Hangover Part 3 :-D

Well, as has happened a couple of times earlier, there was a lot of drinking that we did yesterday, from 9 PM until morning. And why morning - because after the bar which was venue for birthday drinks closed at 4 AM, we all headed to Gabana. Came home only at 6:30 AM.

Obviously, Had a real bad hangover when I woke up today. Drank a lot of water and went back to sleep to get rid of it. In the evening, came to school, to do some group work. Dinner was at my place tonight, where I made "Misal Pav" - a famous specialty breakfast item from my region in India. Came back to school at night for continuing with my contribution to the group work. Its going to be a long night again, just that tonight it is for doing school work :-D

Happy Friday !!!

Well, in the Managerial Accounting class today, Luis came in to say, "Guys, thank god its ...." and we all shouted "Friday". The Happiest day of the week is finally here.

Today started with Marketing class, the Cialis case was discussed, with a timeline around launch of Cialis, to explore how Cialis should place itself in the market dominated by Viagra. Of course, considering the topic, class was all excited and participation rate was definitely more than average :-)

In the accounting class, Luis did the hotel terminus problem by himself, in the interest of time and then explained us what Activity based costing is. Interesting class on a recently adopted costing method which helps us get more accurate costs, e.g. by avoiding allocation of costs of empty rooms to the ones that are full and so on.

And in the investment analysis class, Luis S. explained how a positive or negative NPV can affect the Market Price of Shares.

After doing some study in the evening and having our dinner together, it is now time to head out for some Birthday drinks for Rachel and Basil. This being the first weekend and also the first party after school re-opened, I could not have declined this invite anyways. Happy Friday to all :-D

Don't Call projects "Strategic", let the numbers talk :-)

Well, we have the same mix of classes for all three days this week. Looks like some of the teachers are still coming back :-)

Anyways, in marketing class today, we took a look at concepts of segmentation, targeting and positioning, along with a few examples, ranging all the way from coffee to apparels to pregnancy test packets. We also took a quick look at a TEDx video where the guy explained how segmentation became a popular concept after its first use by Prego Pasta Sauce company.

In Managerial Accounting, we did an example on various methods of cost allocation from direct to reciprocal method. This class confirmed the fact that doing our homework is a key aspect of learning here at IE. I say this as although I understood the class perfectly well, I could see around and find at least a few faces, who had no clue what is going on throughout the class. They were still in the holiday mode and had not really prepared for the class. So, a loss in terms of personal studies and learning both!!

In investment analysis class today, Luis was passionately talking about how people tend to ignore justifying their decisions by labeling them "Strategic". We could clearly see that he hates the excuse. "Show me the numbers that justify the value destroyed by the so-called strategic projects" he stressed. Thanks to the fact that I regard him to be one of the best professors we have this term [other name is Rolf, if you are wondering], the arguments he gave stuck in my head, so much that when I was thinking about title of today's post, I could only think of those arguments.

Anyways, after school came back to cook some spicy chicken for my group and then went back to school after a long siesta of 2.5 hours for finishing the preparation for tomorrow's classes.

I guess we are now gradually transforming back into the study mode, which is good considering the upcoming mid-terms next week :-)

And so it begins ..

Well, after giving around five additional meetings to everyone for greeting each other Dilney started the classes after holidays with the marketing class. As part of homework, we had already seen a couple of TEDx videos on behavioral economics and related marketing techniques. We discussed the theoretical part of those concepts in the class today.

Next up was Managerial Accounting. Thanks to the fact that I had already worked on the cost allocation example that Luis was going to take today, before the vacation began [it was actualy due in that past class, but as time ran out, Luis had kept it for after the vacation], and as there was no other volunteer, I ended up being in front of the class, solving the example for next almost an hour or so. Not bad participation for day one I would say :-D

When we met next for our group meeting, I realized that we were all in the same state of mind. We were finding it difficult even to locate the files we need, as per our discussions before the vacation. Forget about deliverable and stuff. So, we all spent the group work hour, restoring our group agenda, setting timelines and priorities, and getting back in to the School mode :-)

In the Investment analysis class that followed, learned interesting concepts about different methods of Investment analysis and how various parameters like NPV and IRR change in their significance, as soon as we stop analyzing a stand-alone investment and start comparing different investment options to accomplish a certain objective.

