Days 75 to 89 - 11th to 25th September

Was on a break from updating this blog was forced for the first 10 days and voluntary for the next 5 days. We had our summer placement week from the second week of September and as a policy we weren't allowed to disclose details of any of the companies that visited campus. Thats why I couldn't post anything on the blog. Apu,Geeko,Fruit Loops and CR all got placed in firms of their choice and I am really happy for them. The only company I sat for was the one which had a sports marketing vertical but they did not have any openings in that department. I chose not to sit for any other company, will try off campus as well. The week was followed by term end examinations. Now in engineering i was used to a 3 week study leave for 5 subjects with at least a day's gap between two papers. Now imagine my plight when I have 8 subjects to study in 4 days - two papers per day! And that too some of the subjects were being studies for the first time. The paper that was really bad for me was FA, my engineering graphics paper (which I did not clear on the first attempt) seemed better than FA, so you can imagine how bad it must have been. Anyways can't do much about it now. But the highlight of the exams was the last paper - PoM, a 1 hour 50 questions MCQ paper which was completed in 2o minutes flat :D And most of the batch was out within 40 minutes. Left for Bombay on the same night, the reservation chart of the coach we were in looked like the roll call for our batch, at least 30 people were on the same train. Feels good to be back home, have been averaging 3-4 hours of sleep for the past week, so the agenda for the next week is pretty clear. ;-)

It's been a pretty eventful first term at MICA, met a lot of interesting people and looking forward to the next 5 terms. Apparently the second term is one of the best terms wrt extra curricular activities, looking forward to it. Will start posting again once I am back on campus on the 4th of October. Until then, Adios!

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 64 - 29th August 2010

Sunday bloody sunday! Never imagined spending a sunday in lectures from 9 to 6 and then a markops submission to be done by 8. Had 2 double lectures of QT and PoM. Had lectures in the audi after quite sometime, and I realised that it is still very difficult to stay awake in the audi no matter how interesting lecture is. The PoM prof showed us a video clipping about organization structures in which there was talk about org structures being clearly defined and all goals being communicated in the simplest possible way, with the intention of nurturing a spirit of 'intrapreneurship', need to start getting used to such management pfaff :-D. Though he also agreed that in theory everything seems easy and when it comes to implementing such stuff it is never easy. Started working on the markops assignment at around 630, although our results aren't exactly something to be proud of, I feel we have learnt a lot over the past few days, analyzing a number of reports on brand perception,competitor intelligence,market forecast etc. and then arriving at a decision - a pretty satisfying experience. Our primary aim today was to ensure that the SPI did not decrease and reduce our inventory by as much as possible. Ended up achieving both of them, in face the SPI went up marginally, which felt good :-D

LitComm had organized a mock Parliamentary debate after dinner, I hadn't seen one till date so decided to attend the session. Was pretty impressed with the format, will be interesting to take part in one such debate just for the experience.

That takes care of the boring part, now for the friend of the day and today it's the turn of my roomie -

Rajat Sharma aka CR -

Ironically my roommate was the last person I met on my first day out here. Throughout the day when I was in the room he wasn't and vice versa. It turns out that he was staying about a couple of kilometres away from where I was staying in Bangalore! His nickname comes from the fact that he is the class rep. i.e. junior MCSA, so technically Im living at the 10,Janpath of Palaash ;-) His responsibilities as a CR keep him away from the room most of the time, I have lost count of the number of people who have fallen sick and have been taken to hospital by him (at even the most unearthly hours), yet he does all of this without complaining. The most important thing though is the fact that I consider myself pretty lucky to have got a roomie who values cleanliness equally if not more than me!

CR - Long live HQ ;-)

Day 63 - 28th August 2010

Finally a day without markops! Regular lectures began today, had QT and principles of management(PoM). The QT prof. is really good, he breaks down the concepts to the simplest possible levels and then explains everything. The problems solved in class also seem to have some practical relevance, something that was missing in the maths that was taught till now, I mean if 2 guys are running around a circle in opposite directions at different speeds,am I going to save the world by finding out when they will meet for the first time? :-D PoM as a subject is a little dry but since the prof. is a guy who is working in the industry he has a lot of insights to share with the class, which makes it a little interesting. Also had the QT test today, was expecting it to be on the tougher side, but thankfully it didn't live up to my expectations. Comparatively this was one of the longer days in terms of lectures for quite sometime. Got free by 4, was in no mood to study so played tennis for a while. Had another quiz organized by LitComm in the night, this time the topic was brands. My partner and I almost made it to the final round, we lost out in the tie breaker for the last spot in the final round, nonetheless I won 50 bucks for answering an audience question :D

Ok now for the interesting part of today's post , friend of the day!! And today it's the turn of

Apoorva Sharma aka Apu

Prides herself in being a tomboy, she's the quintessential fauji kid, in her own words "MICA is the first institute on my CV without the word Army in it". Met her as well on the first day after Bulaa and Mallu, the Pune connection got us talking( she's from AIT), though I think she is not a 100% Punekar because she didn't learn Marathi in spite of living there for 4 years. She is pretty popular in our batch for speaking her mind and not compromising on her principles, in fact there are quite a few guys who are scared of her(cannot give the reasons for the same on this blog ;-) ), but that has definitely made her popularity ratings amongst the girls rise. She's an amazing photographer, no trip outside campus is complete without Apu sitting sharing the front seat of the rick with the driver and clicking away to glory. Shall try posting pics taken by her sometime soon.

Apu - As always my post has been quite short, in case something offended you please let me know, I shall keep my insurance papers in place ;-)