long time

It was, conceivably, a perfect day..... Class ended at 8:00 and I got to come home straight after that.

Should I start to countdown till the end of my school (which is very very close) I wonder..... have a mixture of both YES and NO feeling… 'Yes' cause I only I have 4 weeks of school left .. 'NO', cause this means innumerable Workload!!!!!

Huffing and puffing, I have made this far.. And 90% of the credit goes to dear husband for all the encouragement and patience. Had it not been for his encouragement, I would not have reached here.

Internship is going on fine. I am learning more and more about Bloomberg and S & P Index and all of a sudden, I am hooked to CNBC news….isn’t it ironic !!

Harry Potter’s final book is out. I talked with my sister yesterday, who still does not have the newest book and all her friends back in Liverpool has it. I have only read the first two. At the moment, I am still reading Anita Desai’s Fasting and Feasting, which surprisingly has taken me longer to finish than I had expected.At this pace, it might take me another month to finish it.

The new book for Khaled Hosseni is out.. I want to read that one and I am pretty confident, that I will finish that book in couple of weeks!!....not months.. like the past few ones…

Lately, I have been dreaming of traveling.. I want to travel.. I want to go to Manchu Pichu.. for no particular reason. Since the time I have watched the movie “Motorcycle Diaries,” I wanted to go there..

I believe in Traveling..

I believe in the power of travel to change — to change individuals, communities and the collective global consciousness. I believe that it is only through personal understanding of different peoples and cultures that we can progress as a society.

It is 11:00 at night. It is bed time for me. I wanted to catch up my blogging... The day was kind of misty today. Looking outside the window, I see the moon...And the moon, the moon with its inconstant face, slipping through the turbulent sky like a fish through the rapid danger of the shoals, smooth and perfect and utterly unknowable.

Adieu!

regualar snippets

I am sitting at home, doing my Gillette Case write up, (which is almost done) and watching the program called “High Net worth Individuals” at CNBC channel. I have been trying to follow the news at CNBC for last hour and half. Since at work, they have the CNBC news on all day, I thought it was going to be useful for me to brush up my financial knowledge. AND! I actually enjoyed the news…

High Net Worth Individuals (HNWI) was interesting program. They had an interview with Laxmi Mittal and Victoria Beckham, aka Posh Spice. Since the "Beckhams" have just moved to the US, the whole financial world has their eyes on them.. They indeed are the High Net worth individuals.

Then suddenly, another interesting thing caught my eye. It was about “Jet Airways.” For some reason, I always thought, Jet Airways was from back home, however, to my dismay it is not. Anyways, back to the interesting stuff, the news was that, the CEO of Jet Airways, Mr. Naresh Goyal, revealed the world's most revolutionary interiors and most luxurious airline seats including their First Class Bedroom Suites. “The passenger will have their private butler,” Mt Goyal emphasized.

The total cost of this airline ticket from Mumbai to NY is approximately, 14,0000 $$ and the GREAT Mr. Goyal is worth $1.5 billion. Very very interesting!!!

It is hot!!! For some reason, I want it to rain and storm like it never has before. I wonder what it is about storms... or just snow... that makes the sky burn late at night.

Reading wise, I have started reading, Anita Desai's "Fasting and Feasting".. So far, nothing exciting has happened yet, but I am pretty sure, in next couple of chapters, it will be all exciting.. :)

When I came closer I saw that the fire dancers were out, twirling at the center of blazing trails of heat, their skin glistening gold and orange in the light... This was my dream.. I think I was in a jungle.. alone... no body on my side. I have been getting this feeling a lot lately.. don't know why....those...Lonely dreams.. :)

However, being alone did not make me unhappy. I was not SAD in my dream. Infact, quite content. Because in the end, what will it matter? What comfort can it possibly bring me? How will it justify my life to be first in the eyes of another? Only I can validate my existence. Surely it isn't right to put my hope in a fallible being. BLAH !! Blah... I am not making a single sense am I? It has been a rough week/days for me :)

Because of the hectic schedule, I wish I was living in a dorm. Sleep, get up in the morning go to school/work and then back to the dormm.. For instance, today, I have class until 10:30....... I will be dead tierd by then..

Work was interesting. Made graphs using Excel today and it was neat. It was really hot outside and I beleive it is. I feel like taking a nap.. a long nap..

I wonder, sometimes, how we keep ourselves above the despair that looms yawningly below us as we tread the fragile bridge of everyday life. I do not do anything but simply WONDER!!!

