Life @ISB | mere funde

These are mad times we live in! Mad!

19-07-2009

The scariest semester at ISB is upon us. Term 3 is expected to be one hell of a ride, with more than one submission due everyday, or so I hear. Hopefully I will live to tell the tales!!

The term 2 break was used creatively. Completed the Comp Strat project report, and learned a lot about the pharmaceutical industry in the process. Watched some crappy movies like “Hitman” and “Chaos”‘.

Also watched “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince“. The movie was a letdown, and I would rate it 3 on 5. Somehow I feel that short movies do not do justice to such books. However, the movie has some sparks of brilliance. Helena Bonham Carter is the highlight of the movie, as she plays Bellatrix Lestrange to perfection. Michael Gambon’s part is also good. Emma Watson is brilliant, and is still being swooned over.

PS: The title of the post is from the Harry Potter movie – just in case you wondered.

Quarter life crisis

By: Goyal

15-07-2009

Life @ISB, Personal

Term 2 at ISB got over yesterday. While walking back to my room, a friend remarked that everything was flying past so fast that she was afraid. Out of sheer (false in hindsight) sense of bravado, I remarked that she shouldn’t be afraid, and that it was expected.

I don’t know how convinced she was, but as I got thinking later in the evening, I wasn’t convinced myself. I did not know what was it that troubled me, but there was some fear of months flying by in such hurry that you feel everything else is a haze. It seemed that people are so focussed on the end, that they miss the beauty that lies on the sides of the race track. It reminded me of a couple of line from this forward I once got.

Life is not a race.
Do take it slower
Hear the music
Before the song is over

I did not know what it was that troubled me. It was certainly not about getting a job. After a lot of thought I realized that I was afraid of missing a chance of knowing some amazing people I have met here. It is not about, a term I have come to hate, “networking”. I know I am thoroughly incapable of doing that. It is about making friends. Ones who will last a life time. One of biggest reasons of leaving a job and coming to BSchool was to meet some fantastic people. However, me being the kind of person I am, take a lot of time to open up to new folks, and I was afraid that I would miss a wonderful opportunity.

However, many of these ghosts were buried yesterday evening. We, the study group minus Megha, went out for a thoroughly enjoyed dinner at Ohri’s. This was followed by a gen laccha session at Kirti’s place with music and some fine Absolut and Megha did join us this time. A lot of gen discussions and bitching took place. We do a lot of gen laccha in team meetings, but yesterday was different. Yesterday, we did it without any other reason. Simply for hanging out together. One of the more memorable evenings here at ISB.

As Kirti said, hope we will have many more of these in the future!!

Library @ ISB

By: Goyal

06-07-2009

Life @ISB

Library @ ISB

Full sized version here.

I am alive!

By: Goyal

23-06-2009

Life @ISB

It has been a really long time since I posted anything. Three weeks to be exact!!

When I was about to join ISB I always thought I would post regularly and see what I have been up to during my time there later. However, compressing two years into a year long program means that the amount of work is substantial and leaves you with almost no time to do stuff you like.

The Bangalore Bengaluru trip at the end of term 1 was amazing. Three days of complete peace with nothing much to do. Movies were watched (loved Star Trek and LOTR – ROTK Director’s Cut). Good food was had. Lot of card games were played. This was probably amongst the last few trips to Bengaluru with Rahul around. He is all set for his Oxford stint, and I hope to see him in Bengaluru on his last day there during end August. I guess the next trip after that will be for Sudeep’s wedding in October.

In addition to Ankit and Rahul, I also met Samua and DDM after ages. Talked for quite a while with both of them. With Sam, it was more about his work and my experience so far at ISB. On the other hand, spent almost an entire day chatting with DDM and remembering old times at EVS, which, btw, is seeing a lot of changes. Also, struck up a nice little friendship with her kid.

Back in Hyd, the term 2 has been especially demanding with pretty heavy stuff like Decision Modelling & Optimization. Also, most courses have either cases or group assignments to be completed, which means that most of your time is spent in group meetings. Thankfully I have cool people in my study group who make these meetings fun.

Other than that, I have hurt my right ankle and damaged a ligament it seems. The ankle is in a temporary cast On the brighter side of things, I get to ride around the campus on these motorized wheel chairs (nick named “Ferraris”). Also, you get a lot of sympathy “Awwws” and “Ooohs”, though they dry up very fast I must say.

