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

10.13.06 release

Friday was another 2 class day, and this was a doozie: back to back decision science (stats) and finance. There are a lot of concepts to this stuff, and the pace is very fast. The work is also fairly math-y. These two courses will kick my ass, but I will do my best. During the lunch break, I had a quick salad (thanks Reba) in the lunchroom with Brandon, who incidentally has his own web site at www.asskicking.com. He loves this photo, so I just had to post it…

 

“Brandon Stache”: Canadian Porn Star

 

Josh will be glad to know that I managed to spill my drink all over Brandon, something that seems to happen to people I spent time with during meals. As spilling goes, it could certainly have been much worse: I opened my bottle of carbonated water and it exploded all over Brandon, fortunately it was just water, and being the good outdoorsy type that he is, he was actually wearing a raincoat! Then I rushed across town to Merton to drop off a form applying for Reba’s associate membership to the MCR (Middle Common Room, i.e. grad student hangout) which gets her a key to Merton, dining privilege, into all the events, etc. Then, I rushed back to the business school and just made it to class as it began. Due to the relative humidity and relative out-of-shape-ity of my lazy ass, I was totally covered in sweat by the time I got there. After class, everybody went to the “common room” at the business school for a drink. “Common room” is really a fancy way of saying BAR. In the school. Seriously. The MBA folks had all just completed their first week of long classes, massive reading, and required bickering sessions (deceptively referred to by the school establishment as “case study groups”), and they were all ready to let off some steam. And boy, did they! The school sells mixed drinks, beers, and glasses (pronounced glosses) of wine at 1 pound each, which is unheard of in this town. We drank all the liquor, all the beer, and a lot of the wine before leaving to go out for more drinking. The place was a mad house: people getting loaded, hitting on one another, playing drinking games, standing on tables, and generally making a huge racket. You could feel the previous week’s stress level in the tone of the room, both by the level of debauch that people were treating themselves to and by the psycho-atmospheric tension humidity. We all went out to the Jericho Tavern, a pretty cool joint with continental beers and the honour of being the site of Radiohead and Supergrass’ first shows.

Naturally, we finished the day with the MBA dudes out drinking til 12AM.

Sasha and Patrcik playing drinking games (aka stupid human tricks)

Ryan gets in on the action

Sally Webb and Reba. Nice.

Jean and Renee and some dude

Koome and Jean

Eugiene, Etongi, Emma: drinky girls. Yahoo!

John Stanton stars in: Drunk Guy Eye

10.12.06 work work work

Things are off to a roaring start this week!

Classes are 3.5 hours long.  Seminars are 3.5 hours long.  We had two classes Monday, one seminar and one class Tuesday, one class and a 4.5 hour study group meeting Wednesday, and finally have today off.  Friday is another 2 class day.  Each lunchtime, I read while I eat, and then when the day is done, I eat dinner and then study until 1AM.  I slept in today to catch up on sleep a bit, that felt very very nice.  Reba is being great, really supportive, she’s taking care of all the domestic stuff while I’m in this cram mode.  It’s pretty hard to get time to run to the store or make a healthy meal when you’re so busy, so I’m extra grateful.  Of course, she just got a job so this will all cease shortly!  She went on just one interview and immediately got an offer.  This simply adds further credence to my theory that “everybody likes Reba”.  She got a research and lab management job with the Oxford University Radiation Oncology and Biology department.  These folks are working on experimental breast cancer cures, but once again, I really don’t actually understand what it is that Reba does.   

 

Electronic Note Taking

Despite the fact that Josh continues to gleefully point out to me that “in addition to reading and homework, note taking is also optional in grad school. Just ask your profs”, I plan to rely heavily on  my note taking method in the learning process this year. 

I use a fairly integrated system consisting of Microsoft Onenote, Microsoft Outlook Calendar and Microsoft Outlook Tasks to manage time-lines, course-work, notes and general information.  Most people are very familiar with Calendar and Tasks, but if you haven't yet used Onenote, it is worth a moment's description.

