A slice of Tuck...

Last post....

2006-08-29T18:46:00.000-05:00

Okay. This post has been long overdue. I am glad I got around to writing it.

After a wonderful 2 years at Tuck, I graduated in June. The last few weeks of the Tuck experience were a fitting end to the time I spent at Hanover. I take with me fond memories of a place where the warmth of people made up for the cold weather.

The month of May was spent hitting golf balls at the driving range and kayaking down Connecticut river. Evenings were spent having dinner with friends - trying desperately to compress time as all of us knew we would graduate before we knew it.

June consisted of Disorientation like it can only happen at Tuck. I loved the cruise on Lake Champlain. Tuck Investiture was fittingly held in a hockey arena. Graduation was a grand affair - typical Ivy League I am told.

In the last couple of months, I travelled to India and returned to New York. Since this blog was all about my Tuck experience, I believe this should be the last post on the blog. I had a great time at Tuck and look forward to being a Tuckie for life.

A few prospective students have written to me asking about my Tuck experience. I believe the blog captures it better than what I can write in a single email to any person. I loved the time I spent at Tuck. I achieved my professional goals, became a better person and had the fortune of interacting with a set of incredily talented people at Tuck. If I had to go back in time and revisit the decision of choosing a business school, I would make the same decision in a heartbeat.

Spring!!

2006-05-07T08:16:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted for a really long time - Apologies in case you have checked recently but haven't found an update.

It is Spring in New England. The sun is out, weather is warm and I am enjoying it thoroughly.

When the Tuck Outdoors Club sent out a mail asking if I wanted to hike 'The 50', I signed up without thinking twice. I had learnt about 'Overconfidence Bias' in my Managerial Decision Making course - but fell prey to it without knowing it.

Then, a couple of weeks ago I went on a hike to Mount Cube. A 6.6 mile hike and I was tired at the end of it (I wasn't about to drop dead but just tired). I figured a 50 mile hike was not something I could do and dropped off thelist the next day. After the Mount Cube hike, a bunch of us went to Ben & Jerry's for some ice cream (to compensate for all the calories burnt!). That was a perfect ending to a gorgeous day.

Over the last few weeks, I have been training to do a 10K run. The run is scheduled to be held a week from now. In my last couple of runs, I have been able to do the distance but my timing is way off. I want to finish the run in under 1 hour. While folks who have been running might scoff at my target, considering it is my first 10K run, I have kept my aspirations modest.

Occasionally, I go out to the driving range and hit some balls. Next week onwards, I plan to go to the golf course regularly. The objective is to hit the course 3-4 times before I leave Hanover.

The other day the firm I am going to work for asked me to send in an interesting line about myself. When I quizzed a couple of my first year study group members about this, they agreed that 'I have a Snickers problem' is the most appropriate. I LOVE SNICKERS!!!

I spent some time in April making a list of 50 things I want to do by the time I am 50. P also made her list. I got the inspiration to make that list from Kanishka. When you get a chance look around his blog - especially a post on his exploits working in a tough region of India.

Just over a month and I will be graduating from Tuck. I have mixed feelings about leaving school and Hanover. While I am looking forward to getting back to work & life outside this happy bubble, I don't like the feeling of these 2 years coming to an end. But then again, C'est la Vie!

Mélange

2006-02-12T19:30:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I spent the morning at the Thetford Volunteer Fire Department and helped them inventory the items on their new rescue truck. After our work was done, the captain gave us a nice iron-on patch and took us for a spin around the town on a fire truck!! While I am all of 27 years old, sitting in a fire truck still gave me a kick. The volunteering was part of Day-of-Service organized by the Tuck Volunteers.

Winter term has been fun. I love my courses. Managerial Decision Making is an excellent course about how we make decisions and how to avoid errors in decision making. Moneyball & Into Thin Air are prescribed reading for the course. I am taking quite a few 'soft' courses. They have led me to think hard about what I am and what I stand for. Self-awareness is a vital aspect of leadership and I believe I have become a better person now.

I have also been attending lunches with visting executives. I am continuously surprised by the variety of jobs my classmates are taking up after they graduate. At one of the lunches where we were hosting a speaker for the real estate class, people around the table had signed up for jobs with Tramell Crow, Starwood Capital and Hines. Before I came to Tuck, I didn't know real estate was an industry that attracted graduates from top business schools. Across top Indian B-schools, I will be surprised if you find ANYBODY taking up a job in this sector. I am sure this will change over the next few years as the likes of Tishman Speyer, Starwood and Tramell Crow make their presence felt.

I can't believe that my Tuck experience will be over in 4 months time :( . While I am looking forward to starting off on my full-time job, I am truly sad that I will have to leave this beautiful school & town and go back to the big bad world.

Heated seats, January thaw & my trip back from India

2006-01-18T11:53:00.000-05:00

I left India for Tuck on Jan 5th. In my quest to get a cheap ticket in peak season, I booked myself on Gulf Air with an itinerary that involved multiple stop overs. My return journey consisted of Mumbai-Bahrain, Bahrain-Frankfurt, Frankfurt-Philadelphia, Philadelphia-Boston. So, I stepped on board the plane in Mumbai with the knowledge that I had a long journey ahead of me. But, I had no idea I would finally arrive at my home only on 7th night.

I reached Bahrain on time and we were immediately told that our flight to Frankfurt was delayed by over 8 hours due to technical difficulties. Gulf Air got us transit visas, booked us in a hotel in the city and sent us off to get a good night's sleep. The process was extremely efficient and I was in bed within a couple of hours. Next morning, we returned to the airport to find out our flight had been delayed a further couple of hours. Out of curiosity I started my computer to check whether I could send out e-mails to family and friends letting them know of the delay. Bahrain Airport not only has WiFi - but it is by far the cheapest WiFi I have found in an airport. A whole hour of access cost me just $0.36. After I sent out emails and had my breakfast, we boarded the plane. We were stuck on the tarmac for a couple of hours because one person who was supposed to be on the flight did not board and his luggage had to be taken off the aircraft.

Once we got to Frankfurt, the whole rigamarole of transit visa, hotel booking, tranfer to hotel was repeated. Except, the whole process took much longer than it did in Bahrain. The hotel room wasn't as nice as the one in Bahrain and the food was horrible (carrots & peas for dinner!!)

Finally, after going through Philly and Boston, I was home by midnight. For all the horror stories I had heard about US Airways and the immigration staff in Philly, I did not face any delays or problems at all. My friend was there to pick me up from the Dartmouth Coach drop off point and prevented me from having an attack of hypothermia.

While I am happy to be back at Tuck, Hanover is COLD. I was born and raised in a city where the minimum temperature was about 55 degrees Fahrenheit. At Hanover, NH on many days in the winter the mercury dips going below zero. In case you are still wondering, I am no fan of the cold.

A couple of things make the winter bearable. Heated car seats are on the top of my list followed closely by the January thaw. After a walk to my car when every bone of my body is cold, the heated seats feel like heaven. I am told remote start is an even better feature, by my 2003 VW Jetta doesn't have a remote start!

The January thaw is another nice concession that nature has made to people like me. A few days in Winter, (like today!), the cold takes a break. The temperature outside is almost 50. Though the sky is cloudy and it is raining, I prefer this to a day when the sun is out and the temperature is 5 below.

My courses in the Winter term are an interesting mix. I am taking Managerial Decision Making (a course that is already proving to be a good investment), Futures & Options, Leadership Out Of The Box, Managing Strategic Business Relationships, Game Theory, Selling & Sales Leadership. Some of the courses may not seem to be directly relevant given my plan to join an investment bank as a trader - but my idea behind pursuing an MBA is to get a holistic education as against a finance education. I will talk more about the courses as the term goes forward. The plan for the next few weeks is to have a good time in the winter and focus on internalizing what I learn.

Mumbai...

2005-12-27T01:30:00.000-05:00

As life becomes progressively more hectic, blogging has taken a back seat. I hope to write more often once I am back in Hanover in early January.

For the last month, I have been in Mumbai. I continue to intern at the private equity firm where I worked for part of my summer. The pace of activity in the industry has definitely quickened. New firms are popping up everywhere. Valuations are beginning to appear stretched.

I believe that a lot of money that was to be made from multiple expansion has disappeared thanks to the valuations. So, it will take a lot more effort than in the past to achieve an IRR of 20% plus. Many say that a 20% plus IRR is being greedy especially with long rates continuing to remain low. India continues to be an emerging market and the attendant risks need compensation.

Real estate in India is a very exciting market to be in. As action shifts to tier II cities, many more people can thank real estate for their wealth. The legal risk in the industry is probably second to none. Anybody watching the Mumbai mill land development saga will vouch for that. I would love to work in the industry at some point in the future.

During this visit to India, I also spent some time in Ahmedabad and Kolkata (visiting the business school festivals of the IIMs) and squeezed in visits to Bangalore and Delhi. Some India trip this has been :-D

The frenzy continues....

2005-11-13T22:54:00.000-05:00

I had no idea second year would be so much work. I had assumed I could take a breather and focus on the finer things in life. Well, from the look of it, I was completely wrong!!

One week for the term to finish, and I can't wait for the week to be over. Friday evening, I leave take the Virgin Atlantic flight out of Boston. But, in the next 5 days, there are so many things to do to formally finish the term.

First up, I have the Investments exam on Tuesday morning. Before that, we need to make a presentation on our Investments project tomorrow. Since the person you are presenting to is Ken French, you need to be sure to weigh each word you say. Say risk instead of volatility and you are in a spot!! On Tuesday morning, our project for Corporate Restructuring is also due. And on Tuesday afternoon, I need to submit our Argus model for the Real Estate class. Somewhere in between, I need to put together some information about the Private Equity Industry in India. And I forgot to mention that classes are still in progress :-).

The past few weeks have been fun and busy. Last week I attended the Tuck Vegas party. The party was fun and I focussed on spending time & faux chips on playing the extremely low IQ "Wheel Of Fortune". I skipped the Beach party last night and instead went to a friend's 30th birthday party. I took him a few bottles of Colt 45 and he was very appreciative of my thoughfulness.

Oh yeah, just over a week ago it was my birthday and three of us had a nice combined birthday party. While I enjoyed the party, the birthday seemed to just remind me that I am getting older :(. I perfunctorily thanked everybody who sent me a message for my birthday. Does anybody know why it is called a Happy Birthday ? While I have every reason to be happy with the way things are going in my life, why just be happy on that day ?

One of the nice parts about the Fall term in the second year has been the opportunity I have had to go out and see beautiful New England. For my birthday, a few friends and I went to Woodstock, VT, a picturesque town and had lunch. Earlier that day, we went to Simon and Pearce in Quechee to watch the artisans blow glass and make fine earthenware. The fall colors had faded but the countryside still looks beautiful.

Come Friday and I am off on a 7 week long break. 7 weeks in India. 4 cities (atleast). Back to work with a smart, warm and friendly bunch of people. Of course, the joys of Mumbai without the oppressing heat of summer!!

If you are in Mumbai, Bangalore or Ahmedabad and are interested in knowing more about Tuck, send me an email. Based upon how busy my schedule becomes, I am planning to meet up with a few interested people when I am in these cities. If you are not in these cities but are in India and would like to meet some Tuckies, let me know and I can pass on your info to my friends who will be visiting their families in other cities.

Long overdue update!!

2005-10-14T17:12:00.000-05:00

This update has been due for a really long time - and has probably been the longest gap I have taken from blogging. Let me just say I have been really busy! While that is no excuse for not blogging, it helps me feel alright about not updating the blog. There are so many things to write about.

Private equity internship in India - Over the summer, after my internship in New York, I worked at a private equity firm in Mumbai for 4 weeks. The experience of working in a small firm is hugely different from that in a large firm. While the firm had almost $200 million under management, there were less than 10 people in all. The organization was super flat and I was able to sit in on the investment committee meetings every week. The Indian PE industry is exploding with some of the big American firms setting up shop (and many more waiting in the wings). I met up with some other students from US B schools either interning in India or looking for opportunities to work in the Indian financial services industry. Real estate/Private equity in India is beginning to look like the Silicon Valley in 1999. I will be back in Mumbai for a few weeks in December and am already looking forward to the experience.

Rest of India trip - The trip to India was a blast. Spent most of my time in Mumbai. Was able to squeeze in two weekend trips to Bangalore/Mangalore as well as a work related trip to Lucknow. I just wasn't able to get enough time in Bangalore. I long for those times when I could spend a carefree Sunday evening walking around Malleshwaram. Those times may never return!

4 weeks of Tuck - I returned to Tuck just over 4 weeks ago. I cannot believe it has been 4 weeks into my second year. A couple of weeks ago a T'05 told me that the second year will be the golden period of my life for a few years to come. I have accepted a job from my summer employer. I love the courses I am doing. I have a fantastic set of people as my classmates. The only problem is that I don't seem to have any way to get the clock to slow down.

This term I am doing a ton of non academic stuff. I am a student coordinator for the Alan Smith Visiting Executive Program. I am a teaching assistant for 2 courses - so I hold tutorial sessions after class hours. I am also a Study Group Leadership Fellow under the Leadership Development Program. I am learning golf, will be playing hockey and have done a couple of hikes already! The outdoors are beautiful at this time of the year.

My courses this term are just great. Real Estate has been an eye opener. The professor is just great and in almost every class we have the protagonist of the case speak in class. I am surprised by the strength of Tuck in this area. The real estate club has over 90 members. Considering that the total number of students across first and second year is less than 500, I take it as another sign that we are in a real estate bubble.

The Private Equity class has again beaten my expectations. The sheer quality & relevance of speakers is impressive. We have had entrepreneurs from successful companies, failed companies, general partners of VC's and PE firms as also limited partners all talking to the class. This is a class I strongly recommend to anybody with even a slight interest in the industry.

The high point of my 4 weeks at Tuck is a trip we did in September to Omaha, Nebraska to visit Warren Buffett. 50 Tuckies went down to Omaha to meet Warren Buffett. He spent almost 2 hours taking questions. Then he took us to Gorat's - his favorite steakhouse for lunch. People interested in getting his soundbytes as he got his bite took turns sitting on his table. Then we took pictures (5 at a time) with Mr. Buffett. After we had taken pictures, he just said 'I will see you later', waved his hand and drove off in his car (the license plate reads THRIFTY). His simplicity and perspicacity left everybody inspired.

Tomorrow is the Greener Ventures venture conference. I am participating in a sub-event where three teams spend the day drawing up a business plan to execute an assigned idea. The kicker is we are assigned a coach - the coach for our team built and sold a company worth hundreds of millions of dollars and runs his own venture fund. I am sure I will learn a lot by way of close interaction with him as we draw up the business plan.

India bound!

2005-08-23T09:04:00.000-05:00

During the last few weeks, I wrapped up my summer internship in New York, moved out of my summer apartment and hauled myself to India. Once in India, without any thought about jet lag, I plunged into a super intense schedule.

Landed in Bangalore at 4:30 am on Sunday morning. Left for Tirupati at 9 am. Trekked up the hill to visit Hinduism's most visited shrine, returned to Bangalore, visited family + friends and then flew down to Mumbai. I was in Mumbai at 11 pm on Monday evening.

Mumbai has been very interesting. I am doing an internship with a private equity firm here. Again, the internship is thanks to Tuck. After work is also a lot of fun - checking out the variety of dining options Mumbai has to offer.

Mid September - I am back in good ole Hanover!

India bound...

2005-08-23T08:49:00.000-05:00

Lots of random stuff...

2005-07-29T19:23:00.000-05:00

It has been a really long time since my last update. I have been meaning to blog for the last few weekends, but never got around to it. Since this is going to be a long post, I will go in partial reverse chronological order.

My summer is progressing well. Less than 2 weeks left for my internship in New York to end. The plan is to return to leave for India on Friday, 12th August. Since we are scheduled to be at work only for half a day on Friday, I can take care of packing and moving.

Last weekend, on Sunday I went with a bunch of friends to a pizza joint Grimaldi's. This is in Brooklyn, under the bridge and many say it is New York's best pizza. The pizza was pretty good. After lunch we went to Brooklyn Ice Cream factory, a ice cream shop located on the waterfront. The place has great views of Manhattan as also good ice cream. The previous day, but for a run by the river side, I lazed around for most part. At night, I went to a bachelor party pre-party of a fellow Tuckie. I then went to a Tuck party and caught up with many classmates.