Its funny how the day started with marketing class stressing that all choices, even the complex ones are usually made by emotional drive than reasoning; and by the end of the day, we were actually learning different ways to reason and justify among various investment options available :-)

After having lunch together, spent the rest of the day with my study group, preparing for day two after the vacation :-D

Free Coffee for all :-)

Well, after a long flight of 9 hours from Mumbai to Munich, its time for another transit, only after I kill another 4 hours at Munich airport of course !!

While I usually prefer flights with transit times around 2 hours, in a way I am ok with transit of 3 to 4 hours for traveling to Madrid. The biggest advantage of this is that while transiting in Europe, we need to go through the immigration, passport control, customs and security check at the transit location. This is because after this beyond we are officially traveling with EU and hence there has to be no passport control.

A little longer transit time helped me ensure that I get through all these formalities well within the time, and without any rush, despite a long queue at each junction.

Finally as I was walking towards my gate, which turned out to be at extreme end of the section, I observed that each combination of 2 gates has a coffee kiosk. When I reached at my gate, I found out that it has different varieties of coffee, and all of them offered through vending machine for free :-)
courtesy of Lufthansa of course, but this is the first airport where I have seen such a thing. Immediately got connected to airport wi-fi and updated this on my FB :-)

Reached Madrid at 12:30 PM after a journey of 25 hours. Went home and cooked some food to enjoy a late lunch with my gang here and after paying my phone bill, had a good late siesta till 11 PM. Woke up only to eat something and slept back after writing this post.

While the free coffee made my day, I now look forward to tomorrow, when the school reopens :-D

Let the Travels begin ..

Well, after spending some good relaxing moments at home, finally the time has come to start travelling to Madrid.

I started today at 3 PM IST from my home. Travel to airport takes more or less around 6 hours and then another hour accounted for any unforeseen traffic conditions like jam. Luckily, no such thing occurred and I reached Mumbai at around 9:30 PM IST. First stage of travel done!!
Spent Half an hour outside the airport and then went in to check-in my luggage at 10 PM. By the time I cleared the security check and arrived at boarding gate, it was already 11:30 PM IST. Started to write this blog as there is another hour to kill before boarding. My Journey would continue for another 17 hours.
For now, its time to sit down and wait for the next stage of journey to begin :-)

All set??

Well, spent most of today in doing the "final" packing. As it turns out, even after traveling so many times to various places, every time I am leaving home, the shopping just keeps on going till the actual time I depart.
Hence, the stress on word final - weighed in everything and made the list of things to be taken final today, so that I can stay relaxed tomorrow.
Almost set to travel back :-)

A quick get-together of cousins ..

Well, as I was not able to visit too many places this time around, I had asked my cousins to come over for this weekend, so that we can all have a small get-together. Accordingly, they all arrived by afternoon, and we did a short bike ride around the town, taking pictures of the landscape around and of each other; did some chit-chat, had food together and enjoyed the evening.

A great way to recharge myself before beginning the travel to Madrid :-)

Ordering the SPECIALS :-)

Well, many people have told me to bring many things while returning from India - and all of them have a common theme - Food :-)

Some wanted me to bring spices, others some special delicacies from my region - to sum it all up, I have now decided to bring back something very special to my hometown, when I return to Madrid. It's a small town, so most of the people know other people. Accordingly, I went with my dad today, telling a couple of sweet and snack makers to prepare special Indian snacks, to be taken all the way to Madrid - will collect these orders on the day I fly, so that freshness is guaranteed :-D

Calling those in Madrid .. really??

Well, the first thing I saw on Facebook today was at least five people asking if anyone is in Madrid already .. seriously?? Are we already back in the "Back" mood !!

Of course, I am myself preparing to be in Madrid soon, and considering that the school re-opens next week, it is kinda expected that everyone has started to come back to town.

As for me, Hasta Pronto Madrid :-)

And now begins, prep to go back ..

Just like that, almost two weeks are past since I am in India and now I have already started to get ready to go back. A shopping list of items to be taken to Madrid is ready now and I spent the day on my bike collecting those items. Not much to carry this time, apart from some food stuff and spices of course.

