidays have begun and I am not sitting around idly for the first time in my life. I have a lot of personal projects I want to complete before I return  to college on 20th. Yeah, that's right, my third year in college is coming right up baby...
You know it is amazing how fast life flows, sometimes you feel as if it has coagulated and is not moving at all, but on the whole, it flows just too fast. It seems so recent that I made my way up that towering staircase ( the Golden Walkway) up to my college for the very first time alone. I was scared and excited of this new, and unknown era that I was getting myself into. But right now, I am acclimated to this new environment, which admittedly is very different from a school, yet preserves most of its features.
But that is a whole different tale. I was talking about my holidays. One of my personal projects was an implementation of the game hangman, and thankfully that is finished. But it is excruciatingly painful to distribute it, because it requires .NET framework, and I can find no other way to get around it. So for now it is stuck in my laptop, with no one using it. ( The .NET framework can however be downloaded free from the microsoft site and takes about 20 MB space). Besides i can think of no one to distribute it to, and so, I have buried my first app and trying to think of a second one.
It's not all programming though. It can get a little frustrating if you code day and night. That's where blogging comes in. Two of my favourite pastimes, coding and blogging, what else can be life??? Oh and watching wrestling ( but the storylines now seem to be too bland).
Will keep posting...

Scripps National Spelling Bee 2012

The most prestigious spelling bee in the world today, the 85th version of the Scripps National Spelling Bee concluded just minutes ago. We have crowned a new champion. Snigdha Nandipati took the championship trophy in a final that lasted nearly an hour and 45 minutes. In the end, she spelled guetapens, a French derived word meaning ambush, snare or trap to clinch the title. This marks the 5th time in a row that an Indian origin speller has claimed the highest prize.

A couple of fan favourite knockouts in this year’s bee included Vanya Shivashankar, sister of 2009 champion Kavya Shivashankar, who was eliminated in the semi-finals. But hey, she’s got a lot of years left in her to return and claim her trophy, and you can bet that she does exactly that soon. Nicholas Rushlow made it to the championship finals, and tied for fourth. This is the last time we will see Nicholas at the mic, but it certainly isn’t the last that we’ll hear from this phenomenal young man. Arvind Mahankali was next to go, being placed third. He still has one more year left in him, and be sure to watch out for him next year. Snigdha and Stuti Mishra battled it out for some time, but in the end, Snigdha won it.

But the trophy is just the way competitions go. In my opinion, every speller who tried to that prestigious trophy is a winner. This goes with gold studded letters for the semi-finalists and finalists. What we see out there, on that stage, is the lives of these spellers. Pure unadulterated dedication, the passion to do whatever it takes to get on top, and the ability to brave the biggest guetapens of them all, pressure. This is all they need to make it big in their lives. This is success personified. In my opinion, all of them are winners.

Because having a dream, and having the ability to focus and work for that dream, and at the same time never letting go of your other pursuits, that my friends is the key to success and happiness.