One Of My Favorite Profs!

He has made Financial Accounting interesting for us! That in itself is an achievement!

Check out the video on the right.

Getting Graded

We have been graded for 2 subjects so far and thankfully I have scored above the class average for both Financial Accounting and Managing Across Cultures. I don't know how long would I be able to maintain that but for now, I am satisfied. I never aimed to be the topper here and I live a relaxed life, talk for hours with my boyfriend and have healthier sleeping hours compared to most of my classmates, so I feel I am good with the grades :)

I used to have this feeling a couple of months back that Siddharth and I would just spoil each other's professional lives because we spend so much time on Skype and phone. However, I am happy that we are both managing quite well. My entire class knows that I talk to my boyfriend for hours at a stretch on Skype, and they get quite shocked about the fact that I manage to find so much time for him. Sid is doing great in juggling his job and Phd. preparation and IELTS preparation and French classes and gym etc. Trust me, his job is not easy. Poor guy is living the dreaded post MBA work life, in which one works like an ass ;) But I never feel starved of attention from him, it is just perfect. Touchwood! :)

At Vlerick, we work in many teams for various group projects and reports in different subjects. Some groups are great and others... well.. not so great! Sometimes you find one or more team members annoying and impossible to work with but I feel that it is part of our learning. We never get to choose our colleagues in work situations, so we should know how to work best in a group. Moreover, the grades of every individual depend on the final product of the group work, so you just can't take it casually. I am glad that my group for Entrepreneurship is just awesome. It is one of the longest and biggest projects and we have to come up with a business plan and a marketing plan and present it to a jury. We were able to choose our group members for this project but it wasn't so easy to do that. For starters, it was difficult to decide what criteria we should take into account while considering possible business plan partners. I mean, whether to look at people's profiles and pick people from useful backgrounds like Marketing, Finance, IT (if you are doing an IT project), or whether to just see if I was comfortable working with someone. I honestly feel that for this project, comfort and understanding matters more than backgrounds. We can come up with a good marketing strategy even if we don't have a marketing professional amongst us, but we can never put our hearts to a project where we don't like working with others. So, my team has ended up as being a great team and I am very happy with the progress so far. We managed to finalise and mutually agree upon a business idea (many other groups haven't yet finalised an idea) and we have started our research based on it. The idea looks so good for now that we can even consider it as a real entrepreneurship opportunity after MBA. Let's see how it shapes up!

On Saturday, our Chilean group member invited us to his home in Brussels for a team meeting followed by some Chilean food and wine. Everybody knows that Chilean wines are some of the best in the world, so it was of course a tempting offer. Our friend and his wife offered us tortillas with a choice of many spreads (I specially loved the Avocado spread) and various fillings. I ate 2 rolls and they were super delicious. The Chilean wine lived up to its name and I had 2 glasses of red wine with dinner. Now, after dinner our friend told us about a whiskey called Pisco. It is very popular in Chile and if mixed with Coke, it is called Piscola (which I think is a funny name). I am no fan of whiskies but this one was very smooth and I really liked it mixed with Cola and Ice. The train ride back home to Leuven was easy after that, because I couldn't feel the cold at all, thanks to Pisco!

Life is going good I feel. I am looking forward to 19th December, when I will take my flight to Delhi. However, we will have exams before that during the second week of December :(

Send in your wishes folks, they always work for me :)

Love,

Nicky

Autumn Break

If I ever had any doubts about the ability of time to fly, they have been put to rest now. It's been only some time that I came to Belgium, and I am already booking tickets for Delhi and looking forward to my winter vacation. Yeah folks, I will be in Delhi for Christmas and New Year's! I can't wait for it and guess what I am missing most in Leuven?? South Indian Food! Yeah, that's surprising for me too. Not family, not friends, not 'ghar ka khana', but I am missing good old Idli, Sambhar and Dosa here. Would anybody believe that? Maybe because that is the only thing that I could not find here at all so far. I am regularly in touch with family and friends, I cook my own 'Indian' meals but Idli-Sambhar is something that is just not to be found in our little town :(

We don't have any classes for this entire week and I am enjoying the break. Talking for hours with Siddharth, cleaning every minute inch of my studio, listening to songs, cooking nice meals etc. Of course I will also catch up on all the subjects where I am lagging behind and prepare for projects and exams, but that is secondary priority for this week.