I'm full of wishes but even more full of fear.

Days has been tedious. Workload is gradually piling up. Presentation, mid-term and paper-- all lined up for next year.

Intership wise-- it is going Great. Everyday has been a learning expereince. I learned to make a Equity chart in the Excel sheet. I have always been an avid user of p.point but I guess, excel is more popular in the financial world.

I just got done with one meeting. Another meeting will start soon...

gray

Summer 1 has finally finished. It is summer 2 now. I have 5 more weeks to go, and then I am done with the 'studying' part of the MBA.

In addition to that, I have started an internship. I work until 2 in the afternoon and then head back to my class. The experience has been good so far. So far, I have learned about Client's Portfolio Review, comparing ROR with S& P index and today, I learned about filing a litigation claim for a client.Tomorrow, I am planning to take a Bloomberg prep course once again.

Even though, I am not finance major, working at ML has been fun. I have learned a lot!!
Summer has been nice and pleasant. Yesterday we went to the fort near the airport and enjoyed watching the “Take off " and "landing," until the rain ruined the peaceful evening.

Saturday, we went to Motu dai's Picnic and then latter half of the day was mostly shoppingg ugghhh!

Today is intermediate. Suspended in time, in space. It's got that gray feeling of not being a peak or a valley but somewhere lost on the slope. In between. I should be doing something but I don't know what it is. Class starts soon.

Presentation Mania

Four down.. two more to go..... The brutal week is not getting better.. Physically or Mentally!!

Summer I will end on Friday, and Summer two will start from Monday, July 2nd.

Strangest dream the other night. Surprisingly, all about Negative reinforcement.

Maybe communication would be that much easier, not having to use words.

Presenation Fiasco

Had one of the hardest Presentation yesterday on the " Random House".... the core topic was about Integrated Vs Potfolio organization and about a synergy of a company. Is it really good to have synergy???

Sadly, even putting extra effort for so many days, the presentation did not turn out to be good. In fact, we were grilled until the very end... The presentation which was suppose to last one hour and 15 min lasted for brutal 2 hours.

I want to write more.. However, I'm not going to write about what I probably originally wanted to because the night is shot. It's gone. the happiness i had kind of disintegrated.... at least the music is good.. the beautiful Jazz.. and of course, I am tierd... 2 more weeks to go..

Confusion

I'm wondering if and how i could reinvent myself.
I think that would be a worthwhile thing to do.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Happy Happy Birthday to the GORGEOUS husband!!!

MANY MANY MANY HAPPY RETURNS OF THE DAY!!!

I wish you all the happines, laughter and luck for the year ahead.

May all your dreams come true and you reach a new height of sucess each day!!!

With your Persistence and Determination, you will soar to unreachable Horizons!!!!!

Loving thoughts for the nicest, smartest, handsomest husband a girl could ever wish for!

Happy Happy Birthday!!!

Snippets!!!

Relaxing isn’t it when the day is past and you are spent all you had on surviving its trials and wonders and awakeness and the only thing to do this time of night is lazily turn an apathetic ear to a boring or rubbish tv show or simply lying down doing absolutely nothing. The air isn’t heavy its just your head and lips weight more than all that but its nonsensical and unimportant all at once.

Anyways, Summer school is going by way faster than any of us had ever imagined. The work load is unfathomable!!!

I am so much behind the blog thingie. So much has happened. I still have to update my German visit along with the UVA graduation and the Maine visit. It is just that I have been bit busy with the school work. The case study simply does not stop coming.

This morning in the train I was reading a case for my Brand management class about “Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy”. Yup! I had no idea about the full name of the empire. Henessey and Moet et Chandon are both a leading champagne and cognac manufacturer. Moet et Chandon, at first merget with Henessy and later, they then merged with Louis Vuitton. So far, this has been one of the interesting cases I have read. Another one that I read yesterday was about the Chinese brand Lenovo!!

With that being said, it is time for me to get back to my case study. I will try to assure the fact that all the exciting blogs along with the pictures will be updated soon!!

Ciao

My Diary in Germany

The first day

The trip from Boston to Germany was really a short one. The travel was good however, I know for a fact that given a choice, I will not fly in Lufthansa again. In Boston, Lufthansa has done so much marketing promotion and it has really succeeded in gaining attention and placing the image of Lufthansa as a superior airlines. I am going to say bluntly that I did not like it at all. The leg room was really small, the portion of the food was small as well and on top of that, they had no LCD’s on the back of the seat.

