20.12.06 just what you'd expect

Latenight at the Taco Bell: an American Photo Essay

by Ean and Tasha

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19.12.06 Home for the holidays

I'm back in Seattle for a few days relaxing, staying with Tasha and Keith in their Ballard home. Reba is still in Oxford, because she doesn't have enough time off to come here for two whole weeks. I got home the day before yesterday, and have been doing all the requisite Seattle activities... eating burritos, going to the local coffee shop for a well made latte, etc. I stopped by to see mom and dad on Sunday night, and even went to a show downtown last night with Pat and Julie: El Vez. El Vez is the Mexican Elvis impersonator... wacky stuff. I didn't really realise that he was so political, but mostly he's a silly fag doing a kitchy sarcastic take on the Elvis theme with a goofy East LA latino bent. Oh yeah, and because it's Christmas, there was a heavy santa claus theme involved too. The upshot was a Mexican guy with a huge Elvis Pompadour in an array of shiny vinyl Christmas/fetish outfits singing weird punk rock Elvis song medleys with funny "Latino" title changes. Right on, whatever. Yesterday, I mostly just vegged out and watched The Office episodes on Tasha's couch. I even had a Snoqualmie Brewery Porter... nice stuff. Today I am up at 5:30am, because I can't sleep from the jet lag. I'm going to sushi lunch with pals today, and hopefully go out for beers with lo fi Bri tonight. I also need to finish some Christmas shopping and buy some wrapping paper. And get some clothes at Brooks Brothers... English fancy clothes are just too damn expensive. I decided not to go to France with the MBAs after all: Reba and I are going to have some chill time in the OX1 before school starts up again, and Ean/Reba QT will be good before diving back into the mayhem. This is a bummer because I won't be skiing in France, but it will be for the best. There's really not too much going on right now... just relaxing and enjoying the Seattle lifestyle a bit. Bagels and Javabean coffee today!!!!

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15.12.06 Aftermath

The MBAs played "pub golf" last night. It's big with the Anglo crowd (English, Australians, South Africans, Americans) and somehow involves dressing up like golfers and drinking specific drinks with rules at different pubs. And being really drunk. Highlights include:

• being asked to leave one bar


• being asked never to return to another bar


• One (anonymous) MBA managing to drop a 20 pence piece in her tights... it made it all the way to her foot before she noticed


• Another (anonymous) obliterated MBA being carried home over a mile by his pals, fighting and thanking them the whole way

...and the most brain splitting headache of my life. I didn't even drink that much. I (stupidly) pulled an all nighter Tuesday night, took two tests Wednesday, and then came home and slept until 2AM Thursday. I then got up and worked finance problems until 8AM. By 10PM, my brain just HURT. Reba and I went home early and crashed. Apparently I fell asleep before she finished brushing her teeth.

A word about Reba. Everybody knows how great she is and how much she means to me. But I think a lot of people back home don't know how much she's been supporting me over here, and I want you all to know how awesome she's been. As the term wrapped up and I was spending more and more time cramming on papers and assignments, she was making dinner every night, making sure I had clean clothes and the apartment was clean and livable, getting me coffee to stay awake, taking care of errands, cooking for study groups, and being really emotionally supportive to me when we did get a chance to just sit together and talk. And, holding down a full time job as well. And, while I've been a stressed out wreck. As things stretched into 9th week (exam review, no classes) I started doing 2 day review sessions per subject, 10AM to Midnight. As exam week came up, the really crazy schedule came into effect. Reba was supporting me the whole time, quietly working on her research on the other side of the room or giving me space if I needed it, making food, keeping the rest of my life together and never complaining while I focused on school. We didn't have one argument in the last 3 weeks, and I know it's not because I've been so reasonable and agreeable: I've been a basket case. She's been perfect, meeting me way more than halfway... I'd say she's been meeting me 80% of the way, picking up my slack. This would be a lot different without her, and I believe, a lot worse. I'm so lucky to have her in my life.

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14.12.06 EXAMS ARE DONE!

Exams are done. Yahoo!!! I believe I passed all of them. Finance, Statistics, and Economics, oddly, were the best. Probably because I had (mostly) never seen them before coming here, and spent lots of time on them. Organisational Behaviour was OK, Strategy was lame but passable, and Accounting was probably passable too. HOWEVER, the big point here is that I am done, and without any overt, stare at the page, freak out and hyperventilate disasters. We don't get our grades until mid February, so the proof will come then.