I don't remember any previous holiday which has been so uneventful for me - but then, I could not have done anything better with all the flu and illness anyways...

Finally, some proper food :-)

Yepp !! I am now officially recovered from all the illnesses and ailments that had been troubling me for past few days. And why do I say so?

For the first time today, I had proper home food - I mean not the one made with all the restrictions posed by my doctor, but real, proper home food :-)

Life is such a bliss :-D

to DO or not to DO .. that is the question

You know how sometimes you are aware that there is work to be done, and and there are also sometimes, when if you do some work now, you know it is going to be better for you some time soon; and despite all of that, all you do is keep pondering over whether you should do the work or just lie lazying around ...

Well, today was such a day for me - one mind saying lets finish some work, while another arguing that next month is going to be lot of work anyways, why work now?

And to top it all, I spent the entire day in this thought process .. to DO or not to DO .. was the question :-D

Onboarding a friend on FB ..

Well, one of my close school friends, currently busy in owning and running his own shop, was till now immune to the addiction that is Facebook.

After continuous efforts of his sister to convince him about the magic of "social networking", finally he decided to hop on.

So, today I spent some time with him, installing FB on his smart phone, getting an account for him and walking through basics of likes and comments and adding friends.

Thanks to the network speed of his 2G connection, we spent quite some time. Finally, when it was done and he could see updates and pictures posted by many of our friends, he was happy about the decision and I felt the time spent was worth it :-)

Getting back in action .. with a blog post :-)

Well, finally gathered enough courage [:P] to resume IE related work again. Started today evening with publishing of a new post for our Technology and Innovation Blog. Post is about a prominent vendor delivering the Visual Analytics Platform solutions, either server-based or cloud-based.

Will spend some time reviewing the latest on our fellowship project, as I need to complete some writeup for this project as well.

Vacation seems to be gradually fading away, with less than 10 days now to go back to Madrid ...

Pooja Rituals :-)

Well, considering that this is a holy Hindu month of Shravan, and that we are all at home, we decided to hold a religious Pooja/Prayer ritual at home, which we do annually, known as Shree SatyaNarayan Pooja.

So, the entire day was spent in preparations, pooja itself was conducted by our family priest at around 4 PM, and then came in various relatives, visitors and friends, for offering their prayers and enjoying the light snacks that we offered.

Busy day today, and a day when I met many people by virtue of just being at home :-)

Happy Indian Independence Day to all !!

Indian Independence Day - a day which always gets everyone thinking - Are we as a nation doing things right? Are we as citizens of this Nation doing our part? And many more.

Every year, when I start thinking about these, there is generally a blog post that I publish. This year, one of friends did a decent job of penning down the right questions in his blog and had it published in Hong Kong time, even before I woke up here in India. So, I just shared his post on my FB :-)

Got myself a wi-fi router and configured it at home, so that I could get back to the world of Whats-App and now I suddenly feel connected to the rest of this world :-)

Meanwhile, considering my health, and also the fact that I haven't done anything while in India apart from taking rest, I had to decline participation in Singapore Trek, so that I can take care of all personal errands that I need to, while in India.

Went through all the emails in my IE inbox to decide priority of tasks to be done during the vacation, which is almost half over now :-)

Anyways, while I am watching all those patriotic movies on the tv tonight, here's wishing you all a very happy Indian independence day :-)

Recovery time :-)

Well, while the IE India Trek continues in Delhi today, I was back home late night and as soon as I got up, went straight away to our family doctor to get a cure on my sore throat. Had a decent rest today and am feeling way much better today. Looks like after more than a week of illness, recovery is finally underway.

Soon, I would have to work on my fellowship project. Hopefully, I would be starting tomorrow :-)

Good times just got better !!

Britannia - a familiar name in every Indian Household with its range of products - biscuits, cereals, cakes, and so many more.

