What a wonderful and merry x-mas we've had

I’m back in NY, oh much later than I was supposed to be, I have no luggage as it’s either still in Barcelona, Heathrow, JFK or Newark, meaning I had no presents for my family, or no socks to wear, no sweaters, no shirts, underwear… well you can imagine. I had to sleep in Heathrow because the wonderful people at el Prat (the BCN airport) didn’t inform me of the gate change (refer to previous post). Also, I probably ate something rotten or with salmonella or some other form of bacteria which made my stomach turn, churn and bubble. I haven’t been able to keep food down for the past 3 days, best of all it being x-mas and all, I really don’t want to eat any of the yummy food my mum cooked up. The only bright side to all this is knowing that people in L.A. pay for their bodies to go through the type of cleansing that I’m experiencing. Never again will I eat Airport food… ever….

… oh and being off coffee really is not doing me any good either. And last thing... I really don't like the holidays.

What I learned during term one

So today saw the culmination of our exams, wrapping up this hell week was Marketing, and not to blow smoke up mine or anyone else’s arse, but we’re in the running for the best presentation out of the lot. Nice! But then again that’s what working on a presentation for three days, writing an original song for it, and going over it and over it and over it will do for you, and it should be a nice addition to my OB & AQM grades to leverage that god awful managerial accounting grade. If you haven’t noticed I’m still mad at myself about that.

So finally, it’s over, and I’m still at the bloody airport, I missed my first flight because the wonderful people at El Prat (the BCN airport) didn’t care to share with the general public that the boarding gate was changed. So I’ve been here, on 3 hours of sleep, paying way too much for internet access, definitely not sending out my econ paper, because quite frankly I need to review it, and telling you some of the more interesting things that I learned this first term at ESADE. The following is strictly an opinion so please take it with a grain of salt.

I learned …
1. … how to make frozen oven baked pizza seem like a gourmet meal by putting all sorts of condiments on it – when you eat it 3-4 times a week, you improvise.
2. … to absolutely despise jamon serrano, patatas bravas, and for that matter approximately 72.41% of tapas dishes in Placa Ruis i Taulet.
3. … how to say beet in Czech from the bartender at the bar below my flat, it’s řepa.
4. … to hang clothes out to dry, that usually never dry, especially now.
5. … to unconditionally never get my whites white when washing them, even with at least liter of bleach.
6. … to understand that a bocadillo, is more than a baguette with an uninspiring piece of meat thrown in for good measure, but a subtle experience, esoteric in nature, similar in fact to laying in a bed of thistle burrows and dreaming the composition of the universe. Or at least that what I told myself because I had to eat the damn things every day.
7. … that working from 8am to 10pm, just doesn’t seem so bad any more; 8am-2am on the other hand, is still a bitch.
8. … that a lot of people in Catalunya are named Jordi, and Xavi.
9. … to swear like a seasoned sailor in Español.
10… that coming here, to Spain, and to ESADE, has been one of the most rewarding, tough, inspiring, stressful, joyful, emotional, inspirational, driving, active verb adding experiences of my life, and I recommend it to anyone.

Oh… and apparently my flight was just pushed back another ½ hour. Now, I leave at 23:20 for Heathrow. YEY!!!!!!

Finals go as finals go…

…and today saw a 180º turnaround from yesterday’s fiasco. Applied Quant went well, I’m confident I did well, how well I can’t say, but well enough to get a B, maybe B+ on the final.

Then we had Organizational Behaviour, which looked to all of us like a cloud of impending doom, hovering ever so gently, preparing to reign its terror on the MBA 1st years of ESADE, and apparently for many it was just that. For me luckily, the class was similar in nature to the Philosophy studies I did at Tulane, and therefore my mind was adjusted to that specific type of thinking, not to mention that I also greatly enjoyed the class. The exam was four questions essay style, and I’m sure I got full marks in 3 of the four, with the last mark in the upper end percentiles. Overall, I’d love to see an A in this one, and should my marks be below it, I will be pretty disappointed in myself.

We also finished our marketing presentation, touched up the little tidbits, here’s and there’s and now I’m on my way to finish my economics paper, and pack. Life is good. Well it’s busy, but good as well; anyways, at least a pleasant experience to offset the disaster that was Managerial Accounting.

Cheers,

... the s*** has hit the fan, or so the saying goes.

