640 !!

Date : 27th of September 2007

Time : 11:45 am.

Place : Hyderabad.

         I reach the exam center way too early. I did’nt want to be late for an exam for which I spent US$250. The moment I reach the Pearson’s Office,the old lady at the reception asks me whether I am there for the GMAT exam. Well, the office is like getting into CIA building. You have to think twice before you sneeze because you need your passport to do that.

         The lady tells me that there is a computer available and I can start my exam if I want(My appointment was at 1:15 pm). I am like what the heck, lets get this done. I leave all my stuff behind, I am literally stripped naked, my finger prints and photograph taken, and it feels like getting into the modern Alcartraz.

         I start with my essays ( Will discuss about the topic’s in the future posts). And then I take a break. Then the night mare hits me. Quant !! . Surprising I found quant easy, better than what I imagined. I had lots of Data Sufficiency questions and I could atleast understand the questions. I finish my quant way before my schedule time and move on to Verbal.

         I fould Verbal  really boring, because I had lots of Sentence Correction. You see I don’t have any hatred with Sentence Correction, but when you have sentence’s talking about Biology and Economic, i feel like sleeping. Anyway other than the nature of the passage, the Verbal wasn’t all that bad. I scored 87% in verbal(which for a person like me is a good score) .

        I am all set to click next button to get my score. I hit the next button and my heart skipped a beat when I saw my score.  640 !! . Normally 640 is not a bad score, and for the colleges I have applied, I am sure its very difficult for me to get thru. (But Venu on the other hand is being very optimistic).

        Well for all the Nightmares I had with Maths, I think I did a good job. I am not really sure about admissions but I guess I am satisfied with my score. I might waste another 10 grand and appear for GMAT or I might not, but I had a wonderful experience with it this year.

Cheers
Vinod Chandramouli.

Filed under: experience, GMAT, Life in General

It’s here !!! Aaaahhhh !! :O

Alright, 3 months of preparation, 20,000 Rs/- expenditure… I have 3 more hours before my GMAT starts. Butterflies, each the size of a dinosaur flying in my stomach. :| . The only nightmare as I said is Maths. Over the past 3 months I realised that I am terrible at it. I am gonna leave in another half an hour to my exam center. More updates, today evening .

Cheers
Vinod Chandarmouli

Filed under: experience, GMAT

Remember the time ?

        It was Sunday afternoon, and I heard a knock on the door. I open the door and I see this young dude dressed all professional and stuff. I don’t remember his name but I know for a fact he was a salesman. He was there to sell Britannica Encyclopedia. So my mom asked him to come in and he started explain the need of encyclopedia. Those were the days when Encyclopedia was like a luxury. You need to be some rich , intelligent guy to have the set. And if you are kid its all the more interesting because I believed a kid having the entire set at his place is like the reincarnation of Einstein.

        It looked really good on your bookshelf, stating with Aa to Z . The matter in them were really new . My mom used to make me read one word a day. And all those photographs about cars and other stuff was really interesting . It was like a field trip every time i flip through those pages.

       After some years, the abridged version came on CD’s . When I got my first computer, I got the britannica cd free with it. It was like the next big thing for me. It was all the more interactive, with those sounds and graphics. I still remember spending hours and hours together listening to how the hummingbird sounds, the sounds of helicopter.

       Then came internet. Yahoo search , Lycos search. It was like magic, search for anything and Viola ! you have the page . Then Google happened. The coolest thing ever. But the most important development of all was one single website. It changed the entire perspective of knowledge transfer.

        www.wikipedia.org . It actually has the similar motto of that of a democratic goverment. BY THE PEOPLE, OF THE PEOPLE and FOR THE PEOPLE. Lets take a look at what wikipedia means

            ”  As of August 14 2007, Wikipedia had approximately 7.9 million articles in 253 languages, 1.95 million of which are in the English edition. It has been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world and the vast majority of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the Internet. Steadily rising in popularity since its inception, it currently ranks among the top ten most-visited websites worldwide. Wikipedia’s name is a portmanteau of the words wiki (a type of collaborative website) and encyclopedia. Its main servers are in Tampa, Florida, with additional servers located in Amsterdam and Seoul. ”   

             7.9 million articles in 253 languages. Well, that’s a lot of articles to refer too. So no more salesman knocking on the door to sell britannica. So what is cool in wikipedia ? Well, if you have a username and password you can start contributing for it. You can either start your own article about something(which is obviously be true and relevant) or edit the articles written by others(spelling mistakes, adding citations).

             Can I trust Wikipedia ? Well, Its good that its got 7.9 million articles in 253 languages, but how much of it is valid and accurate ? When you create an article in wikipedia, its reviewed by a commitee of admins and sysops. An article is not accepted until you have a proper citation attached with it. One top of all this , the article has to be approved by the committee of admins. 

            Other than the encyclopedia thingy , wiki group also has other activities like wiki quote ~ collection of quotes , Wiki media ~ Collection of multimedia files and others.

           Well today is wikipedia’s turn, god knows what’s gonna happen tomorrow. I guess I have said enough about Wikipedia. Below is a link to my user page in Wikiquote.

My User Page in Wiki Quote :
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/User:Vinch  

Britannica Vs Wikipedia :
http://news.com.com/2100-1038_3-5997332.html
http://fishbowl.pastiche.org/2005/12/20/wikipedia_vs_britannica_apples_vs_oranges

Cheers
Vinod Chandramouli

            

Filed under: britannica, encyclopedia, google, Life in General, wikipedia

12 Years Later…..

  I  still remember sitting under that neem tree…..while the 12th grade wrote their public exam, me and friend….far from the school building , sitting in a broken bench which you normally find in parks…..finishing our Geography map assignment…. The year 1997, i was in my class 9th . I moved out of that school that year and I promised my friend that  I would keep in touch, just like the promise i made to other friends of mine.

