29.04.07 vs cambridge (again)

In another episode of the continuous competition and network building between Oxford and Cambridge, we hosted a day of sports competition between the two business schools. There were a ton of competitions, but most interesting to me were rowing, rugby, and cricket. I had to miss our rowing defeat (Henley all over again), but got to see the other two. The rugby was touch instead of tackle, and was co-ed. We won. The cricket was limited to 20 overs (I think this means it only goes on endlessly for hours instead of going on endlessly for days). We won this as well. Of note here is the fact that there were maybe 2 non-Indians on the Oxford SBS cricket team, and also the emergence of Murtasa, an unassuming guy who turned out to be an amazing batsman. He basically just stood up there knocking it out of the park, over and over again. Everyone was pretty impressed. Cricket is basically impenetrably complicated for those of us who didn't grow up playing it, but that's cool, because a cricket match is more like a picnic than a sporting event. Everyone just brings blankets and snacks and drinks and socializes while the game sort of putters along in the background. Every once in a while something exciting happens, and then everyone oohs an ahhs for a few minutes, then it's back to picnic time. I dig it!

sbs students watching the cricket match

me with cricket in the background

julie and reba at the game

Julie Young was out for the weekend, as she had been on some Starbucks business in Europe, and then came to hang out with us for a few days. It was nice to have a hometowner out to visit. She came along to the party after the sports, and out drinking with the MBAs, etc. The party was pretty cool, another incarnation of the birdbath played, this time with Pat on bass and Prashant on vocals. We did 6 songs: "The Future Is Now" by Pat's old band The Solids, "Adding to the Noise" by Switchfoot, "Fell in Love with a Girl" by The White Stripes, and "Olympia" and "Snocone" by us. We finished off with a semi-improvisational harcore bit where our friend Robin would yell "hey, fuck y'all" in the breaks (ala "Lady" for any old Sicko fans reading this). The drum set sort of fell over at the end, and I left the guitar feeding back for a while after the set. Not particularly innovative from a Seattle hipster perspective, but shocking enough for my b-school colleagues. People certainly seemed to like it well enough. We kept changing our band name throughout the set, and went through "The Va-jay-jays", "The 5 Forces", and "Laser Cats UK". However, I prefer to think of this as Tales From the Birdbath - Version 6.

me and prashant

pat

reebs doing that hair thing she does

Of note is the fact that Prashant (an Indian) picked Switchfoot, which is a Christian rock band. The song is hardly identifiable as such, but the rest of their album is pretty well Jesus-ed up. He's not Christian though, he just liked the song and was a little puzzled about the notion of Christian rock. I have to say that I did too. The night ended up, of course, with us all going out dancing and drinking, and then finally stumbling around inside Merton bar (not in the college) at 3 AM.

a tab, kevin, me, jurgen

We also acquired a Cantabrian (person from Cambridge) who needed a place to stay after the party, since the bus had already gone back to Cambridge. Her name was Svetlana, and she's an investment banker from Moscow. She and Reba rapped about Tolstoy a bunch while Julie and I talked about boob jobs. The next morning, all 4 of us went to breakfast at a cafe before we put Julie onto her bus back home.

svetlana and reba

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22.04.07 exeter college ball

Oxford has balls (no Josh, not that kind), i.e. grand balls ala cinderella, etc. Saturday night was the ball for Exeter College, and about 20 MBAs went and danced the night away. I'll fill in with details later, but for now I think a few photos will give you an idea...

al (finance guy)

katy and reebs

me and my date

I definitly should have done night school...

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15.04.07 santorini!

Julie, Jean and I went to Santorini Island in Greece for the final leg of our vacations. This place is so beautiful, it's somewhat hard to do it justice via description. Technically, Santorini (or Thira in Greek) is a caldera, basically a big volcanic crater filled with water. Roughly, Thira is a big circular ring of rock cliffs surrounding a central lagoon 8 by 4 miles wide. There are a couple waterways entering the lagoon, and a volcano in the center. Some really beautiful and strange towns are built along the cliffs, they were once homes to locals, but now they are hotels and restaurants, etc. Apparently there was an earthquake in the 50s, after which the town we stayed in (Oia) sat empty until the 80s when someone got the idea of fixing them up for tourists. Good idea! We rented a cheap hotel room (not on the cliffs, those are really expensive) and basically chilled out for a few days. Reba and I are definitely coming back here this fall. Basically the only thing we did besides eat, drink, and gawk at the view was rent ATVs and drive around the island one afternoon. We went to a canyon where an old town had been built into caves, and even ended up driving through a square where a greek wedding was going on. Neat! I really liked driving the ATVs, I think I am going to get a scooter or a motorcycle after I get a job again!

