It's 4.18am and school starts today (can't call it tomorrow anymore) and I just can't get myself to sleep. What a way to begin the new semester! I always nullify all the good a break does to me on the last night of the break. I just cannot reset my sleep cycle (not that I have one). My body refuses to obey the clock when it comes to sleeps. And I think that is logical in a way, you sleep when you are too tired to function, which really happens only once in 48 hours or so. When I claim this, my friends say I'm perfect for Wharton and the jobs after. Whatever!The winter break, however, was great. I did nothing related to Wharton, MBA or jobs, though I should have. I read a lot, though not quite enough. But then there's no such thing as enough reading. I finally gave Camus his rightful time, I made him wait for too long. But there's a different place and time for book reviews. I watched a whole lot of movies too, some of them for the first time and others all-time favorites. Breakfast at Tiffany's, Roman Holiday, Godfather I & II, Fight Club, Om Shanti Om, Schindler's List, Shawshank's Redemption, Simpsons-The Movie, The Man from Earth and a few more I think. 'The Man from Earth' was particularly good and all thanks to a friend who brilliantly recommended it on another such night of insomnia. I went to a party in California for New Year eve. I ate home-cooked south Indian food for the rest of my stay there, met up with some friends and slept in till noon the whole week and stayed glued to the internet. Bliss!I think I will feel jealous of myself when I read this post again two weeks later... Nevertheless, here's to a new semester!
I vividly remember this time last year. I was ecstatic about being admitted to Wharton and was still dealing with the enormity of the change my life was about to take. One year later and after six months of Wharton, life is still changing, inexplicably so.
I believe a large part of business school is the continuous change it entails. I came in naiver than I am today, maybe even less sure of myself than I am now. I discovered the much feared peer pressure, dissected it and would like to think I conquered it. I found new ways to stretch time to make the days seem longer than 24 hours. I found stimulating pursuits to replace sleep and achieved new levels of insomnia and new levels of inebriation. I learned to "deal" with email, to skim, sift and separate the important from the not-so-important. I even mastered the art of color coding, tagging, flagging and archiving to surpass human levels of organization. I confronted the American grading system, got bewildered, questioned every method I've employed thus far in my previous academic life and finally devised a way to make results proportional to effort. I made friends, friends I can call at 3am. I have friends I can discuss philosophy, economics, films and music with while getting drunk; I can even be my cynical self to them. I realized I don't miss India, neither do I think America is the end of my journey, I proved to myself that geography holds no significance in my life. I witnessed cultures from all over the world, analyzed them to death and ultimately decided diversity is overrated. I understood that everything is negotiable, that perseverance pays, that charm is a weapon, that diplomacy can delude.
I learned all of this and more, way beyond what this blog can express. Here's hoping Wharton continues to be the enigmatic, priceless, eye-opening lesson in perspective it has been so far. I'm enjoying my journey. I hope you enjoyed my retrospective rant. Wish you a very Happy New Year!
I was at Orlando for thanksgiving and had a blast. I enjoyed the weather and the 8+ hours of sleep every night more than anything else. We went to Universal Studios and Sea World, it was awesome fun. It's amazing how they have created a whole new world inside Universal Studios. There's so much for kids to do in the United States! Here are some pics which my friend clicked :D...
I came back to Philly last night and spent most of my Sunday morning writing a speech for my communications class and sleeping some more. Four days is just not enough to catch up on all the sleep lost at Wharton :-)
It is my birthday tomorrow and Diwali too. And I have no idea what to do. I didn't even have time to buy a new dress. I should ideally be getting drunk tonight, I'm doing an all-night-long meeting instead. I can't party tomorrow night either because I need to be on a bus to NYC at 5.30am on Friday for the Wharton Finance Conference. I can't throw a party on Friday night because all my friends will get back from NYC really late. Saturday is out because the Wharton Diwali Party is happening then. And who parties on Sunday night (other than me, of course)?
I didn't want to crib at first. But cribbing on my blog somehow feels better than cribbing to people and wasting their time. I guess my current state of mind is a cumulative effect of the past couple of weeks, for I have been running around without pausing to think. I've not had the time to blog, write, read or do anything I really want to do. I have been learning so much in my classes without having the time to really absorb things. I am very tempted to question if I'm really getting what I want out of my two years at school. I thought I will at least figure my life out completely :-). Usually I don't have the luxury of thinking beyond academics, recruiting and extracurricular commitments. During a rare rebellious moment I feel on top of the world. And the rest of the time, I feel like I'm chasing an elusive, disappearing, almost chimerical ideal. I know this is just temporary sullenness, still it's a little too depressing to go down this path.