Onenote allows quick, autosaving note taking.  It provides collapsible hierarchical bullet trees and a customisable flagging feature that makes it easy to group and locate important note taking elements such as questions, important points, assignments, and "to do" items.  This is very helpful when reviewing for tests, referring to something from the reading, searching for things you flagged as unclear during the reading, pulling up past class notes, or simply capturing something important the instructor said on the spot.  Onenote provides simple drawing features, which can be helpful with diagramming.  Onenote also automatically creates Outlook tasks, and plugs directly into Microsoft Sharepoint, which we also use at the school.  Onenote's search functions are particularly useful when combing through an entire term's worth of notes.  And, Onenote is a great way to bring together disparate electronic data... articles, power point presentations, cases, etc.  If you hadn’t guessed, we have plenty of these.

It's nothing earthshaking, but the system I use is as follows:

• When reading in preparation for classes, I take notes using Onenote, flagging any concerns or questions I might have for the instructor.
• During class, I am then easily able to refer to and update the notes from my preparation with lecture points and clarifications, and also have any questions or concerns ready at my fingertips.
• After class, I am able to share notes with fellow students, study groups etc.
• Finally, before a test, I am able to quickly and easily pull important review points from one place.  This part is really cool.

The electronic note-taking issue relative to my professors is not as bad as I thought it would be based on class #1.  Out of 4 instructors, their responses have been:

#1 – “No way, no how, uh-uh.  Nope.”

#2 – “I don’t care, but my boss said I can’t.  I’ll check with him again.”

#3 – “I’d prefer not, but if you must, then OK.”

#4 – “That’s very polite of you to ask first.  Yes of course you may.”

Hehe.  I think that I may have learned a bit of an object lesson here… you may notice how they are being cooler about electronic note taking each time I ask a different guy.  My method has been changing, I think that may have a lot to do with it. 

With Prof #1, I just started taking notes in class with my computer.  He stopped the class, told me to close my laptop, and told me to take notes on the handouts with a pencil.  That was embarrassing, especially since it was class one day one hour one!  I guess that I attract attention everywhere I go.    I spoke to him at the break, and told him something stupid like “I take lots of notes with my computer”…  but by this time, I would have had to be quite a salesman (or liar) to convince him to change his mind, especially after he showed his cards in front of the whole class.  No dice.  I’ll be printing notes and retyping in for the rest of the term.

With Prof #2, I kept the laptop in my bag until the break, very politely introduced myself, and mentioned that note taking was a big part of my study habits.

With Prof #3, I kept the laptop in my bag until the break, very politely introduced myself, and briefly explained my process above.  I also promised that I would never surf the web, look at email, or check an IM ever in his class. 

With Prof #4, I kept the laptop in my bag until the break, very politely introduced myself, and briefly explained my process above.  I also promised that I would never surf the web, look at email, or check an IM ever in his class.  I also explicitly asked him if I may have “his permission” to take notes in class on my laptop.

Maybe #4 was an anomaly, but I seemed to strike a nerve with the permission bit, because it hit pay-dirt… of course, I still have #5 and 6 to contend with.  We’ll see.

 

The I Always Wondered How That Works Factor

I have to say that so far, every single course and every single reading so far has been interesting, and has brought me some degree of what I call the “I Always Wondered How That Works Factor”.  I.A.W.H.T.W.F. for me is when I’m reading, learning, listening, whatever, and find myself saying, “wow, that’s cool, I always wondered about that”.  That makes me feel really good, for whatever reason.  Another cool aspect of this course-work is there’s a lot of class discussion.  While this seems to get easily sidetracked, it also is a neat opportunity to share your ideas and get some ideas from others.  The biggest bummer from all of this so far is the crystal clear indication that I will never be able to spend all the time learning each subject that I would like to spend.  I’m going to have to dig deep within myself to be a successful student, but that will still only give me a skimming of the material.  That’s what I get for doing a 1 year MBA.  Honestly, I would have gone to Oxford if it had been a 1, 2 or 3 year MBA, just because I’m into this place.  But, 1 year is the only option currently so I’ll just have to deal.

 

Matriculation Rising

Saturday is Matriculation.  This is where all the new entrants to the University put on their subfusc, sit in the Sheldonian Theatre, and get read a bunch of medieval “welcome to the university” stuff in Latin.  I’m super totally down, but it’s a 7:30 AM Saturday type of deal, and that part will suck.

