Saying goodbye was harder here in Canada. But this simply from a logistics point of view. It was tough enough to say goodbye in Coventry, but, at least, we had a great farewell dinner party there, with most of the cohort present.
Here it wasn't so, as the different electives ended in different dates (there are still people studying for an exam tomorrow) and people are leaving the program in different blocks.
Added to that, here I had to say goodbye from two different groups: the MBA colleagues and my friends at the housing co-op I lived in. It makes things a bit more complicated, for sure, but it is really good to have had so many friends to say goodbye to.
In the picture above we see the German clan in the far left and two cute co-oppers on the right. The other two didn't want to appear in the picture, so will remain unmentioned.

The second day in Montreal was really cool. During the day we had a great time at the park, as you've seen. In the evening we went out to eat at a Jewish deli called Schwartz's, on Saint Laurent Street. But, at arriving there, we saw that it was a very simple place, which didn't comply with the expectations of part of the group for a 'Saturday night dinner. So we ended up in another restaurant on Duluth Street, which was a great choice. I just don't remember its name.
At this point Silvia joined us, and it was great to meet a familiar face from Brazil. We probably had the longest conversations we've ever had so far.
On Sunday we went for a walk at the port and the old city centre, which was nice. We ate at La Popesa near Notre Dame and went back to get the car. We drove to the Olympic stadium and said our goodbyes to Montreal. Just in time, because the weather changed completely and we drove back to Kingston under a very persistent rain. Rain! In January!
Oh, yes. Before coming back to Kingston we drove again to Schwartz's and half of us got smoked meat sandwiches, which are great!

080215 Montreal

080216-17 Montreal

So here we are, almost there, almost finished. Only one of each left:

• one normal class week,
• one revision week,
• one exam week.

And then the first term of the MBA is over. It feels like time to to look back and evaluate how things have been so far, but I am no there yet. Let's leave it for later. For now, there are still two major assignments to deliver, and both have to be started. There is still all the revision for the final exams to be done, and that's a lot. And there are still many hours with good people to be enjoyed.
Actually, there are many people in the class I didn't really got to know. But this is OK. With a class big like this (82, AFAIK), it was to be expected. Anyway, I still wish to have two or three chats with some interesting people. Don't want the feeling of missing an opportunity now, although this is unavoidable.
And I still have 3 very special weeks to enjoy with all I got before parting to thousands of miles (yes, they are anglicizing me) away.
But enough of sentimentalism, let's talk about London. But not too much, I really do have those assignments to start. The weekend was great, the weather was even not too bad. It was cold, really cold without freezing, but we even saw some sun rays from time to time. And it was busy, walking around the city and showing the sights. I was impressed of how familiar I am with the city and its transport system, after only two visits (now three) and some 13 days.
We had a situation with our hotel reservation which turned out well (or at least didn't turn out bad) right in the first hour of London. Then a very cold night in a cold top floor hotel room for fifty pounds. It is strange to see oneself thinking that 50 quid for a room is not expensive. After that a busy Saturday with parks and palace in the morning, Primark and Oxford Street in the afternoon and an Arabic music concert at Saint Barnaba's church.
Back to another hotel, Sunday. Camden Town station in the morning with its markets and curious shops. A great lunch with very dear friends who are at this moment flying over the Atlantic to Brazil and an afternoon on the Southbank. Walk, walk, walk. An evening at Picadilly Circus, China Town and Regent Street with its beautiful lights. Victoria Station and the long wait for the, of course, late Megabus coach. After another delay due to a fuel system fault and two bus exchanges we arrived safely at Cannon Park, just half an hour of more walking to the residences in the middle of the night.
No, I can't complain. It was a great weekend. But London was just the scenery, not that important at all.
And if I don't update this too much you know: only 3 more weeks to go. Gotta be here, now.

Yes, it really is snowing. In the beginning I thought it would be that disappointing sleet so common in late autumn, beginning of winter. But my expectations were exceeded, and now we have a couple or a bit more centimeters of fresh snow on the grass.

I like the snow. Actually I love it! It is not by chance that my favourite sport now is snowboarding, I just hope that I will be able to do some in Canada, but this is not very probable. But I had a lot of fun tonight, already.

It is nice to see grown up adult "mature" students turning into kids, going out on the court yard and starting snowball fights with strangers they would otherwise ignore during their routine on campus residence. But it is such an important event for many of us, who had never seen snow before. I caught some of them on video. For people from Taiwan, Sri Lanka and Mexico, this is really something special.

Now I just hope that the snow will still be there in the morning.

More pictures on Picasa, of course.

071118 Snow on Campus

Today we had 4 group presentations for the Market Analysis course. Each group got one company to analyse and explain to the class why it had found the company to be an example of a marketing success story and which criteria the group used to get to its conclusion.

My group was first and, I must admit, the best. The guys did a great job in researching, analysing and presenting the material. Sascha's slide looked great and the story we told was compelling. Of course, we chose the most fun subject: Sony vs. Wii. Really interesting case, I can only advise you to take a look at Nintendo's President's series of internal interviews, quite rich.

The other groups also did a great job. The BAA group with the noisy jet sounds and the great consumer type incenations were really memmorable.

The Boeing group packaged the presentation in a virtual flight with stewardess (oh, flight attendant, sorry), captain and first officer. Of course, in my humble oppinion, they couldn't have chosen a prettier flight attendant.

By the fourth group I must admit I was already really tired. They talked about Samsung, and now I will take a look at their mobile handsets. I am looking for a new one, and Sony Ericsson seems to have what I want. But the presentation convinced me to give Samsung a chance. What I also liked was that they were critical enough to cast some doubts on the sustainability of the current strategy.
All in all it was an interesting morning, eventhough it extended far too much into hour already reduced lunch hour. I believe the teacher was too optimistic by reserving only 25 minutes per group.

This week we had the practice of management presentation and in a few minutes are going to have the marketing presentation. This has made this week extremely busy, unexpectedly. And the fact that we had to review our CV for the Mannheim CV book added to the strain.

It has also been quite cold during the night and, for the first time, we had beautiful frosty mornings.

Yesterday we had also the A. D. Little management consulting firm visiting, which was interesting. It is important to compare company styles to see with which corporate culture you identified yourself more. Management consulting really seems interesting, but there will not be a way of getting around the 60 hours week, it seems.

And, to finish off, I arrived late for the Jan Garbarek Group concert yesterday. This wasn't really a problem and the concert was magnificent! I didn't know Jan's work before, only his fame, which is good enough to ensure that I wouldn't miss this concert. The hall was pretty full, (almost) everybody pretty respectful (I wanted to shout to a pair of female undergrads: "Be pretty and shut up!"), the lighting wonderful and the music phenomenal. The band is exceptional, and I especially enjoyed the piano player, who filled the room with his sound in a way I had never heard before and the drummer, who was really impressive. I had to think of my friend Mathias Rempel, now in Munich.

and now is time to dash to the market analysis class

Today we had the best company presentation so far in the MBA course. The folks from Morgan Stanley drove up from London to talk to us about working for their company.

They started with a very impressive video where several employees from all over the world talked about why they liked to work for MS. I personally liked the way the video was built and the images laid out on the screen. And people where quite convincing there too.

Then Stuart Guest, VP of private wealth management, presented some basic facts about the company and opened the session for questions, which were many. He had with him other 5 people from the office London, 3 of them quite recent hire (1 month, 3 months and 1 year). Everybody seemed very happy to be working for MS (and I wouldn't have expected otherwise).

All in all a well rounded presentation, which made the time go by quickly. Some extracts from the session:

• Russian and Chinese languages are in high demand, even though MS has a dedicated language programme with over 10 languages.
• "It is genuinely a nice place to work. ... I even find time to run a marathon." Stuart Guest
• First time I heard the phrase: "to export a CEO".
• They offered us best in class clients. That's an interesting offer.
• "Clients like dealing with interesting people." Yes, quite obvious, but I had never heard it put so clearly.
• Employees own 25% of the shares.
• ROI expected: 20%
  
• "There is a collaborative effort in Europe, in the US this is a bit different." C.

After the presentation we had some snacks at the lounge and, for the first time, I did really "network" a bit. The fact that MS was represented by 6 people made getting involved in a conversation with one of them easier.
And everybody, both from Morgan Stanley and from WBS, made a good impression, looking smart in suits.

Warwick Business School Full Time MBA Life

The algum above is the one which will concentrate all pictures taken during this MBA which are too diverse and to scattered to publish in individual albums.
I hope this album also gives a better feeling of how the day-to-day life is at Warwick Business School.

While I am here at the University of Warwick, I am not there experiencing this:


This is Henrique, my nephew who was born in January while I was in Brazil. It is really a pitty that I am missing out on his development, but those were the choices I made, and I don't regret them. And no, I don't think he is the cutest. But he surely is my most loved nephew.

The dinner was really nice, I enjoyed my food quite a lot. A good suggestion is to take one of the sandwiches in Arabic bread and a salad. It costs less than a full meal and is food enough for one.

From 071101 Syndic...

071101 Syndicate Habibi

Today we had our first class excursion. Organized by a small group of colleagues (Elanor, Gabi, Cristiano, I guess), we all got by bus to and from Kennilworth to see the fireworks commemorating the Guy Fawkes night. Or Gay Fox night, as Chris would say.

Not really easy to shoot any pictures with the amount of light available, and I wouldn't (and haven't) try to photograph fireworks with my point and shoot digital camera. But I liked the pic above.
The fireworks were really great, I enjoyed them a lot. According to Sascha, 25 minutes long, really worth the quite short bus trip. Considering that we practically filled up a big bus, I can say that the evening was a success.

I promisse I will elaborate on the fawcets (or taps) theme later on. Meanwhile, take a look at Maina's description of our accomodation and her pictures (including the taps), which show very well how I live here in Lakeside.

After Nicholas' Workshop and some OB reading, some of us went to the LatinNight in the Students' Union building. The music was good, there was a guy to show us some steps and all the tiredness that we thought we felt was forgotten. If the day started well, it surely couldn't end better.

Or so I thought. I wasn't, really. But I only found that out when it was already too late: I was walking with hundreds of half naked, bleary eyed, wet, scraggy, grumpy, dazzled, dizzy, uncombed, barefoot, cold students towards the Scarmann House parking lot, wearing nothing more than my nice, long, warm, woolen overcoat. And my keys in the pocket.
I was in the middle of my morning shower, having woken up bravely at 7, when the alarm went off. I almost didn't hear it because of the noise in the bathroom, but it was for real. The alarm had gone off and it was coming directly from the inside of my room.
Great! I had been trying to figure out how to regulate the temperature of my shower, which generated more steam than usual. Although my bathroom door was closed as instructed, I also suspect that the exhaust in the bathroom wasn't working, and got really scared that I had caused a fire alarm which would upset many people and bring direct consequences to me (big brother is watching you, the induction talk in the Arts Centre was scary enough).
Anyway, out of the shower, grabbed the towel, started to dry myself while opening the curtains to be able to open the window to let the steam which I wasn't seeing but was sure to be there to get out of the room and make the alarm stop. Outside my room, which lies exactly beside the dorm's entrance, people watching my struggle with the two layers of curtains, towel and window lock. I don't mind people seeing me naked, have nothing to hide. And if somebody doesn't like, shouldn't be looking into one honest guy's window.
Dropped the towel, opened the closet, grabbed my long, warm, woollen overcoat, tried to slip into my leather shoes. No way, feet too wet. Dump the shoes, opened the door and locked it open (for the suspected steam to go out the room), out! Forgot my keys, back inside; there, on the table!
Everything less hectic now, everybody directed to walk the path to Scarmann Road. Scarmann Road?? Yeah, the fucking Scarmann House parking lot, just opposite the Business School, almost 10 minutes away. And the frigging pathway is covered with small and sharp gravel, reminding that I haven't walked barefoot in years. Very sensitive soles, I should be ashamed.
But I wasn't. Things around were too interesting for me to be ashamed, and I wasn't even in the worst state. There were girls who were barefoot, in shorts and tops, hurting their feet and shivering. And another guy had only his pyjama pants on, also feeling quite cold, it seemed. Ah, my long, warm, woollen overcoat.
Back to the room, into the