5th october, 2009

Today was just like other days, barring the small victory i had over sleep. I slept at 3 am, and was awake at 7 am; finishing my sleep in 4 hours; something which was always on my mind for the past few years. Sleep has been my biggest undoing and biggest enemy all these years. It's as if i am a completely different person when asleep, no amount of reason ever enters into the dark territory of my sleep. It seems that gradually i have started having some control over my sleeping habits, and though i may have lost many battles, i have full intention of winning the war.
Today after getting up early, i started for the college for the reading room of college is a good place for studying. So hardly had i taken a few steps out of the hostel when i saw a rare sight:

This was right in front of the sydnehm college. I mean I have seen such sights, but always in newspapers, never in real, and never so close. Somehow the reality is always more brutal, more intense and more thought provoking than the coverage in newspapers. Imagine what a day of incessant rains can do to a tree.

Not to be struck in watching the accident, i hurried to college to read about product and brand management, for we had a test coming at 2:30 pm.The paper was of two parts : one part by Rutu Mody and the other part by V. Kumar. Prof. V kumar's test was open book examination and consisted of numericals. This was my first experience with open book examination and i was pleasantly surprised and impressed to say the least. This way we did not have to memorise any equations ( Bass eq., Sales forecast etc) and we could concentrate on solving the problem. It went a long way in clearing whatever doubts were remaining prior to the exam. Imagine, an exam teaching you to apply your learnings! That was a unique experience for me! Now i understand the lacune of indian education system where the emphasis is more on memorisation rather than application of knowledge. It is the sheer hardworking ability of indians that see's them overcome a number of odds. And i am a convert to open book exams now!

So after the test, which ended at about 5:30, we again gathered in the reading room for clearing some doubts about supply chain management. Alas! this is not to be an open book examination! Well we were back to memorisation techniques, and whatever time we could find to discuss we discussed about the various case studies done in class. Despite doing them, the confidence is at an all time low, for the concepts are not crystal clear. I plan to utilize tomorrow's time for revising the subject matter once again. Oh, how we would have loved a one day break before this paper. This is supposed to be the toughest paper of this trimester. Maybe the college authorities should also believe in applying the win/win theory ( which they teach so gleefully ), in pracical cases. Or maybe not! For until the going gets tough, the tough don't get going!