11 hours!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

well it was an awesome feel to get up after a 11 hour sleep today.Dont remember when was the last time i had slept for so long at a stretch.Guess a lot of things made me forget this blisful activity!! Had slept at 8 the previous night and got up at 7 in the morning and in between all this messages from dheena about him getting r*ped at home for being caught doing something and peggy messaging me at 2 in the morning asking me if i am watching the arsenal-villareal match and me messaging in my sleep that am not!!
think it was a well deserved one considering all that am going through right now...well my problems might look trivial to a lot of people but well they are pretty important things to me...so guess am in for the barca-milan match today!!

Reality strikes...

Once upon a time I remember when I was young or rather not so old I used to look upon people who were 23 years old as some awesome creatures in this planet earth who would have achieved nirvana in their life! They would be sure of their career, have a real good girl, and know where their life is heading! These were supposedly my own thoughts and shouldn’t I be fulfilling my own expectations about being 23 years old? Well sadly I realize I don’t fulfill any of those 3 conditions. I am still not clear whether I should take a sales job traveling for which would steal me of the wonderful moments that I can spend with people whom I want to or the supposedly awesome I banking stuff which would give me the a lot of money to count but may give me the time to! And FYI, I am single and I am not sure where am going to go 3 months from now.
So having failed my own 3 conditions to happiness I just look back at my own life.
Guess when I was in school people kept telling me that I do my tenth boards well and my life would be settled (would like to get back to them and ask what they meant by settling down). Then when passed out of class 10 they said do your class 12 boards well and things would be all rosy. Then in my college days I realized people stopped telling me things but I had gotten so used to this that I started setting my own ambitions lest I end up not being ‘happy’ in life. The funny part is the word happy is as subjective as anything else. Once upon a time when I was around 13 my typical ‘happy’ would be like a 12 hour marathon sleep session, then wake up play get back home sleep, wake up, play, watch TV and sleep!! Now neither am I able to sleep for 12 hours at a stretch nor am I able to go out and play like a kid. Actually I was introduced to a kid as uncle by someone but the kid was kind enough to call me by my name.
Another weird thing is everything used to be a lot simpler when I was a kid. There used to be friends or ‘enemies’. There used to be right or wrong. There used to be good or bad.
Growing up I realize there are only people whom you get along with aka friends and people whom you don’t get along with who are not your friends! There are very few things right or wrong in this world and more often than not the truth lies in between.

Conversation when I was young:
A: would you accept bribe?
Me: NO!!
A: Why?
Me: Its bad, dishonest, cheap….

If the same happens now:
A: would you accept bribe?
Me: well don’t know ..Wouldn’t really be able to tell you unless I go through it!
A: Why?
Me: Because its easy for me to say something politically correct and get applause…but I really don’t know if I will refuse if someone offers me a Rs 100 cr bribe though I would want to refuse!! If it’s a 10000 bribe maybe I will refuse but 100 cr am not sure till I actually refuse.
Another major thing I see and that includes me too is the fear of failure or rejection. I don’t think most of us would have thought of failing our annual exam in school or having a back up solution if say you fail in class 8.But when you grow up it goes like well my plan A is xxxx and if it fails plan B is yyyy and if that also fails plan C is zzzz. The fear of failure, I think, is the most important thing to tackle to be successful because for the simple reason that it used to work when you were young.
Another thing is the natural confidence/aggression/arrogance or whatever you might want to call it. Looking back at similar conversations it is damn funny

When i was young:
Dad: how did your exam go?
Me: good dad. Should get good marks!!
Dad: How much?
Me: Atleast 95…
Dad: grins

NOW:
Dad: how did your CAT exam go?
Me: Dad, don’t know did my best. Lets see how it works.
Dad: What do you think are your chances?
Me: Well don’t know dad, it depends on a lot of things. Should be lucky and ….
Dad: realizes I had screwed it.
Another thing is when I was young I used to feel sad for the communist labourers who went on strike and thought they should be given their due. Probably I was communistic then. But now I think its stupid on their part to hold an organization to ransom and there is no moral obligation on the part of the employer to be sweet to these guys. If they don’t like they always have a choice to quit and go to a place where they will be happy. Think the employer has every right to do what he wants and it’s again the fear of failure (read as insecurity) that’s stopping them from quitting and go to some other place.
When people were kids they would have played the game to win and not to not to lose but when you get old most often than not we end up playing to not to lose! Wish I don’t do that often and I hope all my friends also don’t do that!!
Feeling a lot better now and in spite of all this the world is a nice place to live in and full of nice people!!!

PS: Guess am pretty confused about a lot of things in life and hence the reason for this kinda blog entry. So please excuse me!!

23 years of living....

been 23 years of living...donno if its survival or living actually...but well had been an awesome journey with my share of learnings and experiences and guess life has thrown a few new challenges at me as my birthday gift!! Lets see how it all shapes up

the CAT saga!!

Well thought I should be penning this down to just look back and be reminded about the last year. …April 2005 till now. It could probably be the most important defining moment as far as my career is concerned and so here it goes.

April 2005…
After a long time I decided I wanted something real badly and it was an MBA tag to my name. Was thinking hard about my future and decided I would sulk all my life if I don’t get it. First thing decided to enroll myself for classes and well joined TIME. I don’t know if one really needs to go to classes to crack CAT but I am doing it because I have decided this is going to be my last attempt at it and come what may have to get it and to not end up regretting not doing something I just decided to join. Well this is my first step of the journey, which I now would be long and tiresome. Well the classes started and things went pretty fine. I was getting warmed up to the task ahead and I was actually pretty focused about things for the first time in my life!!

