Three updates on the MBA front.

For one the CET 2007 results are out and I scored a 99.21 percentile with just 125/200. The possibility of JB seems really bleak, but I will still go for the GD and the PI. Check your score.

On the SCMHRD front, I received the Foundation Course email. There are seven subjects in the course and it sure is going to be a crazy two months! I need to find a CEO/CFO, an entrepreneur and a manufacturing company to find out stuff…. Did I mention two long months?

Lastly, I received the letter from XIMB which stated I am on the waiting list. I need to pay Rs. 30000 (refundable) to have my chance considered. Won’t be doing that because I don’t expect to get in at 101.

The Sunday that went by the big Maharashtra MBA CET 2007 which opens doors to Management colleges in Mumbai. I had already received news of me being accepted in SCMHRD.

My center for the test was IES School, Dadar. I wasn’t sure of finding parking, so took the train out there. Reminded me of the times at Agrawal’s for my HSC classes.

This time I was a lot more prepared than last year and hence attempted the paper better I believe. However, I don’t think I did well enough to get me into JB, but time will tell.

The paper was a lot more calculation intensive this time. However, there was a pattern that I observed. There were many sets of five questions which has all the different five answer choices within that set. Hence, if I knew four, I guessed the fifth. No negative marks definitely helps!
On the downside, you will get only one correct for every five that I attempted

I rushed home immediately after the paper as I had to make it for mass. Had intended to go in the morning, but just slept through the entire thing!

I received my SCMHRD offer letter yesterday and spent most of yesterday and today getting everything ready. The packet is ready to be sent

Had to take new stamp size photos for the same, also got a huge bundle of my certificates and marksheets attested (Thanks Mouse).

I’ve also finalized on a Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop. It’s working out to be around Rs. 62K including taxes. Will post complete specs once I get the baby, which should be four weeks.

The rest of the week was rather uneventful, but for few exceptions.

Friday as usual was choir practice. This time in preparation for Saturday’s Silver Jubilee mass and Sunday 8.30am mass.

Managed to cock up “We are here to praise you”. Guess, I’ve got so much running through my mind now a days that certain older stuff just takes a while to recollect

Saturday was a relatively quieter day, atleast till evening.

Picked up James and headed over to Holy Trinity Church in Powai. Heading there wasn’t a problem at all because the roads were perfectly clear. Helped because we left only at 5.20pm for the 6pm mass!

The church is much smaller than our church, but it has an equally bad sound system. Our singing was appreciated, because we got quite a few compliments and even some future requests :O

Since we were at Powai, we decided to drop in at the new Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet in Powai. My last experience with KFC was nearly eight years back and it wasn’t a very tasty one!

However, with the arrival of KFC in India, one thing that has definitely happened is the additions to the menu. Also, the Hot and Crispy was definitely not bland which was a good thing. The photo to the right shows how much we ate, and that is excluding the sundaes afterwards

Sunday

Sunday was a truly not-good day. Had a moderately decent CET Mock (awaiting results). This is the last one before the Sunday D-Day (are you praying for me?).

As I was ready to get back home, I discovered that the key of the petrol lock of my bike had disappeared. I use the word disappeared because I still can’t figure out how a key can just disappear (damn, I’m repeating myself) of a perfectly intact keychain!

Was able to get a contact of my regular mechanic to open the lock so that I could take the bike home.

Was even more pissed off later in the evening with Hutch customer(I don’t)care. I’ve always complained that Hutch customer care sucks and sucks big time and they never fail to disappoint me. The entire BPO industry is not what it used to be. We’re having more untrained morons handly calls and all they can do is infuriate the customer.
I’ll reserve this experience for a seperate post. Let me trash them in detail!

Monday

Began the day by first getting the bike petrol lock changed. I then headed over to the Hutch shop and got them to cancel the number.