Our classes have been progressing at a break-neck speed as usual and I did not even realise when subjects like Leadership, Human Resource Management, Corporate Social Responsibility, Business and Law, and Entrepreneurship zoomed past us. The learning in each was immense and I am in awe of most of our professors here. For example, our Business and Law professor started the course with us by distributing some cases and questions to test our ethics and knowledge about Law. In the first class he told us jokingly that the purpose of his course was to keep us out of jail. The entire class laughed but when he discussed our answers to the cases and questions, we realised how unethical, hypocritical and unaware of the Law we were. If we indeed did those things in real corporate world, we would have been put in jail, and all the while we thought that we were being fair!! I do believe my professor's joke now and realise how difficult ethical choices are in the real world. Wow, I am already beginning to talk like an MBA!

Diwali came and went and I did not light a single cracker. I badly missed home during Diwali but thankfully I have very nice classmates. A chinese classmate called us home for tea on Diwali afternoon and we had dinner at an Indian friend's place. His wife had prepared a delicious Indian meal for us, which we ate while watching the classic 'Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro'. We also played cards, because Diwali without gambling is utterly boring. I explained the concept of Diwali to many of our classmates who wanted to know the story behind the festival and why and how we celebrate it. I hope I gave them the correct version of the story, but anyway they would never know the difference :)

On the day after Diwali we visited a Krishna temple called Radhadesh in Ardenne. It is a beautiful place with rolling hills and dense forests. After the prayer ceremony at the temple we took a walk in the woods and it felt like going back to nature and connecting with the Supreme.

The second pic is of the castle in which the temple is situated.

I hope that after this one week break, I will emerge refreshed and full of energy, specially because it is Autumn and it is so beautiful here. I love taking walks in the park close to my studio and will post pics of the beautiful park soon.

Life as a MBA student in Belgium

My life has changed. I have changed. And I am very happy!!

Amidst all the excitement and millions of things to do to adjust to the new life, my blog was neglected. It is the easiest thing to neglect and so it is neglected first of all. When I started getting comments and messages from some blogger friends about my whereabouts, I decided that it indeed has been a really long time and I should better blog about my new life.

I don't know where to start. I have been in Belgium for a month now and many things have happened since then. Mom and Dad came with me to Belgium to drop me here and then to go on a short Europe trip. I am immensely glad and thankful to them for coming with me because with all my luggage (almost 60 Kgs), I would have broken a few bones and all my suitcases before reaching my destination. Leuven is a small town, at a distance of 30 mins train ride from Brussels. I love the town. It is only 3 Kms in radius! You can see the entire town in half a day. And because it is a student town, you can see students and university buildings everywhere. It is almost like one huge campus.

That is the Town Hall in Leuven. A beautiful building at the heart of the town.

The weather here is gray most of the time and it rains almost every second or third day. The two awesome things about Belgium are its beer and waffles. They have hundreds of varieties of Beer in Belgium. I knew about Leuven's beer connection before coming here and that people here love drinking beer but I had no idea that someone like me who hates it would become an ardent beer fan. Waffles have a similar story. I have never had a sweet tooth but the sight and smell of a freshly baked waffle can make anyone drool. In Brussels I tried a just-baked waffle topped with strawberries and chocolate sauce. I have no words to describe how good it was.

That was my first beer in Belgium!

