18/10/2014

17/10/2014; 03:37:

And, finally. The irony of the blog continues- when you’re free, there’s nothing to write about and when there’s loads of stuff to write about, there’s no time!
Let’s begin where I left off and work our way to today.
11th October- After pestering the SAC-C all night and all through the day, the votes had finally been counted, tallied and the final result prepared. The e-mail with the results made its way to the inboxes of all the IPM students at around 9 p.m. I was in the Mess, eating dinner, blissfully unaware, when a phone call from a 2014 kid alerted me to the good news. And then, my phone wouldn’t stop buzzing. I got to thank everyone and admit that I actually did need to thank them, for it was the election result which got me the post of Coordinator of the Media & PR Committee.

The happy announcement was immediately followed by a mail requiring all the newly selected coordinators and members of the various committees to report for a meeting at 11 p.m., in the FPM Common Room. The meeting saw an inspirational speech being delivered by the SAC Coordinator, with the SAC-Treasurer in agreement. There were instructions given that stated that members from the two junior batches were to be selected at the earliest. The selection procedure to be followed was the same one by which all the members and coordinators of the 2012 batch had been selected. That, and a tentative calendar of activities for the year was to be prepared by each committee. The Media Committee was also assigned the extra task of preparing the content for the IPM Brochure. The Brochure is the one that will be used for Placement purposes. The design is to be the responsibility of the Creativity Club.

Soon after I was back in my room, I designed and sent out the pre-process tasks. Media Comm. was the first one to do so. Efficiency is good, most times. The task was kept rather simple; apart from an SOP & Résumé which are required parts, an article on any topic was to be written up along with a few ideas on how to propagate IPM in the industry. The task was kept short, since the 2014 Batch were to have their end-term exams from the 14th to the 18th of October. The selection for 2013 was to begin once they returned from their term break, on the 17th.

12th October- Well, by virtue of the 1 2o’ clock rule, all the work on the pre-process ought to be dated 12th, but, well. Most of 12th October, Sunday was spent attending lots of classes.
The course on Social Entrepreneurship began on the afternoon of 12th. The course seemed rather interesting; at least it is going to be very different from all the others; a refreshing change.
We went out for dinner, to Taas Lounge in TI Mall. Taas has good Chinese food but atrociously slow service. There was a previous instance when they just could not get our food prepared in time (for the last bus to campus is at 10 p.m.) , but, this time, we planned ahead and were there by 8 p.m.! As observed by my friend who is a regular, Taas is over-staffed outside the kitchen and under-staffed inside the kitchen. Her observation made a lot of sense to all of us. Anyway, the food was good.

18/10/2014; 04:03:

13th October- The day began with all the pre-processes being sent in by the deadline, which was 8:30 a.m. We then sat around, reading the pre-processes; not marking them yet, for we wanted the process to remain fair for everyone.
Post-lunch, there was a Social Entrepreneurship session, where one of the long standing members of ‘Caring Friends’- an organization that helps dedicated NGO’s fund their causes by being a perfect interface between the supply and demand- addressed our batch.
Then, a certain kid from the 2014 batch sent in a mail to the SAC-C, informing her that he had filled in the Nomination Form, to apply to the Media Comm. and the E-Cell, but, he had not received the pre-process as of then. I was asked to look into the matter, which was hard considering that the deadline was over and that all pre-processes had already been sent in. Since real conversations are a lot better than e-mails, I asked for & offered a phone number. The kid apparently forgot to submit the form; we sent him the pre-process promptly, after which he called up, explaining and more so to check what would become of his peer review. I offered to award him the average, which he refused. I then offered to scale his own scores, which he refused too. Another mail had to be sent, bothering all the other applicants to fill in an additional peer review.

