Weekend in Hong Kong

This weekend we stayed in Singapore and just relaxed. Last weekend we went to Hong Kong.


An old friend of Omar (Dave) was visiting family and friends at that time, and we decided to meet up with him. Dave introduced us to some friends who live in Hong Kong, and he also showed us around Kowloon on Saturday. I took Friday off to go early and had a flight at 8 in the morning. To my surprise I could share a taxi to the airport with Jason, with whom we had spent NewYears eve in Bangkok. He was also on his way to Hong Kong, but only as a stopover on his way back to Canada. My journey took about 4 hours, his 25!!

My first impression of Hong Kong was that it had changed compared to two years ago. The city looked even more modern and cleaner than I remembered it. Just until I stepped out of the MTR and went searching for our hotel. I had booked a hotel on Hong Kong Island because we both wanted to experience HK from the other side (we stayed in Kowloon last time.) The hotel was close to Sheung Wan, an area I found out later that resembles most to old HK. It looked very much like Kowloon with all the small shops, dried products (smelly dried fish) and butcheries selling fresh meat on the streets. Luckily our hotel (Novotel Century Harbourview) was extremely modern and our room on the 20th floor had recently been refurbished and modernized. This was one of the hippest hotelrooms we had ever had, overlooking the harbour with all its activity.

After I checked in, I walked up the hill to the University of Hong Kong. The campus is big and because many buildings are at a different height there are steps and escalators everywhere. All university buildings are scattered around the place, and are on top of a hill... I saw many non-chinese faces at HKU, which correspond with the brochure. My reason for visiting HKU was the MSc in Finance. I may be very interested in pursuing a Master degree in Finance, and HK has a good one. I spoke to some of the faculty members and they were all very nice.

Omar arrived after his classes on a comfortable Singapore Airlines flight... he was so positive about SingAir, that I think he is never going to fly anything else anymore...


Friday evening we met with Dave and his fiends in the Dragon-I (read dragon eye) currently the place to go in HK. It's a Japanese-Chinese fusion restaurant until about 23h, when it transforms into a trendy and fashionable club-bar. They played a lot of music from the 90ies and we had good fun. Dave’s friends were very nice, so it was great to meet them. Dave stayed with his friends Emily & Frederic. Emily is Dutch and has lived in HK for about 7 years now, Frederic is Belgian. His other friends were from HK, France and the US, and they all have been living in HK for several years now.

On Saturday Omar and I went shopping. This is very easy considering the fact that you have to divide the price by roughly 11 to convert to euro's and then you end up with a figure that makes you say “sold”! Especially when you think of how much everything costs back home in NL. In the afternoon Dave took us to Mong Kok. We started the afternoon in a place where many locals go for a healthy snack. We could choose between jelly with icecream, jelly with birdsnest saliva or jelly with fruit. It tasted good and was a fun experience. We had dinner in a nice small noisy place, where we had a great selection of dishes, both vegetarian, full of fish, meat and lots of peppers.

HK is an amazing place. Omar loves it. Even though I personally prefer Singapore, I also liked it and I was glad that it was a lot cleaner and prettier than I remembered it. Who knows, we might decide to live here at some point in the future.

Singapore is great!

Classes in P3 are amazing. 

"Venture Opportunities" is so interesting and challenging that you wish you had more time to spend on this elective. 

"Negotiations" is fun, very active, and you can already see how much you will learn. 

"Intl Politics" is taught by one of the best professors in the field, and the course is full of controversial topics and debate. 

For the "Intl Development Project" I'm going to work on a very exciting project in Kenya. I seriously hope that the tension in Kenya quites down quickly. Could politicians for once act in the benefit of their country?? The story of Africa should not always be painted with violence and blood, but it's so sad that it's so often the case... why???

This week I will also get my first class of "Strategies for Asia PAC" and I will officially start with"Macro-economics." I look forward to both.

On another note: A warm welcome to all the new P1's!!! have a great time in either Fonty or Singa! (I can't believe we are the senior class already...) 

To everybody back in Fonty: we miss you guys! Take care and have fun!!!

