Quarter 3 - Week 3

We had classes on Christmas.

I mean, seriously! We're taking this 'passion, drive and motivation' a little too far! While all your friends, Christian or not, get to party the night away and drink to glory, we sit hunched under a lamp trying to prepare for a test on Saturday and a "possible surprise test" on Saturday! Wont all my team members be happy to see me now, gleefully tittering at my predicament while they gallivant somewhere. Should give them more work.

We didnt have Law this week since the prof's out till Jan 19th. A part of me thinks he's tripping on all the wining and dining somewhere in Goa arguing relentlessly about where the justice is in today's service oriented corporate structure and plans to do so till New Year and beyond, the saner part of me thinks he's got some urgent lawyering/judging to do.

Marketing was just about ok on day 1. We were discussing what Infosys was trying to do around 2004 with a Blue Sky team (?) to figure out how they can be more a part of the software pie offering. "Making their pie and eating it too" types. Everyone had made presentations and when the prof calls for volunteers to present their case, after quite a bit of fidgeting and studious concentration on an empty whiteboard by most of the class, one brave lady volunteered and dragged her team with her. They confidently gave their view on what Infy should have done and why. Not too exciting. The second session was awesome! We had Prof. Harish Bijoor (look him up), who gave us the deal on Rural India. Ex-HLL senior product manager, VP of Tata Coffee, and now has his own consulting firm. While I wouldnt say that he shone some brilliant gyaan on us, he definitely shattered some myths about the rural aadmi, and made us look at him with new found respect. 75% of India's population lives and breathes in rural India. That's a lot of people. So many little tidbits which we devoured hungrily, all put to us in a funny manner but with a great deal of serious information in it. Did you know that while 22% of urban women use lipstick (yes, only that much), 11% of rural women use it too. 11% less than 22%, so rural juntas suck? try seeing it this way, 11% of 75% of india's women is more than 22% of the rest. Especially when they use more lipstick than that 22% sophistikat. He came up with so much fundas JUST ON LIPSTICK. It was so cool! So you'd think the most popular brand is Lakme? Hell no, it's Raja lipstick! How rural women apply lipstick is apparently quite different from how urban women apply it... all this and much more, on the day after Christmas. A good gift, and a fitting way to end 2009! :)

Quant Meth 2 - Yes, its Operations Research but I seem to think QuantMeth is a nice think to call it now. Quite heady, u see a lot of stars, and when it's over you wake up with a splitting headache. Naah, its not so bad, our prof's trying to make sure we get the fundas right. So we continue to study Duality and then move into Integer Programming from Linear Programming.

And then we have Saturday's test.

Man, what's with us and not understanding that these profs arent teaching us nursery rhymes. All he gave us was simple funda-applicable problems requiring us to draw on common sense, and all we do is draw on our paper. We'll find out which of our folks were whining even after having done well, many of us anxiously await our marks to find the posers who think they're cool by acting like they've done bad like the majority. Wait for it, ur time will come!!

Managerial Accounting - Blearrggh! I dont like this subject. It's ok. We were learning how to decide costs of our offerings, what is a cost driver, job order costing, normal costing, actual costing.. blah blah blah. I'm sorry, but if you want to know more about this, get this book we're using "Managerial Accounting" by Hilton, Ramesh and Jayadev - TMH publication. The prof's trying hard to make sure we understand the goodness in the subject, but it's being so much of a pain in the bag, and seems to have an acquired test. Like beer. Yuck.

Still, Marketing saved the day with the cool insights into the rural market. A good way to end 2009. Ready to walk bleary-eyed into 2010!