The only thing that I liked about this airline was that we did not have to pay for the wine. Unlike other airlines in which you have to pay $5 for a glass of wine, we had the liberty to enjoy free wine in Lufthansa.

So far my best flight experience has no doubt been in Northwest Airlines. For Asian Airlines it is Cathay Pacific, Thai, and Singapore Airlines.

Along with Amit and Diviya, Matt, Huani and Professor Mclean were also in the same flight. We had a direct flight from Boston to Frankfurt that was good. The only caveat was that we landed in Frankfurt at 5:00 in the morning and our hotel rooms were not available till 12:00 in the afternoon. Bummer!!

Luckily Matt got a room. After placing our luggage, we decided to go for a quick stroll in Frankfurt. The place looked very quiet. Some of the places very much reminded me of Zurich. The building, the small paved streets……. the train.

We took a quick tour around the river and everything was closed. The place was very quiet. For some reason I was hoping to see small bread and baguette shops like the ones in Paris. However, the streets of Frankfurt were completely deserted. Soon it was 9:00 clock; we had wandered around the city for 3 hours…. .Yet, nothing seemed to open. We walked around the city for another hour. There was a huge flee market near the banks of the river. Since we were trying to kill time, we walked slowly around the market. I was half asleep.

Finally upon arriving at the hotel at 12:30 pm, we got a room and took a nap. I was bit tired of taking too many pictures…

We had a group meeting in a small room where we got to meet with everyone. Everyone was excited, excited for the “chic and elegant” dinner that night. The meeting was a short one, basically summarizing our trip agenda. We also had a quick introduction with Dr. Gilbert and Ingo.

Dinner that night was fabulous. I had ordered salmon which was equally good. After the dinner, we went for a night walk… Night life in Frankfurt was completely different. It somehow reminded me of “July 4^th” fireworks night. The night looked young to everyone… however, I was tired. The rest of the group decided to go. After a exciting 45 minutes walk, I was ready to go to bed. And yes, we did manage to see the tallest building in Europe and yes, we were 100% convinced that it was definitely the tallest building.

busy

I promise I will write something here as soon as the world stops and lets me off. Been Busy with school, homework and family.

Lots of exciting news on the way...

We went to Maine over the memorial day weekend. Bar Harbour to be exact. It was a breath taking experience. I promise to post it soon.

Currently, I am in the library. Studying a case for " Value Chain."

Gotta get going. Summer school is exausting.... I really am tierd!!

after a long silence..

Needless to say, I have been extremely busy with school work as well as other stuff. I promise I will write something here as soon as the world stops and lets me off. :) *Sigh*

I remain hopelessly behind with journal entries.

I have yet to write about the exciting part from the Germany trip-- which I assure will come soon.

Summer semester has been hectic. Having a class twice a week is quite brutal. We have case write-ups and case reading everyday for the 4 classes.

Last week my uncle and aunt were in Boston for 2 days. They were in Belgium and made a stop in Boston before heading to NY on Friday. To make the thing worse, we had a pouring rain on Friday. Despite the nasty weather we still managed to take a tour of Boston. Prasanna took us in a drive to Rockport and Gloucester.. (Excuse my typo!) which both my uncle and aunt enjoyed a lot!!!!

We left Boston around 9:30 at night and got to Long Island at 1:15 in the morning. We had to head off to Virginia for our cousin's graduation so we had to leave the next morning. I was bit sad cause I really wanted to spend time with my uncle and aunts........ it was very very short visit!

The drive from Long Island to Virgina was long and tiring BUT we made it!!

Virgina was fun.... University of Virginia is Beautiful. Both Pras and I, we had visited our cousin about 3 years ago .. and now here we are in his graduation. The campus really reminded me of my own University. Beautiful and Green "University of Mississippi." The exciting trip was also the speaker in the ceremony! John Grisham was one of the speakers!! I was so excitied. I had seen him about 4 years ago in book store when he was doing a book signing in his hometown of Oxford, MS. Seeing him again was indeed a pleasure ....

But amongst all was the WEATHER!! ..… the weather was superb!! Neither a scorching sun nor a cold wind.. it was perfect.. Simply perfect. Graduation was nice. Family re-union was even more fun! We flew from Baltimore on Monday night.. 7 family members all flying together.... I remember, I used to always tell my parents how I hated flying alone and now, I had the liberty of flying with a whole family.

