Managed to wake up at 7:30 a.m. today. Huh! Today, we received the marks of our first mid-term examination in ISB (Statistics). Was not surprised to see my score…It was proportional to the effort that I put in…Hmm, I guess I got the exact average figure…

Later in the evening, an interesting conversation in this regard.
My friend asks..”Dude, how did you perform in Stats?”.
Me: “Hmm..ok, I got the class average mark.”.
He: “How much did you get?”.
Me:” X ( a figure)”.
He:” How do you know that it’s the average mark?”
Me:” Because I am an average guy and Averge guys get average marks!”
He: “??@#!%!%”…

Another conversation:
Friend 1: “How much did you get in Economics?”.
Friend 2: “I maxed out.”
Friend 1: “Well, I got one mark less than max..”
Friend 2: (Looking at me…) “Dude how much is yours?”
Me: “I got slightly below average mark…” and I continue…
Me: “Remember, only because I am below average, you are above-average. You guys owe me!”…

More statements on the similar lines.
Friend 1: “Only because we IT guys are in big numbers here, you CAs and enterpreneurs are diversity candidates.”
Friend 2: “Only because we are majority, you are minority!”…

Sometimes, it’s fun to have such conversations…:-)

Fun aside, we had an Introductory session on Career Advancement Services (CAS). CAS will be THE important unit for all of us. They will assist us in fine-tuning resumes, preparing us for interviews, case-studies, dressing, matching our profiles with recruiters etc., Some important goals of CAS this year are increasing the international offers, increasing the offers in consulting firms and attracting firms from diverse backgrounds. I have my first one-on-one session with CAS on June 17th.

It’s 4′o clock early morning…Should I go to sleep or continue waking up? If I go to sleep now, there is a high probability that I will not wake up for tomorrow’s class…

Huh! I postponed the economics assignment for today evening and boy, didn’t it take the energy out of me?? I started reading economics theory (about 3 classes backlog) at 6:00 p.m. By the time, I completed reading the theory, it was already 11:30 p.m. Then started solving the problems and somehow managed to complete it by 3:00 a.m! Having solved the questions, I am still not 100% confident on topics like Game Theory..God, help me for the end-term exams which is only a week away!!

Talking about the situation, I remember one famous sentence from Kamal haasan’s film (Kurudhi Punal). He would say to the terrorist, “Do you know what is courage?”…and then he goes..”Courage is to act like you don’t have fear”…I am following the same principle…Inspite of having so much anxiety about the looming end-term clouds, I am trying to wear a ‘cool-chap’ mask and cover the underlying fear! Atleast, that will kill my nervousness…

My eye-lids are dragging…Now, I will go and get atleast 3.5 hours of sleep….and yeah, I am not forgetting to set my alarm on

Today we had Cricket match between Section A and Section B. Guess what, Section B were the winners yet again!! The rules of cricket game are weird here but are sure fun…

We play the cricket match inside basket ball court. It’s quite big. We play with tennis balls. Catches taken after one bounce are out (either off the ground or off the wall). A girl is a must in the team. 8 overs per innings and 2 innings per match. No chucking and only over-arm bowling…Interesting recipe…

Whole lot of speeches are happening in ISB. Looks like we will be witnessing speeches of great people atleast once per week. Today, CFO of Renault-Nissan, Mr. Thierry Moulonguet shared his experience of transforming loss-making Nissan into one of the best performing automotive company in the world, with a whopping profit margin of 10.6% (Highest in automotive industry). He was the chief architect behind it’s revival..

Tomorrow, we have a Panel discussion on topic “Do B-Schools add value?”. The guest speakers list is pretty interesting.

Arun Maira – Chairman, Boston Consulting Group, India
Bakul Dholakia – Director, IIM-Ahmedabad
Dharni Sinha - Chairman, COSMODE
Indrajit Gupta – Deputy Editor, Business World
Ravi Yadavilli - Assistant VP, GE (ISB Alumnus)

Each of them will share their perspectives on the topic, followed by an interactive Q&A Session…Will be very interesting..

