I want to crib

The Harry Potter DVD I got from the DVD rental shop downhill does not work

I have been kicked out of the college basketball team

I have missed the deadline for submitting the scholarship form

I lost the trials for the college Chess team

My legs hurt after the basketball practice of yesterday and more than that, my ego hurts after the realisation of how unfit I have become

I am not looking forward to the weekend party when the IIMB people come in and am actually losing all enthu for parties

I screwed up the quiz in UD's Financial Management class today

I have not been able to update my blog as regularly as I want to...have not been feeling like writing

My ICICI Bank ATM still doesn't work and I am under the debt of so many people

I have been thinking a lot about her nowadays

Probability (fortune+bravery=favor) = 1.0

Once upon a time, in the kingdom of GC:ASW, there lived a princess called Probability and a peasant called Statistics. Ever since Statistics, the peasant, had observed the relative frequency of Pond's cold cream being applied on the exponential face of the princess, he had fallen discrete over continuous in love with Probability.

The only desire that remained in the heart of Statistics was to normalize Probability and create a z-score with her such that it lies within 3. A six sigma score, he was sure, would overcome 99.97% of the problems that any poor peasant faces in wooing any rich princess.

The only thing that he was afraid of was the king of GC:ASW who went by a name that was integral to that of the kingdom. The king had the Poissoning habit of drawing box plots over the ambitions of potential wooers of Probability. But Statistics was brave and more than that, he had the wise minister ASW on his side. ASW gave his support probably because he had some z-score to settle with the king.

And so it was, that one fine day when the birds were twittering 'alpha beta gamma' and the leaves were whispering 'phi theta kappa', Statistics went to Probability's palace. With ASW in tow, Statistics made short work of any qualitative or quantitative opposition that the king could offer and eloped with Princess Probability.

And they lived happily ever after.

Negative answering utility...towards diseconomy of scope

Only when you take the average marks per paper that you have lost due to silly mistakes and compare the number with the total marks that you have ever lost because you do what you do, you will realise that there is a distinctive difference between Average Cost and Total Cost. Since I had never had the utility for such a service, I had naturally put it out of reach of my budget line. Before you can say 'ho' to that and go on to mention how you, too have had the rare occassion to indulge in such activities as the one listed above, let me tell you that it almost had my isoquant of marks production giving a negative utility to me.

However, the time/prof-telling-that-there-is-incorrect-data-in-a-question ratio was still high enough to prompt me to convert my Short Run Average Marks curve from SRAM1 to the higher SRAM2. Put in the terms of simple and plain microeconomics, I was able to salvage the question and make amends as far as the difference between the total and average costs are concerned...because believe it or not, the question that had the corection was the same which was cunning enough to create the confusion between the averages and the totals stuff....makes sense???

Having said that, I am still not sure if the answer discrimination that I followed despite the question market not being monopolistic is actually going to fetch me any examinee's surplus...actually, it is all up to the consumer (read the examiner, Dr Sumit Sarkar) to decide if he has got enough surplus in his hand (despite my first degree discrimination) to obtain any utility out of my answers...

Management concepts for Information Technology

float time=2.0;//as if you needed more!!!
int papers=2;//thank God they didn't ask us to identify which question belonged to which paper
int questions=20;
int marks=15;
float marksperques=((float)marks)/question; //comes to 0.75...of all good things in life!
float pagelength=16.0;//unit is lines with each line containing 10 words on an average
float answerlength=pagelength/2;//good people, these IT wallahs...just stopped me from...:-)


void main(void)//looks like everything is void out here!!!
{
for (int attempt=1;attempt<=questions;attempt++)
{
//Start crap
//End crap
marks=marks - marksperques/2;
}
}

Positioning crap in a jargon conscious declining market

Upon targeting the innovators in the STI paper of yesterday, I had assumed that the introduction of crap in my answer life cycle would find sufficient response at least from the market's early adopters (Considering that the STI teacher is new and enthusiastic).

However, given a more mature market today, as any marketing manager worth his weight in Kotler volumes would have told you, it did not make sense to use the crap awareness or even crap distinction methodologies of positioning. An innovative marketer however, in the words of the typical consumer of the mature market, hardly goes by the jargons of Kotler and of those whose worth is judged by their weight in Kotler volumes. An innovative marketer innovates, and that is what I tried to do by carefully positioning my crap such that the final marking is adequately provided for by mass customisation of answers.

In trying to offer whatever is typical to the consumer's behavioral patterns, I did end up in the declining stage of the marks life cycle. Expecting a case study in the question paper, the consumer's behavior brought all my previous marketing research to naught. The difference between a developed and developing market notwithstanding, I tended to position my answer in the middle, not forgetting, in the process, to consider the answer's orientation towards the concepts of developed and developing economy.

To illustrate (as I often had the chance to do in the paper), a product called Revival was positioned not only as the medicinal capsule that it actually is, but the ambivalence among the consumer towards the augmented product attributes was exploited to the hilt by positioning the brand name as atypical, suited to any one of a shampoo, a cooking oil, an engine lubricant, or a medicinal drug...as the actual case may be. If you are still wondering as to my infinite capacity for wonders, I ask you to refer back to the section where I was talking about innovative marketers.

The buying decision for the answers lies in the hands of the consumer who has a distinctive buying pattern...if only I had known in the exam hall that this buying pattern refers to his willingness to solve a problem (read give marks) based on some information search (which he will have a tough time doing in my paper), I would have made the marketing mix accordingly and not based the buying behavioral pattern one of fashion, fad and style...might as well have given some promotions in the form of RRB, EPSB and/or some such other perceived high-value abbreviations...

