Day 223: 12th Feb, 2010

I thought the QAM paper was pretty lengthy. It took me the full three hours inspite of the fact that I didn't know one question at all :-p . And therefore of course, the lengthy paper only works to my advantage :D ..Muaahahahahahahahaha! (evil laugh!)

My annual fast today :) . Not even the customary two glasses of tea this time!

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 212: 1st Feb, 2010

I have seen peacocks on campus before, but today, one of them came right up to the common area between our hostels. I clicked this pic from some distance.

And even as I took just one step ahead, the peacock flew a whole two floors to reach the terrace! Woah.. I had never seen a peacock fly before :D

Had our QAM quiz. A 20min quiz for a problem that could be solved in 6-7 minutes, typical BKM :D . I still bungled up with the objective function! :( . Very very silly.

As I said, huge workload in the pipeline. Got bored of the whole thing in the evening and went for an 'introspective walk' :D . Stopped by at the temple. And also bought myself a snickers bar :D . Suddenly missing the snicker bar shake @ Mocha's! [if you are in Bombay, you just CANNOT miss it! it's divine!]

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 196: 16th Jan, 2010 - INDEX '09 Results!

Was a day when I surprised myself. I actually asked doubts (not exactly doubts..more like points that I felt were not right :-p) in QAM. And not once, but twice! Of course, had to pay a heavy price for it .. the prof ended up asking my name :-( . That's the most dangerous thing that can happen. Need to come up with some hiding strategy..

Had our INDEX 2009 Prize Distribution function. Enjoyed a lot :D . Especially Tarun's "unprecedented" speech :D :D

Came back to my room and finished designing the poster. That ate up time and consequently I ate dinner @ GoBi. (GoBi a.k.a. GnB - Gossip n Bite, a snack shop started on campus by a few 2nd year students!) with Saurabh. And then suddenly randomly came to know of this manfest competition that was going on. Played O-zone, starting 30 min late :-p . Was fun trying to solve that loooooong case :D

Day 195: 15th Jan, 2010

We had a great QAM attendance today. Even the perenially busy breed of PCOMers managed to find time (so what if they attended the lecture wearing suits :-p). All in the hopes of a "surprise" quiz which was to be conducted. Indeed there was a not-so-pleasant surprise as the test didn't happen as predicted. Respite however did come in the form of Singla getting caught for sitting in the lecture without any book or pen :D (sadistic humour only makes it funnier).

These days, your probability of finding an oil well here would be greater than the probability of finding a soul who takes bath everyday. (I know people whose bath taking frequency is now once per week). And in this situation, today I took bath TWICE (and skipped lunch), on account of the solar eclipse. Not that I am a very religious or spiritual person or a 'believer'. Just a person who does not disbelieve.

Pssst: Party in the girls' hostels. Hoping to get some nice stories/gossip :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

Days 176,177: 21st-22nd Dec, 2009

The 48 hour day

It all started off nice and fine. This Monday was scheduled to cover up Saturday's timetable, but we had already had extra lecs so the day was free for us. Thus began the lazy start, waking up late, being lethargic and so on. Some semblance of the end term starting from tomorrow started creeping into me and I thought I'll start studying.

But it just so happened that Soumen called and asked me to come to the SME Conclave held by Abhiyan. And I did that. Mainly because I know the kind of effort that goes into organising such things. The conclave had some pretty big names and I guess we both would have liked to see greater numbers, but then, a start is a start.

Finally started with QAM late evening. And this is what sowed the seeds for the 48 hour journey. Called up my personal tutor for QAM - Sarin; he was himself studying up on something and he would teach me after that. So I was left with time for myself. Now you might be wondering why I was not studying by myself. As I have noted earlier, if our QAM prof dedicated even quarter the time he spends cracking silly jokes to making better reading material, life would be simpler. But then he didn't. And I didn't have any nice notes at my end. So I was stuck. Spent that time brushing up on whatever I had learnt for quizzes.