In nicer, more benevolent musings, I just realized that Wharton Round 1 interviews are starting next week. If anyone is doing their interview on campus, feel free to drop me an email (thembasaga at gmail dot com) and I will be glad to meet you, take you around Wharton if possible and of course give you all the moral support you want :-)...
That's it for now. So until a better mood graces me...
I am writing this post when I should actually be studying for my Statistics final. But then anything beats studying stats and blogging wins hands down :-). The truth is I have no idea what to study.
In more exciting musings, I have a day off on Wednesday. I guess I will spend a part of the day shopping for clothes! I really need to sleep too, hopefully the drinks I am sure I will have tomorrow night to celebrate the last final will take care of the much needed extra sleep :-). I'm going to Florida for thanksgiving and need to research what fun things are there to do. I also have a meeting with the Follies team and a bunch of things to do for the Wharton Journal. (&#%* this post is turning into an exhaustive to-do list!) Speaking about the Wharton Journal, it is an awesome place to get the insider scoop on life at Wharton. All the major events that happen over the week are covered and there's some fun stuff to read too. The journal is living proof that people at Wharton do cool stuff and are not all quant jocks who only study, recruit, network and do other such boring stuff. So check it out at http://www.whartonjournal.com
I will sign-off as a painful all-nighter is staring at my face. Ciao...
How would you react when you walk out of an examination hall with no idea whatsoever if you did well or not? I had my marketing final today and was rather bewildered when I walked out of the exam half hour early. This post is not a rant about how well or badly I am doing academically. It is about a certain train of thought I have been mulling over for a while now that came to a sort of culmination today.
What is the right approach to academics in an MBA program? Is there a right approach at all? Taking the issue of grades - Most people come to B-School to advance their careers or to find their calling in life. In my opinion, grades are not the deciding factor for success or failure of such pursuits. With heavy student support for grade non-disclosure policy, no employer really asks for grades or uses them to decide whether to make an offer to students. That said, it is really easy to stay near the mean grade at a place like Wharton. It is going from B to A that takes all the time and effort. The worth attached to that effort varies from person to person. For some it might be effortless, for others good grades might be a way of validating their mastery over a subject, for others it could be a mere ego trip. What is important to realize here is that it is a personal choice and endless comparison of grades with fellow students (trust me it happens even in grad school, even in B-School!) is a criminal waste of time and energy.
Coming back to the approach to academics, this is how I look at it. I believe it does me a world of good to measure my academic performance by how much I have learned, how much of new knowledge I have imbibed over the duration of the course. A mere number or a letter says nothing to me about how much of say, economics, I know after six weeks in a microeconomics course. Can I talk eloquently about what I learned in class, can I apply the concepts to real life situations? I would much rather answer in the affirmative to these questions. I know I am on the right track when I see the warranty card of my new iPod Touch and wonder what expensing method Apple might use to estimate the warranty expenses they are likely to incur. Or when I think about "price discrimination" when I choose two-day shipping on Amazon. I might sound like a geek, but I maintain that an MBA is all about application of the concepts you learn. I expect an MBA to change the way I think about the things I observe and I am extremely glad that at a most rudimentary level, it seems to be happening to me.
I guess I can now go to sleep, nonchalant that in the larger scheme of life today's Marketing exam and Monday's Economics exam and Tuesday's Statistics exam are all inconsequential!
 I never once imagined I would go pub crawling in lingerie and coat :-) and I did just that on Saturday. Yep, bedroom casuals below the waist and business formals above the waist, that's "Walnut Walk" for you! The girls looked uber sexy and the men, hilarious, as we marched all night from pub to pub. The weather was awesome, a tad too warm for October but just right for the occasion... The highlight of the night, however, was a bunch of random guys on the road who insisted on pulling down their trousers and taking pictures with us :D.
