Saturday, 14 January 2012

Changing Perspectives

No matter how fervently I talk about sleep being such a huge waste of time, sometimes I do need that long peaceful twelve hours of sleep. And what I really mean by sleep being a waste of time is when I find myself sleeping during the day thinking I’ll be fresh and be able to work efficiently afterwards. But the result is rarely that. I end up feeling all groggy and unproductive for many hours after I wake up. So that, clearly, is a humongous waste pile of unproductive hours I could have spent watching episodes from The Big Bang Theory, or Yes Prime Minister.

So I slept for twelve hours last night – 10pm to 10am. I woke up, very fresh, had breakfast and went for my regular weekend morning walk. The weather was just perfect. It was cold and sunny at the same time. Absolutely wonderful. During the walk, I listened to Dennis Dalton’s lecture on Political Theory. And then I listened to Richard Feynman’s lecture on Physics. The contrast was intriguing, yet they didn’t seem too far apart either. There’s a thin thread connecting the two. And then I thought about the course I was studying here at MDI. And I wondered, surely there’s so much more to life than to learn how to “generate revenue”, or “strategize” to generate the most revenue. So what exactly am I learning here? Am I really learning business management? Honestly, it seems like I’m learning more about people management than business management. I’m not sure if my friends pursing an M.Tech/M.S. have similar experiences, but I have enough reasons to believe that life of an MBA student is very different from the life of an M.Tech/M.S. student.

I was told before I came here that I would meet all kinds of people here. And I thought that these so-called “all kinds” would be a small percentage. I was so mistaken. The small percentage actually constitutes the normal people who behave like er... normal people. And the rest of them are eccentric. Some are complete basket cases, and some are completely psycho. It’s not very easy to deal with them. In fact, it is in such situations you need to “strategize” your dealings with these people if you want to come out of this place sane. But of course, sometimes nothing works with them and you just learn to live with it.

I’ve never been more uncomfortable in my life before. I did spend four years in a hostel during engineering and there were difficult people, and not once did I feel uncomfortable. But here, at MDI, it’s a whole new world. You feel the discomfort tugging at you every moment of every day, and all you wish for is to get done with the course and run away as fast and as far as possible.

But in the light of all the reading and understanding of fields other than management, I’ve learnt to look at it from a larger perspective. If not for generating revenue, or helping the economy grow, or improving the standards of living of people economically, to say the very least, it’s an interesting insight into human behaviour and the application of this insight into conducting business transactions with people. And for that alone, I am glad I’m here.

And of course, no need to mention, the wonderful friends I’ve made here, and some very interesting people I’ve met.

Wednesday, 28 December 2011

Timetable layout - term 3

Probably my most audacious attempt at a timetable layout. It was very difficult to resist the temptation of making it a coloured layout. But, a decision is a decision. And I had absolutely no reason to change it. So black-and-white it is.

Yet another fleeting year

My resolution for 2012 is to not have any resolutions. No resolutions, no expectations, no boundaries, no rules. It's probably going to be my last year of "freedom" if you know what I mean, though I don't see why anything has to change when "it" happens. Anyway, just in case, I've decided that for this year I'll drive my time-machine from the future, park it in the present and make the most of what the present lays in front of me - be a little impulsive. I've got to make my friends stop calling me "mom".

As for last year's resolutions, as with all resolutions, all of them were broken. Except one - do not get married. And with no boyfriend in sight, I can be reasonably sure that the resolution won't be broken in 2012 either.

2011 has been quite eventless, except for my getting into MDI which was, somehow, completely unexpected. Though eventless, it has been a year of self-awakening. The image I had of myself and of the world has faded to give rise to a new realization. And it is with this realization that I'm going to step into 2012 and be the best I can be.

Happy 2012!

Author in the house

We've now got an author at home! Mum's book about some god-alone-knows-what super-speciality topic is now selling on amazon and flipkart! She makes me so proud.

