A day in the life… (snapshot 1) October 26, 2007

Yesterday was an incredibly full day, and I thought I’d share it, because, well, all of my days are full here. So here it is…

6:30am Up and straight to the shower

7:05am Out the door and walk to the metro (no breakfast!)

7:45am Arive at school, run in to the cafe, grab a cafe con leche, crappy bocadillo de jamon y queso, and sprint to class before my professor closes the door at exactly 8am (which is rough for everyone who’s running on Spanish time!)

8:00-10:00am Financial Analysis (SO  freaking hard in Spanish, I have to say–why do I need to know ratios of working capital, seriously?)

10:00-10:30 break! talking with friends, more cafe con leche, a moment to breathe

10:30-12:30 Back to Financial Analysis

12:40-2:00 Presentation from a highly specialized consulting and private equity group, from Dubai (loved the presentation, but lack the technical ability that they’re looking for–plus, my parents would KILL me if I moved to Dubai)

2:00-3:00 LEAD (leadership development class)

3:00-3:30 Break, and I’m starving, and they’re out of bocadillos in the cafe, so I settle for a donut and a cafe con leche

3:30-6:00 More LEAD (final class, and it was a good one–we learned about overcoming obstacles to personal change and also about body language)

6:00-7:00 Another company presentation, this time from a local boutique consulting firm — the final presentation of career week, whew! (now I have to start doing cover letters, CVs, etc, for summer internship, and if anything, I feel LESS clear after all of the career week presentations than I felt before…)

7:00-8:30 Steal a geopolitics reader in English from a friend, to finish reading the articles for today, and  sit in the cafe for another freaking crappy bocadillo and a bag of potato chips (seriously, I am the picture of healthy living) while I read and enter my reflections from the readings into the Geopolitics website

8:30-9:15 Write a few emails while I wait for my friend to get out of his class so that I can give him back his reader

9:30 On the bus that will take me to the metro to get back home

10:15 Arrive at home, change clothes and retouch makeup, visit with Mariona for a few minutes (temporary roommate, fellow artist friend of Raul’s, who has been here for the month of October–lovely arty type, incredibly laid back–I’ll be sad to see her go!)

10:30 Out the door again to go to the Bar of the Week, which is mostly an IESE event (the other b-school in BCN) but they invite ESADE as well, and it was, like, a 5 minute walk from my house, so I went to meet Tonni and some friends — met a really cool kid from IESE who, I’m pretty sure, went to Wesleyan at the same time as Stella, and also a gorgeous, interesting Israeli woman, and, without question, the best looking man I’ve even SEEN in Barcelona (freakishly tall, freakishly attractive, freakishly charismatic, English, obvious–why doesn’t he go to my school?!)

1:30am Back to my house, run into Jorge, who’s still up (the awesome half-spanish, half-danish film director/writer who’s crashing on our living room floor this week) and watch the first 15 minutes of Anchorman, because he had never seen it, and I felt like it was totally appropriate to give him an immediate introduction, obviously (“the human torch was denied a bank loan… the human torch was denied a bank loan”)

2:00am Finally to sleep, for a few hours…

Okay, that was my day yesterday. Every minute packed, every minute slingshotting me forward, and you’ll notice, I barely even did any schoolwork yesterday, because, seriously, WHEN would I have fit it in??? Which means: LOTS of reading this weekend. Wheeeeee….

What DO I want to be when I grow up? October 23, 2007

No, seriously. Isn’t school supposed to be a time when I get to, you know, stall a little? Immerse myself in my studies, meet some cool people, not think about what comes next for a few months, maybe, you know, “network” a little, if ya know what I mean…? Er, wait, what do I mean? Networking? Huh? Well, so here we are, in the third week of October (which, by the way, what???) and it’s Career Week at ESADE. The purpose of this week is to introduce the people who are interested in Investment Banking and Consulting to their potential future employers, which means lots of presentations from very impressive people from very impressive companies. (In my case, this means my potential summer internships.) As I have mentioned, I’ve already concluded that i-banking is a big ol’ NO, so I find myself sitting in consulting presentation after consulting presentation and largely thinking, eek!, I’m not ready for this! But I have to be ready for this! This is why I’m here! But I’m NOT READY!!!! It’s terrifying. I’ve mostly concluded that I’ll be doing my summer internship in a consulting company, if they’ll have me, hopefully in London or here in Barcelona. Great. This means submitting my resume and cover letter between November and January, and then doing 2-3 rounds of interviews, each round having at least one, but probably two, interviews. And these interviews? Scary, terrifying, and completely intimidating. Why? Because they’re “case interviews,” which means they present you with a case that you then have to work through during the freaking interview. (The question will be something like “our client is a commercial leasing and maintenance company for trucks, tractors, and trailers; overall truck registrations are down 2.2% year over year, but revenue for the client has remained flat; design a growth strategy for them.” What? So then, after they present this terrifying question, it’s up to me to come up with the right kinds of questions to arrive at an eventual answer. Riiiiight. Yeah, after a few months of business school, I feel totally prepared to do that. Sure. Of course I do. Obviously.) So anyway, while I feel in many ways inspired by all of this, because it’s so exciting to think about what comes next, I’m much more prepared to think about the theory of what comes next than the actual practice of it, if you catch my drift. And as for what I want to be when I grow up? Ummmm, I’ll get back to you on that, I guess…

