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 390 - 28th January 2012

Winter isn't over as yet out here. Realised that in the morning when I went to play tennis with Anuja. Was shivering throughout the walk from Kachnar to the tennis court. Post breakfast shifted base to the library and continued work on the dissertation. Got the go ahead from my guide for the survey questionnaires. Took a while to find the right site to make the survey, the free versions available online have a lot of limitations. Have floated the questionnaires, will have to now start begging people to fill them :P Managed to finish reading The Elusive Fan today, the part I really liked about the book was the case study on successful sports brands. The US has come a long way in building a sporting culture so it was no surprise that all examples from there. Wrapped up work in the library by 8 in the night.

Kore gave his birthday treat today which was dinner at Honey9 followed by Agneepath at City Gold Bopal. I find the movie quite stupid, too much violence and the story was already known. Came back to campus by 2 and decided to watch the original version of the movie. Saw about half the movie till 4 in the morning before deciding to call it a day.

Day 387 - 25th January 2012

Breakfast was at Chota. Decided to spend some time in the library and read up a bit for the dissertation. Some MCSA work came up pre and post lunch which meant we had to miss the first hour of Indian Cinema. Made it in time for the second half which was a case study of Manoj Kumar's Shaheed. The movie is based on the life of Bhagat Singh, however the facts were conveniently tweaked to conform with popular belief at that point of time. It was an in depth analysis of the movie and went on for more than an hour. There was a movie screening with Satyjit Ray's Charulata - a critically acclaimed movie and Satyajit Ray's favourite creation. It is based on a novel by Rabindranath Tagore. Got done with the screening by 9. It is Kore's birthday tomorrow so there were the usual birthday celebrtions in Kachnar. Boys arent as kind as girls and inspite of the cild weather Kore was dunked with cold water. Food was packed from Honey9 for the ocassion and we all pounced on it like hungry wolves :P On that note, with a satisfied tummy, will call it a day.

Day 374 - 12th January 2012

Had a late start to the day today which meant breakfast at Chota. Didnt have any classes in the morning, but the rural report is due tomorrow morning. Did a little bit of work for that before lunch. Post lunch had the second session advanced excel training. The session was on control structures and coding in macros. The session was really interesting and didnt even realise how 3 hours passed by. Played tennis for a bit in the evening after which had to get down to helping Sania and Apu with the rural report in whatever little way I could :P Kalkar wasn't feeling too well with a sore throat and he came up with this phenomenal medication of having Shikari chicken at Honey9. How could I have said no for such a noble cause ;-) Though the flip side when ever it is only the two of us who go out to eat, the food to bill ratio goes for a toss. Got back to campus by 9 and decided to go to the library for a change of location. Ended up watching videos on youtube and working a bit on my part for the rural report. MCSA work took over post midnight. Everyone seems to be up completing the rural report, something tells me that there is going to be a huge line at the printing center tomorrow morning!

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 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!

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 225 - 8th March 2011

One of the best rest days of the term. Woke up at 2 in the afternoon! Had a little MCSA work in the afternoon. 10 of us went to see 7 Khoon Maaf in the evening followed by dinner at Honey9. The dinner table discussion mainly focused on gaseous expulsions :P Got back to campus at around 1130 and have been doing tp since then. Tomorrow onwards the hostel allocations begin, lets see how it goes!

Day 207 - 17th February 2011

Once again had work deja vouz in the SCM class today when the topic being discussed was transportation management. Brought back fond memories :D

The highlight of the day though was dinner at honey9. I cant help but reiterate how high the food/bill ratio is over there, especially when u take light eaters along ;-) Came back to campus at around 11 and started working on the IPL article for WARC. Lots of data mining needs to be done! Had another birthday celebration in Palaash, was very sombre compared to last night's drama. :P

Day 173 - 14th January 2011

Had a holiday since it was Sakranti/Pongal. Woke up in time for brunch at Chota. Had to start working on the QT assignment, which reminded me of engineering. It was the kind of assignment which if one person did it, the entire batch could copy it, since no one could a different answer :P Also had to start working on the CB assignment which is a 10 minute video and a 4000 word assignment. Kalkar and I started working on the video when we got a mail saying that the deadline got extended to 18th. So we could take it a little easy. Went for a jog/run in the evening since we had planned to have dinner at honey9. Now its really good to go in a large group where there a few people with large appetites (including yours truly), so when it comes to the food eaten to bill amount ratio, it is quite high for us ;-) Must have easily eaten food worth 500 bucks but eventually the bill came to 200 per head :D Got back to campus after that for a placecomm batch meet. In the night continued working on the QT assignment which went on till around 130. Did general tp after that. Have an IRS (Indian Readership Survey) workshop tomorrow, people are saying its not compulsory to attend, will go for the first hour and see if its worth it.

