Saturday evening (rather, Sunday morning at 3:30am), driving home from the big kick-off Welcome Week Party at Chateau Vaux-le-Penil in Melun, a chateau-mate and I were pulled over in his Porsche for my flipping the bird (double handed) and mooning the police car behind us.
But let me rewind. School has gotten off to a chugging start. Classes are in full gear (you're not allowed to drop a class after the first three sessions, and I think it's already too late for me to drop most of mine! Ugh) and my new nest is suitably IKEA-feathered and of course, the social engagement pipeline is streaming merrily with barbeques and brunches and dinners and random social visits. Of course, in between, there is the constant sleety Fontainebleau rain trying to give London a run for its money as worst weather locale in Europe.
There are also the transitions, always driving driving driving with music in these miniature cars, be it clanging techno while crammed with Frenchmen, heart-pounding dance music while joyriding after parties, or cheesy sappy heart-rending ballads that make me suddenly burst into tears on the N7 while racing into the gray on my own. Nothing like a little "I will always love you" to remind you of how to feel alone while swimming in a sea of people.
I digress. Back to being pulled over for mooning the police. By the way, the reason I had decided to pursue such actions was not simply maniacal self-destructiveness. Enrique Iglesias was being pumped at full blast, we were singing out loud, I was drunk as a wet bread crumb, and I thought we were being followed by a carload of friends who were following us home-- so you see it really was their fault for having let a police car come between us. We wobbled out of the car while muttering under our breaths--
"Shit!"
"What, are you drunk?"
"Of course I'm drunk!"
"But I thought you were sober! That's why you're driving!"
"I am sober, but legally I'm not sober!"
"Oh dear. This is bad."
Clamber out, three very angry plainclothes policemen yelling in French.
me- "Messieurs, je suis desolée . . . je croyais que vous êtes mes amis . . . "
Eurgh. How do you apologize for something like this? In our stuttering (very stuttering) French, we affirmed that we were students, that we just came from the party at the Chateau, and that we were deeply, deeply sorry for flipping them off and giving them a view of my arse.
And then, just like that, after barking at us for the longest five minutes ever, they were gone. No breathalyzer, no ticket, just a warning. We thought an angel must be looking after us, but just so we didn't push our luck, we drove home the rest of the way at 50 kmh. Welcome back to INSEAD.
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
Here at school, not having a phone is the equivalence of social death. With a phone, you can call people for dinner, receive calls for dinner, call friends to see where they're sitting, call people to see if they're home, call people for a ride, call to chat and say welcome back, or at the very least, call home and be comforted by old friends. Without a phone, you have no name, no button on the register of the world. Imagine my dismay when I found my phone completely dead as I got back into France yesterday afternoon. After much excess pain and travel angst, I managed to find my way back to school, and discovered I had to attend a class in the next five minutes. I don't know about you, but after a sweaty 6-hour plane ride with a kid kicking the back of my seat every five minutes at what was the equivalent of 6:00am to my body clock, the last thing I wanted to do was learn about Private Equity. Ech. But I managed through, sitting there in the big bright front row (because of course I entered the class 10 minutes late) with no papers, no handout, not even a pen so I could pretend to take notes.
I still kept hearing jet noises flying around inside my ears, and my eyes, feeling red and wild, kept replaying that sad, tense walk down the security checkpoint aisle, looking back to say goodbye to my life in New York. After finally getting back to the Chateau and regaining possession of my dear, beat-up little Peugeot, I de-musted my rooms by throwing open the shutters and windows. The place looks like a bit of a disaster, it's true, with peeling paint and what-were-you-thinking puce(!) wallpaper and the most disgusting furniture, but it is more space than I have ever had to myself-- in fact, it is the first apartment I've ever had all to myself. Nothing a trip to IKEA can't fix. I spent all night in a storm of reorganization and cleanup, and am happy to report that while the place still looks like a disaster, the beginnings of an organizing principle for each room are visible to my eye. The worst of it, and what finally put me to a frustrated sleep in the end, was the futile search for my phone charger. It is nowhere to be found.
So what's a girl to do? She has to go into town, and purchase another. You'd think this was a easy task, taking no more than a few minutes to accomplish. Ah, but not so, because said charger is only available from the Orange Telecom office, whose line is a requisite 1-hour wait, for ANYTHING, even a pre-packaged charger. Yes folks, I got a traffic ticket while waiting for my turn at the cashier, as I discovered upon pulling out and turning on my windshield wipers (a light rain to greet me back in Fonty, how appropriate), when the ticket flew out to the wind and I had to stop the car to run out and retrieve it. Ugh. Even better? Now my phone's charged, but the service isn't working. Who knows, maybe France Telecom has some rule against having your phone turned off for two months.
So I am still a social pariah, with no way of making contact with my fellow INSEADers short of wandering around campus and peering hopefully into the cubicles. But I'm hopeful that things will look up soon. A dinner at my place tonight, though, to greet the new September inhabitants of the Chateau, followed by national dinners tomorrow. I think an Orangina will cheer me up-- who knows, maybe I'll run into someone at the bar?
I still kept hearing jet noises flying around inside my ears, and my eyes, feeling red and wild, kept replaying that sad, tense walk down the security checkpoint aisle, looking back to say goodbye to my life in New York. After finally getting back to the Chateau and regaining possession of my dear, beat-up little Peugeot, I de-musted my rooms by throwing open the shutters and windows. The place looks like a bit of a disaster, it's true, with peeling paint and what-were-you-thinking puce(!) wallpaper and the most disgusting furniture, but it is more space than I have ever had to myself-- in fact, it is the first apartment I've ever had all to myself. Nothing a trip to IKEA can't fix. I spent all night in a storm of reorganization and cleanup, and am happy to report that while the place still looks like a disaster, the beginnings of an organizing principle for each room are visible to my eye. The worst of it, and what finally put me to a frustrated sleep in the end, was the futile search for my phone charger. It is nowhere to be found.
So what's a girl to do? She has to go into town, and purchase another. You'd think this was a easy task, taking no more than a few minutes to accomplish. Ah, but not so, because said charger is only available from the Orange Telecom office, whose line is a requisite 1-hour wait, for ANYTHING, even a pre-packaged charger. Yes folks, I got a traffic ticket while waiting for my turn at the cashier, as I discovered upon pulling out and turning on my windshield wipers (a light rain to greet me back in Fonty, how appropriate), when the ticket flew out to the wind and I had to stop the car to run out and retrieve it. Ugh. Even better? Now my phone's charged, but the service isn't working. Who knows, maybe France Telecom has some rule against having your phone turned off for two months.
So I am still a social pariah, with no way of making contact with my fellow INSEADers short of wandering around campus and peering hopefully into the cubicles. But I'm hopeful that things will look up soon. A dinner at my place tonight, though, to greet the new September inhabitants of the Chateau, followed by national dinners tomorrow. I think an Orangina will cheer me up-- who knows, maybe I'll run into someone at the bar?
Wednesday, August 18, 2004
Lulu
She is not a very clever cat, but what she lacked in cunning she made up for with her glamorous good looks and an innocent if indiscriminately affectionate temperament. This morning I opened my eyes to a tangle of blue cotton sheets around my legs and an otherwise empty bed. Missing her familiar soft weight in the crook of my elbow, I called out "Lulu?" even as I remembered that she doesn't live here any more, and a wooly, sodden sadness settled on my chest.
Lulu came into my life like New York City-- all of a sudden, an unplanned but unexpectedly wonderful perk. She belonged to M., the lady who owned the little apartment in the Lower East Side where I subletted for my first two months before finding a place of my own. The lady was a little bit crazy, and my room was the size of a medium closet (I had to climb a ladder to get to the bed, which spanned the room, and underneath was a tiny desk), but as soon as I walked in, I met Lulu's lovely green eyes. She fell over on her side with an expectant look of "pet me, I'm beautiful," and even friendless as I was, I knew New York had been a good idea.
After moving into my new place, a fancy doorman highrise with shiny new appliances and sparkling city lights across my wall-to-wall windows, I filled my own space with a four poster bed, peach sheets and gauzy georgette bed curtains, but the warmest featherbeds won't purr or rub noses. Luckily M. had to go on a six-month vacation to Iran, and she let me take care of Lulu. So what if the boyfriend of the moment was allergic to cats? He was out the door, and Lulu was in. Six months turned into a year, into two, and no word from M. outside of a few fitful communications that seemed tentative and unwilling at both ends. She seemed unwilling because she was always traveling. I was unwilling because I couldn't bear to let Lulu go.
Coming home from work, feeling like a wrung out rag at 2, 3, or 4 am, all my friends would be asleep, but Lulu was always there at the door, ready with her little white paw and her little pink nose to hang out with me while I brushed my teeth and rambled about my day (to a cat, yes, I know, to a cat). Weekends were the best, because I could sleep all day, until the sun slanted in and made me fling off the sheets, and Lulu would open one sleepy eye as if to say, "stop flailing, girl, I'm still napping." She liked to burrow under my covers with her head. When I would finally get up (well past noon, sometimes as late as 4 or 5pm), we would both pad into the kitchen, looking for food, finding none, and eventually ordering sushi for two(Lulu was one spoiled cat).
She followed me from midtown highrise to Chelsea walk-up as I moved around NYC, but she couldn't follow me to France, because I was moving into a house with some allergic housemates. After some shuffling about, Lulu came to reside in Times Square with the Boyfriend, in his itty bitty apartment with its zebra-print carpet, guitars on the wall, and red couch. Is it in the nature of princesses to assume that their presence is always desired? Maybe somewhere deep down Lulu and I knew that he was doing us a favor by letting her stay, but the way she would loll on the couch and langorously knead her claws in his thighs, you'd have thought that he ought to be thanking her for the privilege of having her in his lap.
But that brings us to yesterday, and goodbye. After all, while you can wheedle a boyfriend into taking care of your cat while you are off doing your MBA in France, asking an ex-boyfriend to do so is stretching the limits, even for a princess like Lulu. The contingency plan until recently was to carry Lulu all the way to Fontainebleau, but to my dismay France changed its animal import laws just last month such that you have to wait at least three months between examination/vaccination and actual transport. Lulu deserves better than to be shunted off to friends who don't love her with all their heart, and I knew there weren't many alternatives. Breaking up is hard to do, as the song goes. Yesterday I looked up M. on Google, and found that she was back in New York. I called the number of the newsletter in Brooklyn that listed her as a part-time contributer, and lo and behold, there she was at my door an hour later, and Lulu was in her carrier, mewing her head off (she only mews when she's scared, which is usually when she has to travel). "Bye bye baby, don't be scared," I told her, "I'll come visit, I love you!" before the yellow cab roared off across town.
