Day 418 - 6th March 2012

Woke up past noon today (again). Post lunch started working on what was (hopefully) my last assignment at MICA. Had to submit the Indian Cinema assignment by EoD today. We had to write about our learnings from the course and also send a pictorial representation of a topic that was taught in the course. My biggest learning from the course was the case study on Lagaan - about how it dealt with the caste system and at some levels was an insult to our intelligence. For pictorial representation I took up the topic of how women are potrayed in Sooraj Barjatya films. Some of the movie posters actually made me cringe! So I am guessing there is some learning at least that I am taking away from the course ;-)

Went for a jog upto the highway in the evening. Realised that jogging on the treadmill and on the road are two totally different things! There was an MLS in the evening, the COO of Idea Cellular was the speaker. It was a very nice talk on how things around us are changing. He used humour very well throughout his talk - his opening line was "Please use your phones during the talk, everytime I hear a phone ring I can also hear our coffers filling up, so if you get a call during the talk please answer it" :P

Sankalp had organized Showcase in the night, this is the platform for aspiring pgp-1 directors to put up their plays after which the directors for next year's Natrani production are chosen. There were 5 plays out of which I personally liked 2 of them. One dealt with 3 prisoners who were on the death roll and the relationships that were nurtured between them in the days leading up to their hanging. The second one used the concept of absurdity to take a dig at concepts like mass murder by capitalist powers and the justice system in place.

Got back to the room by 230, worked out some of the things that needed to be done for the senior committee selection process before calling it a day.

Day 405 - 22nd February 2012

Had 2 sessions of International Marketing in the morning. The prof. discussed various marketing strategies one can consider before entering a foreign market. He has given us an assignment which requires us to devise a launch plan for an Indian product in a foreign market. After class met my dissertation guide and got the final approval. Got the dissertation printed and got her signature on the final submission form. Spent the rest of the afternoon caught up with some MCSA work, had to meet the chairman of the disseration committee and the executive registrar. Had some work in the program office as well. Came back to the room and squeezed in a 2 hour siesta. Didnt have company to play tennis in the evening so had to make do with going to the gym. Spent most of the night reading the Winning Way. Finished it by midnight. Most of the learnings in there may seem like common sense but some of the examples from the world of sport are pretty interesting and insightful.

Went to Chota for a Chai in the afternoon. Its amazing how there is always someone out there whom you can strike up a conversation with that can go on for hours! Got a back to the room by 3 in the morning. Surfed the net a bit before calling it a day.

Day 385 - 23rd January 2012

Played tennis in the morning with Anuja for about an hour. This term so far has felt like a holiday, have a strange feeling that its all going to be come back and bite me soon. Came back to Kachnar and did the weekly washing of clothes - its always a game of chance with one washing machine at the disposal of 32 people. You've got to pray that nobody has left their clothes in. Have been lucky the past two times. The second round of MCL games began today, umpired the second innings. Was a relatively one sided match. Had Indian Cinema class post lunch. The session was a case study on Bombay Talkies - how it gave rise to the film industry. Himanshu Rai and Devika Rani, the founders of Bombay Talkies were true pioneers in the film industry with the kind of steps they took. They were the ones who started the concept of summer internships. Ashok Kumar, Kamal Amrohi and Dev Anand were some of the products of Bombay Talkies. We were also shown a documentary on Wagah which took a dig at nationalism.

Today was also the deadline for the CIM group assignment submission. This was one group assignment in which people just could not free ride. Was sitting with my group in the library for most of the evening working on the assignment. Got done with it by midnight, just in time for Apu's birthday celebrations in Chinar. She had bought pizzas from Domino's (I had prior intimation and had skipped dinner in the mess for it :P). Was in Chinar till about 245, came back to the room continued the daily tradition

Day 375 - 13th January 2012

Friday the 13th today! Nothing extraordinary happened though, had to submit the rural report in the morning. As expected, there was a huge rush at the printing center in the morning and to add to our woes, the colour printer was giving problems.Took about half an hour to get a printout of the report. MCSA work took over after that. Had a meeting with the executive registrar and the associate director prior to lunch. Since tomorrow is Sankranti (which is a holiday for the staff) lunch was served at the
football field with a complete Gujju fare. Played tennis for a while in the evening with Shom. Since today was Lohri, Culcomm had organized a bonfire in front of Asoka with Popcorn and sweets being distributed. Punjabi music then tookover with people having a lot fo fun and dancing talent being showcased from some unexpected quarters :P Got another rest day coming up with Sankalp's theatre fest scheduled to happen over the next couple of days, should be interesting.

