Day 65 - 30th August 2010

It's funny how one can lose track of what day of the week it is. Didn't feel like a monday today, could be because of the fact that yesterday didn't exactly feel like sunday! The 8 continuous days of marathaon lectures without any rest day is nearing its end. Had two double lectures of QT and SSC today. Both were pretty ok, not too good not too bad. After a long time lectures finished before lunch. For a change had lunch at Chota instead of the mess, the parathas out there are brilliant to say the least, especially the cheese paratha! It definitely was a very satisfying lunch. The only way to do justice to it was by according it a siesta. Went to the city in the evening to shop for formals. For the first time since I have got my bike here, I managed to get back to campus without getting drenched. The weather is here is so unpredictable, it was bright and sunny in the afternoon and evening, but in the night dark clouds emerge from nowhere and ensure that I dont feel like Im missing out on a Bombay monsoon. Since exams and assignment deadlines are nearing, I decided to come to the library to write some of the movie reviews that are required to be submitted for CT. Had to read about the movies first to remember the plot and then write my views about them. It definitely wasn't easy as it sounded, it took 3 hours to write the reviews for 3 movies and now I have 10 more to go. After that had to work a bit on the MICAMINDS project regarding the feasibility of a dedicated sports marketing institute in India. All this was interspersed with chai and tadka Maggi at chota. Had plans to study a bit of accounting but its already 5 in the morning! Hopefully the accounting plans shall materialise soon.

Enough about me, today's spotlight as a part of the friend of the day is on

Era Bali aka Geeko

One half of 1,Parijat, met her during one of the ice breaking sessions during orientation week. Her nickname arises from the fact that in all of her marksheets there is not a single subject where her marks begin with a digit lesser than 9! She has this uncanny knack of making it look like she is not paying attention in class and then all of a sudden asks a question to the prof. which is rarely out of context! Im yet to figure out how does she manage to do that. One of the fascinating things in a B-school is that you get to interact with people of various age groups, and she is a perfect example of how I can make myself feel old - the year in which I graduated and started working was the year in which she appeared for her 12th boards :-D

Geeko - hope you remember our deal - our friends from the other side of the border stay at HQ ;-)

Day 64 - 29th August 2010

Sunday bloody sunday! Never imagined spending a sunday in lectures from 9 to 6 and then a markops submission to be done by 8. Had 2 double lectures of QT and PoM. Had lectures in the audi after quite sometime, and I realised that it is still very difficult to stay awake in the audi no matter how interesting lecture is. The PoM prof showed us a video clipping about organization structures in which there was talk about org structures being clearly defined and all goals being communicated in the simplest possible way, with the intention of nurturing a spirit of 'intrapreneurship', need to start getting used to such management pfaff :-D. Though he also agreed that in theory everything seems easy and when it comes to implementing such stuff it is never easy. Started working on the markops assignment at around 630, although our results aren't exactly something to be proud of, I feel we have learnt a lot over the past few days, analyzing a number of reports on brand perception,competitor intelligence,market forecast etc. and then arriving at a decision - a pretty satisfying experience. Our primary aim today was to ensure that the SPI did not decrease and reduce our inventory by as much as possible. Ended up achieving both of them, in face the SPI went up marginally, which felt good :-D

LitComm had organized a mock Parliamentary debate after dinner, I hadn't seen one till date so decided to attend the session. Was pretty impressed with the format, will be interesting to take part in one such debate just for the experience.

That takes care of the boring part, now for the friend of the day and today it's the turn of my roomie -

Rajat Sharma aka CR -

Ironically my roommate was the last person I met on my first day out here. Throughout the day when I was in the room he wasn't and vice versa. It turns out that he was staying about a couple of kilometres away from where I was staying in Bangalore! His nickname comes from the fact that he is the class rep. i.e. junior MCSA, so technically Im living at the 10,Janpath of Palaash ;-) His responsibilities as a CR keep him away from the room most of the time, I have lost count of the number of people who have fallen sick and have been taken to hospital by him (at even the most unearthly hours), yet he does all of this without complaining. The most important thing though is the fact that I consider myself pretty lucky to have got a roomie who values cleanliness equally if not more than me!

CR - Long live HQ ;-)

Day 63 - 28th August 2010

Finally a day without markops! Regular lectures began today, had QT and principles of management(PoM). The QT prof. is really good, he breaks down the concepts to the simplest possible levels and then explains everything. The problems solved in class also seem to have some practical relevance, something that was missing in the maths that was taught till now, I mean if 2 guys are running around a circle in opposite directions at different speeds,am I going to save the world by finding out when they will meet for the first time? :-D PoM as a subject is a little dry but since the prof. is a guy who is working in the industry he has a lot of insights to share with the class, which makes it a little interesting. Also had the QT test today, was expecting it to be on the tougher side, but thankfully it didn't live up to my expectations. Comparatively this was one of the longer days in terms of lectures for quite sometime. Got free by 4, was in no mood to study so played tennis for a while. Had another quiz organized by LitComm in the night, this time the topic was brands. My partner and I almost made it to the final round, we lost out in the tie breaker for the last spot in the final round, nonetheless I won 50 bucks for answering an audience question :D