There are just too many exciting things to do at Wharton. There is something for everybody and more. I'm already loaded and rearing to take on more. I got the two positions that I really wanted, I had decided to shoot for them even before I reached Wharton :-). I will be taking up some more work in one of the professional clubs. I am part of one sports club and will join one more shortly. Then of course, there are various ongoing community service activities that I intend to participate in. Time management is key when it comes to managing academics and parties and clubs and your personal life. And I must say, I am hanging in there for now.
Last week was called "Hell Week", fondly describing the numerous exams, submissions and cases due day after day during the week. It gives you the impression that if you get through this week, and you do so only once, you are apparently over the hurdle. But I think that is misreading it completely. It's just that this week is the first of its kind at Wharton, once you get through it, you learn to expect it and to accept it the next time. So I feel the worst is yet to come and it seems quite logical because recruiting has not even begun yet. So many more hell weeks are in store :-). I know I sound unusually cheerful about it. Maybe I found an efficient way to manage my time, or I learned how not to be stressed, or it is all the liquor from last night's party lingering around...
I have been wondering what to do with this blog. I will not claim that I don't have time to write anymore, because I believe I will make time for anything that is important enough to me. But the fact remains that I have let the blog languish for nearly 2 months now. I am not sure if I have any readers anymore, but I apologize to the few who remain.
This blog has been an important part of my MBA application period. It has been a scratch pad for my writing, an organizer for my thoughts, instant champagne to celebrate my successes and a stiff drink to drown my failures over, above all, it has led me to some of the better friends I have made in my life.
I know it is sort of obvious that I should not let it die, but I really don't know what to write anymore. I can blog about life at Wharton, but I am scared it might become one long rant. I might forget that the reader is most likely not at Wharton. But then again, I could write this blog for myself and not bother if people understand what I am talking about, but that goes against the philosophy of this blog and I need not publish such writing anyway. So I have decided I will write about things that strike me as interesting during the course of the day and hope it helps people form their own pictures of Wharton/B-School life or at least serves as a fun 2 minute read.
So I will be back with more soon...
I arrived at Philadelphia on 25 July. For nearly a week I was just running around setting up the apartment, getting internet access, groceries etc. etc. The place feels like home now and after nearly 10 days I found more than 5 minutes to spend online.
Preterm has started and I am superduper busy. I have a reasonably light courseload for preterm but there are so many other things to do. Today I went on a trolley tour of Philadelphia organized by Wharton. The city really has LOT of character and history. The tour guide had a piece of trivia for every building/structure on every road.
The amount of information I am trying to assimilate and the number of choices is simply overwhelming. And the people are awesome, the endless partying is even better. As a result I suffer from a severe lack of sleep. Oh yes, Already! My life feels like it is on fast forward. Wonder how crazy it is gonna be when classes start in September :-).
More later...
I intended to blog everyday about what I do here in CA, but never get around to it somehow. So here's how my days have been like so far...
Saturday was a bright sunny day and we decided to visit Monterey Beach. "We" is read as my extended family of 11 adults and 3 children. And it was probably one of the craziest days to go there. It was really cold at the beach and we could not even get the kids out of the car. There was a lot of fog at first. When the fog lifted it was like curtains being raised to reveal hazy mountains in the distance. It was such a beautiful sight, too beautiful to capture on a photograph. So I did not click any :D. In other attractions, my uncle and I repeatedly ran up and down a sand dune simply on a whim and totally whetted our appetites for the yummy Mexican dinner that followed :-).
I met a bunch of my undergrad friends on Sunday for lunch. 3 of us decided to go to San Francisco. We stopped for a lovely view of the bay, bridge and city at Golden Gate Bridge Vista point. The lights were just coming on at downtown San Francisco and I had to tear myself away from there just because we went too late and had other places to see. We had a blast driving down crooked street (twice that too!). Then we drove around downtown SFO for a while before returning. It is a really charming city and I hardly saw the place. I'm definitely going there again and again and again... Hopefully I can drive there myself the next time.
 Other than the tourist routine, I have also been making social calls, for I have a lot of family living in the Bay Area. Yesterday I visited Stanford with an uncle. The campus (at least the parts I visited) has an old world charm because of its stately stone architecture. The main library was awesome! I loved the silence and roamed for a long time among the rows and rows of leather bound volumes. I didn't have enough time to wander over to the B-School though.
And I just loved that fountain...
Will write more from LA this weekend...
