choices and changes

I should be doing a hundred other things but I also have a hundred things to write about so I'm playing hokey on strategy & finance to write this post. Its been over three months at INSEAD and the world has changed. Without any real time to digest any thing we hear or learn about in class and absolutely zero connection with the outside world, it took some time coming & then it hit me. INSEAD is slowly, insidiously transforming us!
Reading my CV, I suddenly knew I would never have written it this way three months ago.Looking at my selection of electives, I wonder is that really me? are these really my interests? Some of the courses which would have attracted me earlier hold almost no sway on me now and I have no clue when this happened.
I also found myself applying for the European Entrepreneurial Accelerator program to do a project for a company. Again I surprised myself, I chose a company whose business plan would be Greek to me and surprise, surprise, it chose me! So I now have a real world project to do and I'll get a nice little credit for it.
Life is about choices and sometimes those choices can define me. I'm choosing differently now than I would have some time ago and I'm not really sure why.
Maybe all this introspection has been bought upon us since it is the season of choices. We the J08 as we are called, are moving into 3rd gear. We now choose our electives which effectively takes away all bitching rights. From now we cant crib about the course, the professor or the workload. It's all been laid out before us & we must partake of the feast. Indigestion would be very hard to explain.

The INSEAD life

The Montmilian ball lived up to its infamy, four hundred MBA wannabe's sinned over too much alcohol, too much dancing, too much poker and just too much everything. Barely four hours after the party finished the first pictures are already up on facebook - i wasn't joking when I said its an INSEAD obsession. This should tell you something about the drive people have here. Most normal people will require a few hours to recover post a party that rocked till 7:00 am but no not INSEADers!
Before you are awake, you have been tagged, you also have three lunch invitations and you are already behind the rest with the corporate finance reading due on Monday. when they said it was hectic, they meant it. When they insisted they need motivated, driven people who live on less than two hours of sleep(squeezed between classes or sometimes in class)and who partied as hard as they worked, well they meant that too.
This is just an MBA but for all of these reasons and many more INSEAD is so much more than just that and its very hard for anyone outside of our famed bubble to understand the irrational, illogical self inflicted way of INSEAD life.

Tragedy

Tragedy has stuck again at INSEAD. We came back to campus on a rainy cold, dark morning to hear the worst. it could have been us...Singapore, we feel your pain.
to friends we never met....

Class(ic) Quotes

Just some of the stuff heard in the last classes of P1

"Future income has a negative correlation with grades"
(M.Lobo, UDJ)

"In one of the bad bad years for MBA recruiting,Goldman Sachs came on campus & only hired 1 student -a girl who flunked Finance 101"
(Harald Hau, FMV)

"If you are stressed right now just remember, in 10 years this will feel like Club Med & eventually you are all going to be RICH and GOOD LOOKING (well, most of you, anyway)..."
(Nikos Vetas, P&M)

All this motivation....sigh, last day of P1 and I'm already nostalgic.
So,Is this the best year of your life then??

exam fever

The exams are not important. The dean tells us, the finance professor tells us and the amiable UDJ prof makes a joke about how if the paper is difficult we will all be clustered around the mean....
No one though is listening. There are sponsored students, there are brilliant students, there are students who have done most of this all their waking life but are they listening? Nope, not at all
The library has replaced the bar as the new hang out joint. A week ago most of us wont be caught dead going there but this week your cool status depends on which seat you managed to grab as the early bird.
The tests score will never be revealed to recruiters, or parents or spouses or siblings, basically anyone with any stake in our lives.
Statistics show a negative correlation between the deans list & professional success (apparently a successful CEO is more likely in a rock band than in the library!)
So if we are still not listening, what would you call it? pigheadedness? super competitive? just plain dumb?
LPG taught us the importance of incentives...so why are we still not feeling incentivized to not care about a bloody test?
I think the riddle lies in this - we dont care about the deans list or grades but somehow we'll look so much more cooler saying that when we are on it :)

The typical INSEAD week

No excuses for my absence but I'm sure my fellow INSEAD bloggers have left you with an accurate impression of life in the forest. They have also reminded me that i have fallen off the rodeo horse & must at least make an attempt to scramble back on.
so this is my version of a typical INSEAD week -

