Day 463:30th Dec, 2010 - Load them HDDs!

It is that time of the year when PGP2s suddenly start realizing the one thing they will really miss post campus - DC++ ! Indeed, we would not have count of the number of times when this little piece of software comes handy when one is looking for - anything! Be it movies, sitcoms, academic material (The 'catchXX' tradition!) and well .. other stuff too :-p . DC++ has helped make heroes, the ones who are always there online, taking the load of most sharing (almost like the 80:20 rule), our hero being abracadabra. And to ensure I don't miss any of the treasure behind, I had purchased two 1-terabyte HDDs. In my super zeal to fill it up, a couple of days back, I randomly selected a user and endlessly added tonnes of stuff to download. And then realized I got some really bad speed from that user. And since I had added so much stuff to download, my DC would hang every time I clicked on the 'download queue'. Finally, 2 days and some 35 odd GB of download later, some stability has come back to my DC. All I can say is - let the party begin!

Speaking of parties, I had one for Sud's birthday - so 6 of us (Sud, Ghate, Justice, AdiJ, Bugger and me) went for dinner to Cellar. Some good food and lots of cheese. 

Had a sudden and unplanned but super splendid night out with Shanky and Chatur! One of my best ones. Two movies - Ip Man 1 and 2 and one ultra-hilarious music video :D . Just awesome. And then came back to my room to even finish off Notting Hill. That's one more movie than one can watch often :) . Not too sleepy even now, but I think it's a good decision to end the day on this nice note :) [at 5.30 am :D]

Day 462:29th Dec, 2010

Same old morning getting inundated with lectures. Seems like we also had to submit an initial proposal document for our FRA project. So sat around working on that for some time. Seems like a long time since I did anything like that. Finished that just in time to land up for the batch meet by Pcom - a small little "expectation setting" purpose. Poor guys, they really have to slog!

Went around to Dham's room later to get some feedback. Hope I get the chance to apply it too in the near future. Then went off to celebrate the birthdays of Sud and Sarin. The latter involved a couple of more "innovative" "celebrations" with Pappa employing his creativity to make a really gross 'maggi mix'! And what was even more creepy was that Sarin used that to wipe off the PINK cake off his face! :-S Eeeks!

Day 461:28th Dec, 2010

Oops, that one day of TT has left me with a nagging body ache.

Anyways, Pachpan came back to campus today (temporarily - he seems to be planning to live this term outside). And with him, came back the zealous pursuit of kiddish nonsense. The seeds though were (for a change) sown by MMR, who concocted one absolutely news piece of "information" about me. I had no intentions to have any stand on that, and that didn't help their cause (unless their cause was exclusively about fun). Even roping in Haathi, they went to confront Chatur. After a lot of data mining, finally they found something which eventually turned out to be absolutely out of context anyways. But yes, they did end up having a ball.

I spent a good bit of the evening arranging a gift for my Dad's birthday tomorrow. Somehow, I could not buy a greeting card, and even getting one now would not ensure it would reach home on time. So I spent some time researching other options. A little after going through the standard options of flowers and cakes, I came across a more innovative and hatke gifting idea. Promptly spent some time creating a collage of the (extremely limited) pics that I had; did manage to create a decent one though :) Felt good!

Went pretty late to the mess for dinner, but surprisingly, it was actually - hold your breath - good today! Simple but tasty food, with some nice kheer at the end for desserts. MessComm, why can't we have this everyday!

I skipped night mess thinking I'll retire to bed early. But as usual, reading random blogs have kept me awake for a lot of time. And a nice 1 hour long call with a close friend to end the day on a nice note :-)

Day 460:27th Dec, 2010

Just two classes in the day, but still that seems SO much in term 6. The morning class makes me wake up early. And the afternoon class doesn't let me doze off in the afternoon :P

But after a long long time, it was time for some table tennis. For these many days, we never played as I was the only person with a bat in the wing. Except that two days back we realized that TG also had one. And so the ping-pongs have started again. I joined them today, and played quite a bit all through evening.