Singapore

The 2nd of January marked the start of my 6 month contract in Singapore, and was my first working day after having had a 4.5 month holiday. I think the fact that I had worked in Singapore before in 2005 and that I new the MRT, and how to get there made it easy to start working again. The office has not changed much except for the people. There were many new faces, also in audit where I work. Outside of the office the street has also changed; some of the little restaurants in Robinson Road have changed names, Lau Pah Sat had a refurbishment and looks more modern than 2 years ago, and next to where I work they took down a large building and are busy with the construction of a new one.

While I was working Omar spent his last days before the start of P3 at the “Club Med” type pool of our new apartment, occasionally he moved to unpack our suitcases, and thought about what to put on shopping lists. At the moment of writing (7th of January) Omar just finished his first day of P3 and he is very enthusiastic. He started off with Politics and he likes his new professor and the course material. This evening there were already some parties and get togethers with the Singaporeans, however I decided to stay at home (I already call it home after 1 week ☺) do some reading and go to bed early. I am so tired every evening, apparently I'm not completely used to working 8 hours a day anymore...

Omar, well he went to have a quick drink in the other tower, and will later on prepare his 2 classes for tomorrow. The weather is fantastic, nice, warm, so life is good here in Singapore…

Bangkok & New Year's Eve

Our stay at home was short, but we had a great time with friends and family.

After exactly one week it was time to pack our bags again for our flights to Asia. By now a week has passed since we arrived in Singapore. Well, technically we arrived on Saturday the 30th of December but we stayed only 2 hours because we took a direct flight to Bangkok to celebrate New Years Eve with Insead friends Li Ran, Anita, Alex, Steven, Ken and Jason.

The 31st we spent the day being tourists, sightseeing Bangkok. We visited the Royal Palace, the Laying Buddha at Pranon Wat Pho and we took a boatride on the river. In the evening we ate delicious Thai food after which we went to the Latitude bar on the Banyan Tree hotel. The view from the 52nd floor was beautiful, you could see all over Bangkok. The fireworks however, were a bit low key in the opinion of many people. We had expected that big fireworks would erupt as soon as the new year would kick in but the first fireworks started about ten minutes before 12 and they were so dispersed that it actually looked rather small. The ambience, view and music at Latitude more than made up for this though!


The first day of 2008 we had our first Thai massage. It was an interesting and sometimes painful but also very vitalizing experience. Especially when the masseuses sat on your back and used their elbows to work on your cramped muscles.
We enjoyed Bangkok and the great hospitality of Li Ran, Ken and his parents, and we would have liked to stay a little longer. However… Singapore was calling, so we kindly boarded our Air Asia flight towards Changi airport.

Merry Christmas everyone!!

The end of 2007 is nearing! P1 and P2 are over, the P2 exams are done, we cleared out of our room in Villa Foch, we had a bunch of goodbye parties in Fonty, and we're home for Christmas.

The anticipation of going to Singapore is fantastic, we so much look forward to the nice weather, the Asian friendliness, the great food, and the many fun weekend trips that I know we will do. Oh, another positive element is that Angela will be able to work in Singapore. Having a holiday break was good fun, but going back to work in Singapore, together with nice colleagues that you haven't seen for a while is also great.

Leaving Fonty was very strange though. It was sad to pack our bags and to realize that P1 and P2, the core part of the programme, is over. Why was this sad? well, mainly because some people will not go to Singapore, but will stay in Fonty. We had a great time in spite of the massive workload and we will miss the friends who stay behind. Good job there is skype and that we may even work together on projects. So cheers to all you friends staying in Fonty, have a great time!!

Now moving on, our week at home is great but short. We get to see many friends and spend time with family, but time flies so fast that we already have to start thinking about packing and about our preparation for life in Asia. Thanks to Qantas, we won't be able to carry much stuff in the airplane, so at least that makes life easier in terms of packing...

As far as our short term planning is concerned:

- 29th DEC flight to Singapore
- 30th DEC flight to Bangkok for New Year's Eve celebration with classmates
- 1st JAN back to Singapore
- 2nd JAN Angela starts working
- 7th JAN Omar starts P3

Our Bangkok trip will be a short, packed, party stay. We are contemplating a day of sightseeing in Bangkok, followed by a massage to get ready for the night, Thai dinner, NYE at a cool rooftop bar like Sirocco, or Banyan, and finish off the night with trendy clubbing at the Bed supper club.