One great thing about ISB is that it is able to leverage its brand very well and attract guest speakers from various backgrounds. Many new speakers come here and become impressed by the infrastructure and students here. Many of these people, come back as Recruiters…

:D…couldn’t restrain from blogging…So am back…

Today’s thought….

Not only are there many ways to earn money, many ways to have fun, many ways to spend time..but there are many ways to learn. I can see whole lot of patterns in ‘learning’ in ISB. Some learn from books, some learn from professors, some learn from peers and some learn from within (by doing lot of self-introspection). ‘Learning to learn’ is one of the important trait that ISB is trying to implant in each of us. One should always be willing to learn from each and every situation. The key to this is to avoid assumptions. Lot of time we assume things and take items for granted…and the result?? we don’t learn…

Take IITians for example…They have certain style in studying..You don’t find them working hard…but they do slog…They spend time in sports, spend time in parties, but they also manage to study (and how hard!)…They exactly know when to break out from the crowd and when to break into the crowd…I am starting to look that as an art…Infact, that’s a learning on “how to learn”!!

Take Married people…They have whole set of challenges..and those with kids deserve special mention. Observing them on how they study is a learning on “art of balancing”…

Some have good speaking skills, some have good writing skills, some have good social skills, some have charisma and use that to maximum effect, some have great networking skills and the list goes on..and on…

I have started admiring each and every individual here…No one is inferior to other…Everyone has something to be admired about…Looking back at my own post, I can infer onething….I am learning to learn…

I have so many things to write and so many updates to convey…but I don’t have equivalent amount of energy…

I am excusing myself for 3 days…Hope others excuse me…

Not a pleasant day…

Somedays back I was mentioning about an amazing presentation by Siddarth Sinha, Class of 2005. Today he is no more with us. A reality which I find it hard to take…May his soul rest in peace…In tribute to him, I am posting the link of his favourite lines…

Wear Sunscreen

Audio of “Wear sunscreen”

Yesterday, I missed my first class in ISB! I forgot to set my alarm, and when I woke up, it was 8:25a.m. I could have reached the class before 8:30 a.m., but my sleepy presence would have been disgusting ..Luckily, there was no surprise quiz during that lecturre…I was cursing myself for not setting the alarm on…Having missed the class, I enjoyed my breakfast after a long time in a relaxed mood…

3 days back, one of my friend was telling that the day after the examination is very relaxing and he was wondering how nice it would be, if all days in ISB were like that..I mentioned spontaneously “If yesterday was not yesterday, today would not have been today”!! He had a perplexing effect on his face…though he understood the meaning later…

We got a response from Prof. Robert Stine, for the interview questions that we provided him. Very thoughtful responses. One of the question that we asked goes like this…”Do’s and Dont’s in B-school for students, based on your experience…”. He responded on the following lines..”Go too far to one extreme or another: too much networking or too much book learning. Those who spend lot of time on parties miss out on learning from academics, and those who neglect socializing, miss out on learning from others. Spend time to know about your classmates, who will be future stars…”…Great piece of gyaan…Strange thing about gyaans are that everyone knows those, but are conscious about only a few of those gyaan, in day-to-day life…It’s so easy to get carried away with our habits that have been imbibed within us..

I am confessing. My time-management skills are currently little wayward…I am not definitely me…something is wrong, still figuring out what’s wrong…I will be happy if I get the momentum back…Looking for that moment which will provide me the momentum..

It was a fruitful weekend overall…Managed to complete considerable amount of work.

Just submitted the Economics assignment and played some games of Table Tennis after that. My companions says that I have improved my game considerably..Sounds good!

The upcoming week will be a crucial week. Should keep up with the academic workload and carefully manage the backlogs, as the end-terms are just 2 weeks away..I have to submit a short-resume for the Recruiter’s handbook. There is a photo-session planned on Wednesday for my study group..The picture will go into Recruiter’s handbook. A one-on-one session with Career Assistance service is also planned on 30th May. After initial thrill of academics, the real stuff has begun..The job-focus, networking and research..