But each time such an incident occurs, it is followed by only one thought - need to exercise! Even with this minimal physical activity, I am tired! :(

Day 459:26th Dec, 2010 - Miss :-(

Shit shit shit! Once again, I missed Taj breakfast! :-(

And this in spite of all the effort I took to wake myself up. Which included not having my blower switched on in this cold weather. And also drinking water to "build up pressure" :P . I don't know which of these worked, but disastrously I woke up only at 10.15 to a song that runs as "spiderman.. spiderman.. tumne churaya mere dil ka chain"! (Watch the link below at your own risk)

Congrats if you have indeed survived beyond that!

Woke up to realise not everyone had missed the breakfast ;-) . But anyways, I had the Dexter episodes. And a lazy Sunday got off to a murderous start :-P

Luckily, decent lunch in the mess. Mooli parathas, but more importantly they were well made. A couple of more episodes later, made my way to the Brand Management class. Nice prof. Our institute should get more of them to neutralize the location disadvantage. And to that the fact that they finish off their sessions in that one week :D

Day 458:25th Dec, 2010

Merry Christmas!

If Santa were to give gifts to people of IIM L, he would rather walk in during morning rather than late night :-p . Woke up real late today - 12.30 in the noon. No real surprise there though considering the time when I slept. Over lunch with Kisaan and Chatur, made strong plans to go for a city tour, which immediately post-lunch weakened mainly due to the laziness of others :( . Substituted that with the movie 'Eurotrip' - that typical movie which depends on hyperbole for the comedy quotient. Timepass watch though.

Went on a little walk around the campus. Felt nice doing some "activity" in an otherwise docile existence. Came back to my room to introduce the topper to my latest addiction - Dexter. An hour later, we and TG went for the consult session taken by our PPO boys - pretty good session, those guys had prepared well.

Ending the day with plans to go for the most elusive Taj breakfast!

Day 457:24th Dec, 2010 - Of Free Time and Flop Timing

Just another day - waking up late, and eventually having to rush even for the noon class. However, even as I was attending class, kisaan and TG made plans and booked tickets for Tees Maar Khan. So Budhi and myself needed to rush to Wave immediately after our class. And as luck would have it, everything that could go wrong did. In spite of a billion kicks (and cleaning of the spark plug by a nice auto-rickshaw walla present), my bike just refused to start. Spent around 10min arranging for another bike - got Dham's bike. Just as I sat and started it, Chugli pointed out that the back tyre had totally punctured! And finally, in that urgency, we had to fall back on Shakti's savari - Hero Honda Splendor! (In a way, the bike is good in such situations - you can't speed even if you want to!) But wait, this wasn't the end of the story. In my two years of extensive bike rides through the roads of Lucknow, never before had this happened - but today - we were stopped by cops! The only thing that didn't happen was that the bike didn't run out of petrol :-| . And I guess because we were going for a Hindi movie, we managed to have a happy ending - in the sense that - as usual, WAVE started the movie a little late, and we made it there just on time.

The movie was a typical Farah Khan - super high on all the filmi masala and overacting. Extensive reference and potshots at old and contemporary actors, not to mention a blatant reference to tonnes of cliches in Bollywood. The movie overall turns out to be OK, not as good as her previous two films. (Katrina Kaif is serious eye-candy though!)

Anyways, super duper free suddenly. Seriously need to plan activities to use my time more productively! To take a break from the heavy-duty Dexter, I even started off with another light comedy series - Modern Family! I should not be going down that lane, so fast!

