Cramming

If you want to read a really honest and bitingly funny blog about INSEAD, check out my friend MbaMRS' blog. She is writing up quite a storm over there!

I haven't updated my blog for ages, for three reasons. 1)I was cramming for Panda week. 2) I'm now cramming for finals. It sounds ridiculous since I've been in school for barely 2 months. But this is how it's like at INSEAD - you are in a constant race against time. 3)I have been spending way too much time on Facebook and Twitter.

So P1 is almost over. INSEAD is not entirely what I expected and the first two months haven't at all been a smooth ride.But I don't regret it yet. I have enjoyed most of the classes (have also dozed off a few, and skipped a couple) and met some very intelligent and interesting people. I have indeed made a lot of new acquaintances but not really new friends. I have done an okay amount of socializing, but not crazy. The INSEAD party scene is very much reminiscent of the New York single scene, except for the reverse male-female ratio. The Europeans dominate - at least on the party circuits. The Americans, at least the ones I know, are surprisingly low-key. The Chinese, a bit on the fringe, have formed their own parallel circle and they are hardly the overachievers that are often associated with Chinese in America.

While my pink glasses for INSEAD haven't completely worn off, I must confess life in Fontainebleau is a complete letdown. It has very little of the charm but all the inconveniences one would expect of a small town and sometimes costs you more than its famous neighbour. I miss city lights. I was in Paris last Saturday, and almost wept when I saw a pharmacy still open at the tender hour of 9pm. This is probably one of the factors I bid fearlessly for the Wharton Exchange. At this point, any city will do - even Philadelphia!

(to be continued)

Club Med

The much-adored Prof Vettas told us that the INSEAD MBA is just like Club Med. How true is this? I've personally never been to a Club Med trip, so I wouldn't know. But my section-mates chuckled appreciatively, so I think there must be some truth to that.

Club Med or not, I am beginning to understand what previous 'participants' mean by the Insead Bubble. For example, I have stopped reading the news. Now that may sound like a trivial detail but it's actually a big deal beacuse news was all I did for my entire professional life pre-Insead.

And I'm not just giving up reading the news. Four weeks ago, I still had the luxury to re-read Henry James' The American on the subway... and now I rarely go to bed without saying a fond good-bye to my favorite 'finance for executives.'

The lunar New Year, once upon a time the most important holiday of the whole year, was a complete blur. I rapidly skyped mom/dad, brother, uncle, grandpa, cousins, second cousins, bid them lots of felicities in the Year of the Ox, and was secretly relieved that they were too busy celebrating to talk to me.

Now I am not saying I don't enjoy being in the bubble. Quite the contrary. But I am writing this down as a reminder to myself that there's a bigger world out there beyond quizzes, deans lists, and chateaux parties, and I will try my best not to get lost in the forest of fontainebleau.

No more pyschological surveys , please

Between career leaders, career anchors, and MBTI (not to mention various other surveys,evaluations & brainstorming), I confess I'm quickly reaching a saturation point. Is MBA supposed to be this "Massive Brain Analysis" where one does not only look deeply into his/her own soul but must make insightful and shrink-sounding comments about one's classmates? This is on top of stuffing one's head with accounting rules and statistics formulas simultaneously. And just how much more time must be devoted to analyzing personalities and group dynamics? Okay, I will stop ranting. Actually - in 15 minutes i must dash off to meet my lovely groupmates to discuss our group identity.

By the way, I'm a borderline ENTP, if anyone cares to know.

Settling In

Settling in Fontainebleau turns out to be much harder than expected. First lesson learned: NO long showers or hot water runs out.

On the other hand, school is off to a rather good take off. A few hours of warm-up sessions in ethics and general management and a day out in the woods - not bad!

Finally, it did feel a bit solitary walking on Rue Grande Sunday afternoon. There's no way i can deny this: no matter how much i was looking forward to France, i terribly miss new york and my friends.

Clara et Moi

I have French lessons every Saturday at the FIAF in New York. Our class began in September with about 12 people and the number has since gone down to four. At our last class, only three people showed up, including our instructor, the lovely M. Belneau. I do not know why this is. The class is quite excellent and is on a weekend. M. Beleanu is highly likable. Anyway, I personally find the class thoroughly enjoyable. At the very least, it gives me an excuse to talk like a kid again: i.e.: I want an apple. I see a movie. I like monkey. And the whole gender business just cracks me up.

Anyway, I digress. This post is supposed to be about a film/movie. At the afore-mentioned French class, our teach, M. Belneau, decided to show us a film, in French. I think that's because there were only two pupils who bothered to show up, and she really didn't feel motivated enough to give a full lesson. Of course she didn't actually say that. The film, Clara et Moi, is a bittersweet story about a sensitive but selfish young man who meets (on the Paris metro, how cute) and falls for a brainy and breezy Parisian girl and only to find out that she's HIV positive. So he dumps her. And... Well, let's just say I loved it before I spoil the plot. Of course I'm partial to films of this genre, so perhaps you want to take my review with a grain of salt.

Overall, I'd give the film a 7 out of 10. Even if you are not into this type of films, you might want to watch it just for the scenes of Paris, espeially of Montparnasse. Quite a few scenes were actually filmed in Cafe Select (near Gare Montparnasse) where my "partner" (pardon me, but this is the official INSEAD term) and I reconciled after a big fight during our latest visit to Paris.

If M. Belneau is reading this post, you should be proud that I almost didn't have to read the subtitles!

Consolidating Blogs

Okay...my indecisiveness has truly come to a head in my so-far extremely unsuccessful effort to build a blog.
I know..Blog is soooo 2004. I am, late is a a major understatement here, for the party. Looks like some people have migrated to Twitter while some have "retired" from blogging and gone back to mass emailing.

But being late is indeed the story of my life. So it should hardly surprise anyone that I've just started to develop this urge to write a blog. First of all, I need to choose a platform. I have, as we speak, 4 different blogs on 3 different websites. That's quite something for someone who've only been seriously considering blogging for a few weeks. I think I've finally settled on blogger.

What would I write? 2008 has been a year of change, not to upstage the President-Elect here, but it's been a momentous year for me. I've got married, covered the Olympics (a long-time dream of mine), and now quitting my job to study in France. I know pinning one's hope on a one-year MBA program (in Europe no less, sniffs some of my US-centric friends) is equal to binge-buying mortgage-backed securities, but I cannot help but wish 2009 to be... what else... more momentous. (This word is momentarily stuck in my head)

In China, they say thirty is the year of Establishment. Perhaps it's a bit of dreading the inevitable Big Three, along with increasing ennui at the current job, that ultimately led to this sudden urge to change.

That's pretty much why I want to start this blog: to document my year away from the real world and my earnest efforts to hopefully live "the year of establishment" to the fullest.

Letter from an Unknow Woman Poster