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 89: 17th Sep, 2009

The eco paper was pretty interesting. Actually the paper wasn't, but the situations/dialogues preceding and succeeding it were. There is always this class of people who study hard but feel they have done nothing and their polar opposites who hardly study. The interaction when members of these species come against each other is pretty funny, usually loaded with sarcasm from the latter kind (probably because they have nothing better than sarcasm to offer :-p). Sample these dialogues from today:

- "Yaar, I haven't done Prisoners' dilemma... " .... [ oh shit! you mean you missed one topic in the whole book? How could you!" ]

- "Acha hua objectives tha yaar... bach gaye!" ... [ "umm...ohkkk! :-/ " ]

- "I actually had to guess seven of those twenty objectives!" ... [ "padhke aana chahiye tha na!" ]

One section mate (also my hostel wing mate) , who usually is pretty senile, has become a little bit of a psycho :-p . And that is because he lost a WHOLE 4 marks in the paper! And then there are souls who are dancing with joy, realising that a portion of their answer is correct and they will get some marks in it !

Celebrated with pizza for dinner. Celebrated what? Well, if you need a reason:

- life

- 4 exams, 4 nightouts (not everyone's cup of tea :D)

- only 2 more to go

- 2 days to go home!!

Get the drift? Celebrate, then find reasons. Had the company of Shreyas, Kaushik, Meshed (special thanks Meshed for the time :-p) and 55.Saurabh. Discussed some pressing issues amongst other things. Had a chill time.

Still got 2 exams though. Will remind myself in some time about it. Time to take a small nap now. Bon nuit.

Day 88: 16th Sep, 2009

Yesterday I was a little worried. I was wondering if one is divinely alloted some fixed quota of GLOBE for an exam. I had unexpectedly used up much of it in ITC. Would there be enough left for BIO then?

Thankfully, I din't have any such issues. I think God has been kind to bestow an infinite capacity to GLOBE in MBA students. Used generous amount of it in today's paper :) . I even drew a diagram.. WITH pencil ! \m/ And made up for the absence of the scale by using the metal end of the thread to tie the paper :D

Now the not-so-good part. For all those aspiring acad secys (pronounced acad-sec-ees .. stands for academic secretary) reading this, please ensure that you never have BIO and Economics back to back. Have been sleeping all evening into the night after all the mugging for BIO. Finally pushed myself to wake up at 2. Now I am sitting with a can of Red Bull, sincerely hoping the Rs. 75/- drink does not become a sunk cost. Am wayyyy behind the syllabus. Just like my good ol' days! :D. 6 hours left. Lets do it.

Day 87: 15th Sep, 2009

What pains more? Forgetting to write about the 3 marks you knew.. or bullshitting your way through the remaining 47? I knew one answer in the ITC paper today but was unable to recollect a couple of points, so I thought I would come back to it later. And eventually forgot about it :-S . Not really cribbing for the marks per se, but for the act. Ok, now a little more about the paper. I have previously grudged about the assessment pattern of the subject. On how silly it seems to evaluate an excel/access applications course on paper. But today we reached a new level. We had an 18 page supplement with the ITC paper and we were supposed to read those articles and answer questions :-S .

Day 86: 14th Sep, 2009

The issue of scalability is not just restricted to technology. It manifests in quite a profound manner in MANAC, typically during exams. I solve all those mini problems and have my concepts pretty clear (or so I delude myself). But in the exam, you get one big 10 marks problem and bamm! I think I can do better in that subject, then again, it may just be some hindsight bias :) Anyways, am not going to get the chance to prove that again... hopefully!

Memory is another weird thing in life. Met pachpan and Harlalka at the mess during dinner. Harlalka has 2 papers tomorrow, LAM and ITC ( MUAAAHAHAHAHHAHA @ sec D,E,F). And pachpan seemed to remember practically the entire LAM paper that we gave over a month back. I couldn't even remember the questions in today's paper :-p . hehehe. (@pachpan and Harlalka... you got your mention :-p).

Anyways, ITC tomorrow. That silly concept of a computer technology subject on paper comes again. Standing in the class is not too great. Will tomorrow bridge the gap or widen it? Wish there were some technology to answer that ... or wait... good there isn't :-p

Day 85: 13th Sep, 2009

CV verification today. During CV reviews, was asked by a lot of people to put numbers and quantify statements. Now ironically those same numbers may have to be deleted :-| ..

Anyways, end terms starting from tomorrow. Starting off with MANAC ! Started studying pretty late in the evening... wasn't able to do much myself. Then later on, Mr. pachpan took a few 10 min sessions that were more productive than the many hours I spent staring at the laptop. Anyways, back at my room now. We got exams in the morning so need to get some rest. It is only 4.30am today. I think I will finally beat the sunrise :-p !

Day 84: 12th Sep, 2009

FOURTH consecutive day (err.. night?) when I am sleeping AFTER sunrise! Today I tied a handkerchief around my eyes so that I feel it is still dark :D **lol** :D . The devil this time was the CV.

BTW, I fell victim to the risk assessment theory I put forth just yesterday. Had the ITC presentation at 10.00 and realised my mobile was ringing at 10.05 . Rushed off for the presentation. Not much of an issue though since the time was given by us anyways for the preponement. Full timepass in the presentation as well. Some imaginary question not present in the case should have been solved it seems :-p . And of course, the tossing between solver and data table.. hehehe..!

Had the money kannon presentation today... which looks for all those bullets. That took up afternoon. Then the CV struggle started. The bloody dispatch office was closed, adding to the complexity (and wasting Blue Dart money). But anyways, I think finally, I have more or less decent stuff here and there in the CV. Finally uploaded the CV at 05:58:00 for the 05:59:59 deadline. Afghanim ji .. iss CV ko freeze kiya jaaye..! .. But is this the sahi javaab?' .. Will know in course of time!