So 1st things first. The story that is my project and my group. So we had a day to do our Oracle project which did not require more time than was given. I as always elected to take most of the work which the rest of the group didn't disagree with. So i was done with my parts in about 4-5 hours and i sent one of my members the code. I asked him if he needed help to integrate and he said no so i took off for lunch. I return about 1.5 hours later and he tells me he had to change some of my code. I was in agreement knowing that there always needs to be some code change to fit all the pieces together and i asked him if i could see what he changed. He shows me this whole new code. I was taken back and said that wasn't my code and he insisted it was and showed me my old code. I repeated a bit more rash and he agreed and said he had to use the code he "had" to fit with "his" code and the rest of the "group's" code. Hopefully if you have read my other blog entries you can easily see what i am alluding to. I was a bit furious and i look at the other code in more detail and notice there are so many unnecessary pieces there. I question him on why there is a certain statement there and as expected he does not know. The logic behind the code that replaced mine was terrible by way of having a function run itself to see if it works but then undo any changes the function had made... seems pretty worthless. Since the project was due in 10 minutes i said OK for them to use that code. When it came down to the assessment, guess which part of the code did not run correctly? Mine! Well... that is what was supposed to be mine but had been replaced by Mr. X's.... And guess what went wrong? The part of the function that was to undo the changes didn't properly work so the data got duplicated. Yay! Haha its a bit funny because of the irony.
While complaining/telling the story to my American coworkers they let me in on another little secret. Every month or so the Indians are required to take English tests including an auditory examination and a textual one. Apparently they cheat on those tests as well! This bothers me more than the cheating on the projects because during real project work, you can always ask for coding help from a more experienced member, but they should WANT to speak better English. Ahh enough about them. I got a B+ for the Oracle module and now we are doing Advance J2EE Part 1.
Onto Ooty! We planned a trip to Ooty this weekend. Instead of renting a cramped bus like we did for Goa, we decided to just split us up and take 2 Jeeps. We thought this would be better for space as well as power. We needed that power to go up the steep hills and crazy hairpin turns to get there while conquering the craters that was once called a road. When we finally arrived, just as we stepped out.. it rained. We dropped our bags off at the hotel and come back out to go to lunch and guess what we see? A SLEEPY DRIVER!!
We get one of these every trip. He was quickly woken and we went to get lunch as most of us had not eaten breakfast before we left at 7:30. We went to the "Sidewalk Cafe" which had pictures of burgers and dishes called Mexican Steak sizzlers. We walked in, sat down, and looked at the menus. Where's the beef? We asked and apparently there was a veg restaurant. UGH DECEIVED! So we ate there anyway. Things not out of ordinary for us but for the folks back home, the power went out mid meal, food took a long time to arrive, and the bill took even longer to arrive but when it did the waiters stand right near you like a hawk as you try to split the bill.
While eating the rain became a storm. We ran from store to store because there was nothing else to do. Not much here to buy that you cannot find anywhere else. We finally decided to go to a Cafe Coffee Day and chill there until the storm subsided. It finally did about 3 hours later. By this time the group went to the local Gardens and then dinner. It pretty much rained for a bit again and then we decided to just head back to the hotel for the night and played an hour long game of UNO that had no winner.
The next day the weather was much nicer and we went sightseeing after breakfast. We drove past some more mountains and villages and went to a tea factory to see how tea was made. It was pretty cool but i expected it to be a big bigger.
After the tea factory we took a long drive up to "Dolphin's Nose" which is another high elevation scenic spot to take photo. I didn't think it was anything special. I think Europe was more beautiful when it comes to landscape. But driving past we see this little guy... and his father on the other side.
The drive to "Dolphin's Nose" was so long that we all got tired so we got lunch and took off home. If i have time I'll start a list of things India needs to improve upon. Otherwise... Thanks for reading!
P.S. Even though I am here in India, I still read the news and i want to wish the families of the vicitims in the VT massacre the best and hope they recover quickly.
LETS GO RANGERS!