Hopefully the next post will take lesser time. Till then, Sayonara!!

One eighth there…

By: Goyal

02-06-2009

Life @ISB

The Godfather - Guys are cheering upstairs. I hear cars coming to the house. Consigliore of mine, I think it’s time you told your Don what everyone seems to know.

Me - Term 1 is over!! People are going home. And those who need a drink are partying at the Co2008 Lounge tonight!!

So there. I am an eighth of an MBA. And the past couple of months seem to have passed in jiffy. The assignments, the cases, group meetings, classes, CP, arbit CP, gyaan, dunkings, parties, and all the fun. Also, the profs. have been real awesome, and have made the courses so much more interesting than they really are. I hope that the trend continues.

In all, it has been like the downhill ride in Calvin and Hobbes – mostly a blur! But a fun one at that

I will be watching movies tonight and relaxing. I am heading to Bangalore Bengaluru tomorrow night and meeting up with Rahul, Ankit, and Sam (Sasaram) and hopefully having loads of fun. It has been almost four long years since I was last in Bengaluru and hope it is the same fun place

And then it is back to the grind from Monday, and I have morning (0815 hrs) classes to deal with

To tea or not to tea

By: Goyal

09-05-2009

Life @ISB, Personal

I must confess that I am tea addict. And ever since I have come to Hyd, I had not had a good cup of tea. You see, Hyd believes in this concept of over boiled and extremely sugary syrup that they like to call the “Irani chai”.

Having lived in one of the best tea growing areas in India, this just wasn’t good enough. Even Gurgaon had decent chai. From being someone who made at least a couple of trips to Subhashji’s place everyday, be it summer, winter, or rains, I had become someone who had not had good tea for four weeks!! Sheesh..

Anyhoo, the jinx was finally broken today. Megha, one of my study groupie, treated us all to authentic north Indian chai. Believe me, never had a cup of chai looked so inviting. It was pure bliss. Thanks Megha

By the way, my other groupies are Sunil (CA Sahab), the profound thinker Kirti, and the sleepy head, yet amazing, writer Malavika – go check her blog.

PS: Go watch Vinicius – a Brazilian documentary on the life of the brilliant composer of “The Girl from Ipanema“.

The week that was…

By: Goyal

03-05-2009

Life @ISB

Some highlights from the first academic week at ISB:

The profs are really good, and their ability to keep the class engaged for a couple of hours amazing. All that talk about international profs is true I guess. I was very skeptical about my ability to stay awake in classes, but I have managed that without too much fuss. We discussed ManU in an accounting class, wine and cheese were talked about in economics, and a lot of stories revealed in marketing!!
We already have had a quiz. Granted that it was a pretty simple one at that, but one in the first week. Seesh!!
The first case study for Marketing, the only course with class participation (CP). As imagined, there was a lot of “arbit CP” for which people were dunked in due course of time. Also, it felt awesome that the strategy that we came up with was actually the one that the company used later.
We have our first assignment due by EOD today. Again nothing too difficult, but something to be done nonetheless.

Other than that, the week was pretty calm and most of the time was spent, well, sleeping. A couple of birthday celebrations were attended. I must confess that dunking does not follow any pattern at all, random distribution if I can borrow from Stats, and if anything it keeps increasing in randomness. People get dunked without rhyme or reason!!

One great thing about this place is the movie screening. You can use the comfortable lecture theaters for screening movies, which can be borrowed from the seriously awesome collection the library (LRC @ISB) has!! We had a smalll screening of Amores Perros on friday evening. The director, Alejandro Inarritu, effortlessly weaves three separate stories and tells a wonderful story about love, life (he calls it death), and betrayal.

I also joined the ISB Blogging community and hopefully we will soon start blogging on the official students blog.

Vijit Jain: My thoughts exactly – they should have automatically created/suggested a circle of people already...
Ojas Sabnis: I agree with most points Goyal and I am also mighty pissed with the loss of sharing feature. I hardly...
Sumit: We have developed the habit of being “politically correct”. Everybody accuses Modi for Godhra...
Ojas: Anything that has story telling in it must have a mention of the greatest (or worst) storyteller of the...
Teanju: Thanks, All awesome

— mere funde

These are mad times we live in! Mad!

Quarter life crisis

Library @ ISB

I am alive!

One eighth there…

To tea or not to tea

The week that was…

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