Day 165 - 20th December 2010

Today's QT paper was an absolute disaster. It was a 50 mark paper with 100% weightage :-S And to add to it there was a problem on simplex linear programming for 30 marks! Had practiced a decent number of sums yesterday and was relatively confident of solving the sum, but then while forming the equations there was one condition in the problem which I did not read and that changed the entire course of the solution. Could not solve the sum completely but attempted the theory questions, should hopefully get some marks there. Came out of the exam hall and realised the mistake I made and also realised that the paper wasn't good for majority of the batch. Micamail was flooded with people asking for a make up assignment since having a 100% weightage for such a paper is unfair. Anyways lets see what happens. Didn't study much of DC, in fact I slept off for a while, read a few of the slides half an hour before the exam. The DC paper was OK, pretty much on expected lines.

Had to submit the Imagining India essay as well today, managed to write 3045 words! :D In the evening we got a mail which had a case study for tomorrow's OB exam. Finally a real life case for the subject! It's a good thing that we dont have to mug up theory for such a subject, because it is of absolutely no use. Read the case in the night and kept watching videos on youtube of SRT's innings. Was a pretty light day in terms of preparing for the exam, but its going to be exactly the opposite tomorrow when we have to prepare for CB and IGD. It's going to be a mugfest!

Day 161 - 16th December 2010

Study leave today and it reminded me of my study leave days during engineering. Most of the day was spent in the room studying. Have SM and CR tomorrow, SM is a one hour MCQ paper with 20% weightage overall and by around 9 in the night someone had managed to get a slide deck from the publishers of the text book. Its amazing how resourceful and efficient people become during exams ;-) Also managed to finish the Imagining India assignment today, will go through it once again tomorrow or day after before submitting it. Also had to submit an AM assignment in which we had to play the role of an account planner and write a creative brief for Bru instant coffee.

The highlight of the day though had nothing to do with MICA. At around 1130 in the night got a call from an ex-colleague, there were some major issues at work which needed to be resolved soon. Yours truly managed to give remote support from here and the work got done :D Was surprised to see how much I still remembered! Sports marketing nahi to SAP hi sahi ;-) Had a birthday celebration in Palaash at midnight. Birthdays during the exams aren't the best thing that can happen to a person plus one of the birthday boys is a founding member of PJComm, the unofficial committee which takes the trouble of sending one PJ a day to the entire batch. So you can imagine the amount of frustration that was vented out. :D

Day 160 - 15th December 2010

Last day of lectures in term 2 today! Never realised how fast time flew. Had 2 RM and an AM lecture today. The AM prof. was all praises for our batch and asked us to keep up the level of enthusiasm as we entered the second year. After lectures got done extended family headed out to Mainland China for lunch, as always it was good fun :-) Ended up spending a good 3 hours just talking about random stuff like who would be ideal for which of the senior committees next year. Got back to campus by around 430 and slept for a while. Continued working on the Imagining India essay, crossed the 2000 word mark and stopped for the day. Wrote about the evolution of hindi movies and heroes, another 1000 more words to go.

Off late there has been a huge load assignments that has been given to us which we have to do in our term break. We got one more such assignment today and as expected people weren't too happy. Anyways the CR's will be talking to the prof. tomorrow and hopefully things will get sorted. After dinner our CB group met to decide how we would go about the assignment, we will be travelling to Sawantwadi in the term break and a do a study on the socio cultural region. Should be good fun! Started reading a bit of CB, that is one subject I am pretty apprehensive about this term its too theoretical and the syllabus is humongous! Read 2 chapters and feeling extremely sleepy, shall call it a day for now, have a long day ahead tomorrow as well.

Day 105 - 19th October 2010

Back to grind of being awake for 21 hours at a stretch! Another full day of lectures, the Imagining India class was based on the reading material provided for Khalistan. There were some people who hadn't read it but confidently managed to pffaf their way through the discussion based on whatever prior knowledge they had. Im pretty sure the prof. could make that out. CB revolved all around the concept of joint families and their consumption patterns and also the changing family structures. After lectures had cricket practice in the evening, couldn't play on the ground as PGP2 had a practice match, so had to do with the area in front of SilverOak. Got done with practice at around 630. Tried to study a bit of CMA in the library but then 'extended family' decided to have an outing to CCD. Was good fun, haven't laughed this much for quite sometime :-) After CCD had Chana Bhatura for dinner at this place called Havmor, the Bhaturas were so huge that the four of us found it very difficult to finish two plates! Had to get back to campus in time for the Academic Review Committee (ARC) elections, Maushi and I were contesting alongwith 14 other people from the batch for 6 places. Each of us had to give a speech as to why we should be elected and then the floor was open for questions from the batch. I am generally pretty bad at pitching for myself, but still made an attempt. Voting was conducted immediately after the speeches were made, both Maushi and I made it :-) Tried to study again in the library after that but then got a call saying that people were working on the creatives for the Phantoms campaign, came up with a few ideas which were either spoofs of existing ads or extoled the values of not smoking :-D

Back in the room now working on an internet connection which reminds me of the dial up days, anyways will call it a day now. First match of the MCL tomorrow, hope the Phantoms do well :-)

