C'est tous plaisir et jeux

Its funny how the only things that make sense when you are on a term break are the ones that drag you out of one. Yes, im midway through the term break and I’ve exhausted all means of keeping myself busy and have eventually resorted to blogging about it.
The holidays have so far been a bit depressing, with the exam results out before the vacations, maybe so that the hurt could sink in…? Follow that up with 67 hours of hiking my way though skyrim and i had had enough of the holidays. Also, technically speaking, this is supposed to be summer in Melbourne, but that is a lie. I dont think there is any season in Melbourne apart from ‘unexpected’

Right, with this blog post done, and a heap of novels still left to read and many a quest still unfinished, i should log off the net and click on TESV.exe (The elder scrolls V Skyrim)

As quickly as it started, term is soon gonna end. Its too fast! Feels like my days were all sqashed into one. A feeling equal parts awesome and frustrating.

Seriously though… I’m looking forward to the term break, if only to do some reading or listening to music and not feeling guilty..

3 weeks to exam time! Assignments due next week! What am I doing blogging? Off to bed. I will deal with it tomorrow… After all ‘tomorrow is another day’

I need to re-read gone with the wind.

Bonnie nuit!

Not having a clue what i want to put down on paper. No, not writer’s block. Ive suffered through that before. Its mostly a loss of direction that brings me to tumblr today. I dont have an idea or a focused thougt that needs to be written. But rather, a random set of events that have conspired to fill my mind with conflicting emoticons. (i say emoticons instead of emotions because i dont want you to think im being sentimental or sad. Business school is about lions.. not lambs. Or something like that. I was told you need to vote for the lion when you watch a hunt in discovery channel because thats the business school way. Which ofcourse is bullshit in my books, but thats another can of worms i dont want to open.)

So what has been happening? Well, mid term exams. They were a mixed bag. Had a few surprises there. It helped bring to my attention the lack of preparation i have in actually writing an exam. The biggest problem i have there is concentrating for such a long time. (yeah you say 90 minutes isnt long, but my mind tends to wander, and wander it did!) Its no surprise that a grad school expects more of you, or that effort expended vs returns is not really a straight line linear return, but a curve that flattens out once you exceed your IQ level. And boy do i have a low IQ level.

But i can’t really do much about the IQ level at this stage/age. So i should probably just focus on the other externalities… yeah?

Whats missing here? What am i doing now that i wasnt doing before or what am i not doing now that i was doing before. Well, there is the sense of not knowing SO DAMN MUCH. Or that simple fact that i’m basically cutting off stuff i used to do, simply because i feel i dont really have the time for it. Well… light reading? Whatever happened to the Terry Pratchett novels i used to read? What happened to the mission to read all british literature and british history before i turn 25? Whatever happened to the music that i used to listen to?

If my mind is simply stuffed with jargon and facts, i guess that’s no good. As i write this, im listening to Smooth Operator by Sade. Oooh its nice. And ive just planned it… am reading Pyramids tonight. And there you go.. im feeling better now! Have made a plan and everything. Its in my schedule, right between preparing for tomorrow’s managing people class and sleep.

Que sera sera…

Economics is a wierd science. Everything in it is a bit… Off key. Abnormal. An economist sees the world not as it is, but as he would like it to be. Yes, that sounds very militaristic and evil, but then all economists are evil… arent they? They objectify things like value and worth. What is my pet rabbit worth to me? Put a number on it. Else the bunny gets it!

Economists are also in some ways… exceptionally rational. You make decisions by putting emotions aside. You make decisions that are financially sound no matter what you forgoe in the process. You are aware of what you are missing out on, but you have decided you would make more ‘economic profit’ by pursuing your current plan.

Economists are definitely not ‘cool’. When asked to choose between starting a video game company and a software company, a normal person would see games as being more fun and might take that on. Normal guy here being me ofcourse. I naturally see myself as normal and everyone as average joe trying to fit into my world. Im evil too… just not an economist. You will see why in a few minutes. Anyway, like i was saying, i would, (a normal person would) accept the offer to start said video games company. Which has the added benefit of making me cool. Meanwhile my economist friend over there is immediately going to start drawing a decision tree and talking to his statistics buddy whom he met in the ‘un-cool anonymous’ group and would be applying probabilitistic reasoning to this decision while calculating expected payoff’s. All this while he could have been enjoying his life creating video games.

Now, the reason im rambling on about how evil economics is, is that i have a test on it next week and i really dont wanna go back to the text book. Hell tumblr is a much ‘cooler’ use/abuse of my time. I dont have a secret agenda.

I need to really get back to the reading though. So umm, ya, Bye.

Its Wednesday and I’m not in the best of spirits. To steal a metaphor from Bilbo Baggins, i feel stretched, like jam spread over too much bread. But that is a good thing.

