We decided last night to go to Mezza9 for dinner, completely forgetting that the place would be crowded given it was Valentine’s day.

We were told about a 45 minute waiting time post 9.30pm and so decided to shift focus to St. Laurn.

Traveling to any place in Pune requires a vehicle and initially they were reluctant to send us a cab. But, eight persons is hard to say no to!

We were there post 10pm and after a bit of pondering we decided to just sit in the restaurant instead of the lounge bar.

Considering that the place was rather empty, we had excellent service. The prices were affordable considering it is a four-star hotel and we drew up a bill of under Rs.4000 in spite of dinner and drinks.

We spent a good amount of time there (nearly two hours), having starters and the main course. I must admit I ate well

We ordered the Reshmi Kebab, Malai Chicken Kebab, Hunan Chicken and Mutton Rogan Gosh. Don’t ask me what vegetarian dishes were!

We got the drop back to campus which was comfortable and convenient.

Today has been World Class Manufacturing day with one last assignment in that subject being completed. The submission is tomorrow.

Got a few blog posts to write today. So, stay tuned.

Went out on Sunday night to Mezza9. Ate and drank well

After strugging for three days with SAS, we finalized and gave our presentation on Monday.

On Tuesday we had our Financial Statement Analysis re-mid term. I missed the original exam due to the CGN Thought Process Improvement workshop.

Prepared well for it. Can’t afford to risk an important exam in finance.

Today was a relatively lighter day and spent some time blogging. Finished our International Economics report and now have to work on my Supply Chain Modeling assignment due tomorrow.

There is an Mergers and Acquisitions valuation that also needs to be done by weekend along with yet another presentation.

A little more than a week remains before my final exams begin. So much to do, so little time!

This always happens at the end of the semester and this time is no different. Have an extremely intensive week lined up with tests, presentations and assignment submissions.

Here’s to give you an idea about the same:

30th September – Supply Chain Modeling FCQ & Social Entrepreneurship presentation

1st October – Corporate Governance Final Exam

2nd October – Financial Statement Analysis Project Submissions

3rd October – Software Project Management and Financial Statement Analysis presentations

4th October – Mergers and Acquisitions submission

5th October – Supply Chain Modeling assignment submission

All this calls for a lot of sleepless nights and worse

Spent most of Sunday working on the Project Management presentation for Monday evening and so had to spend the little time available on Monday morning preparing for the Corporate Finance quiz. The quiz turned out to be dedicated to the time value of money which was pretty decent, so I won’t complain about that. Could have done better I guess.

Tuesday usually is a light day, as is Wednesday. However, they are usually consumed in working on the new Financial Statement Analysis case or some other assignment that manages to crop up.

Monday to Wednesday evenings were spent interviewing juniors for the Admissions Core Committee, the last obligation we have before we move out of the Admissions Committee.

One last thing in the pipeline is the conversion of the existing slow SCMHRD website template into a faster loading one. Have the junior Web Committee to assist me this time.

Now, back to FSA.

Returned from Mumbai early Monday morning. Awoke nice and early and caught the 6.15am Volvo from Teli Gali.

Reached here around 10.30 and immediately got down to studying my Corporate Finance assignment.

Had classes on all days of the week except for Wednesday, which was an equally busy day.

Also got asked out for freshers. Didn’t expect it so soon.

Took an expected surprise test in the FSA class. I’m far from where I need to be. Also have an FCQ in the Corporate Finance on Monday as well as a presentation for Project Management (Ops) on SPACE analysis and BCG Matrix.

So, basically got my hands full all of today and tomorrow morning as well

Finally getting back to the crazy life called MBA.

Had originally planned on reaching college on 15th morning, however certain changes postponed my departure to the 19th.

The last few days in Mumbai were extremely painful as the day to leave draw close! Spent a good amount of time with Lil white mouse on those days

Set off for Pune at about 8.30am on 15th, got the bus around 9am and spent over four hours in the bus. It has been my longest journey to Pune ever and the bus guy decided to stop at every single place in an attempt to fill all the seats!

Reported to the hostel, picked up my keys, dumped my stuff and rushed off to college to attend the Supply Chain Modelling and Design lecture which got canceled!

The rooms in the hostel are much smaller than the ones in the old hostel. The cafeteria closes too early, is more expensive and serves something called food I don’t know what the mess serves.

We went off to the city to watch The Happening. It was a rather unhappening movie! Will write a detailed review later.

Then the lectures hit! Four hours of FSA on Friday followed by six hours of M&A on Saturday and four hours of Project Management on both Sunday and Monday along with four hours of Corporate Finance on Monday!

The remaining days have been lighter, except that there has been a lot of assignment work. And, I thought that third semester would be lighter!

We just semi-finished one assignment due in the next 12 hours. Got about five hours of lectures tomorrow along with Milaap.

Well, our batch (except for a few bookworms) are definitely on a rollercoaster ride this semester. Every single FCQ that comes our way seems to be a major disaster.

Because of oversmartness or sheer stupidity, a perfectly well going FM paper was set on the path of ruin. Finance students are now in a state of hope and despair!

Operations Management is one subject that is also in an equal state of disarray with a lab exam with two questions nobody knew the answers of or were not able to complete it in time!

We also made a presentation in Brand Management based on a Starbucks case by Mary Crossan and Arif Kachra. This required us to sleep for less than 3 hours on Saturday morning.
The same repeated itself today as we worked all through the night to get our Marketing Research paper ready for tomorrow.
I don’t see much sleep tonight as well considering that we have two FCQs tomorrow, Spanish and Technology in Business tomorrow evening, a possible Spanish viva tomorrow morning and a Sales and Distribution assignment submission as well.

I need to sleep!

Having successfully completed all my field assignments, my next step was to tackle the Accounts Assignment.

Being and engineer by profession, accounts is pretty much alien. But, it helps to have a brother who is an Accounts Major. So enlisted his help to take me through accounts ini a super crash course… I partially crashed, but when I got down to working the assignments, things started to simplify.

We have to form a company and create two different product lines and locations and then think up transactions and based on them make the journal, ledger, profit and loss account and the balance sheet.

The transactions were a pain, but the journal was real easy. The ledger was a bit of a problem, and I ended up with quite a few mismatched columns which I found out when the trial balance didn’t tally (both the times). Finally got down to doing the last two and I was done, but not before two exhausting days.

Well, my assignments to submit are done for now, and all I have to do is pack and study, the process of which has started.

With just two days or so to go now, there is the sudden urgency to settle a lot of stuff and that also has been eating up a good amount of my time.

Meetings with a few friends are left, which may or maynot happen. Met up with Rhea today for lunch.

Gave the bike for servicing today and will pick it up tomorrow.

Two days… counting down!