Week In Review... One more to go

Because I was running around like a lunatic for the past week, I haven't had time to sift through my photos, let alone post them. So here goes.

Let's start with the Spring Fling. Awesome weather, lots of sports, old friends from other schools, great parties, and .... we won! Woo hoo!

The IESE chicas:

How to score while being attacked:

Rabid fans Abanis and Srini:

My friend Ilmi arrived Monday and we went to Montserrat Wednesday and Costa Brava Thursday. There ended our out-of-town escapades because we had too many late nights on the town, so we kept it real in Barcelona, ending the week with an afternoon BBQ on the roof.

Marco and Ilmi on the grill:

Valerio, Chris, and George

Chris and Kathi

Is this any way to have a conversation? George, Madhur, and Valerio:

Team BBQ:

I dared Ilmi (and offered 10 euro) to eat a sardine and ice cream at the same time.

Sardine:

Ice Cream:

Mmmmm:

Yeouch:

But it appears to give you energy:

I don't need sardines and ice cream for energy:


In other news, it's Tuesday night and I'm already done with classes for the week. And in fact, some of my classes have already finished completely. Social Entrepreneurship ended weeks ago, and Huy and I turned in our final project on Monday. Sports Management finished last week, and Bertrand, Alexia, Jorge and I presented our final project (on a tennis tournament here in Barcelona) last Tuesday. My final paper which I wrote with Diego for Etica was turned in Tuesday afternoon. And today we had our last Entrepreneurial Finance class. This morning I gave my final speech for Diplomacy & The Art of Management. That leaves two classes and two exams next week: Globalization & Strategy and Etica. Hard to believe there is only one week left.

Aside from preparing for my exams, my time in the coming days will be consumed with organizing the graduation party (next week), my road trip through Spain (April), and the Olympics (May), and of course job interviews. One tomorrow and another on Thursday. An MBA student's work is never done!

That's All I Need

One cool thing about having American friends visit you in Europe is that you can pull out all your old movie quotes and one-liners and they get them! I often make obscure movie references and no one knows what the hell I'm saying, so it was great on Tuesday when we were at Alex's for fondue and I said, "That's all I need!" and Ilmi knew I was referring to The Jerk, starring Steve Martin during his glory days. Now George and Marco are also on The Jerk bandwagon and we go around the house picking up random objects and walking around with them. A new Calatrava tradition!

Which reminded me of this little clip from the Thanksgiving Dinner. Kathi took this just before Chris and I started MC-ing the event ...


And, of course, the real thing. A true gem:

Week of Insanity (My Favorite Kind!)

I have been a crappy blogger again. Partly because on Friday I was literally a crappy blogger... but I digress.

After my day of insanity last Wednesday, I was looking forward to a rather relaxed Thursday / Friday, but it wasn't meant to be. I had final projects to work on for two classes, due Monday and Tuesday, the Spring Fling to help coordinate, and photos to take of the Private Equity and Venture Capital conference. Nowhere near as hectic as Wednesday, but still plenty to keep me busy.

And it was fine! Great, in fact. Until the croquetas struck. Friday. 1pm. Lunch. Bad move. By 2:30 I was making very good friends with the bathroom... something I won't go into too much detail about, but which lasted, all told, for nearly 12 hours. I slept, on and off, from 7pm until 6am Saturday, with obvious breaks for sprints to the bathroom, and felt surprisingly okay Saturday morning.

Well enough, in fact, to decide to head to Montjuic for the annual Spring Fling. Five soccer games, a rugby match, and two basketball games later, I was slightly sunburned, certainly dehydrated, and absolutely delighted to have made it to the event at all... and, as an added bonus, we won! I got home at 8pm, slept for a few hours, and headed to the party at Otto Zutz. I was tired, but I wasn't going to miss the second party in a row or the chance to see old friends from other business schools.

Sunday was a day of rest. Very biblical. Well, it was also a day to see the doctor to make sure I was back to normal and to have lunch with friends. And do laundry. And read cases. Hmmm I should get better at the resting thing.

Monday and Tuesday, classes, cases, and final project submissions. My friend Ilmi arrived from NYC on Monday, ready to see the sights. So of course I had to oblige. Wednesday at Montserrat and yesterday at Costa Brava, where we had lunch at my favorite restaurant, Tragamar. YUM.