   To be honest i never took the pain to keep in touch with any of my school friends, some of them whom i knew from my kindergarten. Then Orkut happened. I met everyone of them, some of whom i haven’t met for the past 12 years.

    Two months ago ,  my 9th grade had a small reunion. It was really small because we were only 4 of them. I lost touch with them 12 years ago, and through Orkut we got back, decided we would all meet. I personally had a wonderful time meeting my buddies. 

    You might be wondering why I had to  write about this now, well today I met the same friend whom i  promised 12 years ago sitting in that broken bench that I would keep in touch. 

 Cheers

Vinod Chandramouli

Filed under: experience, friend, Life in General, Orkut

The second side of a Coin !!

Few things, which are viewed from a different angle

 1) Passing by the primate area one day, a zoo attendant happens to notice a chimpanzee sitting on a rock with an open book in either hand, looking first at one and then at the other. Upon closer examination, he identifies the books: the Bible, and Darwin’s “Origin of Species”. Curious, he asks the chimp, “What’s with the books?” The chimp replies, “I’m trying to decide whether I’m my brother’s keeper, or my keeper’s brother.”

2) Did Adam ever say to Eve, “Watch it! There are plenty more ribs where you came from!”

3) Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you may diet.

4) When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.

5) Statistics are like Mini skirts, it can only be suggestive, but cannot reveal the whole thing.

6 ) Heaven is where . . .
     the police are British,
     the mechanics German,
     the cooks are French
     the lovers Italian,
     and all is organized by the Swiss.

7) Did you know that dolphins are so intelligent that within only a few weeks of captivity, they can train Americans to stand at the very edge of the pool and throw them fish.

8 ) The Miss Universe pageant is fixed.
     All the winners are from Earth.

9) A young minister sitting down to dinner was about to say Grace when he opened the casserole dish that his thrifty bride had prepared from countless refrigerator leftovers. “I don’t know,” he said dubiously. “It seems to me that we’ve blessed all this stuff before.”

Cheers

Vinod Chandramouli.

Filed under: Life in General, quotation

The Learning Curve !!

I was going through some website and found this interesting quote.

                “First we thought the PC was a calculator. Then we found out how to turn numbers into letters with ASCII — and we thought it was a typewriter. Then we discovered graphics, and we thought it was a television. With the World Wide Web, we’ve realized it’s a brochure. “

      The above words are of Douglas Adams, if you are wondering who he is, he is the man behind the Famous Series “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy“. I found this quote of his rather interesting.

cheers

Vinod Chandramouli

    

Filed under: Douglas Adams, Life in General, quotation, world wide web

What if your mother is a …….. ??

Here is a small story I developed out of a question which was asked to one of the students (in our case Rajeev) on his IIM A interview round.

     “Wake up Rajeev, It’s your big day”, that’s all he heard.  Last few months has been, terrible, exciting, unbelievable for Rajeev. The moment Rajeev saw his CAT score, he knew he cracked it. He knew he is one step closure to what he calls “The Stairway to Heaven”.  Well, he knew is going to do well in the Group Discussion round because he has always been the talkative sort. The only thing he was worried about was the interview. He can talk alright….but when ppl are looking at him from all possible directions and he is the only one in the room, who is being asked question…..it’s a different story.

 Rajeev has prepared the best he could for the interview. Sat those endless nights looking at pages and pages over the internet on “How to appear for an interview”.  He has attended numerous sessions on the same topic. Well nothing prepared for what he is going to face inside those four walls….

     Anyway getting back to the interview day, He reached the interview hall one hour before. Just like the books and the internet advised him, he double rather triple checked his certificates, he is calm and he is relaxed. The interviewers call his name and Rajeev enters the room filled with Geekos from the coveted institute in India, IIM A. They all look like they are ready to tear him into pieces any time soon…

    The old man left to Rajeev, introduced himself as Mr Pandey. And the first thing which came out Mr Pandey mouth was…. “So Rajeev, What if your mother is a prostitute?”

    Phew!! Yeah…. Lets take one small step backwards……You are sitting in an interview for which you have spent your entire life on preparation. You have cracked the examination….just when you thought you had everything in control, there is this person in front of you asking a question like that….

    If someone asks a question like that to anyone from the city where I come from, he would probably be dead by now, or his entire family would be burnt alive.

     Well folks the question which was asked to the imaginary character Rajeev is infact a true incident to some guy appearing for his interview with IIM.  I don’t know the name, I don’t know when and where it happened. All I know is it happened. The guy got selected alright, that’s because the answer which he gave, was as unexpected as the question which was asked to him.

     Take a minute here and think what you would do in Rajeev’s situation. What would you say? Would you get angry (of course!! I would)?? . Well the real Rajeev gave this Seat Winning answer…

 Question by the Interviewer:            

              What if you mother is a prostitute?

 Answer given by the Clever IIM guy :

              Then my father would be the only customer to my mother. :|  

It’s just very comforting for a person like me to hear such things because I would be appearing for an interview like this anytime soon. I really hope I don’t end up thrashing the interview when he/she end up asking me such a question. That’s all from me now….

Cheers

Vinod Chandramouli. 

Filed under: CAT, experience, Interview, Life in General, what if ?