Went for an early dinner. Had badam milk :D . (wanted to highlight this better part of time :-p)

And then went to Joshin's room to study. Boy ! these FPM people sure are pampered a lot ! Stipend, multi room quarters. personal bathroom and even a balcony ! There was a nice big bed there and I don't know if it was the bed or the subject, but I was big time sleepy. With great difficulty, learnt a few concepts.

I guess the real struggle started when I came back to my room. Probably the disastrous consequences of such a soporific attitude triggered my subconscious brain (especially since the paper was at 9.30 am, so no time to prepare in the morning). I was sleepy no more. Struggled through the night, barely sleeping for an hour while trying to increase the breadth of syllabus I had seen atleast once.

Maintaining my real world attitude, won't speak much about the paper even here. Suffice to say this was nowhere close to the golden era of QAM-I.

Oh, and btw, the stupidest thing that I did was not related to the paper. I wore just a t-shirt to the exam hall. And it turned out to be quite chilly even in the afternoon. I would say I struggled more against the cold than the problems, but that's pretty debatable ;-) . High priority task during lunch was to wear a sweatshirt before the next exam.

Next exam? Ah well, I don't blame you for not understanding this yet, but we actually had two papers. MM as well. Now this was again an open-book exam for us and thus my Kotler still remains unopened. Majorly because the midterm results clearly indicated what mattered more was the imprompto evaluation of the case rather than quoting some non-contextual age old structure/principle.

The funny thing that happened was I fell asleep as soon as I got the MM case booklet. I mean, I hadn't slept the previous day and wasn't really sleepy even while I sat down in the exam hall and wrote my name, roll no. etc. But somehow, when I started reading the case, it was almost as if Mike Tyson had knocked me out. The 15-20 min sleep did a lot of good though. I was pretty fresh after that. But still, writing reams and reams of material is not my forte. With great difficulty, I managed to fill seven sides of the booklet. I just don't know how people can write more, especially when it was well proven that length is no criterion for marks.

Anyways, have OM tomorrow. Comparatively chilled out subject. (Does it justify the time I spent playing TT in the evening?) Also indulged in celebrating Naveen and Sarangi's bday in the INDEX room.

Now I hope to catch up on some good night's sleep. Need to stock up my sleep reserves. Have eco the day after!

Day 173: 18th Dec, 2009

"Present Sir!"

That's my favourite part of the lecture - attendance. We get a grade drop if our attendance is below a threshold value and I am pretty careful in that aspect and ensure that I remain safe. So it was a surprise for me when the QAM prof called out my name towards the end amongst the set of people who had fallen short of attendance. On enquiring, he mentioned that I have 5 absents in the pre mid course!! Whereas the truth is .. actually I had attended all lectures! Pointed this out to him.. :D . Guess he made some mistake while noting down the details. Anyways, I am safe :-p

Finally the INDEX team t-shirts and some sweatshirts arrived! And after a confusing journey in light of wrong airline carrier, wrongly labelled boxes and wrongly set invoices!

Kans took me to the room where walls do not have ears. And gave me an offer which I did not refuse. Details later :-p

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 170: 15th Dec, 2009

Lag-g(u)ard alert!

So here's a situation we are all familiar with. You have a small piece of work which you put off for later. And then, in a couple of days, you have another small piece of work which depends on the earlier work. So you think to yourself you will do both of them together real soon and put them both off for that moment. Thus begins the pileup of activities. It eventually becomes the size of a huge mountain which even the most enthusiastic trekkers amongst us wouldn't wish to climb. This is what is happening with my 'The Economist' subscription. Even before I have finished the first copy of the magazine, two subsequent copies have also found their way through my door!

I think the world's best alarm clock is the one inside you. NO other alarm clock is as effective as that. Today I somehow woke up at 7.30 am even after sleeping really late yesterday. Paradoxically, the same alarm clock is also the world's worst. I so didn't want to wake up early today, but the darn internal body clock just doesn't allow my brain to control it !

My getting-caught-inspite-of-not-doing-anything phase continues. Even as I stared at the QAM answer booklet, the QAM prof caught me and started asking questions. The whole thing looked so silly to me that I did not say the answer even though I knew it :-S .

