HT Week 10 - End of Hillary Term

The last week of so called Hellary term. Well the term wasn't exactly the hell. Infact I think I enjoyed it way more than the first term. The main reason being with a great group of friends. You don't need Socrates to tell you that the good company can make any moment a moment worth remembering. Neways... here are some highlights of the week.

Examinations

I must confess that I haven't prepared for exams as seriously as I did last term. But still exam is exam and I had to spend most of the time studying. This time the exams were in Examinations school. This is the traditional building where thousand of students have been writing papers of years and years. This is very beautiful building. We can't take photos inside, but if I get it somewhere I will post it later. Meanwhile here are couple of them stolen from Jenny's blog.

Examination School

People in Subfusc after the exam

So it was quite an experience to go to a nice building in subfusc and all. And this time I could just walk as the building is close to my place. And the papers were OK. Nothing spectacular, nothing too worrying. So it would be fine.

Dorcet

So here is something. MBA are supposed to be the managers, leaders and organizers. MBAs from reputed institute like Oxford (well I know we rank 20 world wide... but its not that bad) are supposed to be good at what MBAs should do. Then here is a simple story.

12 MBAs from Oxford decides to go for couple of days of vacation. The plan is simple hire cars, book accomodation and go site seeing. Well, it wasn't easy to co-ordinate four cars and 12 full grown, full ego MBAs.... so we ended up visiting nothing but city centers and restuarents in Southampton, Dorcester and Dorset. Little bit siteseeing at beach.

But tell you guys, I won't say if wasn't fun. It was a hell lotta fun. The drive was simply wonderful. The road was picturesque. The compay was fun-filled and the accomodation was scenec. You will get all that from the snaps. But the most enjoyable event was the Friday night. We played Pictionary and Dumb-Charads. It was such a fantastic fun and great break. Haven't enjoyed that much since Engineering. Everyone was at his best and there were moments for life. People got identities and characteristics attached to them which will be laughed upon everytime we will meet. Some moments are marked deeply and I am sure that after spreading throughout the world for earning break and butter after MBA, whenever we will meet, these memories will be recalled and cherished. Great event guys... One for the bests for MBA. I won't write much. Get the gist from the album below.... Still snaps from some other cameras are pending. I will upload them as and when I get them.

Dorcet Trip

Back to Oxford

But all this exam and fun made me severely run out of sleep. Even while driving back I was feeling the strain. So when we came back on saturday, I decided to ditch the previously decided plan of movie and poole and slept at about 2000. Get up in between for couple of hours for dinner and went back to sleep again only to get up at 1100 in the morning on Sunday. It snowed heavily on Sunday morning. But I missed that. Harsh actually send text that it is snowing. I read that but just preferred sleep. And then had the movie and poole thingie tonight.

This is pretty much it. I will update the blog again when I get the snaps. Otherwise I am off to Turkey next Monday. So may or may not write for a while.

Have a great time all. And belated happy Holi!!!

HT Week 9

The preparations leave week. Last term it was very simple vanilla PL. Studied all seven days in a structured way. This term was bit different, many deadlines in between. EP Presentation and three big assignments.

EP Presentation.

Entrepreneurship Project Presentation. One of the special things at SBS. We make a team of 5 and create a business plan for a very new idea. Out Idea was a Healthcare Kiosk. I need permission from my group to share the details. But we worked very passionately for EP. This group is my most favourite group I ever had in Oxford. I loved to work with them as a group and some times individually. I guess I have made friends for life here in the form of this group. We had to give a 10 min presentation in front of a real VC, MBA program director and our EP guide followed by 10 min Q&A and 10 min feedback. I worked hours for preparing the slides. As the idea was healthcare, I created slides in Blue and White theme that will look very much 'doctory'. Also used a chic to grab the attention. The presentation was handled by Harsh and Jenny. Harsh's pitch was very enthusiastic and straight from heart. While Jenny presented with grace and professionalism backed by real data. 10 min Q&A was handled by rest of us. We answered almost every question. We had 10 main slides for presentation plus 20 backup slides for anticipated questions. Any question asked was backed up by these slides and data.
The feedback was:
This is the best presentation so far. You guys look very committed to the project and very enthusiastic. You have done your work and prepared a good case. These are the best presentation (slides) with most extensive back up slides. Your teamwork is excellent. You have handled presentation and distribution of work very professionally. The Q&A part is excellently distributed.
Our EP guide sent an email saying:
"Dear all: Very many congratulations on this morning’s work. The panel felt that this was by far the best presentation and rigorous business case they had encountered to date. "

The only negative feedback was about making financial stuff more reasonable. We will do that and submit the final Business Plan before 10th April.
Here are some snaps of this memorable moment:

EP Presentation

This is not all. We sent our idea to couple of conferences and were accepted at both places. One in London and IEEE conference for healthcare technologies in Singapore. Again excellent feedback.

Rest of the week and weekend

Then had three big assignments due. Somehow finished it. Don't want to talk a lot about it.

Also attended end of term dinner at Jesus. Nice food and ambience. Enjoyed it a lot as it was on the eve of our EP Presentation.

After that just study and study. Exams are starting tomorrow and Ending on Wednesday. So again wish my good luck. Last time your wishes were pretty helpfule :)

With this, I will end this selfpraising, show-off post.

HT Week 7 and Week 8

Nothing very spectacular happened during these weeks. Almost everything was regular. As the term end is coming near the workload is increasing. Have done very well in some assignments while have done very bad in others. Have attended great parties and had fun with great people. This term I am hanging out a lot. Last term the outings were about once a week or not even that. And the normal time of outing was from 2000 to 2400. This term there is no regularity but it is lot more frequent. This is an accumulated result of the facts that unlike last term when I studied only with Sab, this time I am studying with a group of friends. The library timing is extended by an hour and it now closes at 12. And the work this term is more tiring. So any given night, someone needs a visit to pub or restaurant and we just go there. Sometimes we just go and play TT or Poole in common room of some college. It starts at 0000 and lasts till 0200. Overall, a lot of fun time....

It was Jitin's birthday in week 7. Here are the snaps:

Jitin's Bday

Again, thanks Aashima for snaps!


Other than that, no big parties on week end.

But was invited by couple of friends to their colleges for meals. Went to St. Cross college for lunch. Courtesy, April. Its very small college. Fairly old. (The colleges build even in 19th century are considered NEW on Oxford). I liked the nice garden there. The view was suitable for any epic movie. Though they had very modern and un-harry-potterish dining hall.

This Friday Larry Kao invited me for dinner at New College. Interestingly, New college is one of the very old and big colleges in Oxford. Harry Potter 4 was filmed in this college. Interestingly this college has nice garden and a Myans type pyramid below which people who died from plague are burried. This garden is called squicky garden because if you clap or make noise in front of this pyramid, the eco squicks. If you remember the long corridors in Harry Potter, they are from this college. And again below the floor of them are lieing many dignitaries of college. The dining hall of the college is large, old and beautiful. Enjoyed the dinner. Unfortunately it was dark and I haven't had camera. I feel very sorry for that.

Other that that the lectures ended this week. Now coming week there is very important EP presentation on Tuesday and three big and individual assignments due on Friday. So itz gonna be very busy week. To make the matter worse, there is a nice greek party in my college on Tuesday and Harsh's birthday on Friday. So letz see how I survive. Wish me good luck for presentation and course work.

Sorry for unstructured and random post. Have fun!