Exams here are totally totally weird. First, you have to wear subfusc, which sounds charming until you think about sitting for an exam wearing a tuxedo. For many hours at a time, four days in a row. Now imagine 214 monumentally stressed out people wearing tuxes for four days in a row, and that most of them DON'T OWN FOUR WHITE SHIRTS. That's right: funky subfusc. Not so damn charming now, is it?

Next, since we are MBAs and on the lowest rung of the totem pole, we don't get to go to the cool old 19th century official exam schools, we get to go to some 70s building in an Oxford suburb called Summertown. This means riding the bus, and also means hanging around in Summertown during the 3 or so hours between exams. Imagine 214 tuxedoed, stressed out, pushy MBAs all trying to cram in that last bit of studying in your quaint little coffee shop. We actually got kicked out of one for loitering. The exam schools won't let us sit in their building either, we get kicked out promptly after each exam. Further, all exams are done in pen, even math exams. What a pain. There are no notes to help you out, just you and your pen and your tuxedo. Add to this that you are not allowed to use your own calculator, but have to use a shitty one provided by the exam school. One guy, I SHIT YOU NOT, had a screwed up one in the row behind me, and every number came out in something like 10 digit exponential form. It was unusable, especially since these calculators only have 3 rows. He had to do all his crazy finance calculations by hand. In pen. The attitude of the exam school staff was, "you should know how to use our calculator". They even made an announcement about it at the end of the class, telling us to come to their "calculator seminar" next time. Poor fucking guy. I lost about 3 minutes from my test just feeling shitty for him. Exam school officials constantly pace the aisles checking and rechecking your ID (which must be sitting on the desk) every few minutes. The exam school concept is, I believe (Andy, correct me here) many hundreds of years old. Their big point is that there is no possible human way you could cheat, and that your papers get graded with total anonymity between students and profs... you just put a number on the booklet, never a name. Exam school staff are very picky about when you may stand, sit, drink water, go to the bathroom, etc. They dismiss us in rows, and yell at us not to speak until out of the building. They congratulate us when we get our exams all in the right slots after the test, and when we empty the room quickly without talking. They also hassle people for not wearing proper subfusc on the way in and out of the exam hall. Apparently, you can get turned away for not wearing it, but I haven't seen that happen. One really big fat guy reads from a pamphlet all about what to do, not to do, how long the exam is, etc., and then says "go". On the first day of exams, the fat guy told us that we didn't have to wear subfusc, there were several other universities in the UK that didn't require it and we were more than welcome to go to them instead of Oxford. The professor is present in the hall, just in case there is an error in the test, or something needs clarification. The have to wear subfusc too, but they get these bigger, fancier robes that are much more Dracula-like and even have a red hood. I've never seen a prof with his hood up, but it may happen in some secret rituals or whatever.

Ok, now it's time to get loaded with the MBAs.

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09.12.06 final stretch

I've spent the last week, 10 am to mindnight, studying at my desk. Financial Reporting, Finance, Statistics, Organizational Analysis, Strategy and Economics. I'm starting to feel somewhat OK-ishly prepared for exams, but sort of waver between assuredness and despair. Shelby says that I need a positive attitude, but she doesn't really understand how negativity and resolve fuse for me. I'd like to think that this is a Hernandez or maybe punky thing, but it's hard to say. Her concern is sweet nonetheless. Reba's been great: cooking, taking care of the apartment, typing away at her biotech and history research quietly while I curse my way through countless Skype calls to co-studiers and stacks of practice exams. FR and Stats exams are Monday AM. By Thursday it will be all over. Reba and I are going to Godstow meadow on Saturday, it's a very beautiful place, and I will take lots of pictures.

a nice view of Oxford: the rain swollen Thames rushing through

my view of Oxford, lately...