Last night we had our Class of 2007 dinner followed by the BOW at an unbelievable bar called La Fira, which is a fun-house sort of place, with crazy mirrors and swings. Really wild. Within five minutes, Marco asked me, "Why haven't we ever been here before?! I love it!" And I agree... maybe we'll have to go back soon.

So now there are only two weeks left of class and my time will be mostly spent organizing our graduation party and the MBA Olympics. Plenty to keep me busy now that all my papers and projects are done. Hard to believe it has been a year and a half...

A true humpday

Somehow yesterday I managed to survive a day that looked like this:

5:00am wake up
5:30am taxi to airport
6:50am Flight to Palma de Mallorca
7:15am Walk 10K through Palma airport to next gate, while wishing I were wearing a bathing suit and not a business suit
8:55am Flight to Paderborn
11:30am Drive to Gutersloh
12:15pm Interview #1 and lunch
1:00pm Interview #2
2:00pm Interview #3
3:00pm Interview #4
4:00pm Drive to Hannover
7:00pm Flight to Barcelona

And, as expected, I was very happy to arrive home at Calatrava at 10pm last night, throw my suit on a hanger, and have a glass of wine.

2007 Inaugural BBQ!

Considering the weather has been sunny and in the 70s (or in the 20s for you non-Americans) of late, we decided it was high time for BBQ season to start! The plan is to continue them at least twice a week as long as the weather permits with rotating guest lists ... We have to enjoy the terrace as much as possible while we are still Calatrava Guapos!

Weiners at the ready

Bertrand, George, Chris

Marco in his favorite place

Look how happy he is!!!


My dad with Juha and Mari

Tom, Ila, and Juan

With Matteo, Rafa, Marco, and George

The Good, The Blair, and The Random

My dad, "The Blair", arrived yesterday evening and, good sport that he is, agreed to hop on the back of my moto, hang on for dear life as we cruised down Diagonal, and attend the Reverse Random Dinner hosted by Tucker and Nick. The Reverse Random is payback time for the first years who were hosted by second years during the first term, and we second year students (and their baffled fathers) are supposedly randomly allocated amongst first year homes. But, as my father is an old friend of Tucker's dad, I have my doubts about the randomness of it all.

Nevermind! The vino was fabuloso, the chili was zesty, the company was entertaining, and the BOW followed at Sol. All this after a few hours of rugby on a beautiful, sunny Thursday afternoon in Barcelona. What more could you want from a Thursday?

Anyway my dad is in town to give a talk at the annual Doing Good Doing Well conference here at IESE, which is the largest student-run conference on responsible business in Europe. So today we have attended panels on nuclear energy and climate change and tomorrow he will talk about healthcare. Party! The rest of the weekend will be spent enjoying the company of the Blair in the glorious early March sunshine which, I must admit, often makes me wonder if global warming is such a bad thing after all...

The Final Countdown

Strange but true. There is only one month left. Four weeks from now I will be done with classes and all that will be left to do will be to walk by a podium at graduation and pick up a diploma. What a bizarre thought. I wonder if I can still try to fail and do the second year again...

I'm completely unprepared to think about what comes next.

Further proof that my life is completely crazy...

Last night after a long day of classes, I was out on the balcony chatting with Marco when I noticed, on the balcony across the street, a bunny rabbit chasing a ball around. I said, "Wow, how cool, I've never seen a bunny playing with a ball!"

No sooner were the words out of my mouth, then the bunny mounted the ball and started having its way with it. (Reminds me distinctly of when, at age 12, I was on a ranch in Montana with my parents and pointed at two horses and said, "Wow, look at those horses fighting!" And realized just a second too late that they weren't fighting at all. My mom still laughs about this incident.)

Anyway, the bunny amorously enjoyed the ball for the next 10 minutes, alternating between frantically humping and coyly ignoring the round object of its affections. At one point, it spent several minutes laid flat out like a small rabbit rug, clearly exhausted. This is all true... I have video evidence.

Sadly, I do NOT have video evidence of what happened next. After laughing hysterically at the poor bunny for a solid 15 minutes, Marco turned and said, "Right, I'd better get going."

And walked full-force, face-first, into the sliding glass door.

MultiCulti 1, Oscars 0

It's the last Sunday in February, which means it's Oscar night. And for the first time since I was about 6, I have no clue who is nominated. And I haven't even seen the majority of the films probably.

