This day last year, more than 180 students found their way to a Business School in Hinjewadi. The school was Symbiosis Centre for Management and HRD and yours truly was one of those 180+ students.

The first fortnight at SCMHRD was crazy. But, that was just the beginning.

What followed was a crazy semester during which Ravi and me formed the WebComm and redesigned and relaunched the SCMHRD website.

Also joined the Admissions Team, which would ensure that the next semester would be more hectic than the first. Not because of the hectic schedule we have at college, but because Admissions demanded our total dedication, which we did. The admissions process was a hit, as well as everything preceding to it.
It did come at the cost of lack of sleep and surely not-so-great grades. But, we learnt a lot both theoretically and practically.

The second semester exams ensured that for a change we got some sleep and the last two months of summer internship ensured that I got the luxury of weekends.

I’ve learnt a lot in the last two months, and finally decided to take Finance as my major. Just hope everything works well in that regards.

This last week (since Saturday) has been rather painful in some aspects. For some strange reason my head started throbbing Saturday evening. I assumed it to be lack of sleep and so headed off home from Lil white mouse‘s place.

Went for mass at the Sacred Heart Church in Worli on Lil white mouse’s invitation. She wanted me to do the reading there, so did just that. Didn’t realize I had a singing session coming as well!

Tried to get rid of the headache with enough sleep and water, but neither worked.

Had to go to R’s place as she had invited all of us over to her place. The ride the Thane was fun, big empty roads. The two crocins before helped for a few hours. Had plans to go to Worli but wasn’t in a position to do so and headed back home.

Two crocins in the evening and a ton of water did end the headache, with just lingering splits all through Monday.

Was perfectly fine on Tuesday. Also completed the project I was working on and have been assigned another.

We received our cheque for our stipend yesterday. Money finally

And today yours truly managed to get a catch in my neck. It sure has been a pain in the neck.
I’m hoping it is good tomorrow.

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!

At the time of this post, I have been awake for 24 hours, of which almost all of it was spent in the admissions room.

Have spent the last two nights in college. Returned last morning at around 5.30am and this morning around 6.15am after working the night out on the new College website.

Things are going good, though we should have been complete by now. Ravi joined me in the quest.

Sat for two lectures today after almost two days gap; most of which was spent in front of my laptop in the Admissions room, except for breaks for food and nature and seven hours of sleep in the 48 hours.

I’m zonked today and though tomorrow is the holiday for our vendor, however, we don’t have a luxury of holidays out here in SCMHRD.

Gonna hit the bed in sometime. Good night.

During one of our lectures last week, a lively professor was telling us about his MBA life at IIMA.

When asked about the tests that they followed he, as part of the conversation decribed the experience with five letters, viz. R-A-P-E-D.

We got a taste of that this Saturday.

We normally have two FCQs every Saturday. But, for a change, last Saturday, we were informed that we would have four, viz. HRM, Statistics, Tech in Business and Case Analysis in Excel.

Now, HRM is a lot of theory which needs to be learnt by rote, unless someone can explain how does one manage to learn by logic.

Statistics is a completely different ballgame! We don’t understand a thing that the stats prof teaches us. We did do a lot of studying for the paper only to find that five of the six questions were from a single chapter which few of us knew. Do I need to spell out the result?

Tech in Business turned out to be an objective semi-GK paper. My tech knowledge is very practical oriented.

As for Case Analysis in Excel, we had a 16 mark stats question which fetched me a straight zero. Was able to do the remaining two, but for one silly mistake. I hope that I do get the part marks.

So, basically at the end of the day it was (R-A-P-E-D x4). It would have been x5, but the OM FCQ didn’t happen on Sunday, which was as hectic a day as any other.

Yesterday (it’s 1.15am now) was a relatively light day, as will tommorrow be. Have put in some studies, though I really need to get some sleep in.
Worked on the college website with Mani throughout the evening and even studied some Marketing.

I hope to post more frequently, so lets see how it goes.

Just a short note to say that I am alive (atleast for now).

Life here is hectic and we have been constantly getting only 4-5 hours of sleep every night… can be a pain in lectures…

I’ll try making a detailed post sometime soon.

As of now my datacard is disabled so I can’t get online in the hostel, all thanks to the highly inefficient Reliance customer care!

They sure can be a real pain in the ***

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.

Sunday so far hasn’t been a very enjoyable Sunday

For one I had a very disturbed sleep and I probably know the reason why.

As a result I was rather groggy early morning as I rushed for the 8.30am mass.

George Burns once said:

The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending, and to have the two as close together as possible.

Unfortunately, our priests haven’t learnt this yet.

Had yet another AIMCAT today and yet again my DI went down under!
I really need to figure out how to maximize all three sections and time is running out!

I’ve had an extremely frustrating week. Began Monday itself on a really bad note (details soon).

But, it kind of helped me get through the rest of the week

The rest of the week was quite exhausting as I have been working on completely the handover process which is nearly done.

I also started a countdown to 11th August, which is my last day at work, by changing my display name on IPMessenger. This has created quite a sensation in office and I was reminded when I forgot to update it last morning.

Sleep has been pretty much on the back seat for the past two days because of the release of my meebo me plugin. With an aim to get one out first, I ended up sleeping at 2am day before.
Last night was also a late night because of the update. But, no complains.

Got quite a few plugins in mind, which I plan on releasing once I sit at home.

And as usual, my weekend is packed. Need a rest.