The calm before the storm

As I look out window all i see is grey today.. its been over cast here at the ISB for the last few days.. not much rain or noise but a constant cloud cover indicating that a storm is lurking .. people are in their quads studying away for the coming end of term exams and when you walk out at night , at 2 or 3am you notice the vast majority of the room lights on.. each room holding a potential star in the dark night..

The weather report goes something like this
Sunday: Cloudy and over cast ..
Monday: Stormy with heavy rains continuing all day .. stay indoors.
Tuesday: Morning showers continuing throughout the afternoon .. Sun will come out late afternoon. A lucky few will see a rainbow, luckier few will see the a pot of gold at the end of it and the rest will enjoy their time in the sun..

Its an honor

I needed to write a blog entry today. The journey that started off approximately 8 weeks ago from the other side of the equator took a new turn. I was elected as a Director for Alumni Affairs in today's Student board council elections. Even i'm lost for words (and that is something). All i can say is that its a great honor to be representing the Class of 2009 on the student board. Its also humbling cause my fellow students have put a great deal of faith in me and I hope to do the best I can. The journey at the ISB has just got a whole lot more interesting and a whole lot more intense. A year ago i would not in my wildest dreams have thought i would be sitting in India, in my quad at the ISB, have my own blog and be writing a blog entry about being elected.

I would like to say a big thank you to my study group who are like my family here. They encouraged me to stand for the position and showed a lot of faith. Thanks to everyone else that also supported me .. and before this blog entry gets too mushy let me sign off .... will keep you posted on life at the ISB.

Still alive and kicking

Sorry folks for disappearing for a while ..I'm sure some of you would have thought that the Mid Terms were the last you will hear from me .. sorry no such luck ;) ...

So whats the update ...

• Mid terms finished (and we have got our marks back already) . They were quite rightly followed by a big party on campus were people were looking the happiest in a long while .. No one cared if they did well or not i think the thought of getting to the finish line was good enough..
• It stormed 3 nights ago .. there was so much rain all night and the whole campus got drenched.. the grass seemed like it was happy. The weather also cooled down. Before the rain we were all feeling like we were inside an oven being baked for someone's super. By the way the thousands of frogs that share the campus with us were very happy too .. you could see them jumping with joy.
• We had our formal photo shoot. Realised just how hard it is to wear a business suit when the weather is close to 40C . To top it off my one was a woolen one so smiling infront of the camera took my best acting skills.
  
• Its election time here on campus and its quite an experience. People campaigning , discussions about who to vote for and midnight soap box sessions. The excitement just doesn't stop.
• Then there is the usual .. assignments, assignments, tests and exams .. we are all getting so used to these now that we don't pay as much attention, like brushing your teeth in the morning , here its submitting your assignment at 3 in the night, just part of the daily routine.
• Two of my school friends in Australia got married on the same day (no, not to each other). I missed out on two weddings :(
  

By the way, in economics I learnt that 'we are all presumed to be rational', its good to get some fiction into the course material every now and then :D

See ya for now !

Midterm Madness...

Its midterm time here at the ISB and there is a lot of crazy gas floating around ..

Most of us are slowly going mad and those that are not going mad were mad to begin with .. i think after this all of us will surely be on an equal footing of madness..

I have never seen so many people study so much (but then again i am from australia) .. if you added the number of study hours the batch has put in over the last week it will surely equal the GDP of Naru ..

It was good to see that some people have crossed the bridge of stress and are now in a Zen like state where they have worked out their marginal benefit to every extra hour of study and there marginal cost for every hour of sleep lost .... each to their own i say cause everyone will find their place in the sun :)

I just came back from a 2 hour chit chat session in the atrium with some buddies .. the cost of which will probably be about 200 rankings but its a small price to pay for my sanity :)

It depends ...

