Days 75-76 - 9th & 10th September 2010

Combining 2 days because its really been hectic and plus I wasn't keeping too well. Have been sleeping the most when I should have actually been studying or completing assignments. Yesterday was all about preparing for the SSC term end examination. Four ppt's were circulated to everyone and that was our bible for the exam. However the tough part came when it came to understanding post modernism and all that jazz. A classmate of ours with a background in humanities explained some of the concepts to a few of us in the library. Was able to grasp a few of those concepts. It was actually fun to get back to examination mode after such a long time. Owing to the ill health I decided not to sacrifice sleep (and it was a very difficult decision :P), slept for a good 8 hours!

Woke up at 10 today that was also because of the fact that lectures began at 1130. Had only one lecture of eco which started half an hour late which effectively made it a 40 minute class. The highlight of the class though was the mimicry session by these supertalented guys in our class in the first half hour. They had the entire class in splits. Batchmates and seniors were at the receiving end- no one was spared :D After class went to the library with the intention of studying a bit before the exam. Did a bit of that before sleeping for 40 minutes in the cool confines of the reading area. That actually was quite refreshing. Had the exam at 4, it was OK - we were specifically told how many line answers were required, though the weird part was that there were fill in the blanks repeated twice and with the same options! We were told we can keep the same answer in both places or give different answers :-S Anyways once the exam was done there was a sense of relief but me thinks things will not be easy when we have two papers per day from 22nd to 25th.

Had a pretty hectic evening/night. Had to complete the ID and PoM assignments which had to be submitted the next day along with some TI work regarding the MICA website and blog. Got done with the TI work and managed to catch the last part of the champions league game which Mumbai Indians lost :-( Felt worse for missing out on watching Sachin score a half century. PoM was a group assignment so it didn't take much time after the work was divided. After that moved onto the ID diary. Got done with that by about 3 so decided to get a printout in the night itself. The printer room is near Chota, so couldn't resist the temptation of having a cheese paratha and chai - the joy of it at 330 in the morning :-) Didn't feel too sleepy so decided to come to the library, read a bit of eco and did some tp on the net. I have made up for sleeping so much over the past couple of days by pulling off a night out now! It's 7 in the morning now, will head back to the hostel in a while before attending the last day of lectures in term 1 - how time flies!

P.S. Amma/Appa - I am feeling much better now, thanks for calling. Its good to know at least two people read this blog ;-)

Day 73 - 7th September 2010

This is going to be a pretty short post. Have not been keeping too well, heading for a flu, as is the case with me it comes at the worst possible time. The workload just seems to keep increasing. Although today we did get a breather with the deadline for the ID submission being extended by a couple of days. Spent majority of the day at the, primarily to beat the heat. Ended up sleeping for a while as well. Tried to study accounts but just wasn't able to concentrate. Had a placecomm meet at 1 in the night, with the summer placement week approaching, things are going to pick up wrt placements. As for me, I need to decide whether I sit for the process or opt out of it and look for something off campus. After the meet tried studying at the library but couldn't get stay awake. Came back to my room at around 330 before calling it a day.

Day 70 - 4th September 2010

And so it begins, the initial two months here were too good to be true. Today we got a taste of things to come over the next 3 weeks. The first bomb to be dropped on us was by the eco prof. who gave us a 30 page handout on pricing and asked us to come to class tomorrow with a handwritten assignment explaining each topic in our own words and also stating examples from the Indian context. Apart from that we also have a pre read for tomorrow's class. This is his way of shaking us up and ensuring that we study now at least, though I know for a fact that quite a few people who have been taking his subject seriously by going through the pre-reads before the classes. The second bomb to be dropped was by the FA prof, who announced a mid term on the 11th, one may think that there is still some time, but here is the list of things to be done over the next week
5th - eco assignment submission
6th - markops presentation
7th - rest day with companies coming for pre placement talks
8th - ID diary submission
9th- nothing (as of now)
10th - SSC end term!!
11th - FA mid term/ Prinicples of Management Assignment submission
The CT movie reviews also need to be submitted this week, plus there might be a surprise eco test as well.

Got down to writing the eco assignment in the evening. Never written so much in the past 3 years! Had to take a break to complete the MICAMINDS project proposal as well which had a 11:59p.m deadline. Working with the principle of just in time (JIT), we submitted the assignment at 11:57 p.m :-P Then had to get back to the eco assignment. Got done with it and have to start the pre-read now, hope it doesn't put me to sleep..

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 24 - 20th July 2010

The day after a rest day is so difficult to get through. Moreover had a full day of lectures today, 9 to 5! Somehow managed to stay awake during the marketing and ID lectures. The marketing class had a discussion on marketing research and the different methodologies involved to extract/interpret data from potential consumers. ID dealt with motivation and we were introduced to our first theory in this subject. That was followed by 2 hours of communication theory, the prof.wasn't in his element today, he himself admitted it, so the session wasn't too captivating either.After lunch had a tutorial on marketing, we were expected to read a case,which no one did because of the fact that we got to know about it during lunch :-P So instead of that we were broken into groups and had to come up marketing plans for different organic products - foodstuff, paint,cosmetics and clothing. Turned out to be a free for all with each group trying to find out mistakes in the other group's plan, was kinda fun,it came to a point where the prof. had to remind us that we were still in a classroom :D

In the evening went for a walk around campus, want to start playing tennis again but don't know when its going to happen. Went to the library to study a bit of eco in the library but halfway through got a call from a friend who had got a task in one of his committee interviews, he had to clear 10 rooms in 15 mins and mine was one of them. The room was stripped bare with everything being dumped in the cupboard. It looked like how I remember it from the first day. But he also took it upon himself to set things back in order.

Post dinner had the elections for Sports Committee at MICA (SCAM). Similar to the PlaceComm
and MCSA procedures - candidates give a speech followed by election/selection. Got done with that by around midnight, nothing much to do after that so calling it a day!