Day 269: 30th Mar, 2010

Wrote a loooooong MIS paper today. Must admit it was an interesting open book exam; you had to do your bit of work to get the answer required.

Since most of INDEX core is leaving early tomorrow, we had a pizza session in the INDEX room. Finally got Vanki (or rather Saurabh :-p) to come out with the little secret :D

Last paper tomorrow - HRM. It must suffer being the casualty that the last paper turns out to be. Even more so considering it is the last paper of PGP1! Am not studying anything at all! Even went to the mess twice - once for celebrating Venkkatessan's and Bugger's birthdays (badly beaten!) and then once again to meet Dhamdhere and Maanas. It's now almost 4 and I have kinda yet to start. Am going to pull an all-nighter today (rather tonight). Have invested in a Red Bull to keep me awake through the paper tomorrow :D

Day 268: 29th Mar, 2010

Want to know how to incur the wrath of 130 of your batch mates? A perfect setting - an open book (book, notes, printouts, etc etc) MIS exam - basically something which you can survive without much prior input. But then Mr.I-am-so-smart sends a mail to the prof which says 

"Sir,

As it is an open book exam, why don't you allow laptops? Otherwise students take a lot of printouts and paper gets wasted."

He goes on to give this amazing statistic

"Even assuming each of us takes 100 prints (why would you!), it will be 13000 prints. blah blah"

Now no problem with the intention of the mail. Except that games are not to be played at such critical junctures. 

Pat comes the reply from the prof

"Mr.suddenly-conscious-of-the-environment (or is it Mr.you-just-finished-your-print-balance?),

No, LAPTOPs are NOT allowed."

so far, ok, but, it didn't stop there..

"But just to make things simpler, let's NOT have anything apart from the book i.e. NO printouts."

And this came at 10 in the night when the world was just heading towards the Computer Center to take prints! Needless to say, all plans go haywire. 2 sections full of angry people. The guy would have been lynched.

Fortunately, our CR's negotiation skills came to the rescue! And the prof agreed to the original clauses. Normalcy, you are most welcome!

PS: Just a note about the SCM paper - ctrl C, ctrl V :D

Day 267: 28th Mar, 2010

A day of celebration for around half the batch today. We had our FM2 paper today - which, for those anti-fin junta, would happen to be the last paper they would ever write in Fin.

Now, FM is one of those subjects where you have to read up something before the exam. But I woke up at 10.40 in the morning. And that too thanks to my wingie who walked by! And I didn't even realise exams were going on when I woke up, just wanted to continue sleeping :-| .. And usually the paper takes up all your time (and leaves you wanting for more). But, "the great ME" finished the paper a good 35min before time. But also, in no way is it supposed to indicate anything about the performance :-p 

In a way done with my exams. The remaining line up is:

SCM - open book

MIS - open book

HRM - even an open book won't help :-p

So I went and played some badminton today. (Haha.. excuses!). Didn't enjoy it too much, partly because the energy was missing and partly because I lost :-p

Prepared better for the open book exam this time. Went to the CC and took all printouts one day before! super improvement ! :D

Day 264: 25th Mar, 2010

Had our last class of PGP1 today.. I woke up at 10:01 for the 10'o clock MIS lecture. But I did want to attend it.. confirmed with Dhamdhere if he was coming. Reached class at 10:20 :-p .. luckily Sir didn't say anything. Captured a nice 8 min video :) And took the last snap in CR 103 for 2009-2010... a pic of the now empty classroom..

From there, yet another farewell.. to Pravin, who was finally leaving campus. The fellow would have stayed on if he could. Loaded with more stuff now - the best of the lot - speakers! :D . The speakers, though seem to have a little bit of Pravin's ghost or something.. as soon as I connected the speakers, I heard the 'Tum Mile' title song 3-4 times continuously. (Pravin used to hear the song in an infinite loop for days on end :-| .. much to the chagrin of his neighbour :D ..)

Two quizzes one day before the exam. Two ways to look at it:

a) Silly to bother us with this a day before the exam :-S

b) Good match practice, let's crack this one!

But people like me follow philosophy#3 - it's called "kya farak padta hai !"

Trying to study ADA since evening. I realised hearing about stuff from people isn't really working. So now I have been trying to go through the slides by myself.. 

