Day 443 - 31st March 2012

Today was the big day. Spent the first half of the day packing. It seems incredible but MCSA work continued to keep us busy for the first half of the day. We all had to gather in the auditorium by 430 before the batch photograph would be clicked on the cricket field. The convocation ceremony went off quite well - doing the rehearsals actually made sense ;-) The chief guest was Mr. Arun Poorie, Editor in Chief of the India Today Group. He spoke really well. He shared with us his experiences and learnings from a career in media that spans more than 3 decades. The ceremony was followed by dinner in the Nescafe Plaza.

Had our last batch meet in the audi at 1130. Thanked TI for arranging for a webcast of the convocation. Placecomm was given a standing ovation for the brilliant job that they did this year. This was followed by a pillow fight :P Football was played under floodlights one last time. This is the beginning of the end.

Day 285 - 10th August 2011

Got back to campus at 2 in the morning today. Had a fruitful trip to Hyderabad and Goa. Just in case you are wondering, Goa was also an official trip :P Had gone to do a recce for the national finals which are planned to be held in September.

Luckily classes started at noon today. But that still did not make up for the lack of sleep accumulated over the past week. Somehow dragged myself through CC and a movie screening. Also had to take care of certain issues relating to my subjects and credits which I had missed out on due to the internship travel. Got that sorted out before the movie screening. Today's movie was Talk to Her, it was supposed to be a very good movie but unfortunately the lack of sleep and air conditioning in the audi conspired against me from watching it! Will try watching it again some other time.

Post the movie MCSA work took over. Had a meeting with TI regarding the junior committee selection process. That went on for about an hour. Post that Jhamb updated me on all the happenings of the past week. Wrapped up everything by 1 in the night and decided to start making up for the lack of sleep :P

Day 265 - 15th July 2011

The all nighter from day before, woke up at 10 in the morning. Had the second day of the crafting dissertation workshop. Today's session was all about the different types of research methodologies we have at our disposal. Some case studies and paper presentations were also discussed. During the course of the day had some work at the programme office wherein some issues had to be sorted. Post that had to meet the associate director regarding foreign travel for some of our batchmates who will be attending a conference in Seoul. Also had to take care of some my internship work. Had to make a to do list for the next 3 weeks just to ensure that nothing is forgotten! In the evening had a meeting with Team Interface alongwith volunteers from pgp-1 for the MTV shoot that is going to happen on campus. They will be on campus on 17th and 18th and will be covering different areas around campus, so all the activities had to be planned accordingly. The meeting got done by around 7.

Was relatively free in the evening after quite a long time, so decided to go to upper crust for dinner. That place never ceases to amaze me! Not once have I come back disappointed or without a bloated stomach from there :P Got back to campus by10 and had some more MCSA work lined up which dealt with the other committees on campus. Wrapped it up within an hour after which have been generally chilling reading some articles on the net and listening to music. Shall call it day soon!

Day 168 - 23rd December 2010

AM paper was pretty OK. The instructions at the beginning of the paper would have put anyone at ease. Here's what they were -

1.Examples and Explanations should be like - "No confusion, Great Combination."

2. 30 sec/20sec/10 sec are ad timings,keep your answers also likewise - short and crisp!

3. Do not "write for charity" - focus only on your pen and paper :)

At the end of every page of the answer sheet there was a 'Thank you :)' - talk about driving home a point ;)

Paper was for only one and a half hours, so it got done pretty fast. The scenes after this paper weren't as ecstatic as the ones in the first term. Though we did do something symbolic in Palaash which cannot be shared on this blog ;-) I had an Interface meeting with the people who would be conducting the Micampaign city meets in Delhi,Chennai,Hyderabad and Pune. Post that extended family decided to go out for lunch. Now in 2 states, the book by Chetan Bhagat we had read about this place called Topaz where they go to eat Tandoori Chicken and roomali roti, so we decided to go there for lunch. On reaching the place we realised that the place is a 'pure veg.' restaurant :-(. Guess 2 states was more fictional than we had imagined! Anyways the food wasn't that bad either. From there we went to Cad-B for desserts. Had to rush back to campus since I had to pack and leave for the airport. Have a 15 day break but also have assignments to be done in the holidays and need to go to Sawantwadi for one of them. Anyways looking forward to catch up on some sleep and hog on homefood.

Here's wishing you a merry christmas and a happy new year! See you on the other side.

