Day 13 - A Pile of Work

Well nothing much today again, but I did a lot more work than usual, lolz.

Nothing happened until around like 11:30 like that... then suddenly my boss calls me up for a meeting. So during this meeting they commented on my PPT slide that I made, (Meenakshi was really nice and complimented me very well for my PPT slides... although I kinda thought she was faking it, doing the great management technique on how to manage people well... since my work wasn't phenomenal, LOL, it's just a PPT for crying out loud. But I really feel happy anyways, thank you for the compliments, in case you're reading this ^^;;)

Anyways, my scope increased from 1 project to kinda 4 smaller projects but definitely bigger than the 1 project when combined... I have 4 track to go through and finish in my internship so that's quite a bit to finish in 12 weeks. I'll be interviewing the internal customers and stuff to get their feedback on the UI layout and stuff for the intranet as well as the internet portals.

After that meeting, I ate and met up with my supervisor again to get my first deadline and what to deliver... and I wanted to give him something to look at today... so I went back to my desk and typed up the things that he wanted by tmr and emailed it to him at the end of the day. It's all the new features that I thought about, using the new technologies... It's kinda fun really, just dream up new things. My boss specifically say that I don't need to come up with really how to implement, just any ideas and things that I think might help, just write it down. So that afternoon I came up to something like 3 pages of stuff and sent it to him at the end of the day, lol, kinda nice I guess. I'll be waiting for his feedback tmr... meeting him at 10:00am and another dude at 11:00

Kinda proud though, did all that in a few hours and in between had a big game discussion with Melvin and Bert, lol. Damn productive laa XD

Day 12 - Horoscope of Death

What the hell... LOL

I am a Virgo.
(Also known as "Virgin")
My Horroscope starts like this:
" Virgos posess all the charm of an rhinoceros and the brains of a rabbit. They are petty and greedy, annoying and argumentative. Virgos' lack of knowledge and imagination makes them unberable for colleagues and difficult for family. " (Read more | Find yours)

I guess that's a lot of truth XD as confirmed by someone. >_<

Anyways, not much happened today... Went to the gym after work and then just stone in my room until I sleep.

Work was rather uneventful as I was doing research and writing up research papers.

Day 11 - Shit load of WORK

Yep... as the title says.... I got tons of work today when I called my supervisor and asked him if what I gave him was ok and was there any changes he'd like me to make. He told me that what I did were good... but he wants me to do some research on various server platforms and Disaster Recovery Plan - -;; So I started doing that...

Then at lunch I met him when I was about to leave from the canteen... - -;; then ended up talking to him some more and he gave me more research work... The thing is I'm fine with the research but I'm not very sure what I'm researching and how deep I'm supposed to research. I can't really find what the full component of a web server infrastructure and architecture in the first place... so I have no idea what I'm really reading.

I may be looking at the wrong things all together - -;; but I have over 20 pages of technical stuff that I read and highlighted today.... Hopefully they are good stuff... I'll probably compile those up into a document first tmr...

We went to McDonalds today cuz we needed some meat XD I think we might watch another Hindi Movie "Namaste London" We'll see.

*~Good Night and Sweet Dreams~*

Day 10 - A Bad Dream

Man... I woke up this morning feeling really depressed - -;; I think it was my dream. I only remembered a bit of the dream... but it was definitely about Ting. I rarely dream about her and that's why this time is very odd. I felt surprisingly very sad when I woke up in the middle of the dream, kinda cool really since I was apparently crying in my dream (might have been talking in my sleep also XD too bad for Melvin huh.) Then I went back to sleep and it continued XD kinda neat.

Anyways it might show something and it might not, I don't know but I can barely remember the dream now except that it turned strange and it became a rather interesting dream = =;;

Now's I'm at work, so I have all the time in the world to blog, LOLZ. I'll be blogging again later at the end of the day.

...
...
...
...