Oia and the girls

the lagoon and me

more lagoon

Oai + e

atv-ean!

restaurant at the end of the island that's great for sunset watching, and a good one of julie

atv rental dude, when he found out we were mbas, he was really into talking with us

scooter gang

town in the canyon

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09.04.07 vacay midway

I'm in town for a few days, but won't be able to post pictures until my computer gets back (long story). The highlights:

-Paris: Tasha caught a French guy on fire in a bar, I put him out.

-Torremolinos: Shelby bought a belly dancing outfit, and demo-ed it. Movies to be posted soon.

-Hay on Wye (Wales): There were a lot of lambs in the fields when we drove out the day before Easter Sunday. There were a lot less when we drove back the next day.

-Belgium: cancelled, for various reasons.

-Now: Writing papers again. Blah.

-Greece: booked and on it's way!

e

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27.03.07 closer closer

We handed in the Operations Management paper on Monday at noon. Now we're working on Financial Management, that's due at noon on Friday. I also need to get a lot of work done on my business plan project before Friday. Basically, I'm on the same schedule as I was the last two weeks: 8 AM to 1 AM, working away all day. Though I have to admit I prefer papers to exams at this point... the exams here are so absurd that it really just sucks to take them. Everyone crams into a hall for 1 to 3 hours depending on the exam, you have to memorise every little thing you're going to use... for me this means boiling 8 weeks of reading and class down to several dozen frameworks/techniques and 5 to 15 sub points per framework. I sit down in the test, and write them all out on the paper they give us so I can refer to it. Then there's the bit about all work being done in pen. Even math. Oh yeah, and the exam schools won't let you bring in your own calculator, you have to use theirs, which generally means that it's fucked up in some way or other. And never forget the tuxedo and cape. Because you really wouldn't want to take an exam without your fucking tuxedo and cape would you? We all look like a team of Dracula juniors in there. Especially with the red carnations pinned to our lapels.

On to sunnier thoughts...

The reason I have to get the business plan work done this week is because the plan is due just after vacations, and I have a lot of really cool trips planned. Check it out:

- This weekend: Paris with Tash and Keith and Reba

- Next week: villa in Torremolinos, Spain with Barry, Renee, Shelby, and Dan

- Next weekend: Wales with Reba and AJ and Nat who are visiting us

- Week after: first few days in Belgium drinking weirdbeer with Kent

- Rest of week and weekend after: Greece with Jean and Julia and hopefully Reba if she can come!

Then Trinity term starts and I get busy again. Oh booh.

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23.03.07 all done

The last two tests are done, I am done, Reba has split for the weekend, and I'm here with my papers to write.

Developing Effective Organisations: 9:30 AM Friday. I nailed this one. I nailed this one good. Perverse metaphors abound, but let's just say that this one went well. I used more models, terms and diagrams than ever before in an exam, and that frankly makes me feel a bit weird. Honestly, what kind of a skill is that? Applying Greiner, Goffee/Jones and Tacit-Formal communication to any situation and being able to draw a diagram to exemplify it is of ZERO real world value. But, it gets me through the 3 hour case study exam, so whatever.

Macroeconomics: 2:30 PM Friday. This was OK. There were 4 short questions worth 10 points each and one long question worth 60 points. I knew 2 of the 4 really well, and on 2 had to bullshit a bit, but probably got some points. I thankfully REALLY knew the long one, so this was probably a reasonable passing exam too.

After the Macro exam, we all went out to the Turf Tavern for some celebratory beers. Then Shelby and I got dinner at Gino's (an actually decent Italian place in Oxford) and I went home and to sleep. Yes it's true, I did not go and rage with my colleagues, I was just too damn tired, and felt the sick coming on, so I decided to rest instead of getting sick. It paid off, I feel good today. Now I just have to finish my OM and FM papers, and it's off to Paris to see Tasha and Keith next weekend!

