Day 237 - 21st March 2011

Today's RM paper was as promised - all objective type questions. But it felt a little weird that a subject which had a textbook the size of 2 Britannica Encyclopedias could have such a paper. Come to the think of it if it had been a subjective paper, it would have been far more troublesome.

Caught up on some sleep in the afternoon. Came to the library after lunch to start studying ME. How this paper will turn out to be is one big question mark. The handout given to us is only around 40 pages and the rest of the reference material is actually presentations made by students in class!

How this paper will pan out only time will tell. For now though its time to get back to the room and catch up on some more sleep!

Day 236 - 20th March 2011

Had another study leave today on account of Holi. I am not too fond of the festival and found 5 other like minded people on campus. We sneaked out of campus in the morning to avoid the impending Holi celebrations and also wanted to study for tomorrow's RM paper. However MCSA duties ensured that I would start studying only at 10 in the night. Had to take classmate to the hospital. The entire process took more than 4 hours. And hospitals can also turn out to be very depressing places. Anyways have tried to go through how many ever slides I could for tomorrow's paper. Have reached saturation point now, need some sleep!

Day 228 - 12th March 2011

Most of today revolved around the India SA game. Worked on the IMC assignment side by side. Apart from that a very routine rest day, which is also the last rest day of the term. Have a hectic week ahead with assignment submissions and end term exams starting the week after that. MDA and RM are going to be the major troublemakers.

Day 226 - 9th March 2011

After a very long time had a day in which classes got over before lunch. Had EB,ME and RM. ME was about the financial aspect of media firms. Post lunch started watching inception, have been wanting to see it since quite a long time. Saw some part of it before dozing off for a while. Had some MCSA work that kept me busy through the evening.

Decided to go to the gym after a long time today. Just as I was coming out of the gym got to know that a couple of friends had met with an accident on their way back to college, had to go to the hospital for that. Luckily they are fine and nothing serious happened. Came back with them to campus by around 1030.

Have only 2 lectures tomorrow, the schedule for classes is quite light now, but have loads of assignments to submit and end terms coming up in another 8 days!

Days 221 to 224 - 4th to 7th March 2011

Been off the blog courtesy Samar which happened over the weekend. Had the NZ Zim game on Friday which was relatively easier to cover as compared to the Aus Zim game. Match got over relatively early, was back on campus by 6 in the evening. Had the opening ceremony for Samar which was quite grand. We also now have a floodlit football field which is a sight to behold, alongwith it the tennis and basketball courts also have floodlights installed. The sports fest was good fun, some really good games in tennis, basketball and football. Eventually MICA Reds won the overall championship with some consistent performances across all sports. Guys in Palaash and Silveroak had to vacate their rooms for the contingents that were coming to campus.

Got back to HQ today morning, feels good to be back home! :P Had a full day of classes with RM and IMC today. In IMC we discussed a case on how Indian coffee was branded to boost export of the commodity. A really interesting real life case. In the evening had to work on the SCM assignment, got done with it pretty soon. Also had to start the process for hostel allocations for next year, hopefully it will be sorted within a week. Have the MICANVAS elections beginning in a little while, wanted to post this one before that since I dont know how much time it will take :P

P.S. Just got to know sometime back that tomorrows classes have been canceled, the joy of an unexpected holiday is unparalleled :D

Day 205 - 15th February 2011

In today's SCM we studied forecasting, a term which I had a lot of times at work. Good to know now what it means :P After lunch decided to take a 10 min power nap before the RM lecture but it became a powerful 1 hour nap! Made it to the second lecture of RM only to see that the prof left the class half an hour early.

Worked on the BM assignment in the evening. Completed it by around 9 in the night. The book on Beckham helped quite a lot. Also did the pre read for tomorrow's CSMM tutorial which is on BMW Films, a really interesting case.After that ended up doing some tp in Kalkar's room. We all were watching the MTV Roadies audition and getting sadistic pleasure out of it. Before I knew it, it was 23o, so for a change deciding to sleep early!

Day 198 - 8th February 2011

These 9 to 5 days are really energy sapping. In the 4 lectures before lunch we had MDA, IMC, SDM and CSMM. The first one was all about number crunching, the second about how to make an IMC strategy and then implement it, the third one on different types of salesforce categorizations and the last one on Corporate Social Responsibility. Post lunch had RM which was about how a research is formulated and then the data is organized. Couldn't fight the impending stupor in the evening so ended up sleeping for about an hour. Went to the gym after that, didnt have the time to go to Bopal in the evening since the ARC and MCSA had a meeting with the director in the evening. The meeting was quite productive and hopefully some positive changes should be implemented soon.

Post dinner have been in the library going through the pre reads for tomorrow and also started working on the Culture studies assignment. Will wrap up now and try catching up on some sleep.

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 187 - 27th January 2011

What a day! I always wanted to create a facebook group for the DCP cup but I never got myself to do it. Don't know what came over me in the RM class where while I was working on SPSS I created the page, added members and posted player profiles based on their DCP style. Here are some examples -

Shail Stephens : Rahul Dravid. The wall. Classical stance. Poetry in motion.

Varun Kore: Chris Gayle. Unorthodox stance. Brutal but ugly hitting.

Jayati Somani: Ricky Ponting. Aggressive player but will never become number 1.

Abhinav Shukla : VVS Laxman. Responds only to Ponting. They have had some epic duels.