Made a visit to the library after a long long time. The intention was to do a little bit of reading for the QAM quiz tomorrow. Have not been too successful, mainly because of lack of good reading material. (and the inability to take good notes - a condition I share with most others). Anyways, will get a couple of hours tomorrow after classes. Should be more than enough. Time to sleep now - with the undying hope of having conquering control on the body alarm clock :-p

Day 166: 11th Dec, 2009

I Ran the Half Marathon! ;-)

There comes this epic moment in the life of every IIM L dweller. And yesterday was mine. I did not run 'the distance' physically. But my feat? Yesterday, I watched 20 episodes of How-I-Met-Your-Mother nonstop! Skipping snacks and dinner :D . Now I know why they are called 'sit'coms.

Anyways, the fact that you are now hearing about what I did does indicate that the guest writers' phase is over. My blog enjoyed a good amount of attention then which makes me realise how much all of us look to break the monotony. I will try my best to come up with something interesting on my blog even further :)

Remember that towards-the-end scene from Predator? Where Arnold suddenly falls in that mud and the alien fails to spot him out. I suddenly realised how Arnold would have felt (not the falling-in-mud but the not-getting-caught part) in this one eco lecture where the prof didn't catch me out! QAM - the great leveller - papers were out. After the MANAC and DWO result, finally the toppers were back in place. And as far as the previous toppers were concerned, they were back to topping as well, in their own league :P

For dinner, went to this place called 'Brij-ki-Rasoi'. (I don't know how we haven't been there yet considering it is quite close to our college.) And the food was really good! And inexpensive! That's equivalent to the combination of chocolate cake and vanilla icecream - awesome! More visits are definitely due!

Day 164: 9th Dec, 2009

Words of a 9-pointer! For that is what Shruti - my fellow INDEXian (a record in the history of INDEX!) and today's guest writer - happens to be... A fine example of a big surprise in a small package, lets see what the typical day of a 9-pointer is like!

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Shivku and I are fellow INDEXians who have done quite a bit of roaming together (on his ‘best-in-the-campus’ bike) in the weeks leading up to INDEX. It is in one of our night mess ‘over-the-tea’ candid talks that I mentioned my desire to start a blog. And I believe the offer to write a guest entry on Mr. famous’ blog was a consequence of that conversation, which I accepted with gratitude. So here is my very first blog…

My take on Dec 9^th 2009:

The day started with my alarm ringing at 6:15 am. I switched it off –as is my routine- and slid back into my warm razai (sent by grandma during mid-terms J). It is amazing how I manage to get back to sleep even after having 10 hrs of sleep already. I am breaking my own record every day. A big yaay for tat!!

I finally manage to slip out of my razai at 7:25 am and the first thing I do is turn on my lappy hoping, praying with crossed fingers that the CR has sent a mail saying , “Extra OM class by Prof.S 8:35-9:35 AM CANCELLED!”…….. but no, what met my eyes was the exact anti-climax. A mail reminding everyone of this horrible event meant only to make us squirm in our cold benches (in the classroom). So drudgingly I got up and did the routine of brush-bath-and-pray (yes, I pray daily) in 30 mins and scampered to the mess for breakfast. Here, I got slightly suspicious that my outlook had played some trick with me and not shown me the ‘cancellation mail’ because I could not spot a single first year in the mess. But I convinced myself to head to class and check it out.

As fate would have it, as I was entering the PGP block, so was Prof.S. Here, I want to digress to point out a few things about this legendary personality. You never want to find yourself alone with him. He will give you advice on pranayaam, yoga and ethical behavior and the importance of taking a cold water bath on a winter morning. The guy took 3 extra classes to write the heading ‘Deming’s 14 principles’ on the board and he still wants more extra classes!…..Perhaps I am not good at driving this point in. But you have to know this guy to understand entire sec-D’s loathing for him….

