And the Groom Wore Flip-flops!

Post backlog...

In February, I headed down to the Florida to participate in my first American wedding, to be a part MV’s very special and very beautiful wedding. It even ended up being a reunion of sorts! A bunch of us from the Bay Area met up at SFO and flew in to Fort Lauderdale together. From there we drove down to Islamorada, the venue of the wedding and the resort where we were to stay the weekend. There we met up with classmates from different parts of the country. And best of all, we had friends coming in from London and Paris too! It felt like Beach Week all over again – lazing by the pool, Bloody Mary’s for breakfast, beautiful sun and ocean… and I even saw a Jelly Fish (now I know what they look like!)

MV, a fellow section D’er is the epitome of grace and everything that’s classic and timeless. And her wedding was just an extension of her personality! The night before the wedding was a barbeque by the pool where the guests mingled with the couple and other friends. It was great catching up with people I haven’t seen since graduation, finding out about their new post-Darden lives and exchanging stories… People seemed happy in their new routines and yet nostalgic about their time at school. The wedding was beautiful; the couple took their vows as the sun set and a gentle breeze blew in from the ocean. MV looked more beautiful than ever, if that is even possible! She was radiant in her wedding gown. The groom wore a casual khaki suit and flip flops! After the ceremony, we gathered at the pier for a picture of the couple with their Darden friends. The couple took the floor for their first dance to lit sparkles and warm fire on the pier. And then a lovely dinner, where MV and CG had ensured that the vegetarians had enough options. Dancing followed and then we hung out by the pool one last time before we left after breakfast with the couple the next morning.

My first American wedding was more enlightening than I’d ever imagined. I don’t know any two people who are as good together as MV and CG. I was touched by their warmth to their guests despite it being their special day, touched by their thoughtfulness (welcome packets of aspirin, beer, granola bars etc) and as always, in all admiration for their beautiful ceremony.

It was a wonderful weekend, one that I’ll remember for a very long time. Best wishes MV and CG! Here’s to a life full of happiness, laughter and love.

My own C'ville Goodbye Tour

In my last post I wrote about wanting to show my parents around C’ville and all the places I hung out at during my two years here. Last week, we did just that and then some more. I took my parents to eat at some of my favorite joints here, showed them the sights and sounds of some places that were almost second home to me and then also took them to a few places I hadn’t been to for lack of time. From favorite restaurants to hole-in-the-wall crepe joints to the vineyards and the caverns... it's been a week full of picture taking and playing the tour guide!

In addition to showing them around, I have also been doing a few goodbye lunches/dinners/coffees/breakfasts when I can, which has been difficult with them around but I still try. I think the one ritual I will really absolutely miss in “the real world” would be my Sunday brunch/breakfasts (not so much Sunday after school, since everyday has been Sunday!). Just like this morning, I had a wonderful brunch with Oren and some of my other favorite Darden ppl and I tried to stay in denial that I won’t get that again – unless we all turned up reunion (in which case, Oren, can we go to Blue Glass Grill please?) which is a year from now.

I always knew I was lucky to be here in this beautiful town but more importantly among these wonderful people… in fact, I have never found myself among so many like-minded, likable people and as Prof. John Colley told us on our last day of GMTA class, it doesn’t get any better than this. And as I show my parents around and try to relive my out-of-class experiences from the two years, I feel like this is my own personal goodbye tour of C’ville.

My parents leave for California in a week’s time after which I begin my own process of moving there, selling my stuff and emptying out my apartment into my two suitcases and a backpack. I want to keep everything, yet I know I can’t. I am yet to de-Dardenize my laptop – archive emails and documents – and honestly, I’m just procrastinating.

Here’s a picture of breakfast this morning before the Roots left C’ville – that's right, Mimosas with breakfast, because we can!

MBAs and the Movie-world

Today I sent an email to the South Asian Society here informing them about a course being taught at the main UVA grounds on Fact, Fiction and Film in India’s History, which took the form of a movie screening each week followed by a discussion on the movie in the context of the course. It seemed like an interesting way to study history and the part movies have played in the interpretation of historical events in the country.

