Into the Night ...

Like a gift from the heavens, it was easy to tell
It was love from above, that could save me from hell
She had fire in her soul, it was easy to see
How the devil himself, could be pulled out of me
There were drums in the air, as she started to dance
Every soul in the room, keeping time with their hands …

Santana & Chad Kroeger

Well the song is called, as you must have so obviously guessed, 'Into the Night'. The post in consideration would probably be apt to start of with these lines. Into the Night. The time of the day that many fear the most. Dark and Scandalous. Terrorizing and Tumultuous. Ugly and Abhorrent.

Oh well, welcome to a B-school. Thats the time of the day when all your worst fears come true. Delayed submissions, pending timeliness. The only chance that you get to wrap stuff up is at night. It does not matter to the professors that poor students are losing out on Sleep, Glorious Sleep.

During a recent chat with some alums, i was surprised to find out that of 24 hours in a day, only 4 went for lectures. You had 20 hours to yourself. Inspite of this Wow quotient, i had that queasy feeling in my guts with a pending lull of what was going to hit me next. Its borrowed time that the students live on. Even those 20 hours belong to the profs. And trust me, they will goto lengths to try and squeeze in a few more somewhere.

Take for instance my schedule. Classes from 8:45am to 10:45am and then from 11:15am to 1:15pm. With the profs keeping high expectations that the students will read up the lecture content in advance and also finish off the exercises before coming to class. Why, pray somebody tell me, are classes necessary then. Might as well have a mail correspondence.

Now i being the inherent lazy bum, dont expect me to visit the library in order to find stuff. Especially when the books are tiered into 3 vast floors. And i don't like buying books either, given the previous college experiences, where my books bought in semester one had never flipped a page even till semester eight. Which leaves me with two options.

First, i beg or borrow a book from my group mates for some time when they are not using it. This seems highly unlikely because i am sure there is no scope for lending when the pressure is mounting on you to read up cases after cases.

Second, and preferred option is to download the book of the net. However, our useless net connections have been blocked from pursuing such activities. Even after managing to bypass this obstacle, still leaves one problem. You never end up finding the correct editions. I am currently reading a book that has the exact same theoretical content, but the examples differ in terms of the global geographies. No wonder i was stumped when i tried finding a case for Gillette Indonesia, and ended up staring at the barrel of Ford USA.

The other crib i have is that since everybody wants to utilize the internet bandwidth at night, it becomes an ugly proposition when you cannot get effective speeds at even 4am. Oh well, no one said life is fair, but why cant it be unfair to others.

And now grudgingly, i have to make that trip to my library and get used to reading stuff. I am wondering if they will let me take my camera inside, so that when the library closes at 10pm, i still have the option to read up digitally, Into the Night ...

PS - What ultimate crap. Just when i am about to leave for the library, i get a call saying the book you requested is not on the shelf. Obviously, there are others who have the same idea and are reading away to glory right now. Why i ask, don't they have anything constructive to do in the night !!

PPS - i am now relying on my study group mates to provide me with a gist of what is accounting and marketing all about just before i enter the class. Hopefully that should at-least get me through for tomorrow. Coming from a consulting background, bluffing my way through 4 hours should not be an issue. Though i am riding my luck far beyond than just Into the Night ...