Anyways, finding myself in close proximity of him with no one else in sight I hastened my pace to get away. But alas, he was swifter and caught me. Asked me stuff about feeling cold and taking bath and commented on how IIML culture was spoilt since no other sec had a class at 8:30…blah blah. I managed to extricate myself soon enough, reached the classroom, dumped my bag and headed towards the door. Would you believe it? This door was locked from outside L. So again Prof.S and me. I somehow maneuvered my way out of the door I had entered from. Phew! And saw another classmate walking in. Safe at last!

The class went on as usual. I was reading last week’s economist lent by Sarma a.k.a Paa (so called for his bald look in the winters). Beside me Sidhanta was on his NFS type car game. Saurabh was trying as hard as he could to listen to the lecture but was showing signs of frustration now and then. Behind me Siva- having finished his CFA exam recently- was back to his pool game on his fancy phone. Vinay was a new entrant at the behind-the-last-row row and was trying to study QAM! Even after many derisive remarks from fellow last-benchers. His defense, he needed to pass in QAM. The argument didn’t make much steam with any of us….

So 2 classes of Prof.S later, attendance is taken- the only reason why students attend his classes. I wanted to check my attendance post-midterm (having missed 3 classes+1 quiz already) so I went to have a look at the attendance sheet. Prof.S comments- “What are you looking at?” Checking attendance obviously. Then he points out my absents and asks reason for them. I innocently answer- due to INDEX sir. He goes into a whole new tangent about how these ridiculous extra-curricular activities are hindering the process of learning and should be done away with…goes into my native place and place of schooling etc….comments on my hindi……oh there is more, but for the benefit of readers, I’ll stop right here.

Moral of the story: Stay away from Prof.S.

Then we have Marketing Management- decent class. We get to see videos of nice Ads J. Only this time, it was silly Rasna ads. Certainly not the level we had seen earlier-‘Hamara Bajaj’ types.

And the last lecture-QAM by G.K.S. This guy is much like Prof.S, but one good thing is that he sticks to the dias allotted for teachers and does not venture into student territory. So you can even lie down on two benches and sleep. But I had had enough of sleep already. So I was chit-chatting with neighbours. Prof. had to make one of us shift places- how Kindergartenish…

After classes, I had nothing much to do- leaving out studying for a quiz which was out of the question anyway. After INDEX, things have been easier… So I headed back to my room and indulged in some newspaper reading, Gtalking, a little INDEX work. Took printouts of my tickets for the term holidays. Always makes you feel soooooo cheerful :)

I saw Prof.K walk towards faculty block on my way back to hostel. I have got like the lowest in the batch in Marketing for mid-terms. Badly in need of some marks, I resorted to some lame arguments to get some marks. I never do this-NEVER. But these times are exceptional….anyhow, didn’t work. I am still where I was before. But one thing that did come out of the meeting was that the Prof came to know my name and the fact that I am in INDEX core. That is a plus I hope J

The next highlight of the day was evening tea. After a long time, Akanksha and I went to the mess together for tea. She lives next door and we’re pretty good friends, but haven’t seen much of each other off late. So it was a bit of catching up. Saw Harsh there, wished him a happy birthday and demanded Cadbury from him (he’s interning there). Some nice chocs to make the day J. This reminded me that my sister’s birthday is tomorrow. I set an alarm for mid-night to remember to wish her…..This is bad, how could I not remember this before? What is happening to me??? Wasn’t family most important? How come I don’t know what my sisters have been doing the past few days? How come we haven’t spoken to each other for a month? We used to share everything… what’s happened to that?

With this contemplative mood, I came back to my room and did some reminiscing, calling dad, mom and everyone. Felt better after that…… like atoning for some sin. And finally fell asleep, dreaming about home and family and friends and better times……….

P.S.: The day was punctuated with project/presentation meetings which I have not cared to elaborate on.

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Wow... that was long! :D . Thanks Shruti! Hope this will only be the first of many more blogs to come!

Day 163: 8th Dec, 2009

Today's post would be interesting in the sense that I am getting it from one of the (very) few freshers on campus - Shantanu. I, for one, am waiting to see whether the fact that you have landed here right after college makes any difference to a 'normal' day!