Day 374 - 12th January 2012

Had a late start to the day today which meant breakfast at Chota. Didnt have any classes in the morning, but the rural report is due tomorrow morning. Did a little bit of work for that before lunch. Post lunch had the second session advanced excel training. The session was on control structures and coding in macros. The session was really interesting and didnt even realise how 3 hours passed by. Played tennis for a bit in the evening after which had to get down to helping Sania and Apu with the rural report in whatever little way I could :P Kalkar wasn't feeling too well with a sore throat and he came up with this phenomenal medication of having Shikari chicken at Honey9. How could I have said no for such a noble cause ;-) Though the flip side when ever it is only the two of us who go out to eat, the food to bill ratio goes for a toss. Got back to campus by 9 and decided to go to the library for a change of location. Ended up watching videos on youtube and working a bit on my part for the rural report. MCSA work took over post midnight. Everyone seems to be up completing the rural report, something tells me that there is going to be a huge line at the printing center tomorrow morning!

Day 370 - 8th January 2012

Played tennis in the morning for about an hour. Post breakfast finally decided to start working on the  CIM Individual assignment that is due tomorrow. A research brief was given and we had to write guidelines for an FGD which was going to be conducted based on those objectives. Played cricket in the afternoon (yes there is a lot of free time!). In the evening saw a bit of Up In The Air which I have been seeing in parts over the past couple of days. Since today was a Sunday chicken was served during dinner in the mess. Post dinner came back to the room and saw Die Hard 2. Did a lot of things to keep me occupied today but at least I started work on the assignments! :P

Day 368 - 6th January 2012

Another rest day today. But woke up in the morning to play tennis for about an hour. Post breakfast went back to sleep and woke up in time for lunch. There is a lot of work lined up for this month with an assignment submission every 3 days till the 18th and the dissertation submission on the 1st of Feb. Having said that there is this state of inertia that has set in, with yesterday and today being free days, I have been on a movie marathon! Saw kick-ass in the afternoon, its a movie which takes a dig at super heroes. This was followed by Our Idiot Brother, a family comedy. So I guess starting with the assignments will have to wait until tomorrow! :P

Day 359 - 14th December 2011

Played tennis in the morning for about an hour. Didnt have classes in the morning but had a company presentation at 1030 which went on for a couple of hours. Post lunch, managed to squeeze in a disturbed siesta. In the course of 2 hours, was woken up at least 4 times for different reasons. Played cricket in the Kachnar courtyard in the evening, following which had planned to start working on the semiotics assignment which was originally die tomorrow. Got a mail that the deadline got postponed to 19th of the month which meant the evening was relatively free. In continuation of going out for dinner over the past couple of weeks, went to Mainland China for dinner. The soup and starters itself were quite filling, so skipped the main course and went to Chocolate Room for desserts, the dutch truffle shake was a nice way to end a sumptuous meal! Got back to campus and did general tp on the net. Will make the most of the weather and call it a day early again!  

Day 358 - 13th December 2011

Another day of no classes. Woke up at around 1030. The weather has changed over the past couple of days with the nights becoming extremely cold and waking up in the morning becoming difficult day by day. Spent most of the day working on the B2B marketing group assignment. Also had to submit the B2B marketing individual assignment. Had to meet my dissertation guide in the evening. Have planned to conduct a few interviews during the upcoming term break. The discussion then moved on to the placement scenario and the kind of things the institute needs to consider during the admission procedure. Had planned to play tennis under lights in the evening, but that couldn't happen due to a 'technical' snag as the floodlights couldn't be switched on.  Mess food was really boring, but had no choice since the number of outings for meals has been awefully high for the past week. Post dinner, did general tp on the net. With the soporific weather its very difficult to stay up until late in the night, calling it a day early by MICA standards, going to sleep at midnight!

Day 357 - 12th December 2011

Didn't have any classes today, nonetheless woke up at 730 in the morning and played tennis for about an hour. Had breakfast in the mess (which is quite abnormal for a holiday) and then headed to the library to work on the B2B individual assignment. Now that placement week is over, there is a barrage of assignments lined up, with submission dates even going into the term break. The B2B assignment required us to analyse 2 cases and make appropriate recommendations for the business problems that were being faced. Managed to squeeze in a half an hour siesta following which there was a company presentation. Also met up with my dissertation guide to decide how to take things forward for the research that needs to be conducted. We will be having a more detailed meeting tomorrow.  Went back to the library post the presentation to continue work on the assignment. Got done with it by around 7 in the evening. During the alumni meet we had got these coupons from Subway which entitled us to one free sub on buying a normal sub. The coupon expires in a couple of days so Sania and I decided to head to Subway for dinner. Got back to campus by 10 in the night and have been doing random tp since then. Had to start work on the B2B group assignment which is due tomorrow evening, have just about started work on it, will continue the rest of it tomorrow since its another day of no classes. For now, will call it a day!