Ok now for the interesting part of today's post , friend of the day!! And today it's the turn of

Apoorva Sharma aka Apu

Prides herself in being a tomboy, she's the quintessential fauji kid, in her own words "MICA is the first institute on my CV without the word Army in it". Met her as well on the first day after Bulaa and Mallu, the Pune connection got us talking( she's from AIT), though I think she is not a 100% Punekar because she didn't learn Marathi in spite of living there for 4 years. She is pretty popular in our batch for speaking her mind and not compromising on her principles, in fact there are quite a few guys who are scared of her(cannot give the reasons for the same on this blog ;-) ), but that has definitely made her popularity ratings amongst the girls rise. She's an amazing photographer, no trip outside campus is complete without Apu sitting sharing the front seat of the rick with the driver and clicking away to glory. Shall try posting pics taken by her sometime soon.

Apu - As always my post has been quite short, in case something offended you please let me know, I shall keep my insurance papers in place ;-)

Day 62 - 27th August 2010

Last day of Markops for this week. Things for our firm went from bad to worse, it was like Lehmann brothers and AIG put together. Just when we thought that our SPI could not go any lower, it reached 167!!! On discussing this with the faculty it turns out that we were focusing more on promoting our new products and had completely neglected improving our existing ones. That worked against it. There were a few positives out of this entire exercise though - got to learn a lot about analysing market research reports, which i found quite interesting, also got to learn a lot from our mistakes :-P Have another round of simulation to be submitted by sunday.

Had TI work to be done in the evening. Worked a bit on the blog and what content kind should be made available on it. Had to run it through the senior team in the night. They seemed to be pretty OK with it, will have another meeting tomorrow to see how to take it forward. Started preparing for tomorrow's QT test after that was done, apparently its an open book test (which is generally not a good sign). Nonetheless, went through some of the things taught in class.

In continuation of introducing my friends, today its the turn of -

Arvind Menon aka Mallu

This guy claims to be 27, though most of us think he has to be at least 34 ;-) He is a really good sport (at least until now), since he has the been the butt of quite a few of my jokes thanks to his receding hairline, without any complaints. His nickname is quite an irony because there is nothing mallu about him - no accent, no communist leanings, no affinity for the gulf etc. Still I guess this name will stick for the next couple of years. Met him also on the first day, while Bulla and I were analyzing Mithunda's Gunda, he kept himself out of the conversation because he doesn't indulge in such 'peabrained/brain dead' movies. Though Im yet to figure out what are the kind of movies that he really likes :-P

Mallu - have you hired that lawyer already?? ;-)

Day 61 - 26th August 2010

Another day of Markops. Our team had a good start, we were 2nd in terms of stock price index(SPI) after yesterday's round of decision making. But then things went downhill from there. SPI is calculated on a base of 1000. Anything below that figure is to be considered as a loss. After round 1 the SPI was at a respectable 1115 , it went to 1132 in round 2 but then we faced a Lehmann brothers type scenario in round 3. A few of our decisions backfired and our SPI crashed to 356!! It was a stunning drop which was totally unexpected. Nonetheless our team will hopefully regroup tomorrow bring our company back on track. This experience made me realise the kind of stress the kind of stress the stock brokers at Dalal Street or Wall Street must be undergoing, though this was just a simulation it definitely wasn't a very good feeling, going through something like this in real life, requires some guts!

Till today a very conscious effort has been made not to mention any names,of friends or faculty, on this blog. That trend shall be broken, starting today I will introduce one friend of mine per day on this blog, in chronological order of meeting them since the course started. Today's friend is -

Vineet Singh aka Bulla


He was one of the first few people I met on campus,met him at Chota. I initially thought he was senior because he was roaming around the place as if he'd been here for a year :-D The biggest mistake one can commit is asking him "Where are you from?", because he has lived in literally all states of India. So he first finds out where the other person is from and then goes on to say that even he has lived there! For this very reason he is also called national integration.
A big time movie freak, he can give imdb a run for its money, he might even be better since Bhojpuri movies are also his areas of expertise. It's pretty amazing as to how person can remember so much! Apart from movies his favourite pastime is sleeping. He is one of the guys who sleeps the most in class but is yet to be caught by any of the profs, which is an amazing talent.