Monday - late for class - champagne fine,dozing in finance class - champagne fine
Panic at lunch as you realize that you dont even know what language your professor is talking in,
run to your cubicle to study but find solace in Skype & facebook - the two INSEAD obsessions apart from costume parties
brains fried & off to Margarita Mondays with the chicas to discuss the various hook ups which are commencing with alacrity

Tuesday - dazed & hungover, 5 cups of coffee & more strange concepts to fill into your head, Bar of The Week comes to the rescue
Wednesday - You decide enough is enough, you really need to hit the books but the Dean comes calling & then somehow the company presentations or the leadership summit or the scholarship dinner keeps you busy hey they offer free food & drinks....and we are poor students after all

Thursday- stressed out beyond comprehension now, you start to dolefully look for the contat info proided by INSEAD for the free counsellings sessions..yup the same one you laughed & sniggered at but saved in the depth of your locker! But then you figure a good pirated downlodable movie will be equally therapeutic & so organize a film fest of your own for the rest of the stressed out humanity

Friday - and hey the week is over & yes the exams are closer but how much can a girl in france study....you leave your untouched books untouched again & go on the hunt for the costume you really should have packed but somehow forgot

Saturday - the party was so much fun & you had so much to drink with so many people you never saw in school that now you have decided with some of them to finally get some city air - you really need the pollution, the lights, the buzz & of course the shopping!

Sunday - you wake up & count the number of hours you slept through the week & congratulate yourself for surviving on what must be nothing short of torture. You decide you still haven't seen France & go off looking for a quaint lunch by some river front & ogle at picturesque towns that are so beautiful & how you wished you lived there...completely forgetting that last night you couldnt get enough of the city. You make promises to yourself of becoming organized & prioritizing & studying & writing your CV & hunting for jobs....and then its Monday again.

At sea...alone

I'm feeling weird. the first pangs of nostalgia for my life- as-it-was have started and we are not even a month into the new one....i miss my husband & he's the only one who knows how tough this is for his wife to admit on a public forum (most often spousal compliant is that he is missing from these pages)
As my head spins with new concepts, classes, people, cultures, clubs, groups, assignments, readings, parties & a little bit of wine too I look for my anchor and suddenly I realize it isn't there, suddenly I feel lost, a bit adrift on uncharted waters with not so much as a sketchy blueprint for this grand new life I'm trying to create....
Its only a feeling, a moment & it'll pass

"We'll do it all, everything. On our own.
We dont need , anything or anyone...
If I lay here, if I just lay here
will you lie here with me & just forget the world"

Chasing Cars, Snow Patrol

Culture Vulture

Had an ineresting french lunch experience, you know the lunches that go on for more than 2 hours and how they leave you feeling so full of new prespectives and insights but a little light on the wallet :)
A group member came up with an interesting Q - whats the culturally most important factor in your country/ what are you guys really hung up about?
So here are a few quickly polled responses -

German - Cars

Australian - Sports

French - Balance & Pleasure - the good life

Indian - Family or marriages

hmmmm, so when its incentive time we know what to offer which culture specific individual? something tells me $$$ would do just fine over all the countries & all the cultures...so much for diversity, lets talk about the unity!


In more such really breathtaking exciting news - my group made it to the Top 10 in the drunk driving poster competition. Not bad work for half an hour but we suddenly have heavier schedules next week. And if we make it to the Top 3, who knows a dinner with the dean?.... who i happen to think is real cool, maybe I have a thing for authority figures? I dont know but I do recollect a rather long conversation over at a party about men in uniform & dirty dark fantasies....
keep expecting more such snippets from my culturally diverse, socially hectic, strangely manic new life


confession: 700+ gmat does not mean you have a mind that can bend around financial algorithms or even a simple financial calculator...
i'm telling you, you only getthis kind of gup here & as i blow my trumpet ( no puns whatsoever) let me welcome our v new prolific entrant, Yareev!