All the best for your breaks, Christmas and NYE parties, our best wishes for 2008, and may the friendly little Christmas elves bring you lots of nice presents!! MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Skyrocketing forward in time

Unbelievable, P2 is almost over. As I'm studying Finance, Accounting and maybe later tonight, ehm this morning, ehm whatever, POM, I realize that tomorrow will be my last day of class in Fontainebleau for a while and maybe forever!!!?!

Wednesday we'll have a day off so we can study... but Thursday the P2 exams will start. This period has been insane. The amount of casework, group assignments, readings, and lectures has been huge and the pace has been outrageaous. I feel like if I'm piloting a rocket heading towards planet earth at Mach2, as I'm trying to aim it in the right direction and figure out how you're supposed to land the damned thing at the same time... no kidding folks, "this is your captain speaking, it's going to be a pretty hard landing... you better brace, say your hail mary's, and get ready for a magnetic welcome to gravity!"

On the other side of the tunnel though... there will be a few days to recover and say goodbye to the classmates who stay behind, a party to say goodbye to the graduating class, Christmas at home with family, New Year's eve in Bangkok, and then P3 and further in Singapore.

I'm so excited about my classes for P3:
- International Politics
- Macro Economics
- Strategies for Asia Pacific
- Negotiations
- Venture Opportunities and Business Models (VOBM)
- International Development Field Project

Today we had a heads up on the to be defined field projects. There are a few challenging opportunities for this elective to show what we learned and are capable of. The elective is actually a real project for a local NGO to help them with a current business opportunity or problem. From the reading I'm quite enthousiastic about a potential project for an agricultural cooperative in Uganda, where we may help by doing an analysis and a plan to try to improve the operations. Another project I'm quite interested in is in South India. Here we will create a business plan and an expansion strategy for an organisation that promotes self-help communities, and provides microfinance, focusing on women and families.

VOBM will be awesome and will be my introduction to venture spotting, an additional track I'm planning to learn more about for potential future opportunities. Not from a Private Equity analyst point of view, but maybe from the point of view of a potential manager who considers taking over a company to own and manage it.

From a career development perspective, I've talked to many classmates from different industries and I've decided to learn more about Oil&Gas. I believe that there may be many tremendously challenging opportunities in de Petrochemical sector, so I want to learn more about the upstream processes of exploration and drilling

More later...

Russian Party

The notorious Russian Party… Instead of hosting a national Russian week, the Russians organized a whole day filled with Russian culture. In the morning everybody could enjoy blini’s with salmon caviar, meat or cheese, during the day there was Russian music played in the bar area, in the late afternoon there were even Russian movies, and at 10pm we had the fantastic party.
The party was great and the organization (amongst others housemates Irina and Timur) did a fantastic job!! The beautiful chateau that also hosted the Bain party was lighted purple, we were greeted by dancers and trays full of vodka. Inside there was champagne, followed by more vodka with either coke, orange juice or straight up. Stolichnaya animated the event with a busload of blond girls who walked around with trays of vodka or even bottles of vodka all night, to make sure all glasses were constantly filled. Besides a mix of music (Russian, Indian, 80ies, pop etc) we were entertained by two stage dancers, a fantastic ballet, and even President Vladimir Putin who came all the way from Moscow to comment on the Russian – French relations. So, thanks to the Russians who treated us to a great party! We can only look forward to repeat this event somewhere next year in Moscow!!

Paris social life

We had another Dutch delegation visiting Fontainebleau shortly after my uncle’s trip. My sister Jolanda and her boyfriend Patrick arrived closely followed by 4 dear friends Sidney, MarLoes, Govert and Marcella. We spent the afternoon eating crepes and visiting the shops of Fontainebleau. For the evening we decided to take advantage of the fact that Paris is only an hour away, so we went to Alcazar. Omar and I got to know this place through our housemate Li Ran who is an expert on trendy places. Alcazar is a club restaurant, where after 10pm the upper gallery transforms in a lounge-bar with live music. We had a nice round table, a waiter who scraped the breadcrumbs off the table, and very good food. And then there was the dessert…

[a moment of silence so the writer can enjoy the memory of applecrumble with vanilla ice cream and chocolat mousse...]



