To Blog or Not to Blog is the Question

I am getting a hang of Marketing class despite driving for almost 2.5 hours just before the class. The Chicago traffic is not getting any better . Anyway looks like we did good on the case atleast we distinguished ourselves from the whole class. Had no good company after class. Went around but decided Lady luck had deserted me for the day. Slept well woke up and went to the Forwards,Futures and Swaps class and I was just swamped with a lot of jargon. Boy after that it was refreshing to see the FTSA class to be not too boring. Anyway after the class went to a Bio-pharma club meet, where I learnt some basics about Biology ahem ahem !!!! DNA , double helix,Amino Acids, Protein , ACTG and all other bio-sh*t.

Well drove back home watched Saturday night live with Tom Brady. Saturday Night Live and the first 15 mins of Jay Leno are which I hate to miss.

Sunday:

This is a mystery to me , every weekday, it is so tough for me to get up even at 8 and bang on Sunday I am up at 6. I completely hate it hate hate it . It just goes on to prove once again that life is not fair Went to gym messed around had lunch at Chinese and did study a bit .

Had some nice company Sunday evening. Had a bloody Mary after a loooong time , was very spicy and was the only good thing about the evening. Had a sizzling apple pie on recommendation from this ol lady, who was in the table next to me . The apple pie was yucky , not yuckier than the company though. The company was very arrogant and I wanted to get the hell out of there even before I got there.

While I was driving back home I saw this big azz accident on the other side. The other side of the highway was fully blocked for miles and the emergency helicopter just landed on the highway. There must have been atleast 15-20 vehicles involved in the accident and from the looks of it, it didnt look good.

I thought of these Kabir dohas when I tried to summarize the experience of Sunday evening , Arrogance and death.

Kabira garv na keejiye ucha dekh aavas
kal paro bhuin letna upar jamsi ghaas.

(Kabir says dont feel proud of your palatial residence , cos death will get you sooner or later and you will have to lay on land and grass will grow on you)

Kabira garv na keejiye kaal gahe kar kes
Na jaane kit mare hai kya des kya pardes

(Kabir says dont be arrogant , as life is very ephemeral, you can die anywhere ,either at home or in some other country)

I walked into the Barnes and Noble book store and out of instinct I picked up “Tale of Two cities” after a long time to read just the first line and the last line.

Makes me feel better or worse , good or bad

The first line of “Tale of two cities” by Charles Dickens.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way–in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

The best opening lines ever ,according to me.

“Life is difficult.”
–Scott Peck . Road less travelled.

“It is a universally acknowledged fact that a man in possession of fortune is in need of a wife
–Jane Austen Pride and prejudice.

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, an what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.
–Catcher in the Rye ,JD Salinger .

Happy families are all alike ,unhappy families are unhappy in their own way.
— Anna Karenina , Leo Tolstoy.

“It was love at first sight”
—Heller ,Catch 22.

“It is a sin to write this.”
—Ayn Rand, Anthem.

“Who is John Galt?”
— Ayn Rand , Atlas Shrugged.

But can anyone match Charles Dickens in the way he ended “Tale of Two cities” ?

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest I go to than I have ever known”

One can read Charles Dickens book free off the internet at

http://dickens.thefreelibrary.com/

Mark Twain’s books can be found at

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/railton/index2.html

I have this unique knack of finding poetry and philosophy at very unexpected places and in very unexpected situations .

Here is what happened at work today . I usually listen to songs while at work. To kill some time , I decided to delete some very old mails from my yahoo a/c which I have kept for more than 4-5 years. As I was comtemplating deleting some very interesting mails, this song from Jagjit singh started playing .

tere khushboo mein basay khat main jalata kaisay
pyaar mein doobay huye khat main jalata kaisay
teray haathon ke likhay khat main jalata kaisay

(How can I light the letters from you , which remind me of you , are full of love ,were written by you)

jinko duniya ki nigaahon say chupayey rakha
jinko ik umar kalayjay say lagayay rakha
deen jinko jinhay imaan banaay rakha

( How can I light the letters from you , which I have kept as a secret from everyone, have kept close to my heart and r like religion to me )

jinka har lafz mujhay yaad hai paani ki tarah
yaad they mujko jo paigaam-e-zubaani ki tarah
mujko jo pyaarey they anmol nishani ki tarah

( How can I light the letters from you ,whose every word and sentence I remember , and which I treasure)

tune duniya ki nigaahon say jo bach kar likhay
saal-ha-saal mere naam barabar likhay
kabhi din mein to kabhi raat ko uth kar likhay

(How can I light the letters from you , which you wrote secretly for years day and night)

teray khat aaj main Ganga mein baha aaya hoo
aag behtay huye paani mein laga aaya hoon

( In Hindu religion , when one dies one’s dead body is burned and ashes are immersed in the holy Ganges River, the poet here says that he has done a similar thing to the letters from her , he let go the letters in the Ganges river and thereby lighting Ganges river)

What this whole poem says is the inability of the lover to let go of the love that he still has for a untrustful person. He tried to let go of it lot of times but everytime he kept falling back thinking of all the good old days, but finally he decides to put an end to his love as it only caused him pain.

