Day 522:27th Feb, 2011

Spent quite some time watching the match today. India batted first against England, and posted a pretty good score, though definitely less than what it should have been :-S

Shortlists for most of the impending processes tomorrow (the top marketing and GM profiles) are out. Didn't make it to any :-( . Still don't know why that happens. Hopefully it's not an impending sign of times. 

And since I did not have anything to do (and because the shortlist gave me no motivation for any more studies :-p) , trudged my way back to the gym, mainly to get some endomorphins alive and kicking. And then a little more tabbed browsing :)

Day 517:22nd Feb, 2011

Woke up (at noon :D) to find the adjunct student finally back on campus. Which meant sweets + tp (including fooling him about the "insti party") + lunch at Fauzi + pulling his leg by drawing attention to his Pcom group mates :-p

Spent the afternoon trying to rank companies. Made one initial list. Tried doing it on an excel first, then figured it was pretty useless to do that. Directly did it on Aghanim. Came up with a preliminary list - first cut, ranking around 70 companies, many of which might not even come on campus :D . par umheed pe toh duniya kaayam hai

Pachpan keeps complaining about always feeling pressure only on his biceps and forearms, whatever exercise he does! Finally today, he realised the importance of doing the exercises right rather than trying to be all macho and add high weights, thanks to your truly and one junior. And sure enough, the 50kg on the triceps press came down to 32kg :-) ..and still had him gasping and clenching his teeth :-p

Post dinner, sat down to finally finish off with the rankings. Came to know Ms. "sincere-as-ever" Chatur ranked 170 companies as against my 95 :D . In spite of having every DayZee shortlist! :D . Talk about confidence :-p . And then, for some strange and still inexplicable reason, started reading some fin at 2.30am :-| . And surprisingly, have sustained myself in that activity till 5.30am. Guess that's enough of being a Valuation God. For now ;-)

Day 514:19th Feb, 2011

Since quite some days, there was this one tab that I hadn't managed to close. It was a youtube video, part 1 of a 6 part series. Finally saw it out today. Came to know about this solo adventurer called Mike Horn and the amazing challenges that he has conquered - covering the equator, travelling the entire length of the Amazon, going around the Arctic circle, etc.

Had missed out on donating blood the last time around, wasn't going to miss it again. Felt good. Got quite a bit to eat as well :P

Skipped gym to instead settle for some Bridge. Mr. Tiwari was leaving for his hometown and hence the request had to be honoured. Didn't play too well though, probably the lack of practice :( . Went to the mess for dinner; found it to be so bad I settled for a glass of milkshake instead. A little more form filling after that - today was a short one from this paint company. Squeezing answers in a small box with a small font was fun :-P , even wrote a couple of new incidents!

And magically, it's 2.40 now. I just don't seem to have a clue on what I do to make time pass by this way! Do I need to get checked for a multiple personality disorder? :P

Day 513:18th Feb, 2011

Woke up (pretty late) to find that I needed to give the final touches to the FRA document. Got that done just in time to have some (crappy!) lunch, and then dashed off for the Jack&Jill ppt; only to find the guys walking in a complete hour late :-x . And then break the promise of finishing off the ppt in an hour. (No, the few soaps and lotions that were distributed did NOT compensate!)

Some intensive chest exercises at the gym today. Also spersed with some triceps exercises and a 3km run :D . I can feel my muscles getting tougher now ;-) . Might be a little biased though :-)

Had kutte jaisa bhook and even the dinner at the mess was really sad. Kisaan had gone to play a cricket match for sikander and so poor me had to go all alone to Fauzi. But then, you just need to sit at Fauzi for two minutes and you are sure to get company :D . Had dinner with cyberKGP and my Bridge colleagues, funnily over giving some Fin electives' gyaan to some facchas. Had a marketing session scheduled just after that; attendance wasn't mandatory for me, but I figured I wouldn't be doing anything productive anyways. With that simple logic, I went along. Don't know what I learnt, but I know I didn't lose anything.

The night mess visit that followed suddenly left me with a new brainwave - we get brownie there, heated up, with chocolate sauce. How about buying an ice cream from Guptaji to have some home-made (not so) Sizzling Brownie?! Definitely an idea worth a try I guess!

Went to my INDEX junior Mak's room to collect KungFuPanda's sweatshirt. Also ended up giving a little electives' gyaan to him as well. Poor fellow reminded me of the crossroads I was standing at last year...