I think the big news this term is that I put a lot less freaked out pressure on myself but still worked just as hard. I also didn't do some really stupid things, like trying to pull a 37 year old all nighter. Just like last time, I don't know what's going to happen with final scores, but I'm pretty zen about them... I think I'll be OK and if not, I'll figure something out. Plus, I have the secret weapon of really really good grades going into most of these exams, so even outright fails on certain exams would result in passing scores. Whatever happens, I'm not going to lay awake at night freaking out about results like I did last term! It doesn't change anything, except for making me go from feeling good to feeling shitty.

a little AM guitar playing helps me get my zen on

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21.03.07 brief respite

Two exams on Monday, one on Tuesday and one today, now I have tomorrow off and two more on Friday. The exams ran like this:

Financial Management: 9:30 AM, Day 1, BAM!!!! Right in your face with a totally unannounced totally unplanned level of difficulty and super fucked up questions. NO ONE finished the exam of 10 questions out of 200 odd MBAs. We had 1.5 hours and the 3 practice tests we were given by the prof left us utterly unprepared (not to mention the lectures, but that's another story). Apparently the exam school (part of the university) had chastised the prof for giving exams that were too easy in previous years, and told him to make it harder. We had the same amount of time as students had in previous years. I guess he showed them! Either this thing is going to be curved like a mofo or I am going to be resiting this exam with 195 of my closest friends this spring. The MBA class reps have lodged a complaint with the academic committee at SBS, and they will probably address it at the typical Oxford (sub-glacial) pace. What a bummer!

IBGG: 2:30 PM Monday. Not as bad, but not great. I didn't like how I did on this one, it just didn't feel like I got in all the models and concepts that I should. It's probably a passing paper, and my scores going into the exam were at distinction level (70%) so I'm not worried about passing. Though I would have liked to get a good grade in this class! I certainly learned alot and enjoyed it.

Marketing: 9:30 AM Tuesday. This was OK too. I finished, which is more than I can say for a number of my colleagues, but it wasn't concept rich like I wanted. I did cover all the points that the prof wants covered in a marketing plan, but still, it left me with a lame taste in my mouth. Probably another passing grade. Combined with my marks going into the exam, I'll be fine. What sucks is that we even had 3 hours to do this one! Everyone I spoke with (except Barry, mad genius boy wonder, of course) said they spent way too much time on the financial analysis and got all goofed up in the numbers taking time from the essay writing. That's certainly what happened to me: I wrote right up to the bell. Oh well.

Operations Management: 9:30 AM Wednesday (today). This went pretty well. I had to bullshit a bit on a couple of answers, but I think that I even covered those reasonably well enough. The rest of the questions were cut and dried: I knew them and kicked out the jams. The f-ed up thing is that I committed about 30 major concepts (each with 5 to 10 sub concepts) to memory for this test, and these STILL didn't give me all the answers I needed. Oh well, it turns out that I am not a human mimeograph, and repeated Oxford exams demonstrate this fairly consistently. I still learned a lot, and actually rather like the subject, so as long as I pass, I'm cool

Now I have the day off, and tomorrow off as well. I have to study for DEO and Macro next, because both of those will be coming at me hard on Friday, so I will need to get cracking. This term has been exhausting: I have been studying from 10AM to Midnight or later every night, weekends included for two weeks, the exception to this being meals, trips to the stationary store, and exams. After Friday, we have an Operations Management paper due MONDAY (40% of our grade), and then a Financial Management paper due Friday (40% as well). Given the level of general disaster and mayhem around the exam, I suspect that the MBAs will be working their assess off to get a killer FM paper in by Friday. This, of course, means that everyone will have to be really good or else get stuck on the low end of the curve. SUCK SUCK SUCK!!!

Reba, forever the trooper, has been taking care of me very well: cooking, cleaning, making sure I have clean subfusc, making late night tea, being supportive, quietly reading while I study, and oh yeah WORKING TO SUPPORT HER STUDENT HUSBAND. So, once again I can only say how much I appreciate her. She's going down to Amsterdam to meet Tasha and Keith who are on vacation, but due to the scheduling conflicts with my EXAMS AND PAPERS, couldn't come to Oxford. :( After next week, Reba and I are going to go down to Paris to meet them for a few days at least. That will be fun.

Ok, now I study for DEO.

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17.03.07 what I see when I close my eyes

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14.03.07 getting weird in here

This term has been really busy: 6 classes, business plan, way more papers, intensified job search, more papers due the week after exams, and now: I'm in 9th week: the week off before exams. Next week is the big gnarley: 10th week means tuxedos and anxiety and exams. I'm holed up in the apartment from 10AM to 1AM doing revision (English for review) and as the exams get closer, I get weirder. I'm much more comfortable talking to myself, and spend a lot of time writing out frameworks on my whiteboard. I start to feel like I'm some sort of medieval monk in his chamber, scratching away at some academic work , oblivious to the outside world. But relief is in sight: 1 more week of this, 1 week of exams, 1 week of papers, and then it's off to Paris to see Keith and Tasha, then to Malaga with Barry, Renee and Shelby, and then to Wales with Reba, AJ and Nat. After that, I don't know for sure what I'm doing. Probably drinking. But for now, it's getting weird in here...

