Soon to work...

... And I can't wait! Most of the 3 people who sometimes read my blog because they made a spelling mistake in a google search will think that I am nuts but yes, I crave working. I am a man of action, and too much holiday gets on my nerves. Not that I have too little things to do: reading, sports, etc. But Anna cannot take 3 months holidays, and without her on my side, it's kind of, well, boring on the long run.
Anyway, I still managed this week to go back to Germany in the city where I worked for 3 years and see some old friends and colleagues. A travel in time indeed, and a nice few days. On saturday I will attend my dear friend V. and O.'s wedding in Bruessel, and will see there a bunch of GSBers, it's going to be hard core cool, especially because Anna will be here. Then the week after it is K. and O. 's wedding, can't wait either!
Anyway, on August the 6th, it's up to BAIN Stockholm, Yeeeeeeeeeeehaaaaaaaaaaaa!

On a final touch, just saw a 'Bollywood' movie, called 'Bride and Prejudice', reallzy funny, I recommend it to the 3 lost souls who read this blog, at least their random errands might pay off...;)

New life...

The last 3 weeks have been characterized by many, many changes.
First there was the "Adieu" to Chicago. Why farewell? Given that I spent 2 years there I do not think I would have it as my first choice for vacation, so unless my company sends me there on a business trip, chances are I will not come back before a looooooooong while.
It was hard but not in the way I thought. Anna and I stayed there 10 days, and to be honest it was too long. 10 days spent saying goodbye to some friends which you would actually see coincidentally the day after ("Oh, you are still here?"), or parting from some and suddenly realizing an hour later that you might never see them again... Weird, like saying goodbye for a very long period. At some point you just have to go.

Here I am now in Sweden. We just moved with my sweetheart in a lovely appartment, about 600sqft (55m2) downtown Stockholm, it is really nice and the rent is reasonable (about $1000 per month). The first days have been somewhat nightmarish for me: sweetie is working and I had nothing or a million things to do (question of perspective) and got bored pretty quick. I was surrounded by cardboard boxes... Depressing.

Then there was the moving. Anna's family gave us a big hand, it took us 3 truckloads and a number of staircases I just don'tr even want to start counting. My body the next day was just a full pain, my knees and my left Achilles Tendon are still insulting me every time I make a move. After that, 3 days spent cleaning/sorting/placing in the right place. I am kind of worried, the appartment is stuffed and my things are not even there yet... Sweetie, confident, reassures me, but hey HER stuff is already there and placed, huh. I just try to remember what Katya said: "Poops, you don't deserve her so shut up." OK... Pfff.

It is now 5:54pm local time, sweetie is about to come back, yipeee!

Last post?

That's it. Yesterday I was sitting among 565 people and their families. After 2 hours sitting, the President of the University touched me with his stick, handed me a folder and I was a graduate. I instantly went from student to Alumn, from potential to 'Now you've got to prove yourself'. I had dinner with friends after that, and of course my sweet A. was there.
It slowly downs on me that most of the people I was with yesterday with I might never see before a very very long time, if at all. I would like to see them all again, but for having lived in 4 countries in the last 6 years, I am more realistic than that.
I guess it might be one of the hard things when you are ending your business school cycle: there is no real goodbye. You see some people, have fun with them, and you leave the party without really realizing that they are leaving tomorrow, or that you are leaving too. I wonder if that is not also what makes the bond strong after: you find yourself again litterally 'as if you had never left each others'. I will leave that to the future to tell me.

I have now a white page in front of me. The MBA was a way for me to get it in front of me actually. But now it is here, all white, pure and nice but scaringly empty for now. Well I guess I will do as I always did in the past and in this blog: I'll just start writing...

Case Challenge...

I am currently in what I think is an interesting experiment... Take a renowned consulting firm. Make them send an email to a bunch of business schools, claiming that on a certain date, they will "rveal a technology that will change the world, and ask YOU (Yes! YOU) to see how this technology will change the world." Sounds fascinating, huh? So up you sign, and off you go on a friday afternoon to a presentation.
The appetizers are good, the presentation not bad. During the presentation, you hear a partner claiming "We partners often go to our associates to have them explain us how these latest innovations work". That's the first hint at what is going to happen.
And then comes the real challenge:
"Pick one 0f the fortune 100 companies and show how one of 4 technologies will change the fate of this company".
The four technologies are:

• Crowd sourcing and co-creation (things like using wikipedia)
• Ubiquitous broadband and persistent connectivity
• Virtual worlds for commercial use
• Smart networks elements and sensors

So basically we have to give them ideas about how to use the new gizmos for Fortune 100. Are these guys so out of ideas?