Bulla - in case you read this, no offence meant buddy :-) "Mera naam hai pote jo apne baap ke bhi nahi hote" :-P

Day 60 - 25th August 2010

The entire day revolved around Markops - a marketing simulation game where you need to take business decisions and compare your results with that of virtual competitors. It's a pretty interesting concept, we completed 6 months of a 3 year plan today, the rest of it will be done over the next couple of days. Had another JIT experience today - although we were trying to work on it from 2 in the afternoon, the real work was began only at 630 with a 8 p.m deadline. Submitted the assignment at 745, which wasn't exactly JIT but still we weren't early birds either :-) Had nothing much to do after that, ended up spending the remainder of the day in my room, surfing the net and tracking the score of the India NZ match. Today seemed to be more of a rest day as compared to yesterday :-D

Day 59 - 24th August 2010

After a long time had a rest day with no submissions on the next day. Most of the day was spent outside campus. A friend of mine returning from Pune, went to the airport(drove his car) to pick him up. Driving in a new city is a good experience, Ahmedabad comes very close to Pune when it comes to traffic discipline. Throughout the drive I was reminded of Russell Peter's joke about traffic lights in India - they are optional :-D In the evening went to city on my bike to pick up a birthday cake for a friend. Since the bike has come every outing has ended with me coming back drenched! Today was the worst of those experiences, it started pouring when we were riding on the highway, there was no place where we could stop and wait for the rains to subside. Had no choice but to keep riding, everything and I mean everything got drenched :-D Hostel birthday celebrations never cease to be fun. Today's highlight was the guys from Palaash refusing to enter Parijat because of some incidents that took place last week ;-) We even sang happy birthday from the badi court, it was only when the cake was brought out did the resistance cave in.
The cake cutting was followed by a dancing session in the Parijat courtyard and then some tp at a friend's room.

Rest day's get over too fast! I thought I could make up for some lost sleep today but I guess I have just accumulated more sleep to catch up on.

Day 58 - 23rd August 2010

There are days when you unexpectedly find yourself to be too free, today was one of those days. One of our lectures got canceled thanks to which we were free by 1130, as it is there was a TGIF feeling to the day because tomorrow is a rest day, it just got better because of getting free early. Since it was Onam, 13 of us went to a Mallu mess for lunch. I am not a big fan of south indian food, but once in a while its nice to hog on rice,sambar,curry etc. Also eating off a banana leaf and with your hands is fun ;-) After lunch a few of us went to the coffee shop at TGB for dessert, had chocolate barbeque which was too good to be true, 25 bucks for three chocolate balls served on a straw like skewer! :D Thats the good part about Gujarat, but the flip side is that the also place claims to be vegetarian sushi shop! The Japs would faint if they ever went to that place.

Got back to campus by 530 and tried to make up for the hogging by spending some time at the tennis court. Was very very humid and the colour of my shirt went from dark blue to darker blue. But nonetheless felt good to play tennis again. Post dinner time was spent generally chit chatting and listening to some good music with a few friends. The day ended (or the next day began) by playing cricket with absolutely no lights at the silveroak courtyard at 3 in the morning/night.

Days 54,55,56,57 - 19th to 22nd August 2010

Back after a 4 day hiatus! Had been to Bombay for the finals ENQuizitive at NITIE. Had the marketing plan presentation on 19th which I felt was pretty ok. Compared to the other groups our ppt had minimum content, just bullet points which we elaborated on.

I don't think I mentioned about my backpack getting flicked earlier in the week. Had gone to the city to buy a helmet when it got flicked. During the presentation I got a call from Citibank asking me if I had lost my debit card because someone had called and reported to have found my card. That's when I remembered that I had kept all my expired cards in the bag along with my PAN card. I took the number of the person and it turns out that wallet containing all the cards was dumped in a post box and had found its way to a post office in the city. The person who had called was the post master of that place. Having the bike turned out to be advantageous, could go to the place in the afternoon and collect the cards. It was really nice of the gentleman to have called the bank and informed about the lost cards - there are definitely some nice people in this world! :-) Had to leave for bombay on 19th night. Slept through pretty much the entire train journey. Reached home at around 7 the next morning, its always a good feeling to go back home. Had to leave for the venue by 830 and I was reminded about why I didn't want to study/work in bombay - the travel! Took me one and a half hours for journey that would otherwise half an hour to forty minutes. The quiz was at Peninsula Grand, a pretty swanky place. I still haven't gotten out of the SAP mentality when it comes to dress codes for formal events. I went in jeans and a t-shirt and was shocked to see everybody else over there formally dressed :D Luckily my quiz partner brought along an extra set of formals. The morning session was on a case study competition which was followed by the quiz. Now the quiz was an enviro-business quiz, which is not exactly my area of expertise (not that I have many). But then there are days when luck is on your side, we did reasonably well, ended up coming third. Now when you go with the aim of not finishing last, coming third is as good as winning :D. It had a very unique marking scheme where either you score a lot or very less (read negative), the last two teams actually had negative scores, we were spared that ignominy ;-) The only sad part was that the cash prizes were only for the first 2 places. Nonetheless we left with our heads held high. :-P

Spent that evening and the whole of next day at home meeting up with friends and relatives and playing on the Wii. Was supposed to leave on 21st evening but thanks to the traffic (again) missed my flight and all the other flights that night were full. The only other option was taking a morning flight on the 22nd. So got to spend another night at home but contrary to the previous night could sleep only for a couple of hours because of the fact that I had to wake up at 3! Slept a bit on the flight and managed to stay awake through 2 hours of eco and an hour of accounting. It actually feels good to be back on campus :-)

Day 53 - 18th June 2010

Had the day off today to prepare for the marketing plan presentation. Pretty much the entire day went in working on the plan. We had to come up with a plan for a product which wasn't more than a year old, so our group decided to pick Godrej GoJiyo, India's answer the second life. It's a pretty novel concept and should pick up in the next three to four years.