The last week for most part was pretty tame. Nothing noteworthy except for lots of socializing thanks to parties organized at work. The weekend before that was awesome. On Saturday I went for a swim with friends. Completely exhausted, we made our way to Baluchi's, an Indian restaurant chain. After stuffing myself with good food, I slept through the rest of the day.

The next day, we drove down to the Storm King museum. This is an outdoor sculpture museum near WestPoint in New York. After a brunch in a town near by, we spent most of the day walking around the rolling hills with sculptures made of industrial steel.

The weekend before was really fun too. On Saturday we had a cricket event organized by the alumni association of my college. I was amazed by the number of enthusiastic alumni who are there just in the tri state region. This was an event co-hosted with TiE. Almost 200 people (across age groups) came together for a day of cricket. I played a few games, caught with a lot of friends and had a wonderful time. Later that evening, I went over to the Bridgewater temple. My first visit to a temple in the US. The temple was beautiful. I continue to be impressed at how successfully the diaspora has replicated integral parts of the culture and life in India.

3 weeks in New York City....

2005-06-26T08:19:00.000-05:00

It was 3 weeks ago I drove down to New York. When I first thought of the move, I was slightly concerned. Hanover, NH and New York, NY are as different as they can get. Add to it the fact that the last 9 months I was living life as a student and was among a friendly set of people. I came from an environment where everybody knew each other. When you went to the coffee shop or to pick up food, you invariably met people you knew. At New York I am a professional. The city is a gazillion times bigger than Hanover and very impersonal. The chance of running into a celebrity is more than the chance of running into somebody you know. Of course, everybody (moi included) is in a tearing rush! So, I guess the concern was firmly grounded in reason.

Looking back, the last 3 weeks have been a lot of fun. The pace of life in the city is fascinating. Everybody is trying their best to wring value out of each minute of the day. I could just be a fly on the wall and watch life go by.

My internship is shaping up nicely. I work with a set of super smart and super nice people. (On a side note, I haven't met many people who are super smart and are jerks). I have been given a level of responsibility that is higher than what anybody would have expected going into the internship. The work hours are reasonable. I leave home at 0715. After a 20 minute commute, I am at my desk by 0735. By 1730, on most days I am done with work. So, at 1800 I am back home. I try and work out atleast 4 days a week. Since I live in the apartments sublet by New York University, I have access to a couple of NYU gyms. I get to work out for an hour on most days. Since I do a job where I don't have any physical activity, it is vital that I get some exercise. On most days, I return from the gym and cook myself some food. For the first week, I didn't cook much and usually went out to eat. Then I took a hard look at what I was eating and realized my diet was absolutely unhealthy.

I love Indian food. A trip to Jackson Heights, Queens and I got all the groceries I needed to start cooking. The stores there stock just about everything. I wonder whether my earlier employer has a manager doing Fair & Lovely sales for the East Coast. I was able to get Bedekar's mixed pickle, packets of Maggi and lots of different masalas. On some evenings I make puliyogare (MTR of course). On the side I have uddina happala. Variety is the spice of life. Occasionally I make myself Maggi noodles (Masala tastemaker, in case you were dying to know). For those of you who don't know Maggi - it is a variety of instant noodles from India. The supermarket next door has these convenient pack of stir fry veggies. To make for a balanced meal, I cut these up, microwave them and toss it in with the noodles. Since I love eggs, I also break an egg into the whole mixture. Voila, you have a tasty and healthy meal. On some other days, dinner is naan and a sabzi. Best way to make naan is to break it in half and put it into a toaster. The heating elements of a toaster seem to mimic a tandoor. If you haven't had authentic tandoori naan recently, it is hard to tell the difference. For sabzi, I go with ready to eat stuff - MTR or Tasty Bite or Ashoka. Not as tasty as stuff mom makes, but does the job.

A couple of days into my internship, I realized that I didn't have a sufficient number and variety of shirts. Went shopping to Thomas Pink with a friend and almost died of sticker shock. Thats when I hit upon the idea of ordering shirts from India. The Thomas Pink of India is Charagh Din. And they have a wonderful online store. Yohan Daswani who runs the online store is extremely customer friendly. I ordered 7 shirts and they reached me in 5 days time! The quality of the fabric and the stitching blows people away. The only other brand of Indian shirts that comes close is Zodiac. Some of their designs are more contemporary and European. Sadly, they do not have an online outlet.

Today promises to be a nice and lazy Sunday. Much like yesterday. I will probably go for a swim later in the day. But most of the day, I plan to just laze around.

Summer Internship!

2005-06-10T05:31:00.000-05:00

The last week of school saw me running around like a headless chicken, scampering to get so many different things done.

On Thursday morning, a friend took me along to Concorde (a full 1 hour away!) for my driving test. I passed the written exam but failed the road test. Before the test I had practiced for a whole hour (thanks to another friend). I will go back in September and retake the road test.

Last week also saw me clear out of my dorms. I needed to get a ton of packing and moving done. I am amazed by the quantity of crap I had accumulated in under a year. I grossly underestimated the time I needed for packing. Again, friends stepped in and helped out tremendously to make sure I don't leave anything behind. I cannot thank each of them sufficiently for pitching in.

Finally, Saturday saw me take my CFA Level II exam. Early and bright (and woefully underprepared), a friend drove me to Montpelier for the exam. It was a long drive - but the constant coversation kept my mind off the exam. A big thanks to her for giving me a ride! The exam went off better than I expected. There is an outside chance that I may pass the exam :)

Sunday was the day I was moving to New York. I decided not to take a flight but instead drive down. I don't have a driving license, so my apartmentmate drove down with me. We got a Volvo XC (a huge, safe SUV) and loaded it up with all our stuff. Since we would be in NYC for a while, we took with us all those small things that make an apartment liveable. (Lamps, kitchen utensils etc.). En route, we stopped at a mall for more shopping. I must mention that the Hertz NeverLost GPS software rocks. We had no idea where to find a shopping mall and the software mapped out a route for us.

By Sunday night, I was all tired but had settled into my apartment. I am living in the West Village. It is a nice part of Downtown Manhattan. From my bedroom window I can see the Empire State Building. My block has atleast 20 restaurants - including Ethiopian, Mexican, Italian and Lebanese. Falafel, Hummus and Babaghanoosh have been my staple for the last few days :-D.

Monday, I started off on my internship. Though I would love to give details of the program, I have chosen not to. This will prevent any issues in terms of confidentiality. So, for the next 10 weeks, my blog will have lots of details of my life but sparse details of my work. I will

A couple of days ago, I went for a run by the riverside (Battery Park City). Running by the river side feels really good. I must do it more often. Last night, I had dinner with a friend at Baluchi's. Baluchi's is a chain of nice Indian restaurants in NYC. We hadn't seen each other for almost 5 years. We actually got in touch a few months ago when he was in NYC on work. I have him and destiny to thank for a major life event I am looking forward to!!

Weekend plans - meeting more friends and some family.

A little bit of everything...

2005-05-29T21:18:00.000-05:00

I have my CFA Level II exam less than a week from now. There are 18 study sessions. The CFA Institute recommends candidates allocate atleast 1 week per study session and 4 weeks at the end for review. A total of 22 weeks. As an aside, I got my study material a week ago!! So, here I am - on a Sunday night. Studying for my exam!

Last couple of weeks have been very busy. Had end of term report submissions and exams. Wrote a paper and gave a presentation on "Characteristics of firms in bankruptcy". Wrote a term paper on "Kazakhstan and Indian pharma". Wrote my Operations exam. The Managerial Accounting exam is due on Tuesday.

Signed a lease for a place to live next year. Am taking over a lease of a car from a graduating Tuckie. Started packing my room. Can't believe it is just a week for the term to end and my summer internship to begin.

Last week one of the second years who interned at the same firm hosted a wine and cheese evening. He has a house on a lake shore. The view was absolutely breathtaking. We had a cheeseboard with a nice selection of cheeses - Saint Agur, Pave Daphinois, Brie, Emmental, Saint Albray.

Mid last week we had a second year panel on internships in Sales & Trading. So, the bunch of us who will be doing this for the summer hung on to every word they said. The second years have been extremely supportive of us throughout the internship search process. The best way for us to thank them is by continuing this tradition.

Oh yeah, sometime during the last two weeks I chose my courses for the Fall term. It is a good mixture of finance courses, a course on leadership and a course on real estate. The common factor among my courses seems to be the fact that all the professors are super stars in their fields. So, I am taking Investments taught by Ken French (of the Fama French 3 factor model fame), Real Estate taught by John Vogel (he is also a part of Donald Trump's eponymous university), Private Equity by Colin Blaydon and Leadership Out of the Box by Ella Bell.

I have always told people that one of the advantages of the size of Tuck is the unmatched access to resources (be it faculty, recruiters, alumni etc.) There is no course that went on lottery. Interview slots with top tier investment banks went for open signup. Last week, there was an alumni reunion. An alumnus who handles $300 million agreed to speak to students about his investing style etc. I was expecting a seminar style setting. Instead we were 3 students and the alum - so we had an interaction that was more of a 2 way discussion. One of the 3 students signed up for a summer job with him after the interaction.

There has however been one exception to this unmatched access pattern. The September trip to meet Warren Buffett. The size of the group is limited to 49 people. And anybody in their senses would not give up a chance to meet Warren Buffett. So, for those who are NOT in the investment club, spots for the trip had to be allotted through a lottery. Fortunately, as a member of the investment club, I got a slot and I am looking forward to the trip. While I am on the topic, I must mention that the Investment Club @ Tuck is doing a great job. Last year we had a set of passionate club leaders. By all accounts, the new leadership promises to beat the high standards the previous team set.

During the week, I need to pack up all the stuff in my room and move it to storage. Make presentations as part of the Tuck Leadership Forum project and move to NYC to start my internship. Oh yeah, my CFA exam is on Saturday. Wish me luck!!

Priorities....

2005-05-12T13:00:00.000-05:00

The toughest part about business school is drawing a balance between activities that are pure fun (like sports, parties), activities that are fun and work (meeting with study group) and activities that are pure work (writing that term paper on "Acquiring Firms out of Chapter 11: Are Auctions More Efficient?")

While we had a talk on time management first day of business school, I have drawn up my own system of prioritizing. Anything that is pure work - I question whether it is absolutely necessary. Then I spend time looking for the most efficient way to accomplish the task at hand. Once this is done, I put off the task till the deadline. This method prevents work from expanding to fill up the time on hand!

As far as fun and work activities go, it is a critical part of school and I try to keep it to under 3 hours per day. Since the people around me are pleasant and fun to be with, the 3 hour limit is often violated, but I don't mind it.

Fun - this is the most difficult part because of the plethora of choices. Like last week, one could take a fly fishing lesson, play squash, go running, hit some balls on the golf course or just watch a movie. All these were options for Friday evening. Unfortunately, I had to go to Boston for a client meeting. But, the concert I attended later that evening (Native American music and Hawaiian music) more than compensated for it. This was my first concert at The Hop. I have now decided to keep an eye on the schedule and attend more such events. This evening, there is a company sponsored BBQ/networking in the courtyard while there are free cocktails in the main building. At the exact same time, the squash club has its weekly round robin. Tomorrow evening, we have the Argentinian BBQ. During the day, there is a work-life symposium. Afternoon, I am going climbing at Quechee with the Tuck Climbing Society. Finally, Saturday, during the day there is a fund raiser - Run for the kids. And, at night, there is Beach Ball - the biggest party of the year!! So, business school is not at all about working hard and burying your nose in books!

Last week, we had Jack Welch come down to talk about Leadership. The Q&A session was very interesting. I bought a few copies of his book, Winning and got it autographed during the signing session later. Given his reputation as Neutron Jack, CEO of the Millenium etc., I was surprised by his dimunitive stature. May be, I had read too many articles saying tall people are more likely to be leaders.

It is beautiful outside. A friend just returned after playing soccer. No such luck for me. Need to build a model for a simulation game that starts in 2 hours!!

Central Asia and Advanced Corporate Finance...

2005-04-26T21:17:00.000-05:00

After reading my blog, some people have come to wonder whether I do any studying at all at Tuck. So, I thought I will reflect about some of my courses.

Today was the first class of Doing Business in South East and Central Asia. I was expecting to be taught by professors who are knowledgeable about the geography. But what I am getting has blown all my expectations. One of the professors, a T'61, spent 6 years (till 2001) living in Central Asia and headed the biggest investment fund in the region. He apparently knows personally the presidents of 4 of the 5 countries (and has briefly met the president of the 5th country). The introduction he gave to the countries were much richer since he was speaking from personal experience. Some day, I want to travel to Central Asia and just see what is happening on the ground. The geography is made out to be a treasure trove of natural resources.

Advanced Corporate Finance is another fascinating course. Taught seminar style (we are 14 students in the class!), the course involves surveys of academic literature in different corporate finance topics - ranging from underpricing of IPO's, pecking order theory and dividend policy. The professor has quite a unique style. "There seems to be a growing body of evidence that companies try to match earnings to analyst expectations. Does this mean analysts know the industry better than the companies themselves? If this is true, if a market pulls down a stock price after an M&A announcement, should management drop the transaction?" This is just one of the puzzles we grapple with in class. Now, that is so much more fun than learning how to price a new product or implement a new employee reward system.

148

2005-04-24T20:41:00.000-05:00

Pounds is what the scale said I weigh. And that is a whole 4 pounds more than what it said in early March. When I look closely at myself in the mirror, I can easily put a finger on where all that weight is going!! Now I realize it wasn't a great idea to stop working out.

So, the new fitness regimen will consist of daily workout sessions - but I won't be doing any cardio exercise. I will rely on my thrice a week squash sessions to compensate for that.

On the study front, life continues as ever. I am planning to take on an additional mini course about Doing Business in South East & Central Asia. The set of speakers lined up for the course is interesting. Topics covered include dealing with corruption. I just hope I am not biting off more than I can chew.

Started studying for the CFA Level II exam. The exam is on June 4th and I am probably the last candidate to start studying. My aim is to get done with the studying by mid May and devote time after that for taking mock tests. If I actually pass the exam, I will be extremely surprised.

Between now and early June, I want to do at least a two hikes in the beautiful countryside. The Appalachian Trail actually runs through Hanover and I have done just one hike so far. I also want to go kayaking on the Connecticut river at least once before we break for the summer.

Here I am on a Sunday evening working on a proposal to run TuckStuff for next year. TuckStuff is a student run, school owned business. Our team has 5 students and 2 partners. We have a bunch of ideas to drive sales and increase profitability. We are competing with 3 other teams for the rights to run the business. Watch this space for the results!

Spring!

2005-04-13T15:55:00.000-05:00

“Mirror, mirror on the wall, which term’s sickest term of them all?” asked the trembling Tuckie. “Why SPRING of course” replied the magical mirror with a rogueish wink. As spring term gets underway, we urge you all to remember the words immortalized by Edward Tuck as he ceremoniously trowelled the final brick of Tuck Hall into position:

"Too much work
And not enough play,
Makes a Tuckie into
A Harvard MBA"
Hanover, c1900

Thus started the mail from our social chairs when spring term started. And spring term so far has been wickedly fun. I am taking three courses (Advanced Corporate Finance, Managerial Accounting and Operations). Fortunately, I was able to get an exemption from a core course Strategic Analysis of Technology. Another course on technology and my geek number would hit 100 :). The courses are quite varied in their content, teaching style and workload. Advanced Corporate Finance requires us to read research literature (the kind published in Journal of Finance) about topics ranging from IPO underpricing to capital structure issues. While I like the course, I am pretty certain I won't be pursuing a Ph.D in a hurry! Managerial Accounting and Operations are more conventional - Managerial Accounting is taught in a problem solving method and Operations is case based. We are also doing some work for a technology start up for our leadership forum project.

So much for the boring stuff!