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My Day.

It is for the sixth time in 20 minutes that my phone, which is usually quiet, starts blaring ‘Arriving Somewhere but Not Here’ by Porcupine Tree. I open an eye and see 9:10 a.m staring back at me. I hear Sarin, my neighbour, banging on the door. Since I have come to IIM Lucknow, I have required an increasing number of alarms in the morning to wake up. Initially, one would be enough. Then two, then three. Well now when I sleep, I have alarms set for 8:45 a.m, 8:50 a.m, 8:55 a.m .. Well, you get the point. And yeah, I have a Sarin too.

I run to the mess and run to class holding my omelette and bread in one hand and a cup of tea in the other. That run is complete in exactly two minutes, but those two minutes make my day. Basically, they get me ready for one drilling class after the other. That is the thing with an institute like ours. You not only have tight and impossible deadlines, you have OVERLAPPING deadlines. You find yourself competing with yourself to do a hundred things in, well, no time. The first class is Management Accounting which includes stuff like cost analysis, variance, absorption and what say you. Prof. V is one of the straightest and probably the best professor we have had yet. He is a taskmaster and his classes are good. The Math professor is busy cracking jokes half the time, the Operations professor walks a record 7 km in one teaching hour and the Marketing prof comes with this minion whose only job is to sit in a corner and note down the class participation. Honestly, I am yet to see a more boring job. And a bigger loser. After 4 long hours, classes are done.

This is when my day starts. I have my lunch and rush to office. A million thoughts rushing through my mind. A million things to do. Let me explain. I am a core committee member of Manfest, the Annual International Business Conclave of IIM Lucknow slated to happen in the next 40 days. As you can understand, time is tight and we have loads of work. More so because the senior Manfest team is busy with exams, and hence we are doubly loaded. I meet Karthik and Sharath in the office and we get down to business. Every minute, all we think about is Manfest 2010. Through the exhaustion and moments of give up, all that drives us is the dream of a spectacular Manfest 2010. We make mistakes and face horrible moments of self doubt, but there can be no learning experience greater than this. Being at the centre stage of a body which organizes an event budgeted at 96 laks and more is something no classroom or even prof. V can teach you.

I did forget to mention, in between all the work there was an Operations quiz at 5:30 p.m. That went OK. Or maybe I just have stopped caring. We have reached a stage where marks and grades no longer remain significant. Or more rightly framed, relevant. There are bigger things to do, bigger things to worry about. Marks will take care of themselves.

Post dinner, I work in the office for a while and at 1:00 a.m trudge to the mess. A soldier, tired and bruised. But alive. Smiling. After breakfast, this is my second favourite moment of the day. Just as the run from the mess to the PGP office takes two minutes, this peaceful march of mine takes 20. A cheese toast in hand, I make my way to room 707. I drop my bag on the bed, sit on the chair, turn up the music and check my mail. There are so many new ones. Didn’t I just check it 30 minutes back? 17 new mails at 1:30 a.m in 30 minutes? I accept that it cannot be a lie and carefully read each one. Replying where necessary. Meeting at 3:00 a.m? Why? I feel my eyelids dropping. Heavy. I feel my nose connecting with my keyboard.

‘Wake up Shantanu!’ Bang Bang! It’s Sarin.

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Hahahaha. Must confess one thing here... this blog is almost a day late :-p . And poor Shantanu has kinda combined the two days here :D Hehehe. Won't blame him! It could just be another day.

Another interesting thing happened today. Our OM prof had yesterday sent back two students as they came to class a minute late - as they went to quickly compensate the lack of breakfast with a cup of coffee. Today our prof gave them their attendance, saying (in retrospect) it wasn't really their fault (which is true considering the prof for the earlier lecture had extended the class!). Anyways, I liked that gesture.. it's in keeping with my general idea about people who are ready to take a step back and accept their mistake - not an easy thing to do na?