Please replace l' with l throughout this post. And 6' as 6, 0' as 0 and so on. Thank you in advance.
Currentl'y my typing l'ooks 'like this:
abcdefghij
kl'm
nopq
rstuvwxyz 123456'7890'
The above lines were the letters of the alphabet and then the numbers typed continously without spaces/enter.
The keys
j
m
q
type enter on their own. Quite obvious from above I guess.
Del'ete was typing enter for a whil'e. Now it's al'right. Now it's suddenl'y not again.
"""""""""""""""""""''- That was the l'eft shift key hel'd on for a few moments. The right shift key decided to be a little saner and does nothing.
And the enter key worked every fifth, sixth or tenth time I hit it. And now it doesn't work anymore.
If you have not guessed by now... I shared some of my morning coffee with my keyboard :D. Everything that makes sense in this post (and logging in to blogger etc. ) was typed using the on-screen keyboard.
Oh! Do I love it!
Thanks again for putting up with the crap. Hope you enjoyed my misery!
I reached California a few hours ago! The roads are awesome :D.
My flight was uneventful and boring. The persons seated next to me were old people visiting their son/daughter in the United States and all I exchanged with them was a few smiles and nods to all their ravings and rantings about their previous visits to the states. The immigration official was not even bothered as to why I was entering the US at California instead of Philly. So my chronic obsession about immigration was also totally wasted :-).
Right now I'm barely awake. I'm desperately trying to beat jet lag by sleeping only at night. Two more hours to go before I sail away to the land of nods. Will write more after I return...
PS: If you don't get the title of this post, refer to this
My paternal uncle who has come on vacation to my place bought me a brand new Nokia N95 phone! And he also bought me a financial calculator for B-School :D. My maternal uncle who I am visiting in California before I reach Philly is going to buy me all my winter clothes and other stuff that are better in the US than India. How cool is that?! I don't know if an admit to Wharton warrants all this, they seem to think so anyway. Do I see green???
I know I sound like a kid. But that is how they pamper me and I am not really complaining at the moment. You will agree with me when you see my HUGE shopping bill :-)...
On the moving front- I still have to buy $$$ and I'm procrastinating it forever for no apparent reason.
You might have hunted for this blog on Hella's list. Maybe you also found it, considering you are already here. I just moved from the applicants section to the students section. But not without a pang of emotion. My entire application journey flashed before my eyes as I watched my blog disappear from the list of applicant blogs. I hope my student life is as fulfilling and eventful as the past one year...
So now you can find me here and here :-)
Thanks to everyone for reading my blog all this while and do come back for more!
I'm out of India in 10 days. People keep calling to wish me or meet me once before I go. My departure keeps coming up in every conversation. But strangely, I don't feel I'm going anywhere at all. I definitely don't feel I'm going "back to school" because right now I'm just going on a 2-week holiday. This inertia is something I've never felt before and I'm sure it's not going to help me get acclimatized to school quickly. I keep telling myself this is because I don't know what to expect in the next few months and I'm just a little reluctant to let go of all the familiarity. But I'm not really convinced with my own excuses.
Moving on to less uncertain things... Now I think I know what are the things I need to pack and what are the other miscellaneous things I need to wrap up before I go. I will put down the list here for people who might find some use for it over the next 2 months or so...
Packing List:
I'm listing out just the categories of items. The specific things in each catergory varies from person to person and may be very different depending on where you are traveling from. A little googling can find you many really extensive packing lists.
- Documents (Education, B-school related, work related, medical prescriptions and health history, travel related, financial documents, insurance, driving license with international permit. Ensure that documents needed during travel are easily accessible )
- Photographs (in standard sizes and the negative/soft copy for later use)
- Money (Cash, Travelers' checks, credit cards)
- Important phone numbers and addresses
- Medicines (with prescription)
- Clothes
- Prescription Spectacles/contact lenses (carry a spare)
- Toiletry (just for a month till you know your way around the new place)
- Footwear
- Accessories (bags, watches, belts, jewelery, goggles etc.)
- Books
- CDs, DVDs (that you absolutely must carry)
- Gifts (if any)
- Food items (this is specific to Indians)
- Utensils (mainly cooker and tawa, this again is specific to Indians)
- Backpacks/briefcases etc.