And now, suddenly, for the past couple of hours, I have got myself involved in downloading a few more apps for my cell! And unknowingly it has taken me past 4am. Which means it is now 25th! Merry Christmas guys! Will go sleep now and hope Santa leaves me some presents :-P

Day 456:23rd Dec, 2010

The day began pretty early as I had to go for part 2 of the process. I overslept a little (was calculated though :P), but hey, nothing more important than a relaxed mind :D . No hot water anywhere in the hostel (including the bathrooms in the top floor!), so I had to make-do with a shave. Reached the pcom office pretty much on time, as it seemed like the interviewers also preferred a little extra rest after the longish night :D . The process was like any other - sitting and waiting for your turn, whiling the time, trying to understand and probably figure out the kind of things being asked to others. Came to know the chit chat basically happened on the HR questions, and that is what happened with me too. (Except for the one binomial expansion!). All in all, I though it went OK.

Came back to my room after the Leadership Discovery class and caught up with the sleep missed out earlier. Woke up and called up AP to find out that only two people made it through, one of them a friend who had got an extended shortlist. Good for him! (No suspense, the other guy wasn't me :D).

Didn't have much to do again. So back to the new addiction - Dexter. Just as I was starting up on that, MMR came up and told me that "as committee members", we had to attend a session (mandatory!) for some event that was being conducted. Didn't turn out to be a bad deal for him - he ended up winning a Blackberry! And not too bad for us - we got free pizzas!

Day 455:22nd Dec, 2010 - Suited up!

Our FRA class was full entertainment today. The prof has a weird sense of humor. First was his playing around with the a < b < c representation. Then his only and specific involvement of the Stex student in pronouncing the foreign author names. And then the interaction during attendance - "Does any friend of his know why he hasn't comes for any lecture yet? Not a single friend? Everyone is his enemy?" and in response to a guy saying someone was absent as that person had fever "Why are you feeling shy to say that? Did you give it to him?" :D

Came back to my room and suddenly it so happened a process was to start today. Had to cut short on my trading timepass in order to take a bath. My quest for hot water took me across to 3 sets of bathrooms, including the one on the floor above, but still - no use :( . This was followed by a sparse late lunch, a chai at Fauzi, a pre-scheduled meeting at the PGP office regarding my attendance (resulting in some absurd weird condition!), and some more home-made sweets at Chatur's room.

The entire evening went in the process. A small window period where a zillion possibilities were analysed. It is indeed a wonder how the brain works so fast under constraints. Eventually though, the final click of the button - whether to apply or unapply - came from the heart, MMR being a classic case in point. I hadn't been able to decide and continued being a part of the process, simultaneously making ISD calls to confirm more details. Anyways, I think I am more sure now, though with me one never knows :D. Have made it through to the next round - which happens to be early tomorrow morning. So need to wake up soon. So I better zzZZzz now. Adios!

Days 453,454: 20th-21st Dec, 2010 - Walking the last mile

Wow! Just can't believe the speed with which 5 terms have passed by!

Anyways, the combined post is because I slept off early yesterday, 8.30pm, a little too early infact for helL's standards :D. Not much to do yesterday. Finished off with the registration formalities. Caught up with a few stex-returned batchmates - finally saw the guy who lost half of himself back there! A few others who were back from stex also seemed to have lost weight, except of course for my good friend Kung Fu Panda, who seems to have gained a few more kilos of awesomeness :P + of course it was freezing cold and I had this feeling that excessive exposure to it wouldn't bode well. And hence, I just found a nice excuse to snuggle myself on the bed and get some sleep.

Today morning I attended my first class of the last term. (Even had breakfast after what seems like a zillions years!) Due to the PGP1 exams, we ended up having the class in CR103 - my old classroom. My actual seat was already occupied, so I ended up sitting one row behind. But that didn't stop me from reminiscing about all the super brilliant moments spent in that class - 3 cheers to section B for that! :-) . Then went to Chatur's room to gorge on all those sweets gotten from home. Not to mention the bonus of getting a few chocolates from the stex people nearby :D . And finally saw the movie 'Usual Suspects' - I found it OK.