Paid a visit to my stupid internet provider’s office to complain about the crappy connection. I am looking for alternatives…

And finally gave the bike for servicing. Spent the rest of the day at home working on releasing Snap Preview Anywhere 1.2. Choir practice was cancelled so the evening was spent at home, except for a quick visit to pickup my bike.

Tuesday

Tuesday was yet another day in front of the computer. Awoke early, blogged a bit and then hit the bed again as I was really exhausted. Spent a good portion of the evening trying to get the button in the WYSIWYG of WordPress, but finally just gave up and stuck to the button for the quicktag editor. Released Open Picture Window.

It’s just past 3am on Wednesday morning. I sense yet another long day ahead and still more plugin work as well. Should be fun…

I wish I had all good news to give but… here’s a short update on the status of my MBA admissions.

SCMHRD – Awaiting results on 24th Feb
FMS – Reject
SPJIMR – Reject
CET 2007 – Written Exam on 25 Feb, GDPI on 24 May.
XIMB – GDPI on 12th March.

Well, from the looks of this I’ve got three options. I’m hoping they work out.

Please keep me in your prayers.

Except for yesterday the week so far has not let me sit down and take a deep breath. I began the week by helping a friend setup her new computer. This took up both Monday and Tuesday.

The only thing frustrating about both days was the travelling, which was at a snails pace for a good distance. Constructions and continuously increasing number of vehicles has resulted in horrible traffic right from Kherwadi, Bandra upto Juhu Airport.

As I said, I spent all of Wednesday at home except the evening to get some documents attested, which was only a few minutes.

Today was the most tiring day of them all. I went to Government Polytechnic in Bandra to complete the formalities for CET 2007. Last year I had headed off to this place after standing in a long line at SPCE and expected a small line this time too.

This was not to be as when we got there we were at the entrance of the building and had to climb another three floors.

The result was a long wait of four hours before the work could get done. Also ended up joining others in shouting at shameless people who broke the line. Sure can be pissing off. But, the shouting was totally uncharacteristic of me!

Have finally got my hall ticket. My center is IES (King George) School in Dadar for the test and Jamnalal Bajaj for the the GDPI.

Met up with James after a brief stopover at home to go shopping. Had to pick up a gift, but ended up picking up three tshirts for me.

We stopped over at Subway after this as I needed to get some food into my stomach.

Before this, I had also visited a Hutch shop to shut down a billing number only to be told to fax the letter. Will get this done tomorrow. It’s extremely simple to get a new number, but it sure is complicated when you want to disable it!

I’m really exhausted. My internet is still playing tricks on me and a visit there today has resulted in promises of two days. We shall see…

Have been meaning to make a post this whole week but sometimes, life just won’t let you blog!

So finally here I am making a post before I forget everything

I did finish reading Robert Ludlum?s The Lazarus Vendetta.
The book was really amazing!

Friday the 26th was India’s 57th Republic Day. It also happens to be the day my parish hosts the Association day, where all the associations in my parish get together to celebrate our “togetherness”.

I wasn’t keeping too well and by the end of the evening had developed a splitting headache. This just got worse as the night progressed and I woke up on Saturday with my head throbbing.
Slept the whole of Saturday after popping in a few crocins. Things did get better by night, but had to miss mass on Saturday. Anyway, had plans for Sundays mass in the evening as I was asked to “deliver some tips” to examination students! These deserve a seperate post

Before that I went to give my Mock CET. Have been getting good results as per TIME, however, I am not happy.

Monday was choir practice as usual in the evening. Have been making it a point to go for the practice unless it is an unavoidable situation.

The rest of the day was as usual spent at home, as was the case of Tuesday as well except for evening.

Did venture out on Wednesday to buy the CET ’07 forms, but seeing the lines postponed the visit.

And Thursday, i.e. today heralded another set of good news. I’ve got called for the GDPI rounds at XIMB. Finally things seem to be shaping up.

My Pune visit this weekend also seems to be shaping up. I haven’t prepared much for the GDPI. Going to do some of it tomorrow as well as Saturday.