I was wondering what are the things I have been missing for the past few weeks. Watching television, arbit browsing in internet and reading newspaper have reduced considerably..”Trade-offs”, a fundamental principle in life is in intense action here…

I have nothing to do with the title..It’s just a general topic…The following is the thought process that went through my head today…

Assume a cricket team like Indian cricket team. There are phenomenal players and once-in-a-century players like Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Laxman, Sehwag..and the list grows on…If you have to evaluate them in a absolute scale out of 100, then the scores will be like 99,98,90,95 etc., Wonderful scores….But, What if you rate them relatively?..The one which is in the bottom of the list has effectively failed to live up with other three..Does this mean he is a failure?

By now you know what I am talking about…Yes, I am talking about the relative grading system. If everyone in the exam achieves a score of 95 out of 100 and I achieve a ‘meagre’ 90, I am an outlier and I have effectively underperformed within the ’system’. But overall, the learning that I have got is not bad..

Going back to the Indian cricket team, Let’s assume Laxman was the unlucky soul who got ‘90′. If you compare him with state level players and domestic players or even with other ‘international’ players, he is a ’star’. But not within the Indian cricket team…

Also, Let’s compare players like Rahul dravid and Sachin tendulkar. Sachin is a kind of prodigy, genius, brilliance…Rahul is epitomized for Hardwork, reliability, technique. The strengths of them are different…but the overall effect brings them together in the scale. Translating this to academic terms, there are some souls who are simply ’super’ smart, who needs very little time compared to others to grasp a concept…and there are others who take time to grasp concepts, but consistently perform…

Next question that I receive will be, “So…Where do you fit in?”..Well, I fall somewhere in the middle of the scale here in ISB…I am not brilliant, but I am hard-working. I am not prodigy, but I am dedicated and sincere. I am not genius, but I am a fighter..By now, you should have interpreted that I like Dravid more than Sachin

On a serious note, as long as I go on without any ego, and with my heads up…I will learn a lot…No questions about that…

I am HAPPY that I am here…

Finally, I would like to mention about interesting chat session that I had yesterday. A small talk which started with 2 operations guy grew to 6-member group. It was absolutely thrilling to know about each of those profiles..There was a operations guy from Maruti Udyog who was in R&D division, 2 operations guy from Oil field exploration and drilling, 1 operations guy from L&T who was part of team which developed Launch controls for “Akash” missile…I have come up with an idea after yesterday’s conversation…I will make this in action soon…It will be very beneficial to prospective students..

Huh! What a relief…The Statistics Mid-term is finally over. The question paper was very straight-forward with occasional twists..Easy paper if you have practiced well and absorbed the concepts well…Don’t ask how I fared My problem seems to be not paying enough attention to the questions/keywords..(the ones we used to call as ‘careless’ mistakes)..Time to wakeup and catch the ‘exam-taking’ mood..Thankfully this is the first of examinations

My ’sleep-payable’ (Number of hours of sleep lagging) is increasing exponentially. I am feeling feverish for couple of days…so will go and hit the bed now…

After finishing the exams, I thought I will not discuss the answers…I came out the exam hall 5 minutes before the deadline. Walked through the Corridor. Was stopped by couple of friends and had to listen to their conversation and realized that one of my answers is wrong. So decided to break away, again was stopped by another group of people and listened to another conversation and realized that another of my answer is wrong…At this rate all my answers could become wrong ..So broke away from the group and took my lunch and came back quickly to my room…

Thank god there is a protection-mechanism from peer pressure in the way of “Grade non-disclosure policy”…

The examination was objective type. 30 questions, 2 hours. Cheat sheet allowed (A single A4 size paper where you can write anything and everything you want.). Throughout my exam, I didn’t even look at my cheat sheet…Not sure about others..