Now about the MBA life - My classes started on 1st September, so I have been into the program for 17 days now. The first week was all about lunches, dinners, drinks with classmates and alumni, getting to know the school, and even a party at the Dean's house (and what a party!). It was fun at the beginning and before we knew it, the grind started. In just 2 weeks, we have completed 3 subjects!! From the very first day of classes, I have been immersed in team assignments, tutorials, reading for the next day's classes, networking and trying to stay in touch with friends and family back in India. I did not realise when waking up at 5 AM and sleeping at midnight started sounding normal. I did not realise when going to the school on weekends to work with your team for group work became usual. I did not realise when the book shelf in my studio was piled high with thick binders and heavy books. I did not realise when reading 300 pages everyday started seeming achievable. I did not realise when I actually finished an impressive amount of reading. If I collectively count the number of pages for all subjects I have read so far, then that is probably more than I read in an entire year before starting my MBA.

But you know what.... it is fun! I like it! Every moment of sitting in class, every moment of group work, every moment of reading micro and macro economics, financial accounting, statistics and managing across cultures.... I love it. Even when I crib, even when I tell my boyfriend in India that all this work will make me die early (he is a MBA so he thankfully understands), even when I don't get time to cook, even when I am too tired to update my blog, I am loving every moment here and I can see that I am changing as a person. My thought process, my stamina, my ability to cope with pressure, my social networking, everything has already changed drastically. And that is when I am only 1 month into my MBA!

To top it all I joined French classes here which will start on the coming Monday. I have no idea where in the world will I find time for studying French but I have still joined.
Oh and by the way, before my classes started, I managed to visit Amsterdam and Den Haag in Netherlands. Beautiful places would be a gross understatement for them. The canals of Amsterdam give it the romantic feel of a quintessential European city and Den Haag has these beautiful buildings and a mix of the old and new in Europe.

I have made some new friends. We are 90 students divided into 2 sections of 45 each in this year's batch. Among these 90 students we have 42 nationalities, so our class is one of the most diverse in the world. Conversation topics during lunches with my classmates include; Geisha in Japan, our upcoming trip to China, the integration of Europe after the second world war, Barrack Obama's political campaign, Mexican food, Life in Nigeria, the Australian boyfriend of my batchmate from Peru, French versus Dutch language courses, and other equally diverse and interesting topics.

I am sure that my year at Vlerick is going to be a life changing experience for me. No matter where I land after the MBA, no matter what job I get (or don't get!) the learning that I am getting here is immense. My only regret is that I am not able to blog regularly. Some of my classmates have blogs and they post every few days, although I don't understand where they find the time and energy to do it, but taking inspiration from then I will try to blog more often. I suppose that I am just not that great at managing my time.

I will post some pictures of Brussels, Amsterdam, Den Haag and Leuven in my next post!! :)

A Fresh Beginning

I never thought that I would ever be too busy to post on my blog or to read posts of my favorite bloggers. It has happened now and I am not too happy about it. I started this blog last year and whatever crap I wrote here gave me immense satisfaction and an outlet to burst out. Moreover, reading blogs of unknown strangers (who I now feel I know since ages) gave me a sense of belonging. I am too busy to write posts and read blogs regularly now and it feels that some part of me is locked up and getting suffocated. I feel guilty when I don't post for long periods and then coming back to the blogosphere is even more difficult. It is like facing a close family member whom you have been avoiding since long.
I have lost track of what is happening in the lives of my blog friends and I feel left out. Is this weird? My blog friends would know, I guess.

A quick review of what I did all the while I was missing from blogosphere:
~I got my Visa (yippeee).
~I read MANY books, To Kill A Mockingbird, Rebecca, The Kite Runner, The Firm; to name some of them.
~I entertained guests and relatives at home. Many relatives came to visit and live with us for few days because they know I will be leaving soon for a long time. That was sweet of them. I had an awesome time gossiping, shopping, eating with them. I have gained a lot of weight after these visits and screwed my daily routine, but it was all worth it. I will miss them all in Belgium.
~I completed my French classes. Yes, sadly my French classes are over. My teacher can't continue for the next level so I have to now learn on my own.
~GO came back from US and I watched 2 movies (17 Again and Paying Guest) back to back with him again, after knowing that the last time I did that was a disaster. It wasn't so much of a disaster this time, except that Paying Guest is the most pathetic movie that I ever watched. By-the-way, Zac Efron looks cute in 17 Again.