Right now everyone is in Boston. We have total of 7 members in the house. It feels nice. Very homely feeling!!

Here is a quick overview of all the little things I wanted to write about but never found the effort or the time to. I will try to be more disciplined from now on.

We had the Negotiation Workshop yesterday and the professor was indeed a character. He reminded me of a general in an Army. Had he been our professor, we would all have been very very disciplined.

Now back to studying!!

back from Germany!

I am back from Germany... it was a great trip but bit hectic one. I wish I had more time to enjoy the cities. Lufthansa, BMW and Adidas's company's visit was really fun and interesting. Little did I know about Adi Dassler, the founder of Adidas ( the word Adidas is the first name of Adi and Das is the first three letters of his last name) yup! All day I dream about sports or something else for that matter has nothing to do with it.. :)

Of all the places, Munich, Frankfurt and Berlin, I really really love Berlin and Munich. The ond historic buildings, the museums and the history is what I liked the most. Food, on the other hand was ok. Too much sausages, snitzels and pretzels... I had really started to miss Rice and Curry and Dal. Wine was fun.. infact, I must admit, we had too much of a wine and pretzel.. I really missed Pras. Since he is the wine lover, he would have really really loved this trip.But, there is always next time.. I look forward to doing this with him again!

The weather was perfect!! Only slight rain in the last few days in Berlin, but other than that it was nice. Yes.. I am all tanned now thanks to the 2 hours of boat tour both in Frankfurt and Berlin.:)

School started from Yesterday ( yikes!! and I already have a case write up due on Monday!!!!) Since the China group are still not back from their seminar, we only had 10 people in our class yesterday. Today, my first class got cancelled and I have another one in couple of hours. As I was going to school yesterday, I was happy to see Park Street's " T" station filled with the sign of " SAVE DARFUR." Oh! how happy I felt.The world is slowly realising the importance of Sudan!!

Weather in Boston is very pleasant as well. I can hear the wind outside. My window rattles a lot in the wind. It's kind of annoying. I have lot to write but I need to clean the house. My uncle and aunt are coming on Thursday. I am excited and then everyone is coming next week... I have lots and lots of exciting news about my trip. The presentation Fiasco, the Hoffrahause, the wine tasting, the Rhine river cruise and many more.. But for now, I gotta get ready for my class.

Done with the second semester

I am done with my Finals. Finance went ok I think… but it is so unpredictable. When you think you have really done well, the result you get will completely shatter all the expectations. Yesterday’s exam was better than the previous two. I think I did better than the last two ones… but again, I can never be sure.

I was happy yesterday after my exam, but then again, I was sad! I do not know why…. I mean kind of happy... but in a sad kind of way. I'm conflicted about this time of year, can you tell?

Packing is all done… I leave in about couple of hours and tomorrow at this time I will be in Frankfurt. Life takes a different mode every few seconds…I am happy and sad.....sad that pras will not be with me.. happy that I will be in a new country, new culture, new everything... and of course, I am happy that I am done with my second semester!!

Interesting thing happened to me… thanks to face book.

As I was coming home from school yesterday in the T at MIT station a guy walks in. He looks familiar. He was “Eswar,” a guy senior to me from International School of Japan. I was in a debate team and had debated against his team in my freshmen year of high school. That was in ‘95….. Almost 12 years ago… I recognized him right way. I introduce myself and then we start to chat. He recognizes me as well. What a small world. His parents were still in Tokyo. I told him about my parents and my recent to Japan. We exchanged our number and plan to meet sometimes soon.

What a small world. I meet with a person, whom I had known in my high school days in Tokyo and meet him RANDOMLY in a subway in a total different city… :)

The picture above has no relation to this blog title.. I just thought it was simply cute...and True maybe ;)

Almost done..

My Operational Management exam is done. It was ok. It was hard. The last few questions were exceptionally hard..... What is done is done.. I am glad it is over.

Now one more to go. My Finance exam tomorrow and then I will be done for the second semester. No more Finance.... :) I have studied a lot for this exam.... My past experience for this test has not been good. However hard I try, the result has always been quite disappointing....

Nevertheless, I have not given up.

Hope at the end is what keeps you going right :)

I have given my best... 4 days of studying... and tomorrow is the big day!

I had a chance to quickly skim the "Metro" this morning and was quite appalled by the news about the resignation of Lord Browne.

