Brain Freeze

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

To B, or not to B...

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
-Hamlet, William Shakespeare


Yeah, officially, my GD/PI season is over for 2006.
Here's a quick recap for those of you with a short memory span (which, knowing my readers as well as I do, is EVERYONE!)


13th Februrary, 2006:
IIM Kozhikode
GD: Average, started the GD, because everyone was equally blank on the given paper.
PI: Average, HR mixed with lot of human-interest angles.

22nd February, 2006:
IIM Lucknow
GD: Very good, gave good points. The topic was a li'l weird!
PI: Semi-stress where I wasn't allowed to complete sentences. Horrible experience chronicled earlier.

4th March, 2006:
IIM Indore
GD: HR based Case Study, where I spent most of my time waving my points goodbye as they went whizzing by.
GD was again average.
PI: Was feel-good, as long as I was in the room. In the cold light of day, not quite. I have realised the points in the process when the 2 professors were trying to psyche me out, including "What do you know about IIM-I's placements?" & the pseudo-spot offer!

13th March, 2006:
IIM Calcutta
GD: "Man is an Island." Average to good. Spoke a bit, not too much, but was able to speak clearly enough.
PI: About time for luck to turn Shrutz's way; this PI was excellent. Totally subjective, of course, but I enjoyed the process!

4th April, 2006:
IIM Bangalore
GD: Case study again, with a panel of 5 people, I talked enough! I think the others had enough anyway. Weird bits of silence dominated in the discussion when everyone kept staring at the paper in front of them!
GD would again be good to average, we didn't come to a conclusion.
The summary I wrote was in the usual way, average enough.
PI: Killing me softly with their smiles. I am happy to report, of the three people in the room, 2 of us enjoyed the process.
Of course, they were the interviewers. The questions ranged from the average speed of Indian vehicles on the road to return of investment, my expectations of the PI and all the way to instrumentation, my bugbear.
They were laughing at (not with) me!
Not entirely sure what the exercise proved, other than to reaffirm the well known fact I need to think (a LOT) before I speak!!
PI was energy packed, but pointless.

Anyways, ol' Will here sure knew his stuff, right?
After 50 days of jetting to and fro Bangalore in all modes of conveyance, my mind's suddenly reached a grinding halt.
It's been a roller-coaster ride of sorts, and has seen bouts of motion sickness even.
Here's an honest opinion: The entire CAT-IIM-GD-PI process is highly disruptive. From the time, around September 2005, I had decided to at least give a cursory look at DI and QA to yesterday, I haven't really paid much attention to other things happening in life.
Will it be worth it? Time alone knows. (Yeah, and not TIME either)
I seem to have lost the verve that marked the outset of the endeavours. What has replaced it, is in a way, fatalism. I keep repeating "I don't know" & "I don't care" at regular intervals.
Both are, of course, not true.

To sleep, perchance to dream.....
Time will tell....

Copy-write Shrutz :: 12:25 PM :: 9 Sneaky Remarks:

What would you like to do?

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