Monday, November 30, 2009

Musical musings

I always associate a particular song with a particular period in my life. I don't do it consciously, it just sort of associates itself with that time, and whenever I hear that music, I'm flooded with memories of that particular period. Memories that are surprisingly rich in detail.
The problem with this is that I can't really subjectively simply enjoy the song from that point. It has a 'tag' etched in it forever, which I can never really disassociate from the song.
On the plus side, I like it when memories come flooding back. Be it good or bad. Good, because it makes me smile, bad because it makes me smile that I somehow got through those times.
One such song is floyd's 'high hopes' , which is exactly what I was listening to right now. It reminded me of my last 2 weeks at BITS.
Even as i type, a new song is getting associated with this time of chillmax life, when the usual assignments and quizzes etc fail to really burden you anymore and in general that's about all there is to academic life right now.

I'm learning the guitar on my own now, though it sucks that I have to make a tremendous effort to actually put it down after a while and get on with some courses that i'd rather not spend any time on.
Its CAT time again, heres wishing all the candidates the best of luck :)
thats all folks!

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

V

Its that time of the year, when life is the most hectic it will get in my 2 years here. This half-term is punctuated with innumerable presentations by companies pitching for recruiting for summers, each presentation lasting on an average for about two hours. Two hours is precious time (lost), especially in these times, when the sleep receivables are accruing to ominous levels, and even weekends are somewhat dreaded, for the flurry of deadlines we have to meet, either regarding company forms, some mundane assignments no one gives too much of a damn about but have to be completed anyways, and attempting to address the accumulating summer prep backlogs, among other things.
This is also the time when I'm actually quite enjoying things out here. Till now, it was mainly about cribbing about the enormous workload dumped upon us, the apparently useless assignments that invariably form a part of any course anywhere in the world, and all the other things worth complaining about. However, with summers, the actual implementation of what we're supposed to have learnt, how little we know right now, how much one has to cover to even have a faint hope of not appalling the recruiter with our profound ignorance, and most importantly, how practical all this really is, has come to the fore.
This is also the term when our section has got the most wonderful profs, and the subjects seem more relevant than ever. Each prof brings his/her own eccentricities to the class, which makes it all the more interesting. Of course, you can't help but sleep in some of the classes, either because you have been up last night, doing something which you should have done in a fraction of the time you actually took to complete, or simply because you find that particular subject to be not half as interesting as some of the other ones.

I have this exam I have signed up for, to obtain a certification from NSE, called NCFM (NSE certification iin Financial Markets) tomorrow, and theres 150 pages of esoteric stuff that I'v got to study for that, so I'll sign off.
I can almost smell the light at the end of the tunnel. Just about a month and a half now. Then its freedom, at least relatively :D

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Fun @ iima

One of the untold (and probably, only) fun parts of being a PGP1 Student at IIMA:

Zooming about in your room, in these awesome chairs-with-wheels that they provide you with.

Wheeeeee !

I should seriously consider getting a life.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

The million dollar question

8 Days. 8 quizzes. Surprise.

P( 9th quiz | 8 consecutive quiz days ) = .9999999....

So which subject's gonna be next ?

Ladies and Gentlemen, don't go anywhere! We'll find out on the other side of this short break !

Thursday, August 27, 2009

The experience

I'm back to the blogging scene as a temporary moment of insanity consumes me, what with the hellish week we've been having after the blissful no-quiz routine that I had unfortunately gotten quite used to.
Three surprise quizzes in three days, not entirely unexpected. So whats the surprise here ?
Well, owing to the fact that the we were strangely fortunate to have the last week declared as a no-quiz week, which of course resulted in some pretty crude celebrations, the likes of which had hardly been seen during the second week after midterms, the time when the word 'quiz' becomes the most feared thing, and it was pretty much expected that after that piece of good..,no, supremely outstanding piece of good fortune, the third week was pretty much gonna be a killer.

And it has lived upto our expectations. Though the surprise element in there being a quiz has been obliviated, there is still the aspect of which subject.
To make matters even more convenient, all subjects are completely up to date on the 'askable-in-quiz' part of portions, so there's no respite for us poor over exploited souls.

Now that the cribbing part has been dealt with, I must say the last week was quite fabulous. Though the number of assignments was in no measure small, the feeling of impending doom in the quiz that might happen the next day was conspicuously absent :D.
Of course, one gets immune to such tactics by the system to bow you down to submission.
I saw the Arsenal game yesterday although there was the really horrible prospect of there being a quiz in one of particularly disastrous (for me) two courses, and then blissfully slept off.

One of the consequenses of which was that I was totally unprepared for a class (Unprepared here does not mean not read the case or something, that I never do anyways, unprepared means we had a presentation by a random group in class, and our group had not done anything, which, btw, is a cardinal sin at iima).
God helps those who help themselves, and He also helps Oink from time to time. After some nerve wreaking random group number generating moments, I heaved a sigh of relieef.

My phone rang. That itself is quite phenomenal as my phone seldom rings. Putting that aside, my phone rang today in class. It was then that the thought struck me that today might be quite my lucky day. The unbelievable part was that the phone rang 5 minutes after the class was over, in the 15 minute break given between classes. It was not in silent. 5 minutes earlier, or 10 minutes later, and I would have been screwed. Yet another inexpilcable quirk of fate, only this time, and its been some time coming, in my favor.

To top it all, the two subjects I was abso-freaking-lutely dreading, had no quiz today. It was some random globe subject that was to take the honors of having a quiz today. Though I have no idea how I have done, I do know that I shall not flunk.

Well, time seems to not whoosh by you, it seems to actually disapparate and leave you with a 'Smack! you're late!' feeling.
That feeling's just struck me now, and i realize i gotta rush.

Adios

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Long un

its ironic, isin't it , that i never posted when i was at the pinnacle of joblessness, but now that im buried under with never ending assignments deadlines etc, this is my second post in, what, 4 days ?

Well, not quite. There is this thing of having something to post about. Or even if nothing very postable has happened in the recent past, at least something other than nothing that is getting on your nerves. What has happened is that im totaly sick of this fart course that im having to study, this has no credits whatsoever, just random philosophical stuff picked out from heaven knows where, pages and pages of globalization of a few random, repeating, so-called facts, which is then randomly shot down, ending with something of the 'we can't really decide at this point' variety, and all this after about the only 100 odd pages of reading assignment even before the subject has actually begun as part of the classes, and as if this wern't enough, making this a group assignment so you can't even finish this at your own pace, but have to wait and match teh schedules of everyone in the group, wait for everyone to finish their part, which seldom happens synchronously, so that the thing that you could have done, with tremendous application and focus, i have to add, say, in less than an hour and a half, you end up not completing even in a little over 3 hours, the remaining of which you spill over for the next day, when you'd rather be pursuing other things, sleep being one of them.

Now that that not so short a sentence is complete, my mind is fresh again, and i shall resume attacking this mundane 0 credit subject.
adios