Well, the last of the 5 am assignment submissions. The year had more than its share of such back breaking assignments but now it's gone and there is this hollow feeling. The realisation that it's over! At last!



Good thing about this particular paper was the super group I got. This was the first time SH, SD, SM & me worked on a paper and we rocked. Total ease, absolutely relaxed....in short, fun.


The last drop box....SD, SM & me from left to right, SH being the shutterbug.

Ok, so the look changes again. Hopefully this time I'll not have the stupid photobucket issue again. While it's fun to change the template it's really irritating to redo all the widgets and put in links etc all over again. Surely, the geeks should have found out a way to import the old widgets into the new template.

I asked SH to check out the look and he said it looks "Floydish". He asked whether I wanted such a look. I said anything Floydish is game on for me. Actually, the denim look seemed more in the line of retro types to me. Told him so and before you knew it the talk turned to cowboys and then cowgirls and then hot pants & foam when we thought it was prudent to put our wild imaginations to a stop.

All said & done, I like the look. I think the double columns on the right look better than having columns on both sides. Feedback is earnestly solicited.

“This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

Do I find a corollary with this and our state of being at ISB at this moment? Even with the current state of the job market, nothing has ended. But it is the end of the starting year of a new life, new dreams and aspirations. I would like to think that is the case.

Incidentally, this was said by Winston Churchill after the 2nd Battle of El-alamein, which finally stopped the Axis expansion into Africa and finished off Rommell and his Afrika Corps. Very powerful.

So in this term we have this paper with this amazing of scheme of marks for written submissions. Let me illustrate:
1. Response paper - 3 pages - 1.67 marks
2. Application paper - 3 pages - 15 marks
3. Network plan - 3 pages - 30 marks

I mean, how? 3 pages of each assignment will contain the same number of words/lines. How does one differentiate between 1.67 and 30 when you are writing the same stuff. Defies logic, baffles imagination. But well, there is always a silver lining. Actually the silver lining is that it is only 3 pages. Normally for a 30 marks assignment one is expected to write at least 15 pages. And there lies the saving grace and the reason why I'll not indulge in cribbing.

But I still don't understand the marking scheme. How? Why? Who?

Thanks to Mohor, I got hold of this very ancient picture of us. This was a trip to Puri & Konarak (the Sun Temple is on the background). The unique thing about this picture is that it is the only picture of all 5 of us - Dada, me, Joy, Kunal & Mohor. Did any of us back in that day know where life was going to take us? Today with Dada in Bangalore, me in Delhi, Joy gone forever, Kunal in US & Mohor in Calcutta, each one of us are going their own way in search of individual dreams and happiness.

One life, you gotta do what you should,
One life with each other, sisters...brothers,
One life but we are not the same,
We get to carry each other....carry each other

If you have been here before it cannot have escaped you that I have majorly revamped the look & feel of the blog. Me thinks this is quite jazzy with the background, the fonts and ofcourse the majorly cool tattoo thing on top.

The thing is far from finished, by the way. In my utter ignorance of all things technical, I had thought that all I needed to do was to copy the html code from a site and paste it here and voila, all of it shall get done. I was wrong. Very wrong. All my tabs, widgets/gadgets had disappeared. There were numerous tabs on top which led to nowhere. I could not go back to the dashboard as that option had disappeared as well. Facing these deadly odds, I did what any man would do. I called for help. SD & SM were duly pinged. The problem is probably with the stylesheet, they said. What? What is a stylesheet? The only sheets I knew were the A4 type and the thingies they put on beds.

I told SD I frankly have no clue whatsoever & I certainly don't want to come across as a dumb ass moron who put tabs on his blogs which lead nowhere. Gracious as ever SD offered his help. The offending tabs were hidden & a crash course ensured that whatever is on show right now works. But I also needed those tabs to work. Damn cool they were and I wanted to put some neat stuff there. I guess that will have to wait till the weekend.

In a week or so, I hope to bring this page to its new revamped sexy look. All I hope now is that people continue to read it.

Why was I away for so long? There have been so many times when I felt inclined to write but somehow that final urge was just not there. Funny actually, considering I quite enjoy writing. I even thought that I'll forget writing down things just so that 10 years down the line I could open the blog and relive my year at this place.

Well, very clearly all that never happened. Result being that there were 1000's of things to write about, small funny stuff which I'll probably forget over time. Sad that. Hopefully I'll be able to be a little more enthu these final few days.

It was a day in July '07. I was sitting rather bored and irritated in office because the Client was delaying in providing information and I had no work. As the saying goes - "the idle mind is the devil's workshop". I suddenly realised that I need a change. Actually the need to change my job and do something else is a thought which springs to my mind rather frequently. However, this was probably the first time I had any clarity over what I wanted to do. I knew I needed a career shift. But my work experience and background was a hurdle to shift to any other careers. The only possible way out was if I take a break and go back to school.

This however brought to the foreground my biggest fear, my biggest phobia - "STUDIES". I thought that it was all over & done with back in 2003 when I passed my CA exams. The day my results came out, I had made a solemn promise to myself that I do not want anything to do with books or classrooms ever again in my life. It's funny how life comes back in a full circle. The thing I wanted most required me to do the thing I hate most.Still....I decided to take the plunge. My decision to do so ranged from wholehearted support...from my Dad (Good decision) to scepticism...from Mousumi (do not drop the plan after 2 weeks) to total incredulity....Why? Why? Why? (Mainly from friends).Too a large extent I was afraid of myself....I tend to give up too easily. What the heck? I already have a good job. But to my credit and I believe, to the surprise of a LOT of people I stuck on.I gave the GMAT, got a pretty good score, considering the fact that I could only study late at night after coming back from office and after Arya went of to sleep. Once this was done, there was really no turning back.

Sitting here in Mar 2009 as I think to myself, state of economy and job market notwithstanding, all that effort was worth every bit of effort.