Torrential rains claim my phone line.

Have been busy running around for a loan to sponsor my part time mba from IIM Calicut.
Finally the paper work is done and the loan will come through in hopefully another fifteen
days. (public sector bank :-( ).
My home phone is dead since a week now, a victim of the torrential rains that Bangalore
saw last week. No response so far to the complaint raised,. So am not able to connect to the
net in the night when i usually do my updates and that makes me feel lousy. Yes, I was
plain lazy to do that in office, i guess i could do with this confession. Whatever, hope my
phone springs back to life tonight (hoping for a miracle) !
Was reading one of Simba's posts about the documents required for the visa and it scared
no end. Man, what the hell was that. It seriously made me rethink of pursuing my MBA in one
of the top business schools in the world ! But naah, am a brave gal and would do it anyway !
:o)
There's so much to write and so much to read from other blogs that I am praying desperately
for my phone to work from this moment on ! Let me go home and check it.

I knew the moment had arrived...

Hurray ! I got selected for IIM Kozhikode's (Calicut) Interactive Distance Learning
program. It's a one year programme with a 5-day residential component in the IIM
Campus and another of regular classrooms. The classrooms are not regular though;
they are hi-tech places with satellite connectivity to the IIMK campus from where the
professors will deliver lectures twice every week. So lectures are delivered fresh and
crisp from IIMK to 35 classrooms across India. This is amazingly convenient for
working executives who get to do the course without having to quit jobs or take
sabbaticals and stuff.
Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Calicut was established in 1996. Its's the 5th
IIM to be established by the Government of India in collaboration with the State Govt.
of Kerala. Though, so far, not as hyped and reputed as its other counterparts viz the IIMs
at Ahmedabad,Bangalore, Kolkatta and Lucknow, IIMK is striving to be there soon. This,
for me, ensures that they will maintain quality in everything that they do ! Ofcourse
you cannot expect anything but the best at an (and any) IIM, but still IIM A is IIMA. :o)
Given this background, I am still weighing my options of doing this against the
regular mba that I am aiming at next year. Will have to decide sooner than I want to,
as the deadline for the first installment is next Monday. So I better hurry! with my
otherwise slow decision making process !

A mail I received

Today I received a mail from Mr.Wilson NG whose blog I have linked in my site . His posts
are inspiring and his blog very real !It was a pleasant surprise and he sure made my day!
Thank you Mr. Wilson.

BTW, the email post option worked ! It's a cool thing to do when in a hurry. You can get the
"email post" option by going to "Setting->Email". Here you can choose the personalised tag
for your mail id to post "posts".

Trying out the "email post" option

Wondering if it works !
Will get to know in a coupla minutes.

Zen and the art of making onself happy !

Last night was the first time i gave up on a book mid-way ! I was reading
"Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance" and not sure if I am not in the right
frame of mind or if i did not understand what the author was talking about , I was
just bored reading it. So after around 150 pages of the 400+ page book, I decided
it was better to stop and pick up the book some other time rather than go through
the drudgery!
Well, how many times in life have we come across a situation when we don't want to
be in it but just choose to do so for various reasons ? I agree that it is very much an
arguable topic and that it depends on the situation at hand. It depends on what we
value and how much that forces us to prioritise and take a stand. What i learned
recently was that, "unless i am happy, i cannot make anyone else happy". Profound
truth which can be twisted in various ways.
Some might say that, making someone happy makes me happy ! Agreed. Do you
however see the bottomline ? "It makes me happy!" So yes, you do it because it
gives you satisfaction and happiness.
Some might term this as selfish! Imagine a person who is not happy doing something.
Will s/he let others be happy by accepting that fact and not complaining ? Very rare.
So you see the point is, all I can take care of is myself. Rest is beyond my control.
Why should I worry of things which are beyond my circle of influence anyways ?

Have started reading "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell now. Seems interesting.
Will post more on it as I go through.

Small things

Last Sunday my roomy met with a possibly fatal accident. She didnt get major injuries,
just minor bruises and a lot of body ache. The pain gets aggravated by working 8 hours
in a claustrophobic office ! So when I came home last evening, she was in bed bunking
office, utterly in pain. I did small things to ease her pain. It was only today when she
send me a mail thanking me for what I did yesterday that I realised how very much the
small things in life matter. I always believed in it though.
If its true, then why do we run behind the big things in life ?

A Long One

Yesterday was one heaven of a day ! Worked from home but majority of the part was
spent looking up blogs on the net. Blogs that would give me more information about
an MBA. And you can bet your life on it if you think there are more than a couple hundreds !
I am impressed. People out there are so dedicated and devoted to their blogs that it's awesome.
It gives me a dose of inspiration to keep my posts regular. This also proves that, if used
correctly, the internet can be such a helpful instrument ! Yeah I call it an instrument coz it is
multi-utility,is upto the user's discretion to be turned on and off, does whatever you ask it to do,
there is every chance to get addicted to it (like the cellphone) and yes, it can backfire too ! :o)

Getting back to what i wanted to post today, bits and pieces though. Saw this awesome image of
"self-made man" on a blog about the days at the Indian School of Business (ISB). The original
sculptureis by Bobbie Carlyle. Its awe-inspiring. Take a look here .

The next thing i want to mention here is the article on Leadership in the HBR. Here the author
has got a point in that,unless you can lead yourself, you cannot lead others. 100% pure truth.
He pricks some balloons that most MBA graduates come out of school with. That stress can help
you perform better is what he strongly is against, however, not very successful in convincing
the same. He gets too philosophical towards the end though, talking about mind and body and
emotions and energies et all. Sounds more like a spiritual master talking. No nothing wrong in it,
just that I was expecting him to be much better given his Harvard background.

Ok the third thing i found out today is this "www.allconsuming.net" It records what items you
are currently using and gives its usage worldwide (as long as the whole world is subscribed to
it !) Not sure of its utility, but I guess you can find out how popular, the items you are using, are.
And the items include books, albums(music i guess), Movies, and everything else you can name.
I created an entry for the IBM T41 Laptop that I use !

I guess that's enough for tonight. Gute Nacht !