Day 444 - 1st April 2012

The penultimate day at MICA. Spent the first half of the day in arranging for the bike to be packed and sent to Bombay. A lot of people started leaving campus, saying multiple goodbyes wasn't an easy job. Had our last group lunch at Pizza Hut - Kalkar, Shibani, Sania, Kore, Dua, Apu and Buds were there. Got back to campus by 5 in the evening. Caught up on some sleep in the evening. Spent most of the night copying as many serials as possible from myzone. The last dinner in the mess happened to be biryani. With so many people leaving, the campus felt like one of those deserted towns we see in westerns. Spent some time at Chota in the night. Saw the convocation video online before calling it a day one last time.

Day 437 - 25th March 2012

Woke up a little earlier than usual today since Jhamb and I had to take care of some MCSA work. Spent the first half of the day working on presentation that has to be made on the 30th of March. Went for a jog in the evening. Post dinner there was a batch meet wherein we took feedback from the batch for the presentation that was being prepared. Got done by midnight after which did some tp with Buds, Kore and Sania in Kalkar's room. Tomorrow onwards my last week at MICA begins, will take some time for that to sink in. 

Day 424 - 12th March 2012

Woke up relatively early today, had breakfast at Chota before getting down to housekeeping duties. Had to wash clothes and also get collect clothes from Paras Bhai. Pre lunch spent majority of the time reading articles off the net. 12th March happens to be the anniversary of a lot of important events - the bomb blasts in Bombay in 1993, the start of the Dandi March and also the day when South Africa chased down a world record total against Australia at Johannesburg. Got to know all of this through facebook! Post lunch had a meeting with one of the members of MICA's governing council who also happens to be an alumnus from the first batch. It was a very fruitful session where we shared some of our suggestions that we felt would help the institute in the long term.

Went for a jog in the evening to Bopal. Dinner was Chota with Buds and Kore on account of the not so inviting mess food. Post dinner got down to reading corner of a foreign field. Will call it a day in a bit, have the photo shoot for the batch and hostel pics tomorrow.

Day 416 - 4th March 2012

Woke up earlier than usual today but still wasn't good enough for breakfast in the mess :P Spent the first half of the day taking of care long overdue washing of socks and shoes. Had a 3 hour siesta, woke up by 530 in the evening. Went to the gym after that. Tried my hand at badminton again today, now I am not sure if I will be able to play tennis :P Post dinner Buds, Kalkar, Ishan, Sania and I went to SH-5 to see a documentary on anarchy during the Spanish revolution. It was pretty interesting, George Orwell's 1984 was inspired by that part  of Spanish history. The movie got done by 2. Back in the hostel now. Tomorrow onwards need to start ticking off items from the Ahmedabad bucket list.

Day 414 - 2nd March 2012

Woke up at noon today. Went to Bopal for a haircut, picked up some stuff for the room on the way back. Need to start planning how to spend a month out here with no classes! Had a meeting with all committees in the  afternoon regarding the committee selection process. We had suggested the idea of offering PPOs to candidates to whom they are keen on retaining. Also had to discuss the process in which committees would be slotted for interviews to be conducted. Spent a good hour and a half discussing the process with Buds and Sania. Went to the city in the evening to pick up a friend of mine who has come down from Lucknow. Had dinner at Honey9 after which we came back to campus. Showed him around the campus in the night before calling it a day.

Day 397 - 14th February 2012

Got back to campus at 3 in the morning after a 10 day break. Woke up at noon and had chai at Chota. It was an extremely lazy day, I hadn't even unpacked. Had to send out my dissertation surveys to be filled. Slept off int the afternoon again for a couple of hours. Finally stated my day at 7 in the evening! Caught up with Buds, Kore and Kalkar. Culcom had arranged some games today for valentine's day. The mess was decorated and everybody had a candlelight dinner :P The food was also good and mess comm took it a step further by crowd sourcing the menu. Post dinner, there was prom night in the Parjat courtyard. Got back to the room by midnight and have been working on the dissertation. Have less than 10 days to complete it and also have classes lined up!

Day 394 - 1st Februrary 2012

Woke up with great difficulty in the morning to play tennis. Post breakfast shifted base to the library. Its become a kind of routine now - tennis, breakfast, library, post lunch siesta, back to library, dinner, post dinner in Kachar North West. Today was no different. Also met my dissertation guide during the day to discuss the research methodology. She had suggested some modifications which I made and sent back for her approval. The discussion then veered towards placements, the direction in which the institute is headed. The debate is never ending and from a student's perspective there are many changes which we feel are necessary. Some of these changes will be recommended by the MCSA and we hope to see some action taken.

Spent most of the evening working on a presentation which I have to send to CD Mitra. The presentation is based on a case study I have prepared for my dissertation on Sahara Force India Speed Nights - the race screenings conducted at pubs across the country. It deals with how a non cricketing sport is promoted in India. Prepared the presentation and mailed it to the FIF1 marketing team for their approval before sending it across to CD Mitra, who plans to present it at sports marketing courses he will be conducting in other institutes. Post dinner Kore, Buds, Sania and I saw an episode of Roadies in Kalkar's room. This is something we used to last year as well, sit and have a good laugh at people's stupidity! Dinner at the mess wasn't that great which meant a midnight snack was on the cards at Chota. So chicken parathas it was, the parathas at Chota never seem to disappoint. Got back to the room by 130, read a bit of Ambani and Sons before calling it a day.