This evening, Darden’s YouTube channel uploaded a video featuring a classmate of ours who worked in the movies industry before school. Ed (who is also from Section D - that's important... and relevant) saw an opportunity in the Cannes Film Festival for students like him, who were interested how the industry (and in his case, the independent films industry) worked. He organized a trip to Canne as part of a course and even interned on location, getting an insider’s perspective on the workings of the industry.

I thought this was important enough to write about because before I came here, I didn’t imagine the movies as a place an MBA would go to. My preconceived notion of the industry is that it is a place for the creative, and not necessarily the spreadsheet jocks. If I sat and thought about it long enough – and it’s fairly apparent from the fact that I am writing this post that I did – I find it fascinating how you can marry the shrewd business and strategic thinking with that of creativity and storytelling.

... some food for thought.

All about the people

There’s this adage that gets thrown at you ever so often: your network is a measure of your net worth. It’s a great little note to tuck away at the back of your head as you speed through business school and I guess life in general.

Last week we had to have an emergency phone call with our client for the Enterprise Leadership Audit (ELA) we’re doing for our OB (here it’s called Leading Organizations or LO) class. And we needed some help. Particularly, our client wanted to know what they would get out of our ELA since the project involved significant time investment from them. Our own LO professor was on leave that day and we did not know where to go. So we checked the faculty directory for the LO faculty closest to where we were standing and went to his office. Prof Quinn was not our professor, had never taught any of us, and he was just leaving for lunch. When he heard of our problem, he took a good twenty minutes to sit down and answer our questions. He made sure we did not leave until we were comfortable with what we needed to know. Needless to say our call was a success.

Last week, we had a session with some second year students on advice on electives for the second year. We got great and candid advice. We also got some very very practical advice. Some encouraged us to view the subjects as experiences, other made the case for ensuring we got all round knowledge – we were going to be in business school just once and we wanted to make sure we learnt all we could. For me the best advice came at the end – make sure there is time for recruiting because when you graduate you will value having a job more than you will value having an A in the most difficult course in Darden. At the farewell party the Indian FYs threw the Indian SYs, a lot of us FYs wished we had had more time to get to know the fun bunch that they were.

What can I say about this awesome support system I have in my section D friends that will possibly do them justice? All sections got together last week in their section classrooms to talk about how they can help those classmates that were still looking for internships. Although at first it was hard to raise my hand and ask for help, I’m glad I did it because I found so much support – not just hugs and we’re-all-here-for-yous but also contacts – I got a bunch of emails from classmates with contacts that I could send my resume to. For those that emailed me and are reading this: I will get back to you soon – I’ve been down with the flu all weekend and been pretty zoned out the whole time. But THANKYOU! Your support means a lot.

The best thing about this network from school is the extended network you get into by way of partners. I’ve met some fantastic partners – JFA’s wife is probably an honorary Darden student already and his super cute kid has probably already reserved his place in Darden’s class of 2035! I’ve been out of action this past weekend because of a nasty bout of flu and after a day of silence from sitting at home (that does not bode well with me), I had surprise visitors yesterday evening – AK and his fiancé, N, who had come over to make dinner for me, and Sania who came to add some much needed cheer! Gotta love the girlfriends!

To anyone who’s starting grad school this year: invest in the relationships, they make the ride so much fun.

End of Q3, Start of Spring

This week saw the wrap up of Q3 of the first year. The quarter flew by faster than anyone expected and I guess before I know it, summer break will be here too but let’s not go there.