Went to Bopal in the evening for some work. Had to get the bike repaired as well. As luck would have it, it poured exactly when I was there! A bright sunny day followed by a downpour in the evening - perfect formula for no tennis. So had no choice but continue working on the assignment.The highlight of the day though was dinner at the mess - butter naan and 'trippy' butter chicken! It was genuinely good, enjoyed mess food after a really long time.

The rest of the night was spent working on the assignment. Got the presentation at 1030 tomorrow morning which means I can wake up late :-)

Day 52 - 17th August 2010

Had a late start to the day today with lectures beginning at 10, I stretched it by waking up at 11! Made for the second lecture which was on social sciences and communication. But that was just the beginning of my day. After lunch we had a FA tutorial arranged for us since most of then non commerce guys are pretty lost in that subject! This was followed by a talk on the event management industry by the CEO of Percept. He is one of the most inspiring people I have met till date. Becoming a CEO of a 400 crore company at the age of 35 is no small feat! He spoke at length about sports marketing, wedding planning, movies, brand content, events and many more things. The best part about this interaction was the fact that he told us about the mistakes he has committed and how we should learn from it and avoid it, this is something that not many speakers are comfortable with. He may have come across as arrogant to some people, but I feel he has earned it. I thoroughly enjoyed it and hope he comes to campus again.

In the evening went to see Peepli Live at PVR. Its a pretty decent movie, worth watching once, although the whole part about the media hyping up trivial stories is slightly exaggerated. Got back to campus in time for the mock GD's arranged by PlaceComm for the summers. I was advised to work on the tone of my voice because it was felt that I came across as too authoritative. Another thing the seniors pointed out was that the GD was too cordial and it definitely is not going to be like that during the actual GD.

We have been given a break tomorrow to prepare for our marketing group assignment, which is to come up with a marketing plan for a new product. But as is always the case, whether we get a one day break or a one week break we always work on the just in time principle ;-)

Day 51 - 16th August 2010

My bike arrived today!! Feels great to be mobile again. The funny part though was I lost my three times while riding back to college from S.G road. I thought I knew the road pretty well but riding in the night without streetlights was not factored in. Every junction seemed similar and at cross roads I wasn't really sure where to go. At one point I think I rode half to Gandhinagar and at another point I think I was entering Rajasthan because I had reached a toll booth :-P Eventually called up a friend and told him where I was and asked him how to get to campus. Turns out I was on the right road until I asked a rickshaw driver who sent me in the opposite direction!

Apart from that had a pretty regular day at college. Class was quite empty because of the PM assignment submission. PGP1 later got a stern mail from the prof. saying that this was unacceptable in a B-school and we should get used to it. Will see how effective that mail is during the next submission ;-)

In the evening went to the city to meet my dad and collect the bike as well. Had dinner at the Marriott :-) The best part about these buffets is the dessert, I od'd on chocolate - chocolate mousse, chocolate pudding, choco chip ice cream, chocolate fudge and some other chocolate related items :D Can't think of anything better that can follow such a long list of delicacies so will end this post on a 'chocolatey' note!

Day 50 - 15th August 2010

Happy Independence Day and Happy half century for MICAlal ;-) Cant seem to remember the last time I celebrated I-day. In spite of it being a rest day I woke up at 8 for the function organised by CulComm. They had invited around 300 school children from the neighbouring areas on campus for the flag hoisting ceremony. The function got done by around 11 after which had to send a writeup for TI. During the course of the afternoon got to know that our mini vacation at Asoka had been brought to an end and we had to move back to Palaash. I had actually started missing life at Palaash and Im quite happy to be back. The only thing I'll miss about Asoka is the attached bathroom ;-) Moved back after lunch which took about half an hour.

Tried working on the PM assignment which was like fighting a losing battle against the impending stupor. Ended up sleeping for an hour or so, would have been longer had I not been woken up by phone calls from friends calling me to the football field to cheer MICA in a match against NIRMA. The match was good fun, we ended up beating them 5-1, our poor goalkeeper got so frustrated because after the first goal he had absolutely no work to do :-P Started working earnestly on the assignment after the match. Spent a couple of hours on researching about the different service offerings of airlines in the India UK sector, which was the second part of the assignment (for the first part pls. refer to day 49)

LitComm had organised a quiz in the night at the audi. A friend and I decided to go for the quiz at 1010 p.m while the deadline was at 1015 p.m. My luck with quizzes, when it comes to clearing the first round, has been quite good over the past week. Turns out that I had a brilliant partner and all I had to do was offer moral support :-) My only contribution was two answers in the elimination round, for the remaining questions all I did was agree with what she said. We made it to the top 5 and ended up finishing in joint third place. Unfortunately only the top 2 teams get cash prizes. Nonetheless that was much more than I would have bargained for, and I have promised my partner a treat at Chota for her stellar performance and letting me tag along :-D

After the quiz tried to give the finishing touches to my assignment, Im getting this feeling that its not too long and I could have done a better job. Anyways will know if Im right when the grades are announced.