So that's it then, every last loose end has been tied up into my patchwork net, ready lift up, up and away from New York City, back to France and into the rest of my life. Lulu, you will always be the best cat in the world, and I will visit when I'm back in NYC. Is it sick to name your firstborn after a pet? Because if I ever have a girl, I might just name her Lulu. I'll never forget you. We've come full circle, baby-- you've gone to your new home, and I'm leaving to find mine. Bon voyage darling, je t'aime!
She is not a very clever cat, but what she lacked in cunning she made up for with her glamorous good looks and an innocent if indiscriminately affectionate temperament. This morning I opened my eyes to a tangle of blue cotton sheets around my legs and an otherwise empty bed. Missing her familiar soft weight in the crook of my elbow, I called out "Lulu?" even as I remembered that she doesn't live here any more, and a wooly, sodden sadness settled on my chest.
Lulu came into my life like New York City-- all of a sudden, an unplanned but unexpectedly wonderful perk. She belonged to M., the lady who owned the little apartment in the Lower East Side where I subletted for my first two months before finding a place of my own. The lady was a little bit crazy, and my room was the size of a medium closet (I had to climb a ladder to get to the bed, which spanned the room, and underneath was a tiny desk), but as soon as I walked in, I met Lulu's lovely green eyes. She fell over on her side with an expectant look of "pet me, I'm beautiful," and even friendless as I was, I knew New York had been a good idea.
After moving into my new place, a fancy doorman highrise with shiny new appliances and sparkling city lights across my wall-to-wall windows, I filled my own space with a four poster bed, peach sheets and gauzy georgette bed curtains, but the warmest featherbeds won't purr or rub noses. Luckily M. had to go on a six-month vacation to Iran, and she let me take care of Lulu. So what if the boyfriend of the moment was allergic to cats? He was out the door, and Lulu was in. Six months turned into a year, into two, and no word from M. outside of a few fitful communications that seemed tentative and unwilling at both ends. She seemed unwilling because she was always traveling. I was unwilling because I couldn't bear to let Lulu go.
Coming home from work, feeling like a wrung out rag at 2, 3, or 4 am, all my friends would be asleep, but Lulu was always there at the door, ready with her little white paw and her little pink nose to hang out with me while I brushed my teeth and rambled about my day (to a cat, yes, I know, to a cat). Weekends were the best, because I could sleep all day, until the sun slanted in and made me fling off the sheets, and Lulu would open one sleepy eye as if to say, "stop flailing, girl, I'm still napping." She liked to burrow under my covers with her head. When I would finally get up (well past noon, sometimes as late as 4 or 5pm), we would both pad into the kitchen, looking for food, finding none, and eventually ordering sushi for two(Lulu was one spoiled cat).
She followed me from midtown highrise to Chelsea walk-up as I moved around NYC, but she couldn't follow me to France, because I was moving into a house with some allergic housemates. After some shuffling about, Lulu came to reside in Times Square with the Boyfriend, in his itty bitty apartment with its zebra-print carpet, guitars on the wall, and red couch. Is it in the nature of princesses to assume that their presence is always desired? Maybe somewhere deep down Lulu and I knew that he was doing us a favor by letting her stay, but the way she would loll on the couch and langorously knead her claws in his thighs, you'd have thought that he ought to be thanking her for the privilege of having her in his lap.
But that brings us to yesterday, and goodbye. After all, while you can wheedle a boyfriend into taking care of your cat while you are off doing your MBA in France, asking an ex-boyfriend to do so is stretching the limits, even for a princess like Lulu. The contingency plan until recently was to carry Lulu all the way to Fontainebleau, but to my dismay France changed its animal import laws just last month such that you have to wait at least three months between examination/vaccination and actual transport. Lulu deserves better than to be shunted off to friends who don't love her with all their heart, and I knew there weren't many alternatives. Breaking up is hard to do, as the song goes. Yesterday I looked up M. on Google, and found that she was back in New York. I called the number of the newsletter in Brooklyn that listed her as a part-time contributer, and lo and behold, there she was at my door an hour later, and Lulu was in her carrier, mewing her head off (she only mews when she's scared, which is usually when she has to travel). "Bye bye baby, don't be scared," I told her, "I'll come visit, I love you!" before the yellow cab roared off across town.
So that's it then, every last loose end has been tied up into my patchwork net, ready lift up, up and away from New York City, back to France and into the rest of my life. Lulu, you will always be the best cat in the world, and I will visit when I'm back in NYC. Is it sick to name your firstborn after a pet? Because if I ever have a girl, I might just name her Lulu. I'll never forget you. We've come full circle, baby-- you've gone to your new home, and I'm leaving to find mine. Bon voyage darling, je t'aime!
Sunday, August 08, 2004
Am dressed in red, and ready to go out for a night of Salsa with my girls . . .
My two best friends came to visit me in California, and after a few days of stuffing ourselves with my mother's food, we roadtripped up the Northwestern seaboard to visit a college friend in Seattle. Along the way, we stopped by for Henry VI at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and stocked up on supplies of CDs and reading material at Walmart. I bought Beatles, Beach Boys, and BonJovi. We also bought an *ahem* harlequin paperback entitled "Hot and Bothered" and took turns reading it out loud as we cruised the mountains of Oregon and Washington. While it was no Shakespeare, we didn't mind because we'd gotten all the culture-mongering out of our system back in Ashland. Amazing how a ridiculously cheesy sex scene can melt the miles away. I provided sound effects whenever the words "muttered, murmurred, sighed, moaned, or gasped" were mentioned (about twice a page, average).
Why can't life be one long road trip where you get to trap all the people you love in the car with you, and nobody's allowed to go home or back to work? But I suppose if we all traveled the same road, nobody would get to discover all those little side paths that you have to find alone. I seem always to be stuck missing the last thing I knew for sure.
My two best friends came to visit me in California, and after a few days of stuffing ourselves with my mother's food, we roadtripped up the Northwestern seaboard to visit a college friend in Seattle. Along the way, we stopped by for Henry VI at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and stocked up on supplies of CDs and reading material at Walmart. I bought Beatles, Beach Boys, and BonJovi. We also bought an *ahem* harlequin paperback entitled "Hot and Bothered" and took turns reading it out loud as we cruised the mountains of Oregon and Washington. While it was no Shakespeare, we didn't mind because we'd gotten all the culture-mongering out of our system back in Ashland. Amazing how a ridiculously cheesy sex scene can melt the miles away. I provided sound effects whenever the words "muttered, murmurred, sighed, moaned, or gasped" were mentioned (about twice a page, average).
Why can't life be one long road trip where you get to trap all the people you love in the car with you, and nobody's allowed to go home or back to work? But I suppose if we all traveled the same road, nobody would get to discover all those little side paths that you have to find alone. I seem always to be stuck missing the last thing I knew for sure.
Monday, August 02, 2004
Paradise on earth
Every time I come home I wonder why I ever left. In my own little twin bed I sink myself down beneath the layers of sheet, comforter and duvet until only my nose is sticking out, quivering with the cool fresh dewy smell of Palo Alto-- homegrown tomato vines outside my open windows, fragrant flowering trees in the neighbor's yard, light dust on the windowsill and the imprint of recent sunshine. I know my overstimulated, overtraveled and overworldly brain will rapidly feel smothered by the ease and simplicity of daily routine here, a pattern so enforced by habit that I can't see the road for the grooves any more. Every road-bend and stopsign, every gray squirrel clambering on our garden fence and every aisle at the public library where I spent my nerdy childhood is as strangely familiar as grade-school and grocery-shopping. There is never any humidity here, and the constant airy sunshine sparkles with pink and yellow hexagons, forcing my mental fingers to rub, startled, at the unearthed remains of my innocence and childish imagination. Remember, I ask myself, when your whole life was just a dream built of images from musty books, cheesy sitcoms and glossy brochures? There is something very peaceful and safe about lying here with my feet hanging off the edges if I do not pull myslf up against the headboard, exactly two minutes before I am lulled asleep to a hint of crickets behind the noiseless hum of sleeping suburbia.
Every time I come home I wonder why I ever left. In my own little twin bed I sink myself down beneath the layers of sheet, comforter and duvet until only my nose is sticking out, quivering with the cool fresh dewy smell of Palo Alto-- homegrown tomato vines outside my open windows, fragrant flowering trees in the neighbor's yard, light dust on the windowsill and the imprint of recent sunshine. I know my overstimulated, overtraveled and overworldly brain will rapidly feel smothered by the ease and simplicity of daily routine here, a pattern so enforced by habit that I can't see the road for the grooves any more. Every road-bend and stopsign, every gray squirrel clambering on our garden fence and every aisle at the public library where I spent my nerdy childhood is as strangely familiar as grade-school and grocery-shopping. There is never any humidity here, and the constant airy sunshine sparkles with pink and yellow hexagons, forcing my mental fingers to rub, startled, at the unearthed remains of my innocence and childish imagination. Remember, I ask myself, when your whole life was just a dream built of images from musty books, cheesy sitcoms and glossy brochures? There is something very peaceful and safe about lying here with my feet hanging off the edges if I do not pull myslf up against the headboard, exactly two minutes before I am lulled asleep to a hint of crickets behind the noiseless hum of sleeping suburbia.
Friday, July 30, 2004
Heartbreak hotel
There's nothing quite like a good old country song to wreak havoc on your heartstrings. And while it may seem slightly ridiculous to imagine a city girl shedding sentimental tears over lyrics about cornfields and open country when her only experience with cornfields has been watching them pass outside her window on roadtrips, I can't help it. I'm a sucker through and through. The dusty image of salvation as a shotgun wedding in a pickup truck sung with a nasal twang and a fatalistic devil-may-care grin makes my heart beat faster and my eyes close, prickling with the plaintive crying of the guitar and some ancient undeniable Jungian Sehnen . . . perhaps I'm cheesy and outdated and pretty uncool, yes, but at least I take comfort in being passionately so. My current semi-country mix, which is so saccharine it stands in as a punishment, but I don't apologize:
Desperado -Eagles
It matters to me -Faith Hill
This is the night -Clay Aiken
Let's go to Vegas -Faith Hill
Carrying your love with me -George Strait
You had me from hello -Kenny Chesney
Everywhere -Tim McGraw
Come crying to me -Lonestar
Amazed -Lonestar
Forever and ever, Amen -Randy Travis
She don't know she's beautiful -Sammy Kershaw
Where the green grass grows -Tim McGraw
And now you know more about me than you'd think.