Another 2 weeks, and we have 4 end-term examinations!! 2 exams per day…

Well, there is no respite after the mid-term. We have enough work for the weekend. An economics assignment. A marketing group case study. A marketing individual case reading. Financial Accounting Case study. Readings for the monday class…List never ends and the cooling off period is not in the near horizon!

I will sleep to the maximum possible today and play some sports. Didn’t play ( or couldn’t play) any sports for past 4 days…

Two great professors, who brought life to the class and to the subject, are leaving home this week. We really enjoyed their presence…New professors are taking over the baton from tomorrow for Marketing and Business Statistics…

This week the work pressure is bit high. What with loads of readings to do and with a Mid-term on Statistics scheduled on Friday.

There is a severe catch-22 situation going on with me. If I read a subject with an intention to learn lot, I end up spending lot of time than I can allot to it..It eats up the time for other subjects..So what I have to do? I have to read with examination and assignment point of view..If I read with examination point of view, learning takes a jolt…Where do I draw the line? A lurking question in my mind…For now, I am still following the same…”Feast on interesting topics and scan past the disinteresting ones…”

Yesterday we arranged for a Farewell party for the professors going back home. I decided to put up a short audio collage featuring some fun moments in their respective classes. The professors really enjoyed it..but surprisingly there was a mixed reactions, among selected few students, regarding the audio collage…I normally don’t take time off my schedule for unwarranted activities..but somehow the very thought of these profs and the enjoyable time we had in the class, pushed me to spend good 2-3 hours for preparing the audio collage…As the short programme came to an end, it was a photo-mania yesterday with everyone posing alongside the professors…

When I just see my calendar, I realize that half-the term is complete..The ride is accelerating…

A very private thought…”When you are in desert and you see a unheard of flower with dull colour, you admire it and you cherish it…when you are in vast field full of rich, bright and colourful flowers you don’t care to look at even the roses…” Yesterday as I was walking alone from the dining hall to my room in the scorching heat, I was comparing my life in Belgium and the life here…There is so much meaning behind this sentence…you can interpret in anyway you want

BTW, just noticed that the visitor count has crossed 15,000!! Thanks for all the visitors..you are fuel to my favourity hobby…

Since I couldn’t get hold of a copy of Microeconomics book from library, I decided to apply the knowledge and solve the problems using common sense. Voila, I was able to solve all the 5 problems and the amount of satisfaction and confidence that I received is enormous. Such exercises are the only way to flex the grey cells, which have become rusty after undergraduate days!!

I planned for so many activities today, out of which only 4 materialized. The most important thing was an interview with Marketing Professor Scott Ward. I joined Ravi and Praveen in the effort. We are planning to interview key professors on questions like Brand India, ISB, Student quality, Specific questions related to subject etc., Scott ward was the first person on our list as he is leaving to America in a week’s time. He was happy to share 1 hour of time with us…We are planning to cover Prof. Robert Stine, as he is leaving soon too..

The second thing was playing Volleyball. I couldn’t play yesterday, so compensated by playing 4 games at a stretch. Feels real good. Third thing was Economics Assignment. Fourth was to plan for the upcoming weekend. Was able to come up with a detailed plan for the next week. Completed the assignments by 2:00 a.m, so decided to play some TT with my quadmate. With a relaxed mindset, I am hitting the bed now…

Tomorrow I have to prepare for the classes on Monday. A very interesting case study in the form of FedEx awaits us. Managerial Economics has few chapters to read. I have to find some time for Statistics. I have my Mid-term next week. The next 4 days is going to be key in learning the Statistics subject. Tomorrow we have a very important event (atleast for some souls like me). Volleyball match between Section B and Section A. I am very very confident about our team winning convincingly. We star some real good players. I am average compared to those guys, but still I am improving day-by-day..After smashing Section A in soccer, it’s time to press them to ground in Volleyball too..We call ourselves (Section B) “GachiBulls”, - “Raging bulls of Gachibowli”!!