"Chief Executive John Browne resigned Tuesday, hours after a judge allowed a newspaper to publish allegations from a former boyfriend that the executive misused company resources."

I was very surprised. I had seen his talk exactly one year ago at MIT's Dean Innovative Series talk and how impressed I was after listening to him.

I still have one question pondering in my mind:

Is it really fair to bring in the private life. “The former boyfriend's allegation..." ??

Exam Anxiety

My operational Management Exam is tomorrow. I have been studying all day.. I am prepared.. I think….the worst is yet to come. On Thursday I have Finance.. the exam that I have been dreading for..... it has been my worst nightmare.

Nothing going on in my life except studying. The apartment looks messsy... practically books everywhere. I got an email from Don Cheadle, the actor from "Hotel Rwanda." I did not get his email per se, but I got an email with his signature. It was for the “Darfur Day." I still feel bad that I missed the demonstration. I was looking at the pictures and it looked nice. Lot of people with energy and determination to stop the Genocide in Sudan.

Something made me think about the American media…. news in particular. Living in this country makes you isolated from the rest of the world I think. Back home, we had BBC and even the Nepali news channels covers at least 20 min of the international news. Back in Japan, because I was in International school, I was constantly aware of the world news. However, suddenly, it was different when I came to the US. (Again, this is solely based on my personal experience and please feel free to disagree!)

Regarding the news of Darfur. It was the " Darfur day" on Sunday. People around the world demonstrated for PEACE in Darfur... they demonstrated for the Human Rights. Had I not been involved in Amnesty International two years ago I would not have realized about this worst atrocities. Similarly, my husband was telling me the same thing. Had it not been because of my involvement in Amnesty, he would not have known about Darfur.

I wonder why American media focuses so much on Iraq and South Korea when there are much greater epidemics happening in the world.

I have so much to write about...... I can go on and on...

All right, I better get back to my studying mode….

Let there be peace in Darfur!!

On the side note, the comment I received today on my blog was very nice. I was very happy Thank you!!

three more days till Final

Been studying all day today….. yesterday and day before yesterday. Exam is on Wednesday and Thursday morning…... (All throughout the weekend I studied and completely forgot to go the " Save Darfur" demonstration at Boston Commons!! sucks!!!!) on the other hand, Pras managed to go see the "Raag concert" at MIT. Lucky him....

I have closed all the blinds and been focusing on my corporate finance book. About forty minutes ago, I eased back the curtains and saw lights. What a beautiful day it is outside.

I need a break. I have been hooked with the facebook. I met my old high friend Natasha from Japan almost after 12 years. Kudos to Facebook! It is really is amazing and addictive.

I did not go to school today. Decided to stay home and study. Been productive day I must say. Another couple hours of Finance and then I will focus on my Operational Management.

I want to keep writing... I just can't think of anything else important right now. Another night

Studyy

It's barely 11:20 and i can hardly keep my eyes open. It’s going to be nice to be asleep by midnight or a little after. I have been studying all day.. FINANCE.. dividend payout, bonds, stock, capital gains...uughhh

Second semester is literally done( Alas!) My last day of class was on Friday. Thursday we had the law Presentation and we got A on the spot!!! Our group was happy. Since we had spend soooo much time on the case analysis and the rationale.. it really paid off. Our case was on “Sherman Act” and “Arbitration” on Mitsubishi Vs Chrysler Company. Also got a satisfying grade on our IT presentation. Hopefully, the final grade will be as good as this one. So far, it has been good. I have been working straight through this semester. I'm not sure where it went. Never really stopped to take a breath ( well maybe here and there :). All of a sudden it is the last week of school.

Next week at this time, I will be in Frankfurt. I am excited but scared as well, because by then, I will be done with my Finance exam.. Wonder how I will do it.... ?? I wish Pras was allowed to join the group. I really wanted to see “Germany” with him but they would not let him….Maybe next time...

It was a beautiful day today…. beautiful in a photograph. A blue sky, electric green trees, people walking about... blustery winds and noises everywhere. Pras went for a walk! Lucky him. He did not take me along as I had to study... and I could not argue with him because I really had to.

Friday evening was nice and relaxing. We had the Yadav brothers at our place. White wine/Newcastle beer, spinach and shrimp curry ... were a good combination.

I cannot study anymore. Both Pras and I, we are watching a program called “1000 places to see before you die" on Travel channel. They are showing city of Paris... what a beautiful city that was........City of love.. Pariisssss.. tres tres bon!