Life in the forest

Apologies for the infrequent postings but when warned about time limitations this particular blogger wasn't listening. Already behind on class readings, yours truly is fast realizing that this thing is spinning way out of control & we are still 'settling in'

French bureaucracy doesn't help either, just makes it a bit more of a merry go round. Welcome week was a round of parties, an exit language test, 4 classes worth 8 hours a day, opening ceremony & cocktails & finally the welcome week party.
You really should have seen the faces roaming fonty streets on Sunday noon,making last minute attempts to enter monoprix for the weeks groceries... i'm still keenly awaiting the cleaning ladies arrival back from holiday. Yes we have the pleasure of one in france but as of now she has been off for a month already with no clear signs of emerging soon from her hiatus. Maybe its the Indian mentality but her presence is going to greatly comfort me...

Classes have started in earnest & its a mixed bag. Enjoyed 4 professors immensely, 1 I shall get along with and 1 can be avoided at all costs. 1 more shall do his inaugural class before the week is over & then it'll be time for tutorials

10 months are not long enough

1st impressons

I'm back! yes, again. awake from slumber & already trembling with fear. Fear? why? Well lets see, I've landed in France & school starts tomorrow. Stage fright was always a problem & the roll call hasn't even started yet.
So a quick round up of 1st impressions-

Dont understand a word of French after 2 months of classes & too embarrassed to try, so mostly I'm backing off from the language exam this week. dont want to start the year feeling more miserable than I already am

Fontainebleau is pretty & quaint but tres cher

House is sweet & almost exactly like how it was described. Though have to admit we have got lucky. Word of caution - when the agent says its a 5 min walk pls remember he/she is a state level athlete & can cover huge distance in record time that mere mortals will not be able to. For simplifying life just multiply by 3 & you'll be fine.

This is v exciting, we live in a venture capitalists backyard & he has 'good relations' with INSEAD professors when asked if he comes to campus for recruiting! hmmm, have to be friendlier to his dogs now

As expected, there is a party or get together every day noon & night. Been for 1 dinner, 1 party, a couple of meet ups, 1 lunch,1 excursion to Paris & its only been 4 days. Yes, my networking skills suck, seem to missing as many as I'm attending

Repeated by almost everyone from the Business foundation group - its tough, too much work, no sleep & goes way too fast. I have no business background, too broke to sign up for the rich kids express learning tour & too lazy to have gone the self taught route. This is dangerous & definetly not recommended. Have to rely on charm only from now on but in this 'charming' little town thats not a quality in short supply, sigh...at least i know enough economics to realize I'm in the merde.


Again repeated by every BFP attendee - the professor specifically stated that networking is far more important here than learning. great can they start grading us on how many parties we attended, how many invitations we garnered & how many inane conversations we could squeeze into an hour?

Reflection on above point - I'm not good at 'networking', at all the meets people finally ended mixing as per gender & nationality. Not as per recommendation right? Some seem genuinely great at it & very enthusiastic towards one & all. Somehow I'm already feeling like I'm not making the cut into the 'cool peoples group, damn I actually said no to a party, i don't have a future, this is going to haunt me all my life....oh god i better pause for breath

2nd reflection of same point - if its only about networking, wouldnt 70,000Euros be a great kitty to start my own party hearty club? So are we here to become a fully paid up member of the club?

So whats going to be my USP, seems a bit unlikely I'm breaking into the deans list, and if I'm not the networking energizer bunny, where do i stand? Is the middle ground gonna be good enough?

There are so many of us, when they say diversity they mean it. Already met marine engineer, consultant,economist, lawywer, PR agent, every engineer under the sun( they all somehow blur into this single unit for me)

The sections just got announced & now I know my group mates. Having refused the car ride to the party I am now the loser sitting in my pj's & checking the stats out - we are 311 of us here in Fonty.

My group has 5 members & 5 nationalities, 3 continents & 4 careers. Between us we speak 7 languages. great!
More such v random thoughts running thru my head & we are now under 12 hours to registration.