Things to wrap up before leaving:
- Change of address wherever applicable
- Car driving license with international permit
- Eye, dental and general health check up, immunization shots
- Closing of back accounts/credit cards/other subscriptions
- Leave signed checks, signed empty sheets of paper etc. at home for emergencies (this might be specific to Indians)
- Leave copies of all documents at home
- Buy travel insurance if needed
- Change money
- Reconfirm flight(s)/seats/on-board meal selection
- Weigh luggage to ensure you are within the limit or make plans to pay for additional baggage
- If someone is receiving you call the person and reconfirm flight timing. If not make plans for transit from airport to apartment/hotel/wherever
I might have forgotten some things. So I will add to these lists as and when I come across something I've missed.
Right now the most fortunate thing in my life is having an uncle who has, or rather had a bag manufacturing business AND who sent us large bags (and smaller ones too) every time someone in the family went abroad.
Now, to give you an idea of my misery:
My shopping done, the obvious next step was packing, which I(read my mother) started yesterday. And I have LOTS of stuff. I wonder what the Lufthansa guys were thinking when they set the 46kg weight limit on luggage. Don't they know Indians at all? Last night we packed a bag completely with way less than half my stuff and thought it's good to go. But we found that it weighed only 20kgs :-(. Now that's disastrous. Thankfully we have a bag of the next size at home (refer previous paragraph about uncles and free bags :D). Now we have to unpack the packed bag and use the larger one instead, which is really nothing to crib about, but I hate packing (which my mom makes me sit and watch) and I'm on vacation and hence entitled to crib just a wee bit.
Now about other bags... I bought a couple of really nice handbags recently and they make me feel like a girl again :-). I'm also surrounded by a hundred "not so nice" plastic bags containing all my shopping and my room looks like a warehouse. You will find me huddled up and sleeping in whatever space I can find between the bags and my books.
I'm getting a little too used to joblessness and it's heavenly. I don't laze around but I love not having to account for my time or use it gainfully to earn my living :-). Pity the fun has to end so soon. C'est la vie...
My shopping list is shrinking!!! I bought my luggage today and 4 pairs of Jeans yesterday. I still have to buy formal wear and some other miscellaneous stuff. I'm so glad I can finish shopping sooner than I expected :-). And I totally enjoy my hour or so of swimming everyday...
I was getting worried that I might not be able to take waiver exams because I could not find books that have the relevant material at my library except for 2 subjects. I don't want to buy books as I cannot carry them and ironically, buying the course texts will be a waste of money if I manage to waive the courses :-(. But things became peachy again once I saw the dates for the waiver exams I want to take. They are spaced out and give me enough time to borrow books and prepare even after I get to Wharton. Anyway I was secretly wishing I won't have to study too much before school :D. Now I can play hookey, guiltlessly that too!
A very funny thing happened a couple of days ago. I was sitting at my comp and suddenly something fell into my left eye. No amount of jumping up and down, rubbing, scratching or splashing water could get the thing out. Finally, when I managed to twist my left eye completely out of shape and peered into it with my right eye, what should I find but an ant sticking to my eye-lid. Yes, a RED ANT. I tried removing it with my finger, a dry handkerchief, a wet handkerchief, a Johnsons ear bud and other such objects in rapid succession, but to no avail. The dead ant was hanging on to my eye with its tiny little tentacle (as I found out much later). I had to finally visit the doctor who initially put up quite a fight to locate the ant, while telling me all about flying ants/insects and how they put their tentacles to effective use in such situations. Then I, by now very familiar with the art of nearly gouging my eye out, helped him locate it in a jiffy, quite dexterously, if I may say so myself :-). He then anesthetized my eye with an eyedrop which in turn made my tongue and lips numb too. I sat clenching my fists and gritting my teeth as he held my eye open and pinched the ant out with a pair of forceps. Gross? Oh yeah!
Now I have to use eye drops which flow into my throat and make me sick and an eye ointment which sticks my eye closed for about an hour. I never thought THIS will happen in my life. Kudos to the ant!
My last day at work was 31st May and my team gave me a really nice farewell. I had to cut a huge cake, make a speech and got a lot of unexpected gifts from friends. I got quite sad during the last few days at work but managed to spend considerable time with all my good friends and hopefully will keep in touch with all of them.
