Day 507:12th Feb, 2011

Now, in my 6th term, the third last exam of my IIM L life, if I myself come up and say I prepared quite hard for this exam, you really MUST believe it! Major fatta hua haalat, especially given the huge weightage to the quiz and very minimal weightage to project :P (and our performance in it :P). 

But eventually, when going to give the paper, I was reasonably confident of turning in a decent enough answer sheet. Except, that didn't happen. Pretty tough paper, damaging grades across the board. Of the two nuclear bombs that can spoil my future plans, one has exploded - tomorrow will know the fate of the other one.

Anyways, this was the last exam for Pachpan, and the fool immediately left for home. Well, I know he is going to be back this time, but it did put my mind on the same track it has often drifted to off late.. - that very soon, we'll all be gone, never to return (for quite some time at least). Sad :-( :-(

Day 506:11th Feb, 2011

Pretty free the whole day today. Led to me spending even more time on my laptop. Led to me finally get too irked by my "crowded" desktop, and finally I cleared out the random clutter and put the files to folders where they belong.

Pachpan had plans for a movie - Patiala House. But with the unsurmountable mountain called QAF in front of me, I decided to stay back and try and start climbing. The good thing was, there were others like me who had taken these courses with slightly ulterior motives as well ;-) . Did get around reading a bit, but didn't manage to make much sense of what I read. I guess the only knowledge I gained properly was when Pachpan arrived to explain one topic for some 30 minutes or so. But, the struggle went on (hoping for some sub-conscious absorption :D) and it's about 4.15am now. Guess I'll resume tomorrow morning, hopefully with someone to explain and make things easy!

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 497:2nd Feb, 2011

The barrage of quizzes and projects are here, for one final time. Had 2 quizzes today morning. PM was fine, but as feared yesterday, I had to pay the price for sleeping during yesterday's QAF crash course :(

Kisaan's lying-on-the-bed-full-time-watching-sitcoms fever seems to be rubbing on me. Having bunked my FRA class (optimising available bunks :P), I had way too much time in the afternoon. And I suddenly started not one, but two new series! Two and a Half Men, of which I saw one episode and Heroes, of which I saw 8 episodes! The latter one is gripping! Even skipped gym because of that (though had a brisk walk along the campus after snacks).

After a long time, went to Brij for dinner. One place where the food is consistently simple and good! Felt really sleepy after that heavy meal, but I had a KT session with the juniors. That ran pretty much into the night, around 3.45. And now, another episode of Heroes later, I think I'll call it quits for today.

Day 496:1st Feb, 2011

Grudgingly made my way along to the early morning class; I already had 3 bunks in the subject and didn't want to take any chances. But one good thing I did - I used up that time to "plan out" my day ahead. Off late, I am guilty of wasting way too much time, but now I am back to my actual sticky notes to keep myself on track. The list did come in useful. I, especially, love scribbling tasks out of my pad and thus preparing the plan was a good way to keep me motivated.

PM lecture was fun too as I had my laptop with me. I cheated my mind to believe "we didn't have net" which created useful time to read up on some of those tabs as well as to update my previous blog posts. BTW, got our quiz 1 marks. I got 15/15 in that - how cool - last time that happened must have been in school! :P

A tiring visit to the gym, a rejuvenating shower, and a simple dinner later, Pachpan,  Kisaan and myself were playing with the huge General Awareness book that Pachpan has procured (Kisaan won the game). Anyways, Pachpan, MMR and myself just made our way to the night mess. And now, I just had a crash course on what to do for tomorrow's quiz, by finGod. Just hope I am not SO sleepy that i forget everything! :S

Day 493:29th Jan, 2011

In spite of sleeping at 6am yesterday, I managed to wake up on time for the 9am class. Initially snoozed the alarms, then stopped them. Got up from the bed. Even applied toothpaste to my toothbrush. And then Pachpan told me the futility of attending the morning class (our group presentation was not happening :-S). And just like that, I went back to sleep :D

Attended LD. And then attended QAF after God knows how long. Nice prof though! I learnt I had exhausted the number of bunks available :-( . In the prof's own words, I need to "be more organised while indulging in this exercise" :D

The boring dinner at the mess (almost an everyday phenomenon now :-| ..) was compensated by some good company, parathas from Fauzi (speeding up the process by collecting them and taking them to my friend's room) and songs on youtube. Back to my room and a little more of Fountainhead. Will have an early Sunday tomorrow, got a presentation, it seems.

Day 491:27th Jan, 2011 - Biographer Mode

Woke up early morning 10 minutes before the quiz. Went to wake up Pachpan. Some quick logic told us a 30min paper would not be objective based, and consequently attempting anything with our preparation (??) would be futile. Went back to sleep.

Pretty high pressure day though. Today EOD was the deadline for submitting IIM Prints. Although I had quickly given inputs to quite a few people, compiling thoughts from others and third-person-izing them was a completely different deal. Halfway through yesterday night and then through today morning, I managed to finish one draft for Chatur. I casually showed it to her during LD class, and unfortunately it was trashed :( . Fortunately, Pachpan did approve the one written for him.

So spent the evening in renovating the sad version. Viewing it from a different 'perspective' altogether helped :D (This is when Pachpan gives short but very useful insights). Worked on it at a stretch post evening, even skipping dinner in the process.

And just when all this was finally almost done, came the deadline extension mail! After a mandatory visit to the night mess, I started working on a cover letter for an application. It's funny, but I had to run a little 10 minute search on the intention of a cover letter, and as it happens so often, ended up with links to contradictory views! :-S . And now, back to my own judgement :)

Day 489:25th Jan, 2011

With some enormous motivation, I woke myself up as I had 3 quizzes today morning - ProdMan and QAF and then FRA (during the class). ProdMan was OK. In QAF, I stopped reading the questions after the first page, and directly marked random answers. FRA, well, no comments.

Now, I don't know whether it is a good thing or a bad thing - but I finished off all available episodes of HIMYM and The Big Bang Theory :-|

Now, tomorrow being a holiday, I rekindled the long-jinxed Taj breakfast plans. Finally things fell in place with a lot of people agreeing to the plan. And sure as hell, I was going to be wake up on time for that. Except that, I made a cautionary call there to confirm if the facility would be open the next morning. And we were told, if at all we get a place, it would be under time constraints, which was pointless. The jinx continues! :(