My experience with Big Bazaar during Diwali remains unchanged. Three years back I had a horrible experience at Big Bazaar and this year it just worsened.

As I mentioned yesterday, I intended to go shopping to Big Bazaar at Lower Parel today in order to redeem some discount coupons.

Considering the Diwali season, Big Bazaar has tonnes of sales and offers to entice the Diwali shopper. It is also the time the store is extremely crowded.

However, I was hoping that I would find atleast a single pair of shoes since that is currently a necessity.

Found one, a Puma model. However it wasn’t very comfortable. Hunted throughout the store for anything worthwhile and gave up!

Dropped into the Barista in Phoenix Mills itself where we spent an hour before I found my way home and she to her Aunt’s place.

I intend to go shopping in November when there will hopefully be no sales and hopefully they have something to buy! A lot of hope…

Finished off my FSA paper on 23rd and awoke early Saturday morning for some last minute preparations for the SAP-BIW paper.

This turned out to be a very comfortable paper to write in 90 minutes. Had a quick breakfast and got down to packing for my journey to Mumbai. I love travelling light and infact that is what I did. Picked up my laptop and a few essentials and caught an extremely crowded 11.15am bus from college to Aundh.

Was fortunate enough to get a Metrolink volvo to Dadar immediately. Ticket prices were hiked considering that everyone is rushing to Mumbai for their Diwali vacations.

The bus was quick and we got little traffic on the way back and was at Sion in about three hours. Caught a rick from there to Bandra to my Grandma’s place. Had plans to meet Lil white mouse in the evening.

Met up with Lil white mouse and her sis and went to 5 Spice in Bandra. The prices have been jacked up there as well and it’s definitely more expensive than the one in town. We did eat and drink well, paid well and got back home. Was so zonked that I crashed almost immediately.

Awoke early morning (well not that early) to go for mass at 10am. Mass has become a lot shorter with shorter sermons

Lil white mouse came over for lunch and spent the rest of the day with me before she had to leave for a wedding reception.

The next few days are packed well. I really hope to get some studies done, but vacation can be a real big hurdle to cross when you want to study!

Have plans to go to Big Bazaar tomorrow to shop for anything I can lay my hands on. Got to redeem my Rs. 1400 in gift vouchers. So, what should I buy?

Yes yes, I’m more than 10 days late with this post as well. But, managing to blog while attending lectures and being in two committees is a big big challenge.

When I came down to Mumbai on January 4th, I did receive a welcome surprise from my Mom and Bro.

Started off the Diwali vacations with mass on Sunday followed by a decent haircut (the last ones were two and half months back)!

Picked up my bike from Abhijeet Jana, who has been using it while I’m out here in Pune and then went with the mouse for Nancy Drew on Sunday evening.

Spent a good deal of the week at home and with the Mouse. We did manage to put in some of the things on my todo list, including visiting Subway (the prices have gone up in Mumbai), Lucky’s for biryani.

During the week, I was invited for a well cooked lunch followed by Stardust

Left early on November 12 by Volvo and got back to Pune and back to work!

Have I been busy or have I been bored, considering my last post was two months back!

Well, busy is more like it.

WebComm Team

This team was instituted after Ravi and I joined / founded it. And work was hectic the last week of August and the first week of September.

While we did get the SCMHRD site up and running, as you can see it is painfully slow. There’s absolutely nothing I can do to speed it up except redesign the entire site.

I’ve been working on a layout and speeded up the entire thing. A test site has worked decently, but I guess I will have to move away from tables totally as I do with all my other sites.

As part of the team, I spent a lot of time in the Admissions room and so was asked to join it officially…

Admissions

…which I did

And as a result, the last two months have been extremely crazily busy. We released the Admissions Brochure, which has come out pretty well. We’ll most likely release a PDF version of it for those interested.

Also been looking into the advertising in magazines and newspapers. Can be both entertaining and quite a pain at times. But, it definitely has improved my negotiation skills.

Answering phonecalls is the most painful part of Admissions. For one, most of the calls are regarding distance learning. SCMHRD doesn’t offer that and for distance MBA, you need to contact SCDL. The second set of questions are about the Management Quotas. This is handled directly by the Symbiosis Society.

The last thing we did (besides tonnes of others) was load the trucks. Between three of us guys, we handled some 2-3 tonnes of materials several times. If you’re talking TQM, we did that.

Brochures should be available in all leading career coaching institutes all over India.

College and Exams

Finally got done with the Semester I examinations! Well, atleast gave all the papers and am now awaiting the results. Studied for most of the papers on Day-1 except for accounts which began on Day-2!

As for accounts, that still remains a challenge as I got that paper to give yet again. Had expected a backlog but was surprised to have been joined by over 100 others as well!

Summer Placements

Summer Placements were painful, especially when we could see several Freshers snatching up jobs, while we work-ex people struggled to find one. I’m hoping the tables turn in the Final Placements next year.
Anyway, got placed on Day1 at eClerx, which has its offices in Mumbai

Sem II begins

We’ve selected our electives. I chose Operations Management II, Sales and Distribution and Brand Management. With these three I could cover the 8 credits that I needed to choose. It will also help me in my transistion towards an Operations Major, which I am strongly considering.

Ohh, and we’re on our Diwali break. Will be going back to Pune early Monday morning. Ravi tells me that there is tonnes of work to be done on Monday and Tuesday. At the same time, will have to juggle with lectures to attend!

Life @ SCMHRD!

Happy Diwali my dear readers

Today was the third day of our Diwali holidays and was a day totally spent at home until evening.

Austin came online and asked if I had plans. We decided to take the Lobo sisters (Anjali and Amita) with us.

The four of us set out for Mahim-Bandra. Amita and I headed straight for Bandra Reclamation expecting them to be there. However, they had already set off to Mahim.

Met them there and we went to have kababs and parathas at a small joint out there. I was shocked to find them to be rather excellent despite the fact that they were priced at such a rate that travelling to Mahim, picking them up and then riding back home worked out cheaper than ordering them from my local restaurant.

After this we went back to Reclamation and spent an hour there chitchatting and admiring the fireworks display. Being Diwali the sky was lit up all the way from Bandra to town with rockets. This is what I love about Diwali – the lights. Well, I hate the loud bombs and crackers. I just wish people understood the harm and pollution they cause.

We headed back home after a while. We talked for a while below Anjali’s building before heading back home. Well it’s back to work tomorrow. One last work day this week.

Just got back from church. Mass today was mediocre as we just sang three hymns. As a result it was also very short for a Sunday mass.

The quorum was bad despite it being the 8.30am mass for both children and adults.

Have plans for shopping today. Being Diwali season, am expecting a lot of discounts. So once again I’m off to update my wardrobe.