I have mastered the art of sticking to routines. For the past 2 weeks or so I have finally been able to achieve a type of schedule and discipline in my life that I could only dream of earlier. My day typically starts at 10:30 A.M when I get tired of lying down in my bed and decide to wake up. Then, after doing my daily chores I head off towards one of my friends' room to make sure I start my day by looking at some pretty faces. No no, my friends aren't that good looking. It's just that they have DT and HT City in their rooms. Thereafter, I head towards my room to get my daily dosage of Economic Times (one of the best things about preparing for the GD/PI of a B-School). It's boring to start with, reading ET; but once you get the hang of terms and begin to understand lines like "The Fiscal Deficit is likely to be ....... most of which would be used for Revenue Expenditure..." or "The RBI today hiked Repo Rates to deal with the Liquidity crunch......" it actually begins to get interesting. I mean it's the first time in all these years that I actually read a paper not because of the pictures it carries or the Sports page (it doesn't have one) but for its main content. It's true that all this was not a voluntary thing to start with and it was only after I realized that in my MBA coaching class I was among the few who didn't read a financial newspaper that I started it, yet two weeks later, I am still spending about 2 hours each day to scour the paper looking for new mergers and acquisitions, the way the SENSEX is behaving, India's GDP growth and the like. All this while my computer keeps playing songs from Rang De Basanti and the Jia Dhadak Dhadak Jae number from Kalyug and every day the songs keep growing on me, especially Lukka Chuppi and Rubaroo from RDB. I think the genius of Rehman lies in the way he uses his instruments, the myriad of sounds he manages to conjure and ensemble, the attention he pays even to the minutest of sounds which might even go unheard if not listened to carefully.........What the heck.Why am I even bothering myself with all this shit. The guy's simply a genius.
Anyway, soon its 12:30 P.M. I get a bath, get dressed and
EITHER...................................
head to the insti, go to my lab, sit in front of my machine, check mails, indulge in orkutting for some time, think about the idea of getting started on my MTP since the presentations are nearing and I would ideally want to finish my degree by May 2006, in case I get into the B-School of my dreams, say to myself that I gotta do someting or else I would be screwed and then finally after going through some research papers and browsing the net (after which I find out that whatever it is that I was planning to do has already been done/implemented) get back to hostel to sleep or play cricket promising myself that the day after would herald the beginning of my MTP.
OR...........................................
remain in my room, think about my MTP and give it up in favour of a combo of Roadrash, gossip, sleep and timepass on the LAN.
Evenings are by far the most interesting part of the day and again there are two versions.
Of the first type are the ones spent in my MBA coaching class listening to India's Power Sector, Insurance Sector, FOREX Reserve, blah, blah, blah...staring at the pretty girls that come there, learning the nuances of GDs, staring at the pretty girls that come there and wondering why people ask so many questions.
Cocktails/Shakes, Starters, the main course and Desserts form the major part of the second type of evenings which are adequately peppered with leg pulling (mostly of the financer of the entire exercise!), and deciding the venue and the victim of the next treat.
The day gets over after another round of watching serials, gossiping and leg pulling follows in the hostel (mostly in my room) and we retire to our respective rooms for the night.
Life as a final yearite can get pretty boring at times, especially so if you are a fifth yearite. At the same time it's probably the last time I would be enjoying this kind of freedom without responsibility. I pretty much do what I like. Sure there's always the MTP sword hanging but that's the only thing. I mean, I have a job, have no courses to do this semester and I am preparing for something which interests me hugely, for a change, and which could and I hope would change the way I have looked at things for the past five years. More about it some other time.
As of now, my routine continues but I would have to change it soon to make sure that when on the 24th of this month I face my evaluators during my MTP presentations, I come out in one piece.