The next day we showed everybody around Insead and had lunch before they left back Holland. It is great to share weekends with friends from back home. A few weeks later we also had lunch with Jeroen, Marieke & Elin who came to France to visit us and Mickey Mouse. Initially we planned to join them for a day in EuroDisney, but sadly Omar’s grandmother died the week before, so we went back home to be with our families.

Nature calling

A few weekends ago we welcomed my uncle Henk and his girlfriend Jeannette in Fontainebleau. They booked a weekend to Paris and visited us in Fontainebleau. This was a good opportunity to explore a little bit of Fontainebleau’s famous forest. There are many places to park your car and start walking or cycling and we took one of them close to one of the spots overlooking the gorge. There is a long line of big stones (boulders) lying in the forest and besides climbing the boulders one can also hike through the forest to walk trough the gorge.

Our petite hike started by following the yellow signs until we lost them and followed the blue signs. Because it was in the afternoon and it was getting dark we decided to make a shortcut and walked back to the car. Next we went on a quest for the 10-meter boulder Omar claimed to have seen. After searching for this big stone in the ‘boulder park’ alongside the N7 we concluded that some of these boulders indeed get big and reach almost 10 meter. It was very nice to go into the forest and I realized that we should do it more often.

After having been in Fontainebleau for almost 4 months we had not seen any wild animals. Before coming to Insead we read on the blogs and in the Partner guide that boars and deer can be frequently spotted and that people should be careful when driving home at night since accidents happen frequently between boars and cars.
Many of Omar’s classmates told us that they see boars, deer and rabbits often, but every time we drove at night we did not see any, until we went to Montigny sur Loing for a Dutch party. After having eaten ‘Boerenkool met Hemaworst en spekjes’ we drove back to Fontainebleau when we spotted some boars next to the road doing what they always do, sticking their nose in the mud. We saw some more crossing the road and we were very happy. Our first Boars!! A week later we saw a doe standing in the forest next to the road. She just looked at us and we realized that this is one of the things that makes living in Fontainebleau so beautiful, being so close to the forest and the animals that you can actually see them in the wild where they belong. 

Back online!

As many of you may have noticed, and some of you kindly reminded us, we have been offline too long... sorry about that!

In my last post I defied the professors to show us how tough they are. Foolish me quickly discovered that they had prepared a lot for us to chew on, and even more for us to digest... the pace in P2 was extremely high, since day one. P1 was very very busy, P2 is almost over but was extreme. We will post a few short stories to give you a heads up of what's happened in Fonty.

Smiles and Tears

Mere minutes after the P1 exams were over, the whole J08 class erupted in a fullblown party mood. As gloomy, concentrated, focused-to-the-bone, and overstretchingly fanatic everybody had been right before the exams; all tension disappeared as if a giant Bacardi cocktail shaker had suddenly switched on DJ Giorgos' Mojito tune. Our house transformed into Fonty's party central. We had Luiz making amazing Caipirinha's, Kunal shaking his self invented Poison Ivy, and the deep bass of Tiesto going through our place until the Morocco-bus picked up the bulk of the crowd towards Marakkech. Angela and I went to sunny Barcelona. We met up with a large bunch of classmates, had great tapas. We relaxed in the park, marvelled at Gaudi's highlights, and met a few new faces during our break! The break was only 4 days including travel, but in this high tension environment every day typically counts at least double, so it's safe to say that we had the equivalent of 8 days of rest.

The tragic accident that happened in Bali during the break shook us up badly. The community has grown so tight in the short time that we've been here. Singapore or Fonty, it really is only one place. All the feelings of sadness are shared, the loss of two friends is heavily felt and recognized in both places. Last Monday; what should have been the happy first day of P2, turned out to be a very sad day. More than ever we grow in determination to fully explore, learn, and share with friends and family all there is to enjoy in life.

P2 has started. The first week has flown by at an amazing speed. Calls, Puts, Short, Long, Straddles, and other interesting animals rushed past in little under 90 minutes. Another 90 minutes for complete options pricing, should make us ready to digest the Nobel prize winning Black-Scholes formula by the end of the week. INSEAD added 1 extra class compared to P1, and tons of readings. The friendly lady at the library even said "Bon Courage" with a puzzled look on her face when she gave me the stack of reading material. Not only work, but also social activity has immediately picked up in force. There are so many housedinners, chateau parties, informal get togethers, and even the fantastic Ball at Montmelian last night, that you start to wonder whether there is such a thing as negative sleep. Maybe that after we reduce our total hours of sleep to 0, we should continue to reduce it so after we cross the 0-mark we discover an ability to actualy create time...?

