An actual post about the ESADE program

When I was at Deloitte I participated in a number of recruiting events throughout the course of the year. Yes, the lure of free drinks, food and other goodies was somewhat of a contributing factor for my participation, but I also felt that it was critical for my career development as well. The undergraduates we recruited and eventually hired would become my staff at some point and thus their ability to work hard and work well was critical for the success of the audit engagement. So amidst the drinking and socializing I did my fair share of analyzing the potential of a candidate. Granted, it was more of a "can I be in small closet sized office with them for 70 hours a week during busy season and not have to take them out back and beat them" type test but it was still a test nonetheless. When I think about it, its pretty selfish but I feel that in the end it's beneficial for the firm and my colleagues.    

At ESADE I requested to be part of the Open Day panel discussions and meet and greets because of a similar selfish drive. For Open Day my role is as an information provider and representative of the school so I've gone more into a marketing role but the goal is still the same. I, and I'm sure all of my classmates at ESADE, want to see the school become recognized as one of the top European business schools as well as one of the top global MBA programs. The Financial Times just recently ranked us 19th in the world but those rankings really don't mean jack when there are still companies out there who ask "what's ESADE?" We can't fix that overnight but we can guide it in the right direction by recruiting bright and ambitious MBA candidates with diverse profiles and excellent work experience. 

Now, although I do want to see ESADE recruit the best and the brightest and always want to portray the school in the best light, I will admit there are problems. Yes, the job market has been tough for the Class of 2010 but I believe it has been tough for everyone, no matter what business school you attend. Readers of my blog who are looking into applying to ESADE or are debating whether to attend IESE vs. ESADE or ESADE vs. other business schools for 2012 should realize that if anything else, the students, faculty and program management are truly committed to making ESADE a top notch institution. 

By the way, if anyone has any questions regarding my thoughts on IESE versus ESADE please let me know as I went through a similar process of having to decide which school to attend. 

I promise starting next week I'll go back to non-serious posts.
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Duke, you will be missed

I tried to write this post yesterday but had to stop after writing the first sentence.

Yesterday, Duke, our beloved St. Bernard passed away after 13 spectacular years as part of my family. Being an only child he was like my brother growing up and my mom treated him as though he was her second child. It's gonna be tough without him but he's provided so many good memories that I can at least hold onto those. We will miss you Duke.

Red

Our Human Resources professor asked the class today to try to explain the color red without referring to an experience. Without using an experience related to sight, sound, feeling or smell, try to explain what the color red is. It's impossible.

Red is something that we know is red because we relate it to the color of apples. The color of the firetruck that we saw when we were little. The color of the dress that your crush wore. Without those experiences the color red is indescribable. 

What's the point of the story? It's just that so much of our knowledge comes through experiences. What we see, feel, tough, hear and smell constitutes the great majority of the make-up of the knowledge that you hold. You may learn what RGB values constitute the color red but, to truly understand what red is, your brain has to relate it to an experience.

I'm out here in Barcelona experiencing a new country, new friends and a new perspective on life. You can't beat that kind of wealth of knowledge.

And, to lighten up this post.

Lazy Sunday

It's a rainy Sunday here in Barcelona. Spending the day filling out applications for internships and doing some readings for next week and, of course, that means a good amount of internet browsing as a form of multi-tasking.  Some internet gems I've found.

A mash-up of one of my favorite 80's tv shows A-Team and nerd-classic Star Wars.




Been a lot of hoopla over US late-night TV hosts Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien. Someone posted one of the classic Conan skits that make him so awesome.

I love watching Japanese TV and a lot of times the funniest comedians are from Osaka. This video tries to explain why.

Vacation from my vacation

Well after a nice two week break in NYC and all this talk about getting back to reality you'd think I would have to face the consequences of the ESADE MBA life.

HA! You underestimate my powers of procrastination and responsibility avoidance during vacation times.

After flying in from NYC and landing in Barcelona at 9am, I embarked upon an ambitious journey to join 20+ of my ESADE classmates on a skiing/snowboarding trip to Andorra. Met up with my classmates at 1:30pm to pick up the rental car and headed out to Andorra.