Espirales con 4 quesos: SO not mac ‘n’ cheese October 16, 2007

Right, so, anyone who knows me at all knows that my go-to comfort food is always always always mac ‘n’ cheese–when I’m tired, stressed, feeling defeated by winter, hungover, whathaveyou, mac ‘n’ cheese is always the answer. Up to now, it’s been hot and I’ve been enjoying Mediterranean food and I haven’t had time to notice that I couldn’t just trip across the street for a few boxes of Annie’s. (I think I’ve temporarily substituted ice cream as my comfort food of choice, actually.) Well, yesterday, it happened–I decided I absolutely positively must explore my mac ‘n’ cheese options. The time had come. And what happened? Well, I figured the Corte Ingles would be my best bet for a reasonable facsimile, since that’s where I buy my peanut butter (for 4 freaking euros, but whaddayagonnado?). I found “espirales con 4 quesos,” which was instant pasta spirals with some kind of cheese sauce that is ready in 7 minutes–sounds like mac ‘n’ cheese, right? WRONG! It was definitely pasta with some kind of (nasty, oily) cheese sauce, but, man, it ain’t no Annie’s–not even close. My mom advised me to bring an empty suitcase with me for Christmas to fill up with all of the stuff  I miss–um, how ’bout a case of mac ‘n’ cheese? Is that going to fit in my suitcase? Because, man, mostly I’m totally happy with the food here, but there is apparently NO substitute for mac ‘n’ cheese. At least not that I’ve found yet…

360 evaluation October 15, 2007

Thank you thank you thank you to everyone who participated in that accursed survey I sent out a couple of weeks ago. I just had a chance to look at your comments, and wow, at least I can say this: apparently I present a very consistent image in my personal and professional lives. I honestly almost can’t tell who was writing from a personal (friends/family) perspective, and who was writing from a professional perspective (well, not entirely true–I’m pretty sure I can mostly identify Lindsay and Annette’s comments, but I’m not even 100% sure there!). Some interesting take-aways: I’m much more emotional at work than I thought I was, and, though you were all very diplomatic about this, I’m far too content with myself just as I am (lots of comments about terrific self-awareness, but little drive to improve weaknesses). I’ll take that. I’m pretty much in business school to force myself to improve on my weaknesses, so we’ll see how it goes. Also: I need to give myself more credit occasionally, and be more open to the ideas of others, which several people commented. Thank you to all of you for such lovely comments about my communication/people skills and intellect! You’re all so nice! Anyway, in a moment when I’ve been so terribly frustrated by school, it was nice to read things from people who know me well enough to make such insightful (if a little painful!) comments.

Quick shout out: I believe that Lindsay and Craig just got married, if my calculations are correct. So, not sure if you’re reading this, but: CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!! I hope the party was great!

The brutality of the learning curve… October 14, 2007

Okay, business school is hard. Great. This is well-covered territory. It’s a lot of completely new information, really fast, in Spanish. I have mentioned this all a lot, and though it’s painful, it was a pain I anticipated. (Anticipation doesn’t make it less painful, I might add, but at least I saw it coming.) What I did NOT anticipate was a relentless attack on my self-concept. Things I held to be true about myself that I have had seriously challenged in the last week:

1. I am a great team player.

2. I am a nice person.

3. I am a decent beginning salsa dancer.

Working backwards: WHY has no one ever mentioned to me just how silly I look while salsa dancing? (Aimee? Diana?) Man, whew, I’ve got a lot to learn there. I went with friends last night, and managed to actually STEP on the feet of FIVE different male friends. And no, I had not been over-served, so to speak, so that’s not why. I mean, I joke all the time about my dangerous lack of coordination, but wow, I had no idea that it was so, well, outwardly obvious. However, I’m going to take the opportunity to turn this into a positive, and say that, if, as a side effect of getting my MBA, I also sharpen my salsa skills (and actually arrive at being a decent beginning salsa dancer, instead of just thinking so), then great. All part of the experience, right?

