Process Out of Control

The bell rang exactly at 2 o clock, signaling the start of my Process Control exam. The examiner started giving out the question paper. I had hardly prepared for the exam, with it being the last, I had already gotten into a holiday mood when I had written my previous exam. This being the toughest paper in the semester and having the highest number of credits, all my friends were breaking their head trying to memorize all the formulae and work out all the problems given in the reference books. I had spent my time sleeping, eating and blogging. Only on the night before the exams, did I touch my book. I just browsed through the important concepts and managed to memorize a couple of formulae. Before I could blink, it was already 11 in the morning. I had to rush to the exam hall and managed to reach just in time. As soon as I entered the exam hall and sat down in my place, the examiner shouted, "Is there anyone who doesn't have a hall ticket?" I checked mine, and saw the words "Examination Admission Card" written in bold. I thought I would raise my hand and say, "Sir, I don't have a hall ticket, but only an Examination Admission Card!" but decided against it. As soon as I got my question paper, I directly went to Part-B to check out the detail answer questions. I couldn't believe my eyes!! It was a fully theoretical paper! There was not even a single problem!! And all the questions were general questions. Nothing specific. I had this feeling that I could do this very well. I went on to read the two-mark questions. State Beer's law. I remembered studying this in my school, but the only beer that came to my mind in the exam hall was Foster's, and I didn't know what law they discovered, so I proceeded on to the next question. Define the term overshoot. Now I was definitely reading that term for the first time in my life. What do I write!! I decided to analyze the term critically. Shoot is something they do to kill someone. And "over" is something that denotes more. So, more killing?? Definitely not. And what was a "proportional band" supposed to be?? A band which had all its members having the same height and weight? I decided that I should may be attend the detailed answer questions first. The first one was a walkover, which was about an optical pyrometer. Though my diagram was pathetic, and I wasn't sure whether it used a rheostat or a Wheatstone bridge, I somehow managed to fill in a couple of sheets. I went to the next question. Explain in detail the software programs used in process control. This was tough. The only program I knew control systems used was MATLAB. Now, that wouldn't be enough for a 12 mark question. What other program would a process control engineer use? I decided to think like a process engineer. If I were a proces- contol person, what programs would I love to have in my computer? Answers came flooding into my mind. Winamp to listen to songs, VLC media player to watch movies, Firefox to browse the internet, Google talk and Yahoo messenger to chat with friends...I smiled to myself. I decided to never become a process engineer, because I would be fired anyways. I lost interest in writing the exam, but somehow filled my sheets with my "creative writing". I came out of the hall half an hour before it ended. I realized I wasn't the only one who finished the exam so soon. I even saw that Andy, my department topper, had finished before me. I went up to him asked him how he did it. "Machan, very bad da. I sat for the past two days and worked out all the problems in the book. But look at the question paper!! Scoundrels!! Nitwits!! @#$#$#@$@!! $%#@#...." I consoled him and started to walk to my hostel. I felt sorry for all those who wasted time studying for this dumb exam. And thanked God that I didn't waste my time studying and was blogging instead!!