There's nothing quite like a good old country song to wreak havoc on your heartstrings. And while it may seem slightly ridiculous to imagine a city girl shedding sentimental tears over lyrics about cornfields and open country when her only experience with cornfields has been watching them pass outside her window on roadtrips, I can't help it. I'm a sucker through and through. The dusty image of salvation as a shotgun wedding in a pickup truck sung with a nasal twang and a fatalistic devil-may-care grin makes my heart beat faster and my eyes close, prickling with the plaintive crying of the guitar and some ancient undeniable Jungian Sehnen . . . perhaps I'm cheesy and outdated and pretty uncool, yes, but at least I take comfort in being passionately so. My current semi-country mix, which is so saccharine it stands in as a punishment, but I don't apologize:
Desperado -Eagles
It matters to me -Faith Hill
This is the night -Clay Aiken
Let's go to Vegas -Faith Hill
Carrying your love with me -George Strait
You had me from hello -Kenny Chesney
Everywhere -Tim McGraw
Come crying to me -Lonestar
Amazed -Lonestar
Forever and ever, Amen -Randy Travis
She don't know she's beautiful -Sammy Kershaw
Where the green grass grows -Tim McGraw
And now you know more about me than you'd think.
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
on a quotidien existence
I still wonder at my own capacity to settle down into the comfort of a schedule. Ah, what a seductive mistress is Habit, eh? Not the most beautiful companion, she nonetheless has small white hands and an easy way of putting food in front of your face that makes her indispensable to the lazy, such that you don't even realize until it's too late that Passion and Inspiration have rolled their eyes and left your side, tired of your capricious wants and indecisive ways.
I am back in NYC, and loving the whole English-speaking country deal. Ah, the obnoxious accents that only here do not seem out of place! Not being gainfully employed for the summer, I am whiling away my hours by laying on my back on the zebra-print carpet with warm cat on my stomach, talking to Lulu (the cat) about existentialism, my future, and what to eat for dinner (which if you think about it, are different versions of the same thing). My exotic travels to Barcelona, Cote d'Azur, Florence, Rome, Bombay and Delhi seem like some crazy technicolor slideshow that I sat through in a dark theater while drunk on absinthe as I lie here in this tiny living room flipping through bad daytime TV stations (oh, whether 'tis better to watch E! True Hollywood entertainment stories of Arnold Schwartzenegger and Maria Shriver or yet another episode of Law&Order? The indecision! The agony!), and searching the internet for signs and symptoms of Malaria to feed my hypochondria (I took tablets, but like a bad girl I stopped as soon as I got back).
Have been lunching with friends (this is what they'd call "networking" in b-school except that I have the unfortunate habit of only liking non-schmoozy types) and lazily picking up a few books, but my resolution to study some French has long gone out la fenêtre. Recently hopped up to Boston for a quick weekend reunion with college roomies, which has reinforced my impression that all memories and activities seem to revolve around food. We ate at our favorite haunts . . . and that was about it. This weekend I go home to California, and am looking forward to food, once again.
Okay, all this food is making me hungry, and I think the sweet potatoes in the oven are ready now.
Ta!
I still wonder at my own capacity to settle down into the comfort of a schedule. Ah, what a seductive mistress is Habit, eh? Not the most beautiful companion, she nonetheless has small white hands and an easy way of putting food in front of your face that makes her indispensable to the lazy, such that you don't even realize until it's too late that Passion and Inspiration have rolled their eyes and left your side, tired of your capricious wants and indecisive ways.
I am back in NYC, and loving the whole English-speaking country deal. Ah, the obnoxious accents that only here do not seem out of place! Not being gainfully employed for the summer, I am whiling away my hours by laying on my back on the zebra-print carpet with warm cat on my stomach, talking to Lulu (the cat) about existentialism, my future, and what to eat for dinner (which if you think about it, are different versions of the same thing). My exotic travels to Barcelona, Cote d'Azur, Florence, Rome, Bombay and Delhi seem like some crazy technicolor slideshow that I sat through in a dark theater while drunk on absinthe as I lie here in this tiny living room flipping through bad daytime TV stations (oh, whether 'tis better to watch E! True Hollywood entertainment stories of Arnold Schwartzenegger and Maria Shriver or yet another episode of Law&Order? The indecision! The agony!), and searching the internet for signs and symptoms of Malaria to feed my hypochondria (I took tablets, but like a bad girl I stopped as soon as I got back).
Have been lunching with friends (this is what they'd call "networking" in b-school except that I have the unfortunate habit of only liking non-schmoozy types) and lazily picking up a few books, but my resolution to study some French has long gone out la fenêtre. Recently hopped up to Boston for a quick weekend reunion with college roomies, which has reinforced my impression that all memories and activities seem to revolve around food. We ate at our favorite haunts . . . and that was about it. This weekend I go home to California, and am looking forward to food, once again.
Okay, all this food is making me hungry, and I think the sweet potatoes in the oven are ready now.
Ta!
Friday, July 23, 2004
Monday, July 12, 2004
My god, what has happened to me?
The last few weeks since school ended have been . . . well, there's no one word that I know which will capture it. There has been too much since then to write, and neither you nor I have the patience to read, so I'll keep it at snippets, in haphazardly chronological order.
. . . lying on my back and staring at the stars before the sun comes up as I realize that P3 is over, that the next day we are all leaving on our summer break, that INSEAD is more than half done, and that I am exhausted in every, every, every sense of the word . . .
. . . munching on a picnic of bread and cheese from the supermarket at a rest stop bench on the way between Fontainebleau and Barcelona with two buddies, smelling the summer heat and remembering car trips when I was a kid . . .
. . . screaming at the top of my lungs as a HUGE cockroach scrambled up the bathroom wall an inch from my face in our youth hostel in Barcelona . . .
. . . the sangria and tapas, fried cheese and bacon-wrapped dates at Ciudad Condal on Ramblas . . .
. . . sleeping, sticky from the car ride, with my feet sticking out of the car and watching the leaves and sunlight flash by my toes . . .
. . . staring out over the Cote d'Azur and feeling as if there ought to be a soundtrack for the view, with its red rooftops and white walls, its perfect Mediterranean and its heartbreaking hills . . .
. . . sipping Malibu and watching the slick dark waves in Juan les Pins and talking about God and growing up . . .
. . . sunbathing in Monaco on a rock, pretending that I don't care about the intense class distinctions I feel in this place. As I stare at the contrast between sandal and shorts-clad tourists and the designer-clad slickers coming out of the unspeakably expensive cars in front of the Monaco Casino, I feel that my world is very, very far away. . .
. . . A house painted all burgundy red with bright yellow trim in the setting sun on the road by the beach from Florence to Rome . . .
. . . the most beautiful coat in one of the Italian storefronts, a camel-colored thing with mandarin collars and multicolored buttons and sequins dancing across its hem . . .
. . . the houses on the bridge in Florence. What a lovely idea, to live suspended above flowing water, as if you are constantly on a journey . . .
. . . the obscene devotion and wealth and care and detail that is the Vatican, the lives that have grown, flamed, and faded with the centuries, now only grand empty ruins baking under the sun . . .
. . . taking shot after shot after shot (after awhile, we could only identify the color, not the liquor) and dancing deliriously, crazy on the tonic of seeing people I realized I truly counted as my friends . . .
. . . the dogs on the streets in Mumbai, sleeping or lounging or walking about, the beggars and the trash and the wear of the buildings, the cars and trains passing with listless but hungry eyes staring out . . .
. . . the most beautiful women I have ever seen in my life, in the most beautiful dresses I have ever seen in my life, at the poshest wedding I have ever been to in my life . . .
. . . dancing like a rock star in the VIP section of a club and being told I was lucky I had fallen sick the first day in India and could not smell anything anymore, because the place was rank the the odor of crowd and humidity . . .
. . . realizing that Bollywood is a a reflection of life here, and not the other way around . . .
. . . staring at my toes in the swimming pool at our hotel as the monsoon rains come sweeping down, crashing toward me in endless, inevitable waves, closing my eyes and still seeing the steamy morning light . . .
. . . feeling an intense hole in the pit of my stomach, because I don't think my life is the same anymore . . .
. . . swishing about in my gold bangles, with mendhi snaking over my palms and fingers and a rich red sari licking its way across my body, I don't think a dress has ever made me feel so lovely . . .
. . . missing the good old US of A, and not being able to wait to get home. The problem is just that after having been to so many places and lived for so long away, I don't know what home is anymore. Is it New York? California? Insead? My heart is in all three, and we'll see how it all shakes out.
The last few weeks since school ended have been . . . well, there's no one word that I know which will capture it. There has been too much since then to write, and neither you nor I have the patience to read, so I'll keep it at snippets, in haphazardly chronological order.
. . . lying on my back and staring at the stars before the sun comes up as I realize that P3 is over, that the next day we are all leaving on our summer break, that INSEAD is more than half done, and that I am exhausted in every, every, every sense of the word . . .
. . . munching on a picnic of bread and cheese from the supermarket at a rest stop bench on the way between Fontainebleau and Barcelona with two buddies, smelling the summer heat and remembering car trips when I was a kid . . .
. . . screaming at the top of my lungs as a HUGE cockroach scrambled up the bathroom wall an inch from my face in our youth hostel in Barcelona . . .
. . . the sangria and tapas, fried cheese and bacon-wrapped dates at Ciudad Condal on Ramblas . . .
. . . sleeping, sticky from the car ride, with my feet sticking out of the car and watching the leaves and sunlight flash by my toes . . .
. . . staring out over the Cote d'Azur and feeling as if there ought to be a soundtrack for the view, with its red rooftops and white walls, its perfect Mediterranean and its heartbreaking hills . . .