the stuff

the stuff close up

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16.02.07 pembroke black tie

really, not a bunch of dicks (really)

Black tie events are a staple of Oxford University living. The ritual is fairly standard, and really not too different from formal hall at Merton. (1) Go to XYZ college wearing specified outfit (in this case a black suit or tuxedo with a black bow tie), (2) have drinks in really old room with other dressy folks, (3) march into ancient hall, be seated at long tables, (4) drink, eat drink and be merry, and drink, (5) take pictures, (6) hit the town and get loaded.

marching

typical black tie Oxford scene

I like this one...

porter pouring wine for Pat (LA) and Jimmy (South Africa)

Barry (Detroit) and Simon (New Zealand)

Matt (Kansas) and porter and Dan (England)

Matthew Holgate, Economist, Englishman

Bond, James Bond, BEEEEATCH!*

Andrew "Double Up" Jury (South Africa)

During phase 2, there are usually at least a few opportunities to get condescended to by crabby old English people and smarty pants academics who will thinly veil their contempt for your MBA / American / Graduate / non-PhD / non "academic" / whatever-ness. Of course, when you go to one of these with a bunch of MBAs, the dicks keep things semi in check, because there's a lot of us and we're loud. :) Pembroke college was hosting the black tie event this time, so Andrew (a member of Pembroke) brought us, about 20 of us, along for the ride. Things went well, we had a pretty good meal, lots of wine, and hung out in the bar afterwards. What a lousy soundsystem, by the way. After this, there was a drunken bike ride / photoshoot across town to the Oxford Retreat (a bar) for more hanging around and trying to look cool in our tuxes... ties hanging untied in the deano/frank style.

ahh dork magic...

Shelby and Ean: the retarded romance continues...

Ok, maybe we are a bunch of dicks.

* Actually a photo of Andrew McInerny, dean's lister, new father, Australian, co-microbrew project conspirator, guy who likes to say "beeaaaaatch", pal and fellow Oxford blogger.

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15.02.07 trip to cambridge

Today we went to Cambridge University for a job fair. Cambridge is the second oldest English speaking University in the world, after Oxford. It's modelled to a large extent on the Oxford collegiate system, and is about as close to Oxford as you're going to get, though I hear that St Andrews is kind of similar. The story goes something like this...

"Two Oxford scholars were convicted of the murder or manslaughter of a woman and were hanged by the town authorities with the assent of the King. In protest at the hanging, the University of Oxford went into voluntary suspension, and scholars migrated to a number of other locations, including the pre-existing school at Cambridge (Cambridge had been recorded as a "school" rather than University when John Grim held the office of Master there in 1201). These post-graduate researchers from Oxford started Cambridge's life as a University in 1209..."

- "Cambridge University" Wikipedia, 19 February 2007

Rivalry

There has been a rivalry of some sort ever since this time, and there's a million stories about how the Oxford guy messed with the Cambridge guy, and vice versa. Like all school rivalries, it's really kind of stupid, but you can't help thinking about the differences and that you'd like for your school to be the better one. The fact that the Financial Times MBA rankings had Cambridge beating Oxford by a few ranks this year certainly added fuel to the fire. Honestly, from my perspective: given that no international programs are even listed alongside US schools in US b-school rankings, and these are the two non-US schools that anyone in the US is ever going to have heard of... if you're going overseas and coming back, they are really the only two choices. I could spend the rest of my life explaining why "City University" means something different in England than it does in the States, why LBS is really better than Yale or Dartmouth, how IE and IMD outrank MIT, or even worse, explaining what "INSEAD" is and why the French would know anything about business... and get nowhere. Or I could just go to a school that every American automatically thinks is a big deal, even though they probably aren't basing their opinion on the FT, Businessweek, personal experience, or any other substantive source. This is just what you get going to Oxford or Cambridge, that's how it is, and I'm happy to take all the freebies I can get. :) Bla bla bla school rivalries, Ean-relativism, etc., Ok.

On the Road

So, at 9AM on Thursday February 15th, we went to the Judge Institute (the Cambridge MBA school) for a job fair. The list of participating companies was fairly impressive: Accenture, Altran, Amazon, Atkins Global, BearingPoint, Capgemini, Cognizant, Convergys, Deloitte & Touche, Essent Trading, Fidelity International, Fitch Ratings, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, KPMG, London Asia Capital, Merck Sharp & Dohme, Ocado, PA Consulting, Parson Consulting, Proudfoot Consulting, PRTM, Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, and Tech Mahindra Ltd. And they are fairly impressive IF you're an aspiring management consultant. Other than a few non consulting shops like Amazon and J&J, there actually weren't a ton of options though. MBA school recruiting seems to follow this pattern in general, the world breaks up into 3 groups: Investment Bankers, Management Consultants, and "everything else anyone ever did for a job" ...something our careers office often refers to as "consolidated industries". I think that term is funny. But, we all knew this going out to Cambridge, and basically planned to check out some employers, hang out in the opposing camp, see the town, and GET LOADED. We do that last bit rather well, I might add. So, the day began with dark suits, ties, laptops, and a 3 hour bus ride through the countryside.

