Day 268 - 18th July 2011

Had kept the alarm for 830 but ended up waking up at 1030 (which is still better than 245). Started working on the markstrat assignment when at around noon we got news that the deadline had been extended by a day! Still finished off the part on the internship before lunch. Had to meet the marketing area head today to discuss our concerns regarding the total credits available to us and the selection of courses for this year. They will be forwarded to the associate director who should get back to us by tomorrow. Went to Bopal in the evening for a haircut. During the day, the heat became oppressive to say the least! However it poured in the evening which brought down temperatures considerably. Have been working on the markstrat assignment since dinner, had to go to Kore to get some more doubts cleared. Have been watching ads/music videos on youtube for every set of 100 words completed :P Finally got done with the report at 3. Have to give it some finishing touches, which can be done tomorrow as well. The deadline for the submission is 6 in the evening.Will call it a day now and hope that I can actually get a rest day one of these days! :P

Day 267 - 17th July 2011

Woke up at 230 in the afternoon today! Have to do something about waking up slightly early on rest days. A lot of people from campus went to see Harry Potter today. After being here for more than a year we have gotten to know that there is an IMAX in Ahmedabad! All the HP fans headed out there to see the latest movie, yours truly doesnt fall in that category so I stayed back on campus and played a little cricket in front of silveroak. It was good fun, brought back memories of the MCL. The MTV shoot also happened on campus today. In the evening there were special performances lined up in the audi - a musical, stand up comedy and a play. Divyanshu, PGP17's very own stand up comic, stole the show with by far his performance till date! He deserved the standing ovation that he got at the end of it. Also realised that apart from our batch, the junior batch is also a very talented bunch. Since the MTV shoot got done at 9, which happens to be rush hour in terms of mess traffic decided to have dinner at Chota for the second night in a row. Post dinner, had a meeting with all the committees to discuss the process for the junior committee selections for this year. That went till about 2. That was followed by a markstrat team meeting, we have our first submission of pgp-2 tomorrow. Need to submit a 1800 word report out of which 1000 words should relate our internship experience to the markstrat world and the remaining 800 words should analyse the decisions we made in any one areas over the 8 markstrat years. Kore explained most of what was done and we divided the work amongst ourselves. Tried starting work on the report but then that familiar battle against sleep began. Sleep -1 me - 0 .

Day 266 - 16th July 2011

Had the first of our marathon 'rest' days until the 21st of this month. Woke up in time for lunch and was did general tp until evening when the weather gods were kind enough to allow a game of tennis. What we didnt anticipate though was the quality of the new clay court post the rains. It has become extremely soft at certain places which leads to a lot of uneven bounce. Its like a 5th day test match pitch with the ball even turning 90 degrees at times! Still managed to play for about an hour and a half. The 'rigours' of tennis coupled with skipping snacks meant that dinner at Chota was on the cards. The all time favourite of paratha and burji had the desired effect. Post dinner have been reading up on some articles and listening to music. Its become extremely hot again out here, makes sleeping all the more difficult!

Day 265 - 15th July 2011

The all nighter from day before, woke up at 10 in the morning. Had the second day of the crafting dissertation workshop. Today's session was all about the different types of research methodologies we have at our disposal. Some case studies and paper presentations were also discussed. During the course of the day had some work at the programme office wherein some issues had to be sorted. Post that had to meet the associate director regarding foreign travel for some of our batchmates who will be attending a conference in Seoul. Also had to take care of some my internship work. Had to make a to do list for the next 3 weeks just to ensure that nothing is forgotten! In the evening had a meeting with Team Interface alongwith volunteers from pgp-1 for the MTV shoot that is going to happen on campus. They will be on campus on 17th and 18th and will be covering different areas around campus, so all the activities had to be planned accordingly. The meeting got done by around 7.

Was relatively free in the evening after quite a long time, so decided to go to upper crust for dinner. That place never ceases to amaze me! Not once have I come back disappointed or without a bloated stomach from there :P Got back to campus by10 and had some more MCSA work lined up which dealt with the other committees on campus. Wrapped it up within an hour after which have been generally chilling reading some articles on the net and listening to music. Shall call it day soon!

