Term 2 begins...

I look outside my window and I see a bright blue sky dotted profusely with little clouds. I imagine the scene looks a lot like it would have to an inhabitant of Troy when seeing the thousand ships of the united Greek forces approaching. Of course, the Trojan would have felt a great deal more of consternation than I currently am, since the flecks of white in the azure sky have a rather calming effect.

Term 2 started last week and while my excuse for being tied up with the course might be plausible, they would be false. Week 1 only had 1 lecture a day and the overall feeling was of being a lot less hurried than in term 1. The week ended with the GSB party for the batch with lotsa loud music and free booze. That however has ended, and this week has a packed schedule that will be more in keeping with the theme that is ‘The ISB’.

The Term that was...

Term 1 ended yesterday…just like my previous post exulted…was quite an initiation into life at ISB. It all started innocently enough with some 'welcome to isb' and 'get-to-know' sessions. There was pre-term and orientation week…which was nothing but learning whats where on campus and some of the previous batch. Not having the seniors around to counsel you on life here and 'post'-here is probably one of the biggest drawbacks of the 1-year course.

Everything here has been a 'never been there - never done that' experience…with the lectures and the assignment and the case-studies. The objective of the 1st term was to lay the foundation of whats to come next. The material covered was great, with lively discussions in class. There was no doubt about the pedigree of the professors either, the only lingering doubt in my mind being whether they might not just treat the 4-week course as a vacation away from their travails in pennsylvania, columbia and so on. I needn't have worried…the content of the course was grade A, and special mention has to go to Prof. Finn for putting a lot of effort into making what was already a fantastic course, even more relevant to us as with references to Indian GAAP. The exams were however a different matter. Dunno if its just sour grapes…but found them to be a bit too mathematical. It seemed like one needed more hold over quadratic equations and derivations than the concepts of supply-demand…5Cs-4Ps etc. On the other hand, regular reading of the course material and thus a much better showing in the end-terms might just have had me saying the opposite about the course.

The idea is to make some (minor)modifications to the 'study protocol' :
1. Firstly….study! :)
2. Atleast TRY and keep up with whats being taught in class…something I've been told since I was in elementary school..lol

Can't help use a cliché to say…Its been quite a ride so far…and from what has been said about Term 2, we'd do well to tighten the seatbelt a notch!

T1 begone

June 08 - 2005: prospective employer..."Introduce yourself"..."Hi…this is anoop…am an mba…actually am 1/8th of an mba!"

Don’t blame me for the lame joke…blame 4 instruments of torture disguised as term 1 subjects!

End-terms were done today…biiiiiig sigh of relief. Didn’t do too flash though…accounts, eco and marketing…all bad! Stats was better, only comparatively though.

Anywayz…now its time to only unwind and stay up all night (this time voluntarily) consuming alcohol like its going out of fashion…marginal benefit be damned!

.................

Your head's pounding...your breath's coming in shallow gasps...the text on the page seems to be swimming in and out of focus...and you can't tell if its night or day...No its not quite your day of reckoning...just the day before term 1 exams at ISB..cough cough...

Exams already?!

Seems like only yesterday when we were attending the 4th week of our term and the exams are already here…Damn it!!! It was yesterday!!!

Things have been goin' by in a blur and its time for Term I end term exams. 4 exams - 2 days…now I know what Nicolas Cage felt like in 'Gone in sixty seconds'

Streets of Gachibowli...

I was bruised and battered and...I couldn't tell what I felt...I was unrecognizable to myself...Saw my reflection in a window...I didn't know my own face...Oh brother are you gonna leave me wasting away...On the streets of....
I walked the avenue till my legs felt like stone...I heard the voices of friends vanished and gone...On the streets of...

...alright alright its Philadelphia not Gachibowli!
Somehow Springsteen's song has started making more and more sense. No prizes for guessing the source of the battering :) But I guess its a l'il more than that. Its almost 2 months since I let Milwaukee and one can't help but reminisce the time spent with friends. Must be a unique talent of mine to be able to feel lonely in the midst of 349 batchmates! I guess there must be a clinical term for this where one turns nostalgic when faced with a potentially traumatic week of mid-term results and end-terms! and traumatic it will most certainly be unless I sign off and get some studying done!

Are you ready for some...cricket?!

Over the last couple of weeks, rivalries have been emerging between sections A v/s B and C & D...simply coz of the fact that these 2 pairs had their classes at the same time. This weekend was for that game with mass appeal...cricket. Needless to say, there were many takers and so the usual format was modified to have 2 innings to accomodate 16 players per team.

Kedar and Venkat were the captains of the individual 'innings' who had the unenviable task of deciding on lineups without having much clue about the abilities of the players. After a short 'practice' session, the prospectives were divided into bowlers and batsmen, I was slotted into the first half. C batted first and scored well to reach 67 in 8 overs. My bowling was nothing to write home about but I ended with decent figures of 10 in 2 overs. Sachin batted well to anchor C's innings. Out turn to bat and the idea was to get as close to or exceed C's score. I opened the innings we started well enough but then lost a couple of wickets quickly. Amit and Rakesh from C bowled tight spells with Rakesh showing some pace. I hung around at one end to score a few, faced just the one delivery from Rakesh...short and rising delivery that I left alone. The bowler followed it up with some lip...pace and hostility...I love this! :)

After some late hitting, we got to within 3 runs of C's score but our 2nd innings went awry when a couple of bowlers were taken for a few too many and we ended up chasing 88 runs. That was always going to be a tough ask and inspite of some late heroics by Abhinav and Kedar, we ended up 14 short.

