Its really ENDing

Today I took printouts of my final assignment and sealed them in envelop. With this my work for Trinity ends. Right now so many lines are clouding in my mind that I am afraid I won't be able to write any of them. Some people won't be here in Oxford. Unfortunately those include most of my best friends here. Since Friday I am saying good byes to them. Many had to vacate their rooms and all... I guess I instead of writing whole lot about it, I will just make my point that 'It is really Ending!'

Now next two months are so uncertain and mean so different for everyone in the class. People are going to scatter all around the world. Some lucky folks have already secured jobs and quite a few are even starting it. Some are doing SCP and interships at different places while seeking for job. While few others don't even know where they are going to put up next week....

Anyways, I am still not sure when my SCP is starting. Fortunately I got to keep the same room and I didn't have to travel. So at least one less worry, thanks to Jesus college and my SCP. Still there are couple of uncertainties that might be resolved this week. I will update as and when I will know about it.

Ending it here. Have a nice week ahead.

Officially Not-Young

My 'Official' birth date is 25th June 1982. So yesterday I turned 26 officially. In other words, I am officially 'not-young' any more. I am not eligible for Young Person's Railcard, or discounted tickets for metro or free entry to Luvre or many more. Ironically My first two days of not being young were spent in writing what could be the last exam of my life. Today I am done with exams. Finishing exams for lifetime, I guess, would be the good momento to mark the entry into 'mature' (or whatever is the good word for not-young) life. So far it was an ordinary journey with just couple of exciting stations. But can't complain. I think I am pretty much on schedule with my wish list and almost have done whatever I wanted to as a young person. And It has just started getting exciting. With last couple of twists and twirls and anticipated fight for job (and may be for marriage (not to do it but to avoid it :) )) I am sure next quarter will be far more interesting.

Now that we are speaking of numbers, here is another one. There are mere 250 Indians in Oxford out of 20,000 students. Now there will be few who are Indian origin but holds different passport. Nonetheless this number is far less that I had thought of. I mean this is just 1% of overall population. And I don't believe Indians or Chinese could be just 1% of overall population of anything (may be except Rugby, Basketball and such sort of 'local' sports). There are more than 1000 Americans here, about 650 Chinese. But only 250 Indians. Strange!!!

Anyways. Now that Exams are done, I have had luxury of sleeping in the afternoon, My buddy and TT partner Harsh is going back to India in 15 mins, I guess I will have nothing else to do over the week end but to work on the 4000 words retailing assignment of which I haven't have thought of even the topic.

So about to start my first assignment as a officially not-young person....See ya kids around.....

Brand name recognition

LinkedIn is very good site for professional networking. Though the groups of the site are not searchable yet and you have to be dependent on other people knowing the group and then adding it from their profile. They are saying on the website that they will make it open sooner or later. But the sooner the better caz it is pain to find groups of your Ex company or school or other professional communities as simple as Java developers.

I found a very interesting group, 'Linked Pune'. The Director of my Ex company was member of it and I found it on his profile. When I visited the website, I saw many interesting and and high profile PUNEits on that site. I applied for memebership and wasn't only accepted, but acknowledged on their website (http://www.linkedpune.com/)

Brand name, Isn't it?

Hari's Visit

On weekend Harikrishna, friend and colleague from John Deere visited Oxford. He was my first guest in the city. I got opportunity to visit couple of tourist places with him where I never had been before. We had a nice time and had a blast at Punting. Good break from study. It was great catching up with him again. And the good fella brought me 'Bakarwadi' and sweets. God bless him!

Here are some snaps:

In front of Bridge of Signs. Hari and his Nihilent colleagues, Shri and Anup.

In front of B School.

The Punting...Hari so delighted that we finally let him handle to pole :)

Though the tension is mounting now. For many people, exams started today and for few it even ended by now. I have papers on Wednesday and Thurday and another assignment due on next Monday. The Wednesday paper is very quantitative and carries high weightage so have to pass. So instead of writing this blog right now, I should be studying...Good bye then :)

Christ Church Dinner

Finally got an opportunity to dine at the famous Harry Potter dinning hall. Thanks to Jitin for inviting bunch of folks to the hall. I had been to the college before so haven't dropped my jaw after entering. However nice to dine there. Jitin had already set the expectations from food at bare minimum level, so no surprise. Here are few snaps.

The picturesque first quad of CC

Dhruv Lakra. Exuberantly Happy as he is going home tomorrow while rest of us still have exams

Pre-dinner drinks

I don't believe Harsh made a joke. Aashima and Lovraj are just plain-vanilla happy.

The other side of the table was comparatively serious and meant business...

After dinner discussions... about which pub to head for!

Manoj and his wife. Manoj is smart IITian and importantly good company for sitting silently with me.

Finally the host. THE Jitin Dhanani.

Last week I got to dine at Green college which almost went bankrupt (obviously not because I ate there...) and now merging with Templeton college. On the other hand, today the talk at dinning table was about someone donating GBP 50 million Christ Church. Green is very new college and apparently has no legacy to stand out amongst old Oxford colleges. Christ Church is one of the biggest, oldest and most famous college with many big names as alumni and above all, it is the Harry Potter college. Well, the brand name and fame matters every where no matter if your are a fresh passout or an Oxford college.

TT Week 8

The last week of the taught term. Many Many things happened this week. But there are many decisions yet to be made....


