unfortunate

over the wknd, the premier (like a governor) of tasmania (one of the states), jim bacon, died of lung cancer. his wife made the announcement in a press conference. yes, its unfortunate he died but just as bad is that his wife’s name is honey.

yes.

honey bacon

stockholm syndrome

robinson (in snapshots from hell talks about failing one of his mid-term exams and then beating himself up about spending more time studying. telling himself that he needs to work harder. he decides its a bizarre twist to the stockholm syndrome, where the hostage falls in love with the captor. he talks about how he totally blamed himself, even though he was only sleeping 5-6 hrs a nite and studying all the time. that he never put any responsiblity on stanford @ all.

i know i went thru that with the math classes i struggled thru. and there’s not a lot of help offered …

aussie art

one of the museums just opened a new show called the impressionists. they were just talking about it on the news.

and the newscaster said the highlights include monet and van gogh

but he pronounced it

van golf

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

kentucky

when i got on the train tonite i was standing right next to these folks. first word out of this guys mouth n i knew he was american. when i looked at him, he confirmed it with a uni of kentucky tshirt (at least i think that’s what it said. i know it said kentucky). so for about 10 minutes i got to listen to his southern accent and his wife’s very thick southern accent. weird to hear them. american… much less southern. man, it sounds awful.

tired

the following is a journal entry he includes in his book. and yeah, there’s been a lot of times i feel like this. actually probably more now, in my 3rd semester, than i in the first 2.

The time is six minutes past ten. I have worked all day, rising at 7:00, attending class from 8:00 until 11:45, eating a quick lunch, returning to class from 1:20 until 3:05, doing some quick shopping at the grocery store, going for a quick run, microwaving a quick dinner, and then entering my pantry office to study. I probably have another five hours of work to go, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to complete it because I feel too old.

socialising

robinson starts off one chapter with the following…

If life inside the classroom was intense, life outside the classroom was not a lot of yucks, either. I started fall term with the notion that my classmates and I would do what students do, getting to know each other, going out togther for burgers and beers, and throwing parties. I ws counting on some relaxation and fun from time to time. But relaxation and fun were not to be had.

he got that one right. most of the time, even stopping in the hall or talking in the computer lab for a few minutes felt painful because you could be using that to read or something.

he mentions a conversation he has with a woman who had been talking to a second year student who told her he had studied 6 nites a week and only went out for a beer one nite a week. they were both freaked out by that.

that was my existance during my first semester. i’d get calls to come out but i’d be like ‘no! must study’. sad…

There’s an earlier quote, during the orientation, where some woman prof tells them to think of their days in 10 minute blocks and not to waste a single block. he thinks she’s joking. but i understand what she means. when i go to pilates, i always take reading material along out to the studio. i might have to sit in the lobby for a few minutes or lay on the reformer til the instructor comes in and those are minutes i can use.

his illustration is the parking lot. he could pay to park in lot a which was right by class or he could pay $125 less and park in lot b which meant a 15 min walk to class. those 15 min (one way) was enough to make him pay for lot a.

so anyone out there thinking of doing an mba? have i (and this book) scared anyone off yet?

when did we become children again?

there’s a bit early on in the book about a prof telling the class they could have an 8 minute break. that the prof said ‘but when i say eight minutes, i mean eight minutes’. it then goes on to tell how he humiliated this girl b/c she came in late.

we have one of those. not to the ‘eight minutes’ extreme but freaking anal about you being there on time for class and after break. this prof had a talk with one of my classmates b/c he was late 2-3x (like 5-10 min late) and informed him he could fail if the lateness continued. i was 5 min late once and nothing was said. the next week i was running late getting there. i would have been 5-10 min late so i decided i’d rather not go than possibly get the speech.

i dont know if its the power trip on their part or the thing about being back in school and suddenly you exhibit some of the same behaviors you did when you were in like 5th grade.

not a good day

the phone woke me up this morning. of course i didnt hear the ringing in time to reach it but still it woke me.

so i stumbled over n set up the coffee machine

then i stumbled over to my computer. move mouse. notice no cursur movement. move nipple pointer mouse thing and the screen goes BLACK. this happens sometimes so i reboot. annoying but ok. toshiba logo comes on screen and i start to hear a clicking noise. it’s a noise i’ve never heard the laptop make before. notice the computer seems to be frozen on the logo screen.