Days 153 to 158 - 8th to 13th December 2010

Been away again for quite a long time. Had a pretty hectic week and have now finally got some time to update the blog. So after staying up the entire night making the trippy tunnel made it to class on time. First two classes were IMM and the fatigue and lack of sleep set in at the beginning of the first lecture, at the end of the lecture though I thought I would be able to survive the second lecture, and how wrong was I! Never realised when I dozed off in class only to be woken up by Geeko who told me that I was snoring :-S, decided thats all I could take so came back to the room after the lecture and dozed off a couple of hours. Woke up in the afternoon as some work needed to be done for the Bangalore meet. After that had to go to Bopal with Balaji a.k.a Sir to buy some stuff for the trippy tunnel. Carried 12 feet long wooden planks on the bike, Sir was looking like a knight going in for a joust ;-) Once we came back had to get down to working on the IMM presentation for the next day. I was lucky enough to work in a good group and one of the group mates had worked in AC Nielsen so making sense of the data in the excel that was given to us became a lot more easier. Worked on the presentation till around midnight before I crashed for the day. Had only the presentation on the 9th which went of pretty well. We were playing the role of a media agency and had to pitch to Aircel with an effective media plan. We were pretty happy with what we did. After the presentation Maushi and I went to the old city to buy stuff for the alumni creatives. We also had lunch a sumptuous lunch at Upper Crust. Got back to campus in the evening after which we got back to working the tunnel and other on ground creatives. Spent most of the night in installing the tunnel and other also did a bit of the tensile structure which was shaped like a DNA (double helix). We also had to move out of our rooms on 9th since some of the alumni had already checked in. A few of us decided to sleep in the community centre, was good fun, moved our mattresses and blankets to the community centre. The next day as well was spent working on the tunnel, it was no easy task! Finally got done with all the work which included installing the UV lights at around 1030 that night. The end result was very good, people appreciated it a lot. Have posted a few pics of what went into the making the tunnel and the final result. The guy in the third pic is Kalkar - the brains behind the tunnel and in the second pic I am holding the light for Sir who was in charge of implementing the construction of the tunnel.

Had to leave for Bangalore on 11the morning for the city meet. Went to venue to check out the facilities after we landed. The meet was scheduled for Sunday so was free for rest of the day on Saturday. Met a few ex colleagues, went to SBX - where we have seen many a IPL match :-) The meet went off well on Sunday, had a decent turnout around 60-70 people turned up. Was free after the meet on Sunday evening so went to Purple Haze, was good fun to be back there as well.

Today started off early, had a 10 o 'clock flight so had to wake up quite early. Slept well on the flight. Reached campus at around 130 and caught up on more sleep. The Imagining India assignment deadline, which is a 3000 word essay got pushed to 20th from 15th, so have some time for that as well. Spent sometime with extended family after which we headed to Micare where the interns were in charge of the store today. Mallu and Bulla were handling the store from 1030 to midnight and they sold some pretty innovative stuff like bhutta, masala papad and popcorn. In the midst of all this we go to know that the first term results had been declared. the list had been put up in SH1. What ensued was a mad scramble :D Yours truly got a B+ overall and just scraped through in FA. It was also one of the rare occasions where I did exceedingly well in QT. Got back to the room after that.Have an IMM quiz tomorrow but I am feeling very very sleepy, will wake up a little early tomorrow morning and read up.

Days 146 to 152 - 2nd December to 7th December 2010

Been away from the blog for almost a week now. A lot of things have been happening on and off campus that have kept me busy. So Sankalp, MICA's annual theatre fest started on the 3rd and most of day on 2nd was spent in helping out for the on ground creatives. Had to climb ladders to hang decorations from trees and the roof of the audi. Never done anything like that before, was good fun :-) Had to also prepare for the competition at IMT. Left for Delhi on 3rd evening amidst a lot of drama. Our onward journey tickets were confirmed and we had asked an agent to book our return journey tickets for the 5th i.e Sunday. However he ditched us at the last minute and we boarded the train to Delhi with no confirmed return tickets. We reached Delhi at around 8 on 4th morning and went to the Reservation center to book our return tickets. There was a huge line so in the meanwhile we asked a friend on campus to book the tickets online which luckily went through. Took a metro to Noida from where we took a rickshaw to IMT. It has a nice campus, they have an amazing library, it is quite grand and actually makes you feel like studying :-) There 7 of us from MICA so it was good fun. Our competition was on the 5th, it was a good learning experience (read as we didn't win ;-) ) But we did see a few areas of improvement which should help us out in the future.