To commemorate 50 days at MICA I would like to post this song , I have been listening to it on loop for the past 3 hours. Until tomorrow, adios!

Day 49 - 14th August 2010

One of the few days when lectures started at 10. Used the opportunity to sleep till 930. Had 3 lectures of IMEI which were conducted by an alumnus who is working with network18. Since it was in the audi it took some effort to stay awake, which I barely managed to do. After lectures were done I went to the library to start work on the PM individual assignments. One of
the tasks is to analyse company websites from a competitive intelligence point of view. So I decided to do an analysis of two IPL teams - RCB and MI.Although I am huge MI fan, I must say that the RCB marketing team has done a brilliant job to stay connected with their fans. The analysis took longer than expected and I was able to do only one out of the two tasks in the assignment.

Since it was a friend's birthday he and I went to Pizza hut to pack pizzas packed. We didn't expect the sudden downpour that greeted us when we reached there thanks to which we got drenched to the bone, luckily the pizzas didn't get wet. Azhar Bhai's rickshaw was the only solace for an otherwise avoidable outing. Came back to a friend's room where about seven of us
hogged on pizzas and garlic bread. I generally prefer dominos to pizza hut but the pizzas today were quite good.

Wanted to go back to the library to continue working on the assignment and conveniently forgot about the fact that it closes at midnight on saturday. So went to Chota for a while before coming back to the room and crashing for the day.

Day 48 - 13th August 2010

Woke up at 930 today which meant I missed the first lecture, got to know later on that half the class was absent for it. Attended the remaining 3 lectures which out of which the PM lecture was pretty interesting. Any class that involves major DCP can never be boring ;-) After classes had to complete some formalities regarding the quiz at NITIE next week. One thing I liked was that apart from getting clearance from the admin we also need to inform the MCSA, this is something that I was not used to during my graduation, where the students were a part of any major decision making process.

It is a friend's birthday tomorrow (today actually since its already 3 in the morning), a few of us went to the city to buy him a gift. In the process I also ended up buying some clothes for myself. Had dinner at subway, which is one of my favourite fast food joints and also got some subs packed for people back in the hostel.Bought some ice cream and pudding on the way back for the birthday celebrations, kept them in the fridge at Chota.

Birthday celebrations in the hostel are a sight to behold. The birthday boy/girl is made to stand at the Palaash courtyard and is first dunked with cold water from the top floor. This is followed by the all time favourite birthday 'bumps', which only boys are subjected to. This is followed by some more dunking by the people who missed it the first time around followed by the cake cutting. The last thing done with the cake is to eat it, every other possible use is found and the
cake is smeared all over the birthday boy/girl's face. There are also certain people who, irrespective of whose birthday it is, are always dunked and it looks like its their birthday as well :-D

The highlight of the day though was the ice cream and pudding eating session a few of us had on the Asoka terrace followed by some extempore entertainment. Also had an excellent photo session and some of the pics have already found their way to facebook :-)

All in all a good day, need to get back to assignments and deadlines tomorrow, but right I have an appointment with my bed and pillow and I donot want to upset them ;-)

Day 47 - 12th August 2010

Murphy's law of averages seems to have caught up with me today. After yesterday's luxury of waking up in time for lunch, today I could manage only 3 and a half hours of sleep. Had a 9 to 5 day today, with a graded marketing tutorial at the end of the day. The highlight of the tutorial was the surprise quiz! Luckily it was a MCQ type paper so there was no scope for pfaffing ;-) The test was strictly OK, it has 10% weightage in the final grade so hope Im praying lady luck was on my side while I was guessing through some of the questions. The second part of the tutorial was on the Tata Ace case which again has 10% weightage, this had descriptive type answers, which were mostly Crtl+C and Ctrl+V from the case.

I have always noticed that whenever something is least expected or never expected, it happens! Today was another example. A friend of mine and I had taken part in an environmetal quiz organized by NITIE. The first round was conducted online and was held last night. Personally I found the quiz quite tough and even using google wasn't helpful (it was allowed). Before dinner, got a call from my team mate saying that we made it through to the finals and will have to be in Bombay on the 20th! Now that was totally unexpected, all expenses paid trip to spend some time at home :-D But at the same time I have absolutely no idea about how to prepare for an environmental quiz!