Introduced 20 odd players like that and many others pitched in. Within hours the page became a roaring success in the page. We even got a photo of 'Sir' to bless the page. You see eventually everything boils down to Sir! The other highlight of the day was when Sir played a doubles match in the badi tournament. A huge crowd had gathered to see him play and as one would expect, he had a huge fan following. After Sir won the match, he was lifted like a war hero returning back victorious all the way to Palaash. :-D

In the morning we had our 3rd day of the CS workshop. Today's topics were the culture of consumption and obesity. The class was divided into groups of 10 and each group had to perform a skit based on any TV show with the aim of analyzing what is trying to be communicated. The exchange student from NTU Singapore, when as a part of Dance India Dance he put up a brilliant performance to Urvashi. Was good fun. Had an EB lecture after lunch, the lectures now are general discussions on the latest happenings in the industry and what are some of the ethical issues faced in the corporate world.

After class had to go to CG road to collect the accreditation forms for the World Cup. Need to fill them up and submit them by 30th. Got back to campus by around 830 and had to work on the response paper for the CS workshop that needs to be submitted tomorrow. Did that alongwith random tp. Once that was done, went to Chota with Geeko for chai and frankie, meals at 2 in the night are always good fun :D It's 3 right now, but am not feeling that sleepy, will try to get some shut soon though, need to keep score for the DCP cup tomorrow ;-)

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 159 - 14th December 2010

For once things went according to plan and I managed to wake up a little early today to read up a bit on IMM. The quiz was pretty OK, some of the questions seemed to require only common sense while the others needed a good understanding of media terminologies and concepts. Apart from that RM and AM lectures. RM was taken by a visiting faculty member who also happens to be a MICA alumnus. He introduced the topic of research design and posed some pretty tough questions to the class :P. AM was about the Advertising Standards Council of India and its role, some pretty interesting cases were presented alongwith the ruling of the council.

Had to finish off some formalities regarding the Bangalore trip in the afternoon. Had a discussion with the prof. regarding the learnings from the meet and how things can be improved for future meets. Slept off for a couple of hours in the afternoon. Had to get cracking on the Imagining India essay, which I did in the evening, it can be no surprise that one third of my essay is based on how cricket can be seen as a metaphor for the changing aspirations of the middle class in India ;-) At Micare it was the turn of Maushi's team to takeover and they came up with the idea of serving pani puri. It turned out to be a huge success with their stock getting sold out in 20 minutes!

Its end term season as well and we have a quiz in tomorrow's AM class so decided to study a bit in the night. Have been going through the ppts, have one ppt left before calling it a day. For some strange reason the exams this time around dont seem to be as stressful as last term.

Day 144 - 30th November 2010

Pretty long day today. After a full day of lectures had the Ahmedabad city meet for MICA aspirants as well. In AM we learnt about the building blocks structure while analysing a brand, its a tool that makes life simpler when people have to think about what they want their advertising to communicate. Had our last lecture of OB today, didn't see it coming. It was only when the prof. showed us the last slide did we realise that it was the last time she would be teaching us at MICA. In the RM lecture the prof. looked at me and said, "All these days I have been waiting for Siddharth to go off to sleep so that I can say Wake up Sid! But he has never given me a chance!" :P Hope that chance never comes :D

After class had to make arrangements for the Ahmedabad city meet. Few of us had to go to ISCON mall where a bus had been arranged to bring the aspirants to campus. Had a pretty decent turnout considering there it was a weekday afternoon and there was a rickshaw strike in the city. It reminded of the time when I was on the other side of the table ;-) Good fun interacting with them though. Since this was pretty successful there are more meets now planned.

Have the mother pious lady panel discussion tomorrow,so read a bit of the book but am feeling awefully sleepy right now. Will hit the sack early tonight and hope to wake up early tomorrow!

Day 143 - 29th November 2010

Had a late start today so could take the liberty of waking up at 915. In the CR lecture when the prof. what to know that it was a classmate's birthday he immediately sent somebody to buy chocolates for the entire class! Very nice gesture on his part :-) The AM prof. wasn't keeping too well so she decided to take a surprise test and a class presentation. In the test we were expected to write about what we understood about agency structures nowadays based on the session taken by the VP of Ogilvy. The class had earlier been divided into 6 groups and one of the pre reads was based on 6 different consumer behaviour theories. Each group had to present on a theory. This method of learning I've realised is really effective, definitely better than cramming last minute before an end term examination. Had our first lecture on Research Methodologies (RM) today. It is going to be split into parts, one this term and the other will be done next term.

In the afternoon had an interface meeting. We have the Ahmedabad city meet coming up tomorrow so had a briefing on what all needed to be done. The meeting went on for more than an hour. By the time I got back to the room, I was dead tired. Didn't even realise when I dozed off. Woke up at around 7. Worked a bit on the IMT competition before heading out for dinner with Apu,Mallu and Maushi. Went to Millenium, a dhaba on SG road famous for its tandoori chicken. This was followed by desserts at TGB, fell in love with the chocolate barbeque out there.

Got back to campus by around midnight and had to pick up where we left off on the IMT competition. Came up with a different concept for the presentation so started afresh, this alongwith the fact that we all are novices at prezi made things a little difficult but after 3 hours of effort we finally got the hang of using Prezi! The satisfaction of having struggled and achieved something reminds me of my days at work where days were spent on resolving an issue but in the end when it did get resolved the accompanying sense of satisfaction made it feel like it was well worth it :-) It's 415 now but am not feeling sleepy at all nonetheless shall try and hit the sack now, have a long day ahead tomorrow with a full day of lectures and the Ahmedabad city meet.