INSEAD weekend

This weekend LBS invaded Fontainebleau. Basically the LBS basketball, rugby and women touch rugby teams played against INSEAD.

The final scores were kind of balanced, but with the overall victory going to INSEAD. The basketball team (where I play) lost by 2 points, the rugby teams lost one and won another match, and the ladies drew. But we'll have our revenge at the MBAT! ;-)

However, this was a fantastic weekend! Congratulations and a big thank you to all those guys at INSEAD who really put some effort on receiving as well. They drove us around the small Fontainebleau village, took us to a few bars and to an awesome party on Saturday. This party was held on a chateau (lots of these over there) which was soooo cool! Apparently, all weeks at INSEAD are dedicated to a country, and this was their Australian week. Saturday was the ending party. Here's a photo from the dining room (I took it with my mobile phone, so the quality is not that great):


Since their campus is located in a small village surrounded by forest, the way they spend their free time is a bit different from us here at LBS. There's only a few bars and no clubs, so they keep organising house parties and events in chateaus, like this saturday's dinner. Probably because of this, I got the feeling that they have a stronger community sense than we do here at LBS. When there's something happen, almost all 300 of them go there. Because they don't have anything else to go. Not like in here, in the middle of London, where we have hundreds of different things to do on a weekend. I guess this has some pros and cons, like everything. Maybe they get a stronger and closer group, but... that's ok for one or two months. I'm afraid that spending one year like that would be too much for me. However, they have the opportunity to do one term at the Singapore campus and they do use it to change their routine.

Now I'm just trying to recover from that crazy crazy party and starting to study for my finance exam (next saturday morning).

Media Summit, Tatoo, exams, strategy and home!!

Long time since my last post (I have to get used to starting my posts with a sentence like this one..).

Many, many things have been happening around here. Of course, all my beloved fellow bloggers have posted about them. It's good they're not as lazy as I am...

The London Media Summit was terrific! We had some really good speaches (Luke Johnson, from Channel 4, and Victoria Barnsley, from Harper Collins, come to mind). The user-created content panel went beautifully (in fact, it was the pannel with the highest attendance!). I met loads of interesting people during this looooong day and, when finally I got home, I just collapsed. It was very tiring. Another interesting thing from this summit was the speach from David Jones, Microsoft. He presented a project they have in London called Life2 (Life 'squared'). This is kind of the ultimate hi-tec house. Everything connected to everything else, convergence is the goal in this place. Perfect for the lazy people like me :-) Microsoft invited some people from LBS to visit them soon and I joined the group. Can't wait to check it out! More on that later.

We recently had our first exam. It was the Managerial Economics midterm exam. Now this really feels like being in school again! That strange feeling about seating for an exam! :-) But this was a multiple choice exam, so it went ok. No reason to panic. Since the exam was on a Thursday, everyone just went to Sundowners afterwards. Nice way to get rid of stress. Actually, free drinks are always welcomed, not only after exams.

The Saturday previous to this last one we had, in my opinion, the most surreal experience around here: the Strategy Double Session! In few words, this is like a group crack-a-case session, for a whole day!! This is insane! Mainly because my group ended up in one of the smallest rooms around here! Class started at 10am, discussion went on in the lecture theatre until noon and after that... group work in that miserable room. By 10pm we were over (assignments had to be handed in before 10.15pm). When I (really) looked to everyone else in my group I just couldn't stop laughing: everyone was looking like psychopaths!! Red eyes, messy hair... you get the picture. It was just to much. If this is how consultants live, than I don't want to do it :-) However, since that Saturday was the day previous to my birthday (hurray!) we went to some club in London to.... get rid of stress... by drinking. Again.

This last weekend I went home. Left on Thursday and came back on Sunday night. It felt so good!!! Although we've been in here for just 2 or 3 months, it feels like I've been in this school for ages!!! It's a strange paradox: time goes really quick, it just flies, but... at the same time, it feels like I've been here for one year. Anyway, going home was amazing. Not thinking on Finance, Accounting or Strategy assignments was great. Being with my family and girlfriend was even better. Saturday night I joined some friends and properly celebrated my birthday (actually, it was not only mine but also the birthday of two other frieds of mine, which means that at the end we had more than... 110 invited people! Cool!). It was good to... get rid of stress... drinking. Again.

And this is all for now. I know I promised a long time ago some photos from Tatoo. I finally have them, so here they are. It was a tremendous party. It allowed us to... get rid of some stress... drinking. [I guess I should be worried]