The last two weeks have been busy, as usual.

Last week had a Software Project Management class followed by which I caught a Volvo to Mumbai to get away from the weekend long powercuts. Spend time with the special someone.

Came back to Pune and immediately got down to work with my FSA case. Was called away by my director to help restore the contacts on his Nokia N96.

After struggling for a good amount of time with trying to use Nokia Contact Manager to import the CSV file, I realized it was easier to do the transfer via Outlook Express and Nokia Sync. Everything went perfect.

Got back to Financial Statement Analysis yet again which took up the next two days.

Today, attended the first day of the Luxury Marketing symposium today. Well, I won’t be buying any Luxury brands for sure!

There’s yet another day of the symposium left. I also have my summer presentation to be made tomorrow. I’m already all set to go.

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.

Finally got down to studying at full shot. Have completed the entire Maths portion. Computers is easy so what remains of that will be last.

Went for choir practice yesterday after quite sometime. Picnic plans are being made for June 3, but by then I will be in Pune.

Received the email today with detailed reporting structure. I’m planning on reporting on 1st June. I hope I don’t have to do 31st May.

As part of the Foundation Course, I need to interview a CxO and an entrepreneur. I completed the entrepreneur interview on Friday itself. Had forgotten to blog about it.

Went today for the CxO interview. Had to travel to town and so set off around 10.30am for that. Landed up at the station in time, but spent 20 minutes standing in line to buy a ticket from a pathetically slow ticket counter. They’ve introduced computers to speed up things, but so far it has just been a major bottleneck.

Took a super-slow fast train to Churchgate and found the place easily. Finished the interview, picked up some coffee at Churchgate station to fill the empty station and caught a train back to Andheri. Found a bus standing outside so was home before 3pm itself.

Ordered pizzas from Pizza Way which has a 3pm to 6pm offer and has really economical and decent pizzas.

Have also got my brother to start teaching me basics of Accounts which I shall need for SCMHRD.

After a rested day at home, Friday was a tiring and leg breaking experience!

Friday is the big Mapusa bazaar, which means lots of things to shop and lots of crowds to shop with… I’m not a crowd person.

Anyway, caught the morning bus to Mapusa and entered the bazaar. Ruth didn’t join us, so Crispin, Lil white mouse and I had to share the carrying of the bags.

We walked through the bazaar and picked up loads of vegetables, some bread and then visited the fish market for some bangdas (mackerels) and prawns. Then went to pickup the things we needed to take home, which included cashews, booze and Goa Sausages.

While shopping, we made sure we kept consuming fluids; sugarcane juice, lime soda (got fleeced), lime juice and flavored milk. Needed this as it was horribly hot and we really sweated like pigs!

After a good few hours of shopping and several heavy bags later, the three of us caught a bus back to Cansa Board. We should have taken the rickshaw but tried to save a good deal of money. The consequence was increased biceps after lugging the heavy bags up the hill and down into the valley.

We had lunch and hoped to get some sleep which didn’t happen and then set out on our next adventure. This time we were joined by Ruth, Dora and Vally.

I didn’t know fully what I was getting into, but within the first half hour of it I realized. Well, we walked… yes … walked and walked and walked some more and when we were finally done walking, we walked some more!

Walking was up a long uphill road, along which we found some cashew fruit, some other weird fruit (which meant more of eating unwashed fruits of a tree). We also stumbled on a Gold Mine, where they are mining and exporting gold ore for further processing. And after still more walking, we finally reached the place we setout to be, a small spring.

I was rather disappointed seeing the size of it, because it just wasn’t worth the walk. And, one thing about walking is that you have to walk back. So, we began the long journey back in the dark (the sun had almost set by then), with one stopover for water at a house.

We finally got back extremely exhausted, with my legs almost broken. Again, it was a quick dinner and sleep in preparation for yet another long day.

If there is one thing I hate doing, then it is walking. And more than hating walking, I hate walking around in the hot sun, which is pretty much what we did all over Panaji.

I began the day making frankfurters and eggs for breakfast. Could have done with some pepper and a fan as well, but well, breakfast wasn’t all that bad.