If you have a microscope handy, the principality of Andorra is the tiny green dot right on the border of Spain and France. The 4.5 hour drive up there was fairly uneventful until we got to about 30 km from Pas de la Casa in Andorra. Turns out that the area had been blanketed in snow and our econo-family-minivan was ill equipped to handle the layer of snow and ice. Upon reaching a fairly steep hill our car became like a hamster in a hamster wheel, just stuck in one position as the wheels spun wildly in the snow. The minivan was seemingly running on nature's treadmill.

Defeated, we went down the road a bit to find a man selling chains out of wooden shed. Contrary to his plebian surroundings, the man was a capitalistic genius. Actually, he was doing probably what anyone with a morsel of business acumen would do. Charge 500x for something that is in high demand. In our case, snow chains. So we walked away with 100 Euro chains that we hoped were lined with 24k gold and baby seal fur but were really made of plastic, metal and pure greed. Can you tell we are still bitter about those chains?

In any case, we made it safely up to Pas de la Casa and made our way to our apartment/cabin. The cabin was reminiscent of the cabins I've stayed in while at Mammoth and Big Bear; rustic but serviceable. After we unpacked our bags we headed out for some dinner and checked out the town a bit. The entire principality of Andorra is a tax haven so most of the towns surrounding the ski resorts are littered with airport duty free style shops hawking the best and latest in perfume, tobacco and liquor. It's the perfect place to get lung cancer and cirrhosis while smelling Chanel No.5 fresh.

Thursday started off bright and early at 830am and here's where I'm gonna just shortcut my blog post by posting pictures. By the way all the pictures are from Sunday because the weather for the first two days was snow mixed with snow mixed with clouds and wind.

The area where we snowboarded/skied (to be shortened hereafter as skiboarding) consisted of 5 mountains that you could traverse. We really only made it to two mountains but that was more than enough to fill 3 days of skiboarding.

A couple of pictures of the mountains and the runs.

Have to include a picture of my trusty board.

They had this ice hotel/bar that was being built. Prepare to be underwhelmed.

For some reason I was expecting more than this. Maybe it was because when I think ice hotel I think of the ice hotel in Die Another Day but then again that was a movie and this is real life. It's the same letdown I got when I realized that being a slightly overweight dorky teenager would not automatically result in comical hijinks and winning the affection of the cheerleader/prom queen while the star quarterback looked on in contempt, as suggested by some movies.

I'm not quite sure how these igloos work in terms of sheltering people from the cold. When I was in the igloo it was still damn cold and it's not like those furs on the ice are gonna magically warm your butt. I guess it's providing shelter from the wind outside but that's really about it.

On the first night after snowboarding we splurged and had fondue and it was spectacular. Cheese fondue and oil fondue really hit the spot after a full day of skiboarding. Being lactose intolerant, the cheese fondue resulted in some unfortunate side effects but I wasn't gonna let something like that stop me from gorging on bread and melted hot cheese. The other meals we had were typical lunch/dinner fare and not worthy of highlighting. Pizzas, burgers, wraps, soup, etc.

So after three days of snowboarding my entire body is still recovering. I now know of muscles I never thought I had and they are letting me know they exist by the aches and pains they provide. The trip was absolutely phenomenal and I can't wait to go snowboarding again in Europe. Once again a successful ESADE outing organized by the students. Plus, I got this super cool picture of me snowboarding.

I'm so glad I have this picture because usually I'm never actually standing up on my board or look like I'm in control. Usually there's a lot more arm flailing and my body in various stages of hitting the snow.

I'm still full - Part 2

So I forgot that the layout of my posts is new posts first so I'll have to restate the last sentence of my last post to maintain continuity.

Speaking of giving up....

On the 30th the SO and I went to check out the riveting matchup between Tri-State area basketball titans the New Jersey Nets and the New York Knicks. Who am I kidding. The Nets, as of 1/4/10, have a record of 3 wins and 30 losses and the Knicks aren't much better with 14 wins and 20 losses. Really we only went to see the game because we had nothing better to do and my dad had tickets.

