Day 500:5th Feb, 2011 - Five Centuries :)

Woke up comparatively early (8.30 is early dude), partly because I still had to finish the LD report by noon, and partly because I had to be (nominally?) present in class for our QAF presentation. Worked around these two conflicting interests by taking my laptop to the QAF session :P

Much of the day was spent filling the application for this multinational FMCG; more specifically in coming up with answers for three HR questions. Each time this happens is like suddenly hitting the 'Pause' button in life and trying to think of what you did. Has the potential side-effect of making you think you live a rather shallow and empty life, hardly doing anything beyond the mundane. But given the fact that we are MBA students, that cannot be true ;-) and thus you keep thinking and re-thinking and writing and re-writing, usually till the deadline appears. I had to attend a game+learning combo session by the same organisation in the evening, and by then I came up with what I thought were pretty decent answers.

Got back to my room and suddenly entered into a Reformist Mode. Day before yesterday, a particular incident happened regarding the way a certain amendment was done. I personally thought the process was unfair, and have been trying to mobilize opinion. All I want to do is have the batch re-think over it :-)

Just got back to my room after a night mess session. Pachpan just got a huge download of politics, scams and other GK stuff from his KGP batchmates and we sat around discussing that for some time. And yes, the deadline for the application has been extended; yes, as usual, the answers were kinda trashed by Pachpan; yes, will give it a re-visit tomorrow.

And yeah, 500 days in helL, every single day on this blog :-) ! Three cheers! :-)

Day 270: 31st Mar, 2010 - 50% MBA :)

The days were long 

Yet so short seems the year 

The first day memory so fresh 

Yet the last day is here. 

It's time to sit back  

Let out a small sigh 

And to one super fantastic year 

It's time to bid goodbye.

What a great last day of the term! Too many interesting things. Since I am in the exam-mode, let me list them out point-wise.

• Almost made to wait outside the exam hall for 30min, as I had to walk into the washroom which cost me a precious 10 seconds. Fortunately, we were allowed to get in.
• As I said, I almost pulled off a night-out. Still allowed myself sleep for around an hour in the morning. Drank the red bull on my run to the PGP block. (I should have drunk it 5 min earlier no? May be I could have flown to the PGP block then :-p)
• Super short paper. The first part - true/false - was completed pretty quickly by me (speed and accuracy being unrelated). There were 6 more questions to be answered - writing single side answers for each of them would probably let me come out of the exam hall first - and that was the target I set for myself. As I was in my last answer, Shantanu got up and left the exam hall first, making me extremely jealous. I quickly completed my answer, and left the 3 hour paper in 1hr,5min - my personal best :D . Guess the Red Bull wasn't really needed :-p
• Was going with Shreyas to Brij ki Rasoi. Just as I was admiring the digital tachometer of the Pulsar, especially the part which indicated petrol by showing a small fuel-station symbol next to line. And then suddenly the bike stopped. And that is when I realised I wasn't actually reading the symbol correctly! No petrol.. and the bike was already running on reserve. Got a local fellow to give me a ride to the petrol pump and back.
• Many (temporary) farewells - Dixit, Tarun, Saurabh, Ashish, Shruti, Komal, Shreyas and quite a few more ... Truly temporary as I would probably bump into quite a few people during my internship! (Almost half the junta is headed to Bombay :D)
• Went to C2C with Ghate, Sud and AdiJ. It was a really nice place - am quite surprised how I have never been there in my one year of stay!
• Had Walls' Feast icecream after ages from a roadside Walls' fellow.
• Went to the terrace of the PGP block! The campus is SO beautiful.

Went to the INDEX room to collect the RSC docs left by Riza and ..well, just for the heck of it. Back to my room - my last night here...

Am a 50% MBA now :) Wow!

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 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 262: 23rd Mar, 2010

I have an alarm set at 5.45am. Why so early? I don't know. But I like to have it then. Interestingly, for the last one week, that alarm has primarily been responsible in alerting me that it is time to go and sleep!

As I said yesterday, submissions were due soon and today somehow was that day of the term when all your submissions need to be completed in those few hours. So there we were, sitting in the library till around 3-3.30am putting things together. (It's still an improvement over our first term performance when we used to sit till 6-7am.)

Once we had finished off with our MM (donnn), ADA (the jugaad) and FM (Golden GLOBE nominee), I left and came back to my room with the intention of doing the HRM project (which was again to read those never-ending cases and summarise them).

