Looking back...

My path is winding...

I cant see whats waits beyond. It is not too far away... just a couple of steps forward, and ill be there...
the worst part is; all i can do is wait. Haven't we all been here at one point or the other?


Im craning my neck to try and catch a glimpse of whats beyond the curve. Wait! is that light? or is it just an illusion of light?
Whats that I hear? Is it a babbling brook or a treacherous waterfall?
Whats that  I sense? Is it just the gentle warmth of love, or is it the gates of hell slowly opening up to engulf me?

Only Time can tell...

All I can do now is look back in time and see what the last couple of months have been like.
I did join Career Launcher, but it didnt capture my fantasy for more than 3 weeks. I quit.
I didnt write mocks, Didnt open any book... Maybe i didnt care anymore... Maybe it doesnt matter whats gonna happen to me...

The Woman of my dreams has now left me.. Independence was what she wanted... What I wanted was ignored. I wanted her... Nothing more, Nothing else...

The only exam left is SNAP. Im done with CAT, NMAT, IRMA, IIFT, IELTS, FMS, and TISS.
My CAT, IELTS and NMAT seem to have been satisfactory, IRMA, TISS and FMS are still hanging on to a variety of factors beyond my control, and IIFT like the last 2 years has been a lost cause.

I have a lot to look forward to now. Something which I had never before considered is my prime focus right now. Have filled forms of Aston, Birmingham, Glasgow, Strathclyde in the UK. Have been interviewed for HULT Boston...

Wonder what 2011 will bring...
I hope I will be a happy and contented man on the 14th of Dec 2011.

A tentative step towards 3.0

Called up Career Launcher for a price quote on the "proc CATs" on Sunday..
Got to know of a Special-one-day-offer where classroom coaching+ GDPI+ test series+ web support was available for Rs. 7,500/- :w00t:
Joined pronto..
Maybe its destiny.. i had already planned on NOT joining a classroom coaching session this time round.
maybe some new profs and some CL style motivation will egg me on further...

Anything.. just Anything for my special moment under the sun!!

P.S. I got a call from IDBI bank, i cleared the Assistant manager entrance test...
Mom cried with joy, Dad hugged me for like the second time in my 20 year old life....
But the battle is not won yet... An interview lurks in June/ july...

The Decision...

Im Down.. im Out...

How down, how out?? Ill tell you...

Season 2008

Season 2008 was a "test-the-waters" season for me... CAT mania was just building up, and I was quite sure of my prowess.. Minimal. Verbal was the only thing that I was looking good at with multiple 90+ scores in TIME AIMCATs. But Math and DI was a very very different story...
Cutoffs were just unfulfilled dreams
Hmm.. Where would this take me I mused...

A certain great VA Professor Mr. Roy Charles suggested me to think about MICA.. thats Mudra Institute of Communications for the un-initiated. MICA apparently only required overall scores of 90+ in CAT with no sectionls. Sweet!!

So I just plowed on, mock after mock.. never really preparing.. just counted my marks and kept building an ego about my almost-always great VA scores and slowly but surely increasing LRDI scores. In my last 8 AIMCATs i scored 100% accuracy in LRDI. Solve 6, nail 6... solve 10 nail 10. Did I do anything to boost it?? No!!

Papers came, papers went..
Gave CAT on a Sunday, gave my final year BMS exams from Monday to Saturday, IIFT on Sunday, and the last and the toughest Logistics paper on Monday.. Wasnt prepared for any of these... mentally yes, Conceptually?? NO!!!

Time passed on, days blended into months..
SNAP and MahCET went on in a blur. Time for results...

Had nailed the TY Sem 5, got just one mark less than 70%.. not a big deal i know, but for a person with infinitessimally small efforts and zero ambition in this direction, HELL YEAH!!!
CAT got me 93.39 percentile, with a 99 in VA, and a 39 in LRDI.. So much for maths being my nemesis....
IIFT slipped past me (It was the infamous 6 section paper) missed the cut-offs by 4 marks..
SNAP... Cleared the overall cut offs but scored a 3 in GK... Yup! go ahead laugh!!
CET... got a 98.94 percentile..