Gulzar , the Indian poet wrote this

wo khat ke purze udaa raha tha
hawaaon ka rukh dikha raha tha

(Gulzar says that by tearing off the letters and letting go his love for an untrustful person he is changing his life )

Finally a poem from Mirza Ghalib

Hamko unse hai wafa ki ummeed
jo nahi jaante wafa kya hai .

(Ghalib writes I am expecting trust from someone who doesnt know the meaning of trust)

Just signed up for the soccer league with a Mexican group . We are going to practice(play) every Thursday evening and we will have our league matches on Sunday. Lets see how this goes . Boy Do I know how to jam-pack my schedule. Will check if they play rough then I am out, cant take beatings anymore Havent played soccer since I moved from SFO . Used to play indoor soccer on Tuesdays and Thursdays under the guidance of Ernie Fibausch , a US soccer hall of fame inductee. After the game used to go to some place eat and hoist a few suds. Wow the first taste of beer after a tiring game is like manna from heaven. The drive back home used to be even more tiring wondering if am I am DUI?

On weekends I used to play outdoor soccer with the Indians, good group but never co-ordinated . Well atleast I used to work up some good sweat.

At this place I have been regular only at racketball , and every once in a while some other sport. Getting back to soccer will surely lift my spirits and get me out of hibernation.

Reminds me I have registered to run in a few 5K and 10K races. If all goes well might be Chicago marathon , he he he in my dreams .

Called up GSB Financial Aid office and asked for some aid “Show me the money” . Being an international student, I have only one choice and hopefully they wont reject my application .

More Info about Loans at GSB

Need the moolah to finish this off fast. Spreading the loan over the years also makes it less tough.

Oh My God !! This is funny. No one knows in GSB that I have an alias “Rock” .Its only close friends and my gym friends that call me Rock. Not even my family knows about my alias ‘Rock’.

But guess what somehow “Rock” made its way into the hallow offices of GSB .

Last month I recieved a snail mail from “Director of Admissions” addressing me as

“Dear Rock:”

and today I got an email from “Associate director of Admissions”

Dear Rock:

Welcome to Spring LEAD 2005! We would like to provide you with a GSB LEAD shirt. In order to do so, we need you to provide us your shirt size. If you could reply to this email and indicate a size (small, medium, large, ex-large), we will try our best to get you the appropriate fit.

We look forward to seeing you on May 13th!

Regards,
XXXX

That reminds me that I have decided to be part of LEAD, the only required course for full-time(FT) students. The course will start at around 8 in the morning and will continue till 5 in the evening ,every Friday for 5 weeks.

What is LEAD?
Its a leadership and team building program.
For more info check out this URL about LEAD

Its not required for Part-timers(PT)’ers then why am I taking it ?

I believe that LEAD will teach me a lot more about leadership, team-building and most of all networking, one skill which is difficult for PT’ers to work on, given their work schedule. This will make my program as complete as a FT.

Managed to get to the Marketing Strategy by AL Friday evening 6-9. She is a great lecturer and tries to get lot of real life examples . Marketing itself is so boring(sorry Kotler) but she is trying to make it interesting . I am taking this class cos its a requirement for me to graduate. I need numbers to keep the class interesting , too much of lecture and abstract things just kill me . We talked about Customer Segmentation and did a wrap-up of Calyx and Corolla case.

Had some good company for dinner and a movie later. Tried to show off my macho instincts by moving around Chicago in my T-shirt , got sick and still have a sore throat.

On the other hand, my Sat morning class(9-12) that I am auditing , Futures,forwards and Swaps by CC is pretty damn interesting. The prof is nice and I must admire this person for talking non-stop and still keeping the attention of the whole class . He tells us so many real life examples of people and institutions . The material is also interesting but since I am only auditing it I am not taking it seriously but I do plan to audit it all the way to the end. We talked about Derivatives Trading, Clearance, and Settlement and the various institutions involved in it.

12-1 was student fair . I signed up for some clubs like the Student Activities council , GSB Bio-Pharma, Small business entrepreneurship . But the most important group that I signed up for was “Graduate Women in Business” . Ah I know where i want to be !!! . The other group that was being formed and I wish to contribute effectively to, is toastmasters. I have been an active participant in various toastmaster clubs . Nice place to hone your leadership and public-speaking skills. BTW I am a participant at Rockford Toastmasters , we meet every 1,3 and 5th Thursday from 12-1.

