Stories from INSEAD

SGP thoughts

2005-11-14T04:46:00.000-08:00

Just had a presentation about SGP. Looks extremely cool... Having second thoughts about coming back. Man, deciding where to focus geographically is a BIG decision... And hard. But hey - we'll just go there and see. Meantime we're supposed to get our P1 grades today, and have a party to celebrate (or not...?) tonite. We're planning a ceremonial burning of our micro notes at the party...
got to go all the way to Paris for a stupid medical exam tomorrow... The French bureaucracy just does NOT stop. Annoying... Another thing that is supposed to be MUCH better in SGP.
had a very good dinner on Saturday - had a few guests from Le Vivier, good food, ton's of alcohol, some cool drinking games (bizz and buzz. I'll explain later...), and generally a huge amount of fun. Some of the participants continued the fun WAY into the night (well, till 10am actually), in a more one-on-one setting, and consequently kept me up all night (thin walls)... But hey - they had fun, so I'm not complaining (although I was REALLY envious and felt REALLY alone as a consequence...)

Catching up...

2005-11-10T11:53:00.000-08:00

well, THIS is going to (try to) make up for a LONG gap in writing....

Last things first – I’m going to Singapore! The results of the campus exchange lottery were posted today, and I’m IN…! Beautiful. One less thing to worry about… now I know I won’t have to freeze my ass off in the damn French winter, but will instead be basking in the pacific sun, with occasional hops to various diving spots in the area… cool!

So yeah, too many of us wanted to go to SGP for P3 (Jan-Feb), so we had a lottery, and me + 56 other lucky bastards got to go, while another 80+ people got to not… too bad. I don’t think they anticipated such a huge demand, but hey – too much demand is good (better than too much supply anyway). And then people say I did not pay attention in Micro…

And so, I wrap up P2 on Dec 20, have a 2nd champagne party (will get to the 1st in a bit, don’t rush me…), and then fly back home for 10 days (party! Party!!!), following which N & I will fly ourselves to Thailand for a well-deserved (well, for her, at least…) 1-week vacation, and from there – hop to SGP and the start of P3 on Jan 9. Back to FBL in March (unless I change my mind and decide to stay in SGP, that is…).

Already found someone to switch rooms with – a guy called… Dan! Turkish Jew, seems very nice, coming over to FBL for P3 to ski… I get his master-bedroom in a 3-bedroom flat on the 2nd floor of the Dover complex – pool, BBQ, the works… sounds good!

What else? It’s been a while, I know, I’ve been bad… let’s see:

P1 ended well. Exams were a bitch (especially Micro, of course). Still don’t know how I did, but will find out soon and am not really worried (Z-curve and all…). Amir, Nurit and I left to Barcelona by car immediately after the last exam. Was a 9 hour drive, lots of fun, with an amazing view of the Millau Bridge at sunset in the middle – HIGHLY recommended, well worth the effort. Barca was amazing, as usual. Keren (N’s friend & colleague) met us there, we had a nice little rented flat, toured the city, great food, architecture (Gaudi…!), Cava, Rioja, and more… had dinner (again) at Los Cuatro Gatos – highly recommended place, very good atmosphere. The best came last – Amir and I (the girls had already flown home) went to Camp Nuo and saw Barca kick the shit out of Real Sociedad 5-0… what a spectaculo, man…! Really poetry in motion. The last part of the trip was a bitch – drove 10 hours straight all night to FBL, actually Amir drove and I had to stay awake and keep him awake. Nightmare. Never suffered so much during a drive in my life. I begged the guy to stop over for a 2-hour nap, but noooo….. HE knows best, and if HE goes to sleep now he’ll “wake up even more tired”… even suggesting to drive the rest of the way myself (after sleeping a bit) didn’t work – since I “don’t have insurance”… c’mon… well – we made it (barely…) back, I crashed for a few hours, and was a zombie for the rest of the week.