And yes, today our mess served GAJAR HALWA during dinner! It was just DIVINE!! :D . Way to go mess!!

Day 121: 27th Oct, 2009

Taking a pause for a moment and looking back, a lot of things that took a lot of real estate on this blog in the previous term have now become so much of a routine that I don't even realise it. The quizzes, the activities, the fight for breakfast, etc still very much happen.

What pushed me in this small flashback mode was the QAM quiz we had today. Now QAM was the one subject in which I did pretty well in the previous term. But I remember exactly that my initial thoughts on my QAM performance were quite scary. Anyways, off to a similar start even this time. Not much clue of what is happening. Studied for 2 hours before the test. Did decently well I guess.

Had an all important thing to do today. Needed to decide somethings. Which might finally decide where I would end up. Hit a century in my list :D

Days 90,91: 18th-19th Sep, 2009

Missed out on a post yesterday. Had my last exam - Operations Management (OM) - in the morning today and was left with minuscule time to even have a preliminary glance through the book. So the delay.

First about the QAM paper yesterday. Had heard that end term papers are usually easy in this subject. But as demonstrated earlier, all positive notions are gleefully proved untrue by the powers that be. Every question in this paper had some twist about it! While solving I often felt I am not getting even a single answer correct, but post exam analysis says I have done pretty OK. So no QuAlMs! :-p

As with my daily routine, did a little timepass after the exam and then slept off. Where I erred was in not realising that the next exam was in the morning at 9.30. Started off with OM pretty late (around 2am), stayed through the night somehow and tried to read stuff. Result was that I was pretty sleepy in the exam. On a couple of occasions, when my sentences were making any sense (not even grammatical sense), I just put my pen aside and slept off for 5 min.

The highlight of the exam of course was this encounter. There was this one question which I just didn't understand. I mean, I didn't even know what to do with it. So I called the prof and actually asked him - "Sir, are we supposed to solve this sum or just write some critical observations?!" :-| .. moment of stunned silence .. The look on the face of the prof was just legendary. He looked at me as if I have committed the ultimate sacrilege to his academic religion and replied in a high pitched tone "Of course you have to solve it!!" Poor fellow must have really wondered if anybody even heard anything in his class. How else could a student even get this kind of a thought?! :D

Slept off BIG time after coming back to my room. Suddenly I realise my phone is ringing. Before I could get to it, it stopped ringing. Ah well, peace. But then the phone rings again. I pick it up to hear "Where are you?" .. oh o - sudden jhatka! .. it was 5pm! Time for my bus to the airport! I had just slept off like a log without realising the time. Woke up and sprung into super fast action. Finished packing for a one week visit back home in 10 minutes! Had stalled the bus for sometime (thanks Sudeshna!) but then just when I came down, the bus had left! Saw a biker coming along (Bajaj Discover it was!! - mera wala bike :p). Frantically signaled for him to give me a lift and chase the bus :D . The good guy - Nilangshu I believe - agreed. As we reached the gate, realised the bus had just taken a reverse, exclusively for me :D . Was a nice filmi moment.

Anyways, a (self proclaimed) well deserved break for us now :D . 8 days of bliss awaits! Back to home sweet home! :) Yooohoooo!!

PS: A break for the blog as well. Will resume when I reach campus again! So long!

Day 48: 7th Aug, 2009

Had a paper in engineering for which I mugged like crazy the night before, only to experience a total blank out during the exam :-| . History repeats, a little moderated this time though. Super GLOBE-ish BIO paper. Later realised (when pointed out to by someone else) that we were supposed to be brief in our answers or else marks may be deducted. I hope I haven't written so much gas that I end up with negative marks :D.

Have my last paper - QAM - tomorrow. It is supposed to be easy for engineers considering their "strong previous mathematical skills". A pseudo engineer like me would beg to differ :) . So yet another struggle! Am typing this post at 6 in the morning! With a substantial part of the syllabus yet to cover. And this includes learning the subject only theoretically - haven't solved any problem by myself!

Adios... good night... err... good morning?? bahh!