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03.12.06 open head and pluralism

Ok, this is going to be brief. We are studying for exams now, and that all begins one week from tomorrow. 6 exams in 4 days. No notes, no take home, no PENCILS, just me and my pen and my subfusc and whatever I can remember about these classes. Friday night was spent on organizing and getting my “developing effective managers” act together. I spent saturday, saturday night, and today going over practice finance problems. They are hard. I am not a math guy. But, the stuff is slowly creeping into my head. Reba is gone to London this weekend for a flamenco workshop, which is good: no one to talk to or distract me. There is a lot more review to go, but I’m making progress. Here’s the neat thing: this last 8 weeks, and especially the last 48 hours, have opened up my head. By this, I mean that I am beginning to be able to see new information, see the structure of it, and retain it in my brain. Normally, life sort of spoon feeds you what to do, what to say, etc., and you don’t have to actually crunch information very often. ESPECIALLY as an IT manager. Sort of like how you watch the history channel, see a bunch of facts and figures, nod your head and say, “that makes sense” and then forget it all 20 minutes later. That doesn’t work here, obviously.

I really noticed this today: I took a break for lunch, went to the Head of the River pub, and read my Oxford history book as a little switch from math. The author made a point about how many early Oxford colleges were founded by bishops, and how their foundation was really only possible because of pluralism and celibacy. I saw the structure there, noted the concepts, and now they’re stuck in my head. Previously, I would have just breezed by that info and couldn’t even tell you that I read it 20 minutes later, much less talked about what pluralism and celibacy meant to english bishops in the middle ages.

I think that the massive information overload coupled with the semi sadistic demands for retention are cracking my head open so that new stuff can go in, and maybe even stay there.

Ok now I will try to get more finance into my brain. CAPM and Portfolio Variance, you little bitches, I am coming back in: get ready.

Me and the Merton Men’s Crew C

18.11.06 distinction!

Like everything else at Oxford, grades are weird, non standardised with anybody else in the world, and subject to a lot of debate.  In the US, students get grades based on fairly straightforward percentages <60%(F) is a fail, <70% (D) is a really bad and you’ll get kicked out of your university if you keep it up , <80%(C) is totally average and you won’t get into your degree program if you average a C across degree related courses, <90% (B) is pretty good… so good for you, and <100%(A) is kick-ass.  Anyone getting 100% or more is a freak, trying to get into Harvard, or maybe wants to become an academic.  However, it IS totally possible to get 100% in a class, which makes sense, given the whole PERCENTAGE concept.  And since teachers often give extra assignments, extra points test questions, an etc. so folks on the low end of the scale can boost their score, the freaks have an opportunity to get 102% or whatever.  On the other end of the scale, you can easily end up with 40%, 20%, or even 0% if you don’t show up for the test, are totally high, never studied, etc. 

No so at Oxford (big surprise).

Here, grades are given on a scale of 40% to 80%. That’s right, forty PERCENT to eighty PERCENT (why not just make ten one louder?).  50% in a class is a passing grade.  <50% means you failed and have to take the class again (called a re-sit).  50% to 59% is a semi indication that you squeaked by and also semi suck, while 60% to 69% is considered typical, and 70% and above is called a “distinction”.  This means you kicked butt, and if you got grades like that all the time, you get to eat at some special dinner with the dean once a quarter, or whatever.  These percentages apparently also translate into later (british) life because what overall percentage you get lets you list on your resume whether or not you got 1st, 2nd, and whatever else honours, but this is mainly where super anal firms are concerned (sees below).  This system was recently explained to me by a guy in my crew boat, but I don’t remember all the details.  The funny thing about these percentages is that nobody who actually turns in a paper or exam ever gets less than a 40%, and usually, a dismal failure is a 45%.  Oh yeah, the business school also seem to only give out grades in increments of 5%, so, there is no getting 63.4%.  An 80% is something that happens once to a couple of super genius people a term per class: it’s totally rare.  85% and up simply do not happen, end of story.  Except for maybe once in the history of the business school or something like that. 

Why do it like this?  Here’s what I think:

1. Keeping top scores low makes the distribution of scores look normal (mba talk!) without having to hand out super low grades… that is, the grades look like they have a pretty even spread from 45 to 80, but almost everybody gets to pass, because 50 is where the passing grades start off.  They really don’t want to weed out students from an mba school the way they do in certain US undergrad programs, so they force a curve where everybody looks pretty good.

2. They like it to look like Oxford is sooooooo hard that just getting 50% of what an Oxford prof asks you on a test is good enough for mere mortals.