You know what, let's have it. P2 is suposed to be the toughest period (or so we hear from alumni, P5s, and even professors.) Well, the tougher it gets the better we'll learn how to handle stuff. I know I'm starting to ramble, and I may regret this in the morning, but I'm as defiant as Res I(p)sa, so: dear faculty, show us what you've got! J08 is ready to rock!!!

Academic mumblings...

I'm so glad that I'm writing this blog together with Angela... in these hectic times, she is the one who keeps the blog alive.

It's amazing how busy one can be, from early morning to very late. Papers, tests, preparation, lectures, and then there are the exams next week. The whole campus looks like a 24h study factory. There are people asleep over their books in cubicles at any time of day or night. Students eat at the strangest hours (in my opinion a strong indication of a complete disconnect with reality.) It looks like our current life revolves completely around the exams, inside the INSEAD bubble. For the best post from our fellow J'08 bloggers about the exam fever, checkout: www.strawberrytints.blogspot.com (I even quoted you in my LP&G paper, Dee!)

I'm just sending a few emails now and updating the blog before I go back to read my Finance notes and handouts. Maybe if I try hard, I will be able to master everything there is to know about the CAPM model, how to best diversify my investment portfolio, how to valuate any company using the right Beta's, and how to do all kinds of perverse calculations way into the future, using my HP12c...

P1 is almost over now. After the exams (and our trip to Barcelona), I will post more about my take on P1; the classes, the professors, and my fantastic classmates.

P2 is going to be great fun. I specificaly look forward to the Strategy and Leading Organisations classes. The following core courses will be taught in P2:

- Corporate Financial Policy
- Foundations of Marketing
- Leading Organisations
- Managerial Accounting
- Process & Operations Mgmt
- Strategy

My plan is to take significant time in P2 to do a lot of reading about companies in industries that I would like to work in, learn about the economies in Asia, network with people from places or organisations that I'm interested in, and start my post-MBA job hunt strategy. I will also tailor my Electives package and of course work hard on the core courses and party occasionally around all that...

It's funny, when I decided to stop working for a year to go to school, many people wondered whether I would enjoy it, or whether I would even be able to sit in class all day. Two months down the road (it feels more like 4 months) I can say that I absolutely enjoy it. Much has to do with the people around me. I can speak of all my classmates in this sense: they are a bunch of hard working, focused, fun loving, amazing characters. In my essays I wrote that this was the best possible choice I could make at this point in time... well, I can say now that it's not only a cheesy line in my application essay, it's also actually true.

Singapore

Great news for us: the final outcome of the school's exchange decisions is out: I've got confirmation of my exchange to Singapore for P3,P4, and P5. Singapore has a smaller campus than Fonty. This year there was so much demand for campus exchange in P3, that INSEAD had to waitlist many people after a lottery. This means that many students have not got their request fulfilled (yet) to transfer to Singapore. There is a waitinglist now for the Wharton exchange and for Singapore. My sincere best wishes, and goodluck to everybody who's on the lists! I knew that I had a very strong case to go to Singapore, since I am seriously interested in working in Asia. Off course, like everybody else, I also very much look forward to spend part of my MBA there. The great thing about Singapore is that it's very modern and Western in a way, but at the same time it's truly Asia. The food, the people, the warmth, the possibilities. One of the things that I loved about Singapore when I was there before, was to go to the rooftop swimming-pool of Angela's apartment at night, jump in, and then enjoy looking at the tall buildings around me. The air still warm, the sky clear, you can smell the orchids around the pool, and you can hear all the typical noises of a bustling Asian city by night in the distance...

There is more good news... we also found a terrific place to live. The Singapore housingmarket has gone completely crazy in the last few years. As a consequence, housing in Singapore has become very expensive, and prices are still rising dramatically. There are so many expats looking for places to live, that supply can impossibly cope with demand. Luckily, we won't have to spend time looking for a place, because what we got now is perfect. I'm absolutely delighted that we managed to rent a condo in Heritage View, probably the best complex around INSEAD. The apartment building looks amazing, it's a beautiful modern highrise with a cool swimming pool, tennis courts, barbecue places, and a huge garden with palmtrees. Many students live there, so we'll be able to do our groupwork in the garden. Only at a few minutes walking distance from INSEAD, and with the MRT stations around the corner. I look forward to pick up Angela from work (when I have early classes) to go for dinner at Lau Pa Sat, Clarke Quay, Equinox, Little India, or any of the myriad of other wonderful places in Singapore...