Need to find some gap to wash my clothes too…Huh!, Days are getting busier. But I am happy that I am spending quite an amount of time in sports and non-academic activities..Need to start playing Squash soon, atleast to use the racquet that I purchased!!

Atlast, a weekend really felt like a weekend. Our study group decided to go to city and have dinner. G is married and he joined us with his wife and kid. We went to Ohri’s Bunjara. Good restaurant..It was a stress-free evening…I purchased a Squash racquet. A model from Dunlop. It cost around 3100 Rs. We just pushed the shopper to give discount for ISB students and he budged by giving a discount of 25%. Atlast, we bought the racquet for 2350 Rs. Not bad!!

Yesterday, Football matches were organized between sections. Section B and Section A clashed in the first match. Section B(My section) beat Section A convincingly by 5-1. The other match between Section C and Section ended in a draw (1-1). Each team will have 7 members. A girl in a team is MUST. If there are more volunteers, rotation will happen after each goal..This is to encourage overall participation…There was a girl in Section A, who was defending their side. Whenever a forward from Section B reached Section A’s goal post, she literally hugged him and stopped the goal!! It was great fun to watch the match. Professors were there to witness the glorious game…Volleyball match between Section B and Section A is scheduled on Sunday..Will be fun..

Something about Section B. Section B has a slogan “B group rocks!”. B section is known for its all-round display. They have a balanced life between Extra-curricular and co-curricular. They are great cheerleaders and enthusiastic bunch of people..Whenever there is a game, we are the loudest cheerleaders..Our colour is RED. Great to be a part of this B section legacy…

GSB elections are around the corner. The presidential election is scheduled on coming Thursday. Elections for other posts will be conducted after that.

I am seeing some very forward-planning guys here. I am impressed with their foresight. I will take a leaf out of their book and start practicing it. A simple example..Managerial Economics assignment is given this week too. Best way to solve those problems is to refer the books available in library..Naturally during this assignment times, the books are in great demand, and one cannot lend the reference books for this term. Some guys have taken photocopies during the weekdays and are cooling off their feet now, instead of ‘rushing’ to get their hands on the book..

Marketing Management:Framework for Marketing Management Philip Kotler , 2nd Edition [Required]

Managerial Economics:
Recommended Books:
“Microeconomics for Managers” by David Kreps
“Microeconomics” - Pindyck and Rubinfeld

Business Statistics:
Basic Business Statistics (BBS): A Casebook by Dean P. Foster, Robert A. Stine, Richard P.Waterman. Sp ringer Verlag [Required]
Business Analysis Using Regression (BAUR): A Casebook by Dean P. Foster, Robert A. Stine, Richard P.Waterman. Sp ringer Verlag [Required]
Recommended Book: Statistical Thinking for Managers, Hildebrand, D.K & Ott, R.L., Duxbury Press, ISBN 0534204066, 4th Edition

Financial Accounting:
Introduction to Financial Accounting, Horngren, Sundem, Elliot, 8th Edition [Required]

Learning 4 vastly different subjects, new concepts is interesting on one hand. On the other hand, it provides ample confusion while switching from one subject to another..

Talk about grades, I have decided to leave the competition to others. So, much pressure goes away and I am little bit relaxed now-a-days..Spending ample time on topics that interests me and just skimming over the topics that are very boring or vague…

Talk about Business Statistics..Nothing that you learn in your undergrad comes close to what is being taught here. The main focus is just to harness the Statistics in solving business problems. Usage of Statistics software called JMP-IN is needed.(Student version of JMP software from SAS institute, a well-known institute for Statistical analysis softwares). Interpretation of Statistics charts and taking decisions based on that is emphasized.

Talk about Economics…Everything from Demand, Supply, Equilibrium point, Marginal cost, Marginal Revenue, to Monopoly, Cost structures, Oligopoly is covered. Again Interpretation and usage of charts is highly emphasized.