I think I need to start locking my room when I leave. (Have I mentioned I (and many others) NEVER lock the door of the room while going out?). Yesterday had the instance of a friend randomly posting a status update from my FB account, regarding the way my name is (mis)spelt. Today, I suddenly saw my USB mouse was missing. My detective instincts told me the suspicion would be on Bala. And then, true to his remarkable style, Bala gave yet another demonstration.

Me: Do you have my mouse?

Bala: No, it's with Kisaan

Anyone reading the above statement would infer Kisaan came and took my mouse. But no, the great Bala came, took my mouse, went to Kisaan's room, gave my mouse to him, and took his mouse. And on my quizzing a little more about this 'arrangement', I was (in his characteristic style) "ordered" to use my "hands" till my mouse is available again :-S . The e-sikander AOE addiction :-S

Anyways, my intentions of sleeping early have gone bust big time. Been randomly reading stuff (as usual). 4.20 am now. Just read a random mail from some committee on campus who (God-knows-why) called someone, and now we all mandatorily will have to attend that. Arghh!!

Day 512:17th Feb, 2011

Yet again I woke up at dawn! And took me a good 30 min or so to get back to sleep again. Fortunately woke up earlier than yesterday. Too much inertia though - skipped breakfast.

I seem to have made my 'casual steps' into an algorithm to pass off the day. Stuck to it. Lunch, laptop, gym, dinner. And that's a little flexible in the sense I could squeeze in 2 movies today, due to well, lots more free time. Fight Club was kicka** I thought, but Rocky Balboa was kinda disappointing, didn't match up to the Rocky series one bit.

And in the midst of all this, I found time to fill in the rudimentary details and then flunk the numerical part of this STeN-Chy online test. In a way, lucky for me; was saved from the 150 question long psychometric test which most others flunked :P

And then, I probably became the one of the only 4 PGP2s still working on a project - yes, the much discussed FRA. As noted previously, we thought we should be giving in more decent stuff. Spent around playing a little bit with some databases we have subscribed to (OK, only one database. OK, that too was done by my friend :P)

Was pretty sleepy somewhere then in between. But the night mess seems to have driven it away. And now at 5.20am, I am unfortunately not sleepy, but hungry :-S . Look on the bright side though, my sleep won't be "disturbed" at dawn :P

Day 511:16th Feb, 2011

I think third day in succession that my sleep got disturbed at dawn. Pretty cold today though, thanks to a fresh bout of rain. The poor blower's post winter break had to be abruptly cancelled :P

The next (and thankfully final) waking pit-stop happened straight at 12.15 noon :-S . No semblance of any afternoon though - it was a tad bit dark and still drizzling. But amazingly beautiful - clean and green in a way only nature does :-)

Typical vella day otherwise - mostly spent sitting in front of my laptop. Resumed gymming though! Was dead tired and wanted to go for a quick dinner, preferably outside. But neither did plans for 'outside' work out, nor did the 'quick' part, as my room was invaded by TG and Sheldon Salhotra for some INDEX budget clarifications. Luckily though - TG agreed to come for dinner to the ever-dependable Brij. Ate right till my oesophagus was full :P

Day 505:10th Feb, 2011 - You bet! :P

Had our Brand Management paper early in the day today. The paper was one DI problem; no issues :-) . Though I do feel it might be a good idea for profs to make it clear that the book/slides are never going to be used in the "open book" exam. Might as well save some paper & printing ink and contribute to the environment.

Followed up the exam with a movie (after a long time!). We went to see Sanctum, a James Cameron movie. Being in Lucknow, we are compelled to watch such 3D movies on a normal 2D screen; though we got to sit on 125/- seats for 100/-, thanks to the theater being practically empty :-p . The movie was OK; I guess the 3D stuff is the essence of the movie.

Had higher motivation to go to the gym today - had to win a bet, condition being I would do 3 sets of 10 reps with 44kg on the chest fly machine! And yes, I did it, rather comfortably :-p . Though from today, I have started a more disciplined regimen :-)

I have no exam tomorrow. Tried putting myself to sleep but didn't feel particularly sleepy. So some change in plans. Just spent an hour enjoying with the ipod earphones tucked into my ears, listening to some soft music and of course, regaling people around with my rendition ;-)

Day 504:9th Feb, 2011

Had our Product Management exam today. The trickiest part about the paper was that answers seemed to be only of 20-30 words, but they carried 5-10 marks. Now, our classic Indian mentality simply does not allow us to write such "short" answers for so many marks. So all effort went into inflating the actual answer to as-much-as-you-can levels :D

