Ok, so term 4 end terms are from tomorrow. I really don't know how we are expected to prepare for 4 papers with only 1 day available between end of classes & the exam.
The thing which is worse are the subjects. 3 theoretical subjects, with hundreds of pages of reading and for which I do not find either the conviction or the desire to study. Sadly, the other paper, which I really want to study is so damn hard that no matter how hard I work nothing seems to penetrate in.
Ah, well.....I guess these things happen. So the only way to handle it is just say that I care shit for all this crap. We'll handle things as & when they come....
I'm generally a pretty positive person & more or less like everything happening around me. So it's surprising (even to me) to admit this, but I HATE DMOP. Period.
Exams start in roughly 10 hours time. All I hope for is that I don't screw up (again) & undo the reasonably good work done in the mid terms.
The only silver lining is that in roughly around this time 2 days later I should be on NH-8 towards Gurgaon & home!!! Man....can't wait to go back...
Laters....
Not again. Seriously...not again. I have been here for less than 3 months & this would be the 4th time I would be writing exams. Last time when I was in the business of writing pages & pages of bullshit was during CA...& those were like once in 6 months. At times I curse myself & the imbecile decision which took me out of my cosy cocoon & planted me in this mad mad place.
Enough of cribbing...I do love this place. But that doesn't actually shift the focus away from the exams. There I go again...I think the crib factor is a bit too high today, so please bear with me. I just thought that I have written a lot about the fun we have around here, the parties, the all night-outs, the general chill out sessions. Let me portray things from a different point of view today. Make no mistake about it, ISB is a seriously tough place to be in. You loosen up a bit & you are like miles behind in the race. So here goes my account of a typical day:
10.25 am : Wake up (after ignoring numerous snoozes on my mobile)
10.45 am : Rush for 1st class (usually with breakfast in hand)
11.45 am : Break...mad dash for coffee
12.15 pm : Feeling sleep taking control....man, gotta do some CP
12.45 pm : Class over...rush to Goel...more crap food....why can't they have some decent food for a change
1.15 pm : General chit chat in the Atrium...thinking whether to go for the 2nd class or go to studio & sleep
1.45 pm : The class wins...sigh
2.00 pm : Asleep in class....(nudge from my neighbour - prof is looking at you)...who gives a damn
2.45 pm : Break....mad dash for coffee
3.00 pm : Asleep...again
3.45 pm : Class over...tell study group that I need to catch up on my sleep
4.00 pm : Asleep....at least now I am in my bed
6.00 pm : Stumble into LRC..
6.00 pm - 8.00 pm : Refine Markstrat decision & mail to TA
8.00 pm : Dinner
9.00 pm : Markstrat decision....we got $150 mn this time!!!
9.30 pm : Start reading Eco...Solow Curve & Y, K, L etc etc
12.30 am : Enough of Eco...oh shit, had almost forgotten about the DMOP homework submission -> Start DMOP
2.00 am : LRC closes down...down to CCD
3.00 am : Still DMOP
4.00 am : Still DMOP
5.00 am : Stagger back home....gotta do compstrat pre-read...the case is only 60 pages long
6.00 am : zzzzzzz......(pre-read can go to hell)
Sort of the way the day pans out. It's brutal, it's killing....but there is a sense of joy & accomplishment when we actually drop the assignment into those stupid drop-boxes. Life is tough but we are really living upto it.
A great thing we did in this term was to run away to Hampi for a weekend. You can read about it here. I thought of writing about it but then ID is a poet...he does & will do a better job anyday. Also if there is a remote possibility of anybody wanting to see the pics of the trip they can be seen here. Now that the travel bug has bit us, we plan to do Pondy after the mid terms in Term 3.
By now, all the clubs have get their teams in place things are hotting up. Lot of activities/new initiatives are lined up (yours truly has volunteered for quite a few & is expected to co-lead a couple of them!). We had a session with BCG, Microsoft & Google. But the best thing probably was a chat by Dr Ric Charlesworth on lessons of business from sports. Dr Ric was an olympian & world cup winner with the Aussie hockey team. Plus he coached the Aussie hockey team to 2 successive Olympics Gold Medals & 2 World Cups. Plus he was a member of the Australian Parliament for 10 years. And oh....he is also a doctor. Seriously inspirational stuff. Kudos to VR (ex India hockey captain himself) for arranging that.
I go home next week for the first time in 3 months. I am taking quite a lot of work to Delhi. Have a pretty big agenda...meet folks back in office, get some industry contacts, find out what PwC is thinking about recruitment this year...& so on. Let's see how much I can get done. Apart from that all i want to do is loaf around & get some proper food inside me. Also have to find out if any new food joints have opened up. I seriously miss Sabina Sehgal Saikia's reviews in the Friday TOI. Miss Flavors, Big Chill, Mainland China & other fab places. But what I miss most is some good old fashioned true homemade rice & fish curry.....
So long...
Mid terms finished a few hours back. As far as exams go, this was pretty ok. Only time will tell, whether I am on the mark or not. I thought that my stats exams were also ok...and look where it has left me.