We left for Delhi on 5th evening and wanted to make the most of the time that we had to explore the city. Khan Market, Connaught Place, GK, India Gate and Pahar Ganj were on the itinerary. Also made the most of happy hours ;-) The weather was also brilliant , dont think it ever crossed 20 deg. Pahar Ganj was an interesting place to go to, it is where most of Dev D was shot. Had to go around the place on a cycle rickshaw which was also a nice experience. Had a pretty uneventful return journey. Made the most of getting an upper berth and slept all the way from Delhi to Sabarmati :-) Reached campus at around 1130, could make it for the last class of RM, and as luck would have it, the prof. finally got his chance to say 'Wake Up Sid!' :D A few of us had a meeting with some consultants who are in the process of making a 5 year plan for MICA. They wanted to know our opinion about the place and where we saw the college heading. After that had an interface meeting, we have the Bangalore city meet next weekend for which I will be going :D:D but the flip side I will miss the Grand Alumni meet which I heard if going to be a lot of fun! In the evening played tennis and basketball and then went for a jog - had to make up for all the calories consumed in Delhi ;-) Post dinner had to help the alumni team with the on ground creatives. Kalkar has a really amazing idea in mind which when implemented will be something completely out of this world. Worked on it for the entire night! It required a lot of carpentry to be done. Had never used tools so much in engineering, quite ironical that I had to use it in a mgmt. program. Was really good fun though. The structure is called a 'trippy tunnel', will try and upload a pic once it is done. That work went on till about 845 in the morning courtesy which for the first time since I have come to MICA I have to attend lectures without taking a bath :P Somebody tells me that it is my right to passage ;-)

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.

Day 140 - 26th November 2010

Today's AM session was a guest lecture taken by a MICAn who is now a VP at Ogilvy. He spoke about the advertising industry and how things actually work. The entire process was brilliantly explained and it shattered a lot of myths that I held against the advertising industry. I had a totally different idea about the account planning specialization that is offered over here and today that radically changed for the better. He then went on to show some ads that were made by Ogilvy and explained the nuances of each of them, how things that we remember the most from the ads were most probably not a part of the original script :-)

Had an interface meeting in the afternoon, we are organizing city meets for an info session on MICA. The first meet is on tuesday, so had to work out the details for that meet. Got done with that by 5. Came back to the room and slept. Now sleeping in the evening has never done me any good and when I woke up and saw the time I thought it was 645 in the morning and went back to sleep! :P Finally got my bearings right at 715 when I managed to get out of bed.

A friend of mine from Bombay had come to campus in the night, had dinner at Chota and ended up doing general tp for most part of the night. Got back to the room at around midnight and have been surfing the net and listening to music. One of those days when you dont really do anything productive and before you know it, its time to crash :P

Day 137 - 23rd November 2010

Back to regular classes after nice break. Had a double AM lecture in the morning and as usual they were quite interesting. The lecture was all about marketing of mobile phones and how the consumers are segmented based on buying behaviour unlike other products where there are the standard segmentations. I could actually put myself in each of the buying behaviour zones based on my age or more importantly based on whether I was earning or not ;-) CB and OB were pretty OK with a lot of people in class being caught sleeping. Can't blame them, the weather has been so good over here that it feels like an insult to it if we sit for classes. Apparently even Bangalore is not as pleasant as it is over here right now!

In th afternoon had to make a press release for Interface after which there was a meeting regarding the city meets that we would be conducting. Got done with that by about 430, came back to the room and read a bit of AM for tomorrow's class. Slept for an hour or so in the evening before going to the gym.

It's PPO season now and today we got to know that Kaushik (guest writer from last week) got a PPO from L'Oreal! Congratulations Kaushik :-D To celebrate there was a party in Amaltas. From there went to Chota at around 3 for some chicken pakoda and nimbu paani. Got back to the room by 4, have a late start tomorrow,should hit the sack now.

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!

!

Day 90 - 4th October 2010

First day of term II. Was relatively free in the morning since the registration and fees payment got done quite fast. Had only two lectures which started at 1130 in the morning - Organization Behaviour and Consumer Behaviour. CB seems to be a pretty interesting subject and the prof. is also quite knowledgeable. He has requested the class to sit with their nametags in front of the desk otherwise he would call them by names he would deem appropriate like Ram Bharose :-P Saw a bit of the India Aus test match after lunch but couldn't fight the urge to resist a siesta. Was woken up by a friend at around 530 as we had been called for Interface work. After that headed to play cricket, the ground looks prim and proper and is all set for the MICA cricket league (MCL) which should begin next week. Realised that my stamina level is quite low, need to work on it!