Today the India trek started with Britannia. The Regional HR head of Britannia attended a meeting with the IE group of candidates. After a presentation about IE, She gave a small presentation about Britannia - its product lines, its market mix, its plant locations, its org structure and so much more information. To me, it was as good as some presentation in one of our Strategy classes.
"To be in every Indian house, everyday" - was listed as one of the Strategic objectives of Britannia; and my mind began to think - don't we almost have the products these guyz are selling in our house everyday. Wow !! No internationalization apart from Dubai and no current plans for it. Luis, our strategy professor, would be happy, I thought :-)

Next up was Mahindra. We went to the Mahindra Tower, the corporate headquarters of Mahindra. The person we were scheduled to meet had to unfortunately go out on an urgent errand. So, we met his sub-ordinate. While there was a fair idea given to her by Vivek, in his email, she seemed a little clueless, and we told her the purpose of our visit again. This meeting was a short one, where she directly told us about the recruiting process of Mahindra "assuming" that we are there to explore this information and there wasn't much time for a presentation about IE as well :-)

Anyways, we did take IE flagship to this company, so for that matter, the prupose of our trek is successful anyways :-)

After a lunch together, we all headed to our destinations - some to airport, some to their homes in Mumbai, some to hotels and me - I headed to Satara. All this trek related travel and meetings made me forget that I still have a mild fever and a very sore throat. But then, I know for sure, I will need to go back and get some medicine real quick to nulify effect of traveling in this rain :-)

Trek Time !!

Today the IE India Trek started in Mumbai.

I had some personal work in Pune during the morning, so could reach Mumbai only in the evening - but today the trek visited Jet Airways and TCS.

Well, let me first explain what the IE India trek is all about :-)

It's an event organized and coordinated by the IE India Club and the IMBA students, where-in those who have registered for the event will visit the companies that have agreed to host us during the event. During the visit, a short meeting to present IE to the company and to understand the company management functions, would occur. This meeting also will allow IE students to explore various opportunities of connecting with this company and these opportunities can be in form of job openings, internships, training programs, competitions, etc. Companies will also be given an insight about IE events like venture day, HR meets, etc and knowledge partnerships offered by IE.

All-in-all, a good meeting to promote IE and to understand the company being visited.

Cannot wait to join the trek tomorrow morning :-)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOMMY :-)

Yepp !! Today's my Mom's Birthday !!

This was the one reason for which I absolutely loved the timing of this summer vacation. It helped me to be at home, on an important day of the year for my family and for me :-)

Of course, my health continues to remain bad, suffering with fever. So, today I could not contribute much towards the birthday celebrations. My sister cooked a great Indian meal in the afternoon, which I helped only to eat [although only a little, thanks to the dietary restrictions by the doctor] and we just sat around chit-chatting in the evening.

Mixed feelings at the end of the day - at home for mom's birthday, but down-enough-with-fever, as to not able to drive the celebrations, as much as I wanted to...

Feverish times continue ..

Damn this flu and fever !!

Even today was spent in the bed, doing nothing but eating the medicine, some food and sleeping for most part of the day.

This fever seems to have caught up with me forever !!

On a positive note though, I am thankful that this major streak of illnesses hit me only after I am home, and only during the vacations. I cannot even imagine how difficult such a situation would have been, if the school was on.

There is always a positive side to everything, and for now the feverish times continue ..

Deferred Illnesses?

Another day in bed. Another day spent doing nothing but sleeping. In a way it is good as I am getting a lot of rest, but on the other hand, I am home only for a few days and I am missing on regular home food :-(

Anyways, today as I was thinking about it all, going through cycles of fever, shivering, sore throat and sneezing, I realized that all these illnesses were probably due a long time ago - when I reached Madrid from Indian Summer to stay in a room without central heating, even while Madrid temperature was around 4 to 6 degree Celsius; or when the Madrid heat in summer last month was unbearably high; but my body kept deferring them, in midst of long days and longer nights at school; and as soon as it realized that it is time to relax, it just threw in all of it in a single go ..

Interesting theory, ain't it?

It's an Ambush !!

Well, I had begun to feel a little ill yesterday itself, but today it all came together. Cough, Cold, Fever, Shivering, Head-ache, Sore throat, all of it appeared out of nowhere today and made me fall ill.

My dad was discussing about an ambush situation with one of his friends over casual talk this morning, and I realized that all illnesses have actually done a ambush attack on me.

Thanks to the fact that I was HOME, I went to our family doctor, Dr. Billampalli, and got medication from him. Plus, I was under care of my mom, so wasn't worried so much about the illness anyways.
I did have to do nothing but rest today. Spent the whole day sleeping and I think it will be a couple of days more before I get back in good shape.