The mockcats begin….

Mock 1:
Decided to just go and take it as it comes and do an evaluation of what needs to done. Well my rank was 102 and I assumed I was on target and pretty much happy about my strategy in taking the exam!!
Mock 2:
Decided to implement the same strategy and well my rank came to 283 and well was pretty much happy.
Mock 3:
Tried to change my strategy with what someone in TIME told me and this bombed. My rank was 2764…. the confidence level went real low and doubts started creeping in especially since this was an all India free mock cat. Got into my shell and tried to do some serious introspection. Wasn’t sure if there weren’t any cracks in the defence!
Mock 4:
This was a decent comeback with a rank of 925 and thought things weren’t as bad after all.
Mock 5,6,7,8,9:
My rank in the fifth was real good and there was no looking back after that. Was an all up ride for the next 4 weeks and my ranks were 76,137,184,194,131.Was pretty happy with the level of consistency I had reached and was on a confidence high about reaching the IIM’s after all!!
Mock 10:
Rank was 839.Didn’t do all that well and thought it was just a burn out and nothing more to it because had been doing the same that I had done before!!
Mock 11:
Rank was 169. Now started thinking things are under control and I had to just keep the momentum going for the next couple of months to win the battle!!
Mock 12:
Rank was 1288.Didn’t know what took me and was just blanked. Told myself it was a one off occasion and things would fall into place soon!!
Mock 13:
Rank was 635 and this kind of soothed my ego that the previous one was after all a one off occasion!!
Mock 14:
Rank was 1539 and this freaked me out because I realized the more I tried now the worse it went. Thought had reached my threshold and decided to take a break for a week till the next one hoping the break would solve things for me.
Mock 15:
Alas it didn’t. Rank was 1694 and my confidence was shattered to pieces. And everyone around was just peaking at the right time and they were all doing good and started wondering if my luck is just running out at the wrong time.
Mock 16:
With just some 3 weeks to go for the cat time guys decided to give a damn easy paper with the quants section being pathetically dumb and I badly needed this tore store my confidence and I got a rank of 67. Felt damn good!!!
Mock 17 and Mock 18:
Had decided not to think much about how I performed in these 2 tests with just some 10 days to go for cat. For the record my ranks were 648 and 277.

Before getting into what happened on the cat day I need to remind myself about a few things about my social life. I happened to meet a lot of real nice people during this period (who are some of my good friends now) and realized how special some of my friends were. Am sure you guys know I am talking about you and a big hug to all you guys!!

Nov 20 2005!!
Battlefield: Raja Rajeshwari College of engineering
Well this college was put up pretty much on the outskirts of the city and after having been wished by almost every soul I knew I set off to the place thinking of all the nice things about life and humming my favourite songs!! The hall was one totally screwed up Machines lab I think and when I put the OMR on the table the paper got soiled. I told myself to stay cool and asked for the IIM representative and this moron from IIM K asks what to do about it and tells me to go ahead and nothing will happen. Told myself well the same thing and well the paper was a total surprise. Thought I had managed pretty decently though got into a pretty defensive mood which really did me in I think when looking back at that day!
Well people all around still kept my hopes up by saying I will end up getting a single call atleast though my initial reaction was I had screwed it up and wouldn’t get a single IIM call.
Well then the other exams (iift, jmet, xat, fms) came and just took it pretty chill and I gradually started expecting to get a single IIM call.
Well my scorecard after all the exams stood like this
Bumps from IIM’s, SPJIMR, MDI
And ended up with calls from NITIE (my lone CAT based call), IIFT, IIT’s, XLRI, FMS!!
The irony was that I ended clearing every other exam but cat though I had prepared only for it all along!!

Well the really special interview was the IIT B interview. Found all questions really insightful and was really happy about the whole thing was because I could be myself and didn’t need to put on anything to sell myself across!
The next one should be NITIE I think because it was more like me giving guest lecture on ethics, business, being a great leader and those types!! And ya they have a really sexy campus and the lake rocks!!
The next should be FMS because I think I exceeded my own expectations in the extempore! The topic was “Stop clock” and was blank about it for a split second then the dude just showed the stop clock in front of him and his hand went down and it reminded me of the axe falling on someone’s head for the death sentence and well I started of on life’s clock stop clock called death and how people should live life to its fullest and enjoy life and stuff like that!! The panel was actually impressed and complimented me for my extempore but I think it was one of the weirdest correlations I have ever made but well ya who cares!!
Have admit from NITIE and waitlist from FMS and XLRI!!
Waiting for those two. Would be happy enough to go to either of the places!! Well this ends right here and think I have been pretty lucky to be in this position in spite of the CAT goof up!!

10 point something....

10 things I wish I could still do
1) Sleep for some 12 hours at a stretch
2) Sit and watch a movie at home
3) Be contented in life and not ambitious
4) Look at the mirror and comb my hair for ten minutes (well used to do it in school)
5) Be happy to speak for hours on the phone and let my dad pay my bill.
6) Feel on top of the world when a cute girl talks to me.
7) To look at things with no fear of failure or rejection.
8) Say I don’t want to get married (used to say it when in school)
9) Just walk out of a place without opening the door for the girl
10) Think hard about clearing my biology exam.

10 things I wish I don’t do
1) Bite my nails
2) Like the unshaven look
3) Get nostalgic about life and people
4) Think of all the stupid things I do and feel sorry for people
5) Get philosophical about life
6) Complicate simple things
7) Use words whose meaning I don’t even know
8) Think of living up to the expectations of my own self
9) Try to be decent to people though I don’t like them.
10) Try to stand by what I believe in when it would be a lot easier to play ball.