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 281 - 31st July 2011

Today was the first day of Managing Media Businesses(MMB), a core concentration elective in the media management area. An alumnus of the college who runs his own media firm is conducting this course. The discussions initially revolved around the fact whether media is a product or a service and what is more important content or distribution. He gave us some more fundas about the media space before dividing us into groups who then had to pitch to him (a VC) about a new media business that we wanted to launch. Our group worked on an in car entertainment system for private taxis. He grilled us like a VC would and we realised how much thought and effort needs to go into making a business plan.

Class got done at 530 after which we had Palaash dance practice. The freshers culnite was supposed to begin at 10 in the night and we had one last chance to get the dance right :P Culnite was OK, I personally feel it got stretched a little. It went on for nearly 2 and a half hours and culminated in the Palaash dance. A special mention also needs to be made for the Parijat dance, they put up a fantabulous performance and the most commendable part was they maintained the element of surprise till the very end! Culnite was followed by the freshers party. Have a class tomorrow as well so cant stay up for too long.

Day 203 - 13th February 2010

Rest days after a grueling week are always good. Woke up in time for lunch. After that headed to the library to work on the CSW final paper. That went on till about 530, it was interspersed with some youtube videos. In the evening had to go to the city, had bought a phone cover yesterday which I realised was faulty today. Rode half way across the city to get it exchanged only to see that the store was shut! Will go sometime during the week now. Started reading a book on Brand David Beckham which is also my topic for the upcoming BM assignment. It's a really nice read, almost halfway through with the book now.

Its strange how I've celebrated stuff which I never would have before coming to MICA. At midnight all the guys from Palaash went to the Parijat courtyard with a bouquet of roses and candles arranged in a heart shape, to celebrate Valentine's day :D The theme was Palaash loves Parijat :P Enthu people started singing all corny love songs with the guys in the courtyard and the girls on the first floor. Good fun it was. Have been doing random tp since then. Will listen to some music and then crash in a bit.

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 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 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

Day 59 - 24th August 2010

After a long time had a rest day with no submissions on the next day. Most of the day was spent outside campus. A friend of mine returning from Pune, went to the airport(drove his car) to pick him up. Driving in a new city is a good experience, Ahmedabad comes very close to Pune when it comes to traffic discipline. Throughout the drive I was reminded of Russell Peter's joke about traffic lights in India - they are optional :-D In the evening went to city on my bike to pick up a birthday cake for a friend. Since the bike has come every outing has ended with me coming back drenched! Today was the worst of those experiences, it started pouring when we were riding on the highway, there was no place where we could stop and wait for the rains to subside. Had no choice but to keep riding, everything and I mean everything got drenched :-D Hostel birthday celebrations never cease to be fun. Today's highlight was the guys from Palaash refusing to enter Parijat because of some incidents that took place last week ;-) We even sang happy birthday from the badi court, it was only when the cake was brought out did the resistance cave in.
The cake cutting was followed by a dancing session in the Parijat courtyard and then some tp at a friend's room.

Rest day's get over too fast! I thought I could make up for some lost sleep today but I guess I have just accumulated more sleep to catch up on.