Day 167 - 22nd December 2010

Today's CB paper was quite decent, not heavily oriented towards theory. Most of the questions were application based and fun to answer. After CB spent around an hour or so going through the IGD slides, really didnt expect anything good to come out of the paper. Testing theory for such a subject is completely irrelevant, should be more of a case based approach.

We got our schedule for the next term today. The batch had some issues regarding the time table with Prof. Mathew not teaching us any subject and some other concerns as well. The ARC had to meet up for that to discuss our course of action. We decided to call a batch meet to discuss some of these issues, was a pretty good response,hope something good comes out of it. After the batch meet, Mallu had packed Shikari Tangdi Kabab from Honey9 , so Mallu, Maushi,Kalkar and Kore shared the meal at Chota followed by some random discussions on how engineers are and how engineering jokes will never really be understood by anybody else :D In the midst of all this had to study AM and also work on the OB make up group assignment which I missed in class as I was attending the sports marketing lectures with pgp2(still dont regret it, SRT's brand manager v/s excellence in organizations - which one would you choose? :P). The mood in the batch is already pretty relaxed since we had studied for the AM test earlier and moreover it is the last paper :D

During the course of the day, spoke to a few senior ARC members, got some pretty interesting points of view. Will need to take it forward once we are back next term. For now the only thing on my mind is getting done with tomorrow's paper :P

Day 163 - 18th December 2010

Today's CMA paper was pretty good, not that I did exceedingly well but the way the paper was set was very nice. No mugging up required, just an understanding of the concepts and how to apply them. 10 questions for 10 marks each in 90 minutes. In one of the questions we had to play the role of a marketing manager at Maruti and based on a recent press release from Toyota which would be launching a new hatchback and a sedan. These vehicles would be direct competition to the Swift and SX4, we were also given some numbers on the costs for these vehicles. Based on this data we had to suggest what strategy to the board to adopt to counter this assault from Toyota in the Indian market. The question read 'Many times in your career as is the case in life as well these subjective evaluations make or break careers.' The answer had to be written in the form of a speech and began with Gentlemen...... It was actually fun writing the paper and nobody left early!

Since tomorrow is a holiday there was a semi vacation mood on campus. Almost everyone went out in the evening/night. Extended family went to honey9 for dinner, we had heard a lot about the Shikari Tangdi Kabab out there and it lived up to its reputation. Moreover Mallu and I made the most of having dinner with people who have a very small appetite ;-) Got back to campus by around 11. Went through a few of the DC slides to see how much needed to be done. There was a birthday celebration in Parijat at midnight, feel sorry for the people who were born in the winters, imagine getting dunked in this weather! :D Will let the vacation mood to ensue for a little more time by crashing early tonight.

Day 139 - 25th November 2010

Had a pretty interesting communications research today. It dealt with participatory theatre and people were asked to enact a play. The play had two protagonists and people could take chances in playing those roles. They had to just walk up and tap the person playing the role at that time and they could continue from that point. It was hilarious at times, with some of the people getting in new twists to the story. Apart from that a pretty routine day.

The course on Imagining India requires us to read Mother Pious Lady a book on the changing middle class in India. Brilliantly written it is a collection of articles on the everyday aspects of growing up in India in the pre and post liberalisation India. Started reading it today and its quite addictive! That kept me busy till dinner time, mess food was quite boring today so extended family decided to go to honey9 for dinner. Tandoori chicken and butter chicken are always welcome :-)

Had an ARC meeting at around midnight. Identified a few issues that need to be tackled and also got some inputs from PlaceComm on the industry perception of MICA. That got done by around 3. Have nothing much to do now, have another full day of lectures tomorrow and the weather makes it all the more difficult to wake up in the morning!

Day 112 - 26th October 2010

Spent the entire day in MICANVAS concert ticket sales. Went with Mallu and Maushi to Gandhinagar, tried our luck at a couple of colleges - Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Communication and Technology and Deendayal Pandet Petroleum University. Both colleges have an amazing campus, also, Gandhinagar is brilliantly maintained. Got quite a few leads at both the colleges, need to follow up with them over the next couple of days. Bought new sandals from Woodland on the way back. Got back to campus by around 730 after which extended family decided to go out for dinner. Went to a place called Honey9 :-D apart from the name everything else about the place rocked! Awesome tandoori chicken at a really reasonable price. Had to rush back to campus for the events sub team meeting at 10, its now slowly sinking in that MICANVAS is not that far away. Spent the rest of the night packing and getting ready to move out of Palaash for the next 4 days. Feeling very very sleepy, will call it a day now, have another long day ahead tomorrow.