OK so now I'm back at home and errrrrrrr, just had dinner. Nothing much else happened today. We are now realizing that everybody is getting stomach problem. Melvin had diarrhea as well as Bert now getting it. Another friend of ours is also getting it so I guess I'm not the only one. Melvin got better but went crazy over this so he had done so much research that he knows exactly what to eat and what drugs to use to treat it and how many drugs are there, lol. He spent all of today searching on that so I guess he's made efficient use of his time. I was just idling away so that's not productive XD

Anyways, I finished my scope document and gant chart of my project time line as well as the presentation slides that I'm supposed to do so those are out of the way.

Now I think we're going to go watch a Hindi movie after I bathe, starting from the ones we bought, it will last us about a week LOL. Soooooooooo I'll update again tmr ;-)

*~Good night and sweet dreams~*

Day 9 - Hindi Movie Mania

Ok... if you're wondering with today's title I better address THAT first. We were just hanging around as usual today and I went into another of my friend's room and they were watching a Hindi Movie, "Salaam-E-Ishq." And I thought it was nice even though I had no idea what the hell was going on cuz it was in Hindi, though the friend was trying to translate it to me.

Anyways I watched it a while THEN there was a singing and dancing scene! It was that moment that I love the movie... it's THE BEST MUSIC AND DANCING I'VE EVER SEEN. Take a look:



The song name is the same as the title of the movie which means "A Salute to Love." Ting, I suggest you watch it, you'll love it. The actresses are damn hot XD and the dancing is like... WHOA! Shake hips like crazy and well the actor's cute too if that's what you're into, LOL.

So after that we went shopping and bought tons of Bollywood Movie to watch XD will upload pics of those later :P

And say hello to Mr. Cow:



Alright... then I went to the gym, lolz. Not much else to say, I have to go back to work on my homework XD

Day 8 - A Day of Rest

Yo yo, sup sup, what's going on~!? It's all damn happening yo~!...... At least that's what I want to say.... It's not really happening today, and I'm rather glad XD

I finished doing my homework for the weekend in the morning and just want to sleep all day. Today there wasn't much. The other people went out to Delhi to meet the people from Tata, but I didn't feel like traveling so much today. I just wanna rest so I stayed home. Went shopping though.

Since I was getting a bit unwell I went to buy 100 tablets of Vitamin C and Paracetamol. I also bought some sweets for work. I also bought a mug! Damn nice :P I wanna take a pic and post it up... hang on...

...

...

...

YEAH! This is my new coffee mug! It's damn nice, I was gonna get a black and white one... but it looked boring, although I like it. Now I have a yellow one! LOL. I'll probably bring it to work. Now I have my own cup :P.

Day 7 - Thank God It's Friday

Ok I DID say I was gonna blog at around 12+ India time, but I didn't get a chance to really XD haha so I'll blog now.

About my project I just got yesterday, it's all about the Web Portal Strategy for the Customer Portals. Basically Airtel has 4 different departments which used to be separate entities within the Bharti group of companies: Mobility Department, Broad Band and Telephone services, and Enterprise Services. Each has its own portal and their own URL. Now they are all grouped under the AirtelWorld web portal, however the portal basically points back to the individual websites. There are no standardization between any of the separate sites on the layout, the GUI, or even the username and password.

So my job here is to come up with ways to standardize these sites as well as a plan of how to merge all of these services together as now they are grouped under the same company. They would like the portal to be more user-friendly as well as efficient in what it does. The customer should only have one bill even if he/she subscribes to 2 or 3 of Airtel services. Currently the customer will be given 3 separate bills for Mobile, Broadband, and Telephone. This is highly inefficent and very troublesome for the customer. I'm supposed to come up with a plan on what needs to be standardized in the frontend as well as backend. If I could also come up with extra and new features that will make the site more user-friendly then that would also be a plus.

So that's the scope of my project... until this morning. I met with my boss's boss, Ms. Meenakshi, and discussed the project. Now I have more than one portal on my hand, lol. I'm now looking at the WAP portal, the Supplier Portal, the B2B portal as well as the content partner portal for Airtel. LOL, I was kinda shocked but I can define my own scope, so that's fine, I'll probably choose to do something that I can finish in time. At the end, whatever recommendation and proposals I make will be taken up and implemented by the company, which is kinda cool.