The next class (1-4) was Analysis of Financial Time series. Great class but the execution was not up to par. I had to be kept awake by my neighbors and lots of munchies . Nah, coffee wouldnt have helped, I am sure. Boy if one can make a Marketing class interesting then a class like this definitely should be bloody damn interesting. I dont remember what was taught.Well I have to finish my assignment , I will know what was taught.

After that I rushed home and slept from 8 to 9 the next morning. I should blog what was taught .

Someone once said “The only things that are imminent are death and taxes” . Well I dont know when death is coming up but taxfiling is coming up on April 15th. I have to pay up around 500$ . The bloody Government has to get our hard earned money. Why pay taxes ?

“Adventures of TomSawyer” is a master piece and I admire this book more for Mark Twains capability of looking straight into a childs mind. I would recommend this to anyone who wants to understand a childs physchology.

I got hooked on to Tom Sawyer when I was in High school and our English teacher Miss Lily taught us this chapter where in Tom tricks the children of neighborhood into doing his job of whitewashing the fence.

“Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?” Tom asks to the kids, who come over to mock him, for doing a chore on Saturday. Oh what a way to play around with the other kids minds. This is where Mark Twain is phenomenal , he knows exactly what kids are all after . They have this big ego and they want to be the ones who are doing all the cool stuff and getting all the accolades and can boast later to the other kids of how they r so good and the others r not. All the neighborhood kids now want to whitewash and trade their goodies with Tom for a chance to whitewash. Ah Tom just turned his job into fun and gets paid handsomely by others. Wow I wish !!!

In conclusion, Tom says “that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.”

In contrast, there is Huck (Mark wrote another book called “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” ,have read half of it ) who is a complete non-conformist, lives life by his own rules and is the envy of all the kids. Huck and Tom become good friends and the rest of the story is about how they find the treasure and how Huck is finally adopted by the society.

Although both Tom and Huck believe in a make-believe world of superstitions, pirates, ghosts and warts ,they also want to be more adult-like by smoking pipes and drinking. Teenagers in making ?

Another point worth noting is the great desire of Tom to be temporarily dead. Which kid doesnt want to do it? They want to know who really cares for them , and when they r dead they know who really will cry for them and who wont, and by that they can find who cares and who doesnt. And Tom gets his wish sort of fulfilled when he, Huck and Joe(??) run away and are presumed dead. Tom comes back to the house one night stealthily and sees that every one including Aunt Polly is crying. And at his own funeral Tom sees that the whole town is missing him. What a fantastic feeling for a kid to be wanted ? It satisfies his big EGO.

The story also tells that kids have more conscience than adults. This is shown when Tom saves the drunkard by testifying that it was Injun Joe that killed the doctor , inspite of having a written contract with Huck not to reveal it to anyone. This while the whole town is judging that the drunkard must have killed the doctor just because he is a drunkard. I remembered a Bible quote during this whole episode “Judge not for ye shall be judged”. This quote says dont judge anyone because on the day of judgement I will judge everyone and its my job, not yours . Ah !! God is also looking for job security

My personal favorite is the Becky-Tom affair and how the whole thing is so adult-like and in turn Twain tells us that some of the adult relationships are so child-like. Also Twain implies that love is a illogical and irrational necessity.

The following two episodes depict the fascination of the kids with RobinHood and wanting to be pirates .

The pledge that the kids take that they would rather be outlaws for a year in Sherwood Forest, where Robin Hood operated, than the President of US forever depicts this fascination.

Tom convinces Joe,who gets a flogging from his mom and wants to run away from home and become a ascetic , that a life of crime would be more desirable. wow !!! A great peep into a child’s mind.

“There comes a time in every rightly constructed boy’s life,” writes Twain, “when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure. Amazing .

And this forms the crux and climax of the story. Finally Huck and Tom get the treasure .

Mark Twain also puts in a lot of verses from Bible in the story but never lectures on morality. I have read somewhere that MarkTwain was not a believer in organized religion.

Towards the end MarkTwain’s philosphy startled me . He writes when he describes the drop that is falling from the cave and Injun Joe is lying dead at the mouth of the cave ” That drop was falling when the Pyramids were new, when Troy fell, when the foundations of Rome were laid, when Christ was crucified.” Is he saying here that time is relative way before Einstien. I cannot grasp it till now what it actually means.

And then he goes on to say “Has everything a purpose and a mission?”.

Boy is he questioning life, himself, his work and everything at the end of such a fascinating story? Or is he sad that such a wonderful story is coming to an end. Or that these kids will no more be kids. Did he write “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” to take it a little further. I smell JD Salinger in this quote.

I feel after this, one should read JD Salingers works, Catcher in the Rye , Raise the Roof Beam High carpenters , Nine Stories and Franny n Zooey.I will put in comments about these later.

Poets always had revolutionary ideas. They believed in God but have spoken against religion, in anger and the way religion is taken in contemporary society.

