Merry Christmas!

Home

Join me on my pictorial journey back home and revel in my excitement of heading back to normal sized food and American. No, not America. American. Everything related to America. USA USA USA!!!. Haha jk. I'm not that patriotic. I was the American who joined Canadian thanksgiving. Call me Benedict Arnold. My loyalty lies with any country that feeds me.

Starting the day off with a European breakfast at the airport. These breakfasts are only filling if you have a cigarette to kill the hunger. Would you like some cancer with your croissant? Europe says yes.

The BCN airport is honestly one of the best airports I've been in. They have a full shopping arcade and the building/design is beautiful. Glass windows everywhere. The only person who would not enjoy all the glass would be this guy. Yippee ki-yay.

Today's form of transportation. AA #151.

Notice the blue skies because that's the last you're gonna see of that for the rest of this post.

Okay I lied. This is the last blue sky post.  If memory serves me correctly this was over the French Pyrenees. Don't worry I took this picture once the flight attendant gave the okay for electronic device usage. I question the concerns of these electric devices causing mechanical failure or communication interference. You'd think that if that really was the case some terrorist would load himself up with Ipods and cellphones and just turn them on. Oh great I think I'm now on some FBI watch list.

Snow makes it festive. Snow makes it festive. The more I repeat it the more I believe it. By the way it was 28 degrees when we landed with a forecast of heavy snow for 24 hours.

20 hours of travelling and finally home. Officially relaxation time. 

After spending some time away from my family the weirdness of Duke astounds me. He's a St. Bernard that doesn't enjoy cold weather. He literally fails at being a St. Bernard. I still love him though. I think my mom loves him more than she loves me. Number of times she calls me Duke in a given day: 10. Number of times Duke is called my name: 0.

Quick profile of Duke:

Sex: Male minus certain male parts

Age: 13

Likes: Sleeping, napping and snacking

Dislikes: Metal grates, cold weather, puddles and loud noises.

Interested in: Friends only

I love my parents' refrigerator. Food everywhere. I swear it's like a supermarket in there but it's all free. Well free for me at least. Not free for my parents. I think this is why they are always asking me how long I'm staying with them. 

Wrapping up a long day of travelling, it was nice to sit back and just stare outside. Didn't have to move. Didn't have to think. For two weeks I'm gonna be away from the MBA and I'm gonna make the most of it. When I say make the most of it it really means I'm going to eat a lot. NYC restaurants, cafes, halal carts and pepto bismol suppliers you have been warned.

So long, and thanks for all the ish

Yesterday marked the end of Term 1 of our ESADE MBA. Looking back over the past four months so much has happened.

I arrived in Barcelona on August 21st. I arrived knowing no one and with nary an idea as to what I would face over the coming months. The past four months taught me so many new things that its almost unbelievable. Couple of things just off the top of my head:

1. You can subsist on ham and cheese sandwiches and beer for a considerable amount of time before your body starts wanting more than salted pork and dairy.
2. Spanish food can get boring after the first month or so.
3. Unread copies of the Wall Street Journal/Financial Times can act as kindle, table or chair levelers or a reminder that you really should start reading these things.
4. The 22 bus on Monday mornings is a sure fire way to be late to class. 
5. 1.20 euro beers at the cafeteria are the perfect way to end a day of classes.
6. Moral hassa, think about it and que hora es will forever live as the ESADE inside joke
7. No matter what Spain+efficiency will NEVER be mentioned in the same sentence unless lack precedes efficiency.
8.  Blackberries and BBM are the greatest thing ever invented. 
9. Groupwork is a major pain but absolutely necessary. It is also a great source of gossip. 
10. You can never stop learning from your classmates.

The term is over now and for 2.5 weeks I don't have to worry about lectures, case studies, homework, groupwork, exams and everything else related to school. It will be a weird sensation not being at school though. I spent pretty much every day with my classmates on and off campus. We had class, ate together, studied together and partied together. Seeing everyone say their goodbyes last night really made me realize how tight-knit our group had gotten over the past four months and it's really no surprise considering the amount of time we all spent together living the ESADE MBA life and going through the ups and downs of a B-school student.

Anyways, our class definitely lives up to the work hard play hard mentality and we kicked off our End of Term 1 celebration with a Xmas group dinner at El Rodizio Grill. Five words. All you can eat BBQ. Three words. Wine and Cava. One word. Awesome. We essentially took over the entire restaurant as about 100 ESADE students converged upon the place. I'm pretty sure the other customers were thoroughly annoyed by us but whatever its our party and we'll be loud if we want to.

Then it was off to Opium Cinema. This is where everyone stepped it up a notch. The past month really took a toll on everyone and walking the hallways of ESADE you could see it. But, last night was different. It was just great seeing everyone with a huge smile on their faces. It was kinda like before we started when we were just reveling in the moment surrounded by our new friends in a new city but now we were surrounded by old friends in a familiar city. Once again, because there were about 150 of us there we essentially took over the club, which led to my favorite moment of the night; a group karaoke of Last Christmas. Similar to Bon Jovi, Wham songs are known worldwide. The power of George Michael.

So I leave for NYC tomorrow and am heading back home. It'll be nice to be home but honestly I will miss ESADE and my friends. You guys really are the best and I thank everyone for making these past four months so memorable. I couldn't ask for a better group of people.

