Okay, so I haven't read the Harry Potter and the deathly hallows yet. With my trip to Pakistan less than 10 days away, along with the last weeks of school and working on that e-commerce project I just dont have 10-12 hours to put into that book.
But it's so hard trying to NOT find out what happens in the end of the book. A lot of my cousins and both of my sisters have read the book and they're constantly threatening me about telling me who dies in the end !!!!!
And a couple of days ago, I was reading a random blog and some wise guy had left a comment there saying that 'Harry Potter dies in the end' --- I figured that it wasn't a credible source and decided to ignore it.
Then yesterday, a friend of mine signs into Msn Messnger and his screen name said 'Yayy .. Harry Potter didn't die'
And I was happy to see that .. now I've got two spoilers saying different things.
Lets see if I can hold on for another 9 days until I get on the plane for Karachi because thats when I plan to start reading it.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Longest three hours - ever!
Introductions:
Mr. James Kindley:
Marketing Professor at the business school here at SMU. His method of instruction is completely case study based, and he prefers to call people by their last name. During class, he calls up on people (by their last name of course) and badgers them with questions until he's got them stammering trying to answer his latest un-answerable question.
Me:
Since I'm from an engineering background, I've been primarily used to teachers who just walk into the classroom and start yapping about yet another boring algorithm or the pecularities of computer hardware. That would normally give us a whole 2 hours to chat online with friends or search various P2P portals to find a pirated copy of whatever new software we were fascinated with at that time.
After joining business school, when I came up against Mr. Kindley's style of teaching I felt like somebody was intruding on my personal space. So, I resorted to doing a lot of preparation of the case before each class so that I wouldn't be speech struck when I was called upon to answer some questions.
Monday, July 23rd 2007. 5:59 PM - Advanced Marketing Class
I arrived just in time for the class and Mr. Kindley started firing away questions at a guy sitting 2 seats across mine. I felt pretty confident because I had read that day's case pretty thoroughly, but as I listened to the questions and answers going across, I realized that I didnt recognize any of the stuff they were talking about. As I looked around, nobody else was looking around horror struck and wide eyed like me. I looked in my bag for a copy of the syllabus and when I pulled it out, I found out that I had read the case for the next week's class.
As small drops of perspiration appeared on my forehead, I decided to rough it out and try and not to get attention drawn towards me. I knew if I were called upon by Mr. Kindley, I would have to confess about my mistake and he would never let me hear the end of it. Not to mention that he would just think that I was lying. And since class participation was 70% of the grade, I couldnt risk him having that impression of me. I took notes furiously (just so that I would look busy) and tried not to make eye contact with him. I even laughed heartily at his lame jokes to stay inconspicuous. And it was really hard to resist looking at the wall clock every 5 minutes because I knew he'd see me looking and point his finger at me and say in his booming voice ... "And Mr. Godil ... what did you come up for the value of lost sales blah blah blah ....... "
At the end of the two hours, we finished that case and he hadn't called on me. He gave us a break for 10 minutes and I celebrated my close call by treating myself to a snickers bar. The lecture after the break was alway a wrap-up speech by Mr. Kindley so I knew I could relax. But to my amazement, he started talking about ANOTHER case and everybody was prepared for it. I just couldn't believe it! We had never done 2 cases in one class before. So, there I went again, trying to lay low while pretending to pay attention. I had a pretty close call when he suddenly pointed right at me, but called the name of the guy sitting behind me.
At the end of three hours I walked back to my car emotionally and mentally exhausted. And I thought it would be fun to share this joy ride with you guys because I know a couple of my friends have been thinking about joining business school in the future.
Lesson Learned: 'ALWAYS READ THE COURSE SYLLABUS CAREFULLY' !!!!!
Mr. James Kindley:
Marketing Professor at the business school here at SMU. His method of instruction is completely case study based, and he prefers to call people by their last name. During class, he calls up on people (by their last name of course) and badgers them with questions until he's got them stammering trying to answer his latest un-answerable question.
Me:
Since I'm from an engineering background, I've been primarily used to teachers who just walk into the classroom and start yapping about yet another boring algorithm or the pecularities of computer hardware. That would normally give us a whole 2 hours to chat online with friends or search various P2P portals to find a pirated copy of whatever new software we were fascinated with at that time.
After joining business school, when I came up against Mr. Kindley's style of teaching I felt like somebody was intruding on my personal space. So, I resorted to doing a lot of preparation of the case before each class so that I wouldn't be speech struck when I was called upon to answer some questions.
Monday, July 23rd 2007. 5:59 PM - Advanced Marketing Class
I arrived just in time for the class and Mr. Kindley started firing away questions at a guy sitting 2 seats across mine. I felt pretty confident because I had read that day's case pretty thoroughly, but as I listened to the questions and answers going across, I realized that I didnt recognize any of the stuff they were talking about. As I looked around, nobody else was looking around horror struck and wide eyed like me. I looked in my bag for a copy of the syllabus and when I pulled it out, I found out that I had read the case for the next week's class.
