BARCELONA, for the books and for the sun!

Friday, November 17, 2006

Quick recaps of headlines for today

1. Milton Friedman passed away yesterday.

2. Beijing police force is enforcing the one dog policy.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Mid-of-Term (midterm fun!)

Finished my first midterms in almost four years. Accounting was great. I actually enjoyed the questions. The prof threw in a few tricky questions, trying to differentiate the A's from the B's. Nice to have my brain thinking. Decision analysis was easier than expected. I repeat, easier THAN expected, not EASY. Felt I was back in my econ classes (especially Prof. Levine's classes). Quite stressful. But manageable. Okay, I know I'm not failing these two courses. (At IESE, a C is basically failing, 'cause after 3 C's you are on probation and if you don't improve, you are out.)

I got some feedbacks from some of my classes. Pretty good so far. Moreover, I'm enjoying classes more and more, getting the hang of it. The professors are quite encouraging sometimes, albeit intimidating at other times. There are courses that I do need to work on more. But so far so good. The cases are getting interesting and are making more sense. Seeing the bigger picture now. (Especially excited to see how studying for the cases and discussing them w/ teammates actually helps with the interview process.) Plus, I cannot say this enough, I love my team. The coolest, smartest, nicest, funniest people I have met.

Recruiting time. Just had a mock interview with Mercer and spent hours going over interview strategies with the professionals. The career service people really got good people coming. The mock interview was done by a Mercer partner and she went into details of critiquing how I did and how I should tackle case interviews. And during another workshop in the afternoon, this recruiting expert talked about the different steps/tactics used in interviews. Probably because I'm more a visual person, her presentation really delivered the message clear. CV's and CL's are due in a few days. My CV is done. Don't want to change it anymore. (Or else I'll never stop working on it.) Now, the CL's. I'm initiating a few team sessions to work on recruiting stuff. (What can I say? I just love my team.) Talked to my career counselor about my consulting internship search strategy. Felt encouraged by what he said. I'm going to position myself differently, basically aiming for the niche market. Bad thing, not that many opportunities. Good thing, no competition. He seemed quite optimistic. (Maybe overly optimistic?)

Friday was the last day of midterms, so that afternoon I went with a friend to Ikea to buy some stuff. Mainly, I got myself a very comfortable computer chair. Originally I wanted to get a different one, but we couldn't even lift the box onto the cart. I need to add more color to my room, so I got myself a blue chair. I also bought a few other things. Even a set of pink pillow cases. Then on Saturday, two friends and I went to L'illa, a HUGE shopping mall. Had a great time there. Now, my room looks complete. Warm, homely and organized. Me feeeeeel gooooda. Sunday, after trying to finalize the script (I should consider a possible career change) I went to a friend's place for dinner. A great weekend. A very satisfying weekend.