Once we got over the initial bewilderment of new sections and new faces, this quarter proved to be great fun. I learnt a ton, and actually started falling in love with a few subjects that I was absolutely petrified of earlier. Finance this quarter was great fun and I can’t wait for second year when I will hopefully get to take the Valuations elective – I envy the folks that are taking that elective next quarter because the professor is one of the best in Darden. Another subject that I kind of got my head around was DA – something I’d struggled with in Q1. Econ for this quarter was extremely informative and I wish I could have taken the elective next quarter but that’s choc full. All in all, we had a great couple of months and with finals next week, I only hope I will do justice to all that I learnt. We wrapped up classes with the social reps organizing lunch after the last class yesterday. And another great way to wrap up the quarter was the election of LP, my Section D and Section V superstar, as the DSA President and K-Mart as DSA VP and special congratulations to fellow blogger Jackie for NAWMBA President.

This quarter is also the last one where learning teams will meet. Next quarter onwards, because of electives, most learning teams choose not to meet. My own team chose not to meet this quarter, but we kept the support going for the most part through emails and exchanges of information. A couple of team based simulation exercises brought us together a few times this quarter and each time it’s been a ton of fun. Most LTs had LT corridor parties – all the teams in a particular corridor had beer + snacks parties. Tonight my team is meeting for dinner at a new Thai place at Barracks and I am really looking forward to catching up with the gang.

With the end of this quarter I guess it’s also the end of winter in some ways – it’s 6pm and there’s still light out. With the fantastic weather we’ve been having over the last couple of days, I’m feeling strangely relaxed. I’m just hoping it doesn’t lead to complacence because there’s a lot of cramming I need to do over this weekend.

Same time next week I’ll be done with finals and packing up to go to Brazil on my GBE. I’m SO excited!!

Three-two-one

Sums up the topic of my post. Third quarter, second row (in class), first week.

Q3 classes began last Monday for the class of 2010. I have a whole new section – just a fourth of my class comprises of the familiar faces from Section D, the others being from sections A, B, and C – no section E since our new classroom is the Section E classroom – with the tap dancing blackboard.

It’s been a weird sort of week for me. There are a lot of people in my class I have never seen before and I’m only just getting to putting names to faces. It doesn’t help that I’m no longer in my perch on the last row, at the top of the class – the one I referred to as prime real estate in an earlier post. This time I’m in row 2, right under the teacher’s nose, uncomfortably so, if I may add – I got cold-called in 2 of 3 classes on the first day of the quarter! It’s comforting to have some familiar faces in class, but they’re all so far interspersed that they are almost lost in the sea of unfamiliar ones. In the Darden curriculum, a lot of the classroom experience is a function of the class dynamics and in this first week I’m still trying to put my finger on the pulse of it. This I know for sure – there’s an awful lot of ex/current bankers in my class – they’re the lot I’m somehow always intimated by, don’t ask me why! I miss my section D, but I get to meet a whole bunch of new people and they already seem like fun!

The subjects and the set up this quarter are deceptively laidback. Nearly every Friday is a reading day – more like a callback day for recruiting activities. We have strategy, more finance, decision analysis once again, GEM (but no P-Rod) and communication. So far all the classes have been pretty interesting. We also have a whole new set of professors, so that’s another thing you have to figure out – different professors respond to the class dynamics in different ways. While some are very cold-call-friendly, others are very voluntary-class-participation-friendly. I’m kind of undecided on which one is the lesser of two evils.

So why this week is weird is simply because I’ve been feeling oddly restless in class. And so have a lot of people. There’s two kinds of people in the classroom these days – one kind that have got jobs for the summer. They are the kinds that literally drag their feet to class (shout out to YG for the GS offer and to GC for McK).The other kind are the ones who also drag their feet to class but only because they are still looking for jobs and therefore would rather be hooked up (to the internet) doing something to further their efforts – that precious green light is being promptly switched off before and during every class, cutting us off from the internet. Thankfully classes (and comments) are interesting enough for me to zone in and out of my reverie often enough to actually type out enough notes!

It’s Saturday night and I stopped by Starbucks on the way back from dinner. A night of insomnia follows.

On why being idle does not agree with me

So I’m sick. It's not because I’m missing home. I’m not missing warm sunny India either. I’m not missing my mom’s cooking – ok ,THAT I am missing terribly! I do not want to eat one more day of my own cooking!

