...
Nothing much to write today... Uneventful day... Did some football practice for the tournament starting tomorrow... Found out how low my fitness level has gone... Otherwise, pretty much the usual grind...
read an article about in the economist about how even before digital cameras replace the conventional ones, mobile phone cameras are eating into the market steadily... call this technological leapfrogging, disruptive technology, whatever.... pretty exciting stuff... have to check out those camera phones some day...
Wednesday, July 30, 2003
Group Dynamics
It finally came up to a boil today. My study group met to argue it out... Though the group has been a nice unit, friends, fun etc., the diversity in everything from sleeping habits to working style had brought in some friction over time... Co ordination and working together was becoming tougher... good that we talked it out today... 2 hours, fingers pointed, problems dicussed, mistakes admitted and solutions to problems agreed upon... we started from scratch and thought did a great job on the operations group assignment today... I learnt a lot about how people interpret the same thing so differently... many times, the difference in the way we interpret things is due to some unconscious assumptions we make, some things we take for granted... it is so important to not do so, reach out to clarify the facts and then come to a judgement... hmmm...
It finally came up to a boil today. My study group met to argue it out... Though the group has been a nice unit, friends, fun etc., the diversity in everything from sleeping habits to working style had brought in some friction over time... Co ordination and working together was becoming tougher... good that we talked it out today... 2 hours, fingers pointed, problems dicussed, mistakes admitted and solutions to problems agreed upon... we started from scratch and thought did a great job on the operations group assignment today... I learnt a lot about how people interpret the same thing so differently... many times, the difference in the way we interpret things is due to some unconscious assumptions we make, some things we take for granted... it is so important to not do so, reach out to clarify the facts and then come to a judgement... hmmm...
Tuesday, July 29, 2003
Term 3 chugs along...
2 days into the term and I am already out of the relaxed mood and onto studies. Yesterday was my roomie, Vikas's bday. He had been asking me for a long time for some good restaurant to eat authentic andhra cuisine. I have been dodging him for a long time... So when it came finally he to taking us out for a dinner bday treat, we decided to go to "Southern Spice" a restaurant in Banjara Hills... So we caught an auto, and it was one of the most amazing auto rides of my life. First it was the four of us apartment mates, me, Atul, Saurabh and so we thought we would manage one auto somehow. Then Vikas invited our good friend Shipli to add some balance ;) to the group. There was vikas in the front seat with the driver, and the four of us in the back, squeezed in. As we drove out of the campus, the auto wala added another one of his "assistants" who wanted to tag along to cling on... For those who know what an auto rickshaw means in India, yes, I am talking about the same... This was turning out to me more like the fevicol ad... :) Add to that, there was this amazing music system in the auto that our dear auto driver decided to switch on... and the song turned out to be Vikas' favourite! made his bday even more! 7 bodies squeezed in with music blaring...
We hogged like we had never seen food before. It was partly to do with the good food as well as the fact that we had become seriously bored by the routine (but decent) food that Sarovar had been belting out with amazing consistency in our cafetria... I was the glutton of the day... Somewhere along the line, my conscience popped its head and screamed about my weight loss intentions... It was shut up with ruthless force as another round of rice and "gunpowder" made me feel like heaven was on earth... For those who do not know what "gunpowder" is, visit hydrabad and eat "andhra khana"... You will not forget it ever again...
After a repeat of the fevicol act, we were back in the apartment and it was cake cutting time... Vikas had been smeared with cake by me during the dunking the previous night and so this time, we decided to let him eat his pastry... Though Shipli's penchant for pastry meant we did not get more than a small cut of the cake, it was an evening that we and more so, Vikas will remember for some time to come :)
2 days into the term and I am already out of the relaxed mood and onto studies. Yesterday was my roomie, Vikas's bday. He had been asking me for a long time for some good restaurant to eat authentic andhra cuisine. I have been dodging him for a long time... So when it came finally he to taking us out for a dinner bday treat, we decided to go to "Southern Spice" a restaurant in Banjara Hills... So we caught an auto, and it was one of the most amazing auto rides of my life. First it was the four of us apartment mates, me, Atul, Saurabh and so we thought we would manage one auto somehow. Then Vikas invited our good friend Shipli to add some balance ;) to the group. There was vikas in the front seat with the driver, and the four of us in the back, squeezed in. As we drove out of the campus, the auto wala added another one of his "assistants" who wanted to tag along to cling on... For those who know what an auto rickshaw means in India, yes, I am talking about the same... This was turning out to me more like the fevicol ad... :) Add to that, there was this amazing music system in the auto that our dear auto driver decided to switch on... and the song turned out to be Vikas' favourite! made his bday even more! 7 bodies squeezed in with music blaring...
We hogged like we had never seen food before. It was partly to do with the good food as well as the fact that we had become seriously bored by the routine (but decent) food that Sarovar had been belting out with amazing consistency in our cafetria... I was the glutton of the day... Somewhere along the line, my conscience popped its head and screamed about my weight loss intentions... It was shut up with ruthless force as another round of rice and "gunpowder" made me feel like heaven was on earth... For those who do not know what "gunpowder" is, visit hydrabad and eat "andhra khana"... You will not forget it ever again...
After a repeat of the fevicol act, we were back in the apartment and it was cake cutting time... Vikas had been smeared with cake by me during the dunking the previous night and so this time, we decided to let him eat his pastry... Though Shipli's penchant for pastry meant we did not get more than a small cut of the cake, it was an evening that we and more so, Vikas will remember for some time to come :)
Saturday, July 26, 2003
The sunday before the next term
Its early sunday morning and I am about to crash. The last day before the next term . I plan to go out to the city to meet my friends. The past 2 days have been obviosuly relaxing. Table tennis, chat with friends, T3...
Hyderabad weather has been dream come true for the past one month, thanks to the monsoon sweeping the country. I dont remember seeing the sun for sometime. The campus has a small dam made my ISB, which captures rainwater flowing down across the campus. When there is enough rain, water stopped by the dam forms a nice little lake. Its been raining everyday for he past month and the ISB lake presents a beautiful sight now. Went over to the dam today. The cool breeze, the wilderness and the ducks swimming around in the lake presented a beautiful sight. Photographers heaven!
Its early sunday morning and I am about to crash. The last day before the next term . I plan to go out to the city to meet my friends. The past 2 days have been obviosuly relaxing. Table tennis, chat with friends, T3...
Hyderabad weather has been dream come true for the past one month, thanks to the monsoon sweeping the country. I dont remember seeing the sun for sometime. The campus has a small dam made my ISB, which captures rainwater flowing down across the campus. When there is enough rain, water stopped by the dam forms a nice little lake. Its been raining everyday for he past month and the ISB lake presents a beautiful sight now. Went over to the dam today. The cool breeze, the wilderness and the ducks swimming around in the lake presented a beautiful sight. Photographers heaven!
Friday, July 25, 2003
Thursday, July 24, 2003
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...
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...
Sunday, July 20, 2003
Pictures!!!
Cross linked some pictures from the ISB website. Nice break from the pre-exam preps. More pictures? check here
Cross linked some pictures from the ISB website. Nice break from the pre-exam preps. More pictures? check here
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