So next post will be from the comfort of my parent's place. I bid you all adios and to everyone travelling during the next couple of days safe travels.
ESADE MBA365.com

Yikes

Well well well. It's December 15th and time has definitely flown by. Looking over my posts it's amazing to think that I arrived in Barcelona just about four months ago. So much has happened its almost mind bottling. (Blades of Glory reference in case everyone thinks I've gone native and have forgotten the good 'ole American language)

In any case, I still have an accounting exam, a finance exam and a marketing take home essay to finish up so I won't be doing my big 2009:A Year in Review aka Get Engaged Say Goodbye to Los Angeles Say Hello to New York Say Goodbye to New York Bienvenidos a Barcelona OMG MBA WTF.

Oh. Also, my blog is now featured as one of the unofficial student blogs on our ESADE MBA website.

http://www.esade.edu/mba/eng. Future ESADE MBA candidates I welcome you to my blog. Is my blog a useful tool for you, the future candidate? Let's be honest. Probably not. Really I have provided no deep insight or resources to help in your selection of B-schools. What I do want to provide you and everyone else who utilizes this blog as a way to pass time while they're at work (Yes, I know who you all are) is an opportunity to just see life through my eyes. Nothing more nothing less. So if you want a sanitized version of ESADE student life, read our official ESADE student blog. If you want more of a personal introspective view, read Morgan Witkin's. I believe she was also featured in BusinessWeek. If you want a good general MBA blog read Tobias'. Read mine so that you can feed my constant need for attention. And with that I retreat to my warm cocoon of accounting and finance. A=L+OE and NPV=CF/(1+r)^n. and my personal favorite Financial Leverage of Me= null can't divide by zero.

mmmm....mcd's craving

I would club a baby seal for this. Okay maybe not club but a vicious poke.

60% of the time it works every time.

Surfing through Digg and found another example of Fox News as the bastion of accurate news and hard hitting journalistic insight.

Not really

Upside down and leftside right

Usually..well, more like all the time I'm talking about myself in my blog posts. It's really a way to feed my self-centered nature. But, today, I'm going to talk a bit about my fiancée. She's the best thing that's ever happened to me and I love her more than anything in this entire world. Don't worry I'll wait for you to stop vomiting before I continue.

Okay. Done?

Anyways, she's not what you'd call a typical girl and I don't always play the typical male role within our relationship. Thus, we have conversations such as the following, which happened earlier today on Blackberry Messenger.

Her: Morning
Me: Morning my love.
Her: 3 more weeks ugh
Me: When are you taking vacation
Her: The 25th
Her: Haha
Her: Yes I made the [fantasy football] playoffs in both leagues
Me: Nice. Still not out of the race yet
Her: Nope but Turner being out is going to hurt me
Me: Oh right. Don't have any good backups?
Her: Picked up a few good guys
Her: Laurence maroney on ne
Me: I have no idea who these people are

Not only is she an active fantasy football player but she's in TWO leagues. We Skype every Sunday so our conversations are intermittently disrupted by her cheering on her players. I'm never quite sure how to approach this. Some people tell me, "Hey that's awesome that your fiancée loves sports" to which I agree but at the same time it is slightly emasculating when your own SO knows more about football than you. Maybe I should pick up something super feminine just to balance things out. I hear Lamaze isn't just for women anymore.

Jay-Z had it right. I got 99 problems but....

*Credit to AC for the infographic.

Re-Bienvenidos a Barcelona

It's a funny thing to have writer's block for a blog. This blog has been a series of Holden Caufield-esque streams of consciousness but I try to put some thought into what I wanted to write. So today's blog post will be about one of three things.

1. The ESADE Consulting Club trip to London
2. General thoughts about the internship process
   
3. My career, life and future

Via a completely random computerized selection process i.e. going into Microsoft Excel and typing =rand()*3 the winner is topic 1.  The real winner is you, the reader, since I'm sure you wanted to hear me ramble about my life and future.

So the ESADE Consulting Trip was quite interesting. Our schedule was as follows:

Thursday - Bain & Co. and Navigant Consulting

Friday - Solon, KPMG, BearingPoint, Analysys Mason and Oliver Wyman

Mixture of presentations and Q&A at each company. The presentations were great and I felt that by meeting the company representatives I got to skip ahead of the recruiting line by foregoing the typical "Please submit your CV and Cover Letter via our Career site".

But really all this is quite pedantic. What was most awesome for me was finally being in a land where I could understand everyone and eating food that wasn't goddamn tapas. Oh, and normal sized coffee.

You don't realize how happy I was to get a large coffee in London. Granted it cost me something like 3.50 pounds, which is like $8,513 USD but still it was nice. One of these days I'll take a picture of what we get here in Barcelona but just imagine that cup and then shrinking it to about 1/410th of that size. Honey I Shrunk the Coffee Cup! (I'm somewhat torn as to how much I liked that last joke. In a way it's corny and  really dorky, which basically epitomizes yours truly but at the same time I can't help but shake my head in disdain as to the level of dorkiness that spews from my brain).

Anyways, back to the food. While I was there I also sampled some of Britain's favorite artery clogger, fish and chips, at a pub called The Larrick.

Britain's obesity rates are climbing as steadily as America's and it's really no surprise why, but God bless the Queen for that.

I got back from London on Saturday and then had a 1st round phone interview on Monday for a summer internship position within the biz dev and M&A group at a large entertainment company. I felt that the constant networking while in London helped keep my mind fresh in terms of verbal communication but now that the interview is done it's out of my hands and out of my control as to what happens next. I feel that the position and the job description is a good fit with my background but it's a tough market and the competition is really high. I'll stay optimistic but there's a part of me that thinks I have a snowball's chance in Venus (surface temperature of 460C=hot)

You know, reading over this post it's not a very interesting one. I'm somewhat disappointed that after 7 days without a blog post and a trip to London this was the best I could come up with. Feel free to leave me comments about how much it sucked so I can put coal in your stockings.