Days 263 & 264 - 13th and 14th July 2011

Pulled off my first all nighter of the second year! 13th was a rest day to woke up at noon (in hindsight it turned out to be a good thing since I didn't know what was lying in store for me :P). MCSA work consumed most of the day. Started off by meeting the chairperson of the dissertation committee to finalise the timelines of the dissertation submissions. Post that had to meet the associate director and registrar to have the first round of discussions regarding the committee budgets. Also had to discuss the status of the internship report that had to be submitted, finally came to a mutual agreement that no report had to be submitted! :D In the evening had to sit with Apar and Jhamb to discuss the way forward wrt to the Junior MCSA elections which were to be held in the night. This year we tried something new by going online for elections, saves a lot of paper and time as well! The Junior MCSA elections started a t 1030 in the night. Candidates had to make a speech followed by Q&A from their batch. This was followed by elections from where the top 3 girls and guys would proceed for interviews which were to be conducted by the MCSA. We had to interview 13 people after the elections. The interviews started at 230 and went on till 8 in the morning! At the end of it we've found a Junior MCSA that we are very happy with and from whom we expect a lot. Also have to say that the junior batch also seems to have a lot of talented people, a heartening sign for MICA :-)

Had the first day of the crafting dissertation workshop on the 14th which started at 930 in the morning - which effectively meant no sleep at all on the 13th! Managed to pay attention for the first hour and a half after which the lack of sleep started taking its toll on me. Pushed myself to stay awake in class until the post lunch session. At around 330 excused myself from the class and came back to my room. Slept until 7 in the evening. Had JPC speeches and elections in the night, the online voting system was tried there as well. It worked quite well for both elections, due credited to be given to our chief election commissioner - SIR alongwith with Kore and Kore for devising a foolproof system. After a long time had dinner at Chota since the mess food was quite boring. JPC speeches went on till about 230 after which I came back to the room and crashed!

Day 262 - 12th July 2011

Technically today was supposed to be a 'rest' day. Woke up at 1030 only to realise that I was late for a meeting with the chairperson of the dissertation committee. The meeting was about the timelines for the dissertation timelines. During the course of the meeting we also realised that the dates for certain college events had to be changed. Had to meet the registrar for that as well, we were able to get those sorted. Also had to block time with the associate director to finalise the committee budgets for the year, that meeting will happen tomorrow. Managed to squeeze in a half an hour siesta after which had to prepare for a batch meet with PGP1. Junior committee selections begin from tomorrow, first up is the junior MCSA. Had to brief PGP1 about the job entails and also the selection process. Post dinner had a meeting with all the senior committees to discuss the process for selection of junior committees for this year. We have something different in mind which we want to implement this year, lets hope it clicks. After that had to work out the modalities of the junior MCSA elections for tomorrow with SIR, who is also helping us out with the new process that we are trying to set in place for the junior committee selections.

Have another 'rest' day tomorrow, wonder what's in store for that :P

Day 261- 11th July 2011

Had our last day of markstrat today. After leading the pack for one period we slipped to second place by the middle of the day. During the day the MCSA also had a meeting with the dissertation committee regarding the schedule of submissions for our dissertations. That took about an hour or so. We have been making plans of going to Honey9 for dinner for the past couple of nights, tonight that finally materialised. Kore,Kalkar, Rana, Sir and yours truly went have our first shikari chicken of the season. With no girls present we thought the food to bill ratio would be low, however to our the bill amount was pretty much the same! Got back to campus at around 11 after which we had a batch meet with PGP1. Had a placecomm meet after that to discuss the selection process for the junior committees. Have a rest day tomorrow, hopefully can wake up post 1030!

Day 260 - 10th July 2011

Sleeping for less than 4 hours for the past 3 days finally took its toll. Woke up only at 1130 today which meant that I was late for the first session of markstrat, however with Kore in our team there's not much to worry about ;-) We were market leaders for one period in the afternoon but then slipped to second position by the end of the day. A point worth mentioning though was the fact that we launched a project called SIR1 which exceeded all our expectations and consistently went out of stock. Sir's legacy thus continues at MICA! Had made plans to go to Honey9 for dinner but persistent rains ensured that we stayed back on campus. We didn't get a raw deal though since there was biryani in the mess :-P

Have our last day of markstrat tomorrow, the impending rest days after that should be incentive enough for me to wake up on time!

Day 259 - 9th July 2011

Started off with the actual round of markstrat today. Now we have Kore in our team, who is a genius when it comes to analysing loads of data and making decisions based on that. So we are pretty lucky in that regard. He has been explaining the decisions to all of us, and needless to say there is also a certain amount of free riding involved ;-) Our team has consistently been in second place today (after 2 periods). In the evening had some MCSA work which as usual went on till the night. It poured today as well which ensured that the temperatures dropped further, sleeping now seems to be a more comfortable proposition. For a change will call it a day early today by sleeping at midninght. Two more days of markstrat followed by 2 rest days!

Day 258 - 8th July 2011

First day of markstrat today and also back to the schedule of classes at 930 in the morning. Markstrat is a simulated environment where 5 teams compete against each other. Each team has 2 brands and there are 5 sets of decisions that need to be made for each period which represents a year in the markstrat world. Today was reserved as a day for trials so that we could get acquainted with the software and the interface. Had to make decisions for 2 years until evening. Got done by around 6 in the evening. Went to Bopal in the evening to pay off the mobile bill. Got back to campus and had to start preparing for the special interest group presentations for PGP-1. The presentations went on till about 430 in the morning and yes I have to wake up in time for markstrat tomorrow!