The weather outside is beautiful. I am playing squash on week day afternoons. The bunch of classmates I am playing with has expanded and there is more heterogeneity in skill levels. More often than not, you will find me running around the court like a headless chicken while my opponent is smugly hugging the T. It had been a while since I worked out - so have begun exercising again.

The admitted students weekend begins tomorrow. All of us are gearing up to welcome members of the incoming class and give them glimpses of our life here. We are having an Indian table at the food festival and making food for 50 people. I am also helping host a dinner at a friend's house on Friday and going out with a bunch of admitted students on Saturday. Sunday, we try to get our wicked lives back into shape and get ready for the week ahead!

When I look at my calendar, I am surprised at how fast time seems to slip away. Just a week ago, my calendar for this week had tons of white space. And now, if somebody asks me can we meet up sometime, my first reaction is "Can this wait till next week?" As I peer into my summer, I realize I am already making plans for the weekends in June & July!

Oh yeah, the talk of summer reminds me that I need to find a second internship. My first internship (10 weeks, Sales & Trading on Wall Street) finishes mid August. School starts mid September. I want/need to be India in the interim. I don't know which city I need be in. This is one of those happy things when you don't mind not having certainty. I am going about getting leads on possible internships. I kickstarted the hunt after a conversation with a Tuckie (who graduated more than 10 years ago). My areas of interest for the internship encompass Real Estate/Hedge Funds/Venture Capital/Strategy for technology companies. If you come by any such opportunity - pls drop me a note!

In just 6 weeks, the term will be over. The wheels of time are really moving fast. But, till spring turns into summer, I plan to have a good time. And to quote our social chairs again, let me go back to "getting happier than a tree frog having its toes licked."

Back to Hanover!!

2005-04-03T10:52:00.000-05:00

After a whirlwind trip to India, I am now back to good ole Hanover. What a difference 2 weeks of time makes. The winter is gone, and spring is here. The day before I left for India, we got 12 inches of snow, and now there is not an inch on the ground. The temperature is a warm 50 F and everybody is energised by the change of seasons.

The trip to India was extremely satisfying. I met with tons of friends and got together with family. I was so busy that I couldn't meet many people I had planned to meet and couldn't even speak to some people I wanted to speak to. My friends were all extremely accomodative and I was meeting people for breakfast, lunch and dinner!! There were times when I got in the morning knowing fully well what I was doing at each time of the day. And I was on VACATION!!

Now that I am back in Hanover, and the jet lag is behind me, I can only reflect on the wonderful time I had there and savor them till I return.

Back at Tuck, life has quickly become hectic. Coursework is in full flow and the partying goes on. Last night we had the Latin Party. Brazilian Caipirinhas, Cuban Mojitos, Mexican Tequila and Puerto Rican Rum. Oh yeah, how can I forget the ice luge! Wicked stuff!!

Yesterday I played squash after a month long break. I hope to start on tennis lessons at Dartmouth next week. Right from the time I watched Martina Navratilova and Hana Mandlikova play the Wimbledon finals, I have wanted to play tennis. This term is dedicated to becoming fit. When in India, friends and family had different opinions to offer on how I looked. Some people said I looked 'athletic', some said I had put on weight in the right places and some said I had become 'fat'. Next time around, I want some consensus!

Bangalore...

2005-03-23T21:25:00.000-05:00

Apologies upfront for not updating this blog as frequently as I should be. Life has been HECTIC. Accordingly, this post is going to be short.

The wedding in Delhi was fabulous. Fantastic location and elaborate arrangements I had never seen before. The spread was delectable and I wasn't even able to sample everything on offer. I wore a full turban ( a personal first!). Someday I am going to learn how to tie one myself.

The next day I trekked down to Gurgaon and walked through a few malls. The speed at which urban India is embracing malls surprises me. Night I flew into good ole Bangalore. There is no place like home!

The last few days in Bangalore have been super hectic. Have been trying hard to catch up with all my friends. It is hard. Did a quick trip to Tirupati. Was rewarded with a nice darshan. Did a ton of shopping for food stuff I don't get back in Hanover. Also been shopping for clothes. Have been dining at a different place every evening. To date, I am pleased with the way I have managed my schedule. Another 4 days and I can relax for the period of the journey. Of course, I am wistful that the trip is already ending. Will I be listening to 'Leaving on a jet plane' again in a loop on Sunday? I hope I don't have the time to do that, though the sentiment will definitely be there.

The intensity of the last week is unparalled. Tiring though it has been, I am very happy that I made this trip back. The day I step foot in Hanover, I will begin preparations for my next trip back!!

Finally, if I haven't managed to speak to you yet, please pardon my sloppiness and send me a mail/give me a call. My digits remain the same and end with 70364. Au revoir.

New Delhi....

2005-03-16T08:34:00.000-05:00

I came in to Delhi late on Monday night. The journey was pretty good. A friend drove me to the Boston airport. Since it has snowed the previous day, I made sure we left sufficiently in advance and subsequently had a lot of free time at the airport. Was able to use the time to catch up with some friends.

The flight itself was rather uneventful. Flew Air France and had a connection at CDG. I reached Delhi on time and was in bed a little past midnight. I wasn't mentally prepared for the jet lag. I woke up very hungry at 5:30!! I then realized that it was dinner time for my poor stomach :( . A bar of Snickers did the trick and I got a couple of hours of sleep.

It feels great to be back. The familiar sights, sounds and smells. I heard more people using their horns during my 1 hour ride from airport to guest house that I had heard during the last 6 months. Somebody needs to educate people in the US that it is not impolite to use the horn. :)

On Tuesday I hung out briefly at the bridegroom's house. Met his family. Over the last 6 months I had heard so much about each of them, it was nice to put a face to each person. Beagle - the dog was the only family member I hadn't heard about.

After some shopping at Delhi Haat, I went across to meet some friends from undergrad at Gurgaon. It has been a year since I visited Delhi last. The development in Gurgaon has to been seen to be believed. The city is teeming with swanky malls. The brands on sale could easily make you believe you are actually in a city in the western hemisphere. I don't know whether the shops are actually making money, but the mall developers are surely laughing all the way to the bank. I plan to return to the malls to spend some time looking around.

Catching up with friends felt great. I had not met one of them for over five years and had not seen the other two for over 2 years. We talked and talked and talked - and before we knew it, it had been 5 hours!! One of my friend's had brought his wife along. She must be a really patient person to listen to so much of talk about people she doesn't know!

The trip has been so busy that I have decided not to proof read/spell check my blog posts!

End of Winter Term!!

2005-03-13T08:28:00.000-05:00

It has been a rough 2 weeks, but I am glad I am done with Winter term 2005. The last couple of weeks were intense, with project presentations, report submissions and final exams.

My study group decided to split up and tackle the strategy and marketing projects in mini groups of 3 each. I chose to work on the marketing project. Diapers isn't the most exciting product category for a marketing project, but I must say I learnt a lot during the course of the project. It has been a while (~25 years) since I have been out of a diaper, so this wasn't a product I could relate to. And nobody in my study group has kids around. We had to develop an understanding of the category from the scratch. We hit the store aisles, spoke to mothers of toddlers and did a boatload of research to get some insights on how we were going to sell diapers better. The final presentation went off well and we got a positive response from the folks whose daily job it is to market these solutions :-D

In 30 hours, I took 3 exams. Debt Markets (4 hours), Strategy (4 hours) and Corporate Finance (3 hours). Of these 3, 2 were take home exams and I chose (rather foolishly) to put off taking the exams till the last moment. Only after the exams were done with did I realize the intensity of pressure I was taking on myself.

Winter term has been good. We got some good snow but it hasn't been very cold. I had an awesome study group. We probably spent 3 hours per meeting (meeting 4 days a week) but all of us thoroughly enjoyed working together. Over the term as a study group we have accomplished tasks like choosing a Mark Jacobs bag, designing a perfect engagement ring, compared car washes between LA and NH :-D. Of course, none of this is even tangentially related to course work. But again, who said study groups exist only to complete homework and prepare for class??

Now with the exams done with, I am looking forward to Spring Break. This morning I went around Hanover with a couple of friends I used to work with pre-Tuck. We took loads of pictures of the town even as it was snowing. Then we went sledding. It is fun. I wonder why I didn't do that before. Next year, I am going to enjoy the winter much more. Hockey, skiing, sledding - EVERYTHING.

Next stop - New Delhi for a friend's wedding!

Choosing a business school

2005-02-27T07:05:00.000-05:00

Another week is gone. We finished our economics final exam last week. So, that is one course less. I am overloading 1 course. As a result, I will have 4 final exams by March 11th. Given that I have been slacking off in a big way this term, I need to work hard now.

This is also the time of the year when applicants are deciding on their business schools. I have spoken to a few people who are in the process of making their choices and thought it prudent to share some of my thoughts on the blog.

The objective of business school is three fold - to get a job you want, build a good network and learn some stuff (in that order).

A lot of recruiting is very region specific. If you are looking for a high tech VC job in San Francisco, or a media & entertainment job in Southern California, your needs may be best served by attending a school in California. On the contrary, it would be stupid to attend California schools when you know you want to work for an NYC hedge fund. I am not saying it is impossible to land these jobs, but it requires substantial effort. On the contrary, for firms with structured recruiting process (read I banks, consulting firms), it is not hard to study in one part of the US and choose to work in the opposite corner).

Fellow classmates make a huge difference to the recruiting experience. I have helped my friends in other schools through my contacts and realize different schools are home to people with vastly different personalities. Just the other day I was speaking to a friend about his recruiting progress. While he has awesome job offers, he mentioned that the competition was bordering on cutthroat and thus made recruiting hard for people.

Internship recruiting stories also tell you a lot about the cultures at different schools. A friend of mine was among a dozen other applicants in a final round interview at a company's headquarters. As is customary, people went around the circle introducing themselves. Suddenly, two people discovered that they were from the same school!! They had seen each other, but hadn't even recognized each other. In contrast, when my classmates go to a second round interview, they typically travel together, help each other prepare and the teamwork spirit seems to be present even in an individual exercise such as recruiting.

Many applicants use placement statistics bandied by schools to decide where they want to go. Caveat emptor. It is important to read the fine print. 30 people getting jobs in lobster fishing is very different from 30 lobster fishing offers! The latter might mean there are actually just 15 people with lobster fishing offers but 3 lobster companies have made the offers to 10 students each. Applicants also need to look at the placement statistics in light of the demand for the job. Were there 45 people who wanted to do lobster fishing and 30 got jobs? Or was it that everybody who wanted to be a lobster fisherman got a job?

Finally, as far as the learning experience goes, learning takes place both within and outside the classroom. You learn not only from professors but also from classmates and visiting executives/speakers. All schools talk about their star faculty members. It is necessary to do the homework and find out how many of them actually teach MBA students, and how many of their classes you can take! Having a star faculty member on board makes a difference to the B school experience if you are either able to take a class taught by him/her or do a guided study/project with him/her.

There are numerous other criteria that applicants use to choose business schools. And rightly so. One cannot have a formulaic answer and everybody needs to recognize that. Good luck!

Mindblowing applications...

2005-02-21T14:27:00.000-05:00

Every few years, there are consumer software applications that just amaze you by their capabilities. Skype and BitTorrent are two such applications. I have been using both for a while and am amazed by their potential to change complete industries.

Just when people thought VoIP phones couldn't be improved much, Skype has telecom players in cold sweat. I use Skype to speak to my family in India almost every day for almost half an hour. And so do many of my friends. When I add up the numbers, I realize it has a significant impact on my pocketbook. (Especially when the cheapest long distance provider costs 13 cents a minute). In fact, when I want to speak to people within school, I prefer using Skype than using the phone (though the phone is also free). Skype is so much more convenient. Now, if Skype starts charging a small monthly tariff for the software, I am sure there are millions like me who will be happy to pay for it. The software is so well built, I can transfer a Gig of data through the send file feature. On Yahoo messenger, I think twice before sending a 1 Mb file!

BitTorrent is another application I expect to shake up industries. If Kazaa made the MPAA and RIAA cringe, BitTorrent is worse. While I do not advocate downloading pirated files, I cannot help but admire the elegance of the software. It took a really long time to go from ripped MP3's to legal music downloads. I hope the movie industry doesn't take as long to harness the potential of the internet to make watching movies easier for everybody. A few weeks ago, Wired had a nice article on how music download has changed the choice available to consumers. We don't need to be forced into the Top 40 world and can access whatever music we like. Now, if the same phenomenon repeats in movies, life would be so much better.

I will be happy to hear any comments about your experiences with Skype/BitTorrent. I have removed the comments feature from the blog since it was on its way to becoming a nuisance.

So, the best way to let me know your thoughts is to mail me at tagad dot tale at gmail dot com. Like they say in marketing - nothing like connecting directly to your consumers :)

Valentine Day!

2005-02-15T07:19:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was Valentine's Day.

While I didn't have a date for the evening, I had a really wonderful evening :). I had dinner with a Visiting Executive from a large commodity company. Over the last few months I have had tons of visiting executive lunches/dinners - with people ranging from hedge fund managers and telecom executives to thought leaders in consulting and high tech pioneers. But, yesterday's dinner was among the most interesting of all these.

The discussion was free ranging and covered a range of subjects. Some of them were the concept of a premium conglomerate/discount conglomerate, genetically modified foods, orange juice industry in Brazil, need for traceability in the food chain, why India is a wonderful investment destination. We also spoke about specific pathogen free livestock, why wild salmon is better than farmed salmon and debated whether palm oil would replace soybean oil as the oil of the future.

Some of the people at the table were second years I hadn't interacted with. One complaint I have about the last few months is that I have not been able to know a large part of the second year class. I probably have interacted with 30-40% of them. But there are so many fascinating people I don't know. May be it is because I am not into drinking so much. Among business schools, Tuck probably ranks on the absolute top if per capita alcohol consumption is the metric. Like a friend was commenting the other day, the student population is a bunch of 30 year olds behaving like 18 year olds without any thought about the consequences. I am not complaining about this and am guilty of being part of the revelry that is Tuck! There is a whole lifetime ahead of us where we need to behave our age.

Super bowl, Lunar New year....

2005-02-12T23:36:00.000-05:00

There hasn't been much happening over the last couple of weeks. It has been the routine of classes, study group, going out to local hang-outs on weekdays and party on weekends.

The super bowl last weekend was the first super bowl I ever watched. I enjoyed the game and the commercials. Since it was the first time I actually sat down to watch a football game, a friend had to explain to me the rules of the game. Now I know what a blitz is!! The commercials were lacklustre compared to last year (I saw last year's commercials online). Fortunately, the marketing professor did not cold call us and ask us about the commercials!!

Last night we had the Lunar New Year party. Good Chinese food, a lion dance, some fortune telling and 'games'. I even got my name written in Chinese and Japanese. If I decide to go to Japan on an exchange program, I now know how my name is written :)

The fortune telling session was hilarious. The fortune teller (a classmate who lives on the same floor as me) stared intensely at people's palms and said profound stuff. She told one guy 'You are a player!'. She told me that I would get married in my mid 30's and will go through a string of heartbreaking relationships before I finally get married! Another guy was told that he will have lots of money and won't need to work hard for it :)

Today in study group, we had some left over fortune cookies from last night's party. We were wondering whether we will get more credit for our case analysis if we incorporate the lucky numbers on the fortune cookie paper slip. Any thoughts ?

The more I read about behavioral finance, the more fascinated I am by the subject. Next year, I will probably do some faculty directed study in the area.

In just over a month's time, I will be done with the term and will be off to India!! I am eagerly looking forward to the trip. I just realized it has been the longest time I have been away from home :). The sights, the smells, the food, the people. I miss everything so much!!

Summer Internship!!!

2005-01-31T21:14:00.000-05:00

It took less than a week to get my summer internship. And, I am delighted I got an internship in my top choice firm.

When I applied to business school, I thought I wanted to work in the investment management industry. Once I came to Tuck, I spoke to people in the industry and realized I liked work that was more fast paced and energetic. While people within investment management were brilliant and loved their work (the attrition rate on the buy side is really really low!), my gut told me it probably wasn't the right choice for me.

After a workshop on Sales & Trading at Tuck in early October, I spent some time talking to traders and decided I wanted to do Trading. Since I was a career changer (prior background - IT management in India), I was prepared for a long and arduous internship hunt to get my trading job.