Also had a refreshing entertainment session at the night mess - small drama over the room allocation thing. It was indeed funny the way some silly points were being thrown around by people, with super-animated pappa trying to fend it all off :D . As my friend Deepak said - "that's what happens when you put too many 'intelligent' people together".

Day 249: 10th Mar, 2010 - 'Pen'sive

Just yesterday I was happy that we were group 8 in ADA and it was only the turn of the 1st group to present. But as luck would have it, in an absolutely random manner, Sir simply called out one arbit group number and that turned out to be ours! :-S The funniest part was the prof even contemplated asking us to present stuff in the 4.00 pm lecture.. luckily the lecture was at 2.30pm leaving us with very little time, but a very big excuse.

Consequently got to present it tomorrow. Along with MM research assignment. And MIS. And SCM :-| . Not to mention the ADA quiz to be held in the evening. Practically the whole of section B was at the library today. Our group divided the tasks pretty neatly I would say. It's around 3.45 now and I just about came back from the lib some 30min back. Will sleep now - 8.45am lecture tomorrow. And I have work lined up to do in class. Like tweak the MIS assignment. And modify the hitherto-kept secret design :D

PS: Came up with a poem. Check it out at http://casualchronicles.blogspot.com/2010/03/pensive.html

Day 224: 13th Feb, 2010 - Maggu Divas

I read for only 2 hours for the MIS paper (an hour yesterday + an hour in the morning) and regretted wasting even that much time. The exam was full globe. We had one case study on eBay followed by three questions worth 5,5,15 marks resp. I (and most other people) have simply combined ans1 and ans2 to get ans3 :D

It's only the start of globe for the day though. Today the whole of PGP25 is celebrating 'Maggu Divas'. 5 chapters of MM and 12(!!) chapters of HRM to be mugged :-| . Am trying my best to motivate myself to study.. but even 5 min after I read something, I can't seem to recollect it :-(

The weather's beautiful though, just pleasant. Beautiful precursor for Valentine day tomorrow. If only I didn't have these exams.. and while wishes are being made.. if only I had a Valentine :-p

Day 219: 8th Feb, 2010 - Monkey Management!

Our section is quite (in)famous for asking for deadline extensions. True to the record, a few guys had been asking for postponement of submission of a couple of assignments. The efforts did pay off - the boring HRM journal reading task had been extended. But our FM prof's style of putting through the same point for his subject was awesome :D . His mail -

"The date for the first assignment submission is extended to 16th Feb 2010.

A line of advise for the lobbies. No more extensions on any course related matters will be entertained. You manage your monkey and I will manage mine.

Cheers until then "

Allowed myself to bunk a QAM class in the morning today to enjoy the luxury of some extra sleep :D :D

The next MIS class was the usual - scrambling to copy the assignment in the first 5 min, listening as the prof whiled his time (and ours) rambling on something that has no coherence or relevance to what he should be speaking on. Doesn't seem to be a good course at this juncture in the first place. Would have been much more logical to have a strategy course now and keep this as an elective next year.

INDEX room is now spacious, thanks to kisaan. Poor fellow had to become a mazdoor to unload the boxes at the shop :D . Had the extension of yesterday's meeting today. Things came to a logical conclusion.

Have my exams from day after. Doesn't seem like that at all. I have friends who are worried about tests a few days away.. and here I am to restore nature's balance.

And just as I finish writing this post, it's started to rain. Wonders never cease!

Day 217: 6th Feb, 2010

Boy, as I write this, my alarms to wake me up are going off :D . God knows why I set alarms at 6 am.. (Does it matter that I had a small nap from midnight to 4 am ;-) :-p )

As I spoke about the MIS class incident two days back, turns out the prof eventually asked the poor fellow to say sorry in front of the class. I don't think it achieved anything other than satisfying his ego.

Had a lecture on BTL marketing by a couple of guys from 141 Sercon. About the increasing relevance of using non-traditional methods of marketing esp. social networking. You could get more details on the session at my friend's blog.

Had our second SPIC MACAY performance, this time by the flute maestro Pt. Rajendra Prasanna. I don't understand much about the technicalities in music, but those natural sounds are very pleasant and soothing to hear.

Deshpande, Sud and me decided to have pizzas for dinner. We were randomly calling people to check if they would join us. Aman was one such call.

