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??

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!

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?

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?

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