Had a company ppt in the afternoon. Many more to follow. I guess a good amount of time this term is going to go this way. The funny part today though was that a Pcommer's name was called out and he wasn't there! :P . Had the burger in the mess (newly rechristened as 'Annapoorna') - seems like a 'Warm Welcome' sign with the most popular item.

Meanwhile, TG got his pappu. Spent some time talking about that, a lot more negotiating for the scale of the treat and then a lot more on random bakwaas. Which somehow ended up in the decision that we were not going to eat in the mess. And so we went to the (by now default) Brij ki Rasoi and stuffed ourselves to the max - no one else paid and it became a 'starter to the main treat' ;-)

Also Pachpan, Bala and me were riding triples and we kind of had a 'standstill skid' from the bike at 3.4 :D. Nobody got hurt or anything, but it was uncanny considering I had joked about it just that evening with a couple of other friends! Spoooky no?! :D

Slept off immediately when I came back. But then got up a couple of hours ago. Anyways, too much of pointless browsing done. It's 5.30 am now :-p . Good by helL's standards and have now more than made up for yesterday's early retirement. Time to go to sleep again so I wake up for tomorrow's class. Gn.

Day 452:13th Dec, 2010 - One last time (pseudo :P)

Had my last paper of this term today. Was an open book exam. And as usual, the prof set the paper such that the book would never been opened!

Some negotiations on my cellphone. The PGP Chairman was very nice though - go it back without much hassle :-)

Anyways, time for yet another week long break. See you on the other side!

Day 451:12th Dec, 2010

So exactly how casual and careless does one get by the time they reach the end of sem 5? I even forgot to fill in my name, roll no. etc details on the answer booklet in the morning exam! That was definitely more interesting than all the literature I think I created.

Had a "pizza party" for lunch. Dada, dhams, myself and some good old times.

And followed up that morning stunt with a ringing cellphone (2nd time in 3 days!) in the evening exam! Confiscated cellphone :-( . Even the ploy of sending able substitutes didn't work!)

Attended a general session on finance by an alum. An optional lecture that I attended a day before the exam - and good I did! Was a good one.

PS: Created a new record in Crazy Taxi! + Getting hooked on to Dexter!

Day 450:11th Dec, 2010 - Crazy Taxi wars!

One of my favorite days on campus! :D

No exams today. So the day started with getting up late, then watching movie #1 i.e. Social Network, then half of movie #2 i.e. Rakht Charitra, then a snack break and chat session with Haathi and his exact physically opposite friend, then 4 episodes of HIMYM and then starting off with a new series Dexter. And whilst I was in the midst of the 1st episode of the 1st season, Pachpan came back after his BF paper. Basically the whole idea was to disturb me :-p , so he took control of my laptop, paused my show, played 2 games of Crazy Taxi, scored poorly, cribbed about my laptop and 'how he couldn't adjust to my silly space bar key' and ran off. 10 minutes after that, I was urgently summoned to his room, only to be greeted with a wide smirk on his face and a computer screen that indicated that he had overtaken my painstakingly attained Crazy Taxi score!

And then came the golden moment. Exactly 10 minutes later. When I walked back into his room - his record eclipsed and mine re-established. Muaahahahahaa!! Brilliant moment! Best part is - now slowly a lot of people on campus are realising they are extremely jobless and choosing to effectively utilise this time on Crazy Taxi! So now, it's a war out there! :D

2 exams tomorrow (yes, it's a Sunday! :-( ..) . Doesn't feel like even one. All I pray is I should wake up on time for the morning paper! Gn! :)

Day 449:10th Dec, 2010

The problem with two-papers-in-a-day is that it leaves you with zero enthu for even a little studying in the rest of the day. Especially with addictive distractions like Crazy Taxi around! Consequently, hadn't started a word for PF yesterday. And not just me, nobody seemed to be doing it! This, even though, it was the scariest mid-term paper.