 

Rowing?

Anybody who’s heard more about Oxford than the preceding 6 letter word (that’s o-x-f-o-r-d Josh) knows about the rowing fetish.  There is probably a big long story about how this came about, but I don’t know what it is, and if I’m going to be researching anything this morning, it’s going to be Financial Reporting!  The upshot is that it’s a big deal, and there are a zillion levels of Oxford crews available so that you can get your row on at Oxford.  I am attempting to join something called a 2nd and 3rd Novice Crew, which is for bottom feeders like me who’ve never even sat in a crew boat (probably the wrong word for this type of boat, they’re probably “slingers” or “stickey-horses” or “queens-heads” or whatever else medieval goofball name these people came up with for them).  This should be entertaining.

 

Special to Frank and Josh: any comments posted about my ass sinking, punching through, or capsizing the crew boat are such cheap shots that you will get negative points for wasting cyberspace by even taking the time to type them in.  Fair warning.

 

 

10.09.06 day 1

It’s 8:29 AM and I’m sitting in the classroom before my first class at Oxford. I did a bunch of reading yesterday and the day before, and I’m more or less ready for day 1. Idon’t know exactly what to expect, but I had a fun time reading about economics (for the first time) and strategy (also for the first time) over the last few days. People are filing in slowly, but class doesn’t start for another 16 minutes. Gerard, the south african accountant from my study group and I are just realizing that the economics professor both reccomended a £40 book and provided the relevant chapters in a course photocopy book.

– – – – – More Later! – – – – – –

Ok, it’s 17:11 now, and two classes later, the day is done. It turns out that the first professor doesn’t like it when people use their computers for note taking, which really SUCKS, because that’s how I take notes. The second prof doesn’t care, but apparently the Dean (?) has mandated that students not use laptops for note taking during class, because of the tendency to surf the internet, IM people, and etc.

<deleted rant></deleted rant>

However, I accept that I’m here on Oxford’s terms, not mine, so I will have to adapt. For now, I’ll be printing out my reading notes before the lecture, taking written notes during lecture, and then typing them in later.

aaarrrrrgghhhhh.

10.07.06 naught week almost over

First things first.  There are officially 8 weeks of each term, and the terms have crazy old fashioned names: Michaelmas, Hilary, and Trinity.  Of course, just like everything else at Oxford, the official version is not actually accurate and has a bunch of odd caveats.  For example, last week was -1th week (two week before Michaelmas begins).  This week is naught week (zero week) also sometimes called zeroth week, and believe me there was plenty going at the university, school and college during this time.  Monday is the first week of term, which theoretically ends in 8 weeks.  But it doesn’t there’s a 9th week and a 10th week for exams too.  Ok, hopefully that’s clear.

Also, I should apologise for the lack of photos, Reba has gone off to Greece with her buddies and took the camera with her, so it’s just my boring writing until tomorrow evening when she returns.

The busy factor is starting to blow my mind, and school hasn’t even begun yet.  You often hear University staff remark, or read in whatever official mailings that “you can’t do it all” while you’re here.  What an understatement.  This past week (naught) included the following events, unless otherwise noted, they all run back to back.

 

Saturday Sept 30

(note: since I have to deal with the stupid 24 hour time system here, YOU have to as well, enjoy it)

11:00 tour of my college, Merton.  We learned all about the history, famous guests and scholars, got a tour of the library (the oldest still in use in the English speaking world), halls, etc.  Damn cool.

14:30 The Oxford Pursuit scavenger hunt.  Sort of a high faluting way of getting to know the town and some history while trying to bond with and wrestle for control with other type-A MBA people.  In the pouring rain.

19:30 Dinner with Reba, she was leaving for Greece later in the evening.  I picked up some fairly passable Chinese take out.

Had to skip the 15:30 graduate parenting tea in the Merton MCR.  “Parents” are students that have been at Merton for at least a year and can give you the lowdown on stuff, which is good because no one else will even attempt to.  The MCR is the Middle Common Room.  This is the graduate student only social hall, a really old room with a TV, stereo and… you guessed it!  A BAR!!!!  There is also a JCR (Junior Common Room) for undergrads, and some sort of Senior room for the fellows and whatever.

