Midterms

With half the year gone, half of my life at a B-School done, it is time for a mid-review, or maybe even a mid-course correction.

Whichever half you take - half of 2012 or half of B-School life - it has been nothing short of amazing. Life's most eventful, most exciting, most happening time this period has been.

The juniors have come and in a small way we're living through our first year all over again through their induction week and other experiences. Second year of MBA has become a little bit of a challenge considering the level of study has suddenly shot up; the professors expect a lot more, the subjects delve deeper into concepts and have come even more application-oriented. And I still feel a little clueless about what I need to do with all this information. But then, all this is part of study and college life, so it's all ok. I'm sure the second year will pass in the blink of an eye and soon I'll be wondering why it all had to end. In fact, I already find myself wishing sometimes that this never ends and that I would never have to go through the drill of corporate life and work politics, and have very little to worry about.

As for the resolutions, I did do a pretty good job of no expectations, no boundaries, no rules for quite some time. I did things quite unexpected of me (nothing bad, if that's what you're thinking about), and when you don't expect much from life in general, life throws surprises - some good, some bad, mostly good - and it makes life a little interesting. That's deteriorated over time and now I find myself expecting, and hoping, and then starting to live in hope that something happened or something didn't happen. And this is where I think my midcourse correction comes. Life's become a little too predictable at this point, and to make it a little interesting, I'll have to make this mid-course correction and take life one day at a time.

Otherwise, life's just been wonderful to me, and I hope that it continues this way.

When workplace is fun

Albeit for two months... In the blink of an eye, the internship is over. I thought these two months would be a drag, and now I can't get myself to believe that it's over. Just. Like. That.

Of course, that obviously means that I enjoyed the internship. It was a great learning experience at a great company with an amazing team and a cool bunch of fellow interns from IIM-Calcutta and IIM-Ranchi.

Pictures from my travel to 6 cities over 10 days for the internship
Pune, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai

BD is a very good company to work for. PPO, or no PPO, BD definitely has set the bar high for my expectations of working at another company - with respect to the people, the work culture, the informality, the bonding within the team, everything. Working at BD was an absolute delight.

I liked my project too, which in itself was a huge learning experience. Things in the B2B segment are very different from the B2C segment (all the text book stuff). Talking to the customers - the middle/senior management from the client companies - understanding their concerns, the issues they're facing, their impression about BD, their needs, their expecations from a best-in-the-industry company like BD, has given me a firm grounding to build my future work on. That way, I've also been extremely lucky to have been accompanied by account managers and quality managers everywhere I went. Through out those 10 days of meeting with customers, I've had countless enriching conversations with them, both on the work front and on a personal front.

In all, these two months have been great. I've learnt so much, I actually want to go back to college and be able to relate all the learning with what we study in college. No wonder they say, work experience helps.

Am I going to be called a nerd now?

Anyway, I also want to get back to college to be able to see my friends again, have late night chats, the late night walks, cook some food, hang out at Arcus, crib about being back to the mess food, enjoy a classroom atmosphere, crib about assignments and projects, crib about placecomm sessions, talk about the new juniors about to join and also, use my newfound power as the creativity head for Imperium... There is so much to look forward to!

Can't wait!

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.

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.

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

Timetable Layout - Term 2

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

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

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)