But of course, that had ensured that entire morning today was dedicated to it. One more super level threat from MMR - he is scary man when he does that! As far as answering the paper itself was concerned, I had to re-play my yesterday's role of the human photocopier. But this time from the question paper itself! You may find this very very confusing - but I really seemed to think all the answers were in the question paper :-| And I made good use of that!

But anyways, it had been a long long time, and we were still to celebrate the Summers of our INDEX facchas. So today finally, we all went to this place called UV (UltraViolet). The sad part was that the place served no alcohol (.. ;-) Muaahahaha! :D ) . The starters were nice, the veg main course was average (actually a little less than average). But the best part was the whole lot of chocolate that I had - 50% (shared with others) of - Kitkat shake, nutty mocha shake, cookie monster shake, choco chip fudge and a sizzling brownie :D . And no, I am still not (even a tiny bit) averse to chocolates! :D

Day 448:9th Dec, 2010

Had two papers today as I said. The 'D'readed has been avoided in EPA. And I became a human photocopier in the open book Serv Mark exam (pr. 402 + 420 of the text book :D).

The highly irritating and frustrating and unfair thing happened immediately after my exams. As I was walking out, I casually happened to check my attendance record on the notice board. And I was shocked to find that I had been marked a horribly high number of absents in spite of honestly attending enough classes! (Ironically in the same 2 subjects that I appeared in today). A grade drop without any mistake! Tried to get some info about it, but everyone had left. Need to work on this tomorrow!

Day 447:8th Dec, 2010

Didn't have any exam today. So woke up blissfully late and in a carefree mode. 

In the afternoon, the sudden fall in markets and specifically in a couple of scripts jagaofied the trader in Pachpan and my demat account was utilized to make a phantom purchase for him. (Unless of course, I profit in which case I can be all evil and keep the profit :-P). And as usual, people generally are eternally vella and the little activity in my room magnetically pulled more people here with the consequence of the multiplier effect eventually generating even more tp.

Anyways, I have two papers tomorrow. The evening one is an open book, open notes etc marketing case based exam - so basically no issues there. The worrisome part would happen to be in the afternoon - EPA! It was an interesting course but the problem is the paper would be completely application of theory. Which implicitly requires a prior knowledge of theory. So there I have been - trying to go through the slides and making sense of all the data and hypotheses and theories. Also, since I had missed one quiz, I had to write a critical review of one paper and submit it to the prof after tomorrow's paper. But since that would clash with my evening exam, I thought of getting it done tonight itself.

So that, a lot of Russel Peters (somebody's gonna geta hurt REAL BAD :D, SS's awesome level leg-pulling by Taklu and my usual tryst with random blogs is what has been keeping me up till 5.10am! And if I don't get some sleep now - I am going to be dozing off during the papers tomorrow! Cya!

Day 446:7th Dec, 2010

Had the CBM paper today. Would indeed be shameful to waste more time after getting up at 10am for the 2pm paper. Spent the next 3-4 hours diligently trying to mug up fundas from ppts.

But when the "both quizzes and midterm topper" stays right till the end of the paper, you can take consolation assured that you aren't the only one in trouble. The problem with a lot of questions is not in solving them but understanding the question itself! In fact, that is a general problem with MBA itself. A lot of things are common sense if you kept the jargons aside. But specifically with this paper - how one earth are you supposed to proceed if you don't understand the terms mentioned in the question?!

Got myself a new 'first' though - though not something to be proud of :-P .. my cellphone rang in between as I forgot to switch it off. Luckily, it being my first mistake, I was returned the handset later after extending an apology.

No paper tomorrow! Yippee!

Day 445:6th Dec, 2010

Pretty ordinary day. Except for the slightly hectic part of writing the conclusion for the BE project report and generally formatting it and bringing it in a ready-to-print state. Got the 6th sem timetable though. Another 6 day week, even in the last term. No big deal - the time has come to experience grade drops.

End terms starting from tomorrow. The "pressure" wasn't there after the 1st term itself. But now, even the "feel" is not there.