Catching Up :-)

Well, did some catching up with my EM group this morning, to share the progress of survey that I had created. A quick Facebook chat it was.

After my lunch, went out to meet my friends in Satara, my hometown. Did some catching up with them about happenings in past four months.

Eventually, ended up going out for dinner with them :-)

Like there is no tomorrow ..

Well, we may all choose to blame it on the "Jetlag" or the "body clock"' but today I slept until 11 AM in the morning; got ready, had my breakfast and slept again from 2 PM until 5 PM.

At 5 PM, I was finally hungry enough to have my lunch and ate the delicious mutton curry that my mom made, so much, that I am not sure if I would need to eat again in 2 days.

Today, I ate the home food and slept in my bed at home so much, as if there is going to be no tomorrow :-)

H.O.M.E. S.W.E.E.T. H.O.M.E.

After 3 transits in Frankfurt, Mumbai and Pune, and after a journey totaling 33 hours, finally I am home.

As soon as I arrived, my niece came up running with a friendship band and made me wear it - "Friends Forever" it says :-)

Tonight, as I write this blog, sitting in my study room, listening to the sound of the brook water that flows next to my home, I feel so relaxed, so happy.

It may take a couple of days to make me start working again; till then I want to do nothing but enjoy the feeling of being at home :-)

I am going HOME !!

Finally, vacations begin !!

Woke up at 4 AM today, got ready, did a last minute check of all bags and documents and at 6 AM I was in a cab towards Barajas Airport.

Long journey this one - yet I am all excited about it - finally, I am going HOME !!

Some Last Minute Housekeeping :-)

Well, today was almost entirely about the last minute housekeeping works, except a nice lunch with Hitesh and his family.
To start with, did some last minute housekeeping in the place I have now landed; followed it by some last minute shopping and packing before I fly and towards the end of day, some last minute wrap up of EM group work. That's right - "School related work".

Well, it was just to create a survey to get a public view on some of the assumptions my group has been working with, and then to collate responses of restaurant owners we have received so far to help us with our market analysis. Not too much of work as such, more of a housekeeping task. Hence, the title :-)

The Tourist, The Monk and The Riddle :-)

Well, as much as I enjoyed shouting "I am not a tourist" while staying in Tokyo, Singapore and even now in Madrid, today, I decided to be one anyways. All those streets, all those squares, all those monuments, which I have passed by more than a dozen times now in last few months, I wanted to revisit them, but this time with my camera.

So began a long walk in the morning covering Paseo de Castellana all the way up to Sol and back to Goya via Serrano before heading home. All journey on foot with my camera in hand.

By the end of it, my feet pleaded me to stop :-D

Anyways, while the photos taken were being processed, I took up another task - long pending in my to-do list.

Let me give a brief flashback first. As part of our Entrepreneurial Management participation grade, Rachida had told us that we can gain an extra 5 % percent grade if we read a book titled "The Monk and the Riddle" and answered two questions based on it.

As usual, I delayed reading the book till the very end, and then when it was just a few days before deadline, there wasn't enough time.

I did lend the book from IE library though and read through first few pages. Book seemed interesting - so, although I didn't write any answers for that extra grade, I did add reading of this book to my to-do list.

So, coming back to the present times, I have the book with me now, and tonight I am going to read it all. I realized last night that due to the habit developed in past few months, I can't sleep before 3-3:30 AM anyways; so tonight I will be making good use of this time.

And yes, photos taken today, will be posted on my facebook profile :-D

Meta Blogging :-)

Well, just to clarify what this title means, we have a term in the database world - any data which describes some data is called Meta-Data. On similar lines, today I did some Meta-Blogging :-)

In simple words, I answered a few questions asked to me by Dirk, from IE Singapore office, about my overall IE experience so far and about my daily blogging in this series. This would eventually go in one of the IE blogs and hence the title :-)

Apart from that, most of the day was spent eating, sleeping, unpacking in the new place and again eating, sleeping, unpacking all over again.

Enjoying the vacation to its fullest, though very soon, I will be back working, to complete my fellowship tasks :-D