Mighty, mighty London!!

Oh yeah!!! We came, we saw and we conquered! We also rocked and partied (but more on that later). That's right, London Business School won MBAT! I'm not sure about which sports we won exactly, but here's a list of the ones I am aware of:


- Basketball (yeah baby!!)
- Volleyball
- Beach volleyball (pairs)
- Beach volleyball (4)
- Women rugby
- Badminton
- Ultimate Frisbee
- Swimming
- Squash
- Handball
- Tug of War
- Chess
- Cricket

In other others, WE KICKED ASS!!! :-)

I'm too tired to write a detailed description about this weekend, so here are some random thoughts on the whole event. A brief list of highs and lows:

High - LBS Band show on the opening night: the guys just rocked the place. Nasty punchy rock, serious stage divings, crowded mosh pit. Wild night. Everyone loved their show. You are getting better and better, guys!

Low - The bus drivers :-) Where the hell did HEC find these guys!! On the first competition day, the driver got lost between the HEC campus and the Basketball court which was within a... 10 minute walking distance. On Saturday night, most of us went to Paris to enjoy a good meal and go to an MBAT party. When I left the party, the bus was waiting for us but... it took 2 hours to get to HEC! Instead of the usual 30-40 minutes. The driver got lost in Paris.

High - HEC campus. I loved the place. Just beautiful and very relaxing. I'm not sure about staying there for one whole year, though. It could get a bit boring. But definitely a beautiful place!

Low - Food. FOOD! There was no food! Breakfast was only based on small croissants, coffee and orange juice... and which was not enough for everyone. You had to be there reaaaaaaaally early to get some. And the BBQ dinner party seemed like a refugee camp: hundreds of people battling for a piece of sausage or mid-cooked kebabs. Oh yes, and the food was not enough. Again.

High - The other schools. Great atmosphere! Highlights go to RSM for the nicest partiest people and to IESE for the loudest crowd. Well... Bocconi were actually the loudest, but they were using air horns and that's cheating ;-)

Low - I ran out of lows.

High - HEC organization. Apart from the lows mentioned above, these guys did a great job overall. It's definitely not easy to organize this kind of event with 13 schools, 2000+ participants and 26 sports. Congrats, guys! Thank you for the great weekend!

MAJOR HIGH - LBS Basketball team. I had to say this again. We are the champions! I love this game! Here's the trophy:


I will try to post more MBAT pics during the next few days.

Now is time to sleep...

Open weekend is over, but MBAT is coming!

The open weekend was just fantastic! I admit that things got a little bit out of control (check the stage diving photo in Angel Angie's blog :-) ). But it was great meeting all those excited people from the 2008 class. Adding to that, and in my opinion, it was even greater because I still remember exactly how I felt one year ago. Coming to school, being asked 'where are you from?' hundreds of times, going to the MBAr for the first time, having a few drinks, and meeting those crazy MBA students (well... actually I think that the incoming students were a bit wilder than the ones this year... but maybe that was just me... at least we're trying to maintain our reputation, as reported by KV and his licking episode).

On another note, MBAT is coming!!!! Tomorrow we will get our brand new kits (LBS jacket and bag). The basketball team (actually, we have two teams) as been practicing a lot and we hope we will have a good performance on MBAT. Let's see if my next post will be to report our victory.

May the best school win.

If your enemy is secure at all points, be prepared for him.
If he is in superior strength, evade him.
If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him.
Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.
If he is taking his ease, give him no rest.
If his forces are united, separate them.
If sovereign and subject are in accord, put division between them.
Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.

- Sun Tzu, the Art of War

PS: Obviously, I am also curious about the MBAT evening parties. If a simple open weekend at LBS can get crazy, I can't even imagine how a party with students from 10+ MBA schools will be!

IDEO, Tech career forum and Open Weekend

1) Wednesday we had a cool presentation from Mat Hunter, IDEO's Global Director, Consumer Experience Practice. Very interesting stuff. I first heard about IDEO on a Managing Organizational Behaviour class, when we were shown a video tape with a IDEO team brainstorming and designing a new shopping cart. This design strategy and design thinking concepts are, in my opinion, much more interesting and successful ways of selling consulting services than the usual old-timer boring McKinsey Bain BCG ways.

2) Today was the Technology Career Forum. Interesting companies came on campus, to present some of the summer and full-time opportunities they have available. Activision, Skype, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, just to name a few. Not all of them have summer internships, but at least I got some good leads that I will 'actively' follow up :-) Great event.

3) This weekend is the MBA2008's open weekend. And I'm feeling nostalgic... It was already one year ago when I came to London on a Friday, feeling very anxious, and entered that restaurant to meet some of my current friends (that was also the day I was tatoo'ed for the first time :-) ). The day after that we had a reception at the school with the Dean and student representatives. God, how I was excited about all that! I had just been accepted by my favourite school and was about to start this MBA dream! It feels kind of strange now... mainly when work starts piling up and stress levels start to reach ridiculous levels and I forget that I'M HERE! This is why I was all that excited about one year ago. This was my dream! I'm living it! And I better make good use of it! Interesting how one's perceptions and emotions change. Anyway, the next time I feel like kicking my laptop and cursing everything I will try to stop for a couple of seconds and realize how fortunate I am. Not everyone has the chance to fulfill a dream.