We finished the day with the MBA dudes out drinking til 2AM.

 

Merton MCR

 

Sunday Oct 1

13:30 stomped across Christ Church Meadow in the pour-assing rain to get to Merton for what was going to be a rain drenched tour of the city.  Turns out they cancelled it due to rain.  Figures.  I looked like I had waded through a bathtub.  Was also generally hung over and did jack shit, for various reasons.

Monday Oct 2

8:30 induction information lectures at the business school.  Lasted all day until 17:00.  Got to listen to a bunch of official types talk about the curriculum, online assignment submission system, career center, etc.  1/2 of the incoming class of 214 gave 1 minute each bios on stage.  That was painful.

17:00 ran across town to Merton where I had to sit in my suit in the Saville room (not as nice as it sounds) and wait for my name to be called, along with all the other “freshers” so I could walk up, shake hands with the warden, and sign my name in her big book of people’s signatures.  She was very smiley about it and said “welcome to the college”.  Neato!

19:00 ran back across town to the school for a welcome reception.  This is where they turn the normal studious and serious lobby area into a big frigging party room.  These people like to drink, and the wine was very free flowing.  I can’t say how much we went through, but it was cases and cases.  Some of last year’s MBA class were there, and the staff hung around guzzling as well.

We finished the day with the MBA dudes out drinking til 2AM.

Tuesday Oct 3

8:30 induction day 2 at the school.  A marathon 12 hours in the same room, and the second half of the 214 got their 1 minute.  This was murderously painful.  Can you say, “I am ____ from India, I work in IT, and I like Cricket and Football” 45 times in a row with a straight face?  I can now say that I’ve seen it done, but by 45 different people.  Met my study group, and we had our first meeting.  Interesting folks all around: a South African accountant, a marketer from Hong Kong, a couple of IT guys from India, a Canadian project manager, and me.

Had to skip the 10:00 meeting with Merton Tutors, 16:00 meeting with the Merton welfare team, and 20:00 Merton bar crawl (going to all the bars at the different colleges) because of schedule conflicts with the biz school and sheer exhaustion.  I was really annoyed by the end of this day.

Wednesday Oct 4

9:40 health presentation at Merton.  This was funny.  I basically sat in the big dining hall at Merton, with 100 or so other graduate and undergraduate freshers and got lectured about not getting beat up by the townies, contraception, drug use, etc.  I had a brief meeting after with the Merton nurse, who weighed me and said that I am 15.5 stone.  Whatever that is.  It probably sounds worse in pounds, anyway.  Also, I was informed that I could not get my mumps and meningitis shots at the college and would have to go to the doctor’s office for my shots.  Apparently I am too old, and if I had a reaction to the shots, the nurse wouldn’t have the right “gear” to take care of me.  Whatev.

11:00 started putting my calendar and task list together for the term.  I now have 168 separate tasks in my todo list, mostly reading.  The assignments haven’t been given out yet, so I’ll add those as well.  Keep in mind: I only have 8 weeks to do all 168 readings.

15:00 had a pint and a chat about web projects with an alumus, Tom M.  Tom is starting a company and wanted to get an idea of what it would cost to do some web work.  I can’t go into the details, because I am under super-double-secret-sbs-handshake-lockdown oath to not reveal the details of our conversation or his company idea.  This is a bit funny, because this is probably the 3rd time I’ve had this double secret style conversation with people at SBS this week.  The ideas are all generally pretty good too, by the way.

16:00 meeting with the college officers at Merton.  This was a lot of fire safety, behaviour requirements, info about fines you can be given, etc.  The Bursar rambled on at length about different subjects in a super dry humour sarcastic sort of way.  He made everyone feel a bit weird by telling us how he’d been “given the sack” and would be leaving soon, and was planning on spending the rest of his days sitting in a dark room staring at his computer.  Seriously.  And then he told us how he has attended Merton as an undergrad in the 60’s, and how our experience as grad students would in no way be as “orgasmic” as it would have been as undergrads.  Seriously.  He may be crazy, or just weird, or just bitter, or some of all of those things.  He went on about fire safety as well.  These Brits are really worked up about fire safety.