It was enough to keep me occupied if you add it up with social networking, trying to read business related books and articles, and sleeping :)

I can see that life ahead will be even more hectic. My School has e-mailed a list of recommended pre-MBA reading and will make us take 3 online courses (Stats, Financial Accounting and Economics) in July. I have to shop and pack and generally prepare for going.

But, all said and done, I have no intentions of staying away from my blog, like I have been doing for some time now. I have realised that it is important to me, and I am going to make it a part of my routine. It is strange how we neglect many things, knowing that they hold a lot of value for us. Like family, friends, learning new things, and in this case, blog :)

It has started to sink in, now that the initial excitement is getting stale, that I am indeed going for at least 13 months. Away from people who care for me, food that I love, and the life that I am used to. It will be fun and a great learning experience, but I think it would also be difficult. All I have in my survival kit is my enthusiasm, passion (which I hope won't fizzle out too soon), common sense and intellect. I have realised that another survival tool is my blog, just rant here and it becomes easy to get along with things. More so, when unknown strangers (with blogs that I am only too familiar with) post comments that are all concerned, supportive, hopeful, energizing and considerate at the same time. I love my blogger friends. There comments are sometimes all that you need for a doze of energy :)

I changed my blog template. The new one looks fresh and professional, and goes with my present mood; to make a fresh beginning.

An Invitation to all Vlerick Admits

The world has become a far smaller place than it was decades ago. More and more people are traveling across the globe for fun, business, study etc. However, going to a foreign land involves more and more hassles. On one hand, we are shrinking the world and on the other, we are making it difficult to get a simple permit to enter a foreign land, the Visa. Protectionism was a hot topic in the latest G-20 summit and I believe that getting work permits, student visas and even tourist visas will get tougher by the day (at least as long as the recession and its aftermath last)

There are 8 Indians in the 2009-2010 Vlerick batch and all of us are finding it difficult to understand the Visa requirements. All of us are well-traveled people and none is applying for a foreign Visa for the first time. However, there are so many confusions regarding the Belgian Student Visa process that I have really started wondering whether I would make it in time. The problem is not just for Indians. We have 2 batch mates from Chile and they too are facing similar difficulties, maybe even more so.

Anyway, this post is not about the Belgian Visa. I found that some of my batch mates have come across my blog while searching for Vlerick related blogs. I feel that I can reach out to other batch mates across the globe if they do find my blog. We have a dedicated Facebook group for the 2009-2010 Vlerick batch, created by one of our batch mates. All the Indian admits are already part of the group and our Chilean counterparts too found the group and joined. We have all introduced ourselves to each other and have some very informative discussions going that are benefiting all. It feels great that we already know each other well, months before starting the program. I know when Shrini's brother is getting married, I know what food Sanjeed likes, I know what problems Julio and Javiera are facing with their Visas, I know who got their loans cleared and at what rate of interest, I know when Abhi started his French classes. That is the level of interaction we already have.

I invite all 2009-2010 admits of Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School to join our Facebook group and be a part of all informative as well as personal chit chat. We have plans of taking the group forward by forming various interest groups and by inviting suggestions from everyone. Whoever has the latest bit of info, he/she shares it with others on the group and the rest of us save a lot of time and energy. It would be great to have all the batch mates there and the sooner the better :) I am really looking forward to know the group of people with whom I am going to share a very exciting year of my life.