3. They don’t like to ask questions with really direct clearly right/wrong answers.  This is very different from all of my US schooling, but may be typical at US mba programs, I don’t know (chime in via comments if anybody out there has an opinion on this).  Back home, questions always had clear answers, they were either right or wrong, and often, they were multiple guess, even if you had to do a lot of work to get to the multiple guess answers.  Here, there is a lot of context and potential for elaboration which leaves room for you to get 3/5 marks (that’s what they call points here: marks) for answering something correctly, but not demonstrating your deep knowledge in a verbose way.  If that makes any sense.  They also seem to give out a couple of marks for trying, even though you’re wrong (more evidence that they don’t like to fail mbas).

Anyway, the point of this whole bit is that I got a Finance paper back with a 70%, which is a distinction, and means I kicked butt.  It sounds pretty lame if you don’t know all the crazy Oxford details behind it, but there you go, it’s a great score.  This is an especially big deal for me because 1) I totally suck at Finance, and it is really really hard for me, 2) I thought I was going to fail this assignment, and was really relieved and 3) I decided early that my goal here was to learn a lot, meet a lot of connections, have a swell time at Oxford, and get the minimum passing grade.  I seriously don’t give a shit about getting distinctions, honours, gold stars, or any other BS like that, I’m just not at a place in life where stuff like that drives what I do.  Plus, no one that I’m going to deal with in the real world is going notice or care if I got honours or not.  I should qualify that statement a bit: there are indeed some firms, as mentioned above, particularly big management consulting and investment banking firms, who are quite serious about what your honours are, kind of like how some companies back in the states care if you were valedictorian or want to know your GPA, etc.  These are also the companies that make you do 7 interviews before offering you a job.  The same companies that give you a bunch of crazy math problems, case studies, tests, and whatever else as part of the interview process.  The same companies that seriously expect you to work 80 hours a week, EVERY week, FOR EVER. 

I don’t want to work for these companies. 

This is for lots of reasons, not the least of which is that anyone that anal is going rub me the wrong way, and I probably wouldn’t enjoy working for them anyway.  So, I got a distinction, it was cool, I was surprised… but it’s really no biggie, and not something I’m going to purposely try to repeat in the future. 

 

Even so, I did feel pretty good about it. 

 

this is the view from our deck, it’s been stormy lately

 

 

 

 

13.11.06 motorhead!

This was a mostly typical weekend here…

 Friday: went to happy hour at the school, hung out with stressed MBAs and got loaded, went out for dinner and more drinks, came home and sacked out.  The big difference this weekend was that Reba’s cousin Jeff and his girl Jennifer were staying with us, so they came along too. 

Saturday: got up to the boathouse at 10 to 8 AM but then we got booted from our rowing slot (again) and had to settle for ergonomic machines. WEAK.  Our coach Tom (really great guy) tried to get us to run up to the gym after getting booted from our slot, and the non undergraduate contingent on the team (us old guys) decided that was BULLSHIT, and walked.  Had breakfast with Barry, tried unsuccessfully to study and then equally unsuccessfully to take a nap, then met with the NBD dudes for our kickoff.  The NBD is our New Business Development project, which is a fancy way of saying the “write a business plan” project.  We are going to make a line of gluten-free beer for celiacs.  This is a bit odd, but it will be fun because we’ll get to go to breweries, try a lot of beer, and learn about the brewing process, etc., while making a business plan.  Plus, it’s about 500,000,000 times more exciting than “some gay dotcom idea”, which I’ve had more than enough of in my life up to now.  After this, the dudes went out to dinner, had more beers, and then went home.  Chilly chill.

Sunday: Reba made breakfast for me, Jeff, Jen, and Shelby (we have adopted Shelby) which was lots of fun.  Then, Reba walked Jeff and Jen to the bus station (they’re off to Paris today) while I studied finance, which almost made sense after about 4 hours.  CAPM and WACC baby.  The next bit was the TRUE highlight of the weekend… Reba and I went to see Motorhead!! 