We set off around 10 towards Panjim or Panaji as it is called now. The plan was to meet Dora near Miramar. We caught the tempo (mini-bus) to Panaji directly and landed at their prass (depot) in an hours time.

We took another bus from there and landed at Miramar which was the last stop. We harrassed the conductor a good deal because we weren’t sure where we intended to reach. This portion seems to be a lot more developed, with good roads and beautiful houses.

Miramar also happens to have a clean beach where Crispin, Lil white mouse, Ruth and me killed time until Dora joined us later.

We took quite a few pictures at the beach for those interested in the view (with some of us in it).

After spending sometime on the beach, we left it in search of the museum, which was the original reason we had come to Panaji. Along the way I stumbled upon Lil white mouse noticed the LnT House in Miramar. For those who know, I was with LnT till August 2006, before quitting to pursue my MBA.

Strangely, no one had heard of a museum in this area, so we finally headed back to Panaji in search of the museum. Out there, we came across several people guiding us in several directions, as well as the occasional a museum doesn’t exist message.

It was almost lunch time and we were highly irritated by the whole deal and so decided to just eat first and ask questions later!

Crispin was raving of a place he got a full fish platter for only Rs. 200/-. In Mumbai, you would pay anything between 450 to 750 for a platter in a decent restaurant.

Crispin took us to The Ritz … nah not really, it was the Ritz Classic where we were served this huge platter of fish. Also added a prawn curry and rice and all four of us were stuffed properly with minimum damage to our pockets!

And on our way back, Ruth, Crispin and I indulged in some paan.

We renewed our search for the museum and the conflicting answers continued as well. It was nearing 3pm and we had walked for pretty much most of the day (read above how I feel about this!)
My frustration levels were reaching a peak and was really glad when everyone agreed to stop walking and just get back to Mapusa, which is exactly what we did.

Back at Mapusa, the trio introduced me to Gadbad Icecream. Gadbad Icecream is a mixture of several flavours of icecream along with jelly, fruits and nuts and a wafer biscuit. Will say that one such icecream is enough to fill an empty stomach and all this for just 25 bucks!

After the stopover, we headed back home. On the way we stopped by at Andrea‘s house, where I decided to check if I could get the Reliance Netconnect working. I did get signal, but it was too miserable to do any browsing.

Also had a glass of burnt feni. Burnt feni is made by setting the feni on fire. I was able to get a low quality photo of this, but you get to see the blue flame.

Dinner was quick and after a short rosary, we tucked ourselves into bed.

As I mentioned last week, I took one last holiday before my MBA course begins to visit Goa for a week along with some friends.

Crispin and I had booked tickets via Paulo Sleeper Coach. This is my first trip to Goa and also my first travel via the sleeper. We booked the upper beds in the Volvo and realized that was a big mistake.

For one the head room was too little. As a result we couldn’t sit up straight and had to lay down or risk breaking our necks by bending them for too long. Added to this was the shoe rack which could take only one pair of shoes. We took the easy way out and hung the shoes at the window (see the right portion of the above picture on the right).

As for sleep, well we didn’t get much of that because it wasn’t very comfortable when you wanted to turn in your sleep. We did have a small stopover at some place for a late dinner and few stops to relieve ourself in the trees!

Must say that Lil white mouse, her sis and granny were in a much better position coming by train.

Anyway, we landed at Mapusa a little past 9.30am Tuesday and picked up bread for our lunch and dinner.

We then caught a bus from Mapusa to Thivim which is where this beautiful house is located.

I’m back to my dilema of last year. Should I take my bike or the bus to work?

Both have their pros and cons.

Pros of the bike:
1. I save almost an hour both ways
2. I have the flexibility of timing (especially returning home)
3. Taking the bike works out a bit cheaper than the bus.

Cons of the bike:
1. Riding is a tiring job especially since the total distance is 54Kms both ways.
2. Roads are bad!
3. I cannot sleep on the way

Pros of the bus:
1. Can sleep peacefully (at least in the morning)
2. No worry of driving, saves a lot of energy that way.

Cons of the bus:
1. Loss of time
2. More expensive
3. Travelling by the company bus isn’t all that comfortable!
4. Have to ensure that I reach the bus stop on time for fear of missing the bus

As of now it’s the bus with bike for emergencies. But, which should I take?