I also just got back from a 2 hour meeting that didn't have anything to do with my project, lol. It's kinda interesting to sit in this one since it was an SE kind of project meeting, but a real one XD I think it was more disorganized and less systemized than the SMU ones. It's kinda fun.

Now I'm back to my desk and continuing work on my PowerPoint presentation on my project to present on Monday to another person involved in the project... I think it's my boss's boss's boss...Mr. Jai. (I can't put anybody's full names here since I'm scared they search for their names on Google, lol. Just in case.)

After work I think we're all going shopping for sweets... I'm sweet deprived at work... I NEED RICOLA!!!!! >_<

Day 6 - THE Project Day

OK so TODAY is the day when I actually met my project leader, Mr. Pankaj. I got an idea of my projects and all today so i started on it. I'll tell you the full details later when I'm not so sleepy, maybe tomorrow, I'm just trying not to break the "everyday blogging" chain I have going on, LOL.

Went to Shefali's house near by the guest house to have dinner today, wonderful food, her mom cooked for all of us.

My stomach trouble continues... everything comes out as water and I get searing stomach pain early in the morning... extremely bad and terrible condition... took some Chinese medicine, courtesy of Melvin. Thanks again man.

So I hope it's going to be better tomorrow morning. I will update about the project and stuff tomorrow, LOL. I'm gonna go to bed now. It's 12:30... Nite peeps.

Day 5 - PROJECT DAY!! ... not

WELL!!! It's the big day! We're all getting our project today! Unfortunately before we can leave for work after we wake up... the driver drove off without anybody inside the car XD

We walked out to the car and found that there was no car waiting for us, lol. We ended up calling the office and told them to send the freaking car back XD I swear the driver is retarded or smth... jeeze, how can you leave without us? ALL OF US! - -;;

Anyways my stomach is damn bad today, been to the toilet at least 10 times already (no joke) and I lausai every time XD. (Get the picture?) Anyways, I'm glad it's getting better, it must be something I ate yesterday.

So once we got to the office the person taking care of us told each of us when we're meeting our project leader and everything. Apparently mine is the one with the most enthu leader and the person told me "He wants to see you as soon as possible!" so I was like "... uhhhh okay..." this is going to be a lot of work, lol. Other people were told that they will meet their project leader a bit later, like within an hour's time.

Since it will take a bit of time to set up the meeting the person told us to go sit at our cubicle for maybe 15 minutes first :P so we did. Then apparently my project leader is in a meeting and my meeting has to be pushed back a bit... so other people start going off to their own project meeting with the leader. Then the person came to tell me again that ... my project leader's meeting isn't in this building, it's in another part of town so he can't see me today. LOL, so i'm not getting my project today... - -;; whatever that "Your project leader is very enthusiastic to see you! He wants to meet you ASAP!" was.... LOL oh well I guess I'll get mine tmr.

Instead I got to meet the Cheif IT SE of Broadband and Telephone Services, Mr. Ajay. He was an extremely nice person and took time to explain everything about the IT services and structure within the Airtel company. He also explained to me, very patiently how the Telecom business uses IT and IT systems to process calls, bills, payments, and customer relations. It was an interesting talk, almost 1.5 hours I think.

After that we had lunch together and he takes his leave... now all I have to do is stare at my computer screen and write this blog LOL, since I have time. OH about the computer....

I can't access anything involving emails like Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail. I can't use MSN or eBuddy as they block all that with the proxy server... so bummed for me. I can check blogs though :P and I can download and install stuff, so that's not so bad.

Now I'm just waiting to go home... wanna sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!!! Oh yeah, I'm writing this very detailed and like a company report because it's meant to also be a help later on when I have to write the internship report XD so BARE WITH ME~~~!!!

Day 4 - Induction Day 2

Hey!! Before I go on about today let me show you a video that I took of the street in Gurgoan! Keep in mind that this part of the city is one of the more built up areas in India ;) enjoy.



Now as for today. It wasn't much actually, we woke up and headed out to the office building. Listened to some presentation about how Bharti grew from a very small company started with importing electrical generators in from Japan and all. Now they are the highest market share Telecom operator in India. They now operate within all of 23 circles within India and provide mobile coverage within all of the provinces in India. There is no other private telecom operator that provides this range of coverage in India.