Parties & Lebanese week

Last week was filled with parties and events that caused everybody to get as little sleep as possible. It was fun but also very tiring. It started with Nuit Blanche in Paris, last Saturday. Several housemates and us went to Paris, parked our car in the easiest parking space and took the metro to Opera to have a Japanese dinner. Apparantly (I did not know) there are several streets with very nice Japanese shops and restaurants all near the Opera. Next on the list was Centre Pompidou to have cocktails in the uber-trendy bar "Georges" on top of the museum.
Even though Paris was filled with people who came for Nuit Blanche (and also several people who went to bars to watch Rugby-the French won) we ran into INSEAD students almost everywhere. Paris was just like a little town, where you keep on bumping into the same people... From Pompidou to Les Tuileries to watch the fire displays and in between we visited a church where they had a groovy light show inside the church. Very special, to see 3-D effects inside a church.

At the end of this night we discovered that our very smart parking space was not so smart anymore. Metros were too full, the taxis did not want to stop, so we had to walk back from Tuileries to Bastille. We arrived home at 5 in the morning, to be greeted by housemate Timur who just came back from a party in Chateau Tavers. Good to know that a lot of people decided to go there in the end. The Tavers gang had fierce competition from the city of Paris!

On Tuesday Villa Foch had its first housedinner, and we combined this with the birthday celebration of housemate Wim. We had a dinnerparty with 22 people and it was perfect. We all decided to have another dinner in the beginning of P2. We were very happy with the gift that Luiz brought; strawberries, limes, vodka and cachaca (mixed into fantastic caipirinhas) This, together with a keg of Desperado's, Wine, Tequila and Champagne resulted in a very merry bunch of people and cambalhota's in our living room... dear guests and housemates, thanks for a great first party@Foch!

Wednesday was the Lebanese dinner and as expected beforehand, the tickets were sold out faster than a concert of Robbie Williams. Everybody expects food in the Lebanese week to be very, very good and it was!
The first course were the mezzes, with bread. Next 'course' (from the look on several people's faces) was a belly dancer who smiled the whole evening. Not even once did she change her expression. Belly dancing must either be fun or else she is one of the most happy people I have seen so far.

Thursday was quiet. We ate the left overs from Tuesday and decided to go to bed early. Well, I did, the students continued studying as their P1 exams are approaching.

Friday was the end of Lebanese week and therefore a good reason for another party. I was still too tired and decided not to go. Omar and two other housemates went. The party was very nice even though Omar was one of the earlybirds, he left with the first bus and arrived home at 3 in the morning.


Et maintenant, the house is quiet. Everybody seems to have slipped into a study mode, and the majority of the housemates spend their hours behind their books. Luckily in two weeks time, after the exams, we will all have a short holiday. Even though it is only 4 days, people are planning and talking about it as if it were the 6 weeks holiday in summer. Omar and I are going to Barcelona, where we will meet up with several INSEAD students.

Visiting the tourist spots

This weekend Angela's parents came over to visit from the Netherlands. They brought lots of delicious things we cannot buy over here like drop (liquorice) and appelkruimeltaart (apple crumble pie). Because all hotels in Fontainebleau were full they decided to book a room in a hotel close to Melun which turned out to be a very good hotel, despite the blue painting in the corridors.
Because Omar had classes on Friday and Angela also had some activities planned, Jan en Tini took their car to explore Fontainebleau and Melun. On Saturday however, Omar decided to join the activities and the four of us drove around the area and visited a number of villages like Nemours, Bourron Marlotte and Montigny sur Loing. In the afternoon we stopped at one of the bouldering places close to Fontainebleau where we tried to find the highest boulder to climb. We did not have special gear with us like many of the people who were trying to climb the boulders and than circle them with a small mattrass lying on the ground. So we decided to only climb the small rocks.