Kabir, the great Indian saint and poet wrote this against Hindu religion

Paahan pooje hari miley to mai pooju pahaad
tat yad chakki bhali pis khaaye sansar

(He says that if by praying to an idol (stone) leads to God then I will pray to a mountain and ridicules the concept of God in Hindu religion by saying that a stone flour mill is better as it feeds people)

Likewise Kabir takes pot-shot at Islam too.

kankar pathar jod ke masjid liya banaay
ta chad mullah baang de kya behra hua khudaay

The priest calls for prayer by calling out for followers 4-5 times a day.

(Kabir says why is the mullah(priest) shouting at the top of his voice. Has his God become deaf ?)

Kabir takes a blanket pot-shot at all religions by saying this

jyu naino mein putli, tyu maalik ghat maahi
murakh log jaahi, baahar dhondan jaahi.

(Kabir says that God resides inside us like pupil in our eye. All the followers of religion are ignorant as they try to search for God outside while He resides inside us.)

Another of great poets Mir taqi Mir ,considered Khuda-e-sukhan(God of Urdu poetry), also wrote against religion

Mir ke deen-o-mazhab ab poochte kya ho, unne to
qashqa kheencha dair mein baitha kab ka tarq islam kiya.

(Mir, here says dont ask me my religion I have relinquished Islam long back and have accepted Hinduism.).

This poem has to be understood in the context of Islam. Converting from Islam to any other religion is considered blasphemy and in Islam the person is condemned to death for having done so. One cannot convert from Islam to any other religion without facing wrath of Islamists even now in India. Mir here challenges all the Islamic religious fanatics by openly claiming that he has relinquished Islam and accepted Hinduism.

Another famous poet , Sir Iqbal, one of the founding fathers of Islamic state of Pakistan, wrote this and created a furore. If I remember correctly this is from his book Shikva(complaint against God).

Kabhi hamse kabhi gairo se shaanasai hai
kehne ki baath nahi par tu bhi to harzaai hai .

(Sir Iqbal complains to God that sometimes He is with us(Muslims) sometimes with others(other religions) and calls God unfaithful for doing so.)

Now can anyone dare to call God Unfaithful ?

I would like to point out here that I am no literary critic nor am in any position to comment on these two great books ,WH and TGG nor on these authors , Emily Bronte and Scott Fitzgerald.

Having said that I see some commonalities in the two books which stuck me all of a sudden while I was driving to work today.

Both these books have as their basis the men, Gatsby in TGG and Heathcliff in WH, who couldnt get their women, Catherine in WH and Daisy in TGG. Circumstances force these women to take a different path. Gatsby went to war for 5 years and Heathcliff ran away from WH after over-hearing part of Catherine’s story. Both the women considered that riches will give them all the happiness and get married to richer men. Gatsby and Heathcliff now come back after their women are married probably as rich or richer than the men that their women married . The men in the both the stories considered that wealth will get their women back into their lives. The women still love their men, with or without the knowledge of their husbands. No moral lectures are given by any of the authors on the way these women behave, although Scott Fitzgerald(TGG) may have tried to justify it by showing Tom as a womanizer. The women in the two stories wanted their men and their husbands to fight over them , very interesting women to say the least. Coming to symbolism , Gatsby looking at the green light at the end of Daisys dock and Catherine keeping her windows open so as to see Wuthering Heights are symbolism of hope .

Both the men , Gatsby and Heathcliff die a very lonely death. Its revenge that kept Heathcliff alive after Catherines death whereas it was hope in Gatsbys case . Both these men have hardly had one person to mourn their death . Nick in case of Gatsby and Hareton in Heathcliff’s case.

Both these books, although set almost more than a century apart, show men as having succumbed to the charms of their women and unable to escape it. These men go to great lengths to get their women. One can argue that Heathcliff wanted revenge and it was directed at Catherine too, but the author has had so many narrations that it can be very difficult to distinguish the real motive. Both the authors used their narrators, Nelly in WH and Nick in TGG, as essential part of the whole story

This is the case that we have to finish by Friday night. Marketing strategy by AL. We have to finish 4 of the 7 minor cases and 2 major cases.

Well after the group formation and the usual crossing over of people we are now 4 in the group. We have decided to do it through conference calls. Have conference call tonite.All the minor cases will have to be written to answer these questions in one page.

•What are the major issues/problems faced by the company in the case?
•What course of action do you recommend?
• How did you come up with your chosen strategy? What case facts/data did you consider? What were the relevant alternative actions/plans that you had to choose from?

On the other side is Analysis of Financial time Series by RT. I have yet to start on the HW which has to be done individually. I have to use ‘R’ to do the homework yet to learn it . Downloaded it and have been playing around with it . Having worked with Matlab this shouldnt be tough.