However, it was not to be. During the Finance club trip to Wall Street firms, I identified some firms I liked. A friend who graduated from my undergrad school spoke to me about the nuances of trading and the skill sets needed on the trading floor. I then had a shortlist of 3 firms where I would like to work and one other firm where I may fit in. As I spoke to people in each firm, I soon realized that I had one top choice and two close second choices. So, I focussed disproportionate energies on my top choice firm.

The Tuck & Dartmouth networks were of tremendous help as I went about researching the firms. Alumni went out of their way to connect me with people. Really senior people (folks with upwards of 20 years on Wall Street) gave me tons of time and spoke to me about their experience at the firm. Many people had worked at different shops on the Street. So, I got a perspective based on their experiences. Going into my interviews I had spoken to almost 15 people within the firm across work levels. Folks did mock interviews with me, gave me feedback and prepped me so that I did a good job in the real interviews.

The coaching given by second years for interview preparation was phenomenal. They were always at hand to answer questions about the firms, to conduct mock interviews, give their feedback on stock pitches and to boost our confidence when necessary. Next year, I will be happy if I can do as good a job as they did.

All the preparation seems to have helped in the interviews. The first round and final round interviews went off very well and a couple of hours after my final round interviews I had my offer. Since it was my top choice firm, I had no hesitation in accepting the offer though on-campus recruiting wasn't completed yet and many firms were yet to release their second round lists. In summary, it was a very nice ending to my summer internship search.

Oh yeah, mid way through last week I decided I didn't want to interview with the consulting firm (though it was again a top firm and I am sure I would have loved working there). I however interviewed with a couple of buy side shops.

My tickets to India are also in place. A friend is getting married in Delhi in mid March. A horde of Tuckies are attending the marriage. I also get a chance to spend a few days at home. I am looking forward to good ole Bangalore!

Diamonds!

2005-01-26T01:38:00.000-05:00

No.. I am not talking of the DJIA based Exchange Traded Fund. I am talking of the crystalline form of carbon.

Last couple of days, we did a case on De Beers in the strategy class. As always, a large part of the learning happens outside the class, in study groups. Like last term, my study group this term is made up of a set of people who are good fun to be around. The De Beers case provided lots of fodder for conversation about everything surrounding diamonds. Since I have never purchased a diamond or even thought about buying one, most of the conversation was knowledge for me.

The simple but super effective marketing strategy of 'A person should spend two month's salary on an engagement ring' was something I had no clue about. Then the married men in the group spoke about how they broke their bank to buy their women a rock! Mid way through the serious discussion on the strategy behind De Beers, the group started constructing rings on ADiamondIsForever.com. 0.25 carat, 0.5 carat, 2 carat ;-). The site recommends rings based on the combined salary of the couple.

The story of DeBeers and diamonds seems to defy a popular adage, "You can't fool all the people all the time"

Since the engagement ring market is showing signs of saturation, De Beers is launching a new campaign "I Forever Do". The objective is to get people to buy diamonds for every anniversary as a sign of everlasting love!

I thought that the cosmetics industry, selling hope in a jar to people who couldn't afford to meet their daily needs, was the worst face of business. Apparently not :). That said, I wouldn't be surprised if you find me complaining in a few years time "My wife is wearing a car on her hand!". The statement is copyright a friend who shared his anguish with the class earlier today. Priceless!

Recruiting is in progress. Made it to the second round of one of my top choices. Have some more interviews lined up for the next few days. One internship is all I want :).

Internship recruitment countdown...

2005-01-17T18:48:00.000-05:00

Just had a 4 day break where I didn't do anything worthwhile. Of course, I got a lot of sleep.

I now realize that I am way behind on my preparation for recruitment. 24th Monday, I have my first campus interview. And in the 4 days beginning 24th, I am interviewing with 7 firms. Interviewing with 7 firms across consulting, trading and investment management requires a tremendous amount of groundwork. With 7 days to go, I feel woefully underprepared.

"Yuddha kaale shastrabhyasaha" was a quote used often by my Sankrit teacher in high school. Translated, "Learning the use of weapons at the time of war". Obviously, a bad idea!

There is a beautiful subhashita (Sanskrit couplet) that comes to mind in this context. "Chintaneeya hi vipadamadameva pratikriya. Na kupa khananam yuktam pradeepte, vahni na gruhe". Translated, "The reactions of people at the times of crisis is thought provoking. It is not advisable to dig a well when your house is on fire."

With that wisdom in mind, I have decided to focus my efforts on such prep that I expect to yield maximum results. So, between now and 26th, I aim to have practised 4 cases for my consulting interview. Most people around me have done anywhere upwards of 20 cases, but it is too late to think about it now :)

Was just looking at my calendar for the next few days. It is choc-a-bloc with engagements. Mock interviews, study group, class preparation, career workshops. I don't think I have ever been so busy at Tuck.

I have a stock pitch to make tomorrow afternoon and I don't have my investment hypothesis ready. I have to visit a firm in New York on Friday, I don't have my clothes ready. I have made plans for my trip to India in March, I don't have my tickets ready.

Everything will fall into place. Everything!!

I hope it does :)

Back to school...

2005-01-10T20:50:00.000-05:00

It has just been 3 days since school started. Feels like it has been ages! The weekend didn't seem to help much. I already feel so much behind in terms of classwork :(

Friday night was the 80's party. I had no clue on what to wear for an 80's party. A friend suggested that I wear something I would normally not wear. He was so spot on! I wore blue jeans, an ORANGE shirt and a crumpled turquoise polynosic shirt. When I looked at the mirror I thought I was a tropical bird :). The party was fun with people going to various lengths for the authentic look. I returned early but the pics told the tale of what a wild party I missed.

I need to ramp up preparation for job interviews, but I just can't bring myself to do it. Opted out of an investment management interview because I didn't like the prospect of living in Salt Lake City, UT for the summer. Hopefully this will allow me to sharpen my focus for interviewing.

Haven't been going to the gym regularly and feel a bit guilty about that. But, I did do some grocery shopping over the weekend and got myself another 48 pack of Snickers! If you create the supply of calories, the demand will emerge. Atleast, I hope that will happen!

Since all my calories should not be supplied by bars of Snickers, I also got myself a huge bag of pistachios. 24 servings per container is what the bag says. How can somebody stop munching on pistachios!! I think 8 servings is more appropriate. Oh yeah, I chose pistachios because they are healthy. Compared to cashewnuts, each serving has almost 20% Daily Value of Copper, Vitamin B-6, Thimin and Phosphorus as also significant percentages of Iron and Vitamin E. The label says the Percent Daily Value of fat per serving is 20%, but I am sure it is a typo. It is actually 2%. Trust me on this.

Trivia - One of my study group member's name on the ice hockey team is Free Leis. No. Don't say it out loud!

New Year thoughts!

2005-01-05T19:05:00.000-05:00

Winter break has ended. The year has changed. A new term has started. A new set of people now form my study group. Change is in the air!

The last few days I was at New York City. Agenda was part fun, part business. Chilled out for a the first couple of days. Ate some good Indian food, looked around the city. Met up with a friend who is attending B school there, spoke to another. Met a fellow blogger who is applying next year. Met up with people at some firms I am targeting. The energy on a trading floor is tremendous. And this energy exists regardless of which firm I visit.

I also visited the world's largest trading floor at Stamford, CT. I just wasn't prepared for what I saw. Rows and rows of trading terminals. Each person having upto 6 LCD screens in front. Had a look at the arena from the top. This trading floor has to be seen to be believed!

In each firm, the enthusiasm and support I got from Tuck alumni continues to surprise. Sometimes I wonder whether I can live up to those high standards. Really senior people (somebody who has been trading for 20 years and manages a team of 20 traders is REALLY SENIOR), spent almost an hour (he actually told the HR contact to ensure that I meet him when I am at his firm). At another firm I visited, another senior trader set up meetings with people he thought I should meet and talked for over half an hour about why he liked his firm. The bond Tuck creates is just mindblowing. Think of it - I have almost NOTHING in common with these people except that we attended the same great school. Just that is reason enough for the passion.

During my firm visits, another aspect that surprised me was how small the world seems to be. Every Tuckie who is senior seems to know everybody else who is at the top of his profession. For my summer internship, I have also applied to a hedge fund run by a Tuckie. And already, 2 other alums have told me to say hi to him since they know him. So, if I interview with the fund, I picture the interview will be 'Hi, this is Tagad. Nice to meet you. By the way Trading Guru and Consulting Guru say hi to you. I met them over the last month.' Some applicant asked me whether I had experienced the famed Tuck network. 'Experienced the Tuck network' is probably devaluing the whole community to an often misused word.

Internship recruiting starts soon. Job search takes the priority now and everything else takes a back seat. All firms that recruit on campus have to have 50% of their interview slots open for bidding. The remaining 50% (closed list) is for candidates they have decided to invite for interviews based on their resumes.

From the outside, it looks like getting an interview is really hard (expensive in bidding points) if one is not on the closed list. This is true for certain consulting firms. For Investment Banking interviews, anybody who wants to interview is able to bid for the slots without spending too many points. I think most people will end up doing some banking interviews regardless of their interest levels in the domain.

So far, my luck with respect to the closed list seems pretty good. Have ended up with some trading interviews, a consulting interview and a investment management interview. Considering the fact that trading has been my main focus and I have only applied to 2 top consulting firms, I am quite happy with the way things have turned out. A large part of the credit for this goes to my ex-study group members who helped me build a powerful cover letter and polish my resume for better impact.

The interviews with a disparate set of firms opens up a pandora's box with respect to preparation. Consulting firms have case interviews. Investment management firms require a stock pitch. Trading interviews are technical. And all of them look for fit. By end Jan, I will know whether I fit somewhere or whether I am a misfit!

Happy New Year to everybody.

Winter break...

2004-12-30T18:57:00.000-05:00

It seems like Winter break started yesterday and it is almost over :-(. Time seems to fly faster when you are just relaxing and having a good time.

When the break started, I didn't have much planned for the break. In one corner of my mind, I was concerned that I would be bored. But it wasn't to be. A couple of days into the break, I went over to a friend's house. The 4 days I spent there was the most relaxing time I ever had. Absolute laziness. Great food. Awesome company.

On day 1, we went to Boston, watched Swades and had a nice meal at an Indian restaurant. I had a fine Mysore Masala Dosa. While I continue to hold that Vidyarthi Bhavan makes the best masala dosas in the world, this dosa tasted great coz it had been sometime since I ate a dosa.

On day 2, we went to New York City to check out the Christmas festivities. The Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, the gazillion tourists all clicking away(is it because the marginal cost of a picture taken with a digital camera is zero?). New York City on Christmas day felt nice. I love the city coz it reminds me so much of Mumbai.

On day 3, we lazed around, did some shopping. I got access to a well stocked kitchen (few kitchens have mint chutney & tamarind extract in the fridge). So, I was able to try my hand at some cooking. I made Paneer Makhanwala using some readymade masala and tofu as a substitute for paneer. The end result tasted good - so I am enthusiastic about cooking when I move into a house off campus next year.

Day 4 saw me at my lazy best. I had breakfast and lunch with less than an hour's gap! As the day turned into night, we returned to Hanover. I showed my friend and his wife around the beautiful school and my shoddily kept dorm room. 4 days passed by without me noticing the passage of time :(.

For the last few days life has been routine. The day is arranged around 4 super-important components. Lunch, Dinner, Gym and Movie. The maximum mental strain is in deciding where we will go for lunch/dinner, what time we will hit the gym and which movie we will watch in our private theatre!

I just wish this break doesn't end.

Overdose of Bollywood!

2004-12-28T01:49:00.000-05:00

Over the last 1 week, I have watched more Bollywood movies that in any other 7 day period in my life. The movies include Mumbai Matinee, Bollywood/Hollywood, Swades, Paisa Vasool, Chameli, Run. As you see, the quality of movies varied from mundane to magical to everything-in-between. One thing I realized after watching all these movies is that Bollywood dancing is distinct from western dance and I would love to learn how to do the jhatkas and the matkas. A friend on the west coast teaches Bollywood dance and she has graciously agreed to teach me too. Now, I either need to find an internship in San Francisco or hope she moves to the East Coast!

Swades starring Shah Rukh Khan and Gayatri Joshi, was by far the best movie of the lot I watched in the last week. It was an extremely inspiring story. If you haven't seen the movie, you probably have read a review somewhere. Like with most opinions, you will find reviews ranged across the spectrum.

I have had the fortune of interacting closely with a couple of individuals who have returned to India and succeeded in making an impact on the lives of people around them. In both cases, I found their enthusiasm very infectious. Seeing these instances first hand convinced me that it was possible to return to India after leading a successful life in the West. There remains so much to be done in the country and I am sure every person who returns can make a difference.

As I exchange thoughts with others who have similar aspirations, a common thread seems to be the lack of impact of most post MBA jobs. While the jobs are intellectually rigorous and financially rewarding, when you end your work day, you cannot convince yourself that the work you did has any impact on a poor family in drought stricken Rajasthan that lives way below the poverty line. A few years ago, when I did a volunteer stint and lived with some such familes and saw first hand the abject poverty, I was shocked for a few days. Someday, I hope to make a difference to their lives. Someday, I hope to return and light a bulb. In the process, if I find my Gayatri Joshi, it would make life totally filmi! Oops, I don't think I will ever work as Project Manager on a Global Precipitation Management project for NASA. So, it will not be completely filmi afterall. :-D

It is over!

2004-12-22T23:02:00.000-05:00

I am delighted to be done with the Fall terms. The hardest part of the curriculum is behind us. Yesterday was the last exam. After the exam we had a farewell of sorts in the auditorium.

The sendoff started with a skit starring a wildly popular professor. The professor's performance compared favorably with any stand up comic. The humor through the skit had the whole class in splits. There was even a clip from Mohabbatein woven into the skit. The way faculty, administration, students and partners form one cohesive community amazes me. Never before have I seen faculty members so involved in activities outside of teaching/research.

Subsequently, we had a presentation that put together snippets of different social events through the two terms. When I looked at it, I realized we probably had some organized social event every week! No wonder school is so much fun :)

Today was the first day of winter break. After spending the first half of the day nursing a headache (after the celebrations of yesterday!), I got around to catching up on some email. spoke to some friends and before I knew it, I was bored! The intensity of life here had gotten into my blood in a way I did not realize. Hopefully, over the next 10 days, I will relax a bit. It takes some learning, but I hope to manage.

Since I do not have much planned for the break, a couple of us decided to go down to New York for a few days. Initially, the plan was to spend a couple of days there next week. But we changed that and decided to spend the first few days of the next year in the city. With room reservations done, we just need to fix up meetings with some firms we want to network with. 2 days of fun and 2 days of business. Brilliant combination.

The next few days, I am looking forward to watching tons of movies. One of us got an idea that we should watch a movie on a big screen with good sound systems in an amphitheatre style classroom. We had hoped to get permission for watching one movie today, but ended up getting the keys for the period of the break. This evening we watched Mumbai Matinee. There are quite a few movies lined up for the next few days.

Last evening, I watched Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge at the second of the three celebrations during the evening. It is probably the 10th or 15th time I have watched the movie.

The next few days, I look forward to a much slower pace of life. I will rest, catch my breath and look at the beautiful snow covered world around me. Ah...

End of Fall B...

2004-12-19T01:05:00.000-05:00

Finished one exam today. One more to go on Tuesday.

I will be done with Fall B. The toughest academic part of the program will be behind me. Next term there is a reshuffle of sections. So, we all get new bunch of people to attend class with. I don't know all of 9 people in my new section of 65 :)

I will miss my old section and study group though. We had some great times as a group and I hope my study group for next term is equally fun.

The courses next term are quite exciting. Marketing, Corporate Finance, Global Economics for Managers, Strategy are the core courses. I have taken on an extra course - Debt Markets. It is an elective and I am the only first year in the class. Given my love for Finance, I think I will enjoy the course.

Earlier this week, when I was wining and dining with a recruiter in Boston, I was talking about how the integrated core at Tuck seemed to be restricting me from pursuing courses in my area of interest. And, I come back and these options open up. Magical!