Cambridge and The Judge

I finished up my International Business and Global Governance paper on the ride over, treating myself to a Led Zeppelin rock out session after I got done. The first thing that strikes you about Cambridge upon pulling into town is that it really is mostly uni buildings without a very big town around it. Oxford is pretty huge and sprawling, even though we never make it out of the central square mile. Cambridge is a tiny little medieval city without much more going on than the university. It's way more laid back too... the intense press of crowds in central Oxford are simply not there in Cambridge... this is actually quite nice. The Judge itself looks pretty cool from the outside, very urban and almost sort of Frenchy. Maybe it's the iron gate out front?

However, inside is a freaking mess. Besides sharing a color scheme with McDonald-lands across the US, the architecture was just pointedly weird and jarring. Crazy angles, sky bridges and multi floor catwalks sort of conjured up a freaked out Gaudí prison vibe. It had lots of open space but somehow still felt claustrophobic. I knew right away that I didn't fit in here, just because of the room vibe. Maybe I'm just prejudiced because my school is so nice... huge tall ceilings, lots of open space, chilled out light earthy tones, silent library-vault, a deep feeling of tranquillity and cool calmness, huge inner courtyard... sort of like if Princess Leia had a summer home in a caliph's palace? Anyway, I didn't dig the Judge's space.

The job fair was fine, I talked to a girl who works at Amazon in Bedfordshire, but lived in Ravenna in Seattle, right by my high school. Funny. IBM, and a couple of other booths were cool too, but nothing earth shattering. I may seriously give the Amazon gig a shot... it's an MBA rotation through management of some European fulfillment centres, call centres, etc., and then puts you in a good position for a high level gig in Seattle at some point. This would fit with Reebs and my plans well. So, maybe. In any case, after a few hours, we split from the fair and went for some lunch. Note that very few Judge students actually attended the fair... an indication of something?

This was fun, and we all seemed to have a heightened sense of camaraderie... I guess this is because we spend so much time together and were in a strange place. After lunch and some beers, we checked out some of the Cambridge colleges... pretty amazing. King's college is completely off the hook. It's less like a college and more like Parliament Square. The chapel is the size of a cathedral. I have a video that I'll post later. I walked around in a self imposed headphones isolation but with the whole gang and felt really weirdly close to them. This may confirm how weird I'm becoming here. 69 Love Songs is a great soundtrack to walk around Cambridge to, if you ever get the chance. :)

Niall and King's College

King's College

funny funny English stuff

The Viking Raiding Party Effect

Finally, we met the Judge students at a reception, where things took a typical turn. First, we finally got to talk to a few Judge MBAs (very nice and cool folks), and then we had some snacks and drinks. A funny thing tends to happen with our class of MBAs and I'm not sure why, but I just call it the "viking raiding party" effect. Basically, we end up at these nice catered events, chit chat for a while, have a few drinks, and then: we eat all their food. Then we drink all their booze. Then the gratuitous hitting-on of girls starts, followed by singing and rough-housing. Then, having exhausted all resources and overwhelmed our hosts, we empty forth into the streets and mayhem ensues. This has happened at various SBS and other events. Now it has happened in Cambridge too. We went to a bar where the members of Pink Floyd first met (I think?), sort of ran out of options there, and went to another.

me with some Judge folks at bar#1

The second bar was a very quaint place with heated outdoor seating and lots of nice people eating healthy looking food with their pints and nice conversation. The 50 odd SBS MBAs still out at this point pushed into the heated outdoor seating area, and started up with all the usual rough-house, beer spilling, loud singing, and gratuitous hitting-on behaviour*. The pub owners kept threatening to throw us out, but didn't for whatever reason. The Judge folks seemed to slowly disappear... either we were tiring them out or they just didn't want their local proprietors to know that they were friend with us! Can't blame them really. :) At 11pm, we all had to get back on the buses and ride home to Oxford. Walking home from the bus stop at 3am, Andrew and I talked about how we were really glad that we picked Oxford.

* note about hitting-on: not everybody does this. For example, nice married people like ME don't do it. We just watch the other MBAs do it and laugh at them. All other bad behaviour applies however.

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