Another term passes by

Today was the last day of term 2. Exams over. Another term goes by and it still feels like only yesterday when we landed up here. The whole community is out partying for the term break. I ventured out to the city after a long time to a new restaurant called Fusion 9 in hyderabad. Pretty decent place, nice ambience and not so much variety but decent food. Having worked for an year in hyderabad before joining ISB, I am in love with this city. As much as I miss the beach in my home town, chennai, I must say that hyd has some magic about it that I like.

I had an ex-army guy and a few others, including my room mates for company. Relaxed dinner, followed by ice cream at Baskin Robbins and a nice walk and drive back home (ISB has become it :)). What a well deserved break after the term that my seniors described as "death"!!! Looks like I managed to survive it ;)

Finally today I had some time for myself (whew!). Reflections after 2 terms. There were moments when I reminded myself of the peaceful life before ISB, the fat pay, the enjoyable work atmosphere, the friends... Moments of stress and despair during this term caused by what accounting does to any non-accountant. Moments when I irrationally wondered why am I here? Why did I give up all that and my life savings (read life = 4 years) up to be here, punishing myself to learn stuff that is driving my engineering brain to nuts! Maybe thats the challenge? To challenge my brain's monodirectional(??!!) thinking? I dont know... There were also moments of ecstacy when we did extremely well in markstrat as a team. There was a time when we were down in the dumps with making a pittance for profits. We bounced back from that low. I truly experienced the taste of having triumphed as a team. It was one of those moments when I could not resist sending out a mail to my team to say how much I enjoyed working with them. My heart spoke.

My take-aways have been more outside the classroom and courses. Observing people and the way they react to situations and handle people helps anyone learn a lot. Oh there is so much to learn. And success is so much about how well we handle people. What you say, how you build up a conversation (i am still learning this art) and how well you hit common ground with someone will influence your success so much! I am reminded of Mark McCormack's book "What they don't teach you at Harvard" particularly his comments on common ground and the power of silence.

The next 3 days are off. I plan to reconnect with friends and do many more things... New resolutions replace the ones that I undertook at the end of term 1. New determination, new targets and another effort to marginally better my own self...