Talk about Marketing…Everything from branding, 5C’s, 4P’s, Marketing plan, Market segmentation, Pricing, Positioning is covered. Again usage of numbers for market forecasting and planning is highly emphasized.

Talk about Accounting…The most fundamental and important subject for all Managers in the world. Everything from Balance sheet, Income statements, Cash flow statement, Journal entries, Valuation methodologies, Revenue Recognition etc., is being taught. Accounting is called language of business…Very interesting subject..Again interpretation of statements is emphasized more than anything else…

So, basically they are preparing us to understand the tools, concepts, frameworks and procedures involved in conducting day-to-day business…As a manager one needs to understand the importance of all related functions in any business and able to communicate effectively in appropriate language to appropriate functions.

Very logical approach to prepare such managers….

The weekend was busier than the weekdays! A marketing case study and an economics assignments took centre-stage for past 72 hours.

The marketing case study was on Gillette Indonesia and its plan to penetrate and develop the blade market. It was interesting to read the case. It was easy to come up with all sorts of qualitative comments. But what mattered was to justify those suggestions quantitatively, which was a quite tough…To add, the group dynamics played its part. With ideas pouring in and disagreements and arguments happening most of the time, it was quite time-consuming to come to a consensus. I am sure this will improve as we move along. I am pretty confident about my study group in improving this aspect..

Just one week into the term, and I am talking quite a few jargons already. The concepts in economics, marketing, statistics and accounting are all highly intertwined. Sometimes, I think I am studying marketing, only to find that the subject is economics later. I am sensing a change in perspective while reading some of the business news in newspapers and websites. I can correlate with what has been taught so far to an extent. If the same level of knowledge influx and perspective change happens for next 1 year, definitely all of us will be much different persons after one year, equipped and ready to take on the business world.

Yesterday, Prof. Amit Bubna was mentioning about the importance of precise usage of terms. I agree with him 100%. Many a times, I have seen people confusing terms and using jargons in a generic fashion. This is more a Indian mindset. They think of a concept but use different terms while explaining that. During my stay in Belgium, I observed that europeans are very precise in using terminologies and phrases. They don’t confuse terms.

I am moulding myself into that mindset for over 1.5 years now. Today, something happened on those lines. The Statistics professor was explaining the concept of hypothesis and confidence intervals. He was using the Y-bar for denoting the sample mean. Normally, we use X-bar. The X-bar chart is an excellent evidence for the significance of the symbol. I was curious as to why he is using Y-bar and not X-bar! I just asked him “What’s the difference between X-bar and Y-bar?”. He began saying with his entertaining american accent, “Well, there is a difference, X-bar is written with X and bar on top of it and Y-bar is written with Y and bar on top of it”…There goes a heavy laughter! …The prof was just making a timely humour..and then he apologised and mentioned that Y-bar is more of his convention and he wants to differentiate the variable at different places. He uses Y-bar as a notation while estimating variations in process and X-bar in regressions to estimate the same variation. This is not a traditional convention though..

So much for sticking to the conventions and trying to be precise…

Another interesting conversation. We were talking about confidence intervals. The population mean was fixed at 5. The standard deviation of the measurement was 0.2. So, normally 95% of the time, the sample mean will be lie between 2 sigma limits(Normal distribution). So, 95% of the time sample mean will lie between 4.6 (5 - 2sigma) and 5.4(5 + 2sigma) in our case. A student posed a question, “Can we say that 95% of the time 7.5 will not lie between 4.6 and 5.4?”. Professor goes “You want to say that 95% of the time 7.5 will not lie between 4.6 and 5.4??”, There goes another heavy laughter!!!! This prof. has real sense of humour…Great pedagogy nevertheless..

Today morning, my ankle was much better..I could walk normally. But still, when bending the ankle in sideways there is a pain, so will wait for 2 days before resuming volleyball..

