Debit Marks Credit Confidence

Well it has been one of the longest periods without a blog from me. I have heard from quite a few of you as to why I have not written for a long time (read a little over a week). Well here I am...after having my self-confidence in accounting take a severe beating, I cannot find a better thing to do at this hour.

A lot has hapenned over the last 10 days or so after mid terms. The courses with which I was anyways having trouble keeping pace with before the mid terms have quickened and lo and behold tomorrow is the last class of Term 1. Can you believe that? Four subjects over and with it 1/8th of the MBA classes at ISB. Wowww!!!

It was hardly a couple of days after recovering from the brutality of mid- terms and the results were out. All my notions of doing decently(above average) have gone for a toss and now I am desperately hoping that I can stay within my revised goal as I mentioned in my previous post. A whole slew of things get taught in classes and I really wish that I had not slept through them but then its not something that I really wanted to - it just happened.

Today has been a happy day for me personally. Two of my very close friends(one study group mate and another quaddie) won director posts in the student body at ISB. Congrats MB and JK!!!!They thoroughly deserved it.The good feeling was that most of the guys who got elected were the people I had voted for. I felt good that amidst the intensity of the competition and the groupism people did not lose their sense of rationality. A couple of days back I was really appalled at the lack of interest of my batch mates towards the elections and the candidates. Infact only 5% of the batch even bothered to show up at the soap box presentations of the prospective candidates. This is surprising since the student body contained some very key posts like placement committee director which should be of paramount interest to each and every one of us. I thought to myself that this represented the true picture of India. We in India do not bother to invest a little time to understanding and selecting the people we vote for and later come to regret and crib about it. Anyways I hope that the people who have been elected stand up to the responsibility bestowed on them and perform to the fullest. My sincere best wishes for them.

A significant event last week was attending the HYSEA(Hyderabad Software Exporters Association) meet at the Infy campus opposite to ISB. We were a group of four representing ISB and it was a nice experience listening to a rivetting talk by Mr.Jai Pullur who is the founder of Pramati Technologies. It was also a nice opportunity to "network" with Mr Pullur as well as Mr Narasimha Rao, chairman HYSEA and head of Infy Hyderabad.I have talked to ISB and hope to get Mr Pullur for a similar session in ISB. Another event last week was an alumni interaction event we had organized. It was one of the best sessions in terms of understanding where we may fit post ISB in the technology sector. We had the opportunity to speak with alums who have made it quite big post ISB. So "net net" very enlightening experiences.

As I speak the fear of the end terms is already playing havoc on my psyche. As a stress buster I have already started planning for the 3 days of term break post end terms. A movie, a visit to BBQ Nation,Hyderabad Darshan and a visit to my didi's place already figure in the plans. Added to that is the excitement of Euro which is scheduled to start on 7th. "Deutschland wird gewinnen!!!!". Wish I could fast forward time.......

Letting it Loose

It all hapenned last night. All the frustration, disappointment, all the pain, the agony, the longings of the past week was let out by large doses of rum!!!!Mid terms over and instead of reflecting on the carnage of Eco exam, it was time to party again at ISB.And with Bacardi sponsoring the party,booze was free and man it flowed. Nothing could deter the gathered party crowd - not even the smoke when one of the fuses blew up in the events lounge. Some people who were "sober" even thought the smoke to be the usual dance floor smoke.

Anyways, saw and heard loads of funny stuff too and after a point, many of us lost track of what was going on. Even as we were sifting through the party pictures today, we were finding it difficult to remember when the pictures of us were indeed taken.Well doesn't matter.The conversations were incredibly interesting with discussions ranging from batch presidency prospects,to the quantity of liquor in each drink, to Rajkumar(of Virappan abduction fame) films and why he is the best thing to have hapenned to mankind after Jesus.Now who dare say much when the stakes of conversations is so high.

But I had my chances to show my softer, vulnerable side and unfortunately MB got that recorded on tape..damn..Well it was one of the most enjoyable parties at ISB till now.Also this weekend marks the successful completion of 1/16 of my MBA sojourn.
A few photos from the party last night.....Enjoyy


Confidence Marginalized

The campus bears a deserted look. Its not just today but it has been the same this entire week. Exams really have this superb capability to psyche out students. And its no different in a B school as well.Every one of us are busy cramming for the mid-terms which happen to be tomorrow and the day after. Now the interesting question for many of you would be "What the **** are you doing writing a blog instead of studying?" Well the answer lies in a new statistic with which I have decided to measure my performance - its called the top 75%.

Even a week back I was of the idea that even though grades are not super important I would try to remain above or around the average.But slowly with the asignment marks coming in and the reality of preparations sinking in, I felt the need of a new statistic - a new benchmark I can aim for....and now having settled on it I feel much more relaxed.

Classes are so much fun these days. With everyone studying till late in the night,sleeping in class with varying degrees of shamelessness is the order of the day. There are some who doze off every now and then and wake up, look at the professor and around to figure out that all is well and again start dozing. Then there are some who keep dozing in oblivion, irrespective of whether the prof is looking or not.And finally there are people who doze for a while, feel they have been sleeping for a while and start contributing in class as if they had been listening intensely all along. Whatever it is its real fun to watch. Although I belong to the first category, I do sometimes take some time off my dozing schedule to look around :D

Another favourite comment going around campus is "Arey You are the potential dean's lister"(Read top 10% of class). I dont know but saying this phrase probably makes some of us feel better...or maybe its the response to this statement that makes them feel better. Anyways dont know..dont care....thankfully people have not thought so highly of me and I have been spared of this torture till now.

Today SD sent me a mail with the pictures of 3 bottles of Chivas Regal and saying waiting for saturday ...Felt soo good. Even though I am not a great fan of Chivas Regal, the sight of those bottles and the image of saturday nite post midterms...aaaaahhhhhhhh...bonne humeur

Hypothesized

A lot has been happening in the last week or so. The week just flew by. First we started failing to keep up pace with things being taught in class. So what started as pre-reads before each class gave way to post-reads and then to no reads. Not that we were just taking it easy but each of us is still trying to figure out a way to deal with all the different things on our plate.

We have spent more than 200 man hours hours in 4 days trying to decide on a strategy to sell Gillette blades in Indonesia (maybe more than those guys actually took), worked through a slew of profit maximization problems in economics where in the end we were "marginalized" and moved through the maze of hypothesis testing in stats. And this is just the beginning. With mid-terms staring at our face next weekend, more assignments lined up, the list just keeps growing.

But amidst all this stress there were some lighter moments. Dressing up in class "govinda style", getting auto-dunked to vent our frustration and watching a crap movie called Tashan. Ahh TASHAN....I thought of writing in detail about the movie but I guess you should read the blog MB has written about it(http://mitas-musings.blogspot.com).

All in all eventful week with lots of new funda being thrown at us. Understood a few, ducked under a few and watched many of them fly by without bothering my intellect. So taking a cue from Prof BS, I want to say " Based on my experience so far, I am 95% confident that the batch as a whole is loving this experience" ...I know it is a poor joke but cud not help writing it after being frustrated by Stats the whole week. For those of you who did not understand a word dont bother.
Before ending following are some pictures which gives a sneak peek into the life at the ISB......