Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Troubles updating... sorry!

I tried to post this on Friday morning, but I guess there were problems with Blogger so it never happened.... An update follows.

*****************
Last night I tried to procrastinate by updating the blog, but I was thwarted by the evil internet demons that somehow allowed my email and instant messenger to function, but not most websites. I've never experienced that before, and I chalk it up to Telefonica.

So instead I went for a run. And then Joanne came by to explain all of corporate finance in three hours, sprinkled in with a discussion of which " IESE boys are hot." And I'm sure you're hoping I'll post our discussion here, but wouldn't that just ruin the suspense?

Yesterday we had a three hour exam for Corporate Strategy about Botox and the cosmetic surgery industry, where I learned that it's possible to have a nipple extension. Not only is it POSSIBLE, it's quite popular! I never realized that some people sit around thinking and worrying about that enough to go have surgery. See what you learn in business school? A whole surgical sector I didn't even know existed!

After lunch we had our Operations Strategy exam, which was in two parts. The first part was a set of true-false questions, which we had 45 minutes to answer. Then we were given a case about Hugo Boss and how it should set up its production and logistics processes for the short and long term. Short term, I suggested they move everything to Eastern Europe / Balkans - make the fancy shirts in Poland and the rest in Romania, and pull out of Asia and Italy. Long term, I suggested moving the whole thing to Romania, even the German distribution hub. Our German professor might not like the idea, but hey baby it's just business! Finally, I suggested changing the name to Hugo Bosnia, for that sexy war-torn feeling that's so popular among college kids these days.

In an hour we start our Corporate Finance exam, where we will be levering and unlelvering Betas. Whatever THAT means. After lunch, it's on to Global Economics, a class which I fondly call, "Huh?" Yeah, so you can imagine how confident I'm feeling this morning. At least it's almost over!

*******************

After failing my corporate finance exam on Friday, I had to book an extremely last-minute flight to San Diego to take care of some family business. All is well, and though I'm extremely tired now, I don't regret for one second having gone all the way home to spend a very important weekend with my family.

Now I'm back in Barcelona (as of 11am today), having spent all of yesterday and all last night on planes. I think the guy next to me on the flight from Atlanta to Barcelona must have thought I was drugged. Hmmm maybe I was. My cranberry juice DID taste a little funny....

Now I have to face the reality of classes yet again and the fact that I'm completely doomed in corporate finance, economics, and quantitative methods. Study as I might, I just suck. And you know what? Being sucky at everything really ... sucks! I'm not used to this. I'm usually mediocre at everything. I can dig mediocre. It's pretty cool. But a whole school year of not even being mediocre and feeling stupid all the time, well... it's getting old.

Plus, school is bad for your health. One day you're stressed out and completely underweight, the next week you get your appetite back and feel like a heifer. Then you get sick every 3 weeks in a cyclical manner because the germs get passed around and around the classroom. Then you go see a doctor and you get something way worse than what you came with, just from sitting in the waiting room. Oh, and there's always the part about feeling dumb, so it's bad for your mental health too. Hmmm I guess you can tell it's Monday and I have another chapter of corporate finance to read, or else I wouldn't be so glum....

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

A trip home for a family crisis is always the right thing to do!!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Romania is no longer a hot country for lohn...wages are going up...many companies are shifting their operations to Moldova and Ukraine....

Wedell said...

'Hugo Bosnia' - LOL :-)

Keep it up - it's great to keep in touch with the IESE spirit after the graduation (except the part about reexperiencing the finals :-)