take a deep breath and reboot. repeat the noise and frozen thing. press f2 for booting options. tell it hard drive and have it repeat back to me ‘choose a selection and press any key’ (or whatever the fuck it said). try hard drive and get same error. try default setup and get same error. try each of the 5 options and get an error.

realise i must not have tightened the coffee thing and so there’s grounds all over the counter and in my coffee pot. clean it, throw it all away and start over.

go back to computer. repeat the above. try not to freak out. try not to think about the last time i backed up (um… months ago). try not to think of lost work. try not to think of dead computer.

i’ve been thinking of getting a new one for months but i’ve stopped myself b/c i shouldnt be spending the money. this wasnt funny though. so i guess my pricing and reviewing and looking at least paid off… i came home with a new laptop tonite. it’s an asus and very light weight, built in cd burner & dvd player, 512, 1.6, 60gig.

at least the dollar is at like 69cents today…

courses

remember, this guy did his mba from 1988-90 so this could have changed but its interesting just to see the difference in classes. he talks of having 13 core classes and 2 electives. i have 10 core classes and 3 electives (one of those is the thesis).

his first semester core classes are: decision making under uncertainty, microeconomics, org behavior, financial accounting and computer modeling and optimization. mine were organisational dynamics, strategic marketing, opportunity evaluation and financial data and decision making.

i’m on the 3rd chapter so i’m not sure how the classes compare. he does talk about ‘trees’ (as the course decision making under uncertainty gets to be known) and how they talk about decision trees. we didn’t use decision trees but the examples he gives are very much like what we did in the second semester class, finance for high growth business (decision making like should u buy equipment or outsource type stuff). i don’t know if it’s the visual bit of the trees or the fact i’ve spent a semester trying to learn the same type of problems but i think i would have prefered to have the tree explaination. it made a lot more sense to me than the way i was taught (and REALLY struggled with) this stuff.

math camp

robinson’s first chapter (in snapshots from hell) talks about how he had math camp n computer camp prior to starting classes. something like a week of each. AGSE had a week camp for international students only that i didn’t attend because i was still dealing with visa stuff. from what i heard i’m pretty glad i missed it. sounds like it was full of ‘how to write a paper’ type stuff that culminated in teams having to write and present. sounded like it was a big waste of time.

AGSE also had a 4 day residential program for all full-time students. this was worthwhile because you got to meet people and there was a some interesting stuff talked about. but it’s nothing at all like what robinson talks about.

one thing i like about this book is how he mixes real examples (going as far as explaining problems and solutions, case study situations, etc) with his personal feelings. the math problems he talks about attempting to understand are so much different than what i’ve experienced in my 2 math classes here. i think mine were accounting leaning and more business focused rather than straight ahead math (he even gets into calculus). thank god for that. although i shared his terror. after his prof writes the very first formula on the board, robinson sez “i felt revulsion’. bingo!

in the math camp chapter he very briefly talks of calling his girlfriend for moral support but not receiving any because she was attending business school too (at another uni). he states they would realise ‘business school is the enemy of romance.’

i found that quite funny. meeting people is hard because you don’t really have the time. you’d think you’d shack up with other mba students since you could at least understand the misery but in my case a lot of them are married. and you don’t even have the time to socialise with other students. maybe that’s a biz opportunity. arranging sex partners for mba students.

over the summer i started seeing someone (hence having the time to hang out with someone) and although i’m not really comfortable in saying this… i think it’s an actual relationship. i don’t know how he deals with me though. all the time he’ll get things like… ‘ok, we can go out for dinner tonite but then i have to read. or i can spend all nite reading tonite and tomorrow we can get dinner and maybe a drink if i get enough accomplished. but we can’t do something both nites’.

i was wondering how in the world the students who are married and have kids are doing this. now i realise they first must have intensely understanding partners. cause you can’t really waste the time arguing over ‘x’ because that’s lost time taken away from study. now i’m seeing some of the positives too… the boy likes to cook so i’m eating better and it’s one less thing i have to worry about (rather… as some of you know… i get involved and forget to eat so now i have someone reminding me. and not just reminding but putting something good in front of my nose).