Really it should be called the IDOZ center. Get it? I-Doz. There's gotta be at least 3 of you who thought that was remotely funny so I'll consider that mission accomplished.

We had some really good seats and the view was spectacular. I'm talking about the view of the court, not the view of the dancers you perverts.

The Knicks and the Nets combined put in about 80% effort. I swear most of the plays were dribble, dribble, pass, 19 foot jump shoot. I grew up watching my hometown team, the Lakers. I swear every game was played with tons of energy and it really seemed as though they put in 100%; from 80's Showtime era Lakers, mid-90s Van Exel/Eddie Jones/Elden Campbell era Lakers, Kobe/Shaq-Kobe/Gasol era Lakers.  If you ever watch Kobe play you know he never slacks off. It could be some game against the Hawks in January and he'd still be yelling at everyone, Fisher taking charges and Pau doing his best impression of angry llama.

By the way, Google is amazing. I couldn't figure out what animal Gasol resembled so I typed in "Pau Gaso looks like" and it suggested llama. Bingo, llama it is.

Of course we had some stadium food. Not pictured is the hot dog, large tub of popcorn and beers we had. I disgust me sometimes too. Just sometimes.

The excitement in the crowd was palpable. Well, something was palpable. It might have been my beer burps.

Nets 104 - Knicks 95. The Knicks totally gave up in the last two minutes of this game. I would too if my best player was David Lee. Anyways, as much bashing I've done about the actual game it was still great to go to a basketball game. I don't think I've ever sat this close to the floor and it's really quite an experience to hear the squeak of the shoes and the coaches yelling at the players.

Woke up on New Year's Eve with some snow on the ground and temperatures in the mid 20's. So what to do to combat the cold and prepare for New Year's Eve?

Five Guys Burger and large fries. Don't worry I had a a Diet Coke with my 1400 calorie lunch. You think I'm joking about the 1400 calories. Nope. NYC has implemented a law that states that any restaurant chain with 15 outlets or more nationwide must post calorie information on their menus. So when ordering, I knew that my cheeseburger was 700 calories and my large fries was 1400 calories (split between SO and I). Thus, grand total for lunch 1400 calories.

Side note: 2/3 of Americans over 20 y/o are overweight and 1/3 of Americans over 20 are obese. I am doing my best to be part of that statistic.

Well, not everything we do involves periods of inactivity. We actually went ice skating in Central Park in the afternoon. My SO kept questioning me if I was having fun because I wouldn't smile. Dammit woman I am not smiling because I am not about to fall on my ass on the hard ice. I grew up in Los Angeles. Ice is something that chills our drinks not something you are supposed to glide over while laced into medieval slicing weapon turned sporting footwear.

Anyways, for our NYE celebration we joined up with my classmate from ESADE who was visiting her sister and partied at her friend's apartment. It was great fun. It was also a nice reminder of how ESADE has brought all of us together when explaining to others how I, a Socal kid, met my classmate from Canada/Houston in Barcelona and how we are all visiting relatives in NYC. I know that previous sentence was full of grammatical errors but I'm too lazy to re-word/re-phrase it. Proper grammar is getting thrown out the windows these days anyways. I mean look at this tagline from Step Up 2 the Streets.

 

"It's not where you're from. It's where you're at." Maybe it's my fault for looking to Step Up 2 the Streets for proper grammar but, that is just egregious. Why do I know the tagline for Step Up 2 the Streets? You guys should know me by now. Damn another tangent. How many was that? 2? Okay back to NYE.

We were surprised with some cake at the end of our NYE celebration. Ring in the New Year with tons of sugar! My kind of party.

New Year's morning was spent eating traditional Japanese osechi-ryori. Since I'm too lazy to explain what that is here's the wikipedia article. Osechi Ryori

We ended New Years watching Avatar in 3-D. They gave you these Buddy Holly looking glasses to watch it in 3-D.  The movie was spectacular. I thoroughly enjoyed it even though the story is basically Pocahontas. *Spoiler Alert*

Last day with the SO so we went to go watch the Rockettes and their Christmas Spectacular. It was totally a last minute decision but we thought why not.

