Day 197 - 7th February 2011

A long and hectic day today! Had a full day of classes from 9 to 5. Had our first lecture on Integrated Marketing Communications IMC which is being taken by an excellent professor and I am the course co-ordinator (CoCo) for the subject. The lecture was really interesting though some of the concepts may have been a little repetitive, the examples that were given especially in the Indian context were really good. Apart from that had MDA, EB and SDM before lunch. Post lunch had RM in the audi, had to devise a research proposal for a company that wanted to develop a game development center in the country. Some interesting aspects came out of it. Finally got done by around 540!

Inaugurated the new shoes and music player by going to Bopal for a run/jog. After coming back had to sort out all the assignments that needed to be done. Had dinner with the IMC prof. to discuss the course outline and structure of the assignments. Post dinner completed the CSMM pre read for tomorrows class which was followed by an ARC meeting. Got done with that and headed straight to the Micavaani studio to record for tomorrow's show. Finally got done with everything at around 2 and I am dead tired now. Have another full day of classes lined up tomorrow. Need to catch up on some sleep, over and out!

Day 193 - 2nd February 2011

Slept for 10 hours last night!! :D Woke up at 9 in the morning, only to realise that the first class was at 1030, made the most of waking up early by having breakfast at the mess. Had only one lecture today, EB continued discussions on whether advertising is ethical or not. Post lunch had a CSMM tutorial, have another 9 tutorials lined up all of which will be case based. Since the tutorial got done by 6 couldn't go to Bopal so played a little basketball. 15 minutes of basketball can be pretty tiring!

Dinner in the mess was biryani - which ensured that not too many people would have had dinner at Chota :P After dinner had to work on this competition with Cheryl which required us to come with a b plan for an eco tourism project. The deadline was at midnight and we submitted the plan at around 1 in the night, hope they accept it. In the middle scripted content for Micavaani on India Pakistan world cup matches, which was really good fun! A 1000 word assignment takes days but a 700 word article took me 15 mins :D Have been doing random tp since then. Will try and catch some shut eye now, don't want to continue my trend of waking up late for the 915 class.

Day 191 - 31st January 2011

Took the liberty of waking up at 1030 today, the joy of waking up leisurely :-) Had our first lecture on Internet Marketing, a pretty interesting subject with even more interesting evaluation criteria. True to the subject there is a website that has been created where articles will be uploaded and we can have discussions in forums. This will count as class participation. Apart from that we will have to present two research papers, one individual and one group which will require us to analyse a brand and an industry respectively. This subject is also being taught for the first time out here and is very relevant, hope it continues to be interesting. Had NVC post lunch which was about what nature communicates non verbally to us. It invited a lot of DCP which meant it was a belter of a pitch for the DCP cup and all the batsmen had a field day ;-)

In the evening went for a walk/jog up to Bopal and back after a break of 4 days. By the time I was back I feel the after effects of losing rhythm. Updated the DCP cup on facebook before going for dinner. Post dinner had to give an interview for a senior's dissertation project on the IPL. That went on for nearly an hour, but it was good fun though, some good questions. After that have been doing general tp browsing the net and scripting the next piece for Micavaani. Have been trying to make a conscious effort to sleep early these days but it just doesn't seem to be happening :-P

Day 185 - 25th January 2011

The day before a rest day is always looked forward to with a lot of anticipation. So the fact that I slept for around 4 hours wasn't too much of a deterrent. The CS workshop today was on identity, nationalism and gender. The part that had all my attention was on how sports has been a unifier for nations and has re-emphasised the concept of imaginary boundaries. So now we all know what my response paper for this paper is going to be about ;-) In the afternoon Rajat, Maushi and I did the recording for 'Tamara Cricket' at the Micavaani studio. Rajat and Maushi did the recording in Hindi which I scripted and Maushi translated. Was good fun, the studio is really good some top class facilities. In the evening we had a workshop on the dissertation that we are supposed to work on in the second year. Don't know how I managed to stay awake during the workshop, felt like I was stuck in a time warp. As is always the case, after the lecture is over all the sleepiness was wiped off :P Decided to go for a walk/jog in the evening, the road to Bopal is being reconstructed, once it's done it would be a brilliant road to ride on as well.

Saw Dhobi Ghat in the night with Mallu, Maushi and Apu at PVR. It's a nice movie, very realisitic not your run of the mill masala flick. The part that I liked was it showed the parts of Bombay that aren't generally shown in movies. Got back to campus and it was the second night of the badminton tournament. Some enterprising people setup a cafe at the Parijat courtyard. They serve desserts, mocktails and hookah :D. It did some really good business on the first day. Have a holiday tomorrow courtesy Republic Day, no holiday after that for another 10 days. Need to make the most of it!

Day 126 - 12th November 2010

Half way through guest writers week and today's post is by a person who hasn't been mentioned on the blog but has been a regular reader - Atin Batra. Wanted to introduce him as the MICAVaani guy but he has taken care of that :-) So here goes -

'having read three guest writer columns over the past few days, I feel that there is one thing missing:
we must thank Mr. Siddharth Raman for giving us this opportunity to write on his blog...it is indeed an honor

apart from that, for the benefit of all those who do read this blog on a regular basis, it is highly commendable the fact that sid has continued to write it for so long. Believe me its not easy to take out time here in MICA (as a batchmate I know); and yet he has been at it all this while and to him i'd like to say, cheers man, keep up the good work....

well, now on to the meat of this piece, what happened today....well today started off as any other day with classes in the morning...though personally i failed to notice b'coz i was too busy getting my travel arrangements booked for a competition I have to go to next week....as for the classes-the three classes scheduled for today were all interesting (sid, i'm in B section, I had CMA and 2 AM, unlike you...hahaha). In CMA, we were reqd 2 read a case study which was supposed to be graded. However, the prof was too smart for us, he had apparently said that just to ensure that we read the case and came to class. Once that was over, I headed over to the MICAVAANI studio-MICA's community radio station.

Sid has never mentioned it so a little about MICAVAANI (sorry guys, couldnt help it-had to say something). MICAVAANI is the community radio station that transmits to the nearby villages.I am a part of the commitee so am working on a small programme for the coming sunday, 14th of Nov. We are planning to gou out to the villages. All those who are reading, GO AND LIKE OUR FB PAGE.

Right, so after classes and a little work in the studio, I went to the city for micavaani work-had lunch at McD's on the way-a welcome break from mess food. Returned from the trip at about 7, went to my room, sat on the computer, checked my mail and other online touchpoints and posted my weekly assignment for AM (yes, we post the assignment on Facebook). Skipped dinner and headed to the studio for work.

Before I started work, I visited MICARE, which is a killer thing. I am a sucker for Lychee Twirl juice and have ended up having 2 glasses every day-did that today itself.

It's 1:00 am right now and am writing this blog entry from the studio itself.

Well, thats all I have to tell about today as of now...thank you siddharth for this opportunity, hopefully we will be able to do this again.'