The sun having abandoned us for the week, it has been a pretty cool morning for most of the days this week. The weekend however was splendid with the sun being out, clear skies and overall a great weather accompanied by the relief of having finished off with the exams. Last Friday was when the exams got over. The afternoon was spent lazing about in the sun at Hyde park. A clear sky with wisps of cloud floating about it was an ideal day to soak in the sun. The evening was spent in revelry, the events of which I’m sure, are more apt for a private memoir than a blog. The weekend was spent in catching up on the sleep that one was deprived off due to the exams. However, Sunday was pretty inviting enough for the shoes to be slipped on an venturing out in the city.

A long walk around Piccadilly, Soho Fitzrovia, Trafalgar Square and finally Covent Garden ensured an afternoon that was spent walking about and observing people in general. In fact, it was a wonderful day for one to step out and enjoy with the family or maybe even with friends. But for most, I believe it was about family. Going by the tube map and estimating the distances based on what gathers from the tube stations in central London, one would be surprised to know that the entire distance is very much walkable, and if one is willing to leg it most parts of it are within walking distance of each other. Its the sight on streets which can slow you down, make you stop and stare.

A new week started, at business school. Some resumed their classes, while at the management course we started with Business Simulation Exercise. As the name suggests, the entire batch goes through an exercise were an entire business situation has been simulated for them. The groups, as formed since the beginning of the academic year, are assigned a firm and compete with other firms (computer generated). The challenge is to take decisions which would help generate maximum profit, share price etc. in short, take decisions and make the firm do well over a period of time. With decisions being taken for each financial year (rounds), fortunes swing about a lot, with teams who were doing well, suddenly lose it all in an unfortunate speculation and face “liquidity crisis” (bankruptcy) while some keep going from strength to strength. Somehow, this simulation allows us to try out out understandings and knowledge gained over the period of the past few months, where the repurcussions of the mistakes (wrong decisions) are limited to only a few digits on screen and not much of an impact on the real life, and certainly not being expensive. With the exercise coming to an end today, it would be interesting it note where each team leaves the firm. This certainly is a heads up for most of the future managers on how to manage finance, marketing, production, research and development, and overall business strategy. The learnings are immense. The key is to apply what one learns. Till then, adios

I haven’t the faintest remembrance of when I heard the above mentioned phrase the first time, or probably read but it has been lodged in the deepest corners of my memory for a frightfully long time. In fact, I have always wondered when and where I could use it, until today. And there is a good reason for that, or so I shall have you believe. Right now, I am in fact in Scotland. Glasgow to be precise. Not really on sightseeing, which I daresay I would have loved to. It’s a visit to catch up with a school chum of mine. Met the bugger the first time at the school bus stop about 12-13 years ago, having just moved into that area. And since then we have been the best of buddies, except that he has been here at UK for about 7 years now. Training to be a medic a charming fellow to begin with. Enough of my friend.

Glasgow, was at one point of time one of the largest cities of Europe. I suppose if you care to look up wikipedia you shall find loads of information there. My first sight of the city turned out to be quite rainy, what with the weather being true to Scottish form, or so I have been told. Luckily for me, by the time my friend came around to pick me up it had stopped raining, so we took a pretty long walk from Buchanan Bus Station, past Kelvingrove Musuem and the University of Glasgow to finally arrive at Maryhill, where the university accommodations were. While it was a pretty damp walk through the park and streets, I must say the architecture of the land certainly did impress me. After nice little rest, we went out for a walk again through the city, spent some time at the Gilmore hill campus of the university which I must say was pretty old and beautiful. Will post snaps once am back in London. After that it was lunch and siesta!! Evening saw us head out to Hillhead, for a pub where I met up with some other medics in training and their friends and ended up having a wonderful till a wonderful time. Sadly, the party broke up at midnight and we headed back to quarters with a dinner of battered haggis with gravy to go. For the uninitiated, haggis is a traditional Scottish dish which should be very much part of the diet while on a trip to the land. More on the history of this dish over here.

How to get there:

getting to Glasgow is not really rocket science. So, hop on to any train from King’s Cross/Euston for Glasgow. A standard one way ticket should cost you about £35-40 min. on the National Rail. Or maybe a coach from the Victoria Coach station, which is is definitely for the one worried about how deep his/her pocket runs and one way should cost about £25/28 with the National Express. The other option is of course by air.

So long, cheerio and have a nice time!!

It’s been ages literally since something scribbled in this corner and with activities moving at a break neck speed in class, I daresay there were very few moments of calm solitude to actually sit down and doodle about!! But still, the mind does need some rest. And so, came along a day when one got the chance to try and slide on ice (or is it glide?), in process bruising the old resting spot with the repeated falls.

The day was a Monday, and it was the 16th day of the second month of the Georgian calendar in the year 2009. An ice skating evening was planned for the residents of Clayponds Village at the Queensway Rink. Now Mondays are off for me this term, so true to form I was lazing about all day… and honestly was in half a mind to skip it. But what with the day coinciding with a friend’s birthday it was quite impossible to stay indoors unless the desire to be manhandled ruled prime in the psyche.

So there I was ambling along the road to Queensway, weaving my way through the crowd, then the queue to finally arrive at the skate corner. Boots strapped, the horrors (rather pains) of the last such act flooded the memort, and the frankly, the old hat here really did have half a mind of unstrapping the boots and return to flatter grounding. But, surge ahead whispered the lil chap in red in my left ear and so off I went!!

1… 2… 3… ah three good steps, may be I can do it… THUD!!!

Honestly, the process was repeated so many times, I could actually write a C program to simulate it (maybe). To my utter dismay, I was the only jelly legged chappie there, the rest were doing quite fine. Took a few snaps and a video, take a look

Ice Skating at Queensway

onestly, this is was like a major news everywhere. London was brought to a standstill due to heavy snowfall. That was what one woke up to on Monday morning. The show started late on Sunday evening with snowfall starting off around 7. Within a few hours it was white all around and a thick layer of snow had enveloped everything that one could lay eyes on. Here at Clayponds what ensued at that point was a massive snowfight, with students creeping up on you with handfuls of snow and before you know you are chilled to the core and can’t wait to return the favor.

Snowman

Snowfight in progress

my attempt at snowman

The fun continued till about 2-3 in the morning, till realisation struck that the next day was Monday. As per my schedule for the month, Monday was an off day, leaving very much in the company of my own self and the snowman we had built. So off I went to my room for some dinner and hoping for some sleep.

The dinner somehow kept me awake for the better part of the night of whatever remained of it that hour. Before I knew it was 8 in the morning and the view outside was splendid. can’t explain it in words. Still wondering whether there would be any classes at uni. I tuned in to BBC and well, the situation seemed pretty grim and yet people were actually fun on the streets. Honestly, I won’t harp on how things ended up in London, there are miles of news reports on this across the web and the print media.

From the window sill

Clayponds at 9 on Monday morning

Soon enough there were emails reporting cancellation of classes for the day. Alas, the tube service was not reliable else a trip to the uni was on the cards for snow in London the way we saw it on Monday morning is rare. Anyways, with Monday being called off I found most of my friends snuggling back into the warmth of their duvets. And pretty soon I was off too… Snowfight, snowman, walk through the snow, I suppose we had done them all…. time to rest.

the east sky