In case I don’t post before that, I’m out this weekend with no computer access. Wish me luck, for the GDPI i.e.

The last few days have been rather hectic. Really slogged quite a bit for my XAT paper that was yesterday. The only break I did take was to go for two wedding masses in church on Saturday.

Turned out that both the masses were inter-religious weddings; the first case the girl was non-Catholic, while it the second it was the boy.

One thing I observed and apprciated in both cases was the importance that both the weddings and especially the non-Catholic partners took towards the nuptials. In today’s world, I believe many of us Catholics give little importance to the nuptials, with only the reception being top priority. We forget that the most important part of the wedding is infact the nuptials and not the reception. Kudos to the few that remember.

I skipped our usual snack after the singing so that I could get home and hit the books. Didn’t want to exert myself too much after the paper.

The XAT paper was different. I’ve given three mock-XAT exams before the main paper and the paper yesterday was totall different from them. For one there were five choices instead of four. English has lesser number of questions than Maths which seldom happens and these questions were also a lot tougher. Ohh… btw… my center happened to be the famous St. Xavier’s college. And I hated travelling all the way to town, especially by train. (Those who know me will be really surprised to read this!)

After looking back at my performance I believe I stand in a mid-way range. I really do hope I get some calls.

I dashed back to Andheri so that I could make it in time for the Mock-CET. I reached in time and gave that. I’m not too happy with the performance. I still suffer badly in speed and I really need to improve that before FMS on 21st.

Got the results for SNAP today with a measely 65.5/200. I was expecting a lot more. Chances of calls from SIBM or SCMHRD seem to have dwindled. Am in a really dicey situation right now. I really could do with lots of prayers.

I did have a good end to the evening when I met up with my college pals Nikhil, Vidyasagar and Paresh at the Barista in Lokhandwala. It’s been two and half years since I met any of them and we spent a good two hours chatting about our engineering college days and catching up on the last two and half years as well!

Time really flies and memories are still so fresh

Had the Maharashtra MBA CET 2006 Group Discussion / Personal Interview today at SNDT, Juhu.

Since the rains had descended on Mumbai, I decided to take a rick instead of the bike, which turned out to be good, though expensive.
Unfortunately, the rickshaw broke down on the way and I had to change ricks, before which I got a little wet.

Anyway, reached the place well in time.

Got my one mark for Work experience, which kinda sucks since I’ve been working for almost two years!

Instead of sticking to the batches, we were combined into a batch based on the number of people there. The GD had 12 participants.

We had to choose from “Globalization: Good for developing countries?” and “You cannot choose your battles, you have to take them on as they come”.

Group consensus was the former and almost everyone agreed on it. One thing I realized is that it was a fish market. Did get in a word (more than one actually) twice. Am pleased because both occasions saw them all stop and listen

The GD ran for around 20 minutes and a little while later I had the PI.

It was taken by two persons, though one did most of the talking. Had an interesting PI, where he quizzed me only about my job.

Am now awaiting results for both, which is expected on 10th.

Decided to go shopping for rain shoes and coats. Stopped off at the Bata in Andheri East and picked up a good pair of all season. Paid a bomb but I am happy as they are very comfortable and effective .

Next stop was for the jacket and pants. Picked up a good set.

Had plans to go out in the evening, but these had to be cancelled and the light rain turned out to be a downpour. So sat the rest of the evening at home.

Ok I am just grumbling! But I am sure a lot of students who gave the Common Entrance Test (CET) for MBA/MMS today would agree.

I know a few who do. Unlike the CAT, the answers in the CET booklet had to be coloured with a BLACK BALL POINT PEN.
This meant that you had no way to correct any mistake that you make. This I know will result in me losing about ten marks (

Am gonna wait and see how I fair in the results.
Yet another complaint is that my work-ex will give me just 1 mark of 2 out of a total of 240 in the CET.

The paper today was ok. Just feeling a little bad because it was so simple that I feel I screwed up major.

People start praying for me