. . . sipping Malibu and watching the slick dark waves in Juan les Pins and talking about God and growing up . . .
. . . sunbathing in Monaco on a rock, pretending that I don't care about the intense class distinctions I feel in this place. As I stare at the contrast between sandal and shorts-clad tourists and the designer-clad slickers coming out of the unspeakably expensive cars in front of the Monaco Casino, I feel that my world is very, very far away. . .
. . . A house painted all burgundy red with bright yellow trim in the setting sun on the road by the beach from Florence to Rome . . .
. . . the most beautiful coat in one of the Italian storefronts, a camel-colored thing with mandarin collars and multicolored buttons and sequins dancing across its hem . . .
. . . the houses on the bridge in Florence. What a lovely idea, to live suspended above flowing water, as if you are constantly on a journey . . .
. . . the obscene devotion and wealth and care and detail that is the Vatican, the lives that have grown, flamed, and faded with the centuries, now only grand empty ruins baking under the sun . . .
. . . taking shot after shot after shot (after awhile, we could only identify the color, not the liquor) and dancing deliriously, crazy on the tonic of seeing people I realized I truly counted as my friends . . .
. . . the dogs on the streets in Mumbai, sleeping or lounging or walking about, the beggars and the trash and the wear of the buildings, the cars and trains passing with listless but hungry eyes staring out . . .
. . . the most beautiful women I have ever seen in my life, in the most beautiful dresses I have ever seen in my life, at the poshest wedding I have ever been to in my life . . .
. . . dancing like a rock star in the VIP section of a club and being told I was lucky I had fallen sick the first day in India and could not smell anything anymore, because the place was rank the the odor of crowd and humidity . . .
. . . realizing that Bollywood is a a reflection of life here, and not the other way around . . .
. . . staring at my toes in the swimming pool at our hotel as the monsoon rains come sweeping down, crashing toward me in endless, inevitable waves, closing my eyes and still seeing the steamy morning light . . .
. . . feeling an intense hole in the pit of my stomach, because I don't think my life is the same anymore . . .
. . . swishing about in my gold bangles, with mendhi snaking over my palms and fingers and a rich red sari licking its way across my body, I don't think a dress has ever made me feel so lovely . . .
. . . missing the good old US of A, and not being able to wait to get home. The problem is just that after having been to so many places and lived for so long away, I don't know what home is anymore. Is it New York? California? Insead? My heart is in all three, and we'll see how it all shakes out.
Monday, June 21, 2004
There's a plant growing out of the back of one of our kitchen cabinets-- it's a healthy green thing, with waxen leaves springing up in pinnate abundance. I'm going to miss our funny looking chickens, the chunky geese, the waddling ducks and the doves under the eaves when I leave our farmhouse. Life's been hectic as usual, although I took time out to make myself a chinese breakfast of rice porridge and pickled bamboo shoots this morning. A few events of note--
A friend was in a horrible car accident. Fell asleep at the wheel while speeding back to Fontainebleau from Paris and managed to hit another car, flip his car over several times, and slam into the embankment without (miraculously) killing the other driver, any of the highway workers standing nearby, or himself! Unbelievable, but the guy walked out of his car without a scratch. Driving out at 2:30 in the morning to pick him up up where the police had dropped him off, I was so angry at his carelessness. It makes you think-- life is such a fragile thing, why do do we waste it sometimes by being so self-centered and useless? Yet another resolution for the future-- stop useless behavior in self whenever identified.
Went to a wedding shower today for a friend who's getting married over the summer. It was an appropriately girly event, with giggling and well-wishes and gifts of french lingerie for the bride-to-be. So many of the students here are at that age when they've just been married or are about to take the leap. This ain't college anymore, that's for sure. I wonder, if I were in some very remote place with nobody my own age against whom to set my life-clock, would I desire things like dating, sex, companionship, children, at different times? Earlier or later?
It's finals season again, and this one's a bitch. Papers as well as exams to worry about. Doesn't it seem like we're constantly in exam season here at INSEAD? Ugh, am looking to fail at least one of my classes-- have only attended about half of the sessions (I wish I were only exaggerating), and it doesn't look pretty.
This Friday was the Aussie/New Zealand week party, and it was a proper blast to party with the outgoing Septembers one last time. The boys and the music and the dancing podiums blur together, but I remember coming home and dropping my head into my pillow, then not being open even one eye until 4:00 the next afternoon (missed a sadistic 9:00 Saturday morning class, but we all could have predicted that).
Last week I met some exceptional people while preparing the American Week campaign. There are 7 groups vying for only 6 slots, so if American is the one cut out, I'd feel just horrible. What can you do when your president is the most unpopular guy in the world, and you attend an international MBA? I'll fight anyone who claims that there's no such thing as American culture. The US of A is an amazing place to be, and there's no mistaking when you're there. We all got so excited imagining all the awesome events we'd plan, the food, the music, the parties, the games . . . ai, never before in my life have I faced such a wall of unwillingness to believe. I should be grateful that all I have on the line is a recreational week, I suppose, and not my ideology or my global reputation. I'm a NYTimes girl, through and through. Spare me the Fox News, please. Eh, but politics is so depressing.
Speaking of which, it's time to get back to IPA studying. This class is going to kick my ass (and I wish it would get it over with already-- cannot wait until end of term and travelling!).
A friend was in a horrible car accident. Fell asleep at the wheel while speeding back to Fontainebleau from Paris and managed to hit another car, flip his car over several times, and slam into the embankment without (miraculously) killing the other driver, any of the highway workers standing nearby, or himself! Unbelievable, but the guy walked out of his car without a scratch. Driving out at 2:30 in the morning to pick him up up where the police had dropped him off, I was so angry at his carelessness. It makes you think-- life is such a fragile thing, why do do we waste it sometimes by being so self-centered and useless? Yet another resolution for the future-- stop useless behavior in self whenever identified.
Went to a wedding shower today for a friend who's getting married over the summer. It was an appropriately girly event, with giggling and well-wishes and gifts of french lingerie for the bride-to-be. So many of the students here are at that age when they've just been married or are about to take the leap. This ain't college anymore, that's for sure. I wonder, if I were in some very remote place with nobody my own age against whom to set my life-clock, would I desire things like dating, sex, companionship, children, at different times? Earlier or later?
It's finals season again, and this one's a bitch. Papers as well as exams to worry about. Doesn't it seem like we're constantly in exam season here at INSEAD? Ugh, am looking to fail at least one of my classes-- have only attended about half of the sessions (I wish I were only exaggerating), and it doesn't look pretty.
This Friday was the Aussie/New Zealand week party, and it was a proper blast to party with the outgoing Septembers one last time. The boys and the music and the dancing podiums blur together, but I remember coming home and dropping my head into my pillow, then not being open even one eye until 4:00 the next afternoon (missed a sadistic 9:00 Saturday morning class, but we all could have predicted that).
Last week I met some exceptional people while preparing the American Week campaign. There are 7 groups vying for only 6 slots, so if American is the one cut out, I'd feel just horrible. What can you do when your president is the most unpopular guy in the world, and you attend an international MBA? I'll fight anyone who claims that there's no such thing as American culture. The US of A is an amazing place to be, and there's no mistaking when you're there. We all got so excited imagining all the awesome events we'd plan, the food, the music, the parties, the games . . . ai, never before in my life have I faced such a wall of unwillingness to believe. I should be grateful that all I have on the line is a recreational week, I suppose, and not my ideology or my global reputation. I'm a NYTimes girl, through and through. Spare me the Fox News, please. Eh, but politics is so depressing.
Speaking of which, it's time to get back to IPA studying. This class is going to kick my ass (and I wish it would get it over with already-- cannot wait until end of term and travelling!).
Thursday, June 10, 2004
Ugh. Feeling singularly uninspired and bloated. P3 is vicious and not nearly as fun as P1 or 2 (doesn’t help that the Septembers are all carefree and partying every night in their P5, and that the sun’s started beating down, sapping all my energy and stilling the air). Stayed at school until 4:30am last night/this morning fixing up a final group paper for Innovations class (40 pages long, with no agreement on styling or how to source references). Have cancelled a trip to Milan this weekend to shop for Italian shoes (mmm- yummy) because there’s just too much work and anyway could probably buy another pair of shoes just as well with the money saved on airfare and hotel. So this weekend will be a shopping weekend in gay Paris.
Other bad news—have just heard that the professor (a passionate, large English gent who smells like a combination of dusty mothballs and rancid body odor) for IPA (International Political Analysis) fails students who miss more than three classes. Have missed about six. Ech, I guess I won’t miss class on Monday as previously planned. Had wanted to visit the Indian Embassy in Paris, which (perfectly logically) is only open from 9:30-10:30am. Have I mentioned I will be spending two weeks at the beginning of my summer at a wedding in Bombay, then touring India with about ten other INSEADs? Will be a blast, can’t wait. Also, the plan to go to Singapore campus for P4 and P5 has been amended to just P5, because my travel buddy has (ahem) found love here on the Fontainebleau campus. Ah, well, I had been toying with the idea of staying for another period anyway, with the weather so beautiful and all. Will have to move out of my beloved farm house with the geese and chickens and ducks and doves, but the good news is I’ll be moving into a proper Chateau closer to campus, with a living room of my own.
On the party front, nothing to share—don’t think I’ve been properly sloshed for over a week—absolutely unheard of at INSEAD (and for me). Planning on remedying this situation ASAP, but first, am off home to sleep . . . after an wicked week of working late nights and ordering Pizza Pazza to our cubicle, my sleeve of care feels rather unraveled. Ta!
Other bad news—have just heard that the professor (a passionate, large English gent who smells like a combination of dusty mothballs and rancid body odor) for IPA (International Political Analysis) fails students who miss more than three classes. Have missed about six. Ech, I guess I won’t miss class on Monday as previously planned. Had wanted to visit the Indian Embassy in Paris, which (perfectly logically) is only open from 9:30-10:30am. Have I mentioned I will be spending two weeks at the beginning of my summer at a wedding in Bombay, then touring India with about ten other INSEADs? Will be a blast, can’t wait. Also, the plan to go to Singapore campus for P4 and P5 has been amended to just P5, because my travel buddy has (ahem) found love here on the Fontainebleau campus. Ah, well, I had been toying with the idea of staying for another period anyway, with the weather so beautiful and all. Will have to move out of my beloved farm house with the geese and chickens and ducks and doves, but the good news is I’ll be moving into a proper Chateau closer to campus, with a living room of my own.