Talking of wining & dining, I have begun to enjoy these networking events. The range of discussions I have had in these are phenomenal. Like last week's dinner we talked about topics ranging from the challenges of getting your kid into a school in NYC to effects of shifting cities on a child's mind. The human side of the firm I guess :) .

A couple of weeks ago, I was chatting up with a banker who was complaining about how India is an over banked market (in investment banking terms). He handled a couple of PSU deals and was cribbing about the wafer thin margins! I thought people were in favor of free trade and open markets!

Meaning of life....

2004-12-15T15:48:00.000-05:00

Why do I go about my life the way I do?
What do I want from life?

From time to time, each of us stops to think about this. I am not sure there is a definitive answer to these questions, but each person comes to an answer that s/he is comfortable with.

Last week, after our last class of Management Communications, the professor put up a quote from Oliver Holmes
"Not to share in the activity and passion of your time, is to count as not having lived."

Yesterday, after our last class of Statistics and before the longest ovation I have ever seen a professor get, the professor put up an excerpt from a passage by Robert Hastings

'Tucked away in our subconscious is an idyllic vision. We see ourselves on a long trip that spans the continent. We are travelling by train. Out the windows we drink in the passing scene of cars on nearby highways, of children waving at a crossing, of cattle grazing on a distant hillside, of smoke pouring from a power plant, of row upon row of corn, and wheat, of flatlands and valleys, of mountains and rolling hillsides, of city skylines and village halls.

But uppermost in our minds is the final destination. On a certain day at a certain hour we will pull into the Station. Bands will be playing and flags waving. Once we get there so many wonderful dreams will come true and the pieces of our lives will fit together like a completed jigsaw puzzle. How restlessly we pace the aisles, daming the minutes for loitering - waiting, waiting, waiting for the Station.

"When we reach the Station, that will be it!" we cry. "When I'm eighteen." "When I buy a new 450 SL Mercedes Benz!" "When I put the last kid through college." "When I have paid off the mortgage!" "When I get a promotion!" "When I reach retirement, I shall live happily ever after!"

Sooner or later we must realize there is no Station, no one place to arrive at once and for all. The true joy of life is the trip. The Station is only a dream. It constantly outdistances us.

So, stop pacing the aisles and counting the miles. Instead, climb more mountains, eat more ice cream, go barefoot more often, swim more rivers, watch more sunsets, laugh more, cry less. Life must be lived as we go along. The Station will come soon enough.'

Both these questions took me back to the principle I have used to lead life. I stumbled upon this sometime in October 2000, watching the stars on a roof top in a remote village in Rajasthan where I did a volunteer stint. Since I love finance, and the friend who was with me was an Econ major from U Penn, the principle will make more sense for those who know their NPV's.

"Value your today, but be conscious of the present value of tomorrow."

I also have another long winded version that I call the Truck philosophy. I think both are essentially making the same point. If you liked mathematical induction, you will relate to this version better.

"If a truck hits me tomorrow morning and I die, I must die happy about the way I have lived my life.
If the truck does not hit me tomorrow, I must have the resources and the context to have a good time till the next morning.
Ad infinitum."

I have found that this method of thinking works for me.
So, what is the meaning of life that works for you?

Put it as a comment below and let me know.

Snow ball..

2004-12-14T01:17:00.000-05:00

Saturday night was Snow Ball.

Guys and gals, all were dressed in their best. 9 out of 10 women were dressed in black. Looks like they all bought their dresses at Henry Ford's boutique - "You can have it any color, as long as it is black!". Needless to say, they all looked fantastic.

We had a small pre-party. Fruit punch mixed with Everclear?. If Absinthe is bad, Everclear is worse ;-). After some conversation, the preparties converged at the main hall. The decorations were fabulous. The oil paintings were replaced with pictures of professors making faces (I appreciate the holiday spirit in which they posed for these pictures!). There was an enchanted forest with love seats and consumables ;-). Good music, nice lighting effects and the party rocked.

In each party, I am exposed to something new. This time it was the ice luge. A christmas tree shaped ice sculpture with ridges along the top. Shots are poured along the top and you stick your mouth to the ice and drink off it. Jagermeister and peppermint schnapps were the choices. I went with the peppermint schnapps since I was told it was less potent! I very much enjoyed the experience.

This was followed by lots of dancing. The night was still young when I left at 1:00 am. I had had my share of fun and called it a day!

Winds of change....

2004-12-11T17:45:00.000-05:00

I have been thinking hard. Very hard. About life. About me. About where my life is going. An idle mind is a devil's workshop :)

I have been speaking to people, getting their perspectives on life, on stuff that matters and stuff that doesn't. A process of self discovery has set in. I am encouraged to think more. Think harder. Push the limits of my mind. And now, it looks like some of the barricades I had set for myself do not exist any longer. They are antiquated. They remain there because there has been no wind to blow them away. It doesn't need a forceful gale but a slight breeze will be sufficient. What better time for the wind of change to blow than now!

The past week was great. We won a case competition that had a sweet cash prize. We were the only two member team in a field full of four member teams. We came in second but weren't a bit disappointed.

The networking process for recruiting continues in full force. I have realized I am super flexible in terms of what I want to do for the summer. Anytime a firm makes a pitch for a job, I want to know more about it. So, when somebody at the top of the totem pole thinks you will do well as part of his team, I am inclined to explore that option more. As I head into recruiting, I think these occasions will occur more frequently.

The best part about business school is the kind of options that come at you. This is also the worst part about school because making choices is difficult. Choices come at you in all spheres of your life - personal and professional. And, in most cases, you would not have been exposed to these areas. How does one decide between consulting and trading?

On the school front, I have decided to let my super short hair down a bit (No - I am not going to grow a mullet!). There are so many things to do, so many parties to attend, such a lot of good times to be had. "20 years from now, what will I remember ?" I will apply this test when faced with school activity choices! This test seems to have worked for most alumni I have spoken to :)

The direction of the US economy and the dollar exchange rate are areas that I have been following keenly. I have been bearish on the dollar for sometime now, and even more so currently. A few information sources that add weight to my view are

http://www.morganstanley.com/GEFdata/digests/latest-digest.html
http://www.roubiniglobal.com/
http://www.roubiniglobal.com/setser/

Catching up with friends I haven't spoken to in ages continues. Just finished an hour long talk with a friend I haven't seen in five years. I am constantly amazed by the number of my friends who are in this part of the globe. I could visit each of them for a day and spend a year!!

Tuck admissions for the class of 2007 are in progress. I look forward to interacting with people of the class and sharing with them the great time I have been having here!

Breast implants!

2004-12-07T19:50:00.000-05:00

No. I am not getting them. But, they were the centerpiece (sic) in a crisis communications case we did this morning. The professor took a medium profile implant (so said the packaging!) from a box and thrust it into my hand. I had no clue what was happening. And then, I got cold called!! So, here I was, red-faced, fiddling around with this bag of silicone gel trying to rack my brains to enumerate the problems Dow Corning faced.

The discussion was extremely funny (though the topic was a serious one!). The funniest part of class was when the professor wanted to identify customers for the product. 'Women' said somebody. Peals of laughter followed. Cancer patients. Silence. People who work in certain industries. Roar of laughter. Subsequently, midway through the discussion, the professor said "People who got impants had a huge problem". I am not sure it was intentional - but for the class, there were no two thoughts about it and everybody was rolling in laughter again.

Along the way, we learnt a thing or two about crisis management!

Snow fall..

2004-12-06T02:20:00.000-05:00

Last week it snowed at Hanover. I woke up to see the world outside my window under a carpet of white. I have been dreading the cold here, but the snow looks quite benign. Pretty infact.

The week has been pretty ho hum. We had a presentation on cross cultural communication that needed intense group activity. I think we did a good job.

Then a group member had her birthday. So, we all regressed into 8 year olds and had a celebration at Ben & Jerry's. I sometimes wonder what my actual age is. After coming to Tuck, I think a part of me has become younger and child like and another part has become older and mature. :)

Last night we had a Christmas Tree trimming party. So, we decorated a Christmas tree. The first time I was decorating a tree. Neat stuff.

The week forward promises to be colder. The temperature outside is -9C. (15F). But like every day here, regardless of the schedule, I look forward to having a good time.

Now, that was a ho-hum blog post!

LA, Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Palo Alto, Boston!

2004-11-28T21:47:00.000-05:00

What a whirlwind the last one week was! In 1 week, we did a road trip of over 2200 miles. The Dodge Grand Caravan and 5 of us went across 3 states, ate at strange hours and got very little sleep. The dazzle of Las Vegas, the beauty of the Grand Canyon, the engineering marvel that is Hoover dam and the allure of Hollywood - all in a space of 120 hours. Read on for the details.

Early on Monday morning, we left Palo Alto for LA. It was a longish drive. Helping us navigate was Microsoft Streets and Maps, a kickass software from Microsoft (with one of the people on board a Microsoftie, we couldn't use anything else if we wanted to!). Entertainment was handled by my trusty IBM Thinkpad ably assisted by an FM transmitter that leveraged the car speakers excellently. With our fuel tank full and spirits high, we set off to LA. On the way we watched 'Dil Chahta Hai' - our version of Inflight entertainment - DVD on a laptop screen. Thanks to mobile phone technology, I did an informational session (intended to be 15 minutes long but ended up at 45 minutes) with a London based investment bank on the road.

In LA, we first went to Santa Monica beach (lots of scenes of Baywatch were shot here). The boardwalk and the pier are nice (they were deserted so we had a leisurely stroll). Muscle beach has an array of gymnastic and balance apparatus. So, I did some swinging from ring to ring to feed the Tarzan in me!

Then we went to 3rd Street Promenade and had some Greek food. For the evening, the destination was Hollywood. So, we had a walk along Hollywood Blvd - saw the sidewalk with all the star names. We hung out at The Kodak theatre (venue of the Academy Awards ceremony) for a while. Finally, we got back to our motel. The next morning was the Microsoftie's niece's birthday. So we had some cake with the birthday girl who going to Disneyland for celebrations.

The rest of the morning was spent at the hill on which Griffith Observatory is located. Took some pics of the Hollywood hills and the famed Hollywood sign.

After LA, we hit Grand Canyon. It was late night by the time we reached our destination. Found a hotel and all of us slept like we hadn't slept in ages. Grand Canyon is beautiful. I aim to return there for a longer trip, hopefully for a week long hike.

Next destination was Las Vegas. Nothing can prepare you for the spectacle Vegas is. You build up all your expectations from what people have told you, movies you have watched (Ocean's 11 etc) and it blows everything away. We stayed at a casino away from the strip - Stratosphere. But most of our time was spent on the strip. Bellagio, MGM, Paris, Alladin, Caesar's Palace, Bally's, Venetian and more - we visited them all. Gambled a minimal amount on the slot machines, but could see how addictive it is. Going to Vegas can easily leave you with a sensorial overload. Everything looks plain after that! With a heavy heart, we returned to San Francisco.

Dinner was at Amber in Mountain View. Again, a couple of other friends I hadn't seen in years joined up and we caught up on life. The flight back was a 'convenient' red-eye which got me to Boston at 6:30 in the morning.

At Boston, I met up with another of my friends. We have been great friends for over 10 years now. Spent the day hanging out with him and a couple of his friends from his school. We went to Harvard and looked around the campus. It looks so much like the Dartmouth campus. Then I met up with a friend who showed me around MIT. I hadn't seen him in 8 years! Felt good to be meeting up again. We had lunch at an Indian restaurant and he gave us a wonderful guided tour of MIT. The research he is doing towards his Ph.D is quite interesting.

MIT is one of those places that makes you sit back and think about decisions you have taken in life. One of the choices I made was not to pursue a career in research within technology. If I had visited MIT 5 years ago, I probably would have made a different decision!!

To close the day, I had coffee with a friend from Sloan and returned to good ole Hanover.

I am so tired. I could sleep for days. But, there are cover letters to write and resumes to be sent. During Christmas vacation - I will catch up on sleep!

Lots of photos taken on the trip. (1.2 Gb!) Best photos are on Ofoto. Mail me for the link.

Thanksgiving Break!!

2004-11-22T03:03:00.000-05:00

It is Thanksgiving break. Much as I love Tuck and Hanover (you would too - if you studied there), it feels good to getaway once in a while. I have been getting away too frequently of late. But, given the fact that we have almost a week's break, I thought I 'deserved' a holiday. And, what better place to go for a holiday than California!

So, here I am, in my friend's home at Palo Alto, tapping out this blog entry.

We had a Capital Markets exam yesterday. It went off okay except for a silly mistake I made. The mistake was so stupid that even now, I cringe when I think of it. I read wrong a bond quotation off the Wall Street Journal and thus screwed up a question that I knew perfectly well.

Since I had tested out of Statistics, I was able to leave Hanover early and catch a night flight to San Francisco. The flight came in almost an hour early. My friends picked me up from the airport at close to midnight. A couple of them I hadn't seen in 4 years. So, it was great getting together again.

Today, we looked around San Francisco. Did the standard touristy stuff. Went to the Golden Gate bridge, looked at the Red Woods in Muir, took a boat ride to Alcatraz. It was great fun. Then I met up with another friend who did his grad school at Stanford. After catching up on life, he gave us a guided tour of Stanford by night! The school is huge and seems to have a super impressive infrastructure. Chip fabrication capabilities in an university. In my book, there is nothing more impressive than that! He showed us the outdoor Rodin sculptures - 'The Burghers of Calais'. Both our minds immediately went back to some pictures we took with Michelangelo's 'The Dying Slave' at the musée du Louvre in the summer of 2000. Those were the days!! I need to get a copy of that picture from him.

We went across Route 101 a few times in course of our day. For the better part of 1999 and 2000, I used to devour the Red Herring and the Industry Standard. As a keen followed of the technology industry in Silicon Valley, I had read about Route 101 in many different places. Just driving on the road gave me a small buzz.

For dinner, we went to a Thai restaurant - Amarin at Mountain View. The various suburbs of San Francisco are quaint. I would love to work in San Francisco for sometime.

Post dinner, I met up with yet another friend. But unlike most other friends I mentioned before, we did not attend the same school. Surprising as it may sound, we didn't know each other till earlier this year. Around the time I left India to attend Tuck, she returned to the West Coast after doing some great stuff in Bangalore. It was wonderful catching up and discussing the transitions we were undergoing.

I find it fascinating to interact with people of Indian origin who were raised in the US. Bridging two very different cultures can be extremely challenging. Issues like drinking, dating etc, which are non issues for a typical American kid can and usually leads to a lot of conflict in their cases.

When I started at Tuck, I had a mild culture shock. At India, one is exposed to the Western world through different media elements and interactions, but living it out is a completely different experience. As I was discussing this evening, there are quite a few fundamental differences. One example is living with parents. If it was possible, I could spend all my life living with my parents. The importance of family as a support structure and an essential element of the social fabric is huge in India. Whereas, it seems to be completely different in the US. While I am in no position to say one is better than the other, it is necessary to recognize the differences and appreciate how they impact lives of individuals.

Another aspect we found intriguing was that all of us are at an age where we are introspecting. We are kind of confused on what direction to take. Earlier in life, when we were at cross roads (say after undergrad), we knew there was time for experimentation. No longer. The decisions we make now are for keeps. So, it is imperative that all decisions are made after lots of thought and we are comfortable with them. It so helps to find that I am not the only person who faces these dilemmas!

Now, on to LA!!

The Indian Stock Market

2004-11-16T16:14:00.000-05:00

The current state of the Indian stock market reminds me of a quote -
"You don't need to be a genius to make money in a bull market".

On a day when 3 elements of my portfolio closed limit up, this quote is very pertinent!

Diwali...

2004-11-16T01:45:00.000-05:00

Last week was Diwali. The Indian festival of lights. We had a potluck dinner on Friday where almost 40 people from the Tuck community participated in celebrating the festival with the students with Indian origins. The evening had a lavish spread of food and it had been sometime since I had such a nice meal.