 

the classic logo

 

Lemmy Kilmister: Mr. Motorhead,

in his world famous singing pose

 

yes, he is SUPER ugly and that

is a wart on his face

 

YAHOOOO!!!!!!  They were awesome, and totally fun to watch.  I should point out once again how cool my wife is: she actually likes Motorhead.  And really prefers the fast songs.  How did I ever get so lucky?  Anyway, we sat in the back of a small theater in Oxford, and watched one of the alltime great heavy metal bands do it’s thing.  Lemme is about 60, and appears to have been drinking and smoking pretty hardcore for at least 58 of those years, although he never has gotten fat, for whatever reason.  The rest of the band look bad as well, but more on the pudgy/gray and less on the pickled/livingdead side of things.  They play fast hard and loud, and have their own sort of sloppy groovy they get into which works, but certainly isn’t very tight.  Lemmy screwed up the bass intro to the song “Ace of Spades”, which is their signature tune.  This exact same thing happened the last time I saw them as well… it’s not clear if he does it on purpose, or if the distortion is just too over the top for me to be able to pick out what’s going on, or if he doesn’t care, or what.  No one in audience cares about this anyway, Motorhead still ROCK.  Their set and onstage comments were just about the same as when I saw them in Seattle 2 years ago, and they were certainly very fucking loud (as they should be, they were once in the Guiness book of world records as the loudest band on earth) but one thing was really different here: the crowd.  First of all, there were no pat downs at the door, and no restrictions against re-entry.  Further, the age range was HUGE: lots of people in their 40s and certainly some in their 50s…

Brief sidebar: we went to the bar “The Gloucester Arms” for a pint while we waited out the crappy opening band, this turned out to be a very good idea.  First of all, the GA is a “heavy metal” bar in downtown Oxford, complete with all-metal jukebox, metal band posters on the walls, goofy metal dudes, and slutty looking chubby metal chicks, all wearing black tshirts with some metal band’s name on them.  Except for tonight, where the whole scene was repeated, except everyone was wearing Motorhead tshirts.    We ended up talking to a couple of bald, portly, Motorhead tshrit sporting 50 somethings who were also going to the show, and apparently had the same pint-and-wait-out-the-crappy-opening-band idea we had.  They were nice enough guys, if a bit unintelligible accent-wise, but the kicker was this: as one of them left, he put on his coat, turned to us with a resigned look, flashed the metal sign, and said, “Right. Well, rock on then.”, turned, and exited the bar.  PRICELESS PRICELESS PRICELESS.  Back to the story…

…as well as young people all the way down to some 10 year olds with their mom sitting behind us!  One of the kids sitting behind us was totally cute, he kept yelling “you rock!”, and “yeah, metal!” at the band, and there were quite a few other parent and kid combos there tonight as well.  This show vibe was entirely friendly and fun, and people were clearly just there to have a good time and watch a favorite band.  There were no fights, and really no seriously scary people, just a few old semi-rough looking bikers here and there and a scantily dressed fat chick who was intent on head banging and sexy dancing while turned around facing toward the crowd (funny exhibitionist fat chick).  The security was non existent, but so was the hostility, and people honestly behaved very well.  This experience contrasts with the show we attended in Seattle a few years back: that really was a whole other deal.  That show was made up of drunk skinheads, crusty punks, weird-beard sketchy white trash metal dudes from the way-out suburbs (probably on meth), as well as a sprinkling of those sarcastic hipster types (naming no names).  The vibe at the Seattle show was hostile and negative, with a tone indicating that violence could break out at any time.  And it did.  At the door, the pat down searches were in full effect, and the security goons (and they were total goons) were taking peoples’ spiked belts, ripping chains off of chain wallets, confiscating banned items, etc.  I guess that seeing Motorhead over here is something like seeing Grand Funk Railroad back home: yeah it’s loud rock and roll, but nobodys getting their head kicked in over it.  In Seattle, and maybe in the US in general(?), Motorhead seem to represent something a little darker, a little more burn-out, and certainly more ready to cross over into the violent sphere.  Of course, then again, maybe that was because they were playing with the Dwarves?  I dunno, all I can say is that it was a hoot, and I got a cool new tshirt and hat, as well as a break from the books.  I came back and memorised 16 (“capital employed” isn’t a formula, really) accounting ratio formulae, and now I’m finishing up my night with a post.  Back to the shizz!

