It’s been quite a while since my last entry here and I thought what day could be better than Gandhi’s birthday for adding a new post. Today, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi would have had his 142nd birthday if he was still alive, though he died at age 78 when he was shot by an extremist Hindu in Delhi on 30th January 1948. In their thought Mahatma (Great Soul) Gandhi was a traitor because he wanted reconciliation with the Muslims living in India. In 1948 he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, which eventually was not awarded that year.
Well, what else happened since I last left some lines here …
First of all, lots of reading and lots of classes at IIMK – it’s really no holiday here 
the profs require lots of readings though most of the people don’t do them anyway and so many classes end up in a monologue of the lecturer. I also had another group presentation in MoS – this time it was about the Service Blueprint of High Octane (i.e. the café at IIMK campus) and it went quite well. I prepared a prezi and I felt that the prof liked it (recognizing that his face brightened up a little again after it had become more and more frowning after each of the preceding presentations). I also figured out that I have to get used to getting assignments (like case studies) at 10 in the evening and preparing them (including a powerpoint) until the next day … anyway, I guess you’re not that interested in what happened in the classes I’m taking here 
although some of them are pretty interesting like Consumer Behaviour and Social Media & Consumer Driven Marketing …
One highlight happened on Friday two weeks ago when we went to the recently opened KFC in Kozhikode – this must be the freaking best running KFC in the world!!! there is a queue front-doors and another huge one in front of the counter. I guess it took us something like 40 minutes to get our (fast) food
The next day I had no classes so I joined Christina, Emilia, Morten & Carlo for an excursion to Thusharagiri waterfalls, which turned out to be a great decision. At the bottom of the waterfall there was a natural pool where we could swim and it was also possible to stand in the middle of the waterfall and take a shower there! Our driver was Jafar again, the same guy who had brought us to the backwaters some weeks back – he’s a really great guy. In the evening I ended up having some drinks with the guys again …
On Sep. 20 some of us (Gesu, Sanjeet, Carlo, Varun, Christina, Emilia & Johanna) went to Beypore beach to witness the sundown there. Beypore is about 45 minutes drive from IIMK and a bit south of Kozhikode city. At Beypore there is a mole reaching about 1 km into the sea and we walked up to the tip of it to watch the sunset, which was really beautiful and the spectrum of colours reached from gold, orange & yellow to pink, violet and dark blue …
In the past few days I also set-up a google+ account and changed FB to the timeline-view (which looks like myspace some years back I’d say). Also I started going to the gym regularly and doing some reading (despite the readings for university). Just 2 days ago i finished my second Paolo Coelho book: By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept – a really great reading! Moreover I had the idea for a little project and I started working on that as well – I will tell you more about that in one of the next entrie …
Last Sunday I had 2 classes in the morning at 9 am and afterwards went to Kappad Beach with Morten and Arthur. We had a great time there chilling at the beach and going for a swim – though I drowned my mobile phone in the Arabic Sea, because I forgot to put it out of my shorts’ pocket before going into the water … fortunately it was not an expensive one (I told you in an earlier entry) and I got a new one just 2 days later. Before leaving the beach we had a beer at the beach bar and watched the sunset from there.
On Tuesday I only had 1 class of Consumer Behaviour and thus went to do some shopping in Kunnamangalam afterwards. Arthur and I walked down to the village to get tons of fruits (pomegrenate,, bananas, papaya, mangos, lemons, avocados, apples, …) and also some cookies – it’s just great to have fresh fruit each day!! In the evening I met with my Marketing of Services Group and we went to see the manager of High Octane café to talk about the project we are doing about his business.
Thursday I received a parcel from flipkart (the Indian version of Amazon) where I had ordered an external hard-drive to be able to store tons of movies which are available thru P2P-sharing here at campus. In the evening I watched the last few minutes of Sturm Graz’ match in Athens where they won 2:1 
On Friday there was a party at Morten & Carlo’s room, which was supposed to start at the 11 pm. After waiting for about 1 hour or so some people turned up and the party started rolling. We only had beer to drink this time as police had caught the guy who’d bring the liquors from the neighbouring state (because it is ways cheaper there). that didn’t disturbe the party much though after a long day and getting pretty tired I went to bed around 2.30 …
Yesterday was a pretty lazy day, although I managed to do some readings and I also had 2 classes in Social Media. In the evening I watched the new Red Bull Media House production “The Art of Flight” – great footage and editing I have to say, but I still prefer the way Nimbus Independent is doing their films … Also talked to my brother Christian on skype and found that my mum’s knee surgery had turned out smoothly – thx for that Lord. Later in the evening I started reading my next Paolo Coelho: “Like the Flowing River”, which is a collection of short texts.
That’s it again – I hope that tells you a little how life is here in Kerala and I hope you enjoyed reading. Some new pics can again be found here. Some of the shots can also be found on my flickr-page.
So, wish you all the best out there in the world, wherever you are!
Keep strong in faith & be blessed,
Gerhard
