Time to reflect

First week of term 1 is almost over. And there are some words and phrases that I have encountered so many times already, I could scream if I heard them again. In decreasing order of irritants along with the common usage or comments, we have the following non-exhaustive list:
1. traction - "There was not enough traction between the 2 communities"
2. logistics - "We will have to work out the logistics", or "I propose we get into the logistics of it later"
3. it depends - This is the safest and most acceptable answer in a B-school. You can use it whenever you don't know the exact answer to the question being posed to you, or if you want to buy time to arrange a seemingly intelligent answer if you are caught the instant your mind had started wandering in class.
4. networking - A much abused innocent word. It also carries the onus of being THE reason for many people to be in a B-school. What many don't realise is that to network you don't really have to work too hard; you don't have to make fake conversation; you don't have to appear to be someone you are not; you don't have to create a record of sorts by remembering as many names as you can in as less a time as possible - you only have to be genuine. Your smile should say that you are indeed glad to see someone. You are a part of their joys / birthday dunkings / sufferings (hopefully not much of these) because you really want to share a part of their lives. Being polite, kind and nice to people around you will win you the much coveted "network" by itself.

Since the last time I wrote, the swimming pool and its various nocturnal inhabitants have witnessed many more dunkings - birthdays, CPs and the works. Let me explain CP for my readers who are from the normal world outside - it means Class Participation. Certain courses, in order to encourage CP, provide incentives like grades associated to it. Unfortunately, this translates to a lot of Arbit CP, Desperate CP and you get the picture. In the true spirit of fairness, we dunk the people charged with A-CP.

Just one more thought with respect to CP - One is not always right or wrong. Sometimes, people have a different perspective. It is just the way they are. Instead of listening to them patiently and opening our own minds to various possibilities, we tend to smirk or even ridicule them. To clarify my stand, I am not speaking in favour of A-CP (those guys deserve to be dunked) - I am just hoping that we, as a community, learn to appreciate a different perspective without appearing condescending or as insufferable know-it-alls. We have, after all, come here to "learn".

Moving on, with respect to birthday dunkings, I was wondering why normal friends and acquaintances (who are not study-group members or quaddies) do not include themselves in the ritual. It is not owned exclusively by a section, is it? Last night, I knew all the 3 guys being dunked by various sections on their birthdays. Rightfully, in an ideal world, I should have had my share of all 3 cakes! ;)

According to a behavioral survey conducted in a class last week, I am a strong "reflector". This information was thrown your way to justify the tangents I tend to go off into.

And before I leave to prepare for my Stats quiz tomorrow, I really have to record for posterity something that happened in class today. 5 minutes into the start of the session for Micro-Economics, while the professor was introducing a very important and significant model, our class was startled by a loud crash. Turned out that one of us had actually toppled over backwards from his chair! He claimed he was leaning too far back - exactly how comfortable was he trying to get? :P