Thursday, 15 December 2011

Long cold nights

The Thickest Meanest Fattest Blanket I've Ever Snuggled Under

And I'm loving it. Experiencing "real" winter for the first time ever in my life with Gurgaon's nights starting by 5:30pm and temperatures in single digits at nights adds to the whole "MBA experience". When winter was just beginning, people who had already experienced the harsh unforgiving Delhi winters had painted a you-will-not-survive-this picture of it. And I really thought I wouldn't survive it. But it hasn't been bad at all until now. I still manage to walk around the campus at 4am with just a sweatshirt on my regular wear and socks on my feet. But I'm starting to think that won't be possible anymore. The Gurgaon temperature forecast for the weekend says 2 degrees. Last night it was 4 degrees and I could just barely manage to hold the fork while eating maggi at 3:30am at Arcus. With the end-term exams starting in less than a week, I'm just hoping and praying that I'll be hold the pen firmly. And that reminds me, I need to start studying.
Experienced heavenly warmth last night

Sunday, 18 September 2011

Timetable Layout - Term 2

In black and white, as decided previously.
Fonts used: Butterfield Demo (Monday, Tuesday etc.) and Barbarello. See the contrast?

Tuesday, 19 July 2011

The End

No more Harry Potter to look forward to. I watched the final movie today, and all the thoughts that I had after I finished the last book came back after watching the movie. After I read the book, I got the feeling that JKR just wanted to get over with the book, even at the cost of sounding a tad bit illogical - case in point being, Voldemort died because he didn't understand how wands work while all this while Voldemort was supposed to be the greatest wizard, albeit dark, after Dumbledore. Surely, Voldemort would know something as simple as that being a genius that he is. I got the feeling that JKR had run out of ideas to finish the story.

And that's how I felt after watching the final part today. The movie was carelessly executed, confident that people would watch it no matter what. The movie concentrated on stunning visual effects than the storyboard or the acting or the screenplay. Especially the screenplay. It felt like a bad cut-paste job. Much left to be desired. But, it's Harry Potter after all. The last Harry Potter movie. So I'm not going to complain too much. Certainly not the best movie, but an entertaining and emotional one nevertheless.

I want to write more, but I just found out (2am) that we have a quiz tomorrow, and I've never opened the book for the (faff) subject. Got to study. Bye.

P.S. I ♥ Snape

Sunday, 10 July 2011

Timetable layout - Term 1

We don't have a colour printer. So I had to make one in black and white. I'll probably make all my time-tables for all the terms in black and white.

Original psd is here (File->Download Original)

Rangmanch

Yet another party. This one was arranged by us, the juniors, as way of giving thanks to the seniors for such a wonderful welcome party last week. So we had to arrange funds, lights, food, drinks (the only reason most people come to the party...unlimited free booze), posters, DJ and other entertainment. Everything went perfectly well except for the uncle we had for a DJ. The bad DJ spoilt the entire experience, though on the bright side this time we were dancing with known people as opposed to random unknown people last week. Now that a week has passed since the last party, you kind of have an idea who your friends are going to be. There's this bond and trust and a feeling of being protected that's built when you dance with your new friends, especially when there are horribly drunk guys around you who have gone loony.

Now now, don't get me wrong. We don't have a party every week. As far as I know, we won't be having another party for a long time. Besides the reason of increasing senior-junior interaction, this one was more of a training for organizing events on short notice. That's the culture over here - the seniors teach the juniors everything they need to know (apart from academics) while at MDI. But then today when we were performing for the seniors, the seniors threw genda phools at us, created a racket with plates from the mess, booed and shooed us, and that honestly looked so cute. They looked like mischievous little kids who only looked like 24 year olds. Someone told me that post-graduate college is not as much fun as under-graduate college because in post-graduate college everyone's grown older and mature and lose that child in them. But I'm having more fun now than I had in my undergrad college. Today's experience makes me realise that students will always be students however old they are.

That reminds me, no matter what college it is - a college with 99%ilers or a college with 80%ilers - everybody cribs about having to study. When I came here I expected everybody to be nerds always engrossed in a book or some sort of project, but reality was much more real. People do most of their academic studies a few days before the exam, like always. This college is no different from any other college, well of course, except for the quality of students and that adds a whole new dimension to learning - learning from and with really smart peers.

I'm going to stop for now. The party has ended. The sun has risen. It's almost 7 a.m. Everybody's gone to bed and so must I. I will continue my bakar in some other post some other day. Good night.

Sunday, 3 July 2011

Reason and Emotion

Here's a lovely animation about reason and emotion, and how it played its part in World War II.