Baa Baa Black sheep

The alarm went off at 7 in the morning. The early morning brain convinced me that the alarm was playing up and I kept snoozing it for a good half an hour more before the reason for this unkind deviation of routine dawned upon me with a sudden ferocity. Classes were to start in less than an hour !!!

This was it then, the culmination of all those hours and hours spent correcting sentences and solving mango-apple problems for GMAT, those endless sessions of writing essays and then rewriting them all over again, the butterfly picnic in the stomach before the admission interviews, the agony of the name not featuring in the first list and then finally the thrill of that one email from the PGPEX office that left me unemployed and poorer by 1.4 million rupees!!
The alarm had not malfunctioned. It was just time.

The orientation session the day before was fairly insipid with run of the mill speeches by the who's who of the faculty and administration. The only speech that evinced some interest was not surprisingly that of the Placement Coordinator. His tone however went unnaturally down when reading the placement stats for the batch that just passed out. Like everything else, lets blame it on the Americans not paying money for homes they bought.

Meanwhile we were all getting used to the life at IIM Calcutta. Hectic activity could be seen in the Cooperative Store managed by Gopida. From cycles to hangars to bedsheets to buckets, he sold everything and at brisk pace. I also squeezed in a request for my internship at his store just in case !
Nothing however matched the twists and turns that came with the Airtel phone connectivity. Guided by the most experienced shoulder in our batch who managed to get the Airtel chap in campus on a sweltering Calcutta Sunday afternoon (!!!), we played hard and counter negotiated almost every offer that the guy had to make. He came back on Monday with some new ammunition to fight in the form of compulsory ECS. Gopida rushed in on his bike and gave everybody a hassle-free prepaid connection which got activated immediately !
His fan club added some new members.

The grind began with a class on Financial Reporting and Analysis and the enthusiasm and excitement of getting back to the classroom after all these years of educational celibacy was all too evident. The scheduled one-and-a-half hour lecture stretched well beyond. The enthusiasm was thankfully checked by a sumptous lunch from Bapida's super efficient mess, the Kolkata heat and a subject called Microeconomics where most of us reacquainted with an old friend - The classroom sleep.
The lecture that followed was on IT and most of us were on familiar domain or so we thought. IT jargons flew thick and fast but mostly it was a good exercise for the brain to come out of the Nomenclature Disorder as the entire class reintroduced themselves and we got another chance to link faces with names.

Day II brought some interesting subjects and professors along with. There was some serious digging on concepts of mathematics, a subject which has chosen to block me from its friend's list for quite some time now and the few more lectures that has followed has confirmed that I am still not in its good books. From the safe looking set theory, the class has moved on to dangerous domains of permutation-combination and calculus. I could hear thick mention of that Probability word, an area where my probability of getting problems correct has always had a limit at zero.

Two courses on behavioural sciences. If the feeling of being a student had not sunk in as yet, the professor for Organisational Behaviour clarified all such doubts with strict instructions of being barred from attending classes if even a minute, were we to be late. The result is that the class is at full strength five minutes before the scheduled start and of course there are no restrictions on when she can start or end the classes. So now if this class has been standardised to a duration of one hour forty minutes, I understand that its all a matter of 'Perception'.
The class on Managerial communication (Oral) has proved to be quite interesting too as one would expect. The disadvantages of having a name with the first English alphabet came visiting earlier than expected and by the end of the week, I was done with my first 25 mark business presentation. So i have completed 0.375 credits !! Neat.

The ice breaking party is scheduled for today evening. Not that ice has not been broken already. But its always advisable to break more ice as the heat builds up around you.
So Cheers to the first week and the days to come !!
Bring them on, I say !!

The new journey...

IIMC Day 1 -- Nursing a bruised shoulder after carrying the Term 1 books from the Admission office to Hostel room. The room is air-conditioned and the air conditioner works !!!! A magnanimous 5 day break in the next one year !!! Classes start from Tuesday after an orientation on Monday. Orientation much required.

Ominous ......very Ominous....Keeping the faith
More later.....