I am sick because I miss having work. I miss having to race against time to make it to my 8AM class in classroom 180 with all the awesome section D ppl! I miss my learning team. And I am sick of the fact that it gets dark at 5pm and I don’t have a watch on and I am all disoriented about what time it is. And I am also a little sick of the fact that a whole bunch of my friends have gone home or on job treks for the hols and so I miss them – I miss going to the coffee place and wasting away over a cup of cappuccino.

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t have an internship yet and due to the down economy the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel is kind of fading out too. I have tons of work to do – like reaching out to companies and case prep for the interviews. I have apartment moving work to do too – yes I’m stupid enough to move apartments in the middle of the school year. And I should be booking tickets and accommodation for my trip to Seattle early next year. But instead of checking these (and whole host of other things) off my list of to-dos, I am choosing to waste away the time doing I-don’t-know-what. I so hope my mother is not reading this right now.

This is the time I was counting down to since the beginning of the second quarter. I had a ton of plans including hitting the gym (day 4 and counting and all I’ve done towards losing a few pounds is play an evening of tennis) and now that the time is finally here I am unable to shake off that feeling of general laziness and get out of the brain-dead mode.

I am going to try to get up at 6AM tomorrow – maybe all I’m missing is the boot camp rigor. It seems like a good time to check how much self-organization I’ve learnt in this one semester of Darden. I am hoping to have mastered it by the time graduation rolls by so I hope I am at least better than I was before I came here.

I’ll sign off now. Back to my… er… back to doing nothing.

Twenty five percent!

That’s how much of an MBA I am as of today! After a week of finals, the class of 2010 is finally through with second quarter, the one touted to be the most grueling. And what an eventful week it has been. When we weren’t saving the Japanese economy, we were figuring out ways to transport lubricants from one continent to another. One day we were selling healthy jams the other day we sold lumber. After playing the all knowing CEO for a week, I can finally relax at home and be plain old me! There’s just one problem though – I don’t know what to do!

I’m not crazy, I swear! I just don’t know what to do. I feel like I should be doing something, I should be obsessively checking my outlook or I should be booting up to head out to the library. But I don’t need to do any of that. My outlook is free – for all evening! I can’t remember the last time I had a free calendar. There are NO cases to do for tomorrow. I don’t have to head out to the library for anything. All I have to do is get dressed to go party! But I still can’t help feeling all empty on the inside. I remember dragging myself out of bed this morning and vowing to crawl back under the sheets in 7 hours’ time and not wake up till its Saturday. My eyes are tired – you try doing 5 hour exams a day! – but my brain is buzzing.

There are a bunch of parties happening tonight. If you’re one of the really popular ones and have the beer guzzling capacity of a keg, you can go party hopping! I know a few people who probably have been at the corner all afternoon (and it’s not even 7pm yet)! If you went down to Barracks road now, you’d probably find a few Section Social Reps stocking up on the kegs!

What am I going to do? Well after I put away my cases for Q3 – yep, they did it again, they put the case packets for next quarter in our mailboxes, for us to find as we turned in our exams today – I will probably clean up my room and find out where I want to go for the night! One small note of appreciation for the school though. In a bid to be more environmentally conscious based on feedback from us students, the school decided to run a pilot project by giving us one subject in electronic form as opposed to paper. In other words, come Q3, we will have our finance cases on our computers and not as sheets in our binders. When the survey got sent out, I had expected the student response to be in favor of this move and I had also expected the school to do something about it. I had not expected the school to react so fast; they deserve a pat on the back!

I am signing out now; not because I am out of things to say – if you know me at all, you'd know that I’m NEVER out of things to say! But I’m going to be by myself now, to reflect on the semester that’s gone by. It feels like just yesterday that I got that call from Darden informing me of my admission. What do you know, I’m already one semester down, calling this place my home, and not getting enough of my awesome classmates! Time sure does fly when you’re having fun!