For all of you that will not be heading to an MBA degree anytime soon ... or those that think that the costs are far too much, i will let you in on some insider gyan (knowledge) which covers about 50% of the course material .... If you just take this on board then you could pass as an MBA about 7.5/10 times (don't ask me where i got these statistics from .. it sounds believable enough so it will suffice for now) .. for all those that have read 'The secret' and are still confused about life well the secret below might add more to your life than that book..

Hmm.. have you ever be confronted with a question that you had no clue about .. or sitting in a high powered meeting and where the spotlight was suddenly put on you.. There is a simple answer to all your problems .. the two magic words .. "IT DEPENDS ..." these two words are something that all MBAs (or wannabes) learn .. and the one thing that everyone at school has picked up in the first week .. they will transform you from being a 'dumb arse no body' to a 'smart arse somebody' . You actually get the other person thinking and take the attention away from yourself. Suddenly the pressure is on them to try to think about why does it depend. Also you washed yourself of all responsibility of getting the answer right. Lets test drive it ..

Boss: Are we going to make our target for the coming fiscal year ?
mba : It depends ... on the revenue we generate in the last quarter

Professor: Do you think the marketing plan is going to be successful
mba: It depends .... on the advertising mix

Wife: Are we going out to dinner tonite ?
mba (husband offcourse) : It depends ...

Even if you have nothing useful to say after the two magic words you leave people with the impression that you are an Analytical thinker who looks at both sides of the argument, weighs all options, has an unbaised view and generally has a maturity level that is far above average ;) . All you did were say two words .

Now that you know the secret to success you have no further excuses left .. on second thoughts, it depends ...

-Sunk cost - Opportunity Cost - Brain Depreciation = MP(Watching 'Tashan')

Even sometimes experienced ecomonists get is so wrong so a newbie like me can be excused. They also say that in economics we cancome up with models to simulate the real world , but only once you arrive in the real world do you realise that your model was nothing but a fictional tale.

After 10 straight days of studying continously (don't read: 'I am a geek' , Read: 'I am slow') me and a few friends decided to escape the walls of the ISB. It was a true escape plan, we had identified our escape car (ND's car) , our escape route (First Atrium -> Rec Centre -> SV2 -> SV1 -> Main gate), found our accomplices, and decided to buy our ticket for this escape (tickets for 'Tashan' a new movie at Prasads). In our hearts we knew we were creating history on assignment weekend by deciding to escape..

We filled our stomachs at a place called 'Malgudi' which served exotic south indian food, i had mutton chops, biriyani and chicken, food was spicy but good ... got into our escape car again and headed to what we were later going to realise was going to be a life altering experience..

The movie 'Tashan' started and well maybe in the first 10 secs or so i had a 'oh no!' feeling. But i hung on .. after 10 minutes the 'oh no !' feeling had turned into a 'oh no way!' feeling .. for the mathematically inclined.. this line had a negetive gradient from here on and the law of dimishing returns was starting to set in.. the movie i would have to say is one of the crapiest i have seen in a long time.. i mean this time bollywood has out done itself on all fronts... to and to it I was sitting in the second row so the pathetic acting was blown up to look even more pathetic , it was well and truely in my face..

My movie ticket was a 'Sunk' cost.. but what did i do .. nothing .. at various points in the movie i thought about getting up and leaving and maybe heading back .. but like a true indian i wanted paisa wasool.. which every good economist knows is a bad strategy.. one should cut your losses and move on .. so i sat their through it all .. which meant that now i had introduced 'opporunity' cost to my escape .. obviously wasn't paying attention in economics class to evaluate just how much I was loosing.. While walking out of the theatre the one feeling that we all shared was 'That was an out of this world experience' .. i guess i can't really explain it .. for the curious ones all i can say is go watch it :)

On the way home we realised that in the process of watching 'Tashan' we had killed those valuable brain cells that we needed for all the assignment.. our minds had truely depreciated..

All I can say is that it wasn't all futile.. I truely understand the meaning of 'Sunk' cost and 'opportunity' cost .. Maybe they should make a trip to watch 'Tashan' a part of the economics course ;)