As small drops of perspiration appeared on my forehead, I decided to rough it out and try and not to get attention drawn towards me. I knew if I were called upon by Mr. Kindley, I would have to confess about my mistake and he would never let me hear the end of it. Not to mention that he would just think that I was lying. And since class participation was 70% of the grade, I couldnt risk him having that impression of me. I took notes furiously (just so that I would look busy) and tried not to make eye contact with him. I even laughed heartily at his lame jokes to stay inconspicuous. And it was really hard to resist looking at the wall clock every 5 minutes because I knew he'd see me looking and point his finger at me and say in his booming voice ... "And Mr. Godil ... what did you come up for the value of lost sales blah blah blah ....... "
At the end of the two hours, we finished that case and he hadn't called on me. He gave us a break for 10 minutes and I celebrated my close call by treating myself to a snickers bar. The lecture after the break was alway a wrap-up speech by Mr. Kindley so I knew I could relax. But to my amazement, he started talking about ANOTHER case and everybody was prepared for it. I just couldn't believe it! We had never done 2 cases in one class before. So, there I went again, trying to lay low while pretending to pay attention. I had a pretty close call when he suddenly pointed right at me, but called the name of the guy sitting behind me.
At the end of three hours I walked back to my car emotionally and mentally exhausted. And I thought it would be fun to share this joy ride with you guys because I know a couple of my friends have been thinking about joining business school in the future.
Lesson Learned: 'ALWAYS READ THE COURSE SYLLABUS CAREFULLY' !!!!!
Friday, July 06, 2007
Dreaming with eyes open?
You know what my problem is? I've got a pretty wild imagination. And that, in turn fosters some really foolish expectations & ideas. And that, in turn leads to being let down occasionally because those expectations/ideas were somewhat unrealistic right from the start.
So, if I know what the problem is ... I can easily go and fix it right?
No -- I don't want to!! I don't think my ideas are totally crazy or that I'm overly naive. Granted that I still sometimes fail to recognize the bad intentions of some people ahead of time, but I'm afraid to become one of those people who question every action of every person they meet or talk to. Once you start doing that, it's really hard to set the boundaries about who to believe. A cynic is something that I don't want to be .. ever.
There's a running joke in our family that we men in the Godil (My last name) family can take a seemingly small idea and run with it in our minds to create a full blown possible scenario that could span up to several decades and explore every little nook and cranny of that idea. This could last anywhere from a couple of hours to several days. During this time our minds would be churning continuously still trying to decode the idea until we either get tired of it or actually do some real work towards that idea.
I'm currently living in that self induced high that has now lasted for more than three weeks (with it's usual up and downs) .. In the last 3 weeks, I've started a software development company by the name 'WebCentric Solutions' with a really good friend of mine. I'll do a separate post on it sometime later.
WebCentric Solutions' first major project is going to be on online market place in Pakistan. It's about time we made common Pakistani people get comfortable with online shopping. We plan to launch Pakistan's biggest online shopping site and make it easy for every Asim, Ahmed and Saleem (Tom, Dick and Harry :p) to go online and buy and sell stuff.
There's a huge amount of details to worry about and we've been working day and night trying to address them one by one. It's all I can think of every waking minute. But it's sooo0o much fun and I wouldn't want to trade this for anything else. It's going to be bigger than anything I've done before.
So please pray for us that we can pull this off.
Adios
Arfeen
So, if I know what the problem is ... I can easily go and fix it right?
No -- I don't want to!! I don't think my ideas are totally crazy or that I'm overly naive. Granted that I still sometimes fail to recognize the bad intentions of some people ahead of time, but I'm afraid to become one of those people who question every action of every person they meet or talk to. Once you start doing that, it's really hard to set the boundaries about who to believe. A cynic is something that I don't want to be .. ever.
There's a running joke in our family that we men in the Godil (My last name) family can take a seemingly small idea and run with it in our minds to create a full blown possible scenario that could span up to several decades and explore every little nook and cranny of that idea. This could last anywhere from a couple of hours to several days. During this time our minds would be churning continuously still trying to decode the idea until we either get tired of it or actually do some real work towards that idea.
I'm currently living in that self induced high that has now lasted for more than three weeks (with it's usual up and downs) .. In the last 3 weeks, I've started a software development company by the name 'WebCentric Solutions' with a really good friend of mine. I'll do a separate post on it sometime later.
WebCentric Solutions' first major project is going to be on online market place in Pakistan. It's about time we made common Pakistani people get comfortable with online shopping. We plan to launch Pakistan's biggest online shopping site and make it easy for every Asim, Ahmed and Saleem (Tom, Dick and Harry :p) to go online and buy and sell stuff.
There's a huge amount of details to worry about and we've been working day and night trying to address them one by one. It's all I can think of every waking minute. But it's sooo0o much fun and I wouldn't want to trade this for anything else. It's going to be bigger than anything I've done before.
So please pray for us that we can pull this off.
Adios
Arfeen
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)