On the party front, nothing to share—don’t think I’ve been properly sloshed for over a week—absolutely unheard of at INSEAD (and for me). Planning on remedying this situation ASAP, but first, am off home to sleep . . . after an wicked week of working late nights and ordering Pizza Pazza to our cubicle, my sleeve of care feels rather unraveled. Ta!
Tuesday, June 01, 2004
Bipolar
Oy what a hectic couple of weeks. When I first got to INSEAD somebody joked that they could immediately tell who the new students were, because they were the bright-eyed and smiling ones without rings under their eyes. This was a shockingly true statement, as my drooping eyelids will attest to. Seems like life has been a series of devastating crises and exuberant highs lately, and while this may seem like business as usual to friends from high school and college, I’m honestly not up to it anymore. INSEAD living has destroyed the careful sense of equilibrium I built up with all the “maturing” I did at the most boring job on earth (read: i-banking) for the past couple of years.
Last week started off with losing my car keys on Monday night. Spent half an hour with a helpful but not so hapful student-cum-carthief and succeeded only in denting the frame of my car window. Got a ride home with a friend, and as we turned off our bright lights for an oncoming car, a fox materialized out of nowhere right in front of us. Like an old black and white movie the scene flickered and we were past, barely a bump felt or heard, and horrified, I saw the scared eyes of two or three fuzzy baby foxes peeping out from the grass by the roadside as we sailed by. There was a car on our tail, and I spent the rest of the trip home agonizing about whether to stop, and then agonizing that it was too late and pointless anyway. Then I got home, and found out that the boyfriend was swamped at work and could not come for the week-long vacation as previously planned, that the trip might be cut to 24 hours. When it rains, it pours, so I closed my brain to the static and focused on the paper that was due the next day.
Spent all night on the thing, falling in and out of sleep, and at school the next morning, as I was gloomily polishing off the last section a few hours before the deadline, my screen flickered and told me my computer was going to shut down in 1 minute. Hmm. Not a problem—until it didn’t turn back on again. Was informed by the IT office that my computer had been infected by a virus (surprising, they said, everyone’s had this one already. You must not bring your computer in very often- oh, c'est humoureux, non?), there was nothing they could recover, and my hard drive was officially 0 megabytes. It’s official, there is a God, and he’s punishing me for not believing in him.
The teacher gives me an extension, for which I’m grateful, but the aggravation meter is still, as you may imagine, quite high. That evening, I find my keys on the main help desk, and discover that the boyfriend can come for a little longer than expected—about 48 hours. So things are looking, if not up, at least not deathly. That night, after an exhausting negotiation assignment with two shifty and unpleasant counterparties, I have the dubious pleasure of being the last person on campus at 3:45am while I finish a paper (another one), and take the long drive home. No foxes this time (or on the way to school for that matter—hopefully it didn’t go under the wheels and was not seriously injured?).
The next day, I rewrite the first paper in a foul mood, but as soon as I hit the send button, my life has miraculously improved. The evening is spent drowned in tequila shots and vodka tonics at the “playboy mansion” party, and I receive multiple mysterious bruises on my shins and knees—am told later that this must be from dirty dancing on the marble tabletop. The next night is effectively Friday, since there are no scheduled classes due to private equity day (bleh). Attend a “temptation island” themed party wearing a bathing suit and a sarong—wonderfully versatile article of clothing, the sarong is—as conservative or revealing as you like, depending on how you tie it. The party started quite early and ended quite late, and overall was an absolute blast—everybody dressed all in white, quick dips into the river (I didn’t go in beyond my stomach, was too cold), and lots and lots of hot dogs (have I mentioned that I love hot dogs?). As the night wore on, the sarong wore off.
Friday was spent sleeping and recuperating, fixing the hem on my dress for the summer ball, waiting for evening to come so that I could go to sleep so that I could pick up the boyfriend early in the morning. But that would be too idyllic, wouldn’t it? I get a phone call at midnight, and apparently the boy has missed his flight, next flight out is oversold, who knows if he’ll get here? Heart attack? No. Ominous stillness buzzing in the back of my head? Quite.
But you’ve got to give the guy points for effort. He books another flight with British Airways, hops over to Heathrow, and then takes the Eurostar to Paris by 3:00pm the next day. His luggage didn’t have time to be transferred, so his tuxedo is still in Newark. We rush around Paris and find a tuxedo rental place that just happened to have something available in his size. We sit down for an appetizer of oysters in the spring sunlight before we train it back home.
And oh dear, but summerball was wonderful. Overcrowded and underfooded, but the castle and the dresses and the fireworks! I couldn’t complain. I had my honey and I had my friends, and my dress was sparkly—I was completely happy all night, even if at 5:30 my feet were in rebellion.
But then, but then, all good things come to an end. Sunday flew by, and today it’s Monday again. Another round of classes and catch-up, of papers and scheduling. No warm body in my bed, no visit to look forward to. Sigh. But hey, it’s not so bad. After a few rather low-key Monday night dinners, we’ve decided to turn it up a notch, so tonight’s affair should be exciting. The last period before summer break seems to be drawing to a close rather quickly, and I still honestly have no idea what’s going on in any of my classes (can kiss goodbye to dean’s list if I don’t start attending 8:30 classes soon, and as one of two honorary females on the list, I feel a certain estrogenous oblige to continue the fluke).
That’s the report this semaine. Time to go buy wine again-- is it summer yet?
Oy what a hectic couple of weeks. When I first got to INSEAD somebody joked that they could immediately tell who the new students were, because they were the bright-eyed and smiling ones without rings under their eyes. This was a shockingly true statement, as my drooping eyelids will attest to. Seems like life has been a series of devastating crises and exuberant highs lately, and while this may seem like business as usual to friends from high school and college, I’m honestly not up to it anymore. INSEAD living has destroyed the careful sense of equilibrium I built up with all the “maturing” I did at the most boring job on earth (read: i-banking) for the past couple of years.
Last week started off with losing my car keys on Monday night. Spent half an hour with a helpful but not so hapful student-cum-carthief and succeeded only in denting the frame of my car window. Got a ride home with a friend, and as we turned off our bright lights for an oncoming car, a fox materialized out of nowhere right in front of us. Like an old black and white movie the scene flickered and we were past, barely a bump felt or heard, and horrified, I saw the scared eyes of two or three fuzzy baby foxes peeping out from the grass by the roadside as we sailed by. There was a car on our tail, and I spent the rest of the trip home agonizing about whether to stop, and then agonizing that it was too late and pointless anyway. Then I got home, and found out that the boyfriend was swamped at work and could not come for the week-long vacation as previously planned, that the trip might be cut to 24 hours. When it rains, it pours, so I closed my brain to the static and focused on the paper that was due the next day.
Spent all night on the thing, falling in and out of sleep, and at school the next morning, as I was gloomily polishing off the last section a few hours before the deadline, my screen flickered and told me my computer was going to shut down in 1 minute. Hmm. Not a problem—until it didn’t turn back on again. Was informed by the IT office that my computer had been infected by a virus (surprising, they said, everyone’s had this one already. You must not bring your computer in very often- oh, c'est humoureux, non?), there was nothing they could recover, and my hard drive was officially 0 megabytes. It’s official, there is a God, and he’s punishing me for not believing in him.
The teacher gives me an extension, for which I’m grateful, but the aggravation meter is still, as you may imagine, quite high. That evening, I find my keys on the main help desk, and discover that the boyfriend can come for a little longer than expected—about 48 hours. So things are looking, if not up, at least not deathly. That night, after an exhausting negotiation assignment with two shifty and unpleasant counterparties, I have the dubious pleasure of being the last person on campus at 3:45am while I finish a paper (another one), and take the long drive home. No foxes this time (or on the way to school for that matter—hopefully it didn’t go under the wheels and was not seriously injured?).
The next day, I rewrite the first paper in a foul mood, but as soon as I hit the send button, my life has miraculously improved. The evening is spent drowned in tequila shots and vodka tonics at the “playboy mansion” party, and I receive multiple mysterious bruises on my shins and knees—am told later that this must be from dirty dancing on the marble tabletop. The next night is effectively Friday, since there are no scheduled classes due to private equity day (bleh). Attend a “temptation island” themed party wearing a bathing suit and a sarong—wonderfully versatile article of clothing, the sarong is—as conservative or revealing as you like, depending on how you tie it. The party started quite early and ended quite late, and overall was an absolute blast—everybody dressed all in white, quick dips into the river (I didn’t go in beyond my stomach, was too cold), and lots and lots of hot dogs (have I mentioned that I love hot dogs?). As the night wore on, the sarong wore off.
Friday was spent sleeping and recuperating, fixing the hem on my dress for the summer ball, waiting for evening to come so that I could go to sleep so that I could pick up the boyfriend early in the morning. But that would be too idyllic, wouldn’t it? I get a phone call at midnight, and apparently the boy has missed his flight, next flight out is oversold, who knows if he’ll get here? Heart attack? No. Ominous stillness buzzing in the back of my head? Quite.
But you’ve got to give the guy points for effort. He books another flight with British Airways, hops over to Heathrow, and then takes the Eurostar to Paris by 3:00pm the next day. His luggage didn’t have time to be transferred, so his tuxedo is still in Newark. We rush around Paris and find a tuxedo rental place that just happened to have something available in his size. We sit down for an appetizer of oysters in the spring sunlight before we train it back home.
And oh dear, but summerball was wonderful. Overcrowded and underfooded, but the castle and the dresses and the fireworks! I couldn’t complain. I had my honey and I had my friends, and my dress was sparkly—I was completely happy all night, even if at 5:30 my feet were in rebellion.
But then, but then, all good things come to an end. Sunday flew by, and today it’s Monday again. Another round of classes and catch-up, of papers and scheduling. No warm body in my bed, no visit to look forward to. Sigh. But hey, it’s not so bad. After a few rather low-key Monday night dinners, we’ve decided to turn it up a notch, so tonight’s affair should be exciting. The last period before summer break seems to be drawing to a close rather quickly, and I still honestly have no idea what’s going on in any of my classes (can kiss goodbye to dean’s list if I don’t start attending 8:30 classes soon, and as one of two honorary females on the list, I feel a certain estrogenous oblige to continue the fluke).