But the night was dark and beautiful. The silence was soulful. It needed a melody. So there I was - earphones plugged in, listening to some nice soft numbers. Awesome!

Never realised the time go by, until of course, my alarm reminded me that it is time to go to sleep..

PS: We also had an FM quiz today - 10min was the time limit. Everyone came out and complained about the lack of time to arrive at all answers. By the way, I had finished it in 8min flat. This way or that way, atleast I know to respect time :-p

Also, mass mobilisation in progress to argue over the proposed 2nd year room allocation procedure. More on that tomorrow. So long then!

Day 229: 18th Feb, 2010

Heard some not-so-great news about certain loopholes being exploited in certain systems and processes. Simply not done.

Needed to write the summary for those 3 HRM journal papers. Spent a good bit of time fluctuating between the states of 'who-the-hell-writes-such-things' and 'is-this-even-in-english' and 'why-is-it-taking-infinite-time' etc. Spent a little time on actually being productive and wrote the summary for one more paper.

In the afternoon, the rest of us wingies had gone and pestered Bellam for his CFA treat. Unfortunately Bellam was in a 'i-am-playing-CounterStrike-very seriously' mood. And therefore got wild when we disturbed him (though I personally think it was just an excuse at venting out his frustration which actually arose because he was invariably dying within 2 seconds of coming out in the open :D). And even threw away his soap because it got dirty (pretty ironic!).

He did have a change of heart in the evening and we wingies went out for dinner, to the dominoes outlet from where pizzas are delivered to the campus. Man!!..it's quite far off!! Anything for a cheese burst pizza though :D. On our return, we promptly changed our gTalk status message to "Long Live CFA Bellam though he doesn't survive for more than 2 secs in Counter Strike after coming out in open"

Day 225: 14th Feb, 2010

I wrote and wrote but little thought

What sense there was to the answer sought

-Words(have_no)worth

Ultimate globe marathon today. Reaped the benefit of doing the MM project (communication mix) on my own as I could reproduce the same thing almost verbatim in today's paper :D . The HRM paper greeted us with this Calvin and Hobbes (my favourite comic btw!) strip.

I also added my own comment in the last box - "So do I. Though I din't find any in this paper :-(" in the copy to be submitted to the prof :-p . Another unique piece of advice in the paper was "Closed book, open mind" examination.

Having exams till 5pm however left us with little time to enjoy Valentine's day (read alternating between the 2 states of cribbing about singledom and then praising it for self-consolation :P). Went to see My Name is Khan. (Much against my wishes.) And so much struggle for the ticket. First went to catch the 7pm show at Wave. They said tickets were available only for the 7.50pm show. We being 'busy VVIPs', went to Fun to find another show. No tickets. Came back to wave and got tickets for the 7.25pm show! (Whatever was the ticket vendor doing previously! :S) Thankfully my expectations were below rock bottom, so I could sit through the movie.. I didn't die.. I didn't die.. eeks!

PS: IIM I's debating society were to have a debate on the thought provoking topic - How should 440 guys and 40 girls celebrate Valentine's Day? :D . Pity it got cancelled! :(

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 218: 7th Feb, 2010

After quite some time I donated blood. Thanks to the camp organised by Bhavishya. Got three punctures on my body, two attempts in vain as they tried to find my vein. Third time lucky when they tried to find one access point on my left arm. Pachpan's case was funnier. They found a vein on his right arm and inserted the needle. 1 min gone.. 2 min gone.. 5 min gone.. but no blood came out! :D . Then finally they shifted to his left arm for some success :-p

As part of our HRM submission, each group needs to read and summarise 15 journal articles on any one topic. I was alloted 3 articles from my group. Mahnnn.. I have no clue how people write such stuff! I was boreddddd to death (well, almost) reading one article. God knows how I am going to complete the other two.

It's almost 5. Were to have a brief INDEX meet at 2 .. for around 15-20 min. Turned out to be anything but that.. was the longest INDEX meet we ever had yet.. def a meeting to remember..

Day 211: 31st Jan, 2010

Back to those post-sunrise sleeping days! The final week always brings with it a barrage of submissions. So here I am, working on an HRM presentation, with beautiful old bollywood songs running on youtube alongside. Soulful.

A relatively early start to the Sunday as I had volunteered to be a 'mentor' for Ocumen. That's an event where students from schools (11th,12th) from different cities come to get a taste of helL. One thing I realised (again) that there is a big difference between what we were and what kids are now. Though the gap is only around 8 years, it would easily be a generation gap as far as mindset and outlook is concerned! The ease of access to information shows.