Now I cannot help but thinking: If really I have a billion dollars idea, WHY ON EARTH would I give it up for 1 chance out of 50 to win 10000$ ?

I guess this contest is nothing else than a smart application of the first technology: crowd sourcing. AND it's cheap. Congrats to that firm!

Boy it's been a long time...

Last quarter has been busy but great. I had 4 great classes:

Advanced Investments - Prof. John Cochrane : If you intend to be an asset manager or a trader or simply are interested in the stock market, the class is a must. Be ready to put a LOT of work, but it is worth it. You learn hugely and John Cochrane is a fantastic lecturer.

Cases in Financial Management - Prof. Kevin Rock: Professor Rock was a banker and some of the cases he teaches are deal he was personnally involved in, or some of his colleagues were. Awesome. The guy pops out some documents and info that he knows about, it makes the whole case so lively you believe you're in the boardroom. Expensive class in terms of bidding points, but worth every point and more.

Strategic Investment decisions - Prof. Gertner: Really good. Enjoyed the assignments a lot too, Monte Carlo simulations have little secrets anymore (I hope) for me.

M&A Accounting - Prof. Sapra: If you want to be a banker involved in M&A just take it without discussion. Sapra is a great guy, he puts an amount of work in his teaching that I have seldomly seen and might cost him a heart attack within a decade. Highly recommended class.

After that, I went to Costa Roca with my sweetheart and a couple of GSB friends, Oleg & Katya. Awesome trip. Arenal Volcano, and a beautiful little village on the caribbean coast : CAHUITA.
We stayed in a set of charming bungalows called blue spirit, check it out! Otherwise, also have a look at "El Encanto" a beautiful little hotel near the beach. If you stay at volcano Arenal, the lodge "Erupciones" is recommended. And if you want to know about the zipline next to Arenal volcano, check my video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcKKkykwJ40.

One last thing: if you go snorkeling in the caribbean, wear a Tshirt. Index 30 3 times an hour was not enough and we grilled like lobsters...

Let it snow...

Chicago is under a foot of snow and it is beautiful. I know I will seem pretty weird but I always loved winter. It is when it is cold that you realize how cosy it is at home. A little reminder about the comfort we live in and got used to so easily.
School is still so busy with 4 classes and TAing for 2 professors, but still so interesting. I posted my bid for next quarter's classes. If everything goes according to plan I will have Advanced Topics in Corporate Finance with Prof. Rock, Pricing strategies with Prof. DUbe and Mathematical Decision Models with Prof. Birge. Let's see if I will have enough points.
It is a weird feeling in some way. Did I take the classes I should have? Did I miss anything certainly a lot. There is not enough with one MBA to use all the opprotunities offered here. That might be one of the most important lectures here: manage time, make choices, learn to compromise with the scarce resource that time is.
In the news cast now, I started Matlab... I had managed to do all the 'Advanced Investments' assignments with XL until now, but the last one, with its extensive Mutual Funds performance evaluation, bearing on 6000 funds on 40 years of monthly data (yep, that's a 6000x480 Matrix) made it impossible. Actually Matlab is pretty powerful for whom knows a bit about programing before.
Anyway, in 3 weeks, my best half will be here, my sweet A, and we're gonna be heading to Costa Rica for a week. Baby, I can't wait to see you again.

Stress, my good old friend...

Yesterday was a s... day.
At 10 am my computer died. I realized at that point that 3 things actually make us the people we are: our credit card, our passport, and our computer. So off I went. The PC was still under warranty, so I thought 'no problemo'. Well my dear friends it will take about 3 weeks to repair the thing... Yes, 3 weeks. And I can't stay 3 weeks without computer. SO I had to buy a new one. I went for a $650 gateway computer, and you will never guess... It is 100 times better than my other which cost me 1500 a year and a half ago. The PC is faster, the network connection is faster, everything works better. The shitty thing is that I lost all my outlook contacts, and iTunes music, but I guess I will be able to recover them later. So al in all, it went ok, and I lost a day of work time, and a week of data (I had made a backup a week ago).
Fortunatley I managed to recover the one assignment on which I had spent 10hours already and which is due Tuesday: the battery in the old one still had 1%. The PC definitely died the second after I had plugged out the USB stick with the precious assignment on it... Saved!
That's still an assignment I will not have to redo.