Until…. Saturday, when we (finally) had our P1 champagne party. At Monty, completely unplanned, people brought their own stuff, Johnny & Ale & I just bought some chips and plastic cups and ice from Casino 2 hours prior. But man, how it turned out… 59 bottles of champagne consumed by a similar amount of people… champagne all over the floor… strip dances (men! Men! Unfortunately…) on tables (yours truly included. And there ARE pictures…), and more. Let’s just say it was completely off the hook…

What else? P2 is good – interesting courses, lot less technical, lot more group work and assignments. Managerial Accounting (MAC) is great (xlnt teacher – again, and very useful). Amazing how accounting turned out to be my best class in BOTH periods… process operation management (POM) is also very good – analytical, strategy-oriented (operations strat), very applicable and thought provoking. Corp Finance Policy (CFP) is interesting (derivatives, black-scholes etc.) but rather technical. Still waiting for the financial strategy bit. Leading organizations is a bit of a fluffy waste of time, unfortunately – very unstructured and impractical. Marketing is interesting but I fell we could go much deeper in (well, it is a core course…). My biggest disappointment is Strategy – the one I expected the most of (naturally…). The subject matter is fine, but the teacher is extremely arrogant and seems to think he has the correct answer to everything in his pocket – and I know enough about strategy to know there are usually no “correct” answers… just more and less likely options and different reasoning and assumption-sets. But hey, MAC & POM definitely balance it out…

So that’s how we (very quickly, I agree…) get to the here and now. It is now Heart of Europe (Germany, Switzerland & Austria) national week @ INSEAD, and there’s a big “HoE week” party at Chateau Veaux Penil tomorrow night. I think I’ll go, and if it turns out nice, I might even right a little about it…

Later!

Exams are a'comin...

2005-10-19T13:39:00.000-07:00

well, it's exam season. Lots of stress. Very little time. Everyone is praying to the god of the z-curve but trying to find time to study at the same time. With 5 exams in 3 subsequent days - good luck...
anyway - very little time to write. Finally did our LPG presentation in front of the whole section today. It was about negotiation styles. Each of the four of us played a different style. We intentionally chose styles opposite (or at least different) from our own natural tendencies, so of I was "Mr. Collaborative"... Was very funny, and I looked utterly ludicrous..., as you can see for yourself...

did a mock-LPG test for 3.5 hours today. Man, that was hard... Tiring... And taxing in terms of patience. Group dynamics still hard but improving slowly.

so I have four days left to cram, then 3 days of exams, and... We're off to Barcelona!!! N & I are going there with Amir and Karen for a 4-day 4-people vacation, and boy do I need that one...

more later. Ciao...

Post-H&H...

2005-10-16T05:47:00.000-07:00

Man – that party was OFF THE FUCKING HOOK!!!
Seriously – even though it wasn’t a trance party like I prefer, it was one hell of a party. Good music, tons of alcohol, good people and a VERY good vibe in the air… perfect!
I’m sitting here watching the circus guys dismantle the tents (they’ll probably take the goats, too… what a shame – I’ve grown accustomed to seeing them grazing outside my window…), trying to recover from last night. I’ll begin at the end and say that I passed out somewhere around 3-4am, due to excessive imbibing of Johnny Walker & coke… so I missed out on the last couple of hours, but on the other hand I ended the party the best way possible – crash and burn… (If we disregard waking up around 7 to throw up or being somewhat hung over now… ah well, the price you pay…)
Shit… it just started raining, and all the tables are still outside… they’ll get completely wet and we’ll make a huge mess bringing them back in. oh well…
So – back to the party: tones of people came. They invested a LOT of time and effort in costumes. Most men came as devils (probably the horny kind… ha ha ha…), and many of the women as angels (self-image? signal? I wonder…). People drank a lot, and we still didn’t finish all the booze we had. Well, there’s always the next party in May… the food (pizzas) was good and consumed immediately on arrival. The DJs actually did a pretty good job, and for once most of the people were inside the tent dancing and not outside talking. Most of the action was in the Hell tent (especially since that was where our two dancers – which were great btw – performed), but at some point we opened up Heaven and sent everyone there, both to get them “working” on the 2nd bar and to have a change of scenery (different colors, different music, different décor). It worked… the “hub” of the party moved to heaven, and then an hour later back to hell. By then I was pretty groggy. I went out to take a piss in the trees, when I hear Amir getting on the PA, giving Vincent a VERY well deserved acknowledgement, and then calling for all the Monty guys to join him on the table. I tried making my way down there, fell halfway there and lost both my stability and my red sunglasses. I finally made it there, got up on the table with some of the guys, but after a few minutes things were getting to be a bit overwhelming for me, so I went out for a breather. The breather turned into lying down on the chateau steps, and after a while I went up to my room to lie down there. Obviously that was that – from there it was to the bathroom, a short period on the bathroom floor, a little bit of throwing up and then crashing into bed till morning… as I said, crash and burn.
There’s no room here for all the pics I have (and they’re not all – still have to get all the pix from all the other guys…), but I’ll post them on my Kodak gallery so you can all see them...

H-Day - Heaven & Hell is finally here!!!