Post dinner came to the library to do some of the pre-reads for the marketing class tomorrow. Did a lot of tp in as well. Again before i could realise it, its 3 o'clock, have another long day ahead tomorrow,need to book my tickets for Bombay as well :-D

Day 46 - 11th August 2010

First bunk at MICA :-D Had only two lectures in the morning, so decided to invest more time in sleep. The joy of deactivating an alarm is difficult to describe :-P So it felt like a rest day when I generally wake up in time for lunch. Had planned to study a bit in the after lunch but ended up sleeping again for another hour and a half! Finally got down to some of the eco pre-reads at around 4.

Played tennis today as well, another two hour session. Just hope that I can play regularly from now on.Since have a lot of pre-reads and assignment deadlines that need to be done over the next few days and add to that our seniors have a 4000 word assignment to submit, the library was bursting at the seams today! There wasn't enough place for everyone. Luckily I managed to get a place and hold on to it. Read up on the Tata Ace case study and the economics pre-reads. I used to always be apprehensive about studying in a library with so many people around but after coming here I seemed to have gotten used to it. That could also be because of the fact that the library is air-conditioned(unlike the other ones I've been to). Posting this one from the library, sitting below a cool 24 degree breeze from the ac right above me, will get back to reality in sometime.

Day 45 - 10th August 2010

Finally some sunshine! I cant seem to remember when was the last time I saw a clear sky throughout the day. Could finally get to play some tennis today, managed to play for two and a half hours.

Another relaxed day w.r.t lectures, had only 3 of them - IMEI and Eco. The eco prof. really amazes me with his knowledge about the subject and how he teaches it. I dont think I've mentioned this - he graded Chetan Bhagat's papers at IIM-A :-D. The seniors have also told us that he will take a session on Indian railways in which he will explain how they made money out of human excreta!

Since we are in the middle of the term now, assignment deadlines have started approaching. I made a list of things to be done over the next week and boy its one big list! Decided to study a bit in the night and read up on a bit of PM and eco. Went to Chota for some random discussions over chai. We have a PM tutorial coming up in which we will be graded on a case study, need to read up on that as well. Went to Chota for chai a couple of times and before I knew it, the time was 445 a.m. So I decided to visit slumberland because I have no interest in seeing the sunrise :-)

Day 44 - 9th August 2010

Another week begins. Had only 3 lectures today, thanks to that got done by 1230. The IMEI double lecture was interesting in bits and pieces - today's topic was the evolution of the print industry in India. The part which I found the most interesting was the innovative ways used by newspapers to circumvent the restrictions imposed during the Emergency. PM focused sales strategies today and the highlight of the class was the 15 minute discussion on the statement "A good salesman can sell a comb to a bald man" :-D some major DCP happened in class and it was hilarious, with some people even saying that he would be selling hope!

The weather improved considerably today, finally saw the sky after ages,but the joy was shortlived. I went to sleep in the afternoon at around 230 when it was bright and sunny outside, when I woke up a couple of hours later it was dark and gloomy and it had rained! But as the saying goes, for every dark cloud there is a silver lining(pun intended). Thanks to the incessant rains, couple of rooms on the first floor of Palaash are facing severe seepage problems. My room is one of them, so as a stopgap arrangement we've been moved to Asoka, the hostel for visiting faculty and international exchange program students :-) This hostel is like a 5-star hotel - swanky new rooms, attached (clean) bathrooms, intercom in every room and there are even paintings in each room to add to the aesthetic value :-D A refreshing change for 4-5 days though Im waiting to go back to Palaash.

The assignment deadlines have started nearing. Have submissions on the 13th,16th and 19th. Worked on the ID assignment which has to be submitted on 13th. Hope to start working on the others soon but for the time being will enjoy the temporary luxuries of Asoka.

Day 43 - 8th August 2010

Wonder if rest day should be renamed to waste day. Woke up at one in the afternoon :-D Though the heavy rainfall and accompanying thunder last night did wake me up a couple of times. The downpour was so severe that rooms in the on the ground floor got flooded, poor guys had to drain out all the water from their rooms. For once I am happy to be living in a room on the first floor.
It was raining in the afternoon as well and a pump had to be brought in at the badi court to ensure that the water clogging wasn't too severe. Luckily it subsided a bit in the evening and the skies cleared up a bit.

One of good things about hostel life are the impromptu events that take place and they end up being even more fun than the planned events. Today was one of those days, had a session of cricket in the Palaash courtyard which turned out to be amazing fun. There were so many people who wanted to play that eventually we split up into four teams and ended up playing a mini tournament! The first time these things happen are always fun, but the second time onwards it not as much fun,like the rain dance, its rained almost everyday since the first rain dance but dancing in the rain is the last thing on people's minds now :-P

Planned to read a bit IMEI but 10 pages into the book I found it to be like a novel so then decided to go to Chota for a while. Got back from there a while back and just saw the time, its 3.10 a.m.! Will try reading a bit of IMEI till it puts me to sleep(which will be very soon)

Day 42 - 7th August 2010

The last day of the week always has everyone in high spirits. Had only 3 lectures today, thanks to that got done by 1230. Saw the last part of the India SL test match at the community centre. What made it special apart from India winning the match was that it was a fourth innings chase. Its good fun to watch a match in a group like we did today, hope there are many more matches like this.