 

net profit margin = pbit / turnover

gross profit margin = gross profit / turnover

avg settlement time for debtors = avg trade debtors / credit sales

avg settlement time for creditors = avg trade creditors / credit purchases

sales per employee = turnover / employee

sales to capital employed = turnover / capital employed 

gearing ratio = avg long term liabilities / avg capital employed

return on capital employed = pbit / capital employed

average stock turnover period = avg stock held / cost of sales x 365

current ratio = current assets / current liabilites

actid test ratio = current assets – stocks / current liabilites

gearing ratio = longterm liabilities / capital employed

interest cover = pbit / interest payable

dividend payout ratio = dividends announced for payout / earnings available for dividends

earnings per share = pait / total shares

P/E ratio = market value per share / earnings per share

…and capital employed = long term liabilities + share capital + reserves

29.10.06 merton time ceremony

 

Merton's peaceful precincts are disturbed once a year by the (in)famous Time Ceremony, when students, dressed in formal sub-fusc, walk backwards around Fellows' Quad drinking port. Traditionally participants also hold candles but in recent years this practice has been dropped, and many students have now adopted the habit of linking arms and twirling around at each corner of the quad. The purpose is ostensibly to maintain the integrity of the space-time continuum during the transition from British Summer Time to Greenwich Mean Time which occurs in the early hours of the last Sunday in October. There are two toasts associated with the ceremony, the first is "to good old time" whilst the second is "long live the counter revolution!".

– “Merton Time Ceremony” Wikipedia, 29 October 2006

 

Sadly, I am so busy that I am posting highlights of last weekend’s activities a week and a half late.  Ok, that makes it two weekends ago.  Sigh. Sigh. Sigh. 

 

The actual story of the Merton Time Ceremony is somewhat lost to history, and I suspect, to no small degree of embarrassment.  The founders claim lots of things, but specifically that …

“The purpose and effect of this is to create a localised area in which natural time stands still for one hour, in the hope that into this void of depressed natural time thus created will flow sufficient natural time from other areas to nearly equalise civil time throughout the country within one revolution of the Earth, thus reducing  by several seconds the time it would otherwise take nature and mankind to re-adapt their diurnal cycle after an abrupt ‘stationary jet-lag’”. 

…and that is the layman’s version.  Check out “lots of things” above to see the actual sciency version.  Here is a three part layman’s layman interpretation of what really is (and was) going on.

What It Is

Clocks get turned back every year in the fall, the founders thought they could “fix” space/time by walking backwards for 1 hour during the switch.  Because it’s Merton and Oxford, that means drunk and wearing subfusc.

 What It Was

I can only speculate on this, but I think that what REALLY happened was the founders were big geeks with 1) too much physics on the brain and 2) nothing to do on a Saturday night.  So, they though up some absurd, semi-Pythonesque, 70’s style wacky ritual during which they could be witty in a performance art sort of way, and drunk.  And have a semi excuse for having nothing to do on a Saturday night… if they were like the rest of the student body, they would have been out disco dancing, getting loaded, and picking up on chicks.  But they weren’t: they were home trying to impress each other with how witty and science-core they could be.  Ok, I can relate to that.  There were probably about 3 people the first Time Ceremony, if the “lots of things” (above) documentation is any indication.

What it Has Become

Today, it looks like a fucked up backwards drunk subfusc Hajj.  Basically, there are hundreds of Mertonians guzzling bottles of port, linked arm in arm, walking backwards around the quad FAST.  It’s almost kind of slam-dancy.  Glass gets broken, drunks tumble over, toes get crushed, bodies get slammed into, and people get hurt.  It was totally disaster-cool, like a Primate-5 show that had gone all highbrow.  With less blood.  I didn’t get a good picture of the motion, but I have some step by step that should help clarify things...

 

everyone meets on the chestnut lawn just before the clocks change

 

filing along to the fellows tower

 

 

down the corridor to the quadrangle

 

in the quadrangle

(remember, these people are all walking backwards, FAST)

 

see?  they’re drunk!