Day 104 - 18th October 2010

Surprisingly woke up at 7 today and was feeling quite fresh, wasn't really expecting that after yesterday's dandiya antics :P. Full day of lectures today, the QT prof got pissed off with the class when only 3 out of 80 had solved a problem which he had given over the weekend. In our defence we thought it was just for practice and didn't expect it to be submitted today. In the Imagining India we were shown half of a movie made on Partition - Garm Hawa. It tells the story of Muslims who stayed back in India during the post partition days, pretty interesting stuff. The other two lectures were DC and CB. CB was as interesting as usual, with the prof. giving examples from his own industry research. However the best part of his lecture has to be names he gives people who sit w/o their nametags on their desks. He has christened people Anamika, Parvatiamma and Ram Khilavat Singh till now :-D

In the afternoon had to write an article on MICA winning the sports fest for TI. Had a practice cricket match against Navy 'Sqaure' Cut. Was a low scoring match which we won by 9 runs in the end. MCL starts day after so this was our last practice match I guess. The draws were announced today, there are 2 pools of 4 teams each. We (phantoms) are in the same pool as 502 Pataka, Marlboro Reds and Gudang Garam, our first game is day after against 502 Pataka. Skipped dinner at the mess and read a bit about the Khalistan movement in the library for tomorrow's Imagining India class, there is so much to read about!! Had a midnight snack - tadka maggi at Chota before coming back to the room.

Day 98 - 12th October 2010

The CB lectures get even more interesting by the day! A statement made by the prof. today was a brilliant example of consumer insight - "When a child idolizes Sachin Tendulkar, he doesn't play cricket for 14 hours, he drinks boost!" That was one of the many examples he gave in class and each one of them made so much sense! The other lectures were on SM and DC, both were ok. After lunch had to go meet the communication managers for MICA alongwith TI. Had planned to go to Bopal for some work after that but came back to the room and slept for a good 2 hours.

Went to Bopal in the evening to buy some junk food. Had to come back and design another sports marketing event for MICANVAS. Came up with an idea of branding of stadiums and came up with an event around that, have submitted it to the events team,lets see what happens. After that took part in an online business quiz conducted by IIM Rohtak, was a very well made quiz. This was followed by the MCL meeting where we had to elect four captains from PGP1, the election process was good fun, we even asked the candidates to give speeches :-P Now that the 4 captains have been elected they have to come up with team names and there will be an auction for players over the next couple of days. After that was done got down to the pre read for the Imagining India class. Had to read a piece written by Dr.Ambedkar on whether there is a case for the formation of Pakistan, pretty interesting stuff, should be an interesting discussion in class tomorrow.

Day 97 - 11th October 2010

Woke up today with aches in parts of the body which I never even knew existed! Was a struggle dragging myself to class. First day of the term where we had a full day of lectures. CMA was pretty interesting, the case study approach is an amazing way to teach a subject, of course it also depends on the faculty member teaching it. CB is also taught really well, since the prof. has a lot of industry experience he has some really good real life examples on consumer insight. Imagining India was all about the difference between nationalism and patriotism. We discussed the case of Pakistan, was a really interesting discussion, but it is also the class which has maximum DCP which can get quite entertaining ;-)

Most of the afternoon was spent designing a sports marketing event for MICANVAS and then pitching for sponsors. Got to learn a lot from the experience. The event has to be designed based on the sponsors in mind so had to come up with a couple of events and will have to design another event tomorrow. Had a batch meet which was to discuss the formation of an Academic Review Committee (ARC), elections will be held for that pretty soon, have sent in an EOI. That was followed by a TI meeting. Have a lot to do wrt interface as well this sem. After that got back to designing the sports marketing event. Before I could realise it was 430 in the morning, its only the beginning of the term and have already reached that phase where I am not sleeping before 4!

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Day 93 - 7th October 2010

This is the busiest of all three terms when it comes to extra curricular activities- we have the MICA Cricket League(MCL), MICANVAS, Sankalp and the grand alumni meet in that order. MCL practice has been happening for the past couple of days, there will be 4 teams formed from PGP1 and there will be 8 teams in all, 3 more teams from PGP2 and one which will be a combination of the other courses. MICANVAS is the annual fest, which is supposed to be 3 of the best days on campus. The grand finale is Adrenalin, the music concert, this year Kailash Kher will be performing. Had a batch meet with the MICANVAS senior team today, we were told what to expect for the next 20 days i.e until the fest begins. Palaash and Parijat will have to be vacated for the participants. We will have to move in with our room baaps for those 3 days, but then again nobody sleeps during MICANVAS :-P.

Apart from the extra curricular activities we also have some pretty interesting subjects this term with good faculty as well. One such subject is Imagining India, the reading material has some pretty interesting articles, the course will consist of panel discussions on the articles given in the book. The panelists will be a group of students who would have prepared their views based on the reading material, its a very interesting way of learning a subject.

Apart from that a pretty routine day, have gotten back to the routine of clocking in less than 4 hours of sleep by doing absolutely nothing :-D