Day 268 - 18th July 2011

Had kept the alarm for 830 but ended up waking up at 1030 (which is still better than 245). Started working on the markstrat assignment when at around noon we got news that the deadline had been extended by a day! Still finished off the part on the internship before lunch. Had to meet the marketing area head today to discuss our concerns regarding the total credits available to us and the selection of courses for this year. They will be forwarded to the associate director who should get back to us by tomorrow. Went to Bopal in the evening for a haircut. During the day, the heat became oppressive to say the least! However it poured in the evening which brought down temperatures considerably. Have been working on the markstrat assignment since dinner, had to go to Kore to get some more doubts cleared. Have been watching ads/music videos on youtube for every set of 100 words completed :P Finally got done with the report at 3. Have to give it some finishing touches, which can be done tomorrow as well. The deadline for the submission is 6 in the evening.Will call it a day now and hope that I can actually get a rest day one of these days! :P

Day 92 - 6th October 2010

Guess I spoke to soon when I said there is so much time and so little to do. The assignments and pre reads for this term seem to have picked up from where they left off last term. Have a two group dynamics assignments - the deadline for one is tomorrow and the other is day after. Also have a lot of pre reading to do for the Services Marketing and Consumer Behaviour classes. But all of that took a backseat in the afternoon as a cricket match had to be played :-P. Had a practice match - 20 overs, pgp1 v/s pgp2. After restricting them to 94 we seemed to be cruising at 70/2 after 14 overs. But then in true Indian style there was a dramatic collapse, we ended up losing the match by seven runs with the last over of the chase being a maiden!! Yours truly after getting a decent start threw his wicket away trying to finish off the match soon.

Most of the evening was spent analysing the match and deciding on what could be the possible team combinations for the MCL could be. Got to know today that the MCL is quite a long tournament with at least 7 teams (3 each from pgp1 and pgp2 and one from the other courses) and each team playing the other 6 teams once and it is bloody serious cricket! There is absolutely no love lost at the end of some of the matches ;-) After all the cricket related duties were performed it was time to start the GD assignment (glad to know my priorities are all sorted out ;-) ).

Day 70 - 4th September 2010

And so it begins, the initial two months here were too good to be true. Today we got a taste of things to come over the next 3 weeks. The first bomb to be dropped on us was by the eco prof. who gave us a 30 page handout on pricing and asked us to come to class tomorrow with a handwritten assignment explaining each topic in our own words and also stating examples from the Indian context. Apart from that we also have a pre read for tomorrow's class. This is his way of shaking us up and ensuring that we study now at least, though I know for a fact that quite a few people who have been taking his subject seriously by going through the pre-reads before the classes. The second bomb to be dropped was by the FA prof, who announced a mid term on the 11th, one may think that there is still some time, but here is the list of things to be done over the next week
5th - eco assignment submission
6th - markops presentation
7th - rest day with companies coming for pre placement talks
8th - ID diary submission
9th- nothing (as of now)
10th - SSC end term!!
11th - FA mid term/ Prinicples of Management Assignment submission
The CT movie reviews also need to be submitted this week, plus there might be a surprise eco test as well.

Got down to writing the eco assignment in the evening. Never written so much in the past 3 years! Had to take a break to complete the MICAMINDS project proposal as well which had a 11:59p.m deadline. Working with the principle of just in time (JIT), we submitted the assignment at 11:57 p.m :-P Then had to get back to the eco assignment. Got done with it and have to start the pre-read now, hope it doesn't put me to sleep..

Day 51 - 16th August 2010

My bike arrived today!! Feels great to be mobile again. The funny part though was I lost my three times while riding back to college from S.G road. I thought I knew the road pretty well but riding in the night without streetlights was not factored in. Every junction seemed similar and at cross roads I wasn't really sure where to go. At one point I think I rode half to Gandhinagar and at another point I think I was entering Rajasthan because I had reached a toll booth :-P Eventually called up a friend and told him where I was and asked him how to get to campus. Turns out I was on the right road until I asked a rickshaw driver who sent me in the opposite direction!

Apart from that had a pretty regular day at college. Class was quite empty because of the PM assignment submission. PGP1 later got a stern mail from the prof. saying that this was unacceptable in a B-school and we should get used to it. Will see how effective that mail is during the next submission ;-)

In the evening went to the city to meet my dad and collect the bike as well. Had dinner at the Marriott :-) The best part about these buffets is the dessert, I od'd on chocolate - chocolate mousse, chocolate pudding, choco chip ice cream, chocolate fudge and some other chocolate related items :D Can't think of anything better that can follow such a long list of delicacies so will end this post on a 'chocolatey' note!