The biggest change with being a student has to be the fact that you don’t earn anything. Being an international student also means your social life is limited to the 60 - 70 students you interact with every day, which can get depressing sometimes. And yes, I MEAN every day. Unlike the workplace when it was possible to have a weekend to yourself, the MBA makes sure that even that luxury is taken away.

So what’s been the great development of the month? Well, time management for sure. I remember a post i made a while back and im going to shamelessly reuse it right now…

Choose any 2.

that is, sleep and social life

or good grades and social life

or sleep and grades.

Nwo… I am, in theory, trying to find a balance here between the three which is a daunting task. Enough sleep is not really a concern for me however. I am after all capable of going without sleep for 72 hrs (proven in 2003 with the release of the game Freelancer and almost again with Halo 3 in 2007) So naturally im trying to stretch myself in the social life and grades department. The problem is, apart from grades, the other issue is career and hence involvement in clubs and other activities.

So umm… what the hell! 

But hey! i did start using Microsoft OneNote… and have mastered the art of getting the required book just before the exam from the library, (its a interesting game trying to block a book for the exact time you want it.) 

I have also managed to learn how to cook a few new dishes and am able to use words like synergy and market capitalization. So all’s good.

Whats left now is to start talking bonds and stock options and answering all questions in 3 points (McKinsey answer?) Oh and getting used to wearing a goddamned suit. I hate suits by the way. Too formal. Waaay too formal.

Traditionally, when I’m in a new place, I’m full of optimism and energy and I walk to people in my workplace with a big smile on my face. I talk, I laugh, I am enthusiastic. I give the impression that I really want love the place I’m in. Its usually on day 2 when I realize what work is being assigned to me and things basically spiral down after that. Now that’s not a general rule of thumb, but in a nutshell, im always disappointed/shocked by what I expect and what I get.

So how do I react when I enter a room full of students with equal or in most cases higher intellect than me? How do I react to being stretched? How do I behave when I’m out of my comfort zone? How do I react when I fail to achieve the targets I set for myself? How do I ‘grow up’?

I’m hoping this diary will be a way to document that.

I started my post graduate studies at Melbourne Business School on 26th August 2011. The date, I will never forget. The first week (which really felt like month) I will never forget. It’s been a week where I have met a group of brilliant, smart individuals. Entrepreneurs, bankers, accountants, IT engineers, Civil engineers, marketing professionals and hell, even a lawyer. I feel intimidated… scared. And I should be!

Back in my old job, in IT, when I had a problem, a defect in software, or an issue raised by a client… I could usually work out what needed to be done with ease. I was an expert. I was never intimidated. I was always in control. Problem solving meant writing code or diagnosing performance issues in database queries. What about now? I’m here in one of the top business schools, studying subject I know nothing about. Managerial economics, accounting… Greek/Latin! Even my career prospects that I was dead certain about… I had a vague understanding about what management consulting is, and in my first week at business school, I’ve learnt that I don’t know jack.

What I’m getting at is, I’m no longer the smartest person in the room. I’m stupid. I asked a professor ‘why doesn’t America write off its bad debt?’ ooh the bad debt is just 14.3 trillion, I’m sure the world will understand. Just forget about it, save the economy. (I really hope none of my future employers read this blog entry, they might reconsider hiring me!) The professor was kind enough to say, that’s a very good question and then explaining why what I said cannot be done. My immediate reaction was… ‘this is great. I’m learning so much’ Five minutes later I thought… ‘Oh my god! I know so little!’ An hour later I was thinking… ‘I need to read the economist. Then I won’t be stupid’. 2 hrs later, after reading a few articles I was thinking… what the hell is a credit crunch? Late in the night when I tried to forget about how little I knew (which normally isn’t hard, a Norah Jones song and a spider man comic normally does the trick) I was distracted. I didn’t enjoy the music… I kept reading topics on Wikipedia… I woke up the next day, a little tired but optimistic, thinking, ‘Today is a good day. I’m going to be clever today! I know what a credit crunch is!’ (and I really must say, banks ought to be more helpful to each other) Well, I kind of got the hang of what finance topics are going to be like…, but by lunch time that day I was thinking… what the hell is operations management? Why haven’t I encountered all this in my previous job? Where the hell have I been working these last 5 years? What is my experience worth ?

An MBA course is an all encompassing view of how businesses work. I really want to be the guy who can talk about macro economics and supply chain efficiency or some other topic (again, prospective employers, don’t judge! forgive my ignorance of the business vernacular. I can’t even say complicated business jargon unless I use the words complicated business jargon) But I can see even at this early stage that this course is going to be an uphill battle… and one that’s going to be invaluable. I’m going to have to work hard. I’m going to have to write a dear john letter to my personal life and basically work my ass off reading everything I can and getting myself ready for the person I think I want to be in May 2013, when I graduate.

Future me I know is wiser, mature… and hopefully very employable. I’m sure this looking back at this very blog and thinking… ‘Damn, I was stupid’ Right now… im scared shitless.