Oxford to Dubai : End of part 1

Having sat in Heathrow for 17 hours I was told to bugger off as all the flights were cancelled for the 19th . So I head back to oxford with a ticket for 21st in my pocket only to greeted by a nice sunny evening at Oxford . Let's hope I am able to leave the island on 21st .

"Aal is bell.."

Oxford to Dubai : Story so far

to give you the background , I had a flight to Dubai tomorrow morning .

So the ever efficient me went to the bus station to find out what would be a good time to take a bus out of oxford . What do i find ? No buses out of Oxford it seems . Nothing to worry I tell my self "Aal is bell" as Aamir khan taught us. So I headed off to the train station.( Btw it had been snowing all morning and I was trudging along in 6 inches of snow.) Nothing to worry the lady at the counter says. We have a train at the platform ready to leave for london and we donot know when the next would be heading out . Hmm "Aal is bell" I tell myself and hurry back home to finish packing .Time is 4:30pm on 18th and I am ready to head off to london for a flight supposed to take off at 8:50 am on the 19th morning . Paranoid , I hear some of the non-believers say , but then they donot know of my harrowing experience of getting out of Dehra Dun to catch a flight from Delhi while coming to Oxford. 

So I head of to the station lugging my luggage :) in a small blizzard .Well for somone who has spent last 4 years in the impotent climate of Bangalore it was a small blizzard. I enter the train station and behold my luck is changing !! a train heading for london . so I hop into and am pretty smug about myself , thinking who can I visit for the night in london. But my luck never changes is just takes a turn for the worse . At Didcot (never mind where it is , not really worth knowing ) we are asked to switch trains and get on to the express to london . People jump off the train and run towards the express , trying to outdo each other while maintaining a facade of civility . (well there are only so many seats in a train) . 

I have standing in the train for 30 minutes waiting for the express to leave . No pressure in the train they say (Don't ask me , I have no idea what that means) . So all our running and jostling comes to a naught as we get off after 40 minutes . Another 10 minutes and I am on another train to London . It ain't that bad I tell myself . It could have been worse (If I had only known my future).

I reach paddington (London) at around 7:30 and having lost the enthusiasm of meeting anybody decide to head for heathrow . But then Heathrow is closed :) . Obviously I didn't know that when I was at paddington . At Heathrow I am stuck for around 40 minutes in a sea of people who are trying to go everywhere. 

Anyways somehow now I am inside the airport having started 6 hours earlier from Oxford . There is no place to sit , the wifi does not work and my backside hurts having sat on the cold floor for 20 minutes .

"Aal is bell" I tell myself ...

Ohh btw my flight is rescheduled for 12:00 noon tomorrow ..

"Aal is not bloody bell"

Here we go …8 hrs .. 4 days .. 7 years

8 hrs to go for the first exam

4 days of exams

7 years since I wrote an exam 

And this is what I feel before I go to sleep.

The Charge of the Light Brigade

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

1.

Half a league, half a league,
 Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
 Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
"Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
 Rode the six hundred.

2.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
 Someone had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
 Rode the six hundred.

3.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
 Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
 Rode the six hundred.

4.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
 All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel'd from the sabre stroke
 Shatter'd and sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
 Not the six hundred.

5.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
 Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
 Left of six hundred.

6.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
 All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made,
Honor the Light Brigade,
 Noble six hundred.

 

** Copied from the internet

http://poetry.eserver.org/light-brigade.html

Decision Science

Spent 2 hours in the sports centre shooting arrows. I am getting betterJ, but I guess that is no excuse to have spent such valuable time in frivolous activities. But sitting in my room for last 2 days trying to makes sense of finance, accounting etc. was just too much for me. So went to the sport centre and tried to drill holes into mute targets. Would have scored myself, if only I had known that it's gonna be my lucky day.

Gotta get back to Decision Science, wouldn't look good if an engineer does badly on the only math related course in the term.

Week 8

The term has been a blur of classes, assignments and sleep deprived nights.

By the way it snowed this morning, looking outside the window the scene was beautiful but reaching the school was cold and treacherous, and the classes have been sleepy. Can't believe that am already in the 8^th week of the term. Another couple of weeks and I'll be done with my first term of MBA and not so long ago I was in a completely different world busy with my job and theatre. It does seem that as if that was very long ago L .

Miss theatre I guess , I'd love to know what kim would think about that J . But have taken up archery here, so all is not lost J.

 

Let get up back to some work

You can take the Rathore out of Ranjhore but you can never take out the Ranjhore out of Rathore

and similarly - "You can take the engineer out of engineering but you can not take the engineering out of an engineer" :)

Just spent 2 hours of my precious time deriving the formula for IRR (Internal Rate of Return) . Yes I could have found it on the net , but that wouldn't be fun would it now .

so here we go
P = Loan amount
I = Yearly installment
N = Number of years
R = Annual rate of interest
B = (1 + I/100) => for I = 10% , B= 1.1

I = P / ( B^-1 + B^-2 + B^-3 ... B^-N)  => Eq-1

Hence for a given loan , years and rate of interest you could find out the yearly installment :)

Unfortunately I don't remember how to solve polynomial equations but you can also re-arrange the above equation to find out rate of interest if monthly installment is known.

( B^-1 + B^-2 + B^-3 ... B^-N) = P / I  => Eq-2

The above equation can be solved for "B" in excel using

"Data -> Data Tools -> What If Analysis -> Goal Seek "

oh yes btw excel gives you an easier formula for the above IRR() ;)

:D . You think I am crazy , believe me, I am ;)

Signing off , need to get some work done

I am hanging on

Well as I said , I am hanging on. I am behind on my reading list , not completely happy with the speed of my assignments and have no clue about the job search. Hmm .. that sounds more like drowning , but being the perennial optimist I'd say I am still hanging on. 4th week of the term has started and in another 4 days half the term's classes would be over , and as we go over the mid term hump I guess everyone will start focusing on the examinations and looking forward to the term break. A lot of interesting stuff has been happening besides the classes. There's gonna be a diwali night on 6th November, that should be fun. A lot of discussions have already started on the Entrepreneurship Project (EP) for next term and I see people have already started applying for jobs, in fact some have even received interview calls. Everything seems to be moving in all directions possible. Btw I am going to archery sessions for novices :) . That has been fun part of the week and something to look forward to on Friday mornings. Meanwhile a number of bops have come and gone which I couldn't attend coz of the English weather getting to me :( . but no worries there'll be enough bops in future . I'll try and come back more often on the blog and keep it update with my adventures ;)