A Road to Perdition (Well not exactly..:P)

Well. This post was long in the coming. I wanted to write it for more than one year. I will clarify a few things first. This post is not intended to be some CAT guide, nor an inspiring story for any one. Its just to state things as they happened from my point of view.
Year -2004 Some young guy from COEP appeared for CAT without any preparation and scored an amazing 98.3 percentile. That was my first introduction to CAT.
Year -2005 The same gentleman scored 99.89 percentile and bagged all the 6 IIMs calls. Finally, he converted L, K and I. I was fascinated. The same year 2005/06, I got an admission in Computer Engineering in COEP. Soon, in my second year, it became clear to me that I was not a technical guy. It was not that I was bad at coding but simply did not find the subjects interesting enough. As a result, I spent more time on Boat Club in next 3 years than in Computer Department.
Year 2008- I joined Career Forum with Rohan; but did not even attend 25 % of the classes. Afterall, I had Oracle in my kitty; so clearly there was a lack of motivation. I tried my hand at the mocks but the result was going to be a writing on the wall. CAT 2008, the last paper and pencil CAT, went without any major incidences. My score - a mere 87 percentile.
Year 2009- I joined Oracle in June and soon my CAT fever was back. Moreever, I knew why I wanted to do MBA. The motivation was there but still I was far behind in preparation. I joined TIME AIMCAT series in August when almost half of the mocks were over. I prepared haphazardly, without any plan. And soon my preparation met another roadblock when I went to San Francisco ,US to undergo one month training at Oracle's headquarter. It was the first week of November with CAT less than one month away. Somehow I convinced my manager that I would return one week earlier than others in my group, as I had to appear for CAT. In this memorable time in US, I enjoyed a lot. But there was this constant fear.CAT. I tried to prepare as much I could. Even missed a 4 day trip to Las Vegas for preparation. I know I would be the laughing stock for years to come as I had missed the chance many would simply die for..:P
6 December 2009, D-Day, 1500 hrs -1730hrs After 22 hours of journey, I came back to Hyderabad and appeared for CAT the very next day. The paper was easy enough compared to previous years' CAT. But I simply could not make the breakthrough. The morons from Prometric had another surprise in their bags. They declared for RCs and DI caselets which had 2-3 questions on same data, it was Compulsory to attempt all of them as individual attempts would not be counted. The reason, ambiguity arising from the instruction- " Following data is common for Question x-y. Please be sure to attempt all of them." I was naive enough to beleive them and attempted Qs which should have been left alone. I knew I was not going to make it as soon as I finished the exam.
28 Feb 2009 The CAT results were out . 95.64 percentile. Simply not good enough. As expected, I did not receive any IIM calls. To add to the gloom, I had flunked VA which was my strongest section with a percentile of 86.*
Year -2010 I started all over again. This time I was more determined and lot more systemetic than earlier. The AIMCATs were not going so good but I knew I can make it on the D day. I cleared the cut-offs sometimes but was not a consistent performer. There were times when I doubted myself after a really tough mock. But somehow I kept going. I knew I had to .
22 November 2011- It turned out to be the perfect day, as I found all the sections doable. Final attempts were QA-16 VA-16 DI-18 Still, I was not happy as I missed a simple RC with 2 Qs in my hurry to finish off VA. I felt I would miss the cut-offs by a fraction because of this. Also, the normalisation was a mysterious force which Prometric was going to unleash on all of us.
12 January 2011- The results were out at midnight. I could not control my curiosity, got up and checked my result. I could not beleive what I saw on the screen. QA-96.34, DI-99.18,VA-99.50,OA-99.84 I got A,B,C,L,I calls apart from SP Jain and MDI. It was an amazing feeling. The interviews were there and I knew it was the final hurdle. Whatever may be the result of these interviews, my journey for CAT was a great experience. There were people who always helped me throughout this journey. Aniket Khasagiwale(Khasgi) was a constant source of motivation and so was the gentleman mentioned at the start of the post. (Incidently he happens to be my elder brother..:D). Shishir and Mandar were the ideal flat partners. Nikhil Sarode and Yatin Kamat were partners in mischief ( and I hope they convert their calls) as I discussed with them everything about CAT. Finally, my parents and my best friend are the ones who truly motivated me to go for it. I donot want to thank you guys but just acknowledge your credit..:D
P.S.- IIM A,B-reject C-selected . So going to join IIM -C. \m/