A few of us made plans to watch Robot at PVR in the evening. The plan got extended to having dinner as well. What initially started as a group of four ended becoming a group of 10 - guess thats the Rajnikant effect :-) As for the movie there's only one way to sum it up - on a Monday night for a 10 o'clock show in a city like Ahmedabad it was housefull! Some of the visual effects were brilliant and the lyrics for all songs were hilarious - they covered everything from Einstein to Asimov, protons and neutrons to Kilamanjaro and Mohenjo Daro !! Was good fun watching it in a packed theatre, the audience would start clapping at some of thr typical Rajni scenes and the movie even received a standing ovation at the end. Got back to campus by around 130, classes start from 9 tomorrow, back to the grind!!

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 62 - 27th August 2010

Last day of Markops for this week. Things for our firm went from bad to worse, it was like Lehmann brothers and AIG put together. Just when we thought that our SPI could not go any lower, it reached 167!!! On discussing this with the faculty it turns out that we were focusing more on promoting our new products and had completely neglected improving our existing ones. That worked against it. There were a few positives out of this entire exercise though - got to learn a lot about analysing market research reports, which i found quite interesting, also got to learn a lot from our mistakes :-P Have another round of simulation to be submitted by sunday.

Had TI work to be done in the evening. Worked a bit on the blog and what content kind should be made available on it. Had to run it through the senior team in the night. They seemed to be pretty OK with it, will have another meeting tomorrow to see how to take it forward. Started preparing for tomorrow's QT test after that was done, apparently its an open book test (which is generally not a good sign). Nonetheless, went through some of the things taught in class.

In continuation of introducing my friends, today its the turn of -

Arvind Menon aka Mallu

This guy claims to be 27, though most of us think he has to be at least 34 ;-) He is a really good sport (at least until now), since he has the been the butt of quite a few of my jokes thanks to his receding hairline, without any complaints. His nickname is quite an irony because there is nothing mallu about him - no accent, no communist leanings, no affinity for the gulf etc. Still I guess this name will stick for the next couple of years. Met him also on the first day, while Bulla and I were analyzing Mithunda's Gunda, he kept himself out of the conversation because he doesn't indulge in such 'peabrained/brain dead' movies. Though Im yet to figure out what are the kind of movies that he really likes :-P

Mallu - have you hired that lawyer already?? ;-)

Day 50 - 15th August 2010

Happy Independence Day and Happy half century for MICAlal ;-) Cant seem to remember the last time I celebrated I-day. In spite of it being a rest day I woke up at 8 for the function organised by CulComm. They had invited around 300 school children from the neighbouring areas on campus for the flag hoisting ceremony. The function got done by around 11 after which had to send a writeup for TI. During the course of the afternoon got to know that our mini vacation at Asoka had been brought to an end and we had to move back to Palaash. I had actually started missing life at Palaash and Im quite happy to be back. The only thing I'll miss about Asoka is the attached bathroom ;-) Moved back after lunch which took about half an hour.

Tried working on the PM assignment which was like fighting a losing battle against the impending stupor. Ended up sleeping for an hour or so, would have been longer had I not been woken up by phone calls from friends calling me to the football field to cheer MICA in a match against NIRMA. The match was good fun, we ended up beating them 5-1, our poor goalkeeper got so frustrated because after the first goal he had absolutely no work to do :-P Started working earnestly on the assignment after the match. Spent a couple of hours on researching about the different service offerings of airlines in the India UK sector, which was the second part of the assignment (for the first part pls. refer to day 49)

LitComm had organised a quiz in the night at the audi. A friend and I decided to go for the quiz at 1010 p.m while the deadline was at 1015 p.m. My luck with quizzes, when it comes to clearing the first round, has been quite good over the past week. Turns out that I had a brilliant partner and all I had to do was offer moral support :-) My only contribution was two answers in the elimination round, for the remaining questions all I did was agree with what she said. We made it to the top 5 and ended up finishing in joint third place. Unfortunately only the top 2 teams get cash prizes. Nonetheless that was much more than I would have bargained for, and I have promised my partner a treat at Chota for her stellar performance and letting me tag along :-D

After the quiz tried to give the finishing touches to my assignment, Im getting this feeling that its not too long and I could have done a better job. Anyways will know if Im right when the grades are announced.

To commemorate 50 days at MICA I would like to post this song , I have been listening to it on loop for the past 3 hours. Until tomorrow, adios!