Beginning of term hazing? October 9, 2007

Well, it’s only Tuesday, and I’m already ready for weekend. I suspect that this won’t be the last time that I’m ready for the week to be over when it’s hardly begun. We were assigned a case yesterday, at approximately 4pm, that was nearly impossible to finish by 9am today. I know that several people in my class didn’t sleep at all. (I was lucky enough to catch a whopping 3.5 hours of sleep!) Everyone had a look of extreme exhaustion/anxiety this morning (that’s right, I said it, we pretty much all looked like sh**!), and there was more than a little bit of tension in the air. Which is reassuring, because I’m glad to know that I’m not the only one who’s struggling with the whole “ack! other obnoxiously outgoing leader type boss people? what the hell are you doing here?! I’m supposed to be the boss!” group work thing. But it’s also, well, tense, for the group at large, and frustrating, for me in particular. I’d say I’ve spent the last 6 days oscillating between “somewhat frustrated” and “very very VERY effing effing EFFING (more curse words) frustrated!” However, given that this seems to be a fairly consistent phenomenon across the board, I’ll go ahead and chalk it up to beginning of term hazing. Stress us to the max, force us to be with our groups for 20+ hours per day, see what we’re made of–business school boot camp, as it were. (I, apparently, am not made of incredibly durable stuff, as I actually had to excuse myself to go and cry for a little while. In the back of my head, I can hear Lauren saying “go cry, emo kid,” which is actually pretty funny. But yeah, actual tears were shed today. Eek!) Of course, I’m stressed and tired and feeling melodramatic, and luckily, I’ve made some great friends here who are ready with pep talks and consoling words (three cheers for Ben and Guillermo!!), as they are, of course, in exactly the same boat. Also luckily: we just finished the last group assignment for the week, and I’m on my way home to do an individual assignment. I cannot express my excitement to to this assignment, alone, in front of the television, with a beer, and then sleep for a whole entire 6 hours. Wheeeee!

Beginning of term hazing, though? Thumbs down. Way down.

I didn’t fail accounting! Yay! October 8, 2007

Not even close, actually. Remember how I was pretty nervous about my accounting exam last week? Yeah, I pretty much crushed it, much to my surprise. (22/25!) It was all conceptual, and short answer responses, so all I had to do was discuss various accounting concepts. My final grade for the class came out today, and I totally passed the class. Whew! I’m still really really really nervous about business law, though, and I have no clue when those grades are going to come out, so I’m going to keep my fingers crossed, for sure.

In other news: I’m going to forgo the trip to Madrid this weekend. I think it will be much smarter, and way less expensive, to stay here and, like, do laundry. Maybe I’ll see if Ben and Tonni, my best pals here, are up for a day trip, but really, I think I could just sleep.

I forgot to mention in my post yesterday that I came home one night last week, and there was a band, all dressed up like mariachis, filming a video right in front of my house. (I may have mentioned that I live in a funny little street that’s more of an alleyway and a couple of the buildings, including mine, cross over the alley, and underneath they’re painted and pretty, and I always come home to find people posing and taking pictures–it’s quite picturesque, so not that weird that a band should be shooting a video.) Anyway, they clearly didn’t have permits, as they kept stopping production to let cars and pedestrians pass, which was pretty entertaining. All this to say: if you come across a video of a mariachi band doing a cover of “My Way,” which is what I think the song was, that’s my street. Oh, and send me the link, please.

Quick shout out: if you haven’t seen Alex and JC’s Laredo blog, The Streets of Laredo, definitely check it out. Muy entertaining.

At least I learned something. I think. October 7, 2007

Pre-term: out with a bang, not a whimper. I had my econ exam on Tuesday, and my business law exam on Wednesday, and I’ve gotta say: it was a freaking blood bath. The economics exam went, well, not exactly well, per se, but at least I didn’t leave the exam feeling like every last one of my brain cells had been bled dry. Not so in the law exam! (Which, by the way, was, in some respects, more of an accounting exam than a law exam. Damn those balance sheets with amplified capital, damn them all to hell!) It was an hour and a half of pure terror. I felt reasonably okay about it until I started talking to other people about it afterwards, and then, yeah, I drank many beers. However, I’ve been trying to re-assure myself: it was a very intense month, and if I look at where I started (essentially at “0” with all of this business-y business business), I do feel like I’ve gained a lot. Whether it was enough to pass my exams is another story altogether. And that is just freaking scary. It is totally unacceptable to start my graduate school education with failed exams. Ugh. As I have been mentioning, it makes me more than a little nervous that none of this seems to be coming very naturally, and I do wonder, from time to time, (and when I say “time to time,” I mean pretty much daily) whether this is the right place for me. Luckily, I am far, far too stubborn to consider throwing in the towel this early in the game. Also, having essentially borrowed the equivalent of a mortgage for this endeavor I am, at a minimum, financially obligated to continue. I console myself that at least I’m not the only one who seems to be suffering. Graduate school is hard, and a lot of people are struggling. I’m told it’s part of the strategy of the school to saturate us as much as possible, so that we learn how to be efficient with our time. I get it, but man, it’s a cruel, cruel strategy.