Then on Sunday we had a puja organized by the Dartmouth undergrad students association. It was a small affair but extremely well planned. This was followed by Indian dance and song programs. An Indian buffet dinner capped the evening. Watching the dance performance and listening to the songs transported me back to Bangalore for a while. So many things I took for granted at home feel so precious here. Every year, there were performance by top Indian dancers less than 2 miles from home, and I wasn't very keen to attend. A one hour performance by students who are amateur dancers at best, and I was hoping that it would go on!

At the end of the program, a couple of Indian professors spoke about how Diwali was celebrated in their home towns as kids. The talk of sweets, fireworks and new clothes brought back a flood of memories. Just under a week ago, when I was returning from the alumni party of my undergrad, the challenges of being away from home was the topic of discussion. When I asked my host how long ago he had moved to the US, the reply I got was '13 year ago. So, that is 13 years of missed Diwalis, Dussehras and Holis'.

Today it was back to the grind. Just a week before we take a vacation for Thanksgiving. I am looking forward to going away to California and meeting up with friends.

A while ago I had talked about how a consulting firm presentation had charmed me. Today I had lunch with a partner at the firm, and I think I like what I hear and saw. So, I have decided to make an exception to my plans and toss my hat into the ring for this Firm.

Some people might say I am a totally confused person as far as career choices go. Well, it was just under 10 years ago I almost joined India's most prestigious law school and decided against it at the very last moment. If I am faced with strange choices during my internship search and I make stranger choices, people who have known me won't be surprised!!

The weekend...

2004-11-08T13:20:00.000-05:00

The past weekend was dedicated to Murphy. (of Murphy's Law fame!)

Made a trip to New Jersey to attend an alumni event of my undergrad university. The trip went off well, though there were multiple things on the trip that went wrong!

Left Hanover on Saturday early morning (after 4 hours of sleep) to go to the venue via Jersey City. Since I took the train from Jersey City, I reached on time. However, my friend who had the car didn't make it till the fag end because he missed an exit on the way. (Murphy at work)

The party was great. Had a wonderful evening mingling with pple from school (there were people who graduated as far back as 1965). Met a bunch of alumni who worked at different firms on Wall Street and as always they offered to help me in learning more about the career I am hoping to pursue. There was a good DJ with Hindi music. So, we danced like it was Music Nite again :).

After the party ended at 11:30 pm, one of the senior guys offered to give me a ride if I waited for half an hour. The half an hour stretched into over 3 hours since there was an afterparty. I was the baby in the afterparty. So, I learnt about the wild times these people had during their time at Pilani. Finally, I landed at 3:30 at a friend's home but there was nobody answering the door (Murphy at work again). Thankfully another friend who lived across the street had someone walk in just then and I managed to catch a few hours of sleep.

The next morning, I found that the wrong contact number for the friend who was to give me a ride back. So, after paying my respects to Murphy again, I took a Greyhound back to Hanover. The optimist in me is happy to have gotten lots of sleep on the bus :).

Birthday...

2004-11-08T11:42:00.000-05:00

This post should have been hammered out on Saturday - but the next post will tell you why that didn't happen :)

Friday I turned 26. So, far, each year I became older, the feeling was one of total joy. I was in the phase where I looked forward to being an older person, being more mature, wiser. Somewhere, a part of me thought that with age & experience, one gets a better grip on deciding one's destiny. This birthday was very different. For the first time, there was a small part of me that was unhappy about becoming a year older. There was a realization that I wouldn't be 25 again - never again. Some people may say it is a fact of life - well, for once, I actually thought hard about this.

This birthday ranked up there among one of the best days I have had. At Tuck, your birthday is featured in everybody's Outlook calendar and the intranet site. So, EVERYBODY knows that it is your birthday. And considering that I know a large part of the class by now - there wasn't a time Iwalked 10 metres without somebody wishing me :) - It kind of feels good.

That evening, a bunch of friends had organized a small party at an Indian restaurant. Had a great time. By the time I retired to bed early next day, I was literally floating with joy of a nice birthday celebration.

--------
The week that preceded the birthday was awesome too. We had the CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi speak to us. Among other things, he spoke about Lovemarks (not what you think them to be ;-) ). Kevin Roberts is one of the best speakers I have heard. Having worked for a marketing powerhouse before, I understand the value of brands. The concept of Lovemarks took branding to a whole new level and I agee that in the future these will capture disproportionate share of the wallet.

--------
During the past week I also met up with some fund managers - one person with a goliath and one person who started his own shop sometime ago. Most people have been extremely bullish about Indian IT, but the passion I saw about the Indian pharma story was surprising. For the record, I am extremely bullish on Indian healthcare (incl. pharma) and feel that there is huge shareholder value to be created across the chain - from R&D to generics to clinical research to administering healthcare.

Trip to NYC - The details..

2004-10-31T23:50:00.000-05:00

What a week it was!! Extremely tiring - but lots of fun. Dunno where to start.

The trip - "Week on Wall Street" was organized by the Finance Club. There were presentations organized at almost 10 firms. Each firm had their recruiters and some representatives talk about life at the firm, different career tracks etc. Most firms had a very interactive session where you could mingle with the representatives over cocktails. One was able to get substantial time with senior people within the firm.

It is so exciting being able to listen to and exchange ideas with people who have worked in the industry. I am extremely passionate about the financial markets. So, these interactions left me very happy.

I spent substantial time on the trading floors of Wall Street. Interacting with people over cocktails/lunch/small groups is very different from having a one-on-one conversation. The people I met were happy to give me their time and share their thoughts. In most cases, our discussions went on for much longer than intended. Eg. In one firm I had 2 appointments of 30 minutes each - but ended up spending about 3 hours but still wasn't done. I hope to return there again. At another bank, the idea was to talk to people for about 1 hour, but I ended up making 2 visits spending over 3 hours in all talking to 4-5 people.

A friend of mine I hadn't seen for almost 7 years was instrumental in arranging meetings for me at a place where we didn't have a formal presentation set up. Extremely senior people spent time with me advising me on how to make career choices and talking about what their groups did. Again, I cannot be grateful enough for these gestures. The best part was when one MD looked at my resume and asked "So, how was Etah?" That made a connection like nothing could!

At NY, I stayed with a friend of mine who is also my neighbor at my hometown. So, I was going home each night to a space that I was comfortable in.

Over the week I did some touristy things too - visited Times Square, 5th Avenue, Central Park, Battery Park. Wanted to take the ferry to Staten Island to get a close dekko at the Statue of Liberty - but didn't have the time. Wanted to watch "Bombay Dreams" on Broadway - but didn't feel wealthy enough to afford it :-D.

The last day was the highlight of the trip. Getting together after 7 years to know that we haven't changed at all feels awesome. Helped the friend move into his upper east side apartment and then grabbed a dinner while we had some great conversation. Our thoughts on long term goals seemed to be totally in sync. Both of us felt very lucky to be present in a time when India is undergoing a structural change. Also, each of us has had the fortune of having a strong foundation and being exposed to the western world. Combined with our passion to make an impact in India, we agreed it was incumbent on us to plan out our careers so that we don't waste this golden opportunity to make a difference. Time will tell whether we are able to translate our hopes into reality.

The trip to New York confirmed to me that there exists a strong network of alumni from my alma mater on Wall Street. Each of them is happy to assist in every way possible. Add that to the fabulous Tuck network and I need to be an idiot not to get an internship of choice!

New York City

2004-10-28T00:45:00.000-05:00

Yesterday - I finished my first term exams at Tuck (at 2:00 am!) and then left for New York at 10 am (after missing the 8 am bus because I slept through the 6:30 am alarm!!!)

It is my first visit to New York City. First impressions are lasting impressions - and I think I like New York. Am already comfortable with the subway system. The city is organized like a grid and that helps pple who are visiting.

We have been doing some visits to investment banks. The visits have been interesting so far - and the people we have met all have captivating stories to tell us (for most part!)

New York reminds me a lot of Mumbai (Bombay). Everybody is going about life with a purpose. Nobody has a minute to spare - except when you ask for directions! 10 years ago, I had planned to live and work in Mumbai for sometime because I love the city. I wouldn't mind swapping that for New York. Details on NYC visit in next blog.

The moment of truth!

2004-10-21T20:12:00.000-05:00

I had been evading it for almost 3 weeks. At first I thought it didn't matter. Then it was denial - that it wouldn't happen to me. I was okay, I told myself. Yesterday I faced reality. In under 3 weeks, I had gained 4 pounds! Just before I got on the elliptical trainer yesterday, I found out that I was throwing around more weight than I had bargained for :(

Before I put my feet on the scale, I was quite confident that the sporadic hockey games and the last two days of intense squash games would tilt the scales in my favor. But, it was not to be!

The cans of cola, the fried food, ripple chips dipped in all kinds of fatty dips, bars of Snickers - were all conspiring against me. At 144 pounds, I am not fat by any stretch of imagination, but reading New Market Wizards for 4 days has made me acutely aware of momentum and the havoc it can wreak.

Now I realize the deception behind calories. 140 calories make a can of Coke. And you just can't believe how quickly you can drink that sugar laden carbonated liquid. It took me 20 sweaty minutes (with my heavier self!) on the trainer to burn 210 calories. So, from today - no more cola. Just plain water - thank you. Occasionally, I will permit myself the luxury of having iced water.

Later this evening, I went to BJ's to do some shopping. And guess what I got - a large box of Snickers (48 bars) and a large box of cookies (36 packs of 2 servings of 4 small cookies each). I tell myself I will take till the end of January to run through these. How long do you think they will last ?

The spark!

2004-10-16T16:01:00.000-05:00

It happens to all of us at different times, in different situations. You meet somebody. And a few minutes into the interaction, you can almost predict the words the person is speaking. The passion and enthusiasm the person exudes is infectious. You hang on to every word. Mentally, you can already see the connection. Just interacting feels good. You want to know more and more. The more you know - the more you feel your initial impression was right. Is it reflexivity at work? Then you see another and then another. You feel elated. Almost ecstatic!!

No - I am not talking about love here!! For from it, I am talking serious career stuff. A firm made a presentation last week - and I think I just loved what I saw and heard. While it throws my proposed career plan off course (completely!), I think this is one of the times when I am gonna trust my gut. So, the next few weeks, I am going to research trading as a career. Since I am the kind who puts my money where my mouth is and the best way to see whether trading is right for you is to be a trader, I plan to test drive it for atleast 2 months before my intership interviews. Will keep you updated on the progress. As of now, I can appreciate the difference between risk averseness and risk control.

The past week was fun. As I speak to my friends at other business schools, I get a sense of the difference in experience I am having. Most people seem to be studying really hard, horribly stressed out and lacking an active social life. On the other hand, I am able to participate in sport (okay - only ice hockey and agreed I get to hit the puck once during the game - but atleast that!!), be an active member of multiple clubs, party occasionally (down from frequently) and do some studies to boot.

This morning we had the day of service. A group of us helped put up the dry wall at the house of a needy person. Learnt something about how houses are insulated in cold Vermont. As always, felt good about giving back in a small way to the community I am part of. We were discussing what surprised each of us about Tuck - and a couple of us thought the fact that the place is exactly what it is made out to be, without any exaggeration is the surprising aspect of the school.

Watched Old School last night. Hilarious comedy. Missed the third debate. Am looking forward to the elections. They are very closely fought. I don't have any favourites - and like parts of each candidate's platform.

Dinners, Lunches, Parties and Hockey!

2004-10-11T00:17:00.000-05:00

Friday night, a huge group of us landed up at Moosilauke Lodge. The drive there was beautiful. The trees had various hues and the hills looked colorful. And to think in just a few weeks, they will all be bare :(. The overnight trip gave a good chance for us to let our hair down after a very hectic week. The fact that we had received our marked accounting exams earlier that afternoon brought a sense of urgency to escape from Hanover.

The party that followed dinner was rather wild and went on into the wee hours of the morning. It seemed like people wanted to turn back time and be back in their undergrad days. I chose to get to bed early to catch up on some much needed sleep.

The drive back the next day was thought provoking. Well, it wasn't the drive but the conversation that got me thinking. There have been times where I have chosen easy proxies as filters for my mind - and a couple of friends encouraged me to scrutinize them hard. And scrutinize them I will - but it will be a long drawn process. I consider myself fortunate to be in the company of super smart people who really care!

During the week I had lunch and dinner with a couple of visiting executives. Tuck has this program called Alan Smith Visiting Executive Program. Most executives who visit Tuck make themselves available for lunch/dinner/office hours/round table. So I had lunch with the treasurer of a telecom company and an executive who leads the strategy function in a high tech company. Each of them told us about their professional life, the decisions they made. It made for a very insightful discussion. Then we had this round table with an alum from an investment bank. So, we could ask any questions we wanted - in a non-evaluative environment.

Hockey continues at a frenetic pace. Like all things @ Tuck, the learning curve is steep. We played our first game on Thursday. My skating skills (or the lack of them) require me to play defense. The drafts took place on Thursday and we will be practicing for the playoffs soon. If i continue learning at this rate, I can probably represent India in the next Winter Olympics ;-).

A couple of days ago, I felt the need to listen to local radio - Radiocity from my city, Bangalore. There was no internet feed - so I got my sister to play it to me across the internet from home! It transported me back home for a short while! Small pleasures make life so wonderful :)

Then a friend told me of an Internet Radio from UAE - and from now on - it will rule the airwaves in my corner of the world. Chaaye Chaaye - the singers from Strings croon. A perfect lullaby to put me to sleep after a long day.

Ice Hockey & some relaxation..

2004-10-04T06:18:00.000-05:00

We had Friday and Saturday and Sunday off! Getting 3 days of 'holidays' is a major stress release. Just thinking about it made me happy - and now it is all over, I am happy I had a great time.

Last night we had the first ice hockey practice session. Before coming to Tuck I had not even rollerbladed not to speak of skated on ice. So, it was a very exciting new experience. The first session was good (held at an absolutely unearthly hour of midnight!). I am able to balance myself on skates and get moving. Many second year students were helping us learn. There were some who hadn't skated before and now skated like they could be part of the Dartmouth hockey team. So, I am inspired to put my best foot forward.

Ice skating and by extension hockey is a very strenous sport. Last night I spent just over 15 mins actually skating and my clothes were soaked in sweat (yeah - on a frozen skating rink!). Guess I have found the elliptical trainer replacement for winter!

Saturday we had a scavenger hunt. The objective being to help the first and second years know each other better. Scavenger hunt @ Tuck consists of lots of small games and challenges that second years put together. To qualify as a game or a challenge, an essential component is - Beer!

Saturday night I attended the Chinese Moon Festival, listened to Chinese songs and ate moon cake. Sometime next year I hope to make a trip to China to get a first hand feel of what is taking place there.

Friday was the 'shop till you drop' day. We went over to Wretham Premium Outlet mall and picked up loads of winter clothes. Jackets, fleece etc. Then we had some malaysian food at Penang (Harvard square Boston) and ice cream at Tossinini's (sp?). When I got back at 2 am - I was sure it was among the most enjoyable leisure days I had spent here.

The week is beginning - so it is time to put my nose back to the grinding wheel. 1 exam, a dinner with a visiting executive and lots of corporate presentations + hockey will form the week ahead.

Au revoir.

Mt. Cardigan and Accounting...

2004-09-29T21:34:00.000-05:00

The Sunday hike to Mt. Cardigan organized by the Outdoor Club was great. It was a short hike (just over an hour each way), but the view from the top of the hill was breathtaking. Fall is coming closer and the leaves are just beginning to change color.

The hike also gave me a chance to connect with some second years. So far, I have come away enriched and fascinated after each interaction I have had with a fellow Tuckie, and this set of people was no different. There was an exchange student who told me about the hiring scene in London for the specific jobs in the finance sector I am looking for. Then the conversation shifted to medical devices with a Tuckie who did an internship in that industry. Healthcare is an area that fascinates me. There is so much of innovation taking place in the sector and it impacts lives more directly than any other area of science. A few minutes later I was discussing the power industry and the American experience with deregulation. Texas has had the best experience and everybody knows what happened in California! Apparently, the in the windiest (?) places of the US, cost of generating power through wind turbines is rapidly approaching the cost of gas based power.