Anyways, the good thing is that I'm pushing off for a weekend holiday. 9 of us from Sec E are going to Hampi. We take the bus tonight & will be back by train on Monday morning. Luckily, our classes are in the afternoon, so we'll be back with plenty of time to spare!
Apparently, in the last batch, the earliest when anybody pushed off was after core terms....and here we're only in the middle of Term 2. Well, any achievement is there just so that somebody can come along & improve on it. On that note, I'll leave for the day. Full update on the trip once we get back. Apparently there is a sort of hippie village near Hampi. Something tells me that this trip would be good fun!
Cheers
Why am I here? No, this is not a philosophical question where you look to explain the fundamental questions of life & existence. This is a question which directly addresses the reason why am I here at ISB. So...why am I here? Seeing my mid term marks I question these very reasons. As mentioned earlier, all i aspired was to be above the mean.
Till last evening I could proudly say that I was meeting these very ambitious targets. So what happened next which shook the foundations of my belief. Well....the mid term Stats marks were released. And to put it succintly...I sucked. Big time. To be very honest, I had modest expectations from this paper. But I never expected this. If the marks distribution is a sort of a pyramid, then I'm probably the foundation, dug deep into the earth, which props up the entire structure. To top it, my marks in the Stats quiz is following some sort of a rapidly downward sloping curve. I see no hope.
The classes for Term I get over tomorrow. Prof Waterman & Prof Kumar were outstanding. I have talked before about the pedigree of the visiting faculty. If possible, they were even better than Prof Stine & Prof Bell who taught the first half of the 2 papers. I'll not talk about Eco here as I have quite strong sentiments, albeit in a different way, about the faculty. So that brings us to the End Terms. It's funny that by this time next week the exams would be over & I am wasting time writing a blog nobody gives a damn about. But then again....I have already reached a zen state.
On a different note, the GSB Core elections are through. Happily for me everybody I voted for, except for the President, has won. Only time will tell whether mine & others confidence in these guys will be repaid properly. I was initially disappointed at the Presidential elections. I was supporting a friend of mine and helped in writing his manifesto & preparing his speech. The winner, to be very honest, was a complete dark horse. But I & a few others have interacted with him on quite a sensitive matter over the past couple of days & he's turned out to be a great guy. Being an Army guy, he may not have an exposure to the Corporate world, but he's a great people's guy, a very good organizer & man-manager. And after the Army, I think he'll be upto any pressure situations this year will throw at him. ATB, Major Saab.
We celebrated the 1st birthday of Javed's daughter today. His studio was full of kids & I, as always, felt a lump in my throat. It's been almost 1.5 months since Bubu & Arya went back. In between my schedule of assignments/reports/classes/booze sessions all of a sudden I feel overwhelmed. I wish they were with me. It's becoming so difficult without them. The good thing is that they will come for 4 days the next week.
We bid farewell to Arunava tonight with a small party in the SV1 lawns. He's leaving for IIM Bangalore this weekend. Over the last few weeks I have really grown to love the kid. Being a juniour from school he insisted from Day 1 that he'll call me Dada. Because he sits next to me, he has tried to keep me awake every single day in class & only lately has he given up totally. A crazy sense of humour & extremely sharp intellects....the whole class will miss him.
Finally....I got a mail from my office today. My F&F has been processed (at last!). Some welcome additions to my bank balance.
Cheerio
So I am in this state of zen right now. Sometime during the day, I had this sudden realisation - there is absolutely no hope. Things from then on looked distinctly positive. I guess it's just the way you look at things that defines your mood and sense of well being. Now I am not an ambitious person. I like my daily rounds of chit-chat, I like good food, I like good liqour....it doesn't take much to make me happy. All I wanted is to be on the correct side of the median. Just above the class average was my initial target. Ah....well. All that's going on in my head is - Floyd and "I......have become....Comfortably Numb".
Added to that is my sleep deprivation. I don't sleep more than 4 hours these days....what I do is a different matter. So this results in the inevitable outcome - I sleep in class. The fever seems to be actually catching up. In just under 3 weeks, the number of people who have accepted this truth has gone up exponentially. When in doubt.....go to sleep. I remember my school days when if you fell asleep in class you had to stand outside the class holding your ears or kneeling down or some other equally embarassing punishment. God bless ISB....they allow us to sleep in peace. The only thing that remains to be done is to take pictures of these sleeping beauties.
Luckily I have only 2 papers in the mid terms. What this means is that a sizeable population will land up in my studio tomorrow evening to revise (or learn!) accountancy. I hope to raid the LRC & grab hold of some DVD's tomorrow. It's been quite some time since I have chilled out. Actually....it's been only about 5 days, but that seems to be a distant memory.
This Saturday we'll probably have one big bash. I guess most of the people (apart from the family guys) will turn up. 3 members of my study group, including me, has a simple ambition. Drink the whole night & sleep the entire Sunday. Sounds fun....Actually our plan is to start from early evening. SD has a bottle of Blender's Pride stocked in his quad. All we need to do is to land up with our own glasses.
But first, we need to get tomorrows messy business out of the way.
The picture on top is what I had spammed to my Section last night. People seemed to like it :D
Ciao...
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