20:00 champagne reception in Merton chapel’s antechapel.  Everyone from the MCR got dressed up and guzzled champagne in the chapel at Merton.  This is a huge church, apparently at one point it was going to be the general church for Oxford, but it didn’t for whatever reason and now it’s just for the college.  Pretty cool place to have a party.  Talked to tons of smartypants grad students, but they make me feel A) old and B) degenerate.  They’re all 21 or 22, and many are pooped out at 11pm, right when I get ready to go meet up with the MBAs for some more drinking.  The clean cut physiology grad students and etc. often just go to bed after this kind of affair, but as noted, on most nights, the MBAs go out drinking til 2AM.  However, tonight was an exception: we all went disco dancing, and it wasn’t too totally sausage fest lame, there were actually a few cute gradstudent-girls with us.  We went to a “hiphop” club, and everybody did the creepy bump and grind dance that is so popular these days.  I just can’t bring myself to do this… I prefer doing the retro rock and roll dance, if not doing some outright pogo-ing.  The sexy bootie grind dance just weirds me out, and I can’t really move that way anyway.  This also makes me feel old, but not quite as degenerate.

We finished the day with the MBA dudes out drinking til 2AM.

Thursday Oct 5

9:30 Freshers’ Fair at the Examination School.  The Exam School is the place where you go to take tests wearing your subfusc, but today there was no dress code and it was filled with booths recruiting for every student group at Oxford.  Ethnic, political, language, hobby, sport, gaming, food and wine, military, literary, music, dance, and just about any other type of group you could imagine were represented there.  I joined groups for dinghy racing, fencing, wine, hunting, entrepreneurship, and indie/alternative music, not that I’ll have any time for them.    A bit about the hunting group: fox hunting is now illegal here.  So instead of “fox hunting” per se, these guys go out in the woods and follow packs of trained beagles around and see what they scare up, I don’t know what happens if anything does get scared up.  Funny.  Even better though: they don’t have horses.  So, this group of dudes have to follow the beagles on foot, there were even pictures in the booth of the club in all of their fox hunting horse riding gear, with no horses around.  I can’t help but think of Monty Python’s “The Holy Grail” where the knights all gallop along on foot because they don’t have horses… How can I not join this club?

18:30 drinks with Dr Alan Morrison and Dr Kate Blackmon, fellows (I think) at Merton.  Basically, myself and a bunch of grad and undergrad freshers got suits on, and went to Dr Kate’s private study at Merton, where we chit chatted politely while Kate and Alan tried to get us loaded on sherry.  Alan’s English, but Kate’s from Chapel Hill, and reminds me of Maryanne Garland, for those who know her.  By the way, she’s also one of the officers who was lecturing us the previous day about rules, regs, and NOT over-imbibing at Merton.  This was fun.

19:00 pre-dinner drinks in MCR.  More sherry and grad students in fancy dress.

19:30 Matriculation dinner in Merton Hall.  Harry Potter eat your heart out!  We all filed into the ancient dining hall and sat at assigned seats at long tables with benchs underneath scowly painting of famous Mertonians in wigs.  The grad/undergrad-students were all busy talking when the Fellows (including Kate and Alan) came marching in.  Everybody hushed and stood up for this, kind of like when the judge enters a courtroom.  Then we all sat down.  Then we stood up and the Vicar (?) said a prayer in Latin, and then they served us a 3 course dinner, which was actually pretty good.  There was a brief speech at the end by the Warden, who is sort of Professor McGonagall-ish in a way.

We finished the day with the MBA dudes out drinking til 2AM.

Friday Oct 6

11:00 totally stupid “tour” of the careers center at SBS.  This consisted of filing into the careers center, some semi bitchy presentations by career center staff on what not to do with your 2 allotted 1/2 hour sessions of career advice per term, and direction to the various leaflets and pamphlets laying around.  I’m not sure, but I’m getting the feeling that the careers folks may not be my favorite Oxonians before too long.  I’m reserving judgement for now, however.

Afternoon – got the study group’s sharepoint site up and running, finished typing in the tasks and calendar items for the term, uploaded the tasks/items to the sharepoint for the rest of the folks in my section to download and import, set up the shared google calendar for the study group.