At the summit I casually asked another guy what he did in his previous life. He was a professional gambler. That got me really interested. Given my affinity to the markets, we had a conversation that went from how the sports betting industry is changing in his country to avoiding bias while betting. While most people think gambling is a vice, my view is it is just another place where you can apply game theory. This does not mean I have gambled/like gambling.

This morning we had one of the most fascinating classes I have attended so far. We studied motivational factors and how they were a function of different stages of adulthood/indivdual context. From the exercise it emerged that there are lots of dissimilarities between hopes and fears of men and women. Also, married/engaged men tend to think very differently from single men. Everybody who is single had getting a suitable life partner as a top hope and not getting one as a fear No 1. For the married folks, their hope was that the marriage would work. Single women seem to have this huge fear of loneliness. And single men between 26-28 seem to want 'strings-free sex'. Jokes apart, the analysis of how we pass through different stages of adulthood (from 22 - 65) and how our priorities change over this period was very interesting. That is one subject I would love to understand more. Self awareness I believe is the key to being happy.

Company presentations have been continuing without a break. All these days I was sure that I don't want to go into consulting. But, I just may make an exception for The Firm and drop my resume + covering letter. Some aspects of company presentations I find extremely stupid. Like how firms try to say that visiting a place is same as seeing a place. In my pre Tuck life, I did some serious travel on work - and have learnt that all you see when you travel on work is the inside of airport terminals, the route from airport to office and the office. Now, that is not seeing a place!

Before coming to the US, I was unsure on how I would continue to be connected with my friends. Thanks to technology and timezones, that isn't an issue. An upside is that I am able to reestablish close contact with the horde of friends who are on this side of the globe. Good friendships survive more on faith and don't require constant contact to remain strong. This belief of mine has been vindicated further now. The other day I was chatting with a friend I haven't seen in 6 years. After lots of discussion on credit derivatives and merits of working on the buyside vs sellside and prospects for markets in India, the topic shifted to marriage. The best thing about desis is that most of us rest easy on the knowledge that there is safety net called arranged marriage and sometimes don't even try to help ourselves! Whereas in the US, pple who aim to get married by early 30's start looking out actively at mid 20's. And the fear of remaining single s huge. As an observer, it seems quite stressful

Have an accounting mid term tomorrow. Some collaborative work has resulted in a good page of notes. A review of the last year's exam and I hope I am ready to take on the test.

Work Hard.. Play Harder ?

2004-09-26T00:30:00.000-05:00

The much awaited Decision Sciences mid term came and went :) I think it was okay.

Excel is something I have been fiddling around with for sometime now - thanks to the work I did. But just over 4 years ago - Excel was an unknown animal for me. When my first boss expressed his unhappiness about the fact that an assignment he had given was taking longer than he expected (coz of my lack of Excel knowledge), I remember telling him that as a computer science graduate, I was more familiar with building a tool like Excel than using it! But today, if I want to write some code, I would rather write VBA on Excel than write stuff in C.

With the exam and some rather time consuming Accounting stuff behind us, we were ready to take on the weekend. Friday night was the Mexican party. Viva Mexico. The party was good - but I didn't last there too long :). When a friend wanted a volunteer to drink some Tequila, I went along. And before I knew it, my mouth was at one end of a funnel while tequila from a bottle was poured at the other end!! It was good. And in 20 mins, I chose to return to my room and think about ways to bring about world peace - with my eyes shut. Go figure!!

Today morning, I wolfed down a full packet of potato chips with a fatty cheese dip to go. It worked ;-). That gave me the wherewithal to do my time at the gym. Elliptical trainers give you a good cardio workout without impacting the joints. So, from the last couple of weeks, I have stopped using the treadmill in favor of an elliptical trainer.

After spending a better part of the afternoon doing a take home exam on Analysis of General Management, I went off to a section party. First stop was a place 10 miles away from campus. Beautiful location, lovely house. Generally had a good time. Second stop (3 hours after first stop) was this mindblowing place called 'The Grotto'. It was INSANE. A huge house. An indoor swimming pool with a jacuzzi that changes colors, a chandelier that rotated. Fully furnished - and the inmates were paying a tad higher for the place than I did for my dorm room. Next year, I am gonna find a *good* place for myself.

Tomorrow is the Outdoor club hike to Mt.Cardigan. The weather promises to be good. So, I am looking forward to it. As I get more comfortable with the academic load, I have decided to participate in the club activities in a bigger way.

The study group coasts along beautifully. As a set, we are loosening up a little. In fact, some of my study group friends may even be writing guest columns on this blog. Watch out for those! After all, Tuck is synonymous with team work.

Finally, all you pple reading this - feel free to comment. It is anonymous and it is FREE. Everybody with a mind has an opinion, and you have a right to make your opinion known.

Weekend etc..

2004-09-21T22:26:00.000-05:00

The past weekend we had a wonderful desi party at a friend's house. There is a huge desi population this year - so the gettogether was a nice opportunity to meet everybody under one roof (invariably we run into each other every day - nevertheless).

On the work/life front, it is pretty much more of the same thing. Company presentations, classes, studies. Clubs are a new element thrown into the mixture. On Saturday evening during the Club fair I signed up for almost 10 clubs. Now I need to decide which of them I plan to participate actively in.

Finance, Investment Management, Technology and Squash are clubs that attract me. I hope to do some Ice Hockey and Outdoors too. While most clubs have their meetings in classrooms (typical size 70 people), the Hockey club has the first meeting in the auditorium that accomodates 300 people! It is more like a cult here. Since I have never skated before - I hope to be part of the Tripods.

This morning a few of us had lunch with the Academic Dean. Every week the Dean has lunch with a bunch of students to understand how things are going. Of course, we could always have lunch with him otherwise too :) - since most faculty members have the breakfast/lunch at the cafeteria and are happy to chat up with you.

A mid term exam and a final exam are scheduled for this week. My preparation level is not as good as I would like it to be. But, it is difficult to balance priorities. I am investing a lot of time into polishing my resume and zeroing down on what exactly I want to do.

Getting into the groove...

2004-09-17T00:21:00.000-05:00

The human mind is an amazing piece of engineering! After having been out of school for over 4 years, I thought it will take a really long time for me to get back into the active learning mode. Here I am, day 4 of week 2 - I can almost see myself getting back into the the student mindset.

The week so far has been hectic (isn't that getting stale!!). Corporate presentations have started - Consulting firms, Investment Banks and good ole manufacturing/marketing companies are holding hour long presentations saying how theirs is the best company to work for. Some people sound more genuine than others though :)

Just a week ago, I was sure what I wanted to do. Now, after lots of talking with friends and interacting with recruiters I am less sure about it. People say these presentations help you clarify your goals. They have only helped confuse me.

The party scene seems to be rocking. There is a concept of a social chair - somebody who takes responsibility to ensure that any night anybody wants to party - there is something happening. And there is a quality of life chair who ensures that we lead a balanced life and do some studying to round off the experience.

On my part, I haven't been partying too much (2 days a week isn’t too much!) Just this morning, I was discussing with my professor the way I seem to have changed in the last 4 weeks. She attributed it to the fact that since I was in a different country, different culture amidst a different set of people, becoming a bit introverted was the mind's protection mechanism. It would just be a matter of time before I get to a state of mind I am comfortable with, but I should be conscious that I will probably never be the old me again! These words could be cast in stone. They are so true!

Time is flying by so fast – at times I feel helpless to just watch it slip away. Every moment I am making choices – right now, I could be typing this, writing emails to friends in India, speaking on the phone to friends in the West Coast, reading today’s newspapers or reading a book I borrowed from the library. Of course, I could be playing ping pong or be partying at today’s late night party spot. (Almost each night there seems to be a different place where the Tuck crowd lands up!)

At times I just sit and wonder what a change there has been to life. Just a month ago, I was having a great time at home. Lying on my bed with remote controls for the music system and TV by my side, I could be the mascot for the urban tribe called couch potatoes. And now, the only TV I watch is when I am working out at the gym.

C’est la vie!

End of Week 1 - Phew...

2004-09-11T15:48:00.000-05:00

Week 1 of classes has ended. It has been hectic and enjoyable.

This evening I attended a Tuck Annual Giving dinner. Tuck has the highest alumni giving rate among all business schools with 65% of all living alumni donating money *every year*. In fact, there were some batches (going as far back as 1975) with giving rates of well above 60%. The passion among alumni is infectious. There was one alum who graduated in 1937 :) and one who had come all the way from central Asia.

Last night we had this awesome party - Red, Orange, Green party. No prizes for guessing what the colors indicate! The lounge where this was held was a collage of smaller events - with drinking games, beer pong, dancing and people trying to talk to each other over loud music!

During the past week, we have had classes in all core courses. The quality of professors is striking. All of them have decades of experience, excel in teaching while being at the forefront of research in their fields. While a lot of people spoke about the dual excellence (teaching and research) focus of Tuck faculty, I finally got to experience it.

First day of classes...

2004-09-07T16:05:00.000-05:00

Today was the first day of classes. I can't believe I came here just over 2 weeks ago. Feels like ages. Our study group met a couple of times (each time we spent about 3 hours!) to prepare for today's class. The output from the group was quite good. The class ofcourse was fantabulous. The very first course at Tuck - and it is a General Management course.

We also had a course on Leading Organizations. Pretty interesting too.

Later today, we had the first of the 'Sector Smarts'. Alumni coming down to Tuck and participating in panels about life in their respective careers. I attended the ones on Finance and Marketing. The Finance panel was very interesting (probably because I want to work in Finance). There were a couple of people from hedge funds and the third person worked for a middle market venture capital firm.

When I was applying to Tuck, everybody I spoke to told me about how the small size of the school ensured access to people - alumni, faculty and administration. While I didn't give this factor much weightage when I chose the school, today I saw what people meant by access.

I was able to spend subtantial time (one-on-one) with the alumni in hedge funds. This gave me an opportunity to bounce off them my ideas on what kind of an internship/job I wanted to look for, how I should market myself for that job, the dynamics in the marketplace etc. And today is just the first day of class!

The Labor day weekend that went by was nice. Made a trip to Boston on Sunday. Lovely city. Did a walking tour of the Freedom Trail. Learnt some nuggets of American History. I will try and audit a course on American History at Dartmouth coz that is something that interests me.

The last few days I have been able to exercise at the gym daily. The exercise routine has almost fallen in place. Hope I am able to take time off consistently and exercise.

Career search seems to be a huge part of life at business school. This afternoon when I opened my mailbox I had a folder from a top consulting firm with promotional material giving details of the presentation they have on campus in a few days and a shirt from an I Bank. The T shirt says Tuck nice and bold on the front. So, I guess a lot of us will be wearing this very often! Am hoping for more goodies from the other recruiters ;-). Each morning we get copies of Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal - thanks to other sponsors.

I wish somebody could sponsor and get me an extra 4 hours in my day - that would be AWESOME!

Orientation Week - almost over....

2004-09-03T12:11:00.000-05:00

Orientation week is almost over. We have had classes in Ethics, Communicating Across Cultures, Time Management and almost 50% of the time devoted to career management.

Spent a nice day trying to put up a roof for the Habitat For Humanity at Wilder,VT. I have always been interested in being an active member of the community I am part of, and look forward to doing more such activities. This particular initiative was organised by the Allwin Initiative. They seem to be doing some cool stuff. That evening we had a dinner where Mr.Jim Allwin spoke very eloquently about the need for good corporate citizenship. Milton Friedman may have different views, but I would rather agree with Mr. Allwin.

Last night we had a random dinner. The people at Tuck amaze me continuously. There was this guy who played on the NCAA as a basketball player. Pple who have lived and worked in so many different countries. We went to a Japanese stakehouse. I liked what I ate - Tepayaki Chicken.

My study group is gathering momentum. I think it pretty much rocks. Accomplished people with no egos makes for a great combination.

This morning we had a very inspiring talk about how to get your dream job. Drawing a balance between money, life and family can be quite a challenge I realize. But sometime during the next 2 years I hope to make the hard decisions.

Tonight we have a dance and dinner. Am wondering whether the Amitabh Bachchan dance will cut ice with the elite here :) - or should I stick to the few tango steps I know. Decisions, decisions.. all the time!

Orientation Week - First couple of days...

2004-08-31T22:29:00.000-05:00

Orientation week is now well underway. We have had the first few classes. Ethics and Time Management. Plus a class on effective teamwork.

Ethics has been a focus at Tuck long before the scandals in corporate America started hitting the newspapers. The focus has only become sharper now. The best thing about discussions on ethical dilemmas is that there are so many dimensions to them. They also highlight the responsibility each of us has to uphold moral standards and lead by example. But again, by definition, a dilemma has no single appropriate 'answer'. Toss into the mix cultural differences and you have a recipe for an engaging class. The fact that the faculty member handling the class has spent a really long time in corporate America and has been teaching ethics for ages only makes it more exciting.

Time Management was a bit scary and enlightening. The professor painted a picture of life 5 weeks from now - and it wasn't nice! Most of us would smell bad, dress bad, sleep little, have poor exercise and poor eating habits. A recipe for disaster. But such is the pressure of Fall A term. We were encouraged to prioritise, make an effort not to cut down on low hanging fruit like sleep/exercise. Let us see how many of us can actually implement these suggestions.

Earlier today, we were told about our study groups. The constant emphasis on teamwork was a key reason for me to choose Tuck. In my previous life, prima donnas were the rule rather than the exception and I was pretty much accustomed to running my pop corn stand. Now, that shall change and I am looking forward to working with a super diverse group. Among the 6 of us, we represent 4 countries, have work experiences ranging from 3 years to 20 years and are pretty much generalists. There is a White House intern, people who have worked on deals at marquee investment banks, founded non profits that are operating across the globe and have worn all hats from IT to operations to engineering. And I am still talking of my study group here. Fascinating! In order to ensure that the groups got off to a good start, we had a session on effective teamwork for the class of 2006 with members of the class of 2005 fielding questions and making suggestions on how best we could make teams work.

The socializing goes on uninterrupted. I probably know about 30% of the class (of 262) by name now. I will be happy if I can know 50% of people by name by end of orientation week. There is always 2 years of time to know everybody - afterall there are clubs, activities and electives!!

The resume is 50% done. It is due on Sept 20th. Am hoping to get it reviewed by a few second year folks by then. There is some tricky formatting to be done. Tomorrow I should be able to do that - after doing some work for Habitat For Humanity.

Registration & Welcome

2004-08-28T22:59:00.000-05:00

1 hour after we returned from our sailing trip it was time for Registration and Welcome. The registration process went off super smoothly. I just walked up to the desk where they were giving out the bags. The personal touch of Tuck was apparent coz the person said 'Hi Tagad_Tale, here is your bag. How was your sailing trip?' It isn't just the scale of Tuck, but the awesome people that make up the school that defines the place.

Soon it was time for the Welcome Session. The auditorium was bustling with Tuckies, Tuck Partners and Tiny Tuckies. One of the attractions of Tuck is the quality of life and the way partners, Tiny Tuckies and dogs are an integral part of the community. There was this fabulous golden retriever dressed in a Tuck T Shirt. He so wanted to eat my burger. Pity he took commands only in Japanese!

We were addressed by the folks incharge of the MBA program administration and academics. There was also a talk by the Dean where he touched upon the need for good leaders in business. 'Annoying advocates of Tuck' is what we can expect to become (if we haven't already!!).

My takeaway from the session was that it is up to us to ensure that we make best use of what Tuck has to offer and leave our mark on the institution. Everybody at school is eager to ensure that we succeed in this objective.

Leadership appears to be an area of great emphasis. The amount of time devoted to talking about leadership development was almost as much as the time devoted to the MBA core. An interesting suggestion was that we need not look at leadership in the narrow confines of the world of business but should also go beyond and look at opportunities on how we can lead and make an impact in our communities.

The Tuck community was another area that got focus I wasn't expecting. It was emphasised that professional conduct should not be restricted to the confines of the building but it is imperative upon us to maintain those standards while interacting with anybody who is part of the Upper Valley community of which we are a part. I think this is very noble and will be pround in ensuring that I live up to these expectations.