And very very surprisingly, I think it's around 2-3 days after which I am sleeping past midnight :-O . That's so NOT like helL, but I guess gymming takes its toll ;-)

Day 502:7th Feb, 2011

Woke up early, had breakfast! Then started getting bothered about the FRA project which was due, in 5 hours :-| . Went to the rooms of two of my group members; both were sleeping :-| . Man, term 6 is special! Anyways, one of them told me he had seen "a little" of what's to be done, and that he would come up with "something". Pretty risky terms in that statement, but I was helpless as I anyways had to attend my LD class where again our final presentation was due. That went OK. 

Immediately after my LD class, I contacted my group mates. As guessed, we were still close to have done nothing. Got an AMR guy to do "some regression" on "some data" and get "some result". Meanwhile, I even had to go to our prof to get our presentation scheduled, since we had already missed our alloted time. The good thing is profs are cooperative, definitely so in term 6 :-) . He agreed to see our ppt without any fuss, and having seen our ppt, very calmly declared the lack of effort, but fortunately he gave us another deadline to make improvements :-) 

The good part was in the small time gap between negotiating with the prof and waiting for my group to come, I managed to jump in and have some gulab jamun and Kwality ice-cream for this company's ppt which I didn't even attend. But as you sow, so you reap. The ppt that I was stipulated to attend - for the same company's IT division - didn't have attendance taken. To add salt to the wound, the next ppt which I skipped for my gym session, had attendance :-(

But God's generous. Good ending to the day :-) . Pizza for dinner - KungFu Panda's treat for his General Management PPO! And then lots of (re)Beginner's Luck at bridge! Naice!

Day 499:4th Feb, 2011

Woah! Seems like someone forgot to tell the fog that winter's over! I woke up pretty early today, at 6.30am the first time. As I stepped out of my room, I saw that the dense blanket of morning fog is back. I hope it does not bring along it's friend - Mr. Cold.

Had made a lot of plans yesterday on what to do today. But eventually, the first thing I did with the extra morning time (apart from breakfast :D) was finish season 1 of Heroes :-S .Couldn't help it, but at least now there is some closure on that front (pls God, don't make me start season 2).

Spent the early part of the evening doing some pending INDEX work. Post that I had one company application which I wanted to finish - 3 HR questions for a major FMCG company. But I had already missed gym since two days, and for sure I knew if I skipped it today, I'll fall out of the habit. And thus the choice was made - I even added a complimentary run around the campus to make up :P

Post (yet another) dinner at Fauzi, my room was raided by INDEX juniors trying to reconcile accounts :D. Now now, that part is going to be fun for them :-P . I have a report to make by tomorrow noon, analyzing the leadership styles of 2 people from the industry. Still deciding whom to choose so I can make optimum use of resources ;-) . Add to that I am feeling all tired and sleepy... may be ... tomorrow morning...

Day 494:30th Jan, 2011 - INDEX 2010: The End

Successfully made it to class for the presentation. That may partly be because of the early morning call I got from one member of my group to wake up Pachpan for some inputs for the presentation. But when we reached the class, and showed it to the prof, he said some additional things needed to be incorporated :-( . Task unfinished.

But none of that was really important. Today was to officially mark the culmination of one long journey - we had the final presentations and results of INDEX 2010 today. That made sure our afternoon was totally engaged, collating the results. It's really sad to see some deserving teams lose out very closely, but I guess that's just an unavoidable part of the game. It's harsh, but you got to do what you got to do! My heartiest congrats to the winners - Team S.I.G.Ma (Special Interest Group in Marketing) as well as to all the other teams for all the fantastic effort they put in.

After resuming my gymming, it was now time for some celebration! We went to this new place Cassia - a buffet kinda place (modeled on BBQ). The chinese was good. And desserts are always good :D . And the best part - it was converted into a treat from Haathi, Kisaan and MMR for their placements! :-)

Day 477:13th Jan, 2011

Woke up pretty early today. Around 7.30! In fact, so early, that I went for breakfast exclusively with that intention, as I would otherwise start feeling really hungry by lunch. Just can't remember the last time this would have happened! Spent some of this early time closing up some of the many opened tabs in my chrome window. But compensated that by opening up a few new ones :-(

LD, lunch and BM took up the afternoon. Evening once again was spent working my thighs and calves off at the gym. To put things in perspective, during dinner, I came to know that I was burning 4 times as much calories as Shanky (who is twice my size). 