A socially-transformed, middle-class, Hindu Indian

The fibre of the Indian middle class is too complex to be critically examined...especially when someone is talking about the social character of a particular class. One has to ensure that there is no inter mixing between the Dalits of the Devendars and Pariyars (or was it Parayaras) fame and the OBCs of the Jats fame since the two belonged to two different chapters. On the other hand, the choice that has been given to the oppressed examinee reduces drastically as he realises that there has been an imaginative attempt to reconstruct history by joining the OBCs with the dalit assertiveness in a single question.

Things do not stop here as you still have to consider the Hindu angle and that too, from the modern perspective, despite the fact that half of the things in the chapters dealt with Nehruvian era and things that happened before independence, that is some 58 years ago.

Talking about 58 years ago, one important criteria for your social trasnsformation, especially if you think that you know the answer to Who is an Indian, is to know that there is a difference between the applications of Sanskrit and being in the west. This knowledge is very important because more often than not, you will be asked to write different things about two interwoven, yet different, concepts of sanskritisation and westernisation.

Lest you forget, any socially tranformed, middle class, Hindu Indian is not complete without the mention of politics and if you thought that you knew everything there is to know about politics in India, read down slowly and carefully to know what you have missed. You have missed the trilogy of Malik, Kisan and Mazdur and even if you hadn't missed that, you would have hardly known the diference because despite kisan being a part of the trilogy, the question pertained to the Jats of Punjab and Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh (probably to compensate for taking the OBCs out, right from under their noses and delivering the same to Dalits of Tamil Nadu)

Crediting the adjustment in the debited income statement

The asset of Marks Receivable has been credited and the corresponding debit has been carried out, for the compound journal entry, to silly mistakes and lack of time expenses.

Date: August 16, 2004
Venue: PGP1A Class room cum Examination Hall

Time: Dooms hour - 0200 hours
The Questions in Eyesight asset is being debited as the shaking of hands expense gets credited. Mental activity is not recorded as there is no debit or credit happening.

Time: Dooms hour - 0145 hours
Some fart I know in theory asset is offset against the I have to write something or I am doomed liability. The calculator and basic arithmetic skills assets are used to cover the will you ever find the correct amount liability.

Time: Dooms hour - 0115 hours
Much of the stockholders' equity of brain's grey matter is eroded in efforts to convert some unearned marks to the revenue account of marks earned. However, the confusion expense on account of the transaction on subscription and pre and post paid amounts exceeds all assets and erosion in stockholders' equity combined.

Time: Dooms hour - 0045 hours
The desperation asset has somewhat helped in applying the matching principle between the revenue recognition of marks earnable and the expense of pen ink. The transaction on merchandise bought and sold is successful...or atleast that is what the debit in the hope asset would tell any auditor.

Time: Dooms hour - 0015 hours
The liability of marks losable takes a severe hit as the at last some luck asset plays to perfection, bringing about the oh-so-elusive revenue of balanced balance sheet!!! Thanks to God asset is debited by a huge amount and contrary to accounting principles, no corresponding credit is made.

Time: Dooms hour - 0005 hours
The correct answers inventory is in for a shock as the supplier called 'time' returns part of the shipment, thus debiting marks lost for incorrect answers account. Had the Unearned Service Revenue not changed its places with the Service Revenue in the Journal, the happiness asset would certainly have been debited.

Time: Dooms hour + 0015 hours
The Net Marks (negative marking) hovers around 15 out of a total retained earnings of 25. Despite dividends of 10 marks already issued, the financial statement is fudged to observe the market reaction.

Oh, how I enjoyed seeing the faces of the people in the CC when I told them that I had a bad paper and was only expecting 20+ marks. Some wondered incredulously as to what else could I want and some wanted to shoot me.... :-)

On the grind

The very first quiz of the two year course is over. Micro Economics, right from day one has been perceived as an interesting but complicated subject and with the quiz due today, there were many a candles burning last night. The paper did not veer much from the expectation. The only downer was that having expected an original question from Dr. Sumit Sarkar, the MicroEconomics faculty, I was a little disappointed on knowing that he had taken the questions straight from the book. I know that my answers did not exactly match those that were given in the book but I guess that they are not wrong either and that is the beauty of most of the courses taught here at the B-school. You are not necessarily wrong or right, whatever you may write as an answer.

The senior Student Council went into the active mode from their hibernation and came out with the list of nominations for this year's elections. Expecting less number of people from A section (given less of the apparent leaders in the class), I was surprised to find out that actually there are nine nominations from Section A and only seven from the other section B. Two out of nine is the ratio that is going to be fought over in my section. The list of nominees have each been given a particular subject for which they are going to act as temporary Class Representatives. The class will have a chance to judge these CRs over a period of next two weeks before the elections actually take place on August 10. The mechanism is good and well in place but I have just one small question...why, oh why did I have to get the Information Technology class to manage? This is the worst that could have happened...IT is one subject whose classes are the most bunkable, especially for our batch with nearly 75% people coming from an IT background. How can I be expected to attend the IT classes, leave act as the CR and sit attentively in the front rows???

Anyways, since I have already put myself into the fray, I have decided to take it up. The propaganda has started, and I have set the balls rolling with a common mail to the class offering my services as an HTML tutor for the coming IT project in August. :-)
For all those who think that it is too much too soon, wait till you read about the reaction that my mail got from one of the other candidates (this one from Section B). He actually got the case study for tomorrow scanned and sent the soft copy to the entire class so that they do not have to take the pains of going through the hard copy...man, that's what I call dedication and real service to the class mates :-)