 

nothing was going to stop this guy

(notice dude in red robe on the right, a founder)

 

filing out after

 

spooky post time ceremony quad

 

tired tired tired e

 

 

A Word On The Founders

I didn’t meet these guys, but did see the effects of their presence on a room they had just left.  They basically came into the MCR, sat down, and refused to answer questions about the ceremony, claiming that it was all on the website.  Whatever.  They then made some crack about there being too much estrogen in the room (there were no women at Merton in the 70s, and there are lots now) and too many provincials (grad students are mostly not English, again a change from the 70s).  Then, they split.  I saw them coming out, looking a bit crusty in a junior high school science teacher sort of way, like they’d been wearing the same robes and suits and ties since the 70s.  They didn’t say anything to me, but boy oh boy did they piss off the “provincial” girls in the room!  I’m kind of sorry I missed the whole exchange: getting shit on by snooty upper-crust English is one of those “quintessential” experiences you look for when in England.  Sort of like getting camphelobacter jejueni from eating chicken sashimi in Japan, right?  Right?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

22.10.06 studying...

Now it’s 23:24 Sunday night, and I’m studying again.  But I did get out a bit this weekend.  And I also went to my first rowing practice, but since the river is just about to overflow it’s banks, they aren’t letting novices row just now.  So, we went for a nice long run in the pouring rain.  And by pouring, I mean really really soaking wet running through puddles POURING.  It was kind of fun anyway.  Back to the books.

 

I was told that I looked like a “child molester” dressed like this.  

 

I felt that was a bit unfair.

19.10.06 NPV

[8:51 PM – Business School Library]

Net present value is crawling up my ass and trying to eat the lining of my stomach away, one discount rate at a time. Actually, it’s competing for space with his buddies Supply Curve, Discount Factor and Present Value of Annuities.

Most people who know me are aware that I am not a computational giant. Somewhere between my lack of interest in endlessly repeating math problems, my lack of attention to details (like decimal points, numbers, etc.) and my basic inaptitude, I suck at math. Sucking at math is really only a problem in 4/6 of my first term MBA courses. The other two courses, Developing Effective Managers, and Strategy are no problemo. I can talk about cases, and pontificate on psychological theories for endless hours with minimal effort. Unfortunately, Managerial Economics (just Economics, really), Decision Science (Statistics) and Finance (mean math with percent signs) are a big problemo. I will have to slog through these. The last course? Financial Reporting. This is Accounting by any other name. This has nothing to do with math, it’s just a bunch of totally random and crazy rules that change from country to country, company to company, accountant to accountant, and in my sorry little case: apparently from class to class as well. Sigh. One more day until the weekend and Ean drinking a lot of funny English beer. That sounds good, except for the part where I have to spend all weekend studying anyway, so the beer will just get in the way.

Sigh.

On a cheerier note: I am starting to get a vague feel for how to play the game here. Some, not all, but some of the professors give tons of reading (like hundreds of pages a week) that they really don’t expect you to absorb in any meaningful way. They also give you un-collected assignments that are basically what you’re going to see on the exam. The ONE exam you’ll get all term. That’s not brutal or anything, is it? There are also “exercise” sessions for the quantitative classes during which the professors actually answer questions about how to work problems, talk through issues you had with the homework, repeat things, etc… the type of stuff that you’d expect to have in the normal lecture, but in our case (maybe also true at other MBA programs?) don’t. The main lectures that everyone attends are more like big performances where the profs show fancy powerpoint slideshows, tell funny stories, give wacky analogies, and generally behave in the way that eccentric professorial types are supposed to behave. I often wonder if this eccentricity bit isn’t a show put on for rep reasons, and actually when these guys get home, they’re totally normal. Probably not, but then again, considering my friends and family, maybe the eccentric profs don’t seem all that wacky after all? In any event, the idea is (potentially) to skim through the monster reading assignments, do the homework problems backwards and forwards a billion times, and ask lots of questions in the exercise classes. Also, loose teams of MBAs are banding together to share out reading notes, in an effort to reduce the overall workload. We’ll see how that pans out.

Back to the shiz.

10.14.06 matriculation

“In the English universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Durham, the term is used for the ceremony at which new students are entered into the register (in Latin matricula) of the university, at which point they become members of the university. Oxford requires matriculands to wear academic dress with sub-fusc during the ceremony.  At Oxford and Cambridge matriculation was formerly associated with entrance examinations taken before or shortly after matriculation, known as Responsions at Oxford and the Previous Examination at Cambridge, both abolished in 1960.”

