Day 431:22nd Nov, 2010 - Empty!

Life suddenly feels so empty! Just a day ago, it would be criminal if you couldn't utilise each and every second for something. And now, you have hours and hours to idle away..

The last one week, not one phone call went by without having another "in waiting". And now, the only time my phone rings is because of those automatic calls from Airtel. (Though I am confess, my mind seems to hear the ringtone every now and then!)

The "tasks" column on my outlook, most of them in red (signifying - overdue :-p), is now absolutely clear. My study table was adorned by 'sticky-notes' indicating a zillion to-do things. Even my laptop screen was not spared, putting to good use the 'Post-it' software in Windows 7. Everything's been trashed now.

In order to save some minuscule seconds, I would always have open multiple explorer windows, one for each folder relevant and even one for a subfolder in that, so that I did not have to navigate each time. All those windows are closed. The perennially running resource hogger of a Photoshop has been closed. And so have the multiple browsers to check multiple gmail accounts.

But most of all, the mind is super free. No multiple thoughts fighting with each other for priority action. No thinking about what workaround to provide for the sudden last minute problems. Nothing dynamic.

Sigh. Life is suddenly so empty.

I am sure my fellow senior core are engulfed by similar feelings, especially considering the frequent trips that have arbitrarily been made to my room :D ; indulging in all sorts of conversations. The highlight of which was a band formation; and before anyone actually learnt any music, people started the photoshoot for the album cover :D

And just like that, we decided to go out for dinner. Fortunately for everyone, Pachpan and TG came to a quick truce - go to Mainland China this time and Barbecue Nation the next. Some nice food in some nice ambience, and brilliant company :-) . Even hatched a plan to watch a movie after that. Had to skip desserts for that :-( . Much debate on whether to go for HP 7 or Guzaarish. Eventually by the time we reached Wave, turned out HP 7 had already started 5 minutes back, simplifying the choice :D . Hoping and anticipating many more of such times in the next 100 odd days left!

Day 425:16th Nov, 2010

Sleeping late and waking up late seems to have become the norm now. Finished off with a whole bunch of creatives though. Now time for some extras ;-)

Now, a website does not have too much utility for INDEX. But seems like you don't exist these days if you don't have a virtual address. Hence we are trying a bit to come up with a website (a plan that for spent a long time on the drawing board :-p) this year. We have our infrastructure and content ready since a few days. Got a contact of a guy who could incorporate some aesthetic appeal, which we design-impoverished people just couldn't :D. Lets see how that progresses.

The white board in my room is now almost black :-) . So much of ink on it indicating so much load and infinite mini tasks to be completed - all on priority! :D

Day 420:11th Nov, 2010

I am somehow a fan of versioning. Through my stint of producing creatives for an event, I always store all my intermediate steps as something_v1 and so on and so forth. After a few draft versions, and taking feedbacks in parallel for those versions, I eventually reach a stage which I call something_final. But never ever has that been the final copy. And so once again, I found myself working on the finally_final copy of the hoarding. Luckily this time, since we didn't have any time and of course, the work would expand only as much as the available time - the hoarding finally was freezed!

Post dinner, Vanki, Pachpan, Kisaan and myself had an impromptu meet / discussion to assess our budget under more "practical terms". Seems like we are in a position to explore some new avenues :)

And suddenly, the worst possible thing has happened - I have caught cold! Nothing irritates me more in life than a running nose! Have taken a tablet and am going to sleep. Lets hope this goes off soon!

Day 419: 10th Nov, 2010

So in the midst of all this, we even had a CBM quiz today. The system to be followed was best 2 of 4. As I had done OK in the first two (+ had absolutely no time to even find out the syllabus of this one), I decided to skip it. And as luck would have it, the quiz apparently turned out to be a cakewalk! :-|

Now, my closing remark yesterday was that I wasn't sure how the new hoarding design would be received by my team people. Turns out - not so well :-p. And so immediately after my morning classes, I had to spend a few more hours modifying it. A few more calls and a few more mails took up the remaining afternoon-evening time.