Until 3rd June I was really busy with packing (I wrapped each of the 100 odd books I owned in Bangalore with polythene and taped it, you can imagine how long that takes!), last minute meetings with friends, social visits that my mom insisted on, delivering the stuff I gave away, calling people on my phone book before I surrendered my phone etc. Those 3 days were more hectic than my full time job :-). I have been in Chennai for a week now. I thought it will be really weird not having a job to go for every morning(or afternoon :D) and I expected to take a long time getting used to it. Thanks to the long list of things I need to do before I leave India, I don't feel much of a difference. On the very day I landed in Chennai I had to rush to get my learner's license, enroll in car driving school and begin my immunization schedule. I also got a new internet connection at home, enquired about money exchange, travel insurance etc. etc. etc.We are rebuilding the house we used to live in. It is the house I lived in for 22 years and much as I hated to see it demolished, I am still very excited about the new plan and all the ideas I have for the house. So I've been spending a lot of time with my mom picking out wall shades, tile patterns and other fixtures, giving specifications to the carpenter etc. And I must say I'm enjoying it and am quite sad that I will never live there again and will not even stay in India long enough to see the completed house. The "Get Started" packet arrived from Wharton and I'm done reading the 2 booklets in it. Wharton allows students to waive courses and the waiver information guide (on a CD) is a whopping 350 pages long. Being an Engineer, I cannot waive even a single course by credential. However, I have a list of courses that, with little or no effort, I might be able to waive through exams . Waiving some courses will go a long way in reducing my first year course load. So I'm rather unsuccessfully trying to motivate myself to learn the basics of these subjects.I went shopping yesterday and bought a bunch of clothes. I still have loads of things to buy before the end of the month. Because I'm not very fond of shopping I'm trying to space out my shopping expeditions so that I don't get frustrated and give up too soon. At least the traffic situation in Chennai is better than that in Bangalore and does not add to my reluctance to go shopping. And yeah, now that I have paid all my previous bills, the wallet is steadily getting thinner :-(. On a side note, I found a really nice swimming pool and will go swimming everyday from today!I might sound quite busy and excited, but there are a few things I miss about Bangalore:- My friends at work. I have many friends in Chennai, but they all have jobs to keep.
- The weather which was getting really nice when I left.
- Weaving erratically through the crazy Bangalore traffic, I don't have enough opportunity to do that in Chennai :-)
- My trusty 2-wheeler :-(, although I have a friend's spare vehicle to use in Chennai.
But I guess my mom's food and all the time in the world to do as I please pretty much make up for it... That's about it from me at the moment. I really will blog regularly henceforth...
I'm writing this post more out of pity and a sense of duty towards my blog than a true inclination to write :-). Things have hit a lull on the MBA front especially after getting my visa and I don't know what to write. In the last 3 weeks- I bought my tickets, paid the deposit for my apartment, bought furniture and just got started on my shopping. I'm yet to pay for any of these things (Yes, I seem to have a lot of people who want to spend money for me) and am going to swoon when I dole out all that cash one of these days :-(. I bought 4 pairs of shoes/sandals, a pair of shades and the watch you see in the picture :D! I found buyers for my 2-wheeler and other household stuff in Bangalore. But I get to keep them till 3 June when I leave Bangalore for good. I also found someone to takeover my room and saved my flatmate a roomie-hunt.I have 10 working days(with 2 weekends in the middle) at my job. I still have a lot of work and looks like I will have to slog all the way till I leave on 31 May. I am a little undecided on whether it feels good or bad to have a lot of work until the very last day. At times I feel nice and important. At other times I just want to go home and sleep. My mom is coming to Bangalore at the end of the month! I have to pack something like 80 books, a cupboard full of clothes(I think I should get rid of most of them and buy a whole new wardrobe before I become a pauper student :D), a computer and its table and other miscellaneous stuff that I have acquired over the last couple of years. My mom is indispensable in such a situation! I'm really looking forward to my month in Chennai. I mainly want the home-cooked food, the beach and the lazing around. I am conveniently leaving out the shopping because I hate shopping and hate even more to think that I cannot postpone it beyond the last week of June :-(. Relocating is such a pain and doing it 50Kgs is nightmarish. Since it's making me a little morose, I will stop writing now. More on my plans for my stay in Chennai and my California trip coming up!
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