Q2 - Diwali in a suit

We’re into week 2 of the second quarter. I’m not sure if it’s just me but I do think this quarter is far more interesting than the last one yet a little harder too. For starters, I think corporate finance is going way over my head ( or is that because I’ve got it in my head that if it’s got the dreaded finance word in it, then it must be hard) while operations and marketing though more interesting than last quarter, are definitely beginning to pinch a bit. But hands down the most interesting subject we’ve got this quarter is GEM (Global Economies and Markets) and Peter Rodriguez is our professor for that. This subject is very relevant to the current crisis and helps us (ok, helps me, since most of my classmates seem pretty tuned in already) understand the financial crisis better by analyzing the fundamentals that built up to it in the first place. After each class I find myself marveling the amount of insight that my classmates bring to the table in such matters and I can actually feel the difference in my understanding from when I'm going in to when I’m done with the class. The new seating arrangement has me once more in the last row – prime bit of real estate in the class room, mind you – and although a lot of people feel excluded when they sit there, I personally enjoy sitting on my “perch” and taking in all the proceedings below, occasionally participating in the fray myself.

On the recruiting front, it looks like we’re just finishing up with the briefings. Two consulting companies this week and I think we’re done with the bulk of them. With the situation being what it is, the school has been encouraging us to explore off grounds job searches, even organizing a seminar on how to navigate the process with special attention to international students. Outside, the weather’s been cooling down and it’s gotten downright cold in the nights when I walk back to Ivy. Darden and the rest of the ville is looking really pretty with the trees peppered with leaves of multicolored hues and I love stepping on the fallen leaves to hear the crunchy sound they make under my shoes.

Finally, today is Diwali in my part of the world. When I called home last night I could barely hear my sister over the firecrackers in the background. If I had to sum up Diwali in one word for you, it would be this: firecrackers. If I were to sum up Diwali my way in a word for you it would be this: sweets. On this day, it’s custom that we wear new clothes and the sister sent me a new Indian outfit to wear for today. I, however, am sitting here in the library (I know I said I wouldn’t be back here for sometime but I can’t help it, it feels like home!) in a grey suit (grey like the weather outside), munching salty baked Lays because I missed lunch. Happy Diwali to me.

Before we start over

Q1 is over, finished and done with! But in the words of the Surfer Guy (J"B"S, Section D), “the repercussions are not.” I agree with that, but for today, just today, allow me to revel in this sense of freedom that I last felt on my final day at work!

Today we wrapped our exams for the quarter, leaving behind 6 days of myriad experiences as we tackled case after case, crunched a million numbers, and ate more granola bars than I can count on my two hands! As I pushed open the doors of the library after the exam, I was happy just at the thought of not having to camp out there for the next couple of months and constantly speak in hushed tones. I chose not to bid for one of the learning team rooms for the exam, choosing instead to hole up in the library, where I am more comfortable and insulated from a lot of the madness.

Funnily enough, I’m a little disappointed that the exams are over (I hear a range of disapproving noises) because while they were on, I had something to do all the time. Not that I won’t have something to do now, but no exams means having to tackle a whole lot of other work from the “real life” – errands, laundry, resume polish, company briefings prep, all the phone calls I’ve been promising people back home but haven’t gotten round to doing… you get the idea…

So in true Darden case method style, I figured I should make a little note of the key takeaways from this quarter and the exams, to be tucked away till Monday, when Q2 begins.

