Day 306 - 6th September 2011

Had the second day of the rural communication workshop today. Woke up late which meant I had to miss the first session, utilised the time to work on the LB assignment in the library. Went for the post lunch session which was on rural economics. It was taken by the same prof who had taken our ME course. A lot of interesting facts  came out from the session, he shared his own experience in rural research. He also explained to us as to we how we should go about choosing a village for our research.

After the session, FIF1 work kept me busy for the next 3 hours. Everyday I realise that there is so much work to be done with the finals just a week away! Post dinner had the first night of Khula Aasman by Sankalp which had 4 plays. All of them were excellent and were excellent to say the least, its amazing how people manage to practice so much and pull off such plays in the middle of all assignment submissions and examinations. Also had the pre rurals party to end the day which meant some good food before sleeping! ;-)

Day 305 - 5th September 2011

Had a full day of classes today courtesy the rural communication workshop which is a prelude to the rural communication project we are supposed to undertake in the upcoming term break. We were given an overview of the general social structure, dos and don'ts and what we specifically need to look out for while undertaking the project. Most of my day though was taken up by FIF1 work, with the national finals lined up next week, a lot of last minute work needs to be done! Didn't attend one of the post lunch sessions of the workshop since there was a lot of work to be done for which mails had to be sent and calls had to be made.

Lectures got done at 430 and for the next 3 hours had back to back MCSA meetings -

• Placecomm and the Executive Registrar
• Executive Registrar
• Placecomm and the Associate Director
• Associate Director
• Programme Office
• Deputy Registrar

Was totally exhausted by the end of it all. Came back to the room and continued with the FIF1 work, a lot of calls have to be made to all agencies to ensure that everything is moving on track. In the night met up with group members for the luxury branding (LB) assignment. For the first time am working on an assignment which has nothing to do with sports :P In fact I didnt even know what the brand that we are supposed to work on was! The only saving grace is that Zoya is in my group and luxury branding is a piece of cake for her :-) Got back to the room by midnight. Have another full day of classes tomorrow with the rural workshop, its been one helluva tiring day today, getting sleep should not be a problem!

Day 304 - 4th September 2011

Had another rest day today, woke up early (read as 9 a.m.), had breakfast in the mess after ages! Went to Bopal for a haircut, luckily reached the barber's just before the Sunday morning rush kicked in. Got back to campus by noon. Post lunch had the PGP-1 v/s PGP-2 game. Didn't play today's game. PGP-1 won it quite comfortably, this time around chasing the target with 8 wickets to spare. Had most of the evening free, utilised that time to catch up with Geeko, Fruit Loops and Apu, something which has pending for quite some time!
A quintessential rest day, will call it a day soon, have a full day of classes lined up tomorrow.

Day 303 - 3rd September 2011

Got back to campus last night after a week in Bombay during which I had to go to office for some FIF1 work and also got to celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi at home. Didnt have any classes today but had some work lined up which had to be taken care of. Have not been feeling too well over the past couple of days, wasn't feeling great today either. However I couldnt resist the temptation of playing a cricket match in the afternoon. It was an unofficial PGP-2 v/s PGP-1 match. Played on the ground for the first time since the MCL final! The match was a huge letdown though, we got mauled and lost by 65 runs, a very rude wake up call for all of us. It was extremely humid during the game and I must have lost nearly 3 litres of water :P Came back to the room and slept for an hour so.

Had Sania's birthday treat at the Marriot today, courtesy a pretty decent offer from snapdeal. 18 of us feasted on the buffet and as is the case in such buffets, the desserts took the cake(pun intended). Came back with satisfied bellies! Will sleep a little early tonight, still reeling from the after effects of the cricket match and just before sleeping SCAM has sent a mail announcing the opening match of the cricket season with PGP-1 playing PGP-2 tomorrow ;-)

Day 302 - 28th August 2011

Had the FIF1 Speed Nights screening at MICA and IIM-A today. I was handling MICA while Rajat and Manu were at IIM. Spent the morning putting up one last set of posters around campus and tent cards on all tables in the mess. Was supposed to go to IIM to check out the branding but couldnt do that since the people from the event management agency missed their flight from Bombay in the morning and were taking a later flight. Because of that had to stay back in MICA to ensure that the branding was done on time.

In every event that I have been a part of nothing has ever gone smoothly or according to plan no matter how much you prepare in advance. The races are screened on Star Sports and the previous day we had checked the TV connection in the audi, Star Sports was tuned and everything was working fine. With the screening scheduled to begin at 5 we decided to check the connection at 230 only to realise that Star Sports wasnt available! The cable guy had very conveniently decided to remove all ESPN Star channels on this very day! Sir, Tarang and Apar came in to help and see what could be done. Various options were worked out - the community centre had a Tata Sky connection on which Star Sports was coming, we could pull a cable from there (about 150 metres in length) to the audi and screen it in the audi. Another option was to connect a laptop to the TV at the community center and using VPN share the screen with another laptop which would be connected to the projector in the audi! In the meanwhile we also called the cable guy from Shela village to check what he could do. As all of this transpired, it started pouring and I got a call from IIM saying that the dish connection was not able to receive any transmission because of the weather. At the same time there was a power failure at the cable guy's place as well, which meant there was no transmission at MICA! All the activations and build up and imagine no TV transmission!! Those couple of hours were quite crazy. Things started to brighten up - both literally and figuratively at around 445, with 15 minutes left for the race to start. The cable guy figured out a way to get Star Sports at MICA and the weather Gods were kind enough not to interfere with the dish TV transmission. The screenings at both places were pretty decent, though the fact that there were exams scheduled tomorrow at both places meant the turnout didnt exactly live up to what I had expected. Overall though it was a decent response compared to what was done earlier. After that eventful evening, it was time to start getting ready to leave for Bombay. Have to leave campus at 6 in the morning. Will be back on Friday, until then adios!

Day 301 - 27th August 2010

Didn't have nay lectures today but the Speed Nights to be held at MICA and IIM-A kept me busy. Went to the IIM campus in the afternoon to do a recce and also the dish connection for the screening had to be setup. Rajat and Manu will be handling it tomorrow so they also came along. The screening is taking place in a classroom out there and most of our time went in figuring out where to set up the dish connection. After our work at IIM was done we decided to go to Hokey Pokey - an ice cream parlour with a difference which was nearby. The fact that a subway was attached to it ensured that we had a sub as well!

Came back to campus by 7 and kept myself busy reading and reading some articles off the web. During the course of the day also got to know that I would be travelling to Bombay next week since there are no classes. A good time to get in some FIF1 work done since the national finals are less than 3 weeks away.