The surreal life of Miss dee

So I'm back & not yet dead (not that anyone seemed to have missed me :(...) Should be leaving for Fonty in a week & I'm still feeling stuck, no pre reading done, no bank account yet(well this is a lie since I just got confirmation that I do have an account except I cant access it till snail mail arrives after 10 days!)7 no confidence in my French..ah well such is life
Last couple of days have seemed like a never ending party with day & night all mixing into each other creating a very surreal situation. As if on cue, most reasonable & not so reasonable ppl I know have also started acting a little well 'revealing'. Its as if after years of knowing them,you suddenly get a completely new perspective on them and it makes you wonder what were you thinking all this time...no, no none of this is inspired by my leaving for other shores, just suddenly for no reason we are having some very 'interesting' days....
Meanwhile daddy dearest has decided to pitch his bit into the confusion & landed into hospital so now we are just getting more weirder by the minute...family time is also becoming very 'revelatory'
All in all a lot of fun & games before departure & by now I'm just sick of hearing about the 'farewell' so if I hear it one more time I might just retch in that direction!

A quick update...still alive!

Ok so i know I've been missing for awhile but honestly so much is happening in the non INSEAD sphere (yes, it does exist, i admit) that blogging is one of the last things i can devote my time too....all waking hours were spent on Harry Potter just like the rest of the millions of muggles & I'm happy to say it's all over now...finally!
So a quick round up of what I've been doing (apart from practicing with my wand that is)
Went to the 1st farewell party - hosted by INSEAD alumni who to quote them wished to answer any questions we may have...oh yeah a couple- how soon do I get out of debt? how soon to the dream job?....nope but these are not the 'right ' questions so they were left unanswered. A few insights from the meet -
V few alumni showed up but the admits were so exuberant it didn't seem to matter.
Of the few who did most were recent grads on their visit back home before leaving for unknown lands...
Everyone insisted the toughest challenge was clearing the exit language requirement & advised whole heartedly to tackle this monster at the very onset
the quote of the night - "INSEAD will offer you a lot but finally its up to you to make what you can of it. Be greedy & grab every opportunity to network & party because the program is great but thats just the basics."

Ok then, we get the point

Apart from this v interesting night, life is filled with last minute prep to open a bank account - i shall most certainly post my recommendations once i've finally procured one.
The final payment (for moi... scholarship holder & all) has been made & now as a fully paid up student I fantasize about signing bonuses that cover everything I've spent...how gredy can I be?

Year of Possibility

It's that time of the year again. The change of guards is taking place & interestingly the mood on both sides of the border is rather similar albeit for different reasons.

The class of J07 have graduated & the bloggers are saying their goodbyes. May they all make tons of money & hold interesting positions in a variety of careers. May they always be available for the rest of us that follow for advice, networking and hopefully a drink or two over discussions on the alma mater.

I now feel the need to change status on hella's list from applicant to student. There are only 45 days to start of school now & "the one year to challenge our thinking, change our outlook" is about to start with a vehemence.

So whats the activity like 45 days before school? here's a round up-
I'm still struggling to become a Francophone - in a desperate bid to pass my exit language requirement
I still have not touched my pre reading material, emboldened by so many others who claim the same but may just be the best economists, finance gurus or account maverick. I'm none of the above but I took heart when a current D07 student put it simply - this is the time to enjoy with family & friends. Re charge the batteries & rest because the next 10 months are anything but an easy ride.
Socialising is paramount right now. There are a round of parties & almost all weekdays & weekends are filled with them. The parties are not being called 'farewell' just yet but interestingly thats all we talk about now a days. From friends, family, colleagues, boss the conversation runs the same ground - the new life... and like clockwork within 5 minutes of this conversation the Q comes up - are you coming back?
I don't know I say, i don't know anything...
What are you going to do? I don't really know
Where will you work post college? I don't really know
How will you cope away from home, away from your spouse? I don't really know


My reluctance to commit to any answers & hug all this uncertainty comes from simply realizing that this year is special. Special because its the year of possibilities & maybe thats the reason why for all those who passed out from INSEAD still call it the best year of their lives.


One year to challenge your thinking, change your outlook and choose your future

I intend to do that.

What makes a terrorist?