All this left me with 2 converts KJ Somaiyya and Welingkar, and a massive ego...
2 converts with zero prep...?? I was onto something...
I also joked to my Mom... If i studied for an entire YEAR, i can get a hike of 6 percentile atleast...
Dont stop.. keep laughing!!!


Season 2009

Season 2009 was supposed to be my IIM year.. Joined a "Directors Special Batch" by TIME which clubbed me with other 90+ percentile "geniuses".. Was really proud, and kept telling everyone of my decision to spurn KJ and Welingkar...

I Attended lectures regularly, gave all 23 mocks, even had IIM Indore as my wallpaper...
Yeah, theres a story behind that one too...
As i said, Season 09 was my IIM year... i went on to all the IIM homepages, looked out for selection criteria.. and realised my acads were too shitty for Bangalore, Lucknow and Shillong.. My Quant was too pathetic for Ahmedabad and Calcutta... I had just IIM Indore and Kozhikode left...
And I didnt want to go back to my roots, so Indore it was!!!

So hoped for Indore all year.. yeah hoped.. didnt study at all...
Got active on Pagalguy.. Started logging in for a change, instead of just leeching on information...
Again, mocks came, mocks went...
Was stagnant at 95-98 in Verbal, hardly went above 85 in QA and DI... But I was disillusioned with the fact that I had managed to do well in 08, so 09 would be better with more mental preparedness.. i kept putting off P&C and Probability.. just kept concentrating on what i already knew... Arithmetic, algebra and some "Bhaji-wala maths" got me regular 75+ scores...

Cut offs were still dreams... but I had a secret love affair with FMS during this time...
4 section paper, with 2 sections from English?? w00t!!!
This paper would be sweet!! and plus I just had to scrape a 50 percentile in Math and Logic... Vannery could do THAT!!

Exam season started...
It was IIFT, CAT, SNAP, TISS, XAT, FMS, MahCet, MICA... is that it?? Seemed like a lot more exams to me... Well exams were done with and results started trickling in...

IIFT..... Ding!! Overall cutoff cleared, missed out by 0.xx in math
CAT.....Ding!! thank you non-responsive-radio-buttons!!!
SNAP.. Ding!! 101.25 marks.. thought i'd nailed it, but SIBM closed calls at 107...
TISS.....CALL.. thank you very much... Second highest score on the Pagalguy spreadsheet... hell yeah!!
XAT.....Ding!! First exam of my life where i got a QA score higher than my VA score...
FMS.....CALL.. YES! YES!!! i was now convinced about destiny!!
CET......Ding!! 99.01 percentile.. Bye bye JBIMS and my-only-reason-to-attempt-CET!!
MICA...CALL.. So my Story WASNT that bad after all...

Well I had it made!!
I was onto back to back Interviews at TISS, FMS and MICA..
I had 2 decent colleges and a back up option in MICA.. I could do no wrong...
Joined TIME, and IMS for GDPI prep... kept giving mock GDs..

These came and went too....
Fms results came out first... Reject...
Next was MICA... Reject...
lastly TISS.... Reject...

Thus ended my IIM year...
What went wrong?/ Everything... Whose fault was it?? Mine!! okay, CAT being an exception, I personally goofed up all my other options...

What am i left with now?? A promise of Kj Somaiyya and Welingkar yet again....
An entire year and 3 top-notch calls later, the same things I had spurned... this time through CET though...

Yeah, Coming to the decision....
I dont have a job... I dont have any guarantee of success... i cant even promise myself that ill prepare well this year.. Beacuse my laziness is my worst enemy... But still I havre that elusive dream...
The dream of making it big someday...
The dream of having a 6-figure monthly salary at 25...
The dream of my Dad being FINALLY proud of me...

It isnt easy to let go of these.. Trust me it really isnt...
When proper judgement tells me to take an admission this year, My parents, and my Special people try their best to convince me... It really feels tempting to let go of this madness and just embrace mediocrity..
Thats what my entire life has been, after all.. One more mediocre chapter in my history of so many...

But a small voice inside me stops me from taking this easy route...
Success can be delayed, but not denied... Whats mine is Mine...
Mine ... waiting to be claimed...

I Have DECIDED...
Season 2010 it is...