Have been putting off washing my clothes since quite some time. Since it is so cold (and therefore absolutely dry and non-sweaty), t-shirts run for more than one day. But the limit actually gets defined by the more critical category - undergarments :P . As a matter of fact, 2 days back, I bought a few new ones just so I could delay the washing cycle :D , but didn't have that option today. Yea, agreed we have a washing machine and our job isn't that tough, but it is still very boring to (typically first wait for the machine to be free,) put those clothes in the machine, wait for them to get washed and then dry those cold things with your bare hands. Just had to be done though :-S

Finished off with some little INDEX work - a little excel sheeting to have a digitized record of my expenses.. Followed that with some Big Bang Theory. Positive development for the day - Equal gym effort as yesterday, but managed to stay awake further.

Day 476:12th Jan, 2011

I am so often super quick in taking decision and action on stuff many people would consider trivial :P . When I checked my mails in the morning, I saw that we had one from Oculus, inviting us to quickly sign up for IIMPrints - the Annual Yearbook of IIM Lucknow. The yearbook has a one page testimonial each, for all students of the outgoing batch, prepared by their friends. Pronto, I signed up to upload the same for Pachpan and Chatur.

I was happy to attend the FRA class today, since it meant I could miss the ppt I was scheduled to. Unfortunately for me, the ppt got postponed due to some flight delays. Went to my room, changed and got back - only to find out there wasn't even attendance for this one! Damn :-(

A long 3-4 day break from the gym. Definitely motivated myself to go for it today. Am also trying to see if I can go for the 10km run at Manfest. To that end, practiced quite a bit on the treadmill and cycle and a couple of other leg-strengthening equipment. Really exhausted! Attended the brand man class immediately after that, followed by dinner.

Super tired and sleepy though. Will doze off soon tonight.

Day 469:5th Jan, 2011 - Life in a freezer

A surprise test greeted us today in the FRA class. Luckily for me, it was non-evaluative :D.

But the big thing to write about would definitely be the temperature here! The barometer is hitting rock bottom! I woke up at 6.15 in the morning to check why my heater had stopped working. Only to realise it has not! :-S . It is THAT cold! And the fog too! At 9am, I can't even see Umang (the sports center - easily visible from my balcony usually).

Had a company ppt to attend late evening. Inspired myself to squeeze in a quick gym session before that. Didn't feel too well though. Managed only 3 minutes on the tread mill. Reduced all the other exercises to ensure I would shave, bathe, suit up and still get to the ppt on time. Only to realize the ppt was getting too delayed. And yea, the 'last mover advantage' theory is now more wide-spread. A lot more people were willing to explore that option, even bringing themselves to face the deterring cold outside the classroom. But, jo jeeta wohi sikander ;-) and yes, yours truly managed to ace it again :D

Day 468:4th Jan, 2011

Must give it to our FRA prof for all his attempts at humour :D. First was his attempts to draw participation of the Stex student by asking him to pronounce the names of the foreign authors. Today he talked about the importance of a 'proposal' (the reference point of pun being our submission).

Spent the afternoon trying to see if I could use some opportunity for trading. Didn't seem to find a successful one. Pachpan returned after his newly attained chacha-hood and got some good amount of sweets. That was good.

Went to the gym on time today. It also doubled up a bit as a way of catharsis. Funny incident - I started using a new piece of equipment to work on my shoulders. And I was feeling all proud and happy exercising with one particular weight; until Fauji Khare suddenly came behind me and asked me to work out with 2.5x that load. And man, the first time I tried holding that rod, I could easily sense being "pullled up" instead of "pulling that weight down". 

And I have no idea why - but somehow suddenly got hooked on to yet another new sitcom - The Big Bang Theory. Found it really hilarious :D . 10 episodes on season one finished off in almost a trot! \m/

Day 465:1st Jan, 2011 - Happy New Year!

Happy New Year again (to honour the day that I am describing :P). Unfortunately, no holiday as far as lectures are concerned. I still had to wake up and attend the LD class. Today though, mostly the entire lecture was about calculating our 'Leadership Quotient', which really could have been a little simplified with marking the answers on a spreadsheet :S

Anyways, the good thing is the New Year has started on a healthy note. Yea baby, started off with the gym (again :P), but this time with greater intention to continue. Term 6 is really really free :) . Hope this works out good!