Normally I have the full nominee list in my head (ok, with the exception of short subject documentary perhaps) and I can usually put together a winning ballot for the office Oscar pool. This year... completely clueless.

This is what happens during the MBA. In the last week, when normally (had I still been working at Miramax or GreeneStreet) Oscarese would be the only language spoken, we have been instead speaking MultiCultian. Because for the past few weeks, that's all anyone at IESE could talk or think about. We've been organizing our country stands, preparing food and drinks, and working on dance moves. And I've been practicing with the band because we opened the show Friday night.

And though the Oscars will come every year, this was, sadly, my last MultiCulti party experience. So I made sure to enjoy every last second.

Sound check with the band....This is when the stage and the four of us were still clean! We are called The Rhythm Method, and nobody gets it. I love that!!!

Quentin the drummer has bass envy:

"Espaniards" showing us how it's done:

Irish and Indians gettin' down.

Nani and I got a little crazy

I'm not sure how THIS started. But I do know that I clearly need to work on my tan.

Soon after I ran into Onno.... Oh. No.

La Vita è Bella! Italians in love!

It's not really a party unless there are Mariachis. I will have a Mariachi band at my wedding with 100% certainty. The wedding itself is not a 100% certainty.

Which reminds me... I traded hats momentarily with Roberto:

And was immediately attacked by a confused Rafa... these Mariachi hats are dangerous!

With Atsh:

Huy turned Dutch, Marco turned Italian, Ana turned into a rooster.

An emotional hug with Marco: "You're the best flatmate ever." "No, YOU'RE the best flatmate ever!" "Okay, you're right, I am."

Today Keith sent around an email asking if anyone had seen his big Brazilian hat. Oh I saw it. Around 10:30pm on the head of an indisposed Sicilian. Some things are better off not being returned to their owners...

MultiCulti 2007: A smashing success. No broken bones or major abrasions. Several very vomitous individuals, but nothing that a good night's sleep or twelve can't take care of.

I think Tom said it best when he asked, in the first hour of the party, "Why don't we have this party EVERY WEEK?!?!" I'll tell you why, Tom. I went back to that place the next day to pick up our equipment... it didn't exist anymore.

That MultiCulti Feeling

Old-school readers of this blog may remember last year around this time, which brought the annual IESE Multicultural Dinner, known fondly as simply "The MultiCulti."

Well it's that time of year again. Last year's event had everyone falling on the floor thanks to a linoleum malfunction, several people ending up in the hospital with varying injury and intoxication levels, and even one student who went missing for three days. All in all, a great party. And like all great parties, it was forbidden from ever being held in that location again.

So this year, we're in a warehouse. And our band is playing! And the Americans are dressing as baseball players rather than than cowboys. Always an adventure!

So now I must get a move on because we have a sound check to do and an American stand to prepare, but I promise plenty of sordid tales and incriminating photos tomorrow!!! (Or maybe Sunday, if I sleep through tomorrow.)

MBA Olympic Fever Begins!!!

Today we kicked off MBA Olympic season (and our preparations for victory) with a presentation in the auditorium, where I finally screened this little gem I shot last November. Enjoy!

(Quality isn't to my liking, but had to compress it to make YouTube happy.)

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride

My apologies for being a crappy blogger this week, but my life of late certainly has seemed like the Disney ride mentioned in the title. Actually, it has been more like the Magic Teacups. I hate that ride... makes me dizzy.

Don't get me wrong, it has been a lot of fun, but it also seems like it has been a month rather than just seven days since we returned from our Andorran Skiese adventure. Monday brought the usual full twelve hours of classes, and Tuesday I had that, plus an interview with a big media company. Went well enough... we'll see. Wednesday, more classes, plus three meetings/interviews with another big media company and when I finally got home at 9pm I was absolutely shattered. A pounding headache and the fact that I couldn't see out my right eye anymore led me to stay home from band practice (major bummer) and make an early night of it.

But by Thursday I was raring to go again. Which is good, because I had a lot to do. Attend classes, write up a project proposal with Huy for our Social Entrepreneurship class, and, most importantly, put the final touches (read: major grocery shopping with Marco) for Atsh's surprise 30th birthday party. I started planning it a few weeks before, and it went off, amazingly, without a hitch. I have never, EVER seen anyone so surprised. Poor Atsh was in shock for the next hour. When we all yelled for him to give a speech, he could only speak in Japanese... which was actually cooler. He was probably telling us he hated us all for embarrassing him.