It kinda kills the whole Christmas spectacle when you're watching in January 2nd. I'm sure even Santa was thinking "WTF. Why am I still working?" I'll recommend people go see this in December.

Exterior shot of Radio City. Why did I bother typing that description? Why am I talking to myself in my blog posts now. Time to conclude this massive post.

So, that was pretty much the bulk of my break. I'm spending the last couple of days running last minute errands and getting ready to head back to Barcelona. Back to life. Back to reality. Take it away Soul II Soul...

Soul II Soul : Back to life (However do you want me)
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Good bye 00s and hello 10s. Part 1

Happy 2010 everyone. Hope everyone is ready for the start of the new decade. By my Back to the Future 2 timeline of events, the 2010s will bring about some cool technologies such as Mr. Fusion, Holofilms, Hoverboards and a flying Delorean. Possibility any of these will come true. Lower than Tiger Woods calling Thanksgiving one of his favorite holidays.

So I've been blog-silent for quite some time because for the past 8 days the SO and I have been traipsing about NYC. Since reading is fundamental but attention span isn't, on to the pictorial summary of my break.

Since the SO arrived on the red eye from LA, we took it easy the first night and watched Up in the Air and had some dessert at Max Brenner-Chocolate by the Bald Man.

The Bald Man sure knows his chocolate. "We" ended up getting a crepe. We as in her. Never get in between dessert and a hungry woman.

I don't even know what we did the next day. I have this picture of the fountain in Central Park but that's about it. I think our minds were too preoccupied with what was ahead for dinner.

Our meat mecca. I've been to countless steakhouses across the US but  Peter Luger Steak House has got to be in my top three. They've been voted best steakhouse in NYC for 26 years in a row now and in a town full of discerning foodies that's a pretty big accomplishment.

Secret paparazzo shot of Shannon Elizabeth who also happened to be there that day along with her Dancing With the Stars boyfriend.

*I've been getting a lot of traffic from followers of Shannon Elizabeth and that dude Derek from DWTS because of this picture. I'm surprised people are interested enough to google/follow her still. Oh well, hello Shannon Elizabeth/DWTS guy fans. Welcome to my blog. Feel free to look around. *

Meat for 2 with a side of steamed veggies. Oh yeah. I can still taste the medium rare steak melting in my mouth. I can also feel the arteries yearning for some Lipitor. So after bread, steak, steamed vegetables, beer and wine how do we top off the meal?

Chocolate Sundae topped with whipped cream and fudge. That's how we roll. And roll we would have to  because walking was a bit of a challenge after that meal.

We decided to walk off at least 100 of the 7500 calories we ate so headed over to Macy's to check out the holiday windows. Advice to anyone visiting NYC over Xmas break: Go see the holiday windows at Lord & Taylor, Macy's, Saks, etc. around 10pm. Guaranteed there will be no one there and you won't have to elbow the little girl in front of you to get a clear view. If you still want to throw some 'bows head to FAO Schwartz around 3pm. Prime 'bow throwing arena.

I even got to write a letter to Santa. I hope he gets it in time! Everything is a lie except one. Which one do you think it is? Hint: I did not get an A in every subject.

The third day was spent at our favorite NYC museum the American Museum of Natural History. It was just a tad bit crowded. I almost wished that T-Rex would come alive and start wreaking havoc. Except I'd probably be the first one eaten so maybe that's not such a good wish.

Anyways, I was a History Major at UCLA so I love anything related to history. Hell, my dream job is to be an archaeologist/professor a la a certain famous swashbuckling professor who hates Nazis and snakes.

But alas, my dreams will have to stay on hold as I work my way up the corporate ladder instead of  discovering hidden artifacts in the temple of Amun Ra.

The museum had a special exhibit featuring live butterflies in an enclosed habitat. It's amazing how still they can be right? What those pins aren't special feeding tubes? Surely, you jest.

The actual enclosed habitat was 80 degrees and at like 90% humidity. It only took me 5 minutes to get sick of the heat and humidity. You'd think that after a week of freezing temperatures I'd appreciate the warmth but apparently my body has already conceded to the cold weather and will not accept warm weather conditions.

Speaking of giving up......