2005-10-15T11:42:00.000-07:00

OK - three circus trucks just pulled up on the chateau lawn. Seriously - I’m not kidding… three honest to god CIRCUS trucks, towing behind them two full size circus tents. Why, you ask? For the party – Heaven & Hell, of course!!!
This is it – the day has come, and the party we’ve been working on for the last two months is finally going to happen (and not a moment too soon, too…). Juan and I started the morning with some heavy lifting – moving all the tables we could find (garden, the outlying houses, 1st floor, 2nd floor – you name) to the front lawn, to be used as bar tables in the Heaven and Hell tents and in the lounge area.
No sooner were we done with that, and the three circus trucks I mentioned earlier pulled up on our lawn (literally – these guys drove right on the grass, we had to shoo them off before one of our fascist landlords sees that and cancels the party just for that…
EMERGENCY NEWSFLASH – THEY BROUGHT GOATS!!! These circus guys, apparently, decided that bringing two goats – one black and one white – would fit in nicely with our party theme. I agree. And seeing two billy goats (the black one is actually a ram, I’m told…) only adds to level of surrealism of these developing party scene. And guess what – it’s only 11:40 am, and the best is yet to come!!!
More later, definitely…

Rosh Hashanah...

2005-10-04T12:02:00.000-07:00

Quick intermediate post – had Rosh Hashanah dinner with most of the ILs (and some of their parents as well – apparently SOME people can’t go thru the holidays without seeing their mommy…J). Was weird – good food (xcpt for the fish, yuk… - hate fish!!!), but the company as strange, what with all the kids yelling and all that, and at the end Oded took out a guitar and they actually started Shira Be-Zibur (= singing Israeli songs in company, accompanied by a guitar). I never did relate much to that stuff, plus in this specific setting it kinda made me homesick a bit. And anyway there was a SHITLOAD of cleaning up to do after they left. On the plus side – we now have enough chicken zimmes and honey-cake to last thru the entire winter… Shana Tova to all!

Quick update...

2005-10-02T12:21:00.000-07:00

If you're interested in getting some flavor on the people i'm living with @ Monty - go to http://www.montmelian.org/

The weekly INSEAD update (18/9/05)

2005-09-18T14:19:00.000-07:00

Well, things are beginning to fall into a routine pattern somewhat, which is nice, considering my penchant for order and the level of chaos that characterized the 1st week (“welcome week”, with all the admin, joining the clubs, blah blah blah…).

Weekdays get pretty filled up with school-related activities (classes, homework etc.), and the weekend is mostly around social stuff (dinners, parties), shopping (food & stuff), sports (running, football, some practice now and then) and tryingto get as ahead of the curve in terms of homework for the coming week as possible (doesn’t usually work out very well so far..). Time management is a very important skill here, and one which if you don’t have/learnfast you end up “sinking” very quickly. I find myself thinking in terms of time management about weird things like “do I have time to eat now”, or “do I have time to call home on Skype” and so on. Strange…

School pace is fast, but they do a good job of helping you not fall behind (tutorials etc.), and they ARE teaching us from a very practical perspective, which means for example that we need not understand mathematical proof of stats equations or even memorize them, just understand what they do and when and how to use them.

Had our first “chateau” party yesterday, at upper Villecerf – and it was a toga party… not bad, even though it was a “free” party (BYO alcohol type of thing), so the DJ was one of the residents – and it showed… wasn’t much for dancing, although the atmosphere was great. I’ve attached a few pictures to illustrate…

at any rate, these guys set a pretty high standard for OUR party on the 15th – and since we are charging 30EU/person, we feel obligated to deliver something substantially better. Not easy…

I miss football… there are all these amazing games going on (English premier league, champions league etc.), and I’m missing them all… nobody here watches “foreign” football (well, they are, you know, French…), and as for champions league – they of course saw the real Madrid – lyon game, and of course they went ballistic after lyon won 3-0, but all I wanted was to see my reds play in Spain… shit. Well – add that to the cost of doing an MBA, I guess…

And – to end on a good note – Nurit is coming to visit!!! She’ll be here on 30/9 for the weekend and then again on the 6/10 till 10/10 – not that much, but better than nothing… at any rate, I expect a great reunion. More next week!

Stories from France - 2 (11/9/05)

2005-09-11T14:16:00.000-07:00

So… the first week of school just ended. Pretty intense, to start with. Will probably get more intense, but also less intense, with time. More – because I’ll have to tackle increasingly complicated stuff, and less – because like everything you adjust and learn to cope.

