Impressions

Amazing, it's weekend again...

Next week will be fun. It will be Japan & Korea week on campus. Our fantastic Japanese and Korean classmates have joined forces with their fellow nationals of the senior class and are preparing a whole score of events, theme-parties, dinners, and surprises to present their countries. I very much look forward to next week.

Little over one month in the programme, and the mass of readings start to become normal: the cases become routine, 2 chapters of the economics book before dinner, one finance chapter after dinner... yeah right!! The truth... still not adjusted, still haven't found the rhythm, still struggling to absorb the massive amount of stuff. It gets better though. "Is it fun?" you might ask, well: "yes it is, it's fantastic!!"

With so many things to do, so many choices to make, and with time in such short supply, I find myself learning and perfecting my abilities to prioritize, to focus on vital things, and to appreciate all the moments. On wednesday I managed to finish my readings at 2300h. With so much time left, I decided to watch a movie, something that I hadn't done in a long time. I watched "Blood Diamonds" on the Macbook with my Grado's supplying the sound. The movie is very good (even if you don't like Leo de Caprio too much.) Last night I went to a great party in Villa Vivante. We stayed there until 4 in the morning, having fun with many other students. Consequently, today I struggled to stay awake during Microeconomics...

On Tuesday we had dinner with my studygroup. We had good food, bad service though, and good conversations about safety in Brazil, Venezuela, and politics in Lebanon. Our first graded group assignment scored 5 out of 5 by the way! It wasn't the toughest assignment by any means, but we believe that it's a sign of many more good things to come...

Last weekend Angela and I went back home to visit family and celebrate a birthday. It was great to be back, even if it was short. This weekend people decided to spread out all over the place... One of my groupmates is off to New York, another to Beirut, a large gang chartered a bus and is en route to Oktoberfest in Munich, some people are flying to Ibiza, and I'm sure that there are one or two other exotic happenings going on. We decided to spend a beautiful day in Paris instead and on Friday we will have a house full of people for joint extra practice in statistics, accounting and economics. If the weather stays good, we'll ignite the barbeque and have lunch in the garden.

We have started to plan our P1-P2 break trip. The idea is to go to either Rome or Barcelona. Stay tuned for updates!

Networking wise, there were a few companies on campus that attracted my interest. I spoke to reps from Rolls Royce, Barclays, and Standard Chartered Bank. They all have interesting executive recruiting programmes I might want to learn more about. So far my mind is revolving around two dominating career interests: senior leadership in an interesting Industry or International Organization, and Strategy Consulting. On 4 October I'll have my first career councelling session with an experienced executive coach, so I look forward to getting his perspective on my thoughts.

Bon, je crois qu'il est l'heure pour aller dormir...

Up to Japan & Korea week, the MRC case, 12 angree men, a McKinsey speaker, and hopefully many more fun classes!