The evening we went down to Vaux le Vicomte near Melun. They have (check their internet website for more accurate details) a candle light visit on Saturday evenings where the visitors can have a look at the different rooms in the chateau and than later on explore the gardens, all lighted by candles. This was great and we loved the chateau. In the gardens it was often very dark and despite Omar's warning for Angela not to fall in the fountain (which turned out not to be there) he did not see where he was walking himself and fell over one of Vaux le Vicomte's nice bushes, so nicely designed by Monsieur le Notre. Vaux le Vicomte is definitely worth going and the interior is absolutely beautiful with lots of furniture from the 17th and 18th centuries.

Yuxin rules!

Last weekend my class- and groupmate Yuxin went to New York for some urgent business. With a little time left he offered to bring me back something, if I needed anything from the States.

With the dollar exchange rate at € 1.41 I decided to take a gamble and asked him to buy us: an iPhone...


Of course we all know that Apple has the iPhones locked and coupled to a 2 year AT&T contract for 60$ a month (will probably be a similar deal in Europe once it comes out.) We also know that the iPhones will only come out in Europe at the end of the year and even later in Asia... True as all that may be, the prices in the US dropped to 399$, and I actually found some excellent software on the internet for 59$ to unlock the iPhone. Ergo, I could not resist and so I asked Yuxin to do me this favour.

After downloading some tools to first activate the phone, I bought the "simfree" software on the web and I manage to activate and unlock the phone. As all my friends know... I'm not the most able person when it comes to technical stuff, so trust me, it's easy enough to do.

Our beautiful new iPhone is now fully operational in France with a French prepaid Virgin Mobile sim...

La vie est belle, n'est-ce pas?

Steep learning curve

So how fast is an accelerated MBA?

A little more than a month ago, I did't know much more about accounting than the words debit and credit. For our Friday case, I need to give an advice to the investment community whether to buy, sell, or hold stock from Coca-Cola and why. If cold-called, I need to give a detailed analysis and advice in 90 seconds.

The case brings us back to 2005. Based on the Financial Statements, the 2004 Annual Report, articles from Fortune and Business Week magazines, and some market data, we should be in good enough shape to do a 5-forces analysis, and a credible Valuation of the company.

I'm glad that I'll have some time tomorrow morning to work on it. I just finished the readings, but have no idea where to start... this story will be updated soon!

By the way, Financial Accounting (believe it or not) is my favourite class. It's amazing how a good professor can really make you appreciate what he teaches you. Today was his best session, which makes it the best P1 session to date. The main reason is that many things came together in this lecture: financial statements, measurement ratios, valuation, management issues, purpose of companies, value creation... the whole lecture was wrapped around a vivid discussion over several provocative statements.

I hope that I understood enough to figure out the Coca-Cola valuation case tomorrow.

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!

Our house has its hero of the day!!

How often does it happen that bad things occur twice and within a short timeframe? Was it only about a week ago that I wrote about my bike and how it was brutally separated from its saddle? And guess what happened today....

We were out enjoying the Fontainebleau Chateau gardens. At our house at the other side of Fontainebleau, housemate Anita was doing her homework when she heard noise coming from downstairs. She went to see what was going on and as she stepped into the garden, two guys came cycling out of the garage onto the street... on our bikes!!! She went after them and managed to stop one of them. Unfortunately, he fell and so did the bike. She started yelling at them and made so much impression that the guy (who was actually a boy of around 14 years old) returned the bike, and so did his friend. Anita brought both bikes inside the house while other housemate Wim talked to the little thieves.

Omar was called by Anita at the time she saw the guys in the garden and he arrived when the bikes were safe inside the house, almost running over one of the little criminals with his car. They took their pictures and wrote down their names. If they or their friends come near our house again, their pictures go to the police. So far the little punks were happy that they weren't turned in or beaten up (yet.)

To end with a summary:

*We are very happy that we have our bikes back, even with their minor damage (scratches, ruptured tire, etc)
*These boys were definitely out to steal them and not to borrow them for a nice ride (my bike was locked without a saddle, so it must have hurt pretty badly)
*We are surprised that this happened in Fontainebleau. It looks like the children here do not get enough homework.
*Thanks to Anita we still have our two bikes, so we hereby declare Anita: our hero of the day!!