After the London & Glasgow terror attacks, terrorism is on the front pages again. Now WSJ reports a study by Princeton economists that shows there is no provable link between poverty & terrorism nor between illiteracy & terrorism.
The London attack was planned by doctors & a new book theorizes that its not your income level or education that determines if you become a potential terrorist but the curtailing of civil liberties.
So how come China is not suffering this epidemic?
Have terror attacks increased or decreased since India's growth rate exceeded its innate 'hindu' rate of growth?
How is that most of the foot soldiers for various 'jehad', 'separatists' movements come from the underbelly?
What drives doctors or LSE grads or pilots to

After much dithering about when, where and how the Bombay admits finally decided to meet up again...only to be rained in. Another point to the Bombay monsoon for playing the spoilsport. And again the heavens win this round too by finally making the municipal authorities confess that they can do no good & we must wait till 2011 for roads that wont become rivers.
So the weeks been gray, rainy, wet & v mucky. And how I'm going to miss it. Count down for departure has started, bought on very early by the rain clouds insisting on moments to be spent alone in introspection as the city drowns...again.

Morality ? anyone ?

Saw Thank you for Smoking - intelligent & funny, that is a rare combination to have.

The protagonist believes that a properly constructed argument is more important for winning than the content of the argument. He demonstrates the tricks of the trade to his son over a debate on chocolate vs. vanilla ice cream -
Firstly you must push your opponent to make a claim - the more extreme the better for you.
Then you must offer evidence that brings this claim under question.
This makes the audience disbelieve your opponent,and so without proving your own stand to be correct you have proved the opponent to be incorrect.

Of course if your intention is to convince your opponent then maybe instead of an argument you should try a discussion.

All this just lead me to think about the moral ambiguities of day to day life. Some things believed to be a certain way are totally another thing in a different aspect, and therefor arguable.

Like drinking - in Europe & surely in France having a glass of wine or pint of beer with lunch is absolutely fine. In India though a drink in the afternoon especially a work week is totally reprehensible - drinking on the job is morally, professionally & socially wrong.
Similarly when an American friend of mine started working in India she was perplexed. Now the way she worked in the US was to never commit anything that she could not deliver & when she committed something it was sacrosanct.
Indians on the other hand will readily commit to sending you to the moon, tomorrow!
Here saying no to a client or a person in authority is just not done.

Last week over a chat with the INSEAD career services - a strange fact came up. Apparently the low figures for placements in Japan were because in the past the few who did manage to work there, quit in less than a year citing cultural difference or rather culture shock.
My husband told me of a trip his colleagues took to Japan. They went there to meet a client & were shocked to see that people actually kept their pets in office & most in fact lived in their offices - sleeping under the desk, showering & working again.
The Indian team felt v guilty to walk out of office at 11:00 pm as the office was still buzzing with activity.

So some amount of moral flexibility (another phrase from the movie) might just be a good thing. Maybe soon it'll be fashionable to take a centrist position on the moral crossroads....who knows but suddenly I'm buying into this whole diversity aspect of the b school.
My position on it was ambiguous, I mean it helped my own application but I wasn't sure how it was supposed to translate into an asset on the work field.If its such an asset then how come the big b schools from America aren't embracing it so whole heartedly but lately i think it would be really important to have a varied exposure in your work life - just makes you more well rounded & maybe even a bit 'irreplaceable'
Also given that the world keeps changing so fast, adaptability might be the new personality trait recruiters look for?

Dialogue baazi

"You are analog players in a digital world"
Oceans 13



"By pretending to be a man in love, he became a man in love"
Paris Je t'aime

A few additions to the classic one liner pantheon...

p;s: can you tell I'm not doing any work anymore

Coffee, tea or Politics?

Inspired by D.T.L.F and with ample of time to kill I have now come to realize that I am a leftist liberal...damn, what am i going to B school for?

To figure out where you stand in the quagmire of politics - check it here

My score, if anyone wants to compare

Economic Left/Right: -3.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.23

My work

Just one of the projects I recently produced...no its not the best of my producer's capabilities but what the heck, its a 'buzz' creating film so the clients happy

1 more reason to LOL

I got Aid....scholarship ahoy!!!
This is the best news I've heard (post of course the admit decision)....so totally awesome! Rather generous too ; )
Not just a big relief but honestly the biggest motivator..I'm feeling so loved up by the universe right now, its unbelievable. Just the sign (rather a big billboard) to let me know I'm so totally going to be OK...
btw this post comes from my brand new mac & the first email it opened was the scholarship decision...talk about being lucky!