After a long break!

I've been out of action for a long time. Returned to India to bid good bye to my job and started making preparations for leaving to Singapore.

 

Recently, my fellow blogger DTLF too wondered where I was - "wake up!" she/he said! So I'm waking up..sort of. Well, where I am right now, free-riding in my dad's house, we don't have broadband and dial-up is bloody slow. That, along with a lot of running around tying several loose ends, has kept me away from the blog. But I will be back soon once in Singapore from Aug 21st.

 

There were a few interesting things though - apart from being amazed at the incredible rate of change in my city after coming back with a gap of 3 years. So I was trying to get myself a really small education loan just to bridge the initial month or two until I could some of my money out of fixed deposits etc. Not that I desparately need it, but I figured I would not touch all m life savings and instead use a little loan. The Indian banks certainly operate interestingly (I've never taken any kind of loan, so this was kinda new to me). Here's the gist of it

 

a) They won't give me a loan, but only to my dad! So here I am, well employed for many years, far wealthier (relative terms, don't start imaginin' me as a tycoon on a yacht) than my dad, and I can't get a 10,000$ loan! Maybe they will even expect me to walk into the bank holding my dad's pinky finger.

b) Tons of paperwork, close to 14% interest, and they want me to pledge a property as collateral. Riiight..I should pledge property worth several times the loan.

c) Official-1 says one story, official-2 says another, and one of them categorically told me "We don't fund correspondence courses!" hmm...I now have to suffer the belittlement of INSEAD being turned into a third rate correspondence course! I never said that to him, but something about me on the phone must have sounded like I was super dumb. Duhhhhhhhh.

 

So I finally gave up on that. Perhaps I will have to beg a friend or two of mine in US to sign me up for a IEFC loan. Let's see.

 

In other news, I also took the career leader test. My experience was a better than DTLF (who was mighty pissed...pissed is an understatement really). I answered the questions quickly and went with my gut feel. I have to say that the results were pretty accurate about how I feel/want to do barring a point or two. Anyway I'm not too worked up about it - I want to go with an open mind. Though at this point I am reasonably clear I will not bother about getting into finance/banking. Not too much fun sitting with someone 7 years younger to me and getting my ass kicked ;)

 

My last day at work was nice. It was great to meet many in my team, who reported into me but who I never saw. What suprised me was the warmth I received, and it was a nice send-off after meeting several senior managers/CEO. Feels good to walk out with a good relation.

 

We also had a good alumni + new admits reunion at my town. I was impressed with the alumni, all doing well, and I have a great set of class mates. It was a pleasant harbinger of things to come. If I get time, I'll write more about it. Couple of us have already met several times, and so that tells you that the vibes are good.

 

Housing in singapore has been a b*tch. Rentals are over the roof, and it took a lot of running around (so to speak..though it was all on email/phone) before we finally nailed a place in Heritage, which looks pretty cool and very close to INSEAD. I wanted to be close to the school so it's easy to do a lot of activities and might as well have a great time in the limited period.

 

So that's about it for now. More soon when I have time, or once I reach INSEAD!