The police came to tell us to turn down the music at 11 (which is when most Spanish people should just be starting dinner... our neighbors are weird) so we shuffled off to the BOW at Otto Zutz. Which was a little too much fun, because somehow I managed to get home at 6am. Six hours later, I jumped out of bed after remembering that I had an Olympic committee meeting to attend at 12:30. The rest of the afternoon was pretty rough and ended with me napping after class and before our soccer team's disastrous loss to the Alumni team. Ugh. But there's nothing like soccer to get you feeling back to normal again!

Friday night brought a party at the same house where we had one of the first parties of the first year. Ahh, coming full circle. As I was leaving at 4am, the same cops who came to our house the night before were on their way in. We smiled and said hello and I was glad to be heading home and not dealing with the Guardia Urbana. I spent a good part of yesterday working on Olympics stuff and then getting caught in the rain during a random donut run... not advisable, but still very fun under the right circumstances.

And last night Marco cooked a tremendous dinner and we headed off to Sutton, despite my earlier proclamation that I'd be heading straight to bed. Hmmmm.... another late night, in spite of which I was actually mildly productive today. Worked on a project for a potential employer, tried to figure out a finance case (emphasis on "tried"), played with the band, and had dinner with the Skiese planning committee. And now.... bed. I MEAN IT!!!

SKIESE!!!!

First of all, to answer the question that is surely on everyone's minds after the annual IESE ski trip... YES. Pablo still has the purple mono-suit!

Last year you may recall my first Andorran ski adventure with Huy, Marc, and Pablo, during which the purple outfit made it's IESE debut. And never fear, this year it was back with a vengeance.


See how vengefully Pablo attacks his spring water and french fries? I can tell you he attacks the slopes with just as much panache. It's a sight to behold.

Oh by the way... contrary to the beliefs of many naysayers, we had fantastic snow this weekend. Okay, half the mountain was closed because there hasn't been enough snow up to now, but we still managed to make the most of it and enjoyed some fresh powder first thing Saturday morning. Otherwise everything else was almost identical to last year. Same hotel, same parties, same ski rental shop, same buses. The main missing ingredient was my sister, that poor working stiff! Nicole, you were sorely missed.

More incriminating photos to come. (ie - George momentarily locked himself out of his room wearing only his fancy Euro underpants and a t-shirt emblazoned with the word "bastard"....)

Work, Bow, Toast, Ski

This has been an exhausting week. Lots of cases, plenty of red tape, too little sleep and too much work. BUT.... Fortunately it's almost over and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

The light started to appear last night at the Bar of the Week, held at a divey little hole-in-the-wall called Alfa. Awesome music, lots of dancing, and a rogue camera making the rounds... Clearly, it was a very fun evening.






This morning I woke up to a very bad smell in the house. Someone had burnt SOMETHING. But I couldn't figure it out. Until an hour or so after getting up, when I went into the kitchen and saw.... THIS. I shrieked and called Marco. He ran into the kitchen in his towel with shaving cream on his face and was equally dismayed by this sorry sight. Poor, poor toast. (How did it shrink?)

PS - We found out later that George nearly burned the house down!

Swiss Family IESE

Killer weekend in Verbier, thanks to the fabulous hospitality of Chris and Kathi.

The Chalet:

The View:


The Helicopter:

The Crew:

The View:

The Summit:

The Blimp:

The Crew, Part Deux:

The Underwear:

The Apres-Ski:

The Dance Moves:

The 70-degree, T-Shirt weather:

Movie to come....

Vive le weekend!

It's 8:30 on a Thursday morning and I should be getting my many planned tasks done instead of writing this, but then I wouldn't be fulfilling my procrastination duties.

This morning I must pack my ski gear, hit the bank (oof, Feb. 1 - rent!), attend a sports management meeting and then my social entrepreneurship class and then head straight for Barcelona airport. Because I'm off to the Swiss Alps tonight!

When I came to Spain, one of my personal goals was to ski in the Alps, and it is thanks to Chris that this wish will be fulfilled. A few of us are heading to his house near Verbier for some serious downhilling and major R&R. Oh and some cases too, I guess. Hmmm.

Okay better get moving. Never fear... photos and a movie are sure to follow!