EMBA Dinner Fiasco and Mo Bro Excitement

End of week 2. I can only say that I am loving this more with every day. Regular lectures this week, the highlights being a dinner with EMBAs and the Mo Bro meeting.

An EMBA dinner is supposed to provide an opportunity to network with executive MBAs. Unfortunately, I was a bit late for this one due to confusion about the venue. Saw the college electronic display saying "19:00 EMBA Founder's Room" to only discover that it is really in St Hughs, as originally planned. Not that bad, you say? Almost, except that St Hughs is at least 20 minutes from SBS. By the time I reached people were already on the dinner table. Damn! Nevertheless, consoled poor me with the good food. No cooking for dinner at least! It was good to listen to Dr Chambers as well and discover that the CEO of CISCO was somewhere in the room. Some more consolation there! Overall, it was a good experience, though I did not exactly enjoy the 30 minute walk to home in the freezing night.

On the fun end, a group of MBA men, including me, have decided to grow moustache for the month of November to raise money for prostate cancer, a disease that affects 1 in 10 men in Europe. Please feel free to donate at http://uk.movember.com/. I have never grown a moustache before; will post some pics when I get there. I just hope I don’t end up scaring myself (or my wife) by end of November. Who would have thought that facial hair can generate so much fun?

Besides that, I feel I have been a bit lax till now with acads and may need to tighten the belt in the coming weeks. But that would have to wait for the Arsenal Vs Manchester City match today :)

On the Race Track

I am slowly coming to terms with the fact that God has made only 24 hours in a day. Welcome to Oxford, where there are so many things to do that you are bound to miss something. Or if I wish to twist my tongue, I can say that prioritization to maximize time-value is mission critical :D.

I hope I will adapt well to this, and I am enjoying the deluge of work as much as I possibly can, as you may imagine. In my mind one thing, though, is clear: I am not seeing this course as an academic one. Academics are important to some extent. Nevertheless, I have come here for the people as much as I have come for the learning.

Last week’s activities:
• Attended lectures with awesome professors
• Attended Careers Presentation by BT and Diamond Consulting
• Met my study group for discussing the Marketing assignment. After listening to some horror stories from last year, I am glad to say that our group is managing reasonably well (in terms of team dynamics) so far!
• Prepared and discussed the first draft of the pitch for Technology OBN (a student club) along with a few fellow classmates. The pitch would help us secure recognition and funds from SBS besides setting an agenda for the activities to come
• Attended a classmate’s birthday bash
• Matriculated Oxford style, wearing a subfusc
• Went for the “Sexy-subfusc” BOP

Besides this I am spending an inordinate amount of time, some may say, catching hold of my classmates and talking to them :). So far so good!

As Days Go By!

The lectures have not even started and I can already feel the heat building up. So many things are happening in tandem that I don't know what to cover and what to leave in my blog. More importantly, I am realizing that soon I may get so lost in this mesh that I may forget to blog altogether. Lets see, what did I do in past few days?

• Attended sessions by careers on cultural awareness, networking and streamlining the job hunt
• Attended my first meeting for Entrepreneurship OBN
• Met and talked with Dr McKenna, whom I had met first when I came for the school's open day for the first time and he was the Director of the MBA
• Chalked plans for a Technology OBN along with a colleague
• Registered with my college
• Settled in my new home, which I had found earlier but got possession of only recently
• Saw two beautiful Oxford colleges with friends

Today I am reading pitches by people who wish to head a core OBN in finance, private equity or management consultancy. There is still time to decide for whom to vote for. Today will be a busy day as I attend case study preparation session, prepare for Technology OBN meeting, attend St Cross induction, buy subfusc, register with the medic and finally help in conducting the Tech OBN meeting. In coming days need to settle the amenities et al before the action begins. Loving it till I get run over by it!