Wandering Soul

I write this post as I get ready to pursue my MBA studies at the Indian School of Business. A lot has happened over the past few months. Here’s a run-up to the present.

Rewind to June 07. I take the GMAT and then apply to three schools (The Indian School of Business, Tuck at Dartmouth and Ross at Michigan) for MBA. It’s a long application process for each one, and once the applications are done, the long wait begins. First comes the reply from ISB: Sorry, your application has been rejected. Then the reply from Tuck: Congratulations, you’ve been shortlisted for a phone interview. The phone interview happens. Then comes a reply from Tuck: Our representative would like to meet you in person on Nov 15 in Mumbai. Cool, I say.

Then comes the shocker. ISB calls me to say they have re-evaluated my application, and would like to interview me!!! On Nov 15!

Thankfully, both interview venues are near to each other, with a couple of hours difference between the interview times. Phew…

Both interviews go well. Again the wait begins. Then on Dec 12, just two days before I set off for my vacation to Cambodia and Thailand, I hear from ISB: Congratulations, we are happy to make you an offer for admission. This was one offer I couldn’t refuse What a start to my trip!

The next week I hear from Tuck: Sorry to inform you that we have not been able to offer you admission. Similar reply from Ross, a month later. Too bad, but it didn’t matter after the ISB news.

I got relieved from work in mid-Feb and since then, have been completing the various formalities of the admissions process - documents, medical forms, loan application, the works. I took out some time last month to go tiger-spotting to the Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve in central India. It was an awesome experience.

These days I am bonding with my future classmates through the forum we have created on Orkut. They are a pretty interesting bunch of people, and am certainly looking forward to the year at the ISB. It begins in eight days…

It was a case of miscommunication with my server admin. A minor oversight in my mail that wiped out my entire website! There was nothing left on the server, nothing at all. No blog, no photoblog, no website.

I was in a state of shock when I checked my website. I could see months of work going down the drain. It was a disaster. I did not know where to start. There was no way I could get my blogs back… Or was there?

I started thinking. And then I got a brainwave. Google should have most of the blog in its cache. That was the key. I promptly checked Google Cache by typing cache:blog.kedarsule.com in the searchbox. Lo and behold, there it was. I started checking the cache for each of my category. I could not get posts which were deeper than third page for each category, but whatever, I could get most of them back. One thing I could not get back completely were the comments, but then I couldn’t help it. I decided to make the most of whatever I could retrieve, and copied it into a word file.

Now that I had to put my blog back together, I decided to spend some time on the design front. So what you are seeing is the new version of my old blog. I have also created new categories for writing my travelogues. I have treated my photoblog to some design treatment as well. I also went on a naming spree. My blog is now called Wandering Soul and the photoblog is called Shades of Light.

So here I am, recovered from a major disaster. There are two main learnings here:

1. Be very, very careful while communicating with your Server Admin. Don’t take things for granted.
2. If you are stupid like me and manage to get your website erased, use Google Cache to recover as much data as you can. But please keep in mind that this method will work only for a short time after your site goes down. Because, once the Google spider crawls your website, and finds nothing there, it will erase your website’s data from its database.

I am really tied up with my B-school applications, but I just had to take time out to post this one!

On this day exactly half a century ago, mankind set out on a quest to explore the final frontier. The USSR launched the Sputnik 1, earth’s first artificial satellite, on October 4, 1957. It was the era of the Cold War, and this launch started the space race between USA and USSR. Here’s the front page of The New York Times announcing the launch of Sptunik 1:

The mission of Sputnik 1 was to study the density of high atmospheric layers. It fell from orbit on January 4, 1958 and burnt up after completing 1440 orbits. Those 3 months were by far the most important period in the history of space exploration, and set the stage for man’s foray into space.

I am very happy today! One of my favourite applications has expanded to cover my favourite hobby as well. Google Earth now includes Google Sky, which is a sky-mapping software.

Google Sky has turned Google Earth’s concept completely on its head, literally. The camera which used to point down from the sky, can now point up at the click of a button.

While you can turn the constellation outlines on and off, you can also pan and zoom across the entire night sky. It uses, what I think, are high resolution photos of the sky, taken from observatories, and telescopes across the world, and beyond. That’s the best part about this software. There are no representations of objects. All are real photographs. Everything is real!

There’s a special layer called ‘Hubble Showcase’ to show mind-blowing images of deep sky objects. While trying out the software, I promptly zoomed in on my favourite spot in the night sky – The Orion Nebula.

Some of the deep-sky objects in Google Sky have detail photos, presumably taken by Hubble, or other orbiting telescopes. It contains a database of objects from the Messier catalogue and the New General Catalogue. It even allows you to watch the motion of planets across the sky using time compression. There is information on each object in the application, be it a star, a planet, a galaxy or a black hole.

And if you are thinking that this application is only for couch stargazers, or that it will kill star gazing, think again! There’s something for everyone here. I was always intrigued by Andromeda Galaxy, the twin to our own galaxy, but didn’t know where to find it. That’s when Google Sky’s search feature came to my rescue, taking me across the sky and right towards Andromeda. Such features will inspire more people to take up the hobby of star gazing.

Talking of sky mapping software, you should check out Celestia. It is a 3-dimensional view of space that will make you feel like Captain James T. Kirk. Celestia does not confine you to the surface of earth. You can move around planets and galaxies, and boldly go where no man has gone before! But this post is about Google Sky and I’ll end it here. I’ll talk about Celestia later.

I was missing in action for a long time, and for good reasons. I was preparing for the GMAT, and with the test now behind me, here I am, back on the blog.

I scored 710 (Q=48; V=40) on the GMAT. While I know my score is not world-beating, I am happy with it. A score of 700+ on the GMAT does give you an edge when applying to B-schools. If you are planning to take the GMAT and are unable to decide between the host of prep material out there, then let me make it a bit easier for you.

I had a mix of online study material and books. I referred to an online compilation of GMAT material to start with. It was brought to my notice by my buddy, Saumil. The site is unavailable now, but fortunately I had saved a copy of the material. You can find it here.

After that came the books and their accompanying CDs. I used Kaplan GMAT Premier Program, Princeton Review’s Cracking the GMAT and The Official Guide to GMAT Review 11. I should thank my close friend Anuj Kacker, who’s presently pursuing his MBA at The Indian School of Business, for lending me these books.

A week before the test, I downloaded the official GMATprep software from mba.com. The GMATPrep will give you an idea of what you can expect from the real test, as this software carries actual questions from earlier GMATs.

The best method of preparation is to practise solving the questions. Once you get comfortable with the various types of questions, then you’ll actually start enjoying the tests.