Anyways then we were free for lunch and relax since they have already briefed us on some things the day before so we have almost 3 hours to spare by eating, playing a bit of table tennis, and talking. OH!!! We also went to see our cubicle XD it was interesting actually. I took a video to show what it looks like:



I think it's quite cozy since all of us from SMU are stationed there in the same place. So after that we went to another Bharti Airtel building to meet with the Managing Director of the Airtel Mobile division, Sanjay Kapoor. He's a nice man, answered all our questions about the Mobile sector and what challenges and opportunities that Bharti has for the future.

Bharti is the biggest outsourcing Telecom operator in the world. No other telecom providers outsource as much as Airtel. Everything that was not their core competency was managed by another company: their call center, most of their network infrastructure (this by Nokia, Ericsson, and another company which I can't recall XD), their IT, etc. Now their biggest challenge is to manage growth as they have grown so much so fast that managing the growth and keeping the company functioning as a unit has been tough. If they are to continue to grow they must be able to manage it well and take care of their system and employees.

Anyways after all the talking and listening, we got off work at 4+ and came back to the guest house at around 4:30 or 5.

Oh yeah... there's like 10 blackouts today... wonderful... I swear the aircon will break one day and I'll cook in this room...

Tomorrow we will be getting our projects, I hope I get something exciting! >_< *prays hard* Will be getting the sim card tmr as well, then I can make international calls at 30 cents a minute and they subsidize the first 100 dollars or so! XD that's kinda good I guess :P but the rest I still have to pay myself, lol.

Day 3 - The Tour

OKAY!!! So it's the first day of work right? And I was sleeping right? And the lights were off and stuff right? And like there were like 8 mosquitoes right? And they bit me right? And like... it itch like hell man...

I think I should stop talking like that or else I'll irritate one very PMS-ing person... she might actually break her MacBook XD

Anyways, yeah there were TONS of mosquitoes... I killed like 2 before I went to bed the first day... and they woke me up at night cuz it was so damn itchy!!! This is when we already have insect repellent kind of thing in the room. So today I will have to buy those applied ones. Melvin didn't get bit at all... I probably taste better than him ;) (I realize that's not something to be winking about... but what the hell)

So it's the first day at work... well it's kinda the first induction day really, we woke up, had breakfast, and left the guest house at around 10 o'clock. Reached the company around 10:30, right on time really and went right onto the tour. They gave us a presentation on the company and had us introduce ourselves. The company basically has a very advanced employee assessment program and it assesses the employee according to their competency as well as their contribution, I thought that was interesting.

One thing that surprised me and I found DAMN funny was that they actually place each employee on a BELL CURVE!!! And not just ONE but TWO! Then they map the result onto a graph to see where you are as an individual compared to the rest of the people in the organization... I thought I was done with the grading system if I come out to work XD turns out I was wrong.

We got our buddy today, drew a ballot to find out who is the unlucky person who has to take care of me XD. So I got this dude named Prateek, he's an MBA undergoing the Young Leaders Program at Bharti, all the buddies are in the same program. They are a nice bunch actually, really easy to talk to and kinda cool. Prateek is doing Taxation for Bharti so nothing to do with my IT department.

We didn't get any of our job scope today as this is just an induction day.

We traveled a lot today, like 2 hours car ride... and by the end of the day I was exhausted. The cool thing was they showed us the Switch Room where they route all calls in and out of the province and the country, it's quite neat, like a server room actually.

One thing hasn't changed... it's DAMN HOT AND HAZY!!! ARGH!!! I will die of the pollution here if something were to kill me... it would be this!

Anyways that's actually all that we did today... tmr we'll be getting our Sim Card will post the number here for those interested. It won't be activated until the day after tmr though. =.=;;

Day 2 - The One After

Actually nothing much happened today. XD I woke up and realized that there wasn't much to do so I just ate breakfast (oh did I tell you that we have 5 servants to serve all of us? They would cook breakfast, lunch and dinner; great food too, they will also clean and wash clothes for us almost everyday. How great is THIS!?) Anyways so we had breakfast and just hang out in our room as new SMU interns start turning up. There's Vikram, Shefali, Shivya, Niel, Bertrand, and Celine that arrived today.