Life And To-Do-List

Life has suddenly become very busy. There are numerous things to do on my list and there is a deadline for everything. I came back from Kanpur on 12th and had an exam for my HR diploma on 15th. I have the next exam tomorrow but since 15th I have been busy with my registration at Vlerick. I met GO and his friends day before to catch up over drinks and dinner because GO is going to US for 3 months on a business trip. I will be done with my HR exams on 25th and after that, I have to rush things to get a loan and then apply for Visa. Meanwhile, I also have to join French classes (it will look good on my resume during placements next year) and keep learning until August. With all this work and the deadlines threatening to zoom past, I am also trying to keep in touch with my future batch mates at Vlerick. They are a nice bunch, all of them from varied backgrounds and age groups. I know only about the Indian admits yet, and hence I can imagine the kind of diversity we will get in the class once we are actually there. The Indian admits are all brilliant people and I am looking ahead to an intellectually stimulating and exciting time at Belgium.

I have to visit Parneet while she is in Delhi. Amit has promised to come to Delhi from Hyderabad before I leave, so I have plans to catch up with him too. Golly, I need to meet everybody in these few months.

Life is revolving around a 'To-Do-List' these days and I guess it is going to get busier and busier. I have heard and read about the horrid working and sleeping hours at B-Schools, and I think I need to prepare myself for the grind. Already, I feel that I have stopped thinking coherently. My thoughts all start with, "I need to ..." and a new thing-to-do is mentally added to my already miles long list. :(

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.11) I need to brush up my cycling skills. It has been years since I rode a bike and in Belgium people prefer to pedal down to wherever they want to go.

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.20) I need to do a lot of boring reading before I go. Business Reviews, Economic Times, Business Blogs.

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55) I need to learn all about Internet Marketing and professional writing. It might help me earn during my studies. Just an Idea :D

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.79) I need to reduce my sleeping hours :(

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.100) I need to stop needing rest :(

.101) I need to stop talking about Vlerick :D

Karma and Holi

A Very Happy Colorful Holy Holi To All

I am visiting my cousins in Kanpur for Holi this year, and although I have never in my life liked Kanpur, I am looking forward to celebrating Holi with my cousins. This will be my first Holi here and I have heard that Kanpur people go wild when celebrating the festival of colors. I have been singled out as today's target by cousins, brothers-in-law, nephews, and nieces alike. I know I am going to get a raw deal today :(

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My to-be-school Vlerick is constantly on my mind these days. It feels like I am infatuated with the school, and I am sure if there was any such thing as love with inanimate objects, then I would have called it the beginning of a love affair. Well, come to think of it, to my mind Vlerick is not at all an inanimate object. However, I don't want to go blah-blah about my school again because that is exactly what I am doing since many days and people around me now grab any nearby object to stuff it either in my mouth or in their ears, whichever is easier. I would just write about my love relationship with Vlerick :)

In February, I first saw its name on the 2008 Financial Times rankings and because it was in Europe, I visited the college website. It was simply love at first sight. The college campus was beautiful and the city even more so. The various stats about the college were very impressive and I knew that we were meant to be together. I had a fair idea that my chances were bleak considering the reputation of Vlerick in Europe. I nevertheless decided to give it a try. It was tough, the application, the essays et all, but the path of true love is never easy. I submitted the application and waited for some days with bated breath (just figuratively), praying throughout and asking my friends to pray for me. I think that Gods were kind and I came to know my results in 6 days flat. I am the only person out of those admitted who had the results in that unbelievably short duration. For everybody else it took more than 2 weeks. I made it, I have been accepted by my love and I can't wait for our new life together. The latest FT rankings just gave me more reason to rejoice, because Vlerick jumped up by 22 places (now ranks 75 in the world), which makes it the fastest moving-up-the-ladder school. I have to now complete the registration process to legalise our relationship and then Vlerick would be officially mine. We will live together from 1st September.

Give this couple your blessings :D

Alright, so I just demonstrated my insane infatuation but so what!

The News

Although I am very ill and tired at the moment, I still feel euphoric. I have been speaking almost non-stop for the last 2 days, which has made my tonsils swell and has resulted in a mild fever, but I never felt better in my life.