The weather has just been deteriorating out here. Whenever there is some free time the rain Gods decide to pay a visit. Thanks to that all plans of playing tennis were washed out. Had a PlaceComm meet in the evening. Some basics about our CV and what to prepare for interviews. After the PlaceComm meet , MCSA met the batch to take some general feedback about issues faced by us. One thing I've noticed about feedback sessions, not just over here but in general, people use it as a platform only to give negative feedback, at times positive feedback can also be given :-)

Sankalp, the theatre group at MICA, kicked off the 2010 season with 3 plays at the audi. My pick of the plays was the one on multiple personality disorder, it was a brilliant concept and had an ending very people could have anticipated. That got done by around midnight, had to come back to my room and prepare a writeup about the opening night for TI. Had plans to go to Chota but the rain ensured that I was confined to the Palaash veranda. Hope the rains dont ruin tomorrow's holiday.

Day 41 - 6th August 2010

TGIF! Had a reasonably relaxed day today. Started with our first session on the Media and Entertainment industry. It was a joint lecture in the audi - there is something that I haven't mentioned about the audi, it isn't a conventional one, there in an ascending flight of stairs on which pillows are kept, so basically one has to sit on the floor. Because of the CS assignment submission and a birthday celebration last night, quite a few people in the batch didn't get their daily quota of sleep. An air-conditioned audi with comfortable pillows and place to stretch was a boon for quite a few people. They took the liberty of actually lying down on the topmost row,which was empty, and were caught only at the end of the lecture. At least they got two hours of undisturbed sleep :-P

There was a one and a half hour break today, during which I saw the India SL test match. It feels like ages since I have seen cricket, and watching the match today was therapeutic :-) After lectures our group gave some finishing touches to the CS assignment, the deadline for which was 5 p.m. Managed to submit it by 430, no last minute adventures, though Im quite sure there are quite a few of them in the offing. It felt like exams are over and vacations have begun after submitting the assignment. Slept for a while in the evening before we had our last movie screening of the term. Today's movie was an Iranian movie, two women. This movie made me realise that the image of Iran ingrained in all our minds and the ground realities are quite different.

Did absolute tp post dinner. Walks around campus, badminton, tt, nimbu paani at Chota and the like ensured that time flew. Decided to come back to my room by 130. Listening to U2 as I type this one. Will go to sleep hoping and praying that India manage to pull off a miracle against SL tomorrow!

Day 40 - 5th August 2010

Had a pretty weird schedule today, there was a two and a half hour break between two lectures. First lecture was at 9 and the second was at 1245. Used the time between lectures to do some interface work. Also had the fingerprint recognition done today, though I believe it'll come into effect only from next term. Couldn't sleep in the afternoon because of a health checkup that had to be done for all students. Got done with that and had another MLS session on challenges in the communication industry. The speaker was quite good and the line that stuck with me was "Your time spent at a B school doesn't determine your first job but it determines your last job."

The deadline for the CS assignment being tomorrow,our group sat to give some finishing touches to the ads. Unfortunately for me the lack of sleep took its toll and I ended up sleeping through the most of the discussion! Feeling a little guilty about it now. Was woken up at around 330 after which I got back to my room. The deadline for the assignment is 5 p.m tomorrow,hope it comes out well!

Day 39 - 4th August 2010

One day closer to a rest day. I've noticed that the day which is bang in the middle of the week is the most difficult to get through. Although I got a good 6 hours of sleep, got out if bed with great difficulty. What made it difficult was the fact that we had a double lecture of MLE in the morning. Cant blame the faculty, there is nothing that can be done for such subjects. The afternoon lecture of ID required some pre-reading to be done, did a bit of that in the break between two lectures and the lecture ran mostly on DCP from almost everyone in the class. Those who didn't participate were asked by the prof. to speak up at the end of the lecture. The fun part was when people who didn't read the case contributed to the discussion :-D The last lecture of the day on PM was by far the best, the prof. currently taking the sessions specialises in advertising and is teaching us IMC. She is so good that I'm sure her lectures might be the main reason for people wanting to major in advertising.

Had another 2 hour long siesta today, could have been longer had it not been for the movie screening at 5 in the evening. Today's movie was from Brazil - Behind the Sun, it was based on honour killings during the early 1900's. Didn't find it as interesting as the other movies, but then again we have been asked not to compare any of the movies that are screened.

The inclement weather has ensured that no tennis was possible today and the way its been raining, I'm sure it won't be possible for another couple of days at least. Decided to study a bit after dinner, so headed to the library after quite a long time. Read a bit of PM, its a very interesting subject to read but preparing for it from an examination point of view is very difficult. The study session was generously interspersed with breaks for surfing the net,chai at Chota and a walk around campus. M still at the library as I post this one, will head back to the room in sometime.

P.S - Got a mail today that there is going to be fingerprint recognition for attendance pretty soon, unless we have someone of the calibre of Michael Scofield in the batch it is RIP Proxy!

