Taxes! excellent stuff...

No really, it's true. 

Going to INSEAD means paying truckloads of money. A year full-time study, so no income either (unless you're one of the sponsored 8% or so.)  

So why am I so happy about taxes then? Well because the Internal Revenue dept will prove to be a major sponsor by providing prepaid tax deductions. Students from the current intake with my nationality, and a very helpful tax lawyer have been great at giving many good tips and advice. Thank you, thank you.

Sure it won't all be easy, since taxes are complicated material, but still I stand with my title. 

This year the tax department will be on my 'favourites' list!

Great Kendo videoclip

I will post more about Kendo in the future.

Even though I have been too busy for proper practice lately, I intend to haul my bogu-bag and shinai around to see if I can find some practice time. I saw on NetVestibule that there are a few other kendoka at INSEAD, so who knows we may end up crossing our shinai :-)

The following cool videoclip has been produced with Belgian Kenshi from the Gent dojo, enjoy!

A new beginning coming up...

After a weekend of partying, I quickly went through some MBA blogs and just read Zanat0s' post on graduation. It's so bizarre. Somebody whose blog we've been reading since I was preparing for admissions, is now getting ready to graduate and finish at INSEAD. With less than 2 months until Business Foundations class starts in Fonty, I'm getting ready for the same ride he is about to complete.

Thanks Zanat0s, DomoDomo, and other 2007 bloggers, for some great tips and most valuable insights in your experiences! Take care!!

Young ORANJE wins the EC under 21

Yesterday night, a Dutch show of force took place at the Groningen football stadium. The European finals under 21: Holland vs Serbia. The young ORANJE team played an excellent match and won 4-1. It's not only the winning that was superb, it was the whole prelude to the finals, and the entourage.

Coach Foppe de Haan had quietly and seriously prepared a great strategy to get his group of young talents ready for their second European title. He engaged group psychologists, PhD candidates who studied the behaviour of penalty takers, and winning speed-skating coaches, during his team trainings. He also tossed in a few non-conventional ideas of his own, my favourite being the prohibition of iPods during the training camp and team travels, to encourage team bonding instead of individualism. The Dutch junior soccer players showed that a good team that plays with passion and enthusiasm is all you need to be victorious. In my opinion this should be a good lesson for their seniors in major national selections, who eventhough composed of great talents, often lack the spirit and motivation to excel as teams. Perhaps the result of too many large egos and too much attention. For soccer and Holland, though, I would say that the future is promising!

The party ended with fireworks, clapping for the Serb team and their supporters, concert-quality sound from the world famous top trance-DJ Armin van Buuren, and Michel Platini who handed over the Cup to a multicultural Dutch team wearing Surinam flags (a small issue that caused an interesting debate in the media), Orange banners and Dutch colours.

Top stuff, too bad I wasn't there to see it live!

Speedreading and Mindmapping

I just finished a speedreading course. I'm absolutely sure that this wil prove to be one of the best investments in time: a two-day course in mindmapping and speedreading.

What an eye opener this has been. I can actually understand more of what I read, concentrate better on boring material, and finish it faster by applying a handful of reading and eye movement techniques. I love it, am using it to get through my pre-reading material and it's quite rewarding and fun. If you’re not yet familiar with speedreading techniques, I strongly recommend investing in a speedreading course before going to b-school. It will help a lot with the tons of books we’ll have to go through.

Some figures about my reading speed in words per minute:
- Start of course: 342 wpm at 80% understanding = effective 274 wpm
- End of course: 671 wpm at 90% understanding = effective 604 wpm
- Max speed: 1450 wpm @ 60% understanding

As for mindmapping, it’s an excellent approach to organise one’s thoughts and to recall what it was all about some time later. Cool stuff, believe me! The key to retrieving stuff from one's memory is to associate, and that's exctly what mindmapping is about; making visual associations of information that we store in our heads. Mindjet Mindmanager (also for Mac) is a great tool for this purpose.