18:00 dinner with Sasha, Orly and their visiting pal whose name I forget.  Their son Nir was also there.  This dinner was great, and we had a really excellent time, and Nir is a very cute little guy.  The best thing about this night is that it was the first time I’ve had dinner with 3 Israelis and had PORK CHOPS!  I found out that Hedgehogs and Porcupines aren’t kosher either, but I don’t think Sasha will be serving these anytime soon.  Apparently the Arabs in Israel eat a lot of Porcupines, Sasha says they’re pretty good!

20:00 went to the Wadham College Bop.  A Bop is a school dance, and the theme of this was “school uniforms” …basically it was the sexy catholic schoolgirl look for the girls and whatever the dudes could work out.  This place was gigantic, filled with 1000s of undergrads, totally drunk.  The funny thing about colleges here is that they not only don’t restrict alcohol use among the students, they actually encourage it by having a bar in the college!  Sometimes more than one!  This was was giant drunk undergrad dance party sexy dance fiasco, and honestly, Sasha and I were a bit out of place.  We each had a Guiness and split.

We finished the day with the MBA dudes out drinking til 2AM.

Saturday Oct 7

Actually read something for my Monday classes.  Crazy, I know.  Pretty neat article about vision, core ideology and envisioned future at businesses by the guys who wrote “Built to Last”.  It’s great to read stuff firsthand that I’m typically exposed to when it’s being thrown around (usually incorrectly) by corporate types. 

Tonight there are a bunch of options (again)… the “start of term” cocktail party at the MCR, the JCR have a bop, and Andrew wants to go to the Turf to check out the beer festival.  I also need to quit writing blogs and finish my reading.

 

09.29.06 Merton

Today was very full. I started out by taking some clothes to the tailor for alterations. I will write a piece on Primark, smart casual, and semi-gay euro clothes soon, but the short version is that I had to pay £35 ($64.75) to get the sleeve length adjusted on a suit jacket that cost me £26 ($48). Weird weird weird. After this, I went to a presentation at the Oxford Union. This is a 19th century debating society that still exists today, but has become most famous for being a venue for top speaking guests from around the world. Wikipedia claims that the following have spoken at the Oxford Union: Dalai Lama, Gerry Adams, Hans Blix, Jimmy Carter, Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Stephen Fry, Robert Kennedy, Ewan McGregor, Malcolm X, Winston Churchill, Jenna Jameson, Diego Maradona, Warren Beatty, Clint Eastwood, Ronald Reagan, Jon Bon Jovi, OJ Simpson, David Blaine, Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, Ron Jeremy, Michael Jackson, Jerry Springer, Mother Teresa, and Barry White.

outside the debating chamber

inside the debating chamber

The speaker today was Pervez Musharraf, President (dictator) of Pakistan. Mr Musharraf looked a bit tired, and has a very thick accent, but still managed to speak well, spin well, and knock out a few funny jokes and comebacks. He sounded like a CEO addressing the stockholders’ meeting, talking about X% improvement in this area, Y% in that area, challenges, opportunities, etc. He even took questions from the audience. Seriously: a 20 year old smart assed Oxford University kid sitting two seats down from me asked a world leader a question about the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden. This is the kind of place that Oxford is: totally unique in the world, where normal dipshits like me and this kid are exposed to intellectual and political leaders of the world. It’s pretty freaking amazing. I has a question for him about Madrassas, but I was frankly too nervous to say a damn thing. Next time I will. By the way, many of the other questions were more subtle and deeper, given by people who clearly knew alot about Pakistan, but the Osama question was the one that came from right next to me, so that sticks in my head.

