Prof Goldenberg's class was absolute bliss. We spent an entire lecture discussing simple and compound interest. His lecture was interspersed with his very unique sense of humor. The laughter usually follows a while after he's made his point. He even remarked that the Class is a place to practice his art at becoming a stand-up comic. The good thing is that he doesn't believe in teaching what the book encourages - using the calculator. Our session today was entirely on how the numbers are calculated, and not on what the answer is. I was a little impatient because these are the numbers that we've been playing with since the 8th grade. So I observed his style. Its well-paced and it explains the fundamentals. I now have hope that I might actually be able to appreciate Finance once we graduate to topics that intimidate me.

The BIET class was a rage. We had an intense discussion on disruptive innovation, incremental innovation, and radical innovation. Gina kept pushing us to answer Why, How? It got everyone involved. We also had conference calls with 5 guest speakers who're working on possible 'products of the future' and need us MBAs to get involved. These calls went on till 930PM, yet one could sense the enthusiasm as the speakers spoke. It was pure passion at play.

I got a cool 4hrs of sleep and nearly missed the Severino Interest Group's Breakfast Meet at the Desmond Hotel this morning. Thank God gargling toothpaste gives the same feeling as having brushed. And washing the head with cold water, is almost perfect in making me look like I'd had my bath.

CJ picked me up at a sharp 7AM to drive us to the Desmond. All this while I believed networking is as easy as tying your shoelaces. Well almost. But you gotta practice in the beginning. Entering the room to the inviting company of atleast 25 complete strangers was not what I was prepared for. For the first few people I interacted with, I didn't even know how to begin a conversation. The good thing is, that the other attendees were mostly veterans. So for a change, they did the talking, while I did the nodding. Nevertheless, I still added some more business cards to my collection. I also liked Dean Gautschi's speech explaining why making money is a good thing.

Once back home, a groggy me went about with my Accounting Quiz. These were the longest 12 multiple-choice questions of my life. Our advisor had given us 120mins to attempt it, as a first-time grace period. Most of my class finished it in under 8mins. I took about 20mins. And I'm still not sure if I got them all correct.

Parkinson's Law states that 'Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion'. From my 3-week experience in the MBA program, I will always have enough work and never enough time. Sundays are meant for sleeping, or chilling out, certainly not studying, that too the entire day.

But this is what I ended up doing. I have an Accounting quiz submission due tomorrow. Plus, I have four chapters of Economics to read, which would be a cool 350+ pages. And I completely forgot the suggested problems from Financial Management Class. Of course the 3000 word HBS articles were only thrown in for bedtime reading, and are mandatory. I'm still figuring out how they selected me for the MBA program when my reading interests are limited to Calvin & Hobbes syndicates. In the past I have attempted reading the Calvin books, but that's when I am really depressed.

I also got hired by the Folsom Library. I simply love the lighting inside.

It changes in response to the weather. Considering that international students can only work for a limited number of hours, I'm going to need a lot more planning to manage two jobs - with no experience with either.

It won't hurt to say that I still managed to sneak out for the WRPI meeting today. DJing is something I'd like to explore as a part-time career. Its better to be happy when you're likely to get rogered anyway.

I got hired by the RenXchange. I had a 3hr training session today, and it covered the fine art of salesmanship. It was delightful to appreciate the idea behind the RenXchange. I haven't even seen the technology yet, in fact, I was quite happy appreciating the attention to detail in the demonstration given by our team leaders.

I believe this job will be fun. Plus it looks like there's plenty of money to be made thru the multiple bonuses on offer. I must admit that they made a pretty solid pitch to their newest employee.

There was a Presidential Colloquy at RPI today. Followed by the ribbon-cutting to inaugrate the CCNI, apparently the most powerful University-based supercomputing center. The best thing about this facility is that you don't have to be a CS Grad to be able to use it. As far as my requirements go, I can do beautifully well with a Pentium III as long as it has sufficient RAM to run Office applications!

I went in to see what a colloquy was all about. The participants in the colloquy were Dr Shirley Ann Jackson, President of RPI, Dr Arden Bement, Director National Science Foundation, Dr J Marburger, Science Advisor to the President of the USA, and Dr John Kelly, Senior VP IBM. I guess they get quizzed on the same topics over and over, but I liked the pace at which these executives spoke. And everybody seemed to hold each other in very high regard.

We had a GradISA get-together in the evening. There was Indian food from Karavalli that I particularly enjoyed. I guess I was really hungry.

Then we watched 'Chak De India'. The hostels where the players stayed reminded me somewhat of the camps organized when I was at school. They were not the most appealing of environments.

I loved the regional dialects in Komal and Balbir's characters. And their tempers. And I absolutely liked Bindia Naik.

I interviewed with the RenXchange today. If selected, I'd get paid to call Alums up and see if I can convince them to make a donation to RPI. I was asked what I'd do if somebody didn't respond positively. I see this as an interesting opportunity to talk to RPI Alums, and get a better appreciation of American sensitivities.

Later headed to the Lego Robotics Training Meeting. The goal is to train school-going kids for the Lego League. While I did play with Lego as a kid, Mindstorms are still unfamiliar territory. We used Robolab to program a Mindstorm kit-based car. I felt kinda stupid that Lego still excites me. But it was cool because there were others who felt the same way and were there to share the excitement.

My MBA Advisor helped me buy a book online. She's a voracious reader and has a Barnes & Nobel Membership Card. Using that card got me a cool discount. I'm glad she offered.

We've been being advised from Day1 to start working on our resumes. I finally did. I was quite proud of mine until BB scrutinized it and told me she was quite unsure of what I wanted to say. But she appreciated the fact that I managed to squeeze all of it in 1 page!

We also had a case reading practice class today. I really liked one line that Prof Timothy Golden stated. 'Every course you take, every thing you learn, is a step towards refining your management style'. Me thinks that's a pretty concise MBA Purpose statement.

Another BBQ today. This time it was the 'Welcome back to Lally School' picnic in the West Hall parking lot. I put lettuce in my frankfurter and that raised some eyebrows. And then, when I got really thirsty, I had brownies while sipping lemonade.