I'm so envious of the new MBA class! :-) If there's any MBA2008 reading this, please take this simple piece of advice: live your MBA to the maximum. It's one hell of an experience.

PS: I volunteered to help on this year's Open Weekend. My role will be to meet the new class at a nearby pub, have some drinks and talk to them. My kind of job!

Batteries recharged

I just arrived from a quick 5-day holiday in sunny Algarve (south of Portugal). Man, that felt reaaaaally good! The weather was amazing, the sea was fantastic as always, got a bit of a tan, relaxed, watched my team win the Portuguese football cup, had some great food... aahhhhh! I was born for this! :-)

Of course, I am trying to avoid the depressing thought that I won't have more holidays in the next year. And that sucks! I always had some time off in August. But this year, after Summer term I will (hopefully) start my internship and then, by the end of August, I will move to New York and re-start my studies (partying) at Columbia. After the MBA is over, I will have to take at least 2 weeks off!

Now, with my batteries recharged, I will face one more chaotic month. This term, things are getting a bit crazy: UEM (Understanding Entrepreneurship Management) is great fun but a lot of work, Advanced Marketing Strategy as just started, Macroeconomy assignments are on the way, and final exams for Management Accounting, Information Management and Macroeconomy will follow, MBAT starts in a couple of weeks, good parties coming up (and I will be DJing!), I'm now part of the Media Club Executive committee and... hunting for a summer internship is not over yet!!! All this will happen in just the next 4 weeks.

And now, maybe I should pay attention to my IM class ;-)

Collective LSD trip?

This Sunday I had my own Salvador Dali's experience. What the hell was a giant mechanical elephant doing in the middle of Piccadilly Circus??!

Dude! Grooovy!

Automatic... screwing?

This wednesday we had a field trip to Valeo, a manufacturing company located in Nogent-le-Rotrou (aprox. 150km from Paris, in the middle of nowhere). This field trip was part of our OTM course, which we had... last term. The trip should also have happened last term... but I prefer not to get started on this terrible organization from LBS. That's a biiiiig story. Not even to mention the fact that other streams got to visit BMW, Porsche or Airbus... however, I went to... Valeo [sigh].

Anyway. the trip had its ups and downs. Downs? The timetable and the boring factory visit. Ups? Paris, of course. Here's how it went:

4.30am: wake-up. Curse the school, the MBA, life in general.
5.00: get out of bed, shower, stop cursing.
5.30: meet friend and take a cab to Waterloo.
6.00: wait for everyone at Waterloo, and find out who's missing.
6.30: enter the Eurostar, study Management Accounting, sleep.
10.30: arrive in Paris.
10.40: take 'le metro' from Gare du Nord to Montparnasse.
11.05: buy sandwich, run to the train.
11.15: take the train to Nogent-le-Rotrou.
13.15: arrive at Nogent-le-Rotrou, have lunch.
14.00: presentation starts. Listen to french guy who barely speaks english.
14.05: drink two coffees.
14.10: slap face and avoid falling asleep. Drink another coffee.
14.30: factory visit starts.
14.45: meet plant manager (Portuguese! We're everywhere :-) ).
15.00: listen to boring talk about inventories and logistics.
15.30: listen to boring talk about kanban cars.
16.00: listen to boring talk about molding machines.
16.30: listen to boring talk about... automatic screwing! (that was the joke of the day).
17.00: realize that factory works on 3 shifts of 8 hours. Each worker has to work standing for 7.2 hours practically non-stop (two 6 minute breaks and one 20 minute break).
17.05: Ask why workers don't have bigger breaks. Look at a manager's grin saying "well... they have these 6 minute breaks".
17.06: engage discussion.
17.10: realize that everyone has left. Stop discussion.
17.30: listen to boring talk about quality. Suggest 'fatigue' as possible reason for random errors. Try to scream "7 fucking hours non-stop" when Quality manager says "ok, but why fatigue? that's what we have to find out."
17.31: feeling too tired to engage in discussion.
18.00: visit is over, go to train station.
18.30: take train to Paris.
20.20: take metro to Gare du Nord.
20.50: check in at dingy hotel, shower, curse.
22.00: have dinner at Le Procope
22.10: enjoy nice meal, wine, desert, whisky... relax.
01.00: have drinks at St. Germain des Pres.
03.00: return to dingy hotel.
05.30: wake up, shower, curse.
06.30: take Eurostart to London, study Accounting, curse, sleep.
08.00: arrive in London.
08.30: home, room, bed, curse, sleep.

So... in summary I spent more than 10 hours inside trains and 4 hours in a boring factory. At least the night in Paris was very enjoyable! And the group was great fun. Thank god for that!

I have to go back to studying Management Accounting, now. The exam is tomorrow morning.