Where's the sun???

Spring break is almost over. Unfortunately, it seems that I brought the miserable London weather with me to Portugal. It's been raining a lot! I was planning to spend a few days in the sunny south part of this country (Algarve) but I had to cancel it. Rain, rain and rain... I did have the chance to sink my feet in the sand, though. But it was too windy and too cold :-)

By the way, the above photo is not mine. I just found it in this nice website about my hometown, which has some really cool photos. Check it out!

Since I could not use my time for the activities that I was planning (lying in the sun, swiming or just doing nothing) at least I had time to finish reading DisneyWar. This book has everything: the boring part (some finance, some accounting) and the fun part (organizational behaviour, creative businesses). This is all about the trappings of power, group think, corporate politics, shakespearean drama, managers vs. creativity, leadership styles and, above all, dishonesty. What a great book! I really recommend this.

Well, Summer term is just around the corner. Lots of stuff coming up: interesting courses (namely, an introduction to entrepreneuship and an advanced marketing course), lots of parties (apparently it's almost impossible to find a free saturday this term at LBS, all are booked for some kind of events), my job hunting will still go on, MBAT will be huge and the World Cup is coming too!

Time to recharge batteries.

Break!

Spring term is over. Yesterday we had our last 2 exams (Decision & Risk Analysis and Operations & Technology Management). It's amazing how fast this term went by! If you compare this with the Autumn term, the difference is huge. That term was sooooooo long and such an intense experience. I remember saying those were the longest months of my life. But this term... it's already over! It seems like it took only a few weeks! :-)

Now is time to go home, for 2 weeks. Just relax and try to enjoy some sunny weather. I miss the sea. I miss going to the beach. And I really miss that feeling of sinking my feet in the sand.

One third of the MBA is done.

Hey Bill, what's up?

Yep, that's right. Mr Clinton himself is coming to our school for a speech! I was thinking about why he chose to visit us, so I came up with a few reasons. I am sure one of them is the right one:

1. He is enjoying his holidays in the beautiful warm sunny british weather.
2. He's meeting a friend, our dean Laura Tyson, who served as his National Economic Adviser.
3. Bill is going after Monica, but he got the wrong school (she's at LSE, dude, not London Business School!!).
4. He doesn't know that the milkround is over so he's still recruiting for some interns.
5. He wants to meet me and pay my tuition fees.

Seriously now, it is unfortunate that I won't be around on the day of his visit. It's right in the middle of our Spring break, so I will be in Portugal enjoying some real sunny weather. I kind of feel a bit sad for missing this. I would love to meet the geezer and shake his hand. Everyone says his presence fills the room and is really unique. Oh well, maybe someday when I'm rich and famous...

Start spreading the news

OMG! The results for the International Exchange Programme (IEP) were released today. And guess what? I'm going to Columbia!! I'm so excited! I've never been to New York. Can't wait to go there! And the school has an amazing media curriculum, including an elective at the Columbia Film School (The Business of Film)!! How cool is that?! Now I have to choose if I prefer to go on Autumn (Fall) or Spring term.

On another note, today I attended the most interesting workshop since I've been at LBS. Maybe I should say the only interesting workshop, but that would be too harsh to other nice workshops I attended before. At least they seemed nice at the time, but they pale in comparison to the one today. It was called 'Individual Job Search' and it was given by a fantastic french geezer called Daniel Porot (MBA in 1966). Apparently, he's been in the Career Design and Job Hunting business for more than 30 years!! He's trained personally more than 12.000 individuals and more than 600.000 through his company. Check his website. This one has some interesting tips (but is still under development) and this one too.

This guy knows so many tricks and backdoor strategies to get interviews and jobs, that I wonder if he could really get any job he wanted! :-)

Although I already had other workshops on job hunting, cover letter and CV writing, interview techniques, etc... this one was much better. We really learned some great tips on all those subjects. The only problem is that this course is supposed to be taught in two weeks, so today we attended to one very condensed version of it. Nevertheless, it was very very good!

Time out!

Tomorrow I'm going home for the weekend. Thanks to Ryanair for having these ridiculous prices, from time to time. I also booked my flight for spring break for a total of.... 30 pounds. It's cheaper than taking a cab from where I live to Heathrow!! :-) The negative side is that Ryanair flies from Stansted and the cheapest flights are at 6.40am!!!!! This means that tomorrow I'll have to wake up before 3am to get the 3.40am bus to Stansted. I hope to get to Portugal alive.

As for things around here, everything is going great! Apart from the occasional flocks of snow that have been showing for the last couple of days, and just for a few minutes in the afternoon. It's very surreal... But yes, it is freezing in here!!

My applications for the international exchange have been submitted and results will come up on 10th March. So I hope to have good news by then!

Job hunting is still going. I have a couple interviews soon, one for a cool digital media company, and the other for an ooooooooooold hi-tec one ;-) Still waiting for feedback on my favourite application (shall I say the name? shall I not? Damn, I hate this big brother feeling!). Yahoo! is coming to town soon, although I'll miss their presentation. Reuteurs has some very interesting positions for the summer internship, so I will definitely apply for those too. Discovery has already posted for a corporate strategy role, which means that they might prefer ex-consultants. Not me, but still worth the shot. And I'm sure that someday Amazon and eBay will post something. So, still lots of options in the pipeline.

Well, it's almost 9pm. Time for one more 'Lost' episode and then go to sleep.