Days 54,55,56,57 - 19th to 22nd August 2010

Back after a 4 day hiatus! Had been to Bombay for the finals ENQuizitive at NITIE. Had the marketing plan presentation on 19th which I felt was pretty ok. Compared to the other groups our ppt had minimum content, just bullet points which we elaborated on.

I don't think I mentioned about my backpack getting flicked earlier in the week. Had gone to the city to buy a helmet when it got flicked. During the presentation I got a call from Citibank asking me if I had lost my debit card because someone had called and reported to have found my card. That's when I remembered that I had kept all my expired cards in the bag along with my PAN card. I took the number of the person and it turns out that wallet containing all the cards was dumped in a post box and had found its way to a post office in the city. The person who had called was the post master of that place. Having the bike turned out to be advantageous, could go to the place in the afternoon and collect the cards. It was really nice of the gentleman to have called the bank and informed about the lost cards - there are definitely some nice people in this world! :-) Had to leave for bombay on 19th night. Slept through pretty much the entire train journey. Reached home at around 7 the next morning, its always a good feeling to go back home. Had to leave for the venue by 830 and I was reminded about why I didn't want to study/work in bombay - the travel! Took me one and a half hours for journey that would otherwise half an hour to forty minutes. The quiz was at Peninsula Grand, a pretty swanky place. I still haven't gotten out of the SAP mentality when it comes to dress codes for formal events. I went in jeans and a t-shirt and was shocked to see everybody else over there formally dressed :D Luckily my quiz partner brought along an extra set of formals. The morning session was on a case study competition which was followed by the quiz. Now the quiz was an enviro-business quiz, which is not exactly my area of expertise (not that I have many). But then there are days when luck is on your side, we did reasonably well, ended up coming third. Now when you go with the aim of not finishing last, coming third is as good as winning :D. It had a very unique marking scheme where either you score a lot or very less (read negative), the last two teams actually had negative scores, we were spared that ignominy ;-) The only sad part was that the cash prizes were only for the first 2 places. Nonetheless we left with our heads held high. :-P

Spent that evening and the whole of next day at home meeting up with friends and relatives and playing on the Wii. Was supposed to leave on 21st evening but thanks to the traffic (again) missed my flight and all the other flights that night were full. The only other option was taking a morning flight on the 22nd. So got to spend another night at home but contrary to the previous night could sleep only for a couple of hours because of the fact that I had to wake up at 3! Slept a bit on the flight and managed to stay awake through 2 hours of eco and an hour of accounting. It actually feels good to be back on campus :-)

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 47 - 12th August 2010

Murphy's law of averages seems to have caught up with me today. After yesterday's luxury of waking up in time for lunch, today I could manage only 3 and a half hours of sleep. Had a 9 to 5 day today, with a graded marketing tutorial at the end of the day. The highlight of the tutorial was the surprise quiz! Luckily it was a MCQ type paper so there was no scope for pfaffing ;-) The test was strictly OK, it has 10% weightage in the final grade so hope Im praying lady luck was on my side while I was guessing through some of the questions. The second part of the tutorial was on the Tata Ace case which again has 10% weightage, this had descriptive type answers, which were mostly Crtl+C and Ctrl+V from the case.

I have always noticed that whenever something is least expected or never expected, it happens! Today was another example. A friend of mine and I had taken part in an environmetal quiz organized by NITIE. The first round was conducted online and was held last night. Personally I found the quiz quite tough and even using google wasn't helpful (it was allowed). Before dinner, got a call from my team mate saying that we made it through to the finals and will have to be in Bombay on the 20th! Now that was totally unexpected, all expenses paid trip to spend some time at home :-D But at the same time I have absolutely no idea about how to prepare for an environmental quiz!

Post dinner came to the library to do some of the pre-reads for the marketing class tomorrow. Did a lot of tp in as well. Again before i could realise it, its 3 o'clock, have another long day ahead tomorrow,need to book my tickets for Bombay as well :-D