Day 382 - 20th January 2012

Managed to wake up in the morning to play tennis, guess trying out the new racquet was incentive enough. Spent the hour before lunch surfing the net. Post lunch had a two hour long siesta. Spent most of the evening in Kalkar's room. He is not feeling to well, so Kore, Buds, Sania and I were spending some time with him. Didnt really feel like having dinner in the mess. As if on cue Apu called asking if I was game for dinner outside. Decided to give my pending dinner treat to Sania and her for the rural project and report. We went to Tomato's for dinner, had heard a lot about it and it lived up to expectations. It is like an American diner from the 60's with a very interesting menu card. Got back to campus by 1130. Caught uo with the Prof. Mitra, the prof. who helped me out with my internship and also takes the sports marketing course out here. Spent more than an hour at Chota discussing placements, the sports marketing scenario in India and many other things. By the time I got back to the room it was past 3 a.m. Slept off after I e-mailed him one of the cases I had written for my dissertation, it could be used for one of the presentations he makes at other b-schools.

Day 369 -7th January 2012

Had the advanced excel training workshop today. The workshop on excel basics was done in the previous term. The session dealt with recording macros and the basics of coding in macros.The session got done by 4 in the evening after which I had to meet my dissertation guide. During the vacations I had conducted a couple of interviews based on which we discussed the findings and the way forward. So that just adds up to the long list of submissions/work. But that didn't mean that evening time was not used for procrastination :P. Dinner was at Honey9 with Sania, the first Shikari Chicken of the new year!
Got back to campus by 930 and did general tp. Watched some videos on youtube and terminated Buds on facebook, whenever people in Kachnar are bored he is our go to guy! Dont have any classes tomorrow but have assignment deadlines approaching with the first one due day after. Hope to start working on them from tomorrow at least! :P

Day 365 - 20th December 2011

Last day of classes for the term. Had 3 CIM sessions in the morning. Could sit for only 2 of them since there was some MCSA work that had to be taken care of. There was a meeting with the director followed by a meeting with some of the faculty members regarding assignment submissions that are lined up. With placement week being held earlier this year, all assignment deadlines have been pushed into the term break and some of them into the next year! Needed to get those sorted out before leaving.

There is an end term tomorrow for EBM. The slides for the subject were circulated in the afternoon. After a siesta, decided to go through the slides but ended up watching some videos of old cricket matches on youtube instead. For every 3 videos I saw, would take a break and read 15 slides :P That went on for a couple of hours. Also had to start packing for tomorrow. In the night ended up doing a lot of tp with Kalkar and Buds. They have their econometrics paper tomorrow and under the guise of taking a break we headed to chota for a midnight buffet - parathas, pakodas and chicken chilly! All hoped of coming back to the room and studying were crushed after the heavy meal. The exam is at 10 tomorrow morning and will be for an hour, lets see how soon people start walking out!

Day 361 - 16th December 2011

Played tennis in the morning with Kalkar. Didn't have any classes in the morning but there was a company presentation to attend which went on for a couple of hours. Caught up on some sleep post lunch, well it was a lot of sleep actually, slept for a good 3 hours and was woken up because the CIM class got advanced by an hour from 530 to 430. The class dealt with an analysis of the FGD that was conducted a couple of weeks back. Class got done by 8 in the night. Dinner was with Sania, Kalkar, Kore, Apu, Buds, Dua and Shibani at Masti. It was Sania's treat for receiving her offer letter. As is always the case, the food lived up to our expectations and nobody went back with an empty stomach. Got back and hitting the sack now, I think I am heading for a cold and cough, which is quite prevalent on campus right now.

Day 346 - 1st December 2011

CIM lectures began at 12 today. The prof. did a mock FGD with students being panelists and the role of the moderator kept switching between the prof and another student. The purpose of the FGD was to bring out the differences perceived between motorcycles and scooters. The major learning was how to moderate a FGD by using subtle techniques to get emotional answers rather than probing questions which could panelists back into a shell. Post lunch had some MCSA work which kept me busy for a couple of hours. Had a meeting with the director regarding assignment submission deadlines over the next couple of weeks. Went to ISCON in the evening to collect my trousers which I had given for alteration. Most of the shops in the city were closed but luckily the stores in ISCON were open. With placement week starting from tomorrow, the sale of formals must have seen quite a spike! Got back to campus by 6 and got down to getting some clothes washed (yes placement week makes you more efficient w.r.t housekeeping responsibilities!). Dinner was at Honey9 with Sania, Kore, Kalkar, SIR (who has now been rebranded to Buds) and Ishan. Had some pretty interesting dinner conversations over Shikari chicken and Thums Up! Got back by 11 and decided to call it a day early.

With placement week starting from tomorrow, will now be able to post only once its done (as has always been the norm). I will be following the same approach that I took for the summers, though there might be a company which I might just apply to during the week. Until then, adios!