Finally we had the director of admissions talk about the process they went through in putting the class of 2006 together. Instead of the normal 240, there are 262 students - thanks to a yield bubble. The statistics make interesting reading

Average GMAT - 704
Average GPA - 3.4
Average Age - 28 years
Average Work Ex - 5 years
Female - 25%
Internationals - 30%
Countries Represented - 35

So, all you pple looking to apply to Tuck, you have some more information to lose your sleep over ;-)

The Sailing Trip...

2004-08-28T22:55:00.000-05:00

Monday morning - 7 am, the bunch of us who had chosen to attend Outward Bound got to Tuck Circle to catch the bus. There were some Donuts and Coffee from Dunkin Donuts waiting for us. After quickly grabbing some stuff to eat, we were off on the 5 hour long trip to Maine.

The group was divided into 5 groups of 11 people each. Most of us didn't know each other and we would be spending the next 5 days in close quarters. (Make that really close!) After a lunch of bread and peanut butter, we were onto the boat, duffel bags etc in place.

Our boat had a very interesting mix of people. Consulting, high tech, IT and non profit were some of the backgrounds. And the 11 of us were drawn from 4 countries, but between us had lived in over 20 different countries!! As time passed, we got to know each other very well. The first couple of days was sailing (and rowing when there was no wind).

It was my first sailing trip. Everything (including answering calls of nature) happens on board the boat. Initially, pple had their inhibhitions in using the head, but by the end of day 3 we had become so close to each other we even had a boat song.

'We could have gone to Kellogg, We could have gone to Sloan
Instead we chose Tuck, as the source of our loans

They said we would be sailing
Little did we know
The wind would not be blowing
So we would have to row

We watched each other pee
And heard each other fart
Now we are ready
For classes to start!'

We spent a night making a camp out out of just a sheet of tarpaulin and some rope (nay line). The resultant camp was so small that people were in spooning position! (To preserve body warmth!)

Prior to bed time, we had a 90 minute standup routine, 'Dirty Spanish 101'. This had us rolling over in laughter. Some people contributed with their intimate knowledge of English also and I returned with my vocabulary a bit extended ;-).

An interesting thing one person stated was that business school is rather tough on long distance relationships. Apparently, a large number of break ups happen on Black Friday (the day following Thanksgiving when lots of pple reunite. The number of single people at school seems to be substantial, and the fact that most people are at that stage in life when they are actively looking to get into a long term relationship makes for an interesting dynamic. More on this as time passes. I like the prospect of being a ringside observer as the game plays out!

On the penultimate day of the camp, we did some rock climbing. That was quite exciting. One of the members of my boat was on the rock face for over an hour. Some tenacity! I found it very inspiring. Considering that Tuck consists of such a fabulous set of people, I wouldn't be surprised if I found many such instances at every turn.

It is very easy for conflicts to arise when people live 24 hours a day in such close quarters. Surprisingly, there was absolutely no conflict or ill will on the boat or off it. Any disagreement resulted in energy being channelized in a positive manner. Then the realization dawned on me that this was possible only because we didn't bring our ego's with us. Though all of us had different accomplishments in our Pre Tuck life, we brought our experiences but not our egos.

After we returned to the mainland from our sailing trip, we had this pizza and beer party. The pizza and beer were woefully inadequate. But there was enough money left in the pool for some pple to make a beer run as well as get some soda (for non beer folks like me). About half way through the night, while the party was in full force, somebody from my boat group got the idea that we (as a boat - 11 people consisting of 8 guys and 3 girls) should streak through the party. Since I had never streaked before I wasn't very enthusiastic about the idea initially. Then I changed my mind and we all went. The crowd was rather surprised when we did the first leg of the trip, but when we returned towards our tent to get our clothes, the path resembled a runway with people's headlamps and torchlights in full blast. I just hope no photographs make their way out. That would be embarassing!

After a good night's sleep, we returned this morning. I was tanned and tired but happy at having done something that I had never done before - Sailing!! I would like to do it again sometime. It is kind of fun. But next time, I shall use SPF 50 sun screen!!

First day at Tuck... Settling down

2004-08-22T21:29:00.000-05:00

Right from the moment I shifted luggage into my room at Buchanan Hall yesterday evening, there hasn't been a dull moment. After unpacking and having a shower, a bunch of us went over to a local pub for dinner. The Bud Light added to the wine, vodka and cognac I had on the flight - and made my jetlag disappear rather soon.

I met so many future classmates that I can remember names and faces only of about 20 people now. Am sure over the next few days, I will get to know more.

Tuck'06 is made up of people from all over the world. Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, China, Chile, India, Mexico, Peru, Britain, Korea! Just learning about these cultures will be magnificent.

Last night, a classmate took me around the Tuck facilities. I came away very impressed. Am hoping that I make good use of the facilities here.

Today I got my laptop - an IBM T-41. The day was sunny and a friend took drove me over to the computer store. We then picked up some stuff at Walmart. A footlong at Subway put our growling stomachs to rest. I asked for a large cola - didn't know that a large cola is 1 litre - and then drank it without realizing it :).

Later in the afternoon, we landed up at Sachem village at another friend's house and spent the evening talking away - with topics ranging from the monetary threshold for retirement, the energy of the city of Mumbai (almost all of us had spent significant amounts of time working in Mumbai and liked the city). Of course, the fact that we got hot chai fuelled the conversation. Before we knew, it was evening and time to return to our dormitories.

The more I see of Tuck, Dartmouth and Hanover, the more I like the place. Hanover is a small college town - with almost everybody connected with Dartmouth in some way. For those of you who don't know, Dartmouth is a small Ivy League university that has a history dating back to 1769. It is home to the oldest graduate school of engineering.

Tomorrow morning, I leave for outward bound - a weeklong sailing trip in the Maine bay area. Am looking forward to it!

The trip to Hanover, NH

2004-08-22T19:37:00.000-05:00

I left home @ Bangalore on the morning of 18th. For once, the sadness of leaving home was more than the excitement of going through a new experience. Our domestic help of many years gave a teary farewell. Uncle, aunty, dad, sister and grandmom had all come to see me off at the airport. A close friend also woke up really early to see me off. Thus, with a heavy heart I bade goodbye to good old Bangalore.

The trip to Mumbai was good. Like I had planned, the 90 minute trip gave me quality time with my mother - so we were able to review the tumult of the last few months.

Mumbai was warm and humid as usual. Thankfully, the work that I had planned for the day went out very smoothly. Was also able to meet up with somebody I had been speaking to for months - but had never met) for coffee. This after a confusion between the Barista @ Shivaji Park and the Coffee Day @ SiddhiVinayak. This was followed by a dinner and conversation with another longtime friend.

Friday was rather uneventful. Watched 'Kyon Ho Gaya Na...' with my cousin. After receiving blessings at SiddhiVinayak I was ready to cross the seas and the oceans!

The trip by itself went off very smoothly. We took the Dartmouth Coach from Logan Airport (Boston) to Hanover. The bus dropped us off about 500 metres from our dormitory and we were faced with the unenviable task of dragging 80 kilos of luggage. A resident who noticed us getting off the bus insisted that she drop us off and got her car. The people around here are so friendly!

By the look of it, I am going to enjoy living here and intend being an active member of the local community.

Friends, Farewells & Goodbyes...

2004-08-18T23:49:00.000-05:00

'To meet and depart is the way of life. But to depart & meet is the hope of life. We meet to create memories, but we depart to preserve them. That's life!' - This was an SMS sent to me by one of my friends bidding me goodbye and wishing me a happy journey. I just stood back and reflected on this . The more I think about it, the more sense it makes.

The past few days have been really tough on me. Though I am not of the sentimental variety, I treasure my friends and friendships. So, a geographical displacement of the kind I am undertaking is especially daunting. However, I have tried my best to rein in my emotions. It is only now that the implications of going away to study is sinking into me. I tell myself that it is all for good.

There are different types of friends. Morbid though my analysis may sound, here goes - with malice towards none.

There are best friends - people who you can entrust your will to, with the assurance that they will execute it perfectly. They stand with you regardless of rain or sunshine and the faith in the relationship does not need to be articulated.

Then there are good friends. People with whom there is a great degree of comfort and trust. They are the kind who will attend your funeral inspite of the fact that you no longer exist.

Finally, there are friends. You could put in this category people with whom you hang out - because you have something in common. It could be a workplace, an activity or an education that you have shared. Friends are happy to be with you when you are around. So, you will find them in your birthday parties, but not at your funeral :).

Then there are acquaintances. Essentially, just like rest of the world - except that unlike John Doe, the two of you actually know each other!

I consider myself very fortunate when it comes to friendships. I happen to have more than my fair share of good friends and best friends. I pray to God that distance and time not impact these relationships and may they only strengthen over time.

This evening, I visited my mentor. It has been over 8 years since I last saw him. Felt good. If not for him, I wouldn't have gone to BITS, Pilani for my undergrad. Also, I wouldn't be writing this blog!

Coming to think of it, everytime I have been faced by a dilemma, be it professional or personal, I have ended up discussing them with people I trust. Subsequently, I have never regretted the decisions I have taken.

But again, everybody is not so fortunate as to be in the company of awesome friends!!

Coffee & Cafes...

2004-08-17T13:40:00.000-05:00

The last few years has seen a proliferation of coffee pubs - Cafe Coffee Day(CCD), Barista, Quicky's and recently Javagreen. I just love these places - especially coz they provide such a convenient location to meet people.

Over the last few years, I must have been to these places like a hundred times - different cities, Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi. Each time, cafe's have been the place where I have interacted with people. Ranging from a pitch a software vendor gave me in Barista on Linking Road (with 3 hours to go for my flight) to leisurely sipping coffee at the CCD at Ispahani Center in Chennai to umpteen meetings with friends - they have become an integral part of life.

The familiar ambience, standardized menu & service reinforce the fact that these are places you would be comfortable hanging out. In fact, earlier when you had to meet somebody, it was so difficult to identify a mutually convenient (neutral?) place. No longer. Be it somebody you are meeting just randomly, a future classmate, a friend you are catching up with after ages or just as an aggregation point before a movie - cafe's have become the first choice - and coffee is NOT the lure for the masses who throng these cafes. It is the guarantee of having a good time, without anybody peering over your shoulders/waiting for you to haul ass.

Espresso anybody ?

Memories...

2004-08-15T22:01:00.000-05:00

As I go about cleaning my room - I chance upon lots of legacy stuff. Greeting cards wishing me my 25th birthday, greetings cards wishing me a farewell at my workplace of 4 years. They join the bag that holds memories :)

"Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Discharge your duties faithfully and well. Step by step you get ahead, but not necessarily in fast spurts. But you build discipline by preparing for fast spurts... Slug it out one inch at a time, day by day. At the end of the day -- if you live long enough -- most people get what they deserve." - Charlie Munger

For almost 2 years, a printout of this was on my cubicle, inspiring me. Then it disappeared for over a year till I found it this morning. I read it a few times. Now I am ready to slug it out, one inch at a time, day by day by day. And I am actually looking forward to it!!

Each day is becoming busier than the previous. The to-do list grows longer. My schedule becomes more inflexible. The pace is turning from frenetic to frantic! The last time I had a dinner at home was almost a week ago! I am looking forward to the 90 minute flight from Bangalore to Mumbai becoz it will give me some time with my mother.

My seniors tell me to catch up on sleep before coming to Tuck because the first two terms are really hectic. And here I am, averaging 6 hours of sleep for the last 1 week!!

How I wish there are 48 hours in each day!!

Don't date too many girls..

2004-08-14T23:13:00.000-05:00

I would have expected my mom or somebody older than her to give me this advice. But, coming from my 8 year old 'twin', it was a surprising commentary on the kids of today. More about the family farewell to me later in the post!

Today was an awesome day. As the countdown to Tuck has begun, each day is turning out to be more memorable than the other. It started off with me crossing the mass of humanity, concrete and greenery called City of Bangalore to land up at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIM-B). A friend from work showed me around the beautiful green campus. He is attending B-school after 5 years of work and seemed to be managing the transition very well. Met up with a couple of friends with whom I had been interacting only on the net. Was nice to put a face to their names, but time pressures ensured that it was just that!

I reached IIM-B 30 mins behind schedule - and that delay carried on across the day to my last gathering! Time management is a skill I need to learn - and quickly :)

My former boss bid farewell to me with a lunch at Little Italy, a nice Italian (what else!) place at Indiranagar. Got to understand the difference between tagliatelle, macaroni, penne, cannelloni, fusilli. While I know the difference in forms now - I am not sure how they impact the food. Eg - How is dish B-15 (coz I don't remember the name of the dish!) with tagliatelle different from B-15 with penne? If you know, or can direct me to some gyaan on this, pls drop me an email/write it in the comments below.

Next stop was a BITSian friends house. A couple of other friends who are applying to B school next year had also come. Didn't know how the 2 hours passed! Would have loved to stay on for longer, but I was already running late for my next meeting!! Another B school applicant, more shop talk and I was off for the family farewell at a club.

We were one huge bunch of first and second cousins, uncles and aunties from the paternal side of the family. The evening was fun. I was presented a nice picture book on the families with a photo of me as a 1 year old kid on the cover! Then everybody present gave me advice for my upcoming trip. Advice ranged from - " Don't date too many girls " to "Come back and serve the country" to "If you want good food - Get married". There were gems like "Don't take too much advice" and "Do what you want to do". Dinner followed by a round of ice cream - and we returned home.

Last night's was the trek group farewell. Went to the lovely Eden Park. I am sad that this particular group of us got together just a couple of weeks ago to trek as a group. We could have done a few more treks if we realized all of us enjoy each other's company and temperaments. I hope there will be such times in the future again!

It is just past midnight. Happy Independance Day!

The tide turns...

2004-08-12T23:04:00.000-05:00

Last evening I got out of the rut! Went to my ex-office to meet up with old friends. It felt good. I learnt so much during the four years I worked there. Had a shot of caffeine at office with my former boss. And another with a couple of friends at Barista on MG Road. Catching up felt good - the more things change, the more they remain the same :)

Then I went over and got my suit fitted. The tailor seems to have done a good job. I kind of liked the way I look in the suit. The suit cost me an arm and a leg - but I think I deserve it!

Then the scene shifted to Sue's Food Place - a nice Caribbean restaurant in Indiranagar. Had dinner with a couple of good friends. It was just over 6 months ago the three of us started a dance workshop in Bangalore. The dinner was part farewell to me, part commemoration of the dance workshop and part welcome to the member of the trio who had just returned from the US.

Once I was home, I saw this mail about Outward Bound II in my mailbox. Almost 60 fellow Tuckies will be part of this! That is 25% of the class :). My second year link mailed in to say choosing to go on Outward Bound was a good decision. As a totally outdoorsy person, I am looking forward to a wonderful week of sailing in the Maine bay.

I need to whip my resumé into shape. A hedge fund internship is what I want to do next summer. Of the Tuck'05's I am in contact with, a surprisingly large portion are in private equity, private investment and investment banking. While these are all very fancied and difficult to land internships, hedge funds are supposed to be even tougher to get in and will probably require me to do a search outside of normal campus recruitment. There is a '05 who is with a quantitative arbitrage hedge fund. Once he is back on campus, I plan to get some guidance from him.

Leaving Bangalore - the blues.....

2004-08-12T08:50:00.000-05:00

It is slowly sinking in. The thought that I will be leaving Bangalore soon. It is not the first time I am leaving my city. But, this time it is different. When I left home to study at BITS, Pilani 8 years ago, I was just out of high school. I was going there with a few of my best friends. And it was very much in India.

Will I be back here in 2 years time, 5 years time, 10 years time ? I don't know. All I know is that this city is my home and this is where I want to come back. The city will be different a few years later. I will be different then. The people who matter to me will be different. But, that is life!

Yesterday I bade goodbye to people at office. I was there for just 3 months. But, it felt like I was working there from a long time.

The morning was spent listening to John Denver's 'Leaving on a Jet Plane' in a loop :). Till a fellow Tuckie cropped up and told me NOT to listen to it. He was feeling totally sentimental about leaving home too. It helps to know I am not the only person feeling this way.

The next few days, I plan to savor every moment I spend here. Will be meeting tons of good friends. A vain effort to clutch on to time. There is some shopping left. But, I don't feel upto it.