RIP MJ...You are a legend...

1st, Nov 1996, Friday...
I still remember that day.
Michael Jackson was suppose to perform in India and Mumbai for the first time at the Andheri Sports Complex...a stone throw away from my school.

I remember the frenzy surrounding the entire event.The place which depicted a somber look for most part of the year, was lighted up magnanimously, though it did help that Diwali was also around that time. The streets were cleared and cleaned and barricades were installed in matter of few nights running 5-8 kms in length.The entire look and feel of the place had changed & the Mumbai crowd were excited to catch a glimpse of "The King of Pop".

Sadly for me, I didn't attend that concert because as a 13 year old kid it was to much to ask my dad to buy me Rs 3k worth of concert tickets when I couldn't even string a line of lyrics the guy sang.However I remember very well that on 1st Nov of 1996 it was around 9 pm when I was coming back from school after having spent the entire afternoon decorating my class for the diwali party celebration which was to be held on the next day in school.

I remember walking all the way to home that day because of the traffic on the way and I could also hear the sound blasting from the complex where the concert was going on.

I remember hearing " the way you make me feel" while walking home followed by " black or white" as the music faded away.

My first memories were of the previous summer when I had saved money to buy my first M.J cassette i.e Dangerous...I also saved up for his History album which I used to listen religiously every time I studied.

Also during the same time,I was part of the school choir and the first song we performed for our annual day was " Heal the World" by who else but " the king of Pop".

With his death, I believe a part of my childhood has also died forever. I remember dancing to his tunes of Black n White, Dangerous, Smooth criminal trying to ape his moon walk with no success what so ever.

My school friend Vijay was our desi Michael Jackson for the way he danced.He was a sure shot performer in any function in school.

I guess as I grew up, I started growing out of the influence of M.J and graduated to different genre of music but for every kid of that decade I guess the king of pop was the first performer who got their interest into the world of music.

Thank you sir for your contribution to world music and also for making the small difference in my life...

RIP...The Legend of Pop...

WAC done n dusted with!!

Just completed my WAC (written analysis of cases) a few hours back.
It is suppose to be a big event in AIM...The first WAC of your AIM tenure, but if you ask me, after the initial humdrum about the whole thing it seemed a very exaggerated affair.

We got our WAC topic as scheduled at 5 pm. After having fretted the whole afternoon on which topic will the WAC be on, it was a welcome relief to see the case pertaining to MC & HBO rather than the more threatening subjects like QA or LOB...

I started in earnest at 5.30pm and was well on my way to acing it by 8.45pm.But since then I have wasted 2 hrs of my time doing nothing but bc/bs with a whole lot of different people.

Though with the postponement of the LOB test from Monday to Wednesday, the pressure for the weekend has relaxed and I am looking forward to partying and enjoying myself tonight. May be a game of basketball followed by a night out with the boys.

Tomorrow I plan to do a bit of QA and the remaining part of the day is devoted to LOB (Liabilities).Let's see how well the plan works.

Well right now is the time to party.The music is blaring loudly outside near the pool and the party vibes are all around...

MC speech on 18th June'09

After having spent the night before my speech roaming around town in Manila and having a sumptuous meal at Fort, I came back late in the night and got working on my speech and ppt presentation way past midnight.

Thanks to Harsh and Supriya I was able to conjure up a decent ppt on my topic which was "Who was Henry VIII?"

It was fascinating to know about King Henry VIII, thanks to Wikipedia and Google search but my predicament was how to present the speech in front of my class.The amount of data which I wanted to share was not easily compressible into a 5 min speech.

Well, D-day was to prove my worst fears true.I started off on the wrong not with some technical glitch while getting my presentation onto the projector.After the delay and the anticipation of the audience already over the hill, I began my speech the only way I could...Fast and Furious...Hee hee.

Well whatever planning I had done the previous night, all went up in smoke since as soon as I reached the podium and began my speech I had forgotten about all the ground rules I had set for myself and just began blabbering whatever came to my mind in those 4 minutes at the podium.

Thankfully the audience was appreciative of my effort and I saved face by at least having had good enough content to go with my blabbering self.

I guess next time, I'll have to recite my speech at least twice beforehand before going live.Avinash was the most impressive speaker of the day and his hard work of preparing and reciting beforehand really paid off well for him.

Well I just completed my assignment of writing on my reflection paper for the same speech and now since I have completed the unofficial reflection too, I am off to class again.

ps:- Today is a very highly anticipated day.First WAC (Written Analysis of cases) is to be held @ 5pm in Meralco casestudy room...:)

Day 15 @ AIM

I had a early day today with LOB as the first lecture followed by OM & after having survived our Prof Larry Tan in the morning lecture it was time to finish up LOB for the Monday quiz.I slept for a while in the afternoon and then had a mini beer party at the pool side with Mac,Nash,Ervine,Emile & Preetesh and then followed that up with a swim.

After having done all the tp I could have afforded for the day,I sat back in my dorm room and proceeded to finish the remaining chapters of LOB which are suppose to be a part of the quiz on Monday.This was from 8.30 pm to 11.30 in the night.

Harsh,Aseem and Akshel had already left for Mindenou in the afternoon and Nash & Emile had gone out for dinner with the Ganguli brother's as well as Jo-Anne, mukul,Preetesh and Vishal.