After the Musharraf speech, I went to a bunch of events put on for Graduate Freshers at my college, Merton. This was very very very interesting. A Graduate is a grad student just like we have back in the States, simple enough. A Fresher is someone who is entering the college (and possibly the university?) for the first time. Whereas my fellow MBA students (spread across the 39 colleges) are loud, gregarious, pretty smart, hard partying 26–44 years olds, the other grad students at my college are generally 21–25 year olds, quiet, hyper intelligent, nervous, and true academics. These folks are studying for D Phils (UK PhDs) in things like Middle Eastern Studies, Classics, Astrophysics, Theoretical Mathematics, Music Composition, Philosophy, etc. I met a 25 year old name Chauncy who speaks 10 languages and wears a tie every day. He owns 250 ties, but brought 115 to school with him. Seriously. He also happens to be the spitting image of Sid Spencer, however oddly or not oddly that might strike you. Some of these kids were so soft spoken and shy that I seriously couldn’t hear what they were saying! The really mind blowing aspect of meeting these people was the level of conversation I was getting from 21, 22, and 23 year olds: they were clearly experienced, educated, well read and well considered in their opinions, something I don’t find in a lot of 36 year olds, much less expect from people 15 years younger than me. We had coffee and cookies at the graduate residence in Jowett Walk, which is about 7 minutes walk from Merton. After this, there was a dinner in the big dining hall. Holy crap. This is so frigging Harry Potter, I couldn’t believe it. I was in Ean-heaven.

a semi-crappy image of the hall

After dinner, we all went to the Middle Common Room, which is a sort of partyroom/livingroom for grad students. There was a big free drinks party with all 100–ish Merton grad students. The whole quiet routine dropped right off once the gang got some beers in them, and when Reba and I left at 11pm, it was loud, drunk and sweaty in the MCR. By the way, the sweaty thing is no exaggeration. For whatever reason, it is a lot more humid here than in Seattle, and there is almost nowhere that has AC, so it’s been a pretty goopy summer. From here, we went to the Living Room, the stupid bar that I was barred entry to because of smart casual issues, and partied with the MBAs. This time, I got in!

mba blogs

I'm cleaning up my blog homepage, so I'm archiving all the other mba blogs I link to.

andrew b, oxford mba
andrew m, oxford mba
angie, esade mba
ashton, oxford mba
gaurav, oxford mba
juergen, oxford mba
madhu, oxford mba
mihkel, oxford mba
nagendra, oxford mba
renee, oxford mba
sam, oxford mba
sampath, oxford mba

09.25.06 ready, set...

Reba got into town last Monday, mom went home last Wednesday.  We’ve spent the last week and a half buying stuff for the apartment, locating books for school, getting things set up, meeting other outgoing and incoming MBAs, and etc.  And by etc., I mean drinking.    If there is one thing that the city of Oxford and it’s inhabitants are well primed for, it is the partying.  There are a ton of pubs, bars, clubs and discos here, all kinds of different beer to sample, and a seemingly endless supply of people who want to be out whooping it up any night of the week.  I should point out that I still have not really met anybody who takes their drinking and partying quite as seriously as the old WSU/Ballard crowd back home, but then it alway has been somewhat unfair to lump amateurs in with professionals. 

I have met quite a few of the new MBAs, all of whom are predictably accomplished, interesting, and diverse.  Some of the more colourful cast members…

• Sasha – Russian Jew whose parents left Minsk for Israel when he was 15.  Sasha ended up in some sort of elite paratrooper corps, I think that he’s seen some very scary shit.  Sasha’s an industrial engineer in his professional life.
• Gabe – Indie rocker from Austin Texas, ran his own resume writing business. Also a fellow Mbox and guitar enthusiast, he’s probably 10 years younger than me, but is way into old Sonic Youth!  We will probably make some weirdrock this year if we get the time.
• Daniel and Jurgen – collectively known as “The Germans” these two are the lady killers in the group… good hair, skinny, good looking, stylish clothes, etc.  They’re also totally hilarious and posses a semi-serious partying ethic.  Jurgen is into fencing, which is apparently pretty big in Germany, where they still do this weird type of duel called student fencing.  He’s done it, and from what I hear, it’s a very bloody experience.
• Shelby – Shelby is the first person I met here, and we’ve become quite chummy.  She’s from the bay area and comes from a techie project management background.  She has the ability to walk up and unflinchingly say anything to anyone, as evidenced by the following tapa/topless incident: she and I were trying to find something to do, and on a whim, Shelby walked up to the menacing door guys at the local tapas restaurant and deadpan asked them where she could find “either a tapas bar or a topless bar”, watching them squirm was priceless.
• Barry – Management consultant from Detroit.  Foodie, beer connoisseur, and disco dancing king.  In possession of a patented dance “move” that will be revealed to me at some future date.
• Takashi – 44 year old Japanese dude from Yokohama, left his wife and daughter back home while he jams out the 1 year MBA at Oxford.  Another IT management guy like me, he comes from a DB2 background and is really into taking photos.
• Major – I’ve only met this guy once, but he’s apparently a Major in the US Marines, doesn’t drink, grew up in the UK and was stationed in San Diego.  This dude is very big and very tough looking.  Our main conversation was about how he was trying to find a good gym in town.

