At last!!

My HSBC loan application is complete!

Wow! I never thought it would be so hard to do this. But now everything is ready: translations, copies, etc. I also included a small document explaining briefly each item of the application. Hope it works... By the way, I have already scheduled an appointment for this Friday morning with the LBS Financial Aid person to give her personally all these documents and, hopefully, to go through them and check if everything is ok. Later on the day, we will have a pre-open weekend dinner, with many other recent admits and students!

And now, for something completely different: I went to Paris this last weekend with my girlfriend and loved it. Amazingly I had never been there before! But it was worth it (besides the high temperature - 34ºC - and even higher prices). I can't resist to recommend two very nice restaurants:

- Chez Papa, in St. Germain des Pres, near the Bel Ami hotel. Nice food, live jazz bands. Heaven on earth.

- Kong, near the Samaritaine department store. Very fashionable, superb design, great house and lounge music, and also nice food. Bar on the first floor, restaurant with glass ceiling and panoramic view on the second floor. Visit their website. I really liked this place!

On the way back to Portugal, I saw many IESE students at the Orly airport. I guess they were going back to Barcelona from the MBA Tournament in Paris. I definitely will try to participate in that tourment! I also saw one or tho guys with an LBS shirt, but I was really in a hurry and didn't introduce myself. Well, lots of time for that this weekend.

LBS goodies, the IESE time-lapse phenomenon and more...

As already referred, LBS admits are receiving the latest edition of Time Out - London. Great idea and nice attitude from the school. Just a quick note for the cover with an amazing photo of Tate Modern (not the one below, though). Man! I can't wait to return to this amazing place!

On another note, IESE seems to keep sending me stuff with a huge delay. I refused their offer one month ago, but now I received a welcome pack, with lots of information about Barcelona and the school. It's not the first time something like this happens, which doesn't look good on the school.

As for the HSBC loan application, everything is being taken care of. I ordered the translations to a portuguese company for 500 Euros. To everyone reading this, you have to be extremely specific and choose carefully which information has to be translated. Or else, costs will rise to absurd levels. A brazilian translating company would do the same job for 350 Euros, but their delivery time is just too much (more than 2 weeks). I hope to send everything in the beggining of next week, or even take it with me for the Open Weekend and give it personally to the LBS Financial Aid department.

PS: My mind is increasingly out of my office. It takes great effort to keep working as I did, knowing that I will be out of here in a month, preparing for another phase in my life. There isn't much space for work now, when you're thinking about loans, London, school, housing, flights, selling the car, cancelling rents and utility bills, scholarship applications, landlord reference letters, negotiations with current employers and keeping on par with the increasing ammount of information published in the LBS portal.

Loan for a loan

I have been busy with the application for the HSBC loan. Mainly because HSBC requires that all documentation must be officially translated to english. And this is where all the trouble begins! First, I discovered that if you want to do it properly, each translated document must be authenticated by a notary AND it must come with an Apostille (I guess this is the right english word for it...) according to the Hague Convention. And since we're talking about 20+ documents, I've been receiving quotations like 800-1000 Euros for the whole translation works and 60-90 Euros for authentication per document. Which gives a nice sum between 2000 and 2600 Euros!!!

Can I apply for a loan, to cover these loan application costs?

So, I've been trying some cost cutting in all this process. First, I know now that the notary and apostille stuff is not required. The only thing necessary is for the translators to sign and stamp the copies, as true translations. And, I've been also selecting text in all documents that I believe is not important for translation (publicity messages from the bank, company address and other details, utilities messages, etc). Let's see what comes out of this.

Oh! I also received an advice from a current LBS MiF student. He's brazilian and it seems that brazilian translators are much cheaper than the portuguese ones that I've been consulting (a total cost around 200 Euros!!). So, since the language is the same, and if the brazilian guys can post to Portugal all the translated documentation, I think I've found a winner!

Some thougts

Long time since my last post. I've had extremely busy weeks. Working on an important tender, until 3 or 4am. It's not only consultants that work like crazy, it seems. From time to time, you can have it also in the industry market. At least, it was worth it. My company came up in the first position so it is likely that a multi-million euro contract will be signed in the next few weeks. Nice timing to leave...

Talking about leaving, last week I told one of the directors (Marketing) in my company that I will be leaving by the end of July. He was the one responsible for bringing me here, so I decided that he should be the first to know. I was a bit afraid of his reaction, but he was very understanding and happy for this step that I am taking. He congratulated me for being accepted by LBS and even said that he was sorry for not having done the same when he was my age. He's definitely a great guy. This week I'm going to my boss and to the CEO. I hope they'll have the same reaction.

A few days ago I received a letter from IESE, thanking for informing them that I will not attend the MBA. Nice attitude. Or should I say, 'at last' a nice attitude? For all the contacts I had with them before, I created an image about IESE which is not in the same level as LBS. For instance, after receiving the acceptance email, I receive by post a folder with some info about the school and noticing me that... they had received my application! :-) And it also mentioned the scheduled open days. May I say that the last open day would be... on a date previous to the reception of this folder?

Finally, I can't wait to see this movie!! I just love Frank Miller's Sin City series. Directed by Robert Rodriguez & Frank Miller?? What a combination!!



"Worth dying for. Worth killing for. Worth going to hell for. ... Amen."