Dear Blogdosts,

Thank you all for your kind comments on my previous post. You all encouraged me no end and I am very happy to share now that I have received the much-awaited offer from my dream school, Vlerick Leuven Gent School of Management. I still can't believe that I really made it to one of the top 100 B-Schools in the world. As far as I know, I am the only girl selected from India as yet, 4 other Indian guys have been offered admission, and I believe there will only be 2-3 more Indian admits.

I have been running really busy since last 2 days. On 3rd March I went to Noida and met Priya, GO and a college friend whom I had not met since ages. I came back home late and tired and checked my mails to find a mail from Vlerick, informing me about the offer. I screamed, yes, I did. I told Mom and then Dad and then called friends and since then I am talking incessantly to friends and family and narrating the whole story to everyone. Nothing less would do! On 4th, that is yesterday, I had a wedding to attend, where I again met many family members who got to hear the entire history of Vlerick from me. That much of talking has its disadvantages, and I am now struggling to recover from a fever and pain in my throat. I never before realized that I gulp more than once every minute. I now know, because each time I gulp, I close my eyes and do it in slow motion, else the pain seems almost unbearable.

Anyhow, these last few days have been very eventful for me and I am not complaining :-). Thank you guys for your good wishes. I think they really worked for me. The session begins September 1 and I am really looking forward to it :D

Fingers Crossed

I am sorry about the sporadic posts, but this was one time of my life when I started hating the activity of writing.

I was applying to a very reputed, very prestigious MBA College in Belgium and as a part of my application had to write '12 essays' to let the admissions committee know more about me. It took me a week to write those essays and to finally hit the submit button on my application and I think that there's nothing left about my life that the adcom won't know now (except my love life). I wrote and re-wrote those essays because I am dying to go to that school, and totally exhausted myself in the process. After doing the final add-a-comma, delete-a-word thing on my essays, I reviewed my application again and to my horror discovered that if I want to apply for a scholarship I have to write another essay building my case. This was new for me; I have applied to 2 colleges so far and at both places all applicants are automatically considered for scholarship. I was not prepared for it and by now harbored a severe contempt for writing essays. I opted, and I still can't believe it, to not apply for the scholarship. I don't know of anyone who does not apply for a scholarship and I think the adcom would think of me as being the richest young female in India, which I am not :-(

Anyway, that was the reason I was not posting on my blog. I wanted a break from writing but it's nowhere to be seen in near future. I have decided to apply to another college, which is in Spain. Although they ask for only 2 essays, but I have to write nonetheless. Therefore, I gave up trying to avoid writing, and returned to my blog. By the way, I also want to ask all my blogdosts, whoever would read this post, to pray for me to get an offer from the B-School in Belgium. I am already so much in love with the school, despite its weird name, Vlerick Leuven Gent School of Management. I told you it's a weird name. However, it is the IIM-A of Belgium, being among the top 100 MBA colleges in the world, with a 1-year MBA that includes a residential program of some weeks at another reputed school in China :-). The only problem is that the average student at Vlerick is almost 30 years old and has 5 years of work-experience. I am counting only on my GMAT score, my diverse profile and my gender to make it to the school, yeah; they try to maintain a female strength of 40% in their very small class of 65 students from around 30 countries. I could go on and on about the positives and I have not even started talking about how good a place Belgium is, with the world's biggest brewery (InBev) having it's headquarters there :-)
Please Please Please pray for me to make it. I am applying to other European colleges too but Vlerick is the place where I really want to go. After writing those 12 essays and taking 8 days to submit my application, I am obsessed with Vlerick. My family silently bears with me while I blabber non-stop about what a certain Indian alumni had to say about Vlerick, what the Director of the Vlerick MBA said to me when I met him while he was in Delhi, what I wrote in my essays and blah blah blah. I would be heartbroken if I don't make it, even though I am very late in applying and I am stretching my chances too far at such a reputed college. But I don't care how far I am stretching my chances, I just want to go there.
Keep watching this space for updates on whether I made it or not :-)