-“Matriculation” Wikipedia, 16 September 2006

 

I just love this picture

 

The Rundown

This was a pretty cool day.  After all the study-kookery of last week and the predictable whoopitup of MBAs on the Friday night prowl, today’s activities were pretty distinctive.  I finally wore my subfusc officially for the first time, and got to be in my matriculation ceremony at the Sheldonian Theater.  A (fairly shitty) photo journal of the highlights is at the end of this post.  The day started early, as I had to be up, showered, dressed, out the door, across the meadow and at Merton by 8:20 AM.  My bow tie tying skills were certainly put to the rush test this morning, but I guess I did OK, it didn’t fall off at any point.    Then, all the freshers posed for a group picture (just like in elementary school) in the front quad.  Next, we were carefully roll called by a fellow of the college.  This is a big deal apparently, because if you don’t get on his list on matriculation day, you aren’t officially in the university, and have to go through what was described as “all sorts of trouble”.  I made sure I got on the list.  Next, we all got to wear our “mortar boards” (square hat) as we walked from Merton to the Sheldonian.  The background here is that even though you have to wear subfusc for every written exam, you are not allowed to wear your hat except for Matriculation and Graduation, even though you are required to carry the damn thing with you!  Funny funny rules.  This scene was kind of neat: thousands of students in subfusc marching through the foggy AM streets of October Oxford.  Next, we filed into the theater, sat down, and waited for the officials to come in and run the ceremony.  Some bored looking professors in robes sat down on the main floor in fancy chairs.  After a few minutes, some guys in even fancier robes walked in holding these big golden staff things, and one went up to the (very fancy) podium.  One robed dude on the main floor said a bunch of stuff in Latin to the the guy up on the podium, who in turn replied in Latin, they both took their hats off to one another, and podium dude gave a short speech.  Apparently, floor guy was asking podium dude if he would let us into the university, and podium dude said “sure”.  Then, we got a brief lecture about working hard, being welcoming and tolerant of people from diverse cultures, and podiumdude/floorguy split with an appropriate degree of pomp and circumstance.  All done!

 

The Schmaltzy Part

I’ve been dreaming of coming to this University for years, ever since Reba and I stepped out of Holywell Street onto Broad Street and first saw the Sheldonian way back in 2002 on our first England vacation trip.  It has this massive stone and iron fence around it, with these big sort of classical Greek stone heads on the tops of the stone fenceposts.  The heads stare out at you with this fairly heavy look, like you’d seriously better have your shit together if you think you’re coming to matriculate or graduate here (both ceremonies occur in this building).  I was so blown away by the building, I immediately felt this longing to come here.  Of course, Oxford itself, the colleges, the history and everything else about this place just added to the pull, but it was those heads that first hooked me.  After all the time that’s passed and crazy stuff that’s happened in my personal and professional life since first meeting those heads: the growth and erosion of my career at wamu, the loss of interest in rock, the decision to reinvent my professional life and to start over in a new country, the gmat summer, the application fall, the weekend trips to England, the acceptances, the news breaking to friends and family, the Tasha meltdowns, the farewells and parties, the 1st summer vacation in 19 years, the trip with mom, the settling in, and the first week of class… I was semi-blown away to find myself finally marching into the Sheldonian.  Sitting there with a ton of bored and hung over freshers, the vibe in the room as the Chancellor (I think that was who podium guy was) was a little tense, but mostly the atmosphere said “yawwwwwn”.  Not for me though, I felt like I crossed a threshold sitting in that room.  Listening to that guy on the podium, I felt this shudder of emotion run right up my back and into my head and out to my eyes.  Today I sat in the Sheldonian Theater at Oxford University, a member of Merton College and the Said Business School, and was accepted in.  Tucked away in the combined drone of the Chancellor’s speech, the creaking of students shifting their weight on uncomfortable benches, and the whispered chatter of bored undergraduates, I sat quiet on one of the happiest days of my life, tears running down my cheeks.

 

 

heads at the Sheldonian

 

 

 up at 7:30 to dress and make it to Merton by 8:30

  

a pretty walk across Christ Church Meadow in the foggy AM

  

meeting at Merton

 

 

walking with the freshers (Greg pictured here) across town

 

more walking

 

and some more

 

 

porters letting us into the Sheldonian

 

that’s a lot of black and white outfits!

 

we all come pouring out

 

the streets fill with newly matriculated freshers