I have yet to meet a single Briton in the MBA program, whatever that indicates. 

Today I have to go to the IT clinic at the business school, which apparently is where they install a bunch of useless crap on your computer.  This will be mostly pointless, because I don’t have my login and password yet, due to some bureaucratic nonesense between SBS, Merton, and the Examination School.  After that, it’s back to reading chapters for classes next week and working on the accounting review assignment.  By the way, I am SO TOTALLY FRIGGING HAPPY that I took that accounting class last winter.  The rampup would have murdered me, because while it’s not hard, Accounting is weird and takes a while to get used to.  I now wish that I had not taken that way-too-easy stats course, but instead taken the Economics intro, because I know dick about Econ and am going to get slaughtered there. 

09.15.06 inishmore

Hosteling fiascos aside, we really are having an excellent time here. Here, by the way, is the town of Kilronan on the island of Inis Mor, in the Aran Islands. The Aran are a pretty neat place: essentially they are huge granite slabs lying out in Galway bay, to the west of the main island of Ireland. Fortunately, the west sides of these islands are ~300 foot high cliffs sloping down gently over fields and farms to the beaches on the east sides. This provides for reasonable protection from the offshore breezes and fairly massive wave action of the Atlantic. By the way, when I say massive, I’m not shitting you. We were standing at the top of one of the more impressive cliffs looking out over the ocean, and not only could we hear the roar of the surf pounding the cliffs below, but we could also feel the granite cliffs shuddering under the impact. Rarrrrhhhrrr! The island is covered with little green plots of land separated by stone fences. Fence building here seems to consist primarily of stacking shards of the local granite on top of each other, sans mortar. It’s pretty primitive looking, or old-school at he very least: the locals have been building stone enclosures in this way for over 2000 years. There are a number of hill forts and 1500+ year old graveyards, tons of old ruined stone houses, gorgeous ocean views, etc. Travelouge crapola aside, mom my has had a thing for coming here since I can remember, and making this journey was a very big deal to her.

We caught a ferry out here from Rossaveal, which isn’t much more than a tiny port with some hyper-seaworthy looking ferries parked at the pier. The reason for these became clear as we took off in some pretty choppy seas: the boat was maybe 150 feet long, and was shooting up off the the waves and crashing back down into the troughs between the waves. Neat! I though I might get seasick, but didn’t for whatever reason. After landing, enduring the hosteling fiasco, and spending the night at the Pier House, we got up and caught a tour (mini) bus around the island to see the sights. There was lots of info about saints, ruined churches, still inhabited thatch roofed cottages, fishing techniques, etc. But, the real attraction was Dun Anghosa, pronounced “duhn Angus”, which is an iron age stone ring fort built on the edge of one of the islands more imposing cliffs. Stone ring forts are pretty common in Ireland and Europe in general, and usually consist of two walls of stacked stones, a burly inner one within which people lived, and a less burly outer one where they kept livestock. The inner walls of forts I have seen are usually 15 to 20 feet high, and 5 to 10 feet thick. While Dun Anghosa technically is a ring fort, it should really be called a half ring fort, because it’s actually just a semi circle built up against the cliff edge. The view off of D.A. is pretty freaky, and of course mom wanted to get right up to the edge. Her balance is pretty goofy these days, so I was nervous about her going too close and kept bugging her to keep back from the edge. Funny how roles reverse as time goes by! This place is pretty damn cool, fairly moving in the same way that Stonehenge was, but more so from a natural wonder kind of perspective… those cliffs were totally amazing.

 

 

on the way up, see D.A. in the background

 

closer still

 

mom sitting on the D.A. altar

 

view from D.A.