:: Sense - The Way I Sense ::

‘Tis that time of the trimester again……the mid-terms…..and inspite of all my vows that I’d start slogging in from day 1 of this term, inspite of all the false promises that I give myself ,Inspite of all the preconceived notions that I make of seeing myself thoroughly “prepared” for these examinations, its a familiar story again….Just got the books issued a coupla days back and had a dekko at the syllabus yesterday
Sometimes has me wondering on how one can consistently break one’s promises that they’ve made to themselves….How “plans” go for a toss, how “strategy” takes a sound beating, how beating the strategy ipso facto can become a strategy……duh !! and no, me doesn’t belong to that lucky “last day preps-class tops” brigade…..rather, “last day preps-lucky to pass” is prolly what suits me best :p …… something that’s been real good past few days is, with my increased physical presence in the class (for no specific reason other than tryin to clear the attendance rule), I get to see LOADS of hilarious scenes…..ocassionally try to participate in class discussions…..with, u guessed it, disastrous results

and on a sidenote, the placement process here has officially started…..a company specializing in providing backend services to the finance sector is the first (hopefully, of many) to paratroop in…..keepin my thoughts crossed…..coz as that title sez, miStory repeats

Have often thought of how sick being sick is !! and how one can get sick at the most inopportune of times !!! just when something close to the heart is in a crucial phase, just when some prof wants to “evaluate” you by way of a 10min ppt presentation, just when you want to be unsick !!! Strange indeed are the times when one gets sick….like it is right now for me….when some member of that sick clan decided to drop into this xylophile body of mine….

Last few days have been pretty hectic though, with me, uday n pratyusha trying to step up the pace on the activities @ HCS….Hopefully things fall into their place at the earliest. ’tis been a real whale of time for the three of us in trying to co-ordinate between the n number of ppl that we had to be talkin to…..If there’s one good thing that i’ve gotten from the past few days, its been gettin to meet two HIGHLY enthu folks in uday and pratyusha…..the enthu they have for community service surely is highly infectious….. Am sure quite some amount of it has crept into my thought process too….Waiting for just those few more similar people to join us here in hyderabad as well as in all the other PG chapters….

Guess everything in the world moves in a cyclical fashion….not so long ago, before i joined PaGaLGuY.com, I was very active at various forums…but then PaGaLGuY.com spoilt me likewise, the past few days have rarely seen me logging onto the forums…with the ocassional posting only restricted to the CS section…. guess HCS spoilt me this time around

Have been thinking a LOT these days….on various things in fact….and none less than the direction in which my career is shaping up…with just a coupla terms left in terms of academic curricula, am going thro’ a lot of churning inside…..irrespective of my placeability whether i can manage a job or not…been thinking whether working in a company is actually being me…..whether I can actually manage some productive work done there ……prolly the fact that i’ve never worked in a “office” is dissauding me currently from thinking of the same…..But if its not gonna be a job that I see myself satisfied in, then what is it?? an own startup?? err…..kya hai…..me ain’t exactly that long lost grandchild of priyamvada birla ;) so what does that leave me with??

whoa!! u guessed it purrfectly right……Research with a “R” …Now, thats something that I can easily relate to…..mebbe has to do with the fact that i see loads of ‘em folks in my clan….or mebbe I have come to the unstated assumption in my mind that research is all intelligent (sic) ranting…..not to undermine that field at all, but that prolly seems to be the easiest way out of the dilemma that I’m currently in……okie….now again starts the churning….research….where??? Having spent a few grands on an mba here already, doesn’t really make much sense in trying to go for a research degree in India……to speak the truth…..it is also a function of me definitely not being able to make it to any of the top institutes here :p …..thats a different story anyways ……so I come to the grand conclusion of a research degree abroad……whoa!! a Ph.D in management….sounds damn hep……and something that i sure could flaunt for a loong time :p ….but wait….someone reminds me it ain’t all that easy to make the cut abroad…..I’d first have to slog my a$$ off to get a decent score on that holy grail of management exams,the GMAT…….and once it is done, boy….it is a mini-research in itself that needs to be done…..finding out which colleges could one approach…..which ones would pay atleast lip-service to my current mba program….Which ones have areas that I’d be interested in (still to figure out that part :p) …..Which ones are more likely to accept Indians……and most importantly, which ones would provide me with a steady source of funding….too many questions, too many parameters involved……do I have any equation relating all these parameters to a single function?? nope….Do I have any info other than what i’ve written above?? nope…..Do I really have the luxury of goin in for research rightaway after my mba…..probably not…..will the funding be enough….u jokin? ….too many imponderables….too few answers…….too few ……..like they say, sometimes, a decision not taken is as good, if not more, as taking a decision which isn’t the best

This has always struck me whenever I return from a PG meet. The camaraderie that exists between people who are absolute strangers, physically, is really amazing. One rarely feels outta place with the crowd. Its like those ‘ol lost friends who meet up after some time and carry on with their conversations just where they’ve left it. Struck me the very first time I met someone from the forum – Allwin, more than an year back. Fact is, I rarely went thro’ a formal mutual intro sorta thing. Not that all of us know each other completely, but rather related to the fact that we recognize the person for what they are, thro’ the light of their posts. Inasmuch as some people might say that online identities are misleading in most cases, I’d very much beg to disagree. From what I’ve noticed, it has been so only in very very few cases!!

Had someone told me coupla years earlier that I’d be traveling close to 600km to meet a bunch of absolute strangers, I’d prolly have laughed him away. But that is what precisely happened when I went for the Bangalore meet!! Here was I going all the way to Bangalore to meet a few dozen people of whom I’d met only a handful before (Allwin, Uday & Shameek). But, as was expected, that just wasn’t to be a dampener. Had a swell time there meeting up a lotta oldies and regulars. Have at various times tried to understand how/why this community feel exists at the forums. Whatever the reason for it, ’tis has always been a very pleasant experience meeting people from the forum. Gives a wonderful insight into the person behind the nicks/posts.