Day 38 - 3rd August 2010

Hurricane Katrina has seems to have paid a visit to Shela and might just apply for permanent residency. On days like this I know what would have been the inspiration for The Beatles to have penned "Here Comes the Sun". Eco and FA were not as soporific as I had anticipated,since people have devised ways of keeping themselves and others awake during lectures. The latest trend is to write the nickname of the person on the flip side of the name tag and put that in front of his/her desk. Another new fad is clicking pictures of people sleeping and tagging them on facebook, one guy even has an entire album dedicated for this. Had a session on writing research papers in the afternoon which was for about one and a half hours. After last week's schedule it felt like bliss to be done by 1 in the afternoon. Finally could manage a nice comfortable siesta!

Played a little tennis in the evening before Katrina decided to pay a visit again. Had to get back in time for the movie screening at 7. Today's movie was a french movie called a love to hide. It was based on how homosexuals were treated by the Nazi regime and how the outlook towards homosexuality is still skewed. One thing that I have realised courtesy CT is that I have a lot of things to read up about! How and when that will happen is something that I am yet to figure out.
Post dinner continued a bit of the CS group assignment which got done by around 1230, the planning stage is down now need to get down to implementing it,which hopefully will start tomorrow.

Day 37 - 2nd August 2010

Had our first class on Social Sciences and Communication(SSC) today. Most of the ppt had only pictures and what we perceived from it (although some people thought that it was racial stereotyping). We are going to learn about anthropology,sociology and psychology in this subject, as geeky as this may sound, Im actually looking forward to it. The marketing lecture was taken by a really good prof, she had just one slide on Integrated Marketing Communications(IMC) but kept that kept us engrossed for more than an hour. At the end of the lecture Nike+ was discussed - a brilliant concept, but Im not sure how effective it will be in India. The other 2 lectures were on ID and MLE, the only source of entertainment was when people tried to 'shoot' down the DCP'ers.

All committee members had a meeting with the director in the afternoon. Just a formal introduction of the junior committee members and the senior committee had to talk about the plans that they had in mind for the coming year. TI has some major plans chalked out for this year, hope they materialise. Had an optional movie screening in the evening - an Iranian movie called Colours of Paradise, though I did manage to stay awake for the entire duration of the movie, I found the ending to be too open ended.

Post dinner had some TI work, have to come up with a concept/layout for a MICA blog. Came up with a few ideas for that, need to work on it tomorrow as well. After that had to work on the CS (Creative Strategy not Counter Strike) group assignment. That went on until around 130, have been doing absolute tp since then. Will head out to Chota now (0215 hours),not feeling too sleepy,sure to make up for it during classes tomorrow (a potent combination of eco. and accounts)

Day 36 - 1st August Day

I never thought that my first proper friendship day celebration would be at the age of 25! CulComm had put up posters at all the hostels for people to post their friendship day messages and they even had an hour of song dedications during dinner at the mess, was good fun.

Apart from that since today was a rest day, there was nothing much to do. The problem was compounded by the sudden downpour which flooded the entire campus. The badi court and Palaash courtyard were submerged.The rains reminded me of Bombay,torrential would be an understatement. Few of us in the hostel tried to make the most of this kind of a situation by ordering for chai and pakodas from Chota. Because of this rain it'' take at least another 4-5 days for me to inaugurate my tennis racquet. Played UNO today after such a loong time, one of the few card games I know:-)

The only productive work done today was reading the 5 page case on Hot Chips. But with the kind of week we had I feel its ok to have a days like today.

P.S happy Friendship day to all my friends who read this blog :-)

Day 35 - 31st July 2010

In spite of sleeping for less that four hours I was feeling so energized in the morning, the only reason being today was the last day of a long and winding week. Had only one lecture in the morning on eco. No test today as well, though the prof. did walk in with answer sheets,he loves playing with our emotions ;-) Had an hour long break before the next session so did tp at Chota. We had our last class on CT today, the prof. seemed to be in a good mood today and was cracking a lot of jokes. He managed to keep the 2 hour session pretty lively. Today's class continued a bit on how Hollywood is used to influence the mood of a nation with some more examples and then moved on to a bit of media studies. The movie screened today was an English movie called the music box. It seemed to have been made at a time when the US was riding high on anti-communist sentiments. Yours truly slept off for sometime, and apparently was snoring as well :-S. In spite of that I still managed understand the plot and got the story at the end.

In the evening went to Gulmohar Mall to buy a tennis racquet. Have always wanted to buy a Wilson, got an amazing deal on one today. Bought a some clothes as well. I realised that I like to shop alone, it gets done very fast. Got back to campus by around 930. Since tomorrow is a rest day there is a friday night mood that has consumed most of PGP1. Had our first Team Interface meeting today, met the senior committee at midnight at Chota. Just a general meeting briefing us on our responsibilities. Nobody,including me, is in the mood to sleep and hence this post is being typed at 415 a.m. Guess my day will start in the afternoon today as well :-)