A Semester of All-Round Work

(This is a follow-up story of A Mom-less Home)

With the semester starting (started on February 1, to be exact), my mind was planning on how to get the household chores and the academic work together. It's going to be one heck of a job to pull them together... But u got to do what u got to do... Ain't nothing changed, here we go.....

U see, the timetable in IIT Madras is really different from what I know about the other colleges. Other colleges have a 9-4 timetable with classes every hour and a lunch break. In IIT, it's different. Our timetable is 8-6 (almost like training us for the boring 9-5 jobs atleast a few of us will enter). But we don't have classes from 8-6. Our timetable has slots, and each subject is assigned a slot, and classes only take place in that slot. Say Indian Literature is assigned slot A-it means Indian Literature classes take place only when slot A is there. 

Moreover, not all days have all the slots, and we have to learn only 6 subjects (ONLY?!!). That means our timetable is highly irregular-somedays classes start at 8 and ends by 12, somedays we have classes only twice or thrice, somedays almost all classes cramped together. This is the condition I have to work in, to do household chores and study at the same time.

On days that have an 8 or 9am class, my day starts at 6. Getting the water ready for drinking, washing the clothes, hanging them to dry, getting the rice ready-all in under 2 hours. If the classes start before 10 am, I make the breakfast myself-basically dosa with podi (gram powder mixed in oil). Else I have my father buy me the breakfast-chapathi with tomato curry. Classes go on till 12 in the afternoon mostly, and I get the curries from the neighbouring grandma. I eat it and wash the dishes by 12:45 to get ready for the 1pm class or go to sleep before a possible 2/3 pm class, provided no class at 1 (I don't like to be drowsy in any class). After the classes are over, I have to study and do assignments before 7pm, when I usually play badminton. However, if the workload is a bit high, game skipped for the day.

After the game, I make my dinner, which is basically reheated lunch, eat it, finish the dishes- this varies according to when I come back from my game- read a book and go to sleep by 11:30 pm. 

My mother has offered to come back sometime in the end of March. There is not much she can do around the house; she is still under recovery. Till the time she is okay..... 

(PC: Google Images)
I can tell you, I am not that pumped abt the current situation.