All-in-all, a refreshing change from the assignments and cases...undoubtedly 2 great hours! Especially after reading all those emails about the cricket season in Milwaukee kicking off, I needed that!!!. The description above is a l'il too much into detail but then what can i say...its cricket! :)

Dressed to kill...yeah...the pest control kind

Today was 'dress-up' day...for the CAS placement brochure...something like a product catalogue for prospective recruiting companies. After the official snaps were taken, we had our own photo session




Dressed to kill...yeah...the pest control kind

Rohm & Haas...Rohm & Haas...Roman A$$...

The mission this time is to sell bags of stuff so poisonous that a few drops of the stuff could kill anything living...or atleast give a person a bad case of dermatitis! Other minor issues include...people do not have a clue who/what R&H is...do not care what brand of poison they use and most have never even felt the need to use it.

Hard at work...

A piece of cake for D13...we craft a plan that'll ensure R&H's domination in the american genocide..oops...biocide market. Of course...prof. Asim Ansari might have a different opinion..:)

Yes!!! 

Midterms!!!

Statistical Methods for Decision Making...Midterm starts in 10..9..8..7..6 hours....gotta get some sleep! hypothesis testing...linear regression...covariance...risk...i wanna go home!!!

Marginal Revenue = Marginal Cost = Marginal insanity

We'd all heard about the 'high-pressure' existence at the ISB and the last 2 weeks have only served to reinfore that. Spent the weekend working a gargantuan eco assignment...with marginal costs, marginal profits, marginal revenues...think i've gone marginally insane.
finished the ceremony of dropping it off in the section drop-box. another week done at the isb...more to come...yeah..thats news...

t 

I'm alone yeah...I don't know if i can face the night...

nope...these are not emotions comin' out by way of long-hidden talent...just some lines from Aerosmith's 'Angel'. After the chaos of submission of the Gillette marketing plan and the Eco assignment, some semblance of sanity has been regained.(sanity = 4 hrs lectures + 11enteen hrs reading)

the routine's starting to fall in place...wake up...wish i was someplace else (heheee..not really)...make abominable coffee...waste time with the 'hyderabad times'...then try and read up on the stuff to be taken in class...which translates to about a quarter of the book)..go to class...dinner...more reading...collapse into bed

maybe i exaggerated a smidgeon..but you get the idea

been feelin' a tad lonely today...maybe the memory of the luxury of weekends and 'free time' are to blame :)

The best a man can get....?

Its the first official weekend in our year at ISB and my first weekend in a couple of years when i can't wait for monday! All around campus - in student villages, the library, heck even the lawns, study groups huddle together to try and make sense out of how Gillette can sell a few more shaving blades in Indonesia...my solution...enact a law banning all forms of hair...the facial kind! wish it were that simple :(

After spending several hours brainstorming (read as brainbashing :), we're into the phsyche of 'the urban indonesian male'. The final product wasn't too bad at all...kudos to our group D13!

Gillette.....! 

First impressions...

Two days...four lectures...doesn't sound like much rt? Add to those approximately 60 pages/lecture of close-typed textbooks to read before you even to enter the class and start to get an idea. Have had a lecture each of the 4 subjects, have been impressed by what I've seen of the profs so far. Didn't particularly enjoy the idea of surprise quizzes in managerial economics though...enough talk, have some reading to do...:)

Gentlemen...Start your engines...

After all the hoopla of the last two weeks, its time to face the music. The message from Prof. Scott Ward to make sure that the prescribed reading was done served the effect of being drenched with a bucket of cold water! Plans for nights out on the town were hastily shelved as people locked themselves in their rooms to study.

Term 1 starts tomorrow...god help us all! :)

Farewell to the batch of '05

Tonight's the last official day of the orientation week. Alum from the batch of '05 have spent the last week or so on campus interacting with us 'freshers' and giving 'gyan'. Numerous sessions on the various clubs, life here and of course the all-important placement stats have been discussed to death!

Yesterday, the alums invited the batch to a party at a local pub called 'Bottles and Chimney'. There were 40 alums and about 15 from our batch of 347. The lack of participation led to one of the alums to include on his presentation about life here "There is life beyond Talent Nite". Next day, the batch of '06 apologises in true Hindi-film ishtyle with cake and flowers!

To commemorate their last day on campus, the alums are invited to a farewell bash complete with DJ, strobe lights and booze. Party comes to an early close at about 4:30am with the dj playing - November rain.

One enduring sentiment repeated over and over by the various alums on campus..."This year will be over too soon...treasure it!" We fully intend to...

Story so far...

Its been an interesting couple of weeks since arriving here. The task of frantically meeting everyone in the batch and retaining about 20% of the names can be tiring.

Roomies...or rather...quaddies, have only 2 rt now...shammak and vishal. didnt take long to figure out that we shared similar thought frequencies...!

Met some other folks...sachin, rohit, clinton...laid back....i like that. with ideas for so many clubs floating around, we decide to form our own 'Sit-around and do nothing' club. no prizes for guessing who's president.

Having heard the importance of the study groups, our group (A15) met up to get a headstart on the 'bonding' process...but fate, it seems, had other plans...aww who'm i kidding...suneeta chatta had other plans as i was unceremoniously moved to section D...am impressed! just 2 weeks and these guys already know that i dont quite fit in with the 'academics' in A ;)

Met my new group...Supreeth, Pawan, Namit, Niddhi, Hrishikesh...a.k.a D13...no 'group dynamics' classes required here..think we'll get along just fine. what i don't know is will these guys be able to stand me :)

Better late than never

"Do not create blog with runny nose" - Old Chinese saying
Since blogs generally have good immune systems, I guess they meant not to put your thoughts down for the world to see when you're cranky as hell!

Like most things I do, this is overdue by about a month, but the intent is to try and capture some of my experiences (memorable and otherwise) in my year at the Indian School of Business.