I was on the court @ 11.30 pm playing basketball for close to 1 hour alone before the Gadoo's joined me and it was not long before the entire entourage got back from their dinner party around 12.30 am in the night.

After 4 rounds of 1 on 1 with Emile,in which I gave a valiant fight before drawing the series 2-2 (quite an achievement for me) I went back to the room & savored some delicious Chinese which Jo-Anne,Emile & Nash got for me.

After that the five of us i.e Emile,Nash,Jo-Anne, Aina and yours truly set off at 1 am in the night to roam around and see the sight of Manila's night life.We roamed around a lot's of places and even tried the Filipinos specialty:- balut that is essentially boiled pre-hatched poultry eggs, usually duck or chicken.It was much similar to a fied egg if you ask me ,but never the less an experience to cherish.

Our final destination for the night was Padi's point (the original one which was the first one in Manila to be opened.I have already mentioned about it's franchise which I visited during my MOA visit).It was a beautiful night with friends, drinking beer, relaxing away from the tension of MBA, chilling out with each other, trying know each other better and in general enjoying the free time in hand.

Emile showed a loads of snaps & I am actually jealous of him because of the amount of things he has already done in his life like, snorkeling, flying, sky diving etc and on the other hand the max I can boost about is playing different kinds of sport (though that's not bad either still I would love doing the stuff he has already done).

Well we finally reached back @ AIM precisely an hour back i.e 3.35 am and after another wonderful & eventful days it's again back to sleep for me.

It was a fun night and thank you, Emile,Jo-Anne,Aina & Nash for making it all the more special.
I am already cherishing the friends I have made here in AIM.Cheer's to my batch:- Cohort 4, AIM batch 0f 2010...I guess pretty soon I'll come up with a blog with something about each one of them.

Till then adios...Good night...

Day 12 @ AIM

9th June'09...

First of all Happy Birthday Ankit...(Pariekh for the uninitiated; friend from DJ)...It's been 5 years since his last birthday celebrated here in India and to think of it; it's also been 5 years since my group of friends from engineering went off to the U.S for their masters.

However, back to AIM... Life is becoming a struggle each passing day, with time being a premium and sleep an unknown entity in itself.After having appeared for the QA quiz on Saturday, I let my self unwind completely in the night @ Mohit Gaurier's birthday by the pool side.It was a amazing fun night,with drinks flowing throughout the night and music blaring full blast till 6 am in the morning when we finally called it a night...

However each nice thing in life comes with a price and I had to pay for the night out partying by sacrificing on my sleep as the very next day I had my CAN/Learning team meet @ 1 pm.

CAN/Learning team:- It's a concept here in AIM wherein the entire class batch of 45 students have been divided in to 8 groups of 5-6 members each which are known as CAN group or learning teams.We are suppose to prepare for cases in our CAN group and present it in class as a group.It is aimed at improving our team work dynamics and analytical skills as well as giving us a real life experience of solving cases...

Well after a rather nice weekend, yesterday was really a awakening call after I gave my first official LOB quiz and it is safe to say that it was a disaster.For the first time in a long time, I was clueless as to when taking an exam.Well I guess my time to chillax and take it as it comes needs to cease immediately if I wish to extend my stay in the Philippines beyond September'09.

However today, has gone rather well.After a boring lecture of SMA, things look good with OM and then MC was the highlight of the day where we had to simulate an actual press conference as part of our learning & it is safe to say that CAN group 8 fared quite well as compared to most other groups.Right now I am sitting in the last lecture of the day i.e. QA and blogging myself to glory.

ps:- Happy anniversary Mom n Dad...& happy birthday once again Ankit...

All set for QA...

It's 2.05 am in the night & my plans to call it a early night i.e 12.30 am went kaput because of the amount of things I found out to be done for tomorrow's QA paper at 9 am.

However, after 4 hours of relentless bc and hard work; well more of bc and a bit of hard work I can finally say that I am all set to conquer tomorrow's exam provided our prof. doesn't come up with a surprise twist in the quiz.

So, finally tomorrow or rather within the next 6 hrs I'll be appearing for my first official paper in AIM...Butterflies in the stomach...Nay.
Just that I have already got bored of the rigors of daily life at AIM.

Well Roger Federer is right now fighting with Del Porto for a spot in the french open final & though I really want to watch the match, better sense seems to prevail and I plan to call it quits for the night after a game of football on Fifa 2009.

Let's see what happens in the test tomorrow.

Sitting right now, down at the dorm lobby studying QA with my classmates.Reminds me of my engineering days where the entire gang used to settle down on the college corridors and study collectively for the semester exams.

I remember studying binomial,Poisson,Z-normal and stuff for my Vth sem exams and actually did well in them.However, at this very moment the same concepts seem to allude me and I find myself in a strange world of stats, maths and random variables & distribution not knowing what fits where & why?

I guess the 4 yrs of working and not using my brain even .001% seems to have taken a toll and I guess it will take a monumental effort on my part to invoke the Grey cells in my brain to start processing overtime if I have to succeed in this B-school...

Why does study have to be so challenging?
Lets just get back to learning a,b,c,d and 1,2,3... for a change...