Yesterday while playing volleyball, twisted my ankle badly. It hurts heavily while walking. Got to show some prudence while playing, instead of going all out…It will be a week before I can run…

Before coming to B-school, Marketing was one subject I liked least. Not that it’s such a bad subject, it’s just that I didn’t know what’s in that for me…I just had the stereotypical image of “selling” about marketing. After going through some reading materials, lectures and case study, I have begun loving Marketing. This will be my favourite subject in this term…Managerial Economics, Accounting and Business statistics are other subjects in the decreasing order of liking.

I am recording all the lectures in my voice recorder, and archiving it in my laptop. I had to get permission from all professors before doing so. Not that I will be listening to them all over again..It’s just that If I want to relive some great insights, I can do so at my convenience..iRiver rocks! The quality of recording is awesome…Believe me, the recordings are of great help..Especially the case discussions..

After a series of recommendations from my friend (Karthik S), I decided to watch “October Sky”. I am glad I watched the film. Fantastic piece of work. “Inspirational”, a single word which can summarize the film..

I thought I am losing weight after coming to India [I was 66 when I came from Belgium]..Alas, I am wrong, I have touched the 70 kgs mark!! I am reaching the threshold for my height…

The Apprentice 3 is heading towards a grand finale. Two out of 3 remaining candidates are in my prediction list. Craig and Kendra..Not bad!

Some new lessons learnt in Apprentice..

Involve Customers for Sales success

Managing Emotions in Workplace

Making Effective Presentations

Getting Buy-in from your team

Utilizing Focus Groups

A special day, First class, First day in First Term of ISB. Great moment to see the names of all the section mates neatly and largely written on nameplates. Managerial Economics was taken by Prof. Amit Bubna. He is a pretty young professor, so he easily builds rapport with students. The class mainly dealt with fundamentals of economics. Since we have completed the majority of reading and since the topics were easier, the class was not memorable..

The Marketing management was taken by Scot Ward. A friendly person, more than middle-aged professor from USA. The way he carried himself in the class was striking. He remembered each and every question posed by the student and beautifully correlated his answers with those questions, whenever he came across a topic..Not easy!

The Marketing case on East Man Kodak company was interesting. I understood the ways in which a case should be approached. Our study group did a good job in doing quantitative analysis, but still we didn’t consider all the data that was provided. The professor made it clear that the data is not provided for decoration…Use it..whenever you provide a recommendation, substantiate it quantitatively, not qualititatively…

I am getting used to the long study hours and less sleeping hours. I thought of sleeping in the afternoon, but ended up in library. Played volleyball for 1 hour in the evening.

The heat in hyderabad is getting worse. Luckily, it rained today evening and there was a pleasant weather today evening.

We had a “Talent Night” yesterday, showcasing the talents of the class of 2006. Variety of events were organized like Dances, Songs, Skits, Lifestyle show(read fashion show), Kid’s fashion show, Poetry, Monoacting, Photographic talent display etc., Hats off to the guys who put up such a fantastic show in such a short span of time. Alums really enjoyed the show…With the curtains falling on the show, the fun time and “warming up” time has come to an end..The ride starts tomorrow…

Everyone is busy studying in groups or individually, in rooms or in libraries or in atrium. Reading 300 pages of material is not a joke!..That too with lots of new jargons, formulas, concepts etc., I read around 4 hours yesterday..and I have been reading not-stop from morning 9 a.m. (sparing 45 minutes for lunch)…I have still another 50 odd pages to cover..Ironically today is the Internation labour day

We have a study group discussion for the first case study in Marketing Management, at 5 p.m.

The professors for this term are in the campus now..I could see quite a few foreigners and their family..

Both Marketing Management and Manegerial economics are very interesting. I am taking time to read. Whenever I come across new terms, I am doing a detailed analysis on internet.

The seating arrangement for the term 1 is announced. I got the 10,000 Rs. seat! The location is not bad, it’s right in the centre of the last row, along the pathway..The centre most location in the class..I have to adjust with the seat though..