SCP

We bid again for SCP second round where there were still many good projects left. These projects are from relatively unknown companies. So most of the students did not apply for that. We applied to a project for a company HQed near Oxford and today I came to know that we have got it. Right now I am not sure if I can disclose the details of project. But the project is for two months, we are going to get some stipend and it might involve travel to Europe.

Well, the project is good and i would like to work on it. However just not feeling very happy as would have felt if this would have been in round one. Nonetheless can not complain about the summer now.

Last week

so this was the last week of TT course. I still have couple of exams next week and one more assignment due. But this is pretty much it. MBA is symbolically over. Though most of the week was spent in assignments only. So didn't participate a lot in senti-good-bye stuff.

I can't think of anything to write about now. So i guess I will keep this post small. Officially with this post I break my self imposed rule of updating weekly. I guess for summer I will update the blog as and when have something to write.

Interestingly most of the blogs of SBS student from last year or even this years started and ended just in couple of terms. I think the number of students updating the blogs regularly is not even two digit. I am glad I could made it this far and sure that I will continue the same. The credit goes to you who kept reading this news bulletine without complaining. You people are really patient :)


Don't have any multimedia to post this week. So here is the Google analytics picture of showing visits to the blog.


bdw, Google Analytics is the best took I know so far to analyse the website visits. I almost know who is visiting the blog, and who isn't :)

TT Week 7

Nothing much this week. The week went ok. Didn't attend many classes and worked on assignments and other stuff. After I finished whining for SCP I decided to bid for second round of SCP. The result is awaited in few days. Week and weekend was without any happening. Though the worst thing was Federer's pathetic loss against Nadal. I mean the guy is world no.1 and couldn't even score 6 points in entire match. The match was so similar like last year's match. I mean the same problem with backhand, the same way to try to reach to net while knowing that no matter where you put the ball, Nadal is going to reach there, and same slow movements. Almost equal disappointment as last week when I didn't get SCP.

Anyways. As nothing else to talk about, I am adding some snaps to view.

Provost Garden and Worcester College opened to all only once a year

We were invited by Aashima and Lovraj for this garden party

Teaching Jitin how to pay Croquet - a traditional garden game

Dinner at Incheon's place. with Jenny and April

I am pretty much ready for the last week of term. I was slow and hence didn't complete much during the week end. So might be busy during the week as I have loads of assignments to complete. And hopefully will get some good news this weeks.

Thats all folks!

TT Week 6

It was a transformational week. Many things changed in this week.

Strange Change

Very first and unexpected change was the behavior of people. Being private matter, won't discuss it on blog... but this substantial change in relationship with some good friends... both positive and negative change.... had major impact on my thinking and my perspective to look at the overall program and life thereafter.

A big blow

I couldn't make it to any of the Strategic Consulting Project.

There were total 40+ projects and less number of teams. So statistically, more than one project per team. But large number of projects couldn't attract any of the teams. So core interest was in about 15 projects. I was counting on IBM internship (which I lost eventually) and hence didn't formed a team beforehand. Later on it was late as most of the good people had already teams and I had great difficulty in finding team. Finally we formed team just 20 hours before the deadline and we prepared cover letters in just 5 hours. Again one of the team member had to pull out and we found another team member. Some more things like that. We bid for 7 projects. Eventually two of them withdrew, of remaining 5 we were interviewed by one. But at the end we couldn't make it.

Frankly speaking, our team wasn't very best formation. And couple of calls were given based on CV and cover letter that we formed just in 5 hours and hence were not of a very high quality. But I don't like to give excuses for loosing. So the fact is that we weren't competitive enough and we lost. This is very hard to digest. I couldn't manage to come out of it even after 48 hours. I know it is not end of the world and all the other positive arguments from other side. But when you lose, thatz what it means....you lose.

Apart from whining about it, there are some real problems ahead now. Those who can't get SCP and internship have to choose summer electives. The ones that I could choose are starting at the end of August. So when other MBAs are doing cool internships and SCP all around the world with nice companies, I am most likely to... I don't know what I am going to do then. I might go to India for about a week and come back for job search. But job search every day won't take more than 5 hours. Don't know what to do after that. Anyways..............

Sylvester Awards

SBS has something called as Sylvester Awards. A ceremony to appreciate / comment / pull legs of MBAs. There are some good awards like sportsman of the class, while most of them are really naughty like the person who ask most riduculous questions in class or sleeping beauty of the class. Most of them are very funny. And the event was organized very nicely. Kindda flashback of whole year and the fun we had. So overall it was a great event. But this event made everyone realise that the end is near. Only two weeks of classes are left. Then everyone (except the fallen ones like me) will travel all around the world for in summer work or vacation. We will meet again for 2 weeks in September and thatz it. People have started to talk about 'the end' and 'departure' and stuff. Not very pleasant subject to talk about.

I know its really whiny post and the situation might not be dire as it seems (or it might really be)... But thought I will write it whatsoever.....

Cooking

Anyway.... to change the mood... find some snaps of Indian lunch I cooked for my Asian friends on Saturday... the menu was Peshawari nan, mutter paneer, rice and my patent receipe dish of spicy coconut pulao... I blew it up... it was stuff too hot for my friends and I guess taste wasn't that good. But the nice people said they liked it....

Incheon and Jenny advertising for the food....

Sorry guys, couldn't get rest of the snaps by this time. Will update it in a day or two.