Orientation week Part II: MBA Participant

It seems so long ago that I last posted on this blog... Thankfully Angela has taken over the lead! I've got so much to share, that I don't know where to start. I'll try to break it down in a few sections for easier digestion.

ACADEMICS
So Business Foundations (BF) ended, Orientation Week (OW) went past, and P1 picked up in full effect. Angela posted before about BF so I'll skip that. OW was a combination of Intro's to the courses, the teaching methods, and the material. Potentially this could have been a relaxing week, however the free time that I had, I spent in bed with a flu... for the rest OW was about welcomes, setting up laptops, doing all sorts of admin stuff, buying books,etc... The best part of this week was the last day on Saturday (Saturday seems to count as a working day at INSEAD) when we had an outdoors day to bond with our studygroups. After OW, P1 started in full force. Lots of prereading, and case preparations for each class, followed by interesting classes, groupwork, problems, and a new cycle starting with prereading, etc... I still need to get used to this...

MY GROUP
Just like in BF I have a great studygroup. An Englishman, a Brazilian, a Lebanese, an American, and me. We get along very well, we all want to learn from each other, and we respect our differences and skills. We'll be spending a lot of time together, so I'm really pleased with my group! The only unfortunate thing is that we don't have any women in our group. With 29% women on campus and studygroups of 5, the odds would be for having at least one woman in our group!

WELCOME
During OW, we were officially welcomed on campus by the Deans and by the President of the Alumni Association (who also happens to be the President of the Rothschild bank in Canada.) Nice welcome words to participants and our partners, good champagne to celebrate it, and a good cocktail afterwards.

PARTIES
Yes, there were a few...
The international INSEAD crowd makes each party look like there is a "young and vibrant" UN assembly on a fun quest!
Friday after Business Foundations we took over the Aussi Pub in Fonty; Saturday night was spent in one of the most exclusive clubs in Paris, On Sunday I passed, but there were at least 3 or 4 different parties... Last Saturday (right after OW) we had an extremely good party sponsored by Bain & Company at Chateau de Vaux-le-Penil (just imagine free champagne & rum & vodka from 22.00h until 04.00h the next morning, great music, a stunning castle, and free buses to take you back home!)
Next Saturday we'll have our party sonsored by OPERA Solutions at Chateau de Tavers, and they say that that party will be even better! Saturday the 14th will be the Shangri-La Fiction "Tarantino theme party." It seems that the Party scene is on at INSEAD and that there is fierce competition as to who actually throws the best one!

RECRUITING
Recruiting companies come to campus almost every evening. It's hard to choose which company presentations to go to after classes, because every day there are 2 or 3 invitations in our mailboxes. On Monday I went to Google, today to Bain&Company, tomorrow I'll go to Booz Allen, and Friday to McKinsey. I had to pass this week the invitations from SAP, Merill Lynch, J&J and BCG. Luckily they are here primarily for the P4s, and they'll come back for us in April, and May. All this attention is of course fantastic, but I'm sure that in due time it will also be stressfull, since there will be more MBA graduates in each class than there will be jobs offered via recruiting.

CLUBS
Yesterday night Angela and I went to a Wine&Cheese tasting. Most Clubs and activities are open for both partners and participants. In fact, partners are included in every aspect of campus life, so that is great! The Cheese tasting was initially a partners event, but since they had a few slots left, I was allowed to join, which I thankfully did.
We signed up for many clubs. Angela will write more about her prospective activities (amongst others she will play in INSEAD's women "soccer" team.) I signed up for a few Clubs with the aim to network in specific areas like Emerging Markets, Consulting, and International and Humanitarian Affairs. I also signed up for the Real Estate Club to learn more about investing in real estate. And, I signed up for the Sailing Regatta.
I hope that I'll be selected for one of the 2 boats that will compete against other B-schools in the MBA Regatta later this month in Italy. My going to INSEAD meant that I had to pass on a wonderfull opportunity to join Rick and Hans on the ARC Ocean Race from Las Palmas to St Lucia in November. I would have loved to cross the Atlantic together with these two guys, but you can't do everything at the same time. Sailing for INSEAD at the MBA Regatta would be extremely cool, so I hope that I'll make it. With many outstanding sailors (even an ex-Olympic sailor) as classmates, though, I'm not sure whether it will happen! I'll keep you posted, take care!