In that context, the conversation should have gone as:

Aman: Hi

Me: Oyee, pizza khaega?

Aman: blah blah ..

But it went like this:

Aman: Hi, who is this?

Me: (oh! so he doesn't recognise my number) .. (tough voice) Is this Aman Arora?

Aman: (a little nervous) Yea..

Me: This is the UP state police department speaking. (!!!!!! I have no clue why I thought of that!) Do you think you can get away with anything just because you are an IIM student?

Aman: (I can feel his voice becoming more tense) Sir, what have I done?

Me: (Raising my voice) Don't try to act. We know everything.

and so on for a good one minute.. and that was because I just HAD to laugh out loudly.. so I disconnected the call :D . Of course, we did tell him who we were in the next couple of minutes :p.

Chatted along for a while waiting for the pizzas. Ghate and Yogsconnect joined in later. Dominos cheese burst is so wow! :D

Day 215: 4th Feb, 2010

One thing I don't like at all is when profs continue teaching beyond their stipulated lecture hours. A one-off incident is OK, but some of them do this repeatedly. Two reasons why I don't like this happening. One, I feel a prof must have the ability to time his content. And two (more importantly), we often miss breakfast or even otherwise feel hungry after a session. Students look forward to grabbing a quick bite in the 15min break, and this is not possible if a prof extends the lec by 5-7 min.

Our MIS prof today asked us to start our presentation just 5 min before the lecture was to get over. Now that is unjust on two counts - no student would be interested in our presentation and our effort just goes waste + we miss our break. Even after pointing this out, he was pretty unrelenting and asked us to give our presentation anyways. A few people walked out, and unfortunately, one person was singled out by him. Not the kind of behaviour I would expect from a prof to a post-graduate student.

Had our first INDEX KT session - started with Shady's ancient wisdom. Session surprisingly went much beyond what I thought it would. The great thing was that it ended with us managing to convince him to give us all a treat (combined with Praveen). And so off we went to Genesis, all of us on bikes. Kisaan and Pachpan managed to even pull off the stunt on the pebble-laden road. Had a fun time there. I am loving INDEX more and more as the days pass by :)

Day 201: 21st Jan, 2010 - Zero Visibility!

Unlike yesterday, lots of classes today. Half the MIS class was spent in random gyaan. Passed the remaining lecture hours with Kane and Abel.

Immediately after class, had to leave for some urgent work - going to a couple of schools and handing over their trophies. (Riza chickened out because of the lathi charge rumour :-p). Didn't even have lunch.

Had the INDEX meeting with seniors - a small doubt clearing session sorta thing. Some useful points there. Worked a bit on a collage for the NB. But then Ops Guru called me to SC's room to tally some transactions. Got a bit delayed in attending Manfest 2010's cake cutting ceremony. Missed the cake!

It's zero visibility state on campus! Impossible to see anything/anyONE even a few metres away! and nobody on campus needs a cigarette to smoke :D

Day 187: 7th Jan, 2010 - One and half hrs = 5400 seconds!

I have a strong inclination to believe that Einstein thought of the Theory of Relativity while hearing a lecture as a student. I had that experience today. Not that I had not attended 1.5 hr lectures before.. but 2 of them back to back was(is!) a little too much! Time just doesn't pass!.. not even by the second.

Our first lecture was MIS. The class spent the first 10 min trying to convince the prof to hold 'practical exams' for ITC rather than theory papers. Another funny incident in class:

Sir: So.. how many of you want to specialise in Systems?

Sir: How come so few people want to specialise in Systems? Why did you all decide not to continue in IT?

Soumen : ever since we had ITC

:D:D

Was followed by the SCM class. This was followed by QAM 3 class, where our maths prof was more enthusiastic about teaching excel than the ITC prof! Good, it helped me definitely.

After many days, went to the city with Ashish in the afternoon with some INDEX work. Came back at around 6-6.30 - was already chilly. Had an INDEX meeting at 9.00 which got postponed. Took a walk around the campus with Saurabh. Came to know about this unique threat Poojavin uses to blackmail Saurabh :D . Finished off with the meeting and came back to my room and its been a LOST cause since then. It's 3 am now; a change from the last couple of days when I had been sleeping pretty early :-p . Guess I'll put myself to sleep now, or will it be another episode of LOST? Will tell tomorrow :-p