Day 40 - 5th August 2010

Had a pretty weird schedule today, there was a two and a half hour break between two lectures. First lecture was at 9 and the second was at 1245. Used the time between lectures to do some interface work. Also had the fingerprint recognition done today, though I believe it'll come into effect only from next term. Couldn't sleep in the afternoon because of a health checkup that had to be done for all students. Got done with that and had another MLS session on challenges in the communication industry. The speaker was quite good and the line that stuck with me was "Your time spent at a B school doesn't determine your first job but it determines your last job."

The deadline for the CS assignment being tomorrow,our group sat to give some finishing touches to the ads. Unfortunately for me the lack of sleep took its toll and I ended up sleeping through the most of the discussion! Feeling a little guilty about it now. Was woken up at around 330 after which I got back to my room. The deadline for the assignment is 5 p.m tomorrow,hope it comes out well!

Day 37 - 2nd August 2010

Had our first class on Social Sciences and Communication(SSC) today. Most of the ppt had only pictures and what we perceived from it (although some people thought that it was racial stereotyping). We are going to learn about anthropology,sociology and psychology in this subject, as geeky as this may sound, Im actually looking forward to it. The marketing lecture was taken by a really good prof, she had just one slide on Integrated Marketing Communications(IMC) but kept that kept us engrossed for more than an hour. At the end of the lecture Nike+ was discussed - a brilliant concept, but Im not sure how effective it will be in India. The other 2 lectures were on ID and MLE, the only source of entertainment was when people tried to 'shoot' down the DCP'ers.

All committee members had a meeting with the director in the afternoon. Just a formal introduction of the junior committee members and the senior committee had to talk about the plans that they had in mind for the coming year. TI has some major plans chalked out for this year, hope they materialise. Had an optional movie screening in the evening - an Iranian movie called Colours of Paradise, though I did manage to stay awake for the entire duration of the movie, I found the ending to be too open ended.

Post dinner had some TI work, have to come up with a concept/layout for a MICA blog. Came up with a few ideas for that, need to work on it tomorrow as well. After that had to work on the CS (Creative Strategy not Counter Strike) group assignment. That went on until around 130, have been doing absolute tp since then. Will head out to Chota now (0215 hours),not feeling too sleepy,sure to make up for it during classes tomorrow (a potent combination of eco. and accounts)

Day 28 - July 24th 2010

The weather today made me feel like I was back in Bombay. It poured throughout the evening so much so that the Palaash courtyard and badminton court were flooded. Apparently in some parts of the city the water levels were waist high.

The day began on a great note- got to know that I made it to the junior committee of Team Interface!! Its a good feeling , being a part of a committee on campus, didn't make me feel too sleepy during the morning lectures. :D Had only two lectures in the morning, so headed to ISCON mall in the afternoon with friends. Azhar Bhai's rick with the heavy duty music system and awesome song collection added to the fun. We had to be back on campus by 3 for a QT tutorial so didn't have much time to have lunch anywhere. So we packed burgers from McDonalds and had it during the ride back to college.

The sports season at MICA kicked off (pun intended) with a football match between PGP1 and PGP2. Cheering from the sidelines was fun. Few of us found a vantage point on the roof of the admin block which overlooks the football field. The icing on the cake was PGP1 winning 3-0 :-)

Had nothing to do the in the night so continued watching South Park. I like this feeling of being jobless once in a while. Will also make the most of it and go to sleep early (read as 1230 a.m)

Day 26 - 22nd July 2010

It's 245 a.m and Im wide awake. Just got back from Chota where a friend gave a treat for making it to SCAM. That place is buzzing with activity at 2 in the morning, no wonder its a part of MICAn folklore.

Had our second workshop on creative strategy today. Learnt about the SCAMPER technique to devise visual campaigns, also saw some examples of how its done, pretty interesting stuff. We also got the chance to interact with the gentleman who came up with Raymond's complete man campaign. Got some good insights from him on whom campaigns should target and how important it is to evoke a strong emotion within people through a single image. Apart from that our group had to work on an adult literacy campaign, which went on till about 430. Came back to the hostel and slept for an hour, felt groggy throughout the evening because of that and the inclement weather. It poured almost throughout the day,because of which the clothes I had kept out to dry were subjected to another rinse cycle!

There is a very strong rumour doing the rounds that we are in for a surprise eco test tomorrow. Apparently the library was packed with people from PGP1. If it doesn't happen, whosoever started the rumour is going to have a tough time ;-). I also studied a bit of eco but have a gut feeling that there won't be any test tomorrow (using that as an excuse to sleep early).

P.S Had my Team Interface interview today, was quite chilled out, will know tomorrow if I've made it through to the next round.