My group is working out fine so far, despite the obvious style differences. The more “subdued” members (Charles from France and Hakon from Norway) are however gaining confidence and consequently visibility, which is better overall but does have a price in term of relationship and work dynamics and the level of energy required and time consumed. Part of the whole point, I guess. Good learning experience.

Most of our teachers are good, some are even great. Especially accounting – I would have never believed you can make accounting so interesting, so practical and so engaging, but he’s doing it. Our stats teacher is also very good (Italian, VERY energetic…), although the subject matter sucks big time…Finance is ok, OB also. Micro, however, is HORRIBLE – she’s very nice, but can’t teach to save her own life…she’s all over the place, and it’s not the easiest stuff in the world… well – ce la vie, as the locals say

The house is also good, even though inter-personal strains are beginning to show. The north Americans are heavily into drinking, and sometimes what comes out is not necessarily the best sides of their personalities. Some of the others however are real gems – especially the French (of all people, I know…), Vincent and Stan. Very different styles, but both really nice people. I already know I’d like to keep in touch with those two after INSEAD.

Went to Paris yesterday (with Vincent and Amir), was very nice. Had to pick up some things from Vincent’s parents’ place, but also had lunch, walked around a bit, saw a techno parade, went to a party at the flat of a friend of Peter’s (he most of the others joined us in Paris in the evening), and had a kangaroo steak and escargot for dinner (they are apparently bred for eating, not hunted in the wild - the Kanagroos, not the snails...). Interesting…

So – it’s off the prep for a whole new week of school. Lot’s of stuff to do… will keep you all posted on how things develop…

My INSEAD story begins...

2005-09-04T02:44:00.000-07:00

Just an initial couple of lines to tell you what has happened so far and let you know how I’m doing. I’ve only been here a week but it already seems like a month… lots of things happening, all of them very quickly and in rapid succession, so this is actually the first chance I’ve had to take a pause and reflect a little.

The landing went smoothly – picked up the car real quickly (CDG by the way is a horrible airport, very messy and unorganized – a bit like Ben Gurion yen years ago or so. Very disappointing). Got the car very fast (both me and Amir who flew with me) and drove to the chateau de Montmelian (Monty) with no problem.

Monty is AMAZING. Real life chateau, with grounds, little ponds with water lilies, a river nearby (the seine actually), horses – the whole thing. My room is big, airy, great view of the front lawn, lots of sunlight in the afternoon – classic. The people are also cool – 13 people from various nationalities (Spain, Peru, US, Canada, Italy, Turkey, France), all very friendly, different characters and very diverse and interesting.

“Welcome Week” was intense, a bit too much so; the admin stuff was not extremely well organized (French…) but at least it’s mostly over. The couple of intro sessions we had were good, mostly interesting and also allowed us to start to get to know our work-groups (we are ~300 people, divided into 4 sections, and within each section into permanent workgroups of 4-5 people which are fixed for the first 2 semesters, i.e. 4 months). I was lucky to be put in a group with one of my housemates at Monty (Johnny lee, a Chinese American software engineer from Cisco, very nice), a French operations engineer by the name of Charles (married +1, probably older than me) and Hakon, a Norwegian software engineer from Opera. As you can see, I’m the only non-engineer, which is an advantage (especially being a consultant) but also a challenge. So far we did one presentation together, and were even selected (randomly) to present it and got very good feedback (don’t worry, Johnny did most of the talking, he’s quite good at it).

We had a couple of “meet & greet” parties so far – pretty boring, a few hours of repetitive “hi-how-are-you-I’m-Danny-from-Israel” kind of thing. Yesterday, however, to celebrate the end of welcome week, we had the first big bash of the year – a serious party at some chateau, sponsored by Bain & Co. (big consulting firm), with good food, tons of free booze and relatively acceptable music (I’m hard to please on that account, you know…). After a while things good really cooking, and me and some of the other Israelis pretty much showed the other guys what it means to have some serious fun – tons of dancing, we pretty much kept the dance floor up for a couple of hours. Most of my house mates however were busy getting shit-faced with alcohol and trying to get laid (zero success so far…), which led to Amir & me having to baby-sit them back home like two kindergarten teachers… it was rather embarrassing. Some of these guys (especially the north-Americans) either can’t drink or have zero self-control or both… oh well…

Tomorrow “real” school starts, plus also some of the recruiting efforts (less relevant for me of course), and we’re also working on putting together the 1st of two big Monty parties (sometime around oct. 1st – wanna come?), so I’ll be pretty busy, I guess. Nevertheless I hope to be able to keep updating now and then, probably on Sundays when I have some time (I hope…).