1. Exams are supposed to be the easiest time at Darden. Why, then, was I so hassled? Back to the drawing board as I figure out where my study-style was messed up.
2. My learning team rocks, but I might have depended on them too much. A lot of exams had me struggling to get something I thought I’d done at LT. I remembered trying to figure it out on my own before LT, and then getting help from the folks there. But turns out I didn’t really learn the concepts as well as I could/should have.
3. Time management. Q2 is much harder than Q1. There is a whole lot more going on then and if that’s not enough, I have signed up for a bunch of stuff that’s going to take up a lot of my time. I have to find a way to balance all of it.
4. Self takes priority. I noticed that when in crunch situation, I tend to forget myself. I stop eating or sleeping properly, and pretty much lose touch with the outside world. Very in-the-box behavior. Must fix it.
5. Decisions under duress – strict No-No. Ok so I know this. And I know it well because my dad hammers this into my head all the time. But I make the mistake again. And again. Strict no-no. Note to self: Apply LO concepts to life.
6. If you hear the voice of your DA professor in your head while you’re taking the DA exam, realize that you could be more stressed about the exam that you should be. Or that the knowledge that the case was written by your own DA professor has the ability to throw you off balance. Or you could be genuinely messing up the exam big time.
7. Keep nail polish handy. I tend to chew my nails a lot during exams. I’d forgotten that habit of mine. Right after I am done with this post, I am going to sit with the file and try to salvage what’s left of my nails. For the next exam, I'll make sure my nails are painted well in advance.

The good thing about the exams is that I have now learnt to flag and categorize my emails pretty well – I do have quite a few to act upon, but they’re all there where I can see them, so that’s good! The best thing, though, is that Q1 is over and I survived! Sometimes it really is hard to believe that I’m here, doing what I always wanted to do and being able to tell the world about it.

In true Darden spirit, the school that never lets you stay idle long enough has started the cycle all over again by leaving our Q2 case packets in our mailboxes. Off we go on another whirlwind ride! But for today, I’m just going to relax at the Section D party and maybe head over to the Moustache competition afterwards.

“And for the sake of time, let’s move on!”

The Facilitator

Today was our last DA (Decision Analysis) class of the quarter. It was also our last class with our DA professor. Although a bunch of us will be taking the DA electives later this year and in the next, my professor’s announcement made me pause to think back to the quarter that sped by.

Over the summer, during days of trying to figure out Accounting from the Pre-Enrolment modules, I often wondered how I would learn the concepts through the case method. In the case method curriculum, the professor acts more like a facilitator than a lecturer. Take for instance my accounting class. My professor would hand out transparencies to randomly selected students in the class to enter each line item of a balance sheet with the corresponding t-account. These would then be put up on the projector and the student would defend his balance sheet entry while the rest of the class was free to debate and discuss his assumptions and logic and even his handwriting if they wanted!

Our DA class was another innovative exercise in teaching you to convince clients of the soundness of your arguments without resorting to the use of complex numbers and terminologies. Our professor would make us role-play the case – convince Mr. X to go with your decision to either invest or get out of a particular venture or convince Mr. G to sell a certain number of t-shirts at a game. Our class would play analyst, supplying the “chosen one” with the numbers and ideas to support his/her hypothesis. In all these instances, our professors would play devil’s advocate, challenging our stands, forcing us to rethink our answers, planting a seed of doubt so that collectively you challenge the very spreadsheet before you that took you the better part of the previous evening to develop.

The professor chooses to play facilitator, but that does not mean we do not get to leverage his immense experience and knowledge in the area. Our marketing professor is one such example. His classes are peppered with instances and examples from his own professional and personal life concerning companies and brands that we are all familiar with, all delivered in his trademark New Yorker’s humor.

The case method itself is unique, but when you factor in the fantastic faculty that teach at Darden, every once in a while you get that feeling of awe for just being here and part of this society, making you sit just that little bit straighter in your seat. Perhaps it’s no surprise then, that the Darden faculty have been ranked at the top of Princeton Review’s business school rankings.

Here’s one sample of the caliber of the faculty at Darden. Take a look at the video footage of the panel discussion of our professors organized a couple weekends ago, discussing the current state of the financial markets and the causes leading up to it. Abbott Auditorium was packed with students sprawling out on the aisles to watch the hour long discussion.

On that note, let me excuse myself as I prepare for the last class of Q1 tomorrow. Time...how it flies!