Melvin, Vikram, and I went to buy some more stuff at the near by shopping center. Walking pass cows and stuff again, lol. That always cracks me up, how unreal this seems.

Well, tomorrow is the big day! See what's in store for all of us, we'll get getting our sim card tomorrow too. :P see what kind of surprises are in store.

Day 1 - The Arrival

I MISS YOU

I can’t believe that I only had one hour of sleep before I had to wake up. I’m leaving for India today so I pack until 3 in the morning and since the flight is at 9:10am I had to wake up at around 5 so I can have time to check in. Anyways, guess what, I was the first one in line to the check in at 6:20am so I guess that plan went well. Then the rest of the time is spent with HT, who came to see me off at the airport. She looked really dead from having to wake up so early. Lucky she asked her mom to send her to the airport or she’ll definitely sleep in and miss seeing me off. I am really happy that she was there to send me off since for the past week or two I was dreading the trip to India. We had Burger King for breakfast with her parents and then they left for work so I had around 1.5 hours with HT before I had to leave. I was really happy to see her before I leave. I now miss her hugs and kisses, and wish I will be able to return to her soon.

Before I met her I thought I should take a picture with her before I leave… but then I couldn’t remember this when I met her… and I only remembered it again when I was a quarter of the way to India… I hate myself for that… and made me miss her even more. Things like this always happen… I want to do something sweet… but when I see her all I could think of was how happy I am to be with her. Sigh…

During the trip it was mostly uneventful, I was reading my “Cell” novel on and off between sleeping. Once I landed in India I immediately called HT up to give her an update that I made it “OK.” She was on her way out of the house to go help out her parents so I didn’t get to talk to her much… a shame, but she told me to give her a call when I settled in. I think I missed this part totally as I was scared I was taking up her time so I just said “OK” and let her continue her preparation to go out. (I really didn’t mean to make you worry dear… you know that’s the last thing I want to do. I’m very sorry.)

Melvin and I quickly went through custom so we can get to settling in so we quickly picked up our luggage and left the airport in the taxis’ that the company provided for us. It was around a 30 minutes trip to the guest house that the company has arranged for us and the trip begins to interest me at once! About 5 minutes into the trip, I think, 3 monkeys jumped across the road to the other side right in front of my car. I’ve only seen this on TV, but seeing it in real life was something else. There were also cows on the side of the road. The thing that surprised me about India was how rundown it looked in some places and looked really high-tech at another.

Some buildings were half torn down, like the top half was totally gone, only one wall left and no roof and such… but under there on the first floor, a shop is still open. The high-tech-looking buildings… well looks high-tech all right… with construction sand piles all over the place… even when the building was already done. From the plane in the sky there was so much sand and so much haze that I thought I was landing in AFRICA! AND the temperature is like 45 degrees!!! It’s totally damn hot here. I can melt and evaporate at the same time…

Anyways, when I got to the guest house it was quite unexpected since it looked rather nice. The place is arranged with a hotel style and I’m rooming with 2 other people. They hired 5 servants to take care of us. They cooked our lunch for us when we got there.

The worst thing that happened today was when I realized (around an hour after we arrived at the guest house) that I have taken the WRONG luggage! I borrowed this new luggage bag from HT for this trip and it turns out I didn’t really recognize it well enough so I took somebody else’s bag thinking it was mine. Long story short I had a heart attack and had to have Melvin give me CPR while on a taxi back to the airport to pick up the bag that I left there. Luckily my bag was double locked, so nobody can really steal it. AND NOBODY FREAKING SPEAKS ENGLISH HERE!!!!!! It’s damn hard to talk to people when they don’t know what you are saying!!! Sigh… I’m sure it will get better.

So after that we just come back to the place and went out to shop and cleaned up the place so we can be ready to stay in it for the next 2.5 months… Then I had a great talk with HT on Skype… although it made me miss her… It made me so happy. I love you.