My neighbour had been unwell for a while; she also very successfully passed on her cold to an already coughing me. The unwell neighbour wished to go out for dinner and we found ourselves at Chick’n’Serve, which as the name suggests prepares chicken in various forms- Barbequed, Grilled, Tandoori and in Shawarmas. We were back on the last bus from Indore city to the campus, just in time for a previously scheduled meeting. The agenda of the meeting was to reach a consensus on the mode of transportation that the contingent going to represent IIM-Indore at IIT-BHU’s fest, Spardha, was to use. Spardha is on the 31st of October, 1st & 2nd Of November. Banaras is over 24 hours of travel time away from Indore, which is our largest problem with attending the fest; though, all these trivial problems have been overcome and we are very much going! And, going to win!
I was escorted to my hostel by a junior who spent an hour elaborately explaining why the Media Committee was useless. I also spent the same hour scowling and arguing with him, convinced that the kid was just trying to act smart. We reached a rather unexpected, happy conclusion and all was good again.
Later, the Media Comm. Core Member from my batch and I sat holed up in the common room, marking the pre-process. This was successfully accomplished only by 4:15 a.m. Post this, a beautiful e-mail which was the Call for Interviews for the shortlisted candidates was drafted and sent out. I finally managed to go to bed only post 5:00 a.m.
14th October- The day began with two sessions of Social Entrepreneurship, where the founder of ‘Dilasa’- an NGO which has been working in the farmer-suicide affected district of Vidarbha in Maharashtra- came in to inspire the batch with his story.
This was followed by an array of classes. A new course on Principles of Management was to begin on the 15th, and a group assignment had been assigned to us, even before the first session! While some groups worked diligently on the presentation, our group quickly whipped up an acceptable assignment which featured random words and phrases interspersed with images on a few slides.

Post 11 p.m., we finally began our Basketball practice. We played for about 2 hours. By the end of it, everyone returned to their rooms, happy and content.
15th October- When the clock, uh, on my phone struck, uh, displayed 00:00, I called up my father to wish him a Happy Birthday.
After a very enjoyable first session of Principles of Management, where we were shown clips from MunnaBhai M.B.B.S and Rocket Singh, there was a meeting to be attended at 3:30 p.m.
The meeting entailed a discussion about an upcoming SAC Activity- one that we hope shall be the first one to be undertaken by the newly formed body. Plans include spending a day with children at a local orphanage, celebrating Diwali- all with song, dance, drama, a pooja , sports and a few crackers. Work has been divided as per the domain of each Club/Committee. Our Media Comm. gets to invite press to the event.
I rushed back after the meeting, to get the Interviews for the 2014 Batch started at 4:30 p.m.
The interviews went on till 7:30 p.m. after which we took a break. I spent the break at an Atharv success party thrown by the Director of the Institute for the core team of the fest. It was nice to interact with Director sir in an informal setting, with the party taking place in the garden adjoining his house. We talked about our take-away from the fest, the reaction of the faculty and guests and our learning for the next edition. We then spoke about HR Managers, the internet and sir’s time at IIT-Kanpur, where he was more actively involved in organizing SPIC-MACY concerts than studying. He also told us of how he happened to end up doing a Ph.D, after deciding that he wanted to do something different than get a job- his options being the family business & further studies. We’re glad that he picked the latter, for sir is a wonderful person to have as Director of IIM-Indore.
The dinner party was wrapped up by 10:00 p.m., post which there were interviews to be returned to. The second edition of the interviews began at 11:00 p.m., and ended around 2 a.m.
16th October- Early morning was spent on our usual i-Help trip. This time, I taught Class 8 girls the basics of percentage, as covered under their Mathematics syllabus.
Once I was back on campus, I was asked to join the SAC-C to meet some person who was visiting campus in order to gather information about the IPM Programme. After a rather formal meeting with the class-12 IPM aspirant, our SAC-C and her room-mate excused themselves while I offered to show him around campus. I was joined by a kid from the 2014 batch, who enthusiastically gave the new kid good advice about the course and the entrance test. We walked the kid around campus, feeling rather happy as he marvelled at the beautiful campus.
I then fell asleep for a million hours, waking up only close to 10:00 p.m. Our first volleyball practice followed, at 11:00 p.m. While the game is rather intriguing, it is being broken down into easier steps and I might just be able to learn how to play, hopefully. Since we are participating in the Women’s Volleyball as well as the Women’s Basketball events, we hope to have picked up most of the basics by then.

Late night was spent finishing up all pending work, including finishing creating the content for the IPM brochure- the one which shall be used for placement purposes.

17th October- We sent the scores of the short-listed as well as the other candidates to the SAC-C. There was an election held in the evening which was the final step in determining which kids of the 2014 batch make it to the positions of Core Members of various committees/clubs.
The results were sent out in a few hours. This was followed by speculation and celebration.
We spent an hour playing Volleyball and then another 2 and a half playing Basketball, all up till now i.e. 2:00 a.m.!