Almost 3.30am, and I am only through half of one ppt - that's making me super drowsy :-p. Gn!

Day 444:5th Dec, 2010 - Lucknow Mahotsav & some Fog!

While I woke up real late yesterday, had to wake up really early today (Sunday!), thanks to the SDM quiz that we had! Indulged in the good takeaway i.e. breakfast. And then got back to my room to resume my siesta. 

Slept right through most of the early morning and noon. Woke up at around 2pm to find TG knocking for my bike's keys. Now, I had come to know that today was the last day of Lucknow Mahotsav, an annual cultural fair than happens here. Couldn't visit that last year, and it would indeed be a shame to not go there in our 2 years of stay. So somehow, alongwith Pachpan convinced him too to join us.

But first, hunger pangs had to be dealt with. So the four of us (Mr. Happiness too) first made our way to Dominos for some of that awesome double cheese burst pizza. And then we rode and rode and rode and rode. And finally reached the Mahotsav place.

But guys, for those of you reading this, you must visit this if you are going to study at IIML for 2 years. The kind of crowd there was at that place was awesome! Super traffic - couldn't find parking space - till literally God came to our rescue and people started parking their bikes inside a temple close by! :D . The fair had that proper feel that you are so often shown in Hindi movies, a kind of place where you could easily get lost (BTW, it did happen amongst us too - twice). There was a big replica of Rumi Darwaza created as an entrance. And so many of those little toys - we bought all of them - the hooter, the horns, the bow and arrow, bubbles and a parachute! :D . It was super duper fun to keep playing with the hooter and try hitting each other :D. Saw the Maut ka kuan game after many years - so risk those guys take! The ferris wheel ride (somehow keeping just the 4 of us instead of the usual 6) was awesome too, mainly because of TG getting scared :-p. Lots of food items too, a tad expensive though, compared to the other items at the fair. There even was a concert by Sonu Nigam - free! And even before he had come, the crowds had gone berserk at the performance of one local singer - and it was at that moment that we got a substantially better idea of what the local Lucknow junta exactly wants ;-) . No wonder that Planet Salsa show used to be such a hit :-P 

The return journey was no less eventful. We took the shortcut route that goes to the airport. And maybe because of all the open space around it, but I saw fog so dense I had never seen before! Or rather never imagined could be! In fact, the fog was so thick, that at so many points, our shadow due to the lights from vehicles behind us, was being formed IN AIR! It was almost as if a wall of fog was in front of us. The visibility was so poor I could hardly see 2-3 metres ahead of me, that too with great difficulty! :D . So basically, summing up, AWESOME bike ride! :D . Need to have a couple more of these! :-p

Day 443:4th Dec, 2010

Woke up pretty late today. The good thing about that is it leaves you with that much less time to think and wonder how you will spend it. Not only for the time you were asleep, but for the next couple of hours spent away eating, bathing and generally in a state of laziness, drowsiness and inertia.

Late evening, when some senses were about to hit me and prompt me into some action, a movie plan came up. And off went Pachpan, Shomu, Chatur and myself to wave to watch Phas Gaya Re Obama. Now suddenly these kind of movies are being made these days which concentrate on one simple plot and weave a humourous story around them. And just like the rest, even this one turns out to be a pretty decent plot. Has a pretty ingenious climax too :D

We thought of watching one more movie straight. But didn't have enough time. So we just had dinner outside at the eatery in the lane behind Wave. For those who don't know, it is a pretty nice place. Very cheap, and good stuff. I had pav bhaji - they make it well here, but couldn't help remembering that I'll be having the authentic version in 10 days! :-)

Somehow, when Pachpan came to my room at night, the conversation restarted from where we left it yesterday. Discussions ranging from foreign profiles to money to entrepreneurship to career options to career goals to feasibilities and such arbit stuff happened in quick succession. Unintentionally took up quite some time.