Today we (senior core) decided to go out and enjoy. Work hard, party harder types. TG and MMR happened to have a very long, frustrating and not-so-positive day "in office" and therefore decided to take rest and not join us. We left with the intention of going to BBQ (after long! nice!) but mid-way, plan changed and we went off to Genesis yet again! :-S . It happens to be a nice place though, had a nice time, and got some nice pics clicked with Kisaan's digicam, instead of just my cell, the result being I am in a lot more pics than usual :D

Day 418: 9th Nov, 2010

Such a blissful feelings to wake up the morning, find out your class has been cancelled and go back to sleep again! :D . Did break my record of sleeping past noon though. Woke up at a much early 11am.

Had enough attendance (full :-p) in the subsequent lectures of the day. Bunked those to go to the city with Pachpan and get some INDEX work done. Roamed all the way from Gomti Nagar to Hazratganj. Discovered a whole new eating place near WAVE - those small roadside joints that serve good food! At Hazratganj, met up with Kisaan who had his own set of follow-ups to do. Indulged in some pillion-swapping :-p and Pachpan went off with him to meet a few other people; while I thought I'll go check out the status of my cellphone.

Yes, btw, my great cellphone was STILL NOT OK! :-( . Been more than 3 months since I had it in proper working condition! As you would recall (:-p), the last time I gave my phone for repairs, I got a new piece after the 15 day wait. Call it my luck - Turned out even that piece wasn't working! So today, when I went in after another 15 days, I got yet another new piece. This one wasn't a stunner in looks though :-( . Somehow, the silver grey front panel wasn't impressive. When I asked about that, I was told "The company uses any readily available piece". Which is downright silly, because I paid specifically for a good-looking phone! When I asked if it could get replaced, the response - "It will have to be sent back to the company again!". And that I just can't wait. But silly people - why can't they just keep an extra set of panels with the Care Centers :-S

When I came back to my room, I got to know some urgent modifications required in the hoarding creative. Sat on it. Almost 4am now. Not even sure how it is going to be received by others in my team. Just a sign of times to come, over the next one week :-)

Day 417: 8th Nov, 2010

Had come to know yesterday late night that we didn't have the early morning CBM class today. What else do you want to know beyond the fact that you can sleep uninterrupted. And that is how I clocked in yet another successive day of waking up post noon :D

But this was followed by a marathon spree of classes. Serv mark followed by LTL followed by another extra class of LTL followed by an extra session on Proj Fin! 2.30 - 9.30 pm straight! :-|

And after that, a marathon designing session for INDEX! Our poor facchas are caught up in their mid-sems and so time for us seniors to pump in a little extra effort! With less than a couple of weeks to go, too much work on the publicity front needed to speeden up. Had to come up with a basic draft to get some approvals and progress; and it's almost 5.20 now doing all that. Tomorrow's first session is CBM. Am not sure if that one also has been rescheduled! Lets hope so! *fingers crossed*

Day 409: 31st Oct, 2010 - Design Time still \m/

Some more designing. Spent a little time on coming up with the sweatshirt design. Infact spent more time searching for a decent background template! Everyone was insisting on a plain and simple sweatshirt with universal appeal, and that is exactly what they got.

During our Summers process, we don't have classes, but we haven't technically got holidays. And that is ensured by asking all of us to report to the Placement Office and sign against our pics. And to ensure no frauds, we even have a dedicated person to ensure a one-sign-one-person (right person! :P) process.

We see to be going out for dinner every other day. Once again, Brij got the majority vote due to its proximity advantage. The added drive for TG was that it was a Sunday and kadhi would be available. Or so we thought. Unfortunately though, seems like even on a Sunday, you need to be lucky enough to come on time for the coveted kadhi! Interesting dinner time conversation - a new conspiracy theory called Loose Change, which claims that the entire 9/11 episode was orchestrated by the US! Scary thought.

PS: Must mention my stud quotient. At a time when everyone was clothed in multiple layers of clothes, I went on my bike in just one t-shirt. Tuning my mind.. ;-)

Day 408: 30th Oct, 2010 - Design Time \m/

Woke up to find missed calls and mails that had asked me to come back for a liaison stint at 11.30 am. Missed that totally :-|

Instead, woke up to a conversation to remember for a very long time :-)

Anyways. How boring it would be if everything would be organised too smoothly. Latest information brought to light the urgency of the t-shirt/sweatshirt design conundrum. Seems like every place that manufactures all this stuff is going to go on a looooong holiday for Diwali; and therefore the requirements / designs have to be given to them ASAP. And since our chief in-house designer for 2010 was occupied with shaping his Apr-May 2011 plans, I had to go back a year and step into my "designer shoes"! :D . Not that I minded it at all. Was quite happy to get back to something where I can see a very immediate and tangible result :-) . Plus, dabbling around in photoshop is something that intrinsically makes me happy :-) Even managed to learn a couple of new tricks today!

In fact, as I was mainly driving the designs last year as well, there were quite a few creatives that had been made, but never saw the light of the day :-( . So today, I revived an old tag-line which I had thought of last year, and came up with a design around it. Hopefully it will be well-received by the batch :-)

Day 372: 24th Sep, 2010 - Angrez and Aaloo

Really interesting incident in the mess at lunch. Whilst trying to make up my mind on what would be the most edible choice, my eyes fixated on a plate of what looked like some awesomely cooked plain aaloo. Very happy, I drifted in that direction. And just as I was to take some, that plate was harshly pulled away by a worker citing "yeh angrez log ke liye hai"!! (referring to the Students on the Exchange program). Independence, an illusion in your own country?!

It is always so fulfilling to come up with something creative. Something that you can call - your own, even if it may not be the best. So some designing work came along after a long time - Pachpan wanted me to come up with a template sorta thing. Meddled around a little here and there. Found out this powerful feature - Brushes! Really cool stuff! So much potential to do so much more. Now, if only I had a more designer-oriented head on my shoulders :-p

Well, normally I do not have too many problems with the mess food. However, just as I was going to the mess, I made a mistake of casually asking my friend, the menu. The short conversation -

Me: "Abbe mess mei kya hai?"

Friend: "Hagga"

Which, err, means, ahem, shit (literally). Which definitely is not a very enticing choice.

So off we went to Fauzi for dinner. Oh, but our first one here this term? Pretty late. Had what, you asked? Haven't you like by-hearted the Aloo-jeera, Dal & Roti combination by now? :-)

Day 371: 23rd Sep, 2010

After quite a few days, I am back to my love affair with technology :-)

Spent more than 3 hours trying to install one software. Half of that time went in trying to somehow manage to read .iso files, without trying to plugin the ethernet cable (as I was meddling around with some setup). Didn't manage to find anything like that on my laptop, so finally had to relent and bow to the power of google. And that of course took care of things in a jiffy. A couple of clicks to download the setup, a couple more to install it, and finally a further couple of clicks to mount by creating virtual CDs :-D . But that of course, wasn't the end of it all. Figured out that the key I had to installing the master suite was expired :-( . Full effort waste.

So now I started off with a new setup itself. And the install status bar progressed and progressed, and then abruptly stopped. Oops - that setup was meant for a 64-bit OS.

But give up I don't. At least, not when it comes to installing software I want :-p . Downloaded the setup for yet another version of the software. And yes, third time lucky indeed! :-)

Of course, each time the set-up was running OR I had to uninstall the old version OR restart my system, I had free time. And what better to do with your time than to go disturb your friends :-P . And so I put in frequent visits to Pachpan's room, where he was working on some document with Chatur since afternoon. In one of those visits, I just made a casual reference/opinion w.r.t. the state of Vocational Education in India, and woah, it expanded into a full-blown debate for more than an hour! :D . And this is what I would say is the most awesome thing about an IIM :-)

Day 171: 16th Dec, 2009

Owlery

A new eco(logy)-friendly initiative @ L ! We are making better use of wildlife now. A path breaking pilot project has been started by one of the groups here. They are testing how owls are used as a medium of communication, especially in the world of magic! :-O

Ok, I took it too far :-p . Owlery is actually this great new initiative from Team SynapsE to show your blogs to the rest of the world (well..not the world.. just us IIM L people..oh ok..the world :-p). You just add your blog link on your profile and lo and behold.. it automatically pulls any content that you post on your blog. Pretty cool na?

Yesterday's late night sleep took its toll. After the first lec (MANAC), I went to the library. My plan of action was to sleep for 15min, study for the QAM quiz for an hour (missing OM) and come back for the MM lecture. As always, things happened in exactly the opposite manner. I collapsed on the first floor couch (what a demand they would have if that section was open during the night!!) and woke up after a good 2 hours.. missing all the remaining lectures :P. On the bright side, my mind was more fresh and I could spend an hour studying in the library post lunch. Menghani came by in between... but had to leave because NOBODY in the entire library had an extra pen :D. He did teach me an empirical formula though, which had application for one entire section.

The problem with QAM actually is not knowing the formulae; infact, the prof gives out all the formulae in the question paper. The problem is in trying to realise which formula needs to be applied for which problem. I blanked out in the first 4-5 min, but eventually did decently, though I could not finish for want of time.

The more interesting thing happened immediately after the quiz. Actually I had, by mistake, carried my bag into the examination hall (**not allowed**). Nobody (that includes me, my friends, supervisors) noticed the act. Things would have passed away blissfully except for the fact that I forgot to collect my bag while leaving. So I had to go back to claim it. And unfortunately now I came in exclusive observation. So I had this small encounter/debate where I was cited examples such as ticketless travelling and so on, all to which I replied using different permutations of 'yes sir', 'right sir', 'sorry sir' accompanied by a sorry-for-the-act face.

Did a good bit of INDEX work in the evening. Designing some certificates mainly. I don't even know why I tried to do it with MS Word. Just could not get things to align there! Came back to good ol' photoshop .. smooth!

It's 3 am now. What am I doing? Jo pachees baras mei nahi hua, woh ab hoga. Finally watching Deewar :D . Feels insane? No, feels just helL :D

Day 149: 24th Nov, 2009

Was super sleepy yesterday night as well. But had to urgently make another couple of designs. So dragged myself to spend yet another night at the CC. However, this time the sleep sacrifice was at a price.

What happened is that accidentally, while making the 2nd poster, I overwrote it at the location of the 1st poster with the same file name! :-( .. Fortunately I have a jpeg version stored, but still.. it leaves me without a psd. I hope no change comes up in that poster!

Went to the city alone today. Especially to get the flex prints for those designs. Did quite a bit of local spons work. Highlight however was my first encounter with the newest car on road ! And what a memorable encounter it was. I was going along at a usual speed and suddenly the vehicle in front of me puts on the brake. I do the same thing, but still my bike ends up kissing the rear of the car ahead. (mini GPL :-p) . As I look to see which vehicle, I realised it was nothing less than the TATA Nano ! Luckily, nothing major or even minor happened, damage wise.

Day 146: 21st Nov, 2009

Went to BbC again, to get the written confirmation. Well actually the intention was to rake out money from him, but I guess that would have to wait another couple of days.

Spending the evening 'sleeping' was a complete 'sacrifice' of time ;-) :-p

Vinay called me and woke me up around midnight. CC again. Super duper sleepy. I would literally click something on the screen and then freeze into a stare as I had suddenly lost all ability to interact with the external environment. Then Vinay would shake me up and I would click on a couple things and then after 3-4 minutes.. same story again :-/

Got into a more awake-state sometime later (fortunately). Finally finished off with all PS and design work that we would require!

Tomorrow is Sunday, but no respite. I also have a DWO presentation tomorrow. Haven't read the case. Haven't seen the slides. But I am not very bothered about that. My only worry is that I should manage to wake up and be present on time tomorrow!

Day 143: 18th Nov, 2009

Got to sleep late even yesterday. As a result missed MANAC for the second consecutive time! Can't afford to miss more of it now!

Stayed back on campus today again, this time for the poster work. Really really bad vaastu on 1st floor CC, unproductive afternoon again!

Anyways, today we gave a treat to INDEX seniors for our summer placements. Went to barbeque nation. As I said some days back, the place is awesome and so is the food! :D

The journey back was legendary. 00.30 hours and the chilling Lucknow cold - and I rode back on a bike WITHOUT wearing a sweater, jacket, sweatshirt or any of the likes (H). Ain't that something!

Reached campus at around 1am. I had had an overdose of photoshop over the past 2 days (and nights!) and therefore took a break today. Thought I'll go to my room and get some early sleep. But guess what.. downloaded GBs of new data - The Centurions, HIMYM, TBBT :D . Finally started off with some series on campus - HIMYM - 5 episodes straight before I slept off at around 4 :p

Day 96: 2nd Oct, 2009

Ah! What a great feeling to wake up and know that there are no classes and hence sleep again!

Varchasva - the inter collegiate sports and cultural meet - started off today. The atmosphere is brilliant. Huge contingents from XLRI, NITIE, IIM Indore and a few other colleges have come here. All guys are happy because the chick quotient presently is substantially higher. Great events happening all around the campus. The sports events have especially been superb - very close and brilliant badminton, TT and volleyball victories for IIM L boys team and comfortable victories in football and basketball. The female sports events have been as expected - lots of cheering/booing/sledging AND bird watching (yea hardly any game as such). Couldn't attend too many of the cultural events. However I attended a Kavi Sammelan in the evening where we had Kumar Vishwas, Surinder Sharma and one more person whose name I don't remember. Was awesome!

Also have Kaushik, an INDEX senior, on campus. Met him up. He was wearing the his INDEX Core t-shirt! Can't wait to get my hands on one :) . Then spent the afternoon doing some outsourced work for some friends in other committees on campus.

Thanks to Varchasva, we have some food stalls on campus. Ate hot cheese burst pizzas from dominos for dinner. With the dripping cheese and all! Was Wowwwww!!

Random post. No wonder - it was a random day as well. Went to the DJ nite - good music. I didn't dance much today. Have reserved energy to distribute over the next 2 days. Am going to expend all of it soon!

Day 66: 25th Aug, 2009

We were to have an OM quiz today morning. I tried to study for it yesterday in the lib. But I was SO sleepy that although I was looking at some scribble and alphabets on the textbook, they just wouldn't form sensible words or sentences in my head. As usual, slept off without putting in much of a fight. Woke up today morning and studied an hour for the test. A couple of good classmates had solved some sample problems neatly, taken photographs, uploaded it on the comp and emailed it to the class :D.

Test itself was OK. Seemed like everyone was having the same paper. One person on my bench copied an answer from his neighbour because he saw that it was different and he had more confidence in anyone else than himself :p. But after the test, the prof told us that around 6-7 different sets of Q papers had been circulated. Major remorse for that guy :D

Pcom work is showing its effect. Dhamdhere was dozing off all through the lecs. Au contraire, and very surprisingly, Kaushik and KR seemed to be wide awake today! :O

Am still majorly stuck up on the CV thing. Worked on it a little more. Thought it got better, but a review said it still has a lot of redundant stuff :-S

The struggle with misspelt name continues!! Pcom numbers list is out and my name is misspelt there as well. I so hope I could find out who the person was who made the initial master list, without even asking for a verification! I could just murder that person!! Bloody the mistake just cascades everywhere!

Meshed came up. He wanted some help with photoshop. Something I didn't know how to do, so struggled on that for quite a lot of time. Came up with multiple colors etc. I think eventually came up with something respectable. But apparently it didn't prove useful :-(