The Beer Game

Just when you are beginning to tire of bragging to your friends about how hands-on the D curriculum is, you get hit by another of their brilliant teaching methods. Here’s why it’s brilliant. It makes you, the student, feel nice about having one, possibly two, less cases to prepare for the next day and it makes you learn something – in true D style – the hard way. The Beer Game is just the latest of many. I won’t go into the ones that came before the Beer game – my D classmates have done a great job of describing their experiences with those on their blogs – but I will go into the one we had today.

Titled the Beer Game and played very appropriately on a Thursday when a lot of FYs won’t be at TNDC (2 cases for tomorrow!), this was a simulation game played as part of the marketing curriculum. The motive behind the simulation was to learn, among other things, the Bullwhip effect and other typical supply chain problems. Four beer manufacturing companies fight to keep their production process lean and their inventory holding/stock out costs mean. Add some twists and complications to all of that and you have the perfect ale for a good two hours’ worth class time! Playing with my uber-cool section D buddies more than made up for having to stay indoors on a Thursday night and miss all the fun at the Buddhist Biker!

Something I’ve noticed about all the simulation games is that they’re very much like our cases. They give you the basic premise and instructions and throw you headlong into the game. The first round is basically a sadistic-professor-taking-pleasure-in-your confusion round where you screw up big time by making all the mistakes in the book and then some more. Then comes round 2, where you are allowed to strategize a little bit and you enter the game once more, feeling like the king of the operation. But in true sadistic-professor style, round 2 comes with its own little quirks and twists. You are left fumbling for a bit, but you pick up pace soon enough to recover and make some money. Round 3 is where life is good, all rules are relaxed and you are pretty much handed victory on a silver platter – and you still screw up, albeit a lot lesser than round 1. Then you debrief with the whole class. The winner walks away with a prize, in today’s case a tall D glass.

So when exactly did the learning curve go a notch higher in this entire sequence, you ask? That is the best part of it all. You realize you have learnt something new only when you are working on the next day’s cases and you find yourself applying what you learnt on the simulation. And that, my friend, is your aha moment! Mission accomplished. Cheers!

Addendum - 9/26/2008:

I guess I spoke too soon about the simulation games. Here's something I didn't think I would be doing in business school - playing with teddy bears in an Operations class! We were trying to simulate the efficiency (or the lack of it) in the operations of a hospital. In order to allow us to see more clearly and in real time, the challenges faced by a multi-discipline hospital, our professor brought in some teddies as patients and had some of us be the doctors.

Moral of the game: Operations need not always be about factories and machines, but can be cute too and learning is a lot more fun (and memorable) when it's hands-on.

Girls' Night Out

If you know anything about the D life at all, then you will know that Thursdays are our Fridays. Hence the TNDC – Thursday Night Drinking Club, is a big big part of the D culture and with good reason too! Every Thursday night, all of the D FYs and SYs (ok not all, but at least most of them), get together at one of the many pubs in C’ville to let our hair down, meet other people and generally indulge in a little madness, hoping to get featured on the next TNDC mailer.

This Thursday was a little different from the others. A classmate had invited all the women over to her place at the Downtown Mall for some wine, good company and an Alanis Morissette concert. After spending a good amount of time “drinking good wine and enjoying great company” and watching Alanis perform from JB’s rooftop, a bunch of us ladies headed out for dinner before TNDC. After what can be termed as the best 1 hour of the whole week- spent at dinner with the girls- we split, with half the crowd heading to bed and the other half hitting the Boleyn for TNDC.

It was madness in there! The place was swarming with the D crowd and there was loud music and no space to even walk up to the bar! I spotted the good doctor, a fellow Section D'er, who had decided to hit the nightspot for his maiden TNDC, and a bunch of others from class. A drink later I was ready to call it a night, my voice hoarse from having to speak over the music of the live band but in happy anticipation of having 3 whole days to catch up on sleep and food.

Having started out my Thursday in a pretty lousy frame of mind, I was quite uplifted by the time it ended. Cheers to the ladies who made it the best Thursday evening in a long time! You know who you are, and you rock!

PS. I watched Alanis perform Ironic live! Woohoo!