That’s the report this semaine. Time to go buy wine again-- is it summer yet?
Monday, May 24, 2004
Sweet smell of formals
Am supposed to be writing one of the two reports I have due tomorrow, but am in no mood to do work. For one thing, my toes are cold—the sun’s still out, but the temperature has dipped mysteriously, starting yesterday.
Last Friday was Cabaret, our little INSEAD song and dance and skit extravaganza—shockingly enough, it went off beautifully, in spite of most acts not having ever had a complete run through until right before the show (in the case of our act, not until we were actually on stage). Nonetheless, a terrific time was had by all, and many acts were brilliant. The ones that weren’t so brilliant . . . well, we easily condone bad acting when it’s all in the family. I was in charge of intermission and distributing pizzas to 400 hungry MBAs in 15 minutes. Used the concepts I learned in POM (Process and Operations Management) to increase throughput, combined with plenty of old fashioned yelling and scolding. If there’s one thing I’ve learned since I’ve gotten here, it is that MBAs are a deeply selfish bunch. These are confident individuals who are well-convinced of their own value, who do not appreciate being reminded that there are hungry people behind them and could they please take just one piece and make their friends get in line themselves? MBA nature used to distress me, but I’ve realized that it’s not so bad once you’ve incorporated this assumption into your operating plan.
After Cabaret we all headed off to Chateau Bellefontaine for the Latin American week party—so much fun! After my mishap of last week, it was a welcome relief to finally step into the fog-hazy crowd and order my vodka tonic, feeling the bass beat thrum through my fingertips. Oh, did we dance! Until about 5:40am, when they turned on the lights and kicked us out. Heard there was an afterparty at someone’s house, but call me a party pooper, I thought it was high time for bed.
Next afternoon, woke up at a friend’s house, and we three girls all spontaneously developed an intense craving for (what else?) oysters! A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do—we booked it to Paris to Le Bar à Huitres, and shared a planche of 36 jewels of the sea . . . that first sweetly briny slurp? Pure pure heaven. Like I said, I could eat oysters for every meal for the rest of my life. What food what you choose?
Afterwards we watched Troy (or Troie, as they call it here)—not the best movie, but considering my longtime love affair with the Homeric stories, I was actually not offended by the liberties they took with the plot. I feel like the director did his best to maintain the heroic and deeply tragic themes. Too bad you can’t fit seventeen years of adventure into three hours without making the whole thing unbelievable and choppy.
Ech, but that brings me back to today. ‘Tis a party week, and the boyfriend arrives on Friday for the summer ball this weekend! You can see how this kills all motivation to do work. All I can do is obsess about my outfit (ah, in typical girly fashion). What does one wear to a playboy party besides the ears? And a temptation island party? And then most of all, to the summer ball? Sweet agony, the flutter of chiffon and the glitter of beading strewn all over my bed, hostages of my indecision!
Am supposed to be writing one of the two reports I have due tomorrow, but am in no mood to do work. For one thing, my toes are cold—the sun’s still out, but the temperature has dipped mysteriously, starting yesterday.
Last Friday was Cabaret, our little INSEAD song and dance and skit extravaganza—shockingly enough, it went off beautifully, in spite of most acts not having ever had a complete run through until right before the show (in the case of our act, not until we were actually on stage). Nonetheless, a terrific time was had by all, and many acts were brilliant. The ones that weren’t so brilliant . . . well, we easily condone bad acting when it’s all in the family. I was in charge of intermission and distributing pizzas to 400 hungry MBAs in 15 minutes. Used the concepts I learned in POM (Process and Operations Management) to increase throughput, combined with plenty of old fashioned yelling and scolding. If there’s one thing I’ve learned since I’ve gotten here, it is that MBAs are a deeply selfish bunch. These are confident individuals who are well-convinced of their own value, who do not appreciate being reminded that there are hungry people behind them and could they please take just one piece and make their friends get in line themselves? MBA nature used to distress me, but I’ve realized that it’s not so bad once you’ve incorporated this assumption into your operating plan.
After Cabaret we all headed off to Chateau Bellefontaine for the Latin American week party—so much fun! After my mishap of last week, it was a welcome relief to finally step into the fog-hazy crowd and order my vodka tonic, feeling the bass beat thrum through my fingertips. Oh, did we dance! Until about 5:40am, when they turned on the lights and kicked us out. Heard there was an afterparty at someone’s house, but call me a party pooper, I thought it was high time for bed.
Next afternoon, woke up at a friend’s house, and we three girls all spontaneously developed an intense craving for (what else?) oysters! A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do—we booked it to Paris to Le Bar à Huitres, and shared a planche of 36 jewels of the sea . . . that first sweetly briny slurp? Pure pure heaven. Like I said, I could eat oysters for every meal for the rest of my life. What food what you choose?
Afterwards we watched Troy (or Troie, as they call it here)—not the best movie, but considering my longtime love affair with the Homeric stories, I was actually not offended by the liberties they took with the plot. I feel like the director did his best to maintain the heroic and deeply tragic themes. Too bad you can’t fit seventeen years of adventure into three hours without making the whole thing unbelievable and choppy.
Ech, but that brings me back to today. ‘Tis a party week, and the boyfriend arrives on Friday for the summer ball this weekend! You can see how this kills all motivation to do work. All I can do is obsess about my outfit (ah, in typical girly fashion). What does one wear to a playboy party besides the ears? And a temptation island party? And then most of all, to the summer ball? Sweet agony, the flutter of chiffon and the glitter of beading strewn all over my bed, hostages of my indecision!
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
Bad Luck Biddies
Over drinks in town tonight I found out the definition of a dirty sanchez. Plus a bean flicker. Plus teabagging. Ah the lovely sharing of international knowledge that goes on in this institution of higher learning(although I admit, I already knew about teabagging was, I suppose my friends have always been dirty). A leaves tomorrow, hopefully on time for her flight (I admit, I do not have the best track record of getting friends to the airport on time. I’m 2 for 2 in terms of making my guests miss their flights).
However, perhaps it is high time that she left, because since she's arrived we've had misfortune after misfortune. We started off with that silly car accident on Thursday. Then, on Saturday (incidentally, my twenty-fifth birthday), we walked around Paris looking for something to wear to the big Montmelian Las Vegas-themed party that night. Our feet hurt from our heels (which we’d worn out the previous evening), and it got so bad that eventually, we were forced to buy replacements. I bought a pair of clear plastic sandals with pink sequins on the thong part, and A bought a pair of lavender and purple puma flipflops with soft fabric straps. Our footaches thus assuaged, we continued our trek around Paris to the Pompidou, where we checked out the Joan Miró exhibit. I’m probably just not cultured enough to appreciate modern art, but it started to bore me stiff half way through, and I thought that most of his scribblings were silly. A, being the liberal artsy graphic design student that she is, pointed out that his backgrounds were shaded beautifully, all hazy and soft—I agree, but that’s still not a reason to put stick figures on display. We entertained ourselves by having 1-minute races around the rooms to compare favorites. After this, footsore and tired and sticky, we rushed to Gare de Lyon, only to miss the train home by one minute. We then could not figure out the ticket machines (we were at the wrong billeteries- remember that the local ones are blue, the others are yellow), and so missed the train again fifteen minutes later. Then, finally, half an hour after that, we gratefully rushed onto the 18:56 train. Hm, I thought, this train is so much nicer than the usual local rail! We settled in, and happily called my friends to let them know I’d be back in town in time for my birthday dinner, could they please pick me up. The train edged gently out of the the station, and we had just started to make ourselves comfortable when I caught something funny over the intercom, something about “Lyon . . .”
Yes, yes, you are not hearing it wrong, and neither was I. I was on the TGV (Train de Grande Vitesse) for Lyon, about 600 kilometers south of my intended destination. Imagine the dismay of all involved (me, A., my friends who were coming to dinner for my birthday, the conductor who had to deal with these two distraught, incomprehensible babbling girls) when we learned that yes, I was headed on the high speed train to Lyon; no, there were no more trains back that night; no, there was no feasible train to get me back in the vicinity before the next morning. We rapidly cycled through the various stages of grief—denial, dismay, bargaining, anger, and finally acceptance. None of this was easy as we found ourselves trudging from the gare at Lyon-Perrache to the Grand Victoria Hotel—I’ll attach a photo when I figure out how. It was priceless—the seediest thing you can imagine, but it was right by the train station, and by God we weren’t going to miss another train the next morning! With the European version of American Idol coming from the little TV in the corner, and A and me lounging about on the somewhat suspicious sheets— cracking pistachio nuts and chewing through dried dates from the convenience store—I bemoaned my fate on the precious bit of phone battery we had left, and declared this the WORST BIRTHDAY EVER.
I'm still getting over it, although everyone I tell thinks that this was hilarious.
Oh right. There was the tres successful Monday night dinner which took A and me the entire day to prepare—accomplished only by forgoing two classes (moi) and seeing the Louvre (elle). The menu: asparagus, roasted red pepper, and goat cheese salad; grilled duck brochettes in orange glaze; and rum-soaked prune flan. The flavors were all agreed together fantastically, and the portions, French. A miscalculation of the belly capacity of strapping young men-- one of the first times there really was an undersupply of food. Ehhhh, when in France…
And there’s so much left to do! A Barbeque tomorrow, Salsa-Merengue contest this Thursday, Cabaret and the Latin-American party this Friday . . . and three or four assignments, too! Oy vey oy vey oy vey. Time to go to sleep so I can start my denial phase of this week’s work. Buona notte!
Over drinks in town tonight I found out the definition of a dirty sanchez. Plus a bean flicker. Plus teabagging. Ah the lovely sharing of international knowledge that goes on in this institution of higher learning(although I admit, I already knew about teabagging was, I suppose my friends have always been dirty). A leaves tomorrow, hopefully on time for her flight (I admit, I do not have the best track record of getting friends to the airport on time. I’m 2 for 2 in terms of making my guests miss their flights).