That took most of my day. Was hanging around the mess having snacks when I met Vandana.

Vandana: "Hey where are you studying QAM from?"

Me: "Huh?" [exams are a week away, why is she asking NOW?]

Vandana: "Don't know where everyone else is studying from.. Need to find out"

Me: [couldn't hold myself back!] "But why is everyone studying QAM?!"

And even before Vandana answered, I suddenly recollected we have a QAM quiz tomorrow. Great, now even I am seeking the same answers.

Luckily happened to bump into Singla somewhere around the library. Got a quick coaching session from him on a couple of topics. I hope it will suffice.

Found some cool features on my cell. Well nothing new technologically but was new to me :-p . And that is all I would care about right? :D . Accessed youtube on my cell.. awesome rendering of the flash videos. Also updated my FB status for the first time through my cell :-p

Chalo anyways, it's 7 now. Birds have risen up and started chirping their vocal cords off. I have a class at 9. Let me get a few winks. More sleepless days ahead.

Day 205: 25th Jan, 2010

Life suddenly becomes so empty and boring when these fests end. I remember having this kinda feeling after INDEX (to a much higher degree of course) as I suddenly ended up on the routine.

Today I recorded my first absent (excluding the sad HRM incident) of the term. Woke up late and missed the CFM class. Would have missed the next ones too but thankfully ADJ happened to call and wake me up :D . Ran to the class after getting ready in 5min (am becoming more and more proficient at that). Even gave a surprise quiz in HRM :-p

Sat in the INDEX room in the afternoon as the alums were leaving. Nice fun again :D . Ended up recording my second absent as well while talking to them. Nothing to worry, I have enough buffer left.

Anyways, it's only 12.30 right now, but I think I will go to sleep. Want to wake up for tomorrow's function.

Happy Republic Day guys! Jai Hind!

Day 199: 19th Jan, 2010

My classmate and hostel mate, ADJ, is ironically, not in control of his sleep durations these days. So I have this deal with him where, every four times I wake him up, he treats me with a choclate :D

As usual, today morning, 5 minutes before the lecture, I was doing my usual run to the mess to grab a bite before continuing the run to the classroom. I stopped to make the wake up call...

Me (banging on the door) : "Chal uth saale.. paanch min hii hai"

ADJ (sleepy and half-closed eyes) : "arre aaj toh 9.45 ka hii class hai na?"

Me : "Haan toh ho gaya na 9.40!"

ADJ : "Huh?! Abhi ek minute pehli hii toh 9 tha"

:D :D

Golden dialogue in the FM lec: 'Cases are like vegetables.. yeh khaana zaroori hai..! '

We had some presentations in the HR class where each group was asked to come up with suggestions on how teaching in a particular course could be improved. Pretty good concept I would say! What was (selfishly biased towards it) most satisfying to me that the batch thought of INDEX as a pretty useful idea. Definitely encouraging!

Day 198: 18th Jan, 2010 - One second!

Sometimes, some simple things make you wonder how much in control of things you really are. So many things could have been different that day. I could have searched for one book less in the library. I could have left without pausing to greet the librarian. I could have gone to the library without making small talk with my friend. I could have run for a few more steps on my way back to the classroom. The prof could have come in a minute later. A couple of more guys could have been absent to hamper the prof's progress during attendance. A zillion other things perhaps. But none of it happened - and I missed my attendance for a 1.5 hr lec because of 1 second! :-(

Finally did manage to lay my hands on the book. Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer (ya, ya. stop being judgemental about somebody's reading habits :-p). Realised the reason why I missed the attendance was that the book was wrongly titled!!!!!!!

Had an INDEX meet post dinner. So much to do ...

Day 185: 5th Jan, 2010

LOST

Nothing much happened today. The term's turning out to be a pretty chill one. From the looks of it, I need to find myself some activity to do! For now, am hooked on to LOST (another series). Interesting premise it has - there is a plane crash and mysteriously no one dies.. however, they are stranded on an island where strange happenings keep occurring. I heard it gets a little boring in season3/4, but that's quite a long way ahead.

Academically (ironically I declared only yesterday that I don't write much on this topic, but contemplating backwards, I think I do it quite a bit :-p) , our HR classes are tending to venture pretty much in the philosophical area rather than functional. Some people seem to be thinking pretty much about it :D . Soumen for one had a lot of weird moral conflicts staring at him. Also found Subbu and Tarun in a looooong discussion about it during dinner time. Nice, interesting human behaviour this :-p