Another phenomenon I’ve spotted in the 007-class at London Business School: on average, in week 4 (so last week) and week 5 (this week) people get their first haircuts, making the guys looking all sharp again (they seem to be mostly the guys that are getting haircuts).

Today we’ve gotten the 007 MBA facebook, so naturally a lot of time was spent looking at pictures of people we see every day. The photographers did a good job though, making everyone looking really smart (and it’s especially poignant when you think that a lot of people were wearing shorts underneath their suitjacket-shirt-tie ;-). Apparently (but this is a wild rumour, it could be wholly unsubstantiated) that this book is used to make rankings of the most desirable guys and gals…. but I suspect KV might know more about this

Facts you never wanted to know about London Business School, but that I find interesting/surprising/why the h**l didn’t anyone tell me about these before I came out?/annoying and since this is my blog, I’ve decided to write them down.

* B-school is a prime hunting ground for freebies. So far the list of freebies includes free t-shirts (three and counting), mugs (one), pens (at least 8, I lost count), food (at least 8 meals already), entertainment (talent night, sundowners once a week), alcohol (see sundowners, once a week), bags (one), photo albums (one), newspapers (Wall Street Journal daily) and magazines (Time Out Student, B-week). Would it be horrible if I said that I’d love for a company to distibute pencils instead of pens? I love writing with pencils and it’ll make you stand out from the company-crowd. And I need some more pencils. Give me some pencils!

* Certain study rooms are definitely better than other rooms, but that secret is best kept to myself, since otherwise I’ll never get a spot in them…

* Of all the places in and around campus to eat, the Biz is definitely the best place to grab something. For 4 pounds you get a hot meal, with tea/coffee and soft drinks and as much salad as you can eat. I know of one blogger that lives of these meals (and it ain’t me)…

* Although not particular for London Business School, this is something I want to mention since no one warned me about this: be aware of the post-admissions blues. Once you’re admitted, figured out where you want to go and got your finances in order, you hit a slump. Work somehow isn’t exciting knowing that you’ll leave in a couple of months, and you’re not at b-school yet. Be warned. Find something fun to do in the meantime. Sell your stuff. Go out with your friends as often as you can, since once you hit b-school you will have hardly any time left for that.

* Why is it that percentage wise more women than men are single at b-school? Is this just a London phenomenon? Or does this happen at all schools? Has it got something to do with the biological clock?

* Will there ever be a part two to this useless facts? Hmmm, dunno. Depends on whether I will think of more stuff and I can say with a 95% confidence interval that I probably will (yes, this is all meant as an elaborate diversion in order to prevent me from doing my Stats homework).

This is the last post for today, I’m signing off. I haven’t done nearly as much as I should’ve done, or probably even could’ve done, I reckon my goals for today were a tad to ambitious. So, I’ll make myself a cuppa tea now and retire to do my financial accounting homework and then off to bed, so I’ll be fresh and ready for tomorrow. Sleep tight!

Helped a classmate with his CV, read most of ME, now off to home to cook, eat and do the rest of the work. Why does time pass so quickly when you have fun?

which is the marketing strategy for the Global Social Venture Competition, which I promised I’d send out today. Hmmmm, time to reconfigure the prioritities. Do I really need to eat today? Or sleep 7 hours?

CV is done, on to Managerial Economics now.

I’ve found that Arrow Jazz FM radio works really well as background muzak for working on my CV…Nearly done with that CV, putting some finishing touches to it now.

Taking my cue from Guillaume who blogged his way through a day of MBA, I’m going to blog my way through this Sunday afternoon.
I’ve booked a study room for me and one of my two housemates, and the program is as follows:
* work on my CV which is due tomorrow morning at 9 am;
* work on my Managerial Economics homework for tomorrow, which involves reading, thinking and prepping a case;
* work on my Finance tutorial assignment, due tomorrow afternoon at 2 pm;
* work on my Financial Accounting assignment, due Tuesday morning at 9 am.
Since procrastination is my middle name, I’m posting links to two articles from the Guardian, one about the Frieze and one about the upcoming Rubens exhibition.
OK, on to finishing my CV… see ya later.
PS Last night’s Diwali party rocked, I had a great time and I’m still partially deaf and my legs hurt from dancing so much!

…that horrible b-word (read on to the end of this post if you insist on knowing what the b-word is) (or no, I’ll just let you guys guess).

Looking back on this week, there’s so much I want to write about, so apologies in advance that I’m sounding a bit all over the place, but I suppose that’s the way my life feels right now, I actually slept 14 hours last night, I guess I needed the rest.

Last Thursday I went to a talk with Sally Greene, who owns amongst others the Old Vic theatre (of Kevin Spacey fame amongst others), and she was fabulous! I have seldom met a person that is so themself, by lack of a better word. What I personally got out of seeing her and hearing her talk is that it’s alright to be yourself in business, which I think especially rings true for women in business. Connected to that, one of the themes at the Women in Business conference was about being a woman in business, and not emulating male behaviours. It was a good conference, but I was just to tired to get everything out of it that I could.

Today I took full advantage of living in London and went to the Frieze Art Fair and it rocked. I need to find myself a suga-daddy to be able to afford the art that I liked… My favourite artist was James Nares, I would *love* to have a painting of his on my walls!

Tonight’s the India Club Diwali party, which is one of the biggest and best on campus (where did I hear that before? See also the Tattoo entry), with food, an Indian DJ and all you can drink. And then tomorrow I really do need to start doing some serious studying…

Tattoo was fabulous!!! I had such a great time. It’s meant a celebration of the diverse cultures at London Business School and it truly was. I had Israeli, Portugese, German and African food, heard a great band, saw a Latin American parade, took part in our Indian dance performance (went well) and had salsa lessons. And ended up with a tattoo (won’t say where). It was a great party, definitely one of the highlights of my time here so far. If you want to get a little taster, have a look at KV’s weblog, he’s put some great pictures on there.

We’re in our third week now, and people are starting to get really stressed (and although I’m not particulary stressed, I’m getting stressed out by the thought that maybe I should be stressed out since other people are…. weird, I know, that’s the odd way my brain works). With the truckload of individual and group assignments due, the club activities and extracurricular activities (the consulting club seems to eat a lot of time, but since I’m not actively looking to go back into mainstream consulting, I haven’t taken part in any of the activities yet) and the busy social life, it’s easy to get sucked into the whole maelstrom that is called fulltime MBA experience. However, I’m working on a few basic rules that work for me: (a) do what I like doing (which sounds easier than it is, cause I like doing lots of stuff) and not because I feel I should be doing it; an example for me is going to consulting club events, which I don’t really like but feel I should go to, and I end up not going! (b) do what will help me in building a network; one of the big advantages of being a fulltime student is that there are a whole host of activities available to help you find out more about a particular industry and build a network. Since what I want to do post-MBA is something very close to my heart, for me (a) and (b) usually

collide, making my life a bit easier.

One of the things that are going on in the London Business School community is the Women in Business Conference, which is on this coming Friday. I’m looking forward to that, and I’ll definitely report back on it. Plus, this weekend the India Club is organising a Diwali party and that should be good fun too, again, expect a report back next week.

Edit 1: There’s an event that I haven’t even talked a

bout, it completely slipped my mind, but I just opened my calendar and really want to mention it, since I’m pretty psyched about it. This Thursday, the Centre for Creative Business is organising ‘An evening with Sally Greene‘, who owns a number of theatres in London, including the Old Vic. This should be interesting!

Edit 2: I found an interesting read on creativity and innovation on Businessweek, written by a design guru of Ideo. Talking about Ideo, FastCompany also had an article by the same design guru (these guys are good at pr!), check this out.

No, I’m not so desperate that I’ve run out and got a tattoo, Tattoo is the name of the biggest and best party on the London Business School campus. And it’s on tonight! It’s a celebration of the diversity and there’ll be food from all corners of the world and alcohol from out of this world! We’re performing our Indian Dance again (sorry, I’m too lazy to look up the link, if you scroll down a bit, you’ll find me talking about it) which I’m looking forward to. For the last couple of days the campus has been transformed into party-central, and last night was the Dean’s State of the School speech, followed by a champagne reception. The more active amongst my classmates are out in Regent’s Park now, competing in the Tattoo Olympics, but I’ve decided that it was probably wiser to do some homework for next week, since I have an inkling I won’t be all that fresh and sparkly tomorrow…

Have I mentioned before how much I love being here, in London and at London Business School? I know, terribly corny thing to say and if you can’t stand corny I suggest you stop reading here, since it’s all going downhill from here.

Still reading? Alright! I love the people that I’ve met so far (and although I’ve been on the look out, I’ve yet to meet a complete and utter a**hole), the courses make my brain tingle (in awe sometimes, with joy sometimes, and some courses leave a feeling of pure desperation), I love living with my housemates and entertaining the various guests that we have coming around, I haven’t had black gunk coming out of my nose in at least a month (see one of the earliest posts on London, again, I’m too lazy today to make a link), and I’m excited about a lot of the extracurricular stuff that’s going on. Everyone makes their own MBA experience in a sense, we all take the same core courses, but beyond that, we each make our own choices based on the stuff we like doing. There is so much energy on campus, and I’m thriving. This has definitely been a good decision, going back to school!
Off to home, shower and get ready for Tattoo!