While I would like to say that my finals have been going as smoothly as a baby’s bottom, the truth is, it’s not the case. Monday was Financial Analysis, the end all be all mother of the 1st term, and leaving the final I felt very confident, however, talking with my classmates, we all soon came to the conclusion that each of us had omitted minor details here and there. Leading us to question our elated sense of worth soon after finishing the 1st exam of the day. Following we had, our Geopolitics presentations, I was assigned Turkey, and while I think we covered the vast amount of material, we missed some very important issues, the prospects of future governments, infrastructure, and tourism – pass definitely, but....

There goes the A. Also, I think I passed Financial Analysis, I answered each question correctly as to my knowledge, and analyzed each situation, I just feel that I omitted some details that would have secured me a higher grade. Not to mention, they grade tough, really tough.

Then we come to today – Managerial Accounting. Thus far, quizzes, class work etc… has been a breeze, think I did exceptionally well on the quizzes but today’s exam, saw, what I can only describe as a brain fart. I was clueless, literally, I knew the application, I knew how to approach the problems, but I just didn’t. I studied last night, went over the problems, the slides, some of the readings, and today, as we say in Polish “kicha”. I bombed it. I don’t know why, and to be honest, I’m freaking out about the final grade, I was confident yesterday, so much so, of a B as the worst case scenario, now, I just hope I pass. Crap.

So what now. Tomorrow sees Applied Quantitative Models (AQM), and Organizational Behavior, both tough, and AQM’s exam is +1 point for every question correct -.8 points for every question wrong. Joy! So here’s to going over homeworks, re-reading cases, and hoping for the best, but expecting the worst. With OB, that’s a whole different story, the class was astoundingly interesting, but as to what will be on the exam? Essay style, one topic from everything we covered. When are we supposed to study for this??? Went over my summaries, and hope it will be enough, will read them again before bed, and between tomorrow’s exams. Moving on, we finally finished our AQM project today, it looks good, and to tell you the truth working on it was fun, it was like playing consultant to a NGO. We had to design the whole implementation process of a campaign and get the government to pass a directive to apply 0.7% of it’s GDP to developing the third world. Cool huh?

Then there’s the issue of the still incomplete econ paper, hopefully after tomorrow’s marketing presentation run through, I’ll have some time to sit down and write it, it’s only 10 pages. Whoever said MBA’s were easy didn’t do it at ESADE.

Keep your fingers crossed – and I still need to work on LEAD. Good thing I have a long flight.

And if you're wondering how I had time to write all this. Simple, the metro.

D-Day is Upon us...

Tomorrow sees finals in Financial Analysis and Geopolitics, and we have 2 finals every day, until Thursday, when we have our final Marketing presentations. Do I feel ready for all these exams? Not really. Have I studied? Yes. Do I want more time? Oh yes!

But unfortunately time is something that there tends to be too little of. So we will see... look over the rest of my notes tonight and hope for the best, with some luck, and a stroke of genius I think I'll do well, and yes, we're all freaking out about tomorrow's exams.

On the bright side however, we finished our Marketing presentation, and if I'm right, here comes another A. Basically we pushed MS Powerpoint to its limits, and from a personal standpoint, I think it's an old vestige of a program. They really should have us do all these things in Adobe InDesign. Anyways, included find 2 slides from our presentation on "Ray Ban - Custom". Pretty cool huh? And we even went so far as to record a tune for it.





Wish us luck people... - Cheers.

Finals Time

Monday sees our last week of term 1, and then we have finals 2 exams a day, Monday through Thursday. Obviously, there is going to be a celebration after we all finish, and one that I will be missing due to being en route to New York, good thing too. All this studying is making me really need some time off.

Truth be told, I’m stressing out a little bit about the finals, especially Financial Analysis, as I heard from 2nd years that anywhere from 25-80% of the class failed it last year. Then there’s the Econ term paper which I don’t know how to start, and Organizational Behavior which if our assessments are correct will probably kick our behinds, especially since professor is extremely demanding.

On the other side, I’m fairly confident that Geopolitics, Applied Quantitative Models, and Marketing will all be passed with flying colors, and could even include Managerial Accounting in that list as well. Overall though, a tough two weeks ahead and I still haven’t managed to get any Christmas shopping done, maybe Sunday.