Anyways, remember my CV work? A couple of people told me my 2 page CV is twice as weak :-P . So right now, I am remaking and remodeling it to fit it in one page. Using the great MMR's CV template - so well structured that I am finding it difficult to modify it :D. Finally getting to understand that thing though - more than anything, I keep learning a little more about MS Office through these little experiences. Anyways, have done some bit on the CV to get it down to one page. 4.30am now. Will get some sleep. Have a quiz at 8.15am! :-S . Hope I wake up.

Day 442:3rd Dec, 2010

Woke up suddenly to realise the SDM presentation was still pending. Sat on it and finished it off at one go. And consequently very efficiently played the role of 'slide-changer' during my group's presentation :D

These days, I am spending most afternoons in front of my laptop watching my new addiction - the stock markets. Dirty mind! :P

Once again, went to Brij for dinner. My bike just wouldn't start because of the cold - and therefore I found myself riding a junior's 200cc Bajaj avenger - man, 200cc is some power! Some extra riding happened, thanks to Shomu da exhausting his bike's fuel midway. Standard order - I don't think the waiter will even ask us the next time we go :D. And somehow, especially these cold winter days, Brij seems to double our appetites! We ate voraciously. Even the simple rice and dal here is SO awesome! Wish the mess picks up a cue!

At night, went to ask Pachpan a few things about a fin career. Ended up talking a little about that and a lot about a lot more. Jointly came up with a plan to salvage some lost time. Lets see how that works out!

Day 441:2nd Dec, 2010

Spent all the afternoon getting super bored doing routine stuff. That is why I decided to watch a movie in the evening. Saw 'The Illusionist'. Another movie which has magic as its backdrop (after 'The Prestige') and comes up with a brilliant climax.Time well spent.

And exactly at the same time as I was watching this movie full screen on my laptop, with earphones plugged in, it so happened my SDM group had a meeting. They tried to reach me through incessant pings and calls, none of which I realised :-p . But I am not to blame - they sent out the email at 6.20 asking everyone to assemble in the library at 6.30! By then, the show was already ON.

Had the CV verification activity late night. It is an essential activity, chiefly because of the tendency of a big big bunch of MBA students to inflate their "achievements" to unimaginable proportions. In fact, with the kind of figures people state on their CVs, one would imagine half of India's GDP is contributed by IIM L students. However, there are things about the verification process which need to be ironed out. "How?" would be the million dollar question though. It is ailing mainly from the same disease India's legal system and everything else is - the "influential" and "big" people know to bend the rules to win the game, while the system eventually often troubles the poor, simple lot.

Anyways, the process was running late - thanks to some in the latter category. I waited in the CC for my turn. Discovered something new ;-) 

My own verification happened quickly, as I had a simple honest CV with all the proofs in order. Now working on the SDM presentation for tomorrow. Halfway through it, but super sleepy. Will finish it tomorrow. So long!

Day 440:1st Dec, 2010

Today seems like a reallllllyyyy long day. I think it is substantially due to the fact that I woke up at 5am - yes you read that right - 5am today! After a quick bite at GnB (and of course, capturing the atrocities committed on their staff), we made our way to Lohia Park. Today being World Aids Day, INDEX was supporting the local government organisation in organizing a City Run to raise AIDS awareness. The run went off very well - had a good response from people.

Though all this meant that I had lost out on a lot of sleep over the past 3 days. Made up all of that with a nice and not-so-short siesta :D

Through evening till now that, one of my old temporary addictions is back - the hunt for good mobile apps. I must have surely mentioned this before - that the very reason I bought my present N79 is to explore for apps, as I see that all the great features of a phone are going to be delivered through independent software apps. One major problem with Symbian though is that it requires all software to be signed and have a valid certificate - which is a big big issue when it comes to some ingenious apps available at sidey-types websites :-p . Finally remembered the way by which I had resolved this issue. Had to go through the whole process though - thanks to the new IMEI number on my new handset :-p