Mid-term fever and Election-pox?!

If you are wondering what the title is - they are the categories of the photography contest organized by a club here and it pretty much describes what's happening in the campus at present! We have a mid-term exam for Stats and Economics in the next 3 days and the whole campus seems to be burning midnight oil... The library is almost filled from 7am - 2am!! I have been slogging (or thats what i think!) to catch up with the pace. Every morning I plan my day and walk into the library at 8am and the guy at the counter says all books are issued!! Hmm...so u just end up paying for the not-subsidized photocopies (adds to the sunk cost!). These mid terms have really taken the sleep out of me. Even if i manage to get a few hours of sleep , all I can see is μ’s p’s z’s σ’s !!!!! Everyone is just waiting to get done with these exams and party hard!

It has been exactly 1 month since we all came here...and there have already been 5 confirmed cases of chicken pox on campus...Very unfortunate for people who are affected by it, especially with exams round the corner.. So everyone is extra careful here these days..

The next exciting thing happening are the GSB(Graduate Student Board) elections - for the president of the Student Board who would also be a brand ambassador for ISB.. The responses for nominations have not been good...There has been just 3 nominations and I guess not the "best" ones.. Well, I guess we either choose from the available choices or just refrain from voting!!

It's 1.15 AM now...and time for me to get back to my μ’s and p’s.... when the rest of the world sleeps in peace.....

Things that I miss...

It's been about 3 weeks now since I came to hyd... feels like ages though - courtesy ISB ; coz of the zilion things that I've had to do here in just 20 days!!! I have kinda got adjusted here now - this new place, new lifestyle, new friends, etc..But amidst all this exciting stuff and a hectic schedule, in those couple of hours of time I get for myself, I really miss a lot of things - the stuff I have left behind....
- My home sweet home..
- My mom's delicious cooking (even my ex-colleagues at Intel would be missing this !!:) )
- Playing TT and carrom at Intel
- 2 early morning breakfasts - once at home and then at office!! (I dont get time to have even 1 here many a times)
- Those long and short coffee breaks with "A" during work ( I need to pay 5 bucks here for a small cup of coffee which tastes like sugar water !! )
- Those really stupid and time pass conversations and gossips on IM with "A" and "B"....
- Those frequent visits to corner house....yummy hot chocolate fudge! :(
- Pani puri at Calcutta chaat and Karthik's ( To eat any kind of chaat here I need to travel at least 12 kms :( :( ...
- Masala dosa at CTR!!!! ( my mouth is watering .....)
- Pubbing at Tavern and P claiming everytime that he can have 7 Tequila shots !!! It was so much fun seeing him drunk ..LOL
- My music class and guitar lessons from G
- Relaxed and stress free weekends (I cant differentiate between a weekday or a weekend here!! They are equally hectic)
- That beautiful bangalore weather (It's freakin' hot here!!!)
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The list is just endless....

Economics in action...

I have always had the perception that economics is a very dry and boring subject (this was mainly based on my high school knowledge of the subject). It's very surprising that my views have completely changed in just a matter of 2 classes and few hours of reading of microeconomics !!(this is one of the 4 subjects of my Term1). Contrary to my initial perceptions, I find it very interesting and fun to read....one of the reasons is definitely Prof. Amit Bubna - a very cool and energetic guy who can make any person fall in love with this subject!

Economics does sound very abstract and "unrealistic". There is this joke about 3 people - a chemist, physicist and and economist. They are in an island where there is ample supply of canned food but no tools to open the cans. The chemists thinks about lighting fire and bursting open the cans, the physicisit advocates building catapult to smash the cans. The economist's idea? "Let us assume we have a can opener" :) So economics does have a lot of assumptions which may be unrealistic but I guess this is essential because of the high complexity of the subject.

Some new concepts which I have come across that have excited me -
How much does it really cost??
- No one is born with infinite wealth. People have to do some trade off's and are forced to make choices. You cannot have them all!! Anytime I have made such choices, I have never really thought about the true costs of these decisions. Consider me quitting my well paid job and spending a HUGE amount of money to do my MBA here at ISB. All I probably thought about is the return on investment after a year from now...but I guess there is more to analyze in these situations. Economists call this the "Opportunity Costs". So the true cost of making any such decisions is the value of what must be given up in order to acquire the item. Consider another case - there are 2 firms which offer interest rates of 10% and 12%. Where would you invest? Definitely the second one. What is the earnings/profit on making this choice? I would initially say 12% but according to economics it is 2%, coz u are giving up 10% in making this choice!! Hmmm......pretty interesting I must say

The importance of thinking Marginally..
I dont want to go in detail about explaining what are marginal profits, revenues blah blah... not trying to teach economics to my blog readers :) But one interesting application of this concept can be seen thru this puzzle -
A soccer promoter must allocate 40,000 seats in the stadium among the supporters of 2 teams X and Y. She can set diff prices for seating in the stands for these 2 teams. If she sells "x" seats to team X supporters she will receive (20-x/2000)$ for each while she can get 10$ per ticket from Y supporters, regardless of the number of tickets she sells to them. Her objective is to allocate the 40,000 seats that are available in whatever manner, so that she can earn the maximum money (revenues). How can the tickets be split?

Well..if some of u reading this post are jobless and wanting to do something, u can try and solve this puzzle and ask me for the solution :)

More posts on economic "fundaes" to follow .....!!

after a long break...

I could finally take some time off to post a blog after a really long break!! (its been just 10 days but this is long in my standards considering the frequency of my previous posts!). The reason behind this - I had a week long of pre-terms in accounts and business statistics, both of which were greek n latin to me (though I claim to have done a course in stats long back!). Yesterday marked the beginning of my Term1 - its been just 2 days but I really got a flavour of how hectic life can be here, at ISB. It took me a while to really get a grip on myself , to sit back and understand what is going on and what needs to be done!. There is so much to read before and after each class - for 4 subjects - u miss one day's reading and u need to slog to catch up with the pace!

Life is just so different here. I so wish I had more than 24hours per day - coz there is so much to do and so little time. This education system which I am exposed to is so very different from what I have been thru all these years - every class here is so interesting - some coz of the subjects and the others coz of the profs. These professors here are so amazing that they can really create an interest in you for even dry subjects like economics (dry according to me...). In just a couple of days of reading, I have developed so much liking to these fields such as accounts and economics , which I never thought were my cup of tea!! As and when I learn about these new subjects, I am definitely going to take some time off to post my perspectives on a lot of interesting and exciting things that I come across.... watch out! :)