However, perhaps it is high time that she left, because since she's arrived we've had misfortune after misfortune. We started off with that silly car accident on Thursday. Then, on Saturday (incidentally, my twenty-fifth birthday), we walked around Paris looking for something to wear to the big Montmelian Las Vegas-themed party that night. Our feet hurt from our heels (which we’d worn out the previous evening), and it got so bad that eventually, we were forced to buy replacements. I bought a pair of clear plastic sandals with pink sequins on the thong part, and A bought a pair of lavender and purple puma flipflops with soft fabric straps. Our footaches thus assuaged, we continued our trek around Paris to the Pompidou, where we checked out the Joan Miró exhibit. I’m probably just not cultured enough to appreciate modern art, but it started to bore me stiff half way through, and I thought that most of his scribblings were silly. A, being the liberal artsy graphic design student that she is, pointed out that his backgrounds were shaded beautifully, all hazy and soft—I agree, but that’s still not a reason to put stick figures on display. We entertained ourselves by having 1-minute races around the rooms to compare favorites. After this, footsore and tired and sticky, we rushed to Gare de Lyon, only to miss the train home by one minute. We then could not figure out the ticket machines (we were at the wrong billeteries- remember that the local ones are blue, the others are yellow), and so missed the train again fifteen minutes later. Then, finally, half an hour after that, we gratefully rushed onto the 18:56 train. Hm, I thought, this train is so much nicer than the usual local rail! We settled in, and happily called my friends to let them know I’d be back in town in time for my birthday dinner, could they please pick me up. The train edged gently out of the the station, and we had just started to make ourselves comfortable when I caught something funny over the intercom, something about “Lyon . . .”
Yes, yes, you are not hearing it wrong, and neither was I. I was on the TGV (Train de Grande Vitesse) for Lyon, about 600 kilometers south of my intended destination. Imagine the dismay of all involved (me, A., my friends who were coming to dinner for my birthday, the conductor who had to deal with these two distraught, incomprehensible babbling girls) when we learned that yes, I was headed on the high speed train to Lyon; no, there were no more trains back that night; no, there was no feasible train to get me back in the vicinity before the next morning. We rapidly cycled through the various stages of grief—denial, dismay, bargaining, anger, and finally acceptance. None of this was easy as we found ourselves trudging from the gare at Lyon-Perrache to the Grand Victoria Hotel—I’ll attach a photo when I figure out how. It was priceless—the seediest thing you can imagine, but it was right by the train station, and by God we weren’t going to miss another train the next morning! With the European version of American Idol coming from the little TV in the corner, and A and me lounging about on the somewhat suspicious sheets— cracking pistachio nuts and chewing through dried dates from the convenience store—I bemoaned my fate on the precious bit of phone battery we had left, and declared this the WORST BIRTHDAY EVER.
I'm still getting over it, although everyone I tell thinks that this was hilarious.
Oh right. There was the tres successful Monday night dinner which took A and me the entire day to prepare—accomplished only by forgoing two classes (moi) and seeing the Louvre (elle). The menu: asparagus, roasted red pepper, and goat cheese salad; grilled duck brochettes in orange glaze; and rum-soaked prune flan. The flavors were all agreed together fantastically, and the portions, French. A miscalculation of the belly capacity of strapping young men-- one of the first times there really was an undersupply of food. Ehhhh, when in France…
And there’s so much left to do! A Barbeque tomorrow, Salsa-Merengue contest this Thursday, Cabaret and the Latin-American party this Friday . . . and three or four assignments, too! Oy vey oy vey oy vey. Time to go to sleep so I can start my denial phase of this week’s work. Buona notte!
Friday, May 14, 2004
Crash-happy
P3 is madness. I’ve been taken from my one group of 6 for five classes to juggling four groups of 6 to 8 for six classes. There is no time to do anything except meet, plan to meet, and plan to plan to meet, since there are multiple projects, all group based, for each class rushing at us at 100mph. On top of this, place the parties, dinners, and general “we deserve to chill out” mood of beginning of term, and you have me disastrously behind, worried about I don’t know what, because I know I’m missing something, but I can’t be bothered to decipher my mess of a schedule.
Next week is Cabaret, a big student-run variety show, which I’m helping to organize. Rehearsals have got me going nuts, plus one of my best friends is in town from NY, plus there are huge parties this Friday and Saturday . . . plus the sun has finally peeked out today after a week of depressing rain—how’s a girl supposed to get anything done around here?
Proof of the fact that I’m distracted? Witness my poor little Peugeot 206, which has a brand new dent in its (now not so) shiny hood. It was my fault, really, I admit it. I was tailgating a station wagon along a windy road by the Seine, rushing to my Negotiation class (taught by this amazing guy who won’t let you in if you’re two minutes late). There are these areas where the road narrows to one lane, even though there is two-way traffic (I think it’s the French way of saying, “drive slower,” but this, like all other French road laws, makes no rational sense to anyone who is not French). On one of these areas where we had right of way, I didn’t expect the station wagon to come to a screeching halt all of a sudden (didn’t see the car that was illegally zooming toward it, since the station wagon was so large). What happens? These two cars stop, narrowly avoiding a head-on collision, but I crash ignominiously into the back of said station wagon. EURGH. Fortunately for all involved, nothing was even scratched except my poor little car hood (properly crunched). As I have complete, no-questions-asked coverage, I tried to explain in very poor French to Peneloppe, the lady who caused the accident, that it was okay, I didn’t want to report, could I please just go because I was very late to class?
And the kicker—I was 15 minutes late, burst into the classroom, to his disapproving glower I spurted, “I’m sorry, but I had a car accident!” The response? “That is neither a birth certificate, death certificate, or marriage certificate.” Ah, cantankerous professors, you’ve gotta love them. So I left with my face burning. Fortunately, I was able to make it to the next class by skipping another elective.
And that’s the report from Fontainebleau, folks. Will I ever achieve responsible maturity? Don’t think I can muster it by tomorrow, which is my 25th birthday. Imagine that! A quarter century!
P3 is madness. I’ve been taken from my one group of 6 for five classes to juggling four groups of 6 to 8 for six classes. There is no time to do anything except meet, plan to meet, and plan to plan to meet, since there are multiple projects, all group based, for each class rushing at us at 100mph. On top of this, place the parties, dinners, and general “we deserve to chill out” mood of beginning of term, and you have me disastrously behind, worried about I don’t know what, because I know I’m missing something, but I can’t be bothered to decipher my mess of a schedule.
Next week is Cabaret, a big student-run variety show, which I’m helping to organize. Rehearsals have got me going nuts, plus one of my best friends is in town from NY, plus there are huge parties this Friday and Saturday . . . plus the sun has finally peeked out today after a week of depressing rain—how’s a girl supposed to get anything done around here?
Proof of the fact that I’m distracted? Witness my poor little Peugeot 206, which has a brand new dent in its (now not so) shiny hood. It was my fault, really, I admit it. I was tailgating a station wagon along a windy road by the Seine, rushing to my Negotiation class (taught by this amazing guy who won’t let you in if you’re two minutes late). There are these areas where the road narrows to one lane, even though there is two-way traffic (I think it’s the French way of saying, “drive slower,” but this, like all other French road laws, makes no rational sense to anyone who is not French). On one of these areas where we had right of way, I didn’t expect the station wagon to come to a screeching halt all of a sudden (didn’t see the car that was illegally zooming toward it, since the station wagon was so large). What happens? These two cars stop, narrowly avoiding a head-on collision, but I crash ignominiously into the back of said station wagon. EURGH. Fortunately for all involved, nothing was even scratched except my poor little car hood (properly crunched). As I have complete, no-questions-asked coverage, I tried to explain in very poor French to Peneloppe, the lady who caused the accident, that it was okay, I didn’t want to report, could I please just go because I was very late to class?
And the kicker—I was 15 minutes late, burst into the classroom, to his disapproving glower I spurted, “I’m sorry, but I had a car accident!” The response? “That is neither a birth certificate, death certificate, or marriage certificate.” Ah, cantankerous professors, you’ve gotta love them. So I left with my face burning. Fortunately, I was able to make it to the next class by skipping another elective.
And that’s the report from Fontainebleau, folks. Will I ever achieve responsible maturity? Don’t think I can muster it by tomorrow, which is my 25th birthday. Imagine that! A quarter century!
Thursday, May 13, 2004
Monday, May 03, 2004
Holiday
Guess who’s sitting nekked at her kitchen table with the sun dappling in across the yellow tablecloth? I’m happy as a clam, surrounded by the gurgling washing machine and the rumbling dryer on one side while the hot water heater chortles and a pot of rice porridge bubbles on the other. Today is an unexpected holiday (serves me right for not checking before I planned my vacation—no school today, apparently!) I suppose I ought to be kicking myself, because I could have spent a whole extra day in London, but seeing as how the boyfriend probably couldn’t have gotten an extra day off of his silly Wall Street job anyway, combined with the fact that I’m stocked up on a few good books, plus the unspeakably gorgeous weather here . . . I can’t complain ;). London was as everyone told me it would be—quirky, expensive, rainy and cold. I liked walking around Notting Hill—reminded me a bit of San Francisco. The number of cool shoe shops was unbelievable, and even riding the bus was a nifty touristy experience. We were both thrown off by napping the first day, though (him because of the time difference, me because of not having gotten any sleep), and never could adjust our internal clocks properly. We slept clear though dinner on Saturday and didn’t wake up until 2:00am! Thank goodness for mini-bars and room service.
And tomorrow, the start of a new period, with new elective classes, with scattered sections, without about 30 classmates who will be in Singapore. Coming back on the Eurostar I felt nothing so much as a petulant nostalgia. INSEAD is going by so quickly, with each two-month period just long enough to get a couple mouthfuls of partying and playing and possibilities before we suddenly realize that it’s time to cram for finals again. As much fun as I know I will have, it makes me tired to think of the rinse repeat for the third time. Thank goodness for this day of rest, huh? Mmm . . . am done with my 2:00pm breakfast now, and have in my mouth a “honey flavour pine ‘Berlingots’”candy drop from Fauchon. It goes well with Tetley’s Earl Grey Tea. Today is just clear too beautiful to be true. All the trees in the yard are a riot of pink apple blossoms, and the ducks and geese and chickens are cackling quacking cockadoodling away like there’s no tomorrow. Little cream colored butterflies flit across the fields outside my window, and my hammock calls . . . Who knows if I’ll make to the river today? Perhaps I’ll just sit here and sketch the chickens. The books I have to choose from: Life of Pi, Sophie’s World, Foucault’s Pendulum. Plus have to do about three more loads of laundry (have already done two). If I were really gung-ho, I’d go to school and pick up my P3 coursepack and do the readings, but that would require me to remember that I’m doing an MBA. Maybe tomorrow, today’s for living like I own a beautiful house in the French countryside. Goodbye, and I wish you weather as nice as mine!
Guess who’s sitting nekked at her kitchen table with the sun dappling in across the yellow tablecloth? I’m happy as a clam, surrounded by the gurgling washing machine and the rumbling dryer on one side while the hot water heater chortles and a pot of rice porridge bubbles on the other. Today is an unexpected holiday (serves me right for not checking before I planned my vacation—no school today, apparently!) I suppose I ought to be kicking myself, because I could have spent a whole extra day in London, but seeing as how the boyfriend probably couldn’t have gotten an extra day off of his silly Wall Street job anyway, combined with the fact that I’m stocked up on a few good books, plus the unspeakably gorgeous weather here . . . I can’t complain ;). London was as everyone told me it would be—quirky, expensive, rainy and cold. I liked walking around Notting Hill—reminded me a bit of San Francisco. The number of cool shoe shops was unbelievable, and even riding the bus was a nifty touristy experience. We were both thrown off by napping the first day, though (him because of the time difference, me because of not having gotten any sleep), and never could adjust our internal clocks properly. We slept clear though dinner on Saturday and didn’t wake up until 2:00am! Thank goodness for mini-bars and room service.
And tomorrow, the start of a new period, with new elective classes, with scattered sections, without about 30 classmates who will be in Singapore. Coming back on the Eurostar I felt nothing so much as a petulant nostalgia. INSEAD is going by so quickly, with each two-month period just long enough to get a couple mouthfuls of partying and playing and possibilities before we suddenly realize that it’s time to cram for finals again. As much fun as I know I will have, it makes me tired to think of the rinse repeat for the third time. Thank goodness for this day of rest, huh? Mmm . . . am done with my 2:00pm breakfast now, and have in my mouth a “honey flavour pine ‘Berlingots’”candy drop from Fauchon. It goes well with Tetley’s Earl Grey Tea. Today is just clear too beautiful to be true. All the trees in the yard are a riot of pink apple blossoms, and the ducks and geese and chickens are cackling quacking cockadoodling away like there’s no tomorrow. Little cream colored butterflies flit across the fields outside my window, and my hammock calls . . . Who knows if I’ll make to the river today? Perhaps I’ll just sit here and sketch the chickens. The books I have to choose from: Life of Pi, Sophie’s World, Foucault’s Pendulum. Plus have to do about three more loads of laundry (have already done two). If I were really gung-ho, I’d go to school and pick up my P3 coursepack and do the readings, but that would require me to remember that I’m doing an MBA. Maybe tomorrow, today’s for living like I own a beautiful house in the French countryside. Goodbye, and I wish you weather as nice as mine!
Saturday, May 01, 2004
Out of sight, out of . . .
No more papers, no more books . . . am in London! Forgot to pack socks, smushing around in my sneakers right now. Will maybe run to Gap and pick up a pair. Ah, but it feels good to be on vacation, no matter how short. Last weekend was absolutely gorgeous, but it seems like ages ago now. The sun over the French countryside just sang down from perfect blue skies, and even if six final exams were hanging over my head, I couldn't help but run out for picnic lunches :). Since all my housemates are Septembers, my house was completely empty the whole week (their break starts earlier than ours), so I packed my bags and slept over at one of the Chateaux where a bunch of friends live. Not bad, having Versailles-like grounds at your door.
Finals were all right. Once again, I'm pretty sure accounting will be my worst grade, and it was a fairly awful way to enter exams. The strategy final was about some ice cream manufacturer in Moscow, and my suggestions of making the manufacturing plant into a tourist attraction and sponsoring winter ice-cream eating contests were, to say the least, not echoed by my classmates when we compared notes after the exam. Ah, well, I'm cursed with the inability to think inside the box (trust me, this is not the boon it immediately sounds). POM exam was straightforward, if long, and I'm afraid the curve will be fairly rough on all of us. Finance was rather rough- there were a few moments when I had no idea how to even start, but then I hunkered down, and at least wrote something for each problem. The marketing exam was relaxed for everyone, since it was on the last day and the worst of the quantitative tests were over. The OB exam went much better than expected, considering the volatile dynamics of my group, and our strategy of having just two writers with two diagram helpers each made for a much more coherent paper than last term's melange of a disaster.
Ah, but now it's hard to even remember what finals were like . . . London is true to form, with dreary drippy weather, cheerful cozy service at our boutique hotel in Little Venice, and funny accents galore. Watching people in the tube, I think the English make for much better people-watching than do New Yorkers. In New York, everyone, believing he/she is constantly observed, is busy pretending that nobody else exists. Here, most people seem to have no awareness that they might be watched. The number of funny grimaces, ticks, and odd gaping looks is amazing. Everyone is a Mr.Bean.
I have to tell you all about staying up all night on Thursday after the last final, and getting soaked in Paris and dirty dancing at Doobie's and having my top fall apart and saying a very, very sad farewell to those going to Singapore for P3, and taking the Eurostar and the lovely heated towel rack at my hotel . . . but who knows when credit on this machine runs out, so for now, I'm off . . . cheerio!
No more papers, no more books . . . am in London! Forgot to pack socks, smushing around in my sneakers right now. Will maybe run to Gap and pick up a pair. Ah, but it feels good to be on vacation, no matter how short. Last weekend was absolutely gorgeous, but it seems like ages ago now. The sun over the French countryside just sang down from perfect blue skies, and even if six final exams were hanging over my head, I couldn't help but run out for picnic lunches :). Since all my housemates are Septembers, my house was completely empty the whole week (their break starts earlier than ours), so I packed my bags and slept over at one of the Chateaux where a bunch of friends live. Not bad, having Versailles-like grounds at your door.
Finals were all right. Once again, I'm pretty sure accounting will be my worst grade, and it was a fairly awful way to enter exams. The strategy final was about some ice cream manufacturer in Moscow, and my suggestions of making the manufacturing plant into a tourist attraction and sponsoring winter ice-cream eating contests were, to say the least, not echoed by my classmates when we compared notes after the exam. Ah, well, I'm cursed with the inability to think inside the box (trust me, this is not the boon it immediately sounds). POM exam was straightforward, if long, and I'm afraid the curve will be fairly rough on all of us. Finance was rather rough- there were a few moments when I had no idea how to even start, but then I hunkered down, and at least wrote something for each problem. The marketing exam was relaxed for everyone, since it was on the last day and the worst of the quantitative tests were over. The OB exam went much better than expected, considering the volatile dynamics of my group, and our strategy of having just two writers with two diagram helpers each made for a much more coherent paper than last term's melange of a disaster.
Ah, but now it's hard to even remember what finals were like . . . London is true to form, with dreary drippy weather, cheerful cozy service at our boutique hotel in Little Venice, and funny accents galore. Watching people in the tube, I think the English make for much better people-watching than do New Yorkers. In New York, everyone, believing he/she is constantly observed, is busy pretending that nobody else exists. Here, most people seem to have no awareness that they might be watched. The number of funny grimaces, ticks, and odd gaping looks is amazing. Everyone is a Mr.Bean.
I have to tell you all about staying up all night on Thursday after the last final, and getting soaked in Paris and dirty dancing at Doobie's and having my top fall apart and saying a very, very sad farewell to those going to Singapore for P3, and taking the Eurostar and the lovely heated towel rack at my hotel . . . but who knows when credit on this machine runs out, so for now, I'm off . . . cheerio!
Thursday, April 22, 2004
Ah, study season. Sleepy from not getting home until 2:30 last night from a friend's house, where we BS'd about having, not having, the existence of God, and of course, fashion trends. On the side, we also ate McDonald's and did review problems for POM (Process and Operations Management). Felt strange to walk into a French McDonald's. Could have something to do with the fact that while everyone else was French and wearing dark colors- jeans and hoodies- I came in on turquoise blue kitten heels with shiny blue pebbles across the toes and a bright white and multicolor-flowered sundress with spaghetti straps and a pouffy full skirt. Eh, at least I didn't look typically Asian, right? The little girl in front of me pointed out my shoes to her maman and told me my shoes were "tres jolie."
Things have been relatively quiet here for the past few days - every night the cubicles are crowded with groups shedding papers and pizza boxes. It's actually a rather energizing time to be at school, if you're masochistic like me and enjoy socializing in the midst of studying. Tonight is club night at - don't ask- bizon again. The difference is that all of INSEAD's scheduled to be there since the Septembers have just reached their end of term, so this should be interesting. Attire is over-the-top cheesy clubgear. It'll be one of the last times I get to party with the Januaries who are going to Singapore for P3, since I'll be going in P4 and P5, and we'll completely miss each other in the process, except possibly for graduation ceremony. A few of my favorite people are leaving already, so strange, that. Oh well, it's my belief that if you like somebody enough to keep in touch, you will. If you don't, then you didn't deserve to anyway.
Tummy's starting to growl. Can't handle any more problems about the logistics of queueing, particularly since my mind keeps drifting off and dreaming about vacation in London. Must go in search of food before meeting group for practice OB exam-- oof, what a mess that'll be!
Things have been relatively quiet here for the past few days - every night the cubicles are crowded with groups shedding papers and pizza boxes. It's actually a rather energizing time to be at school, if you're masochistic like me and enjoy socializing in the midst of studying. Tonight is club night at - don't ask- bizon again. The difference is that all of INSEAD's scheduled to be there since the Septembers have just reached their end of term, so this should be interesting. Attire is over-the-top cheesy clubgear. It'll be one of the last times I get to party with the Januaries who are going to Singapore for P3, since I'll be going in P4 and P5, and we'll completely miss each other in the process, except possibly for graduation ceremony. A few of my favorite people are leaving already, so strange, that. Oh well, it's my belief that if you like somebody enough to keep in touch, you will. If you don't, then you didn't deserve to anyway.
Tummy's starting to growl. Can't handle any more problems about the logistics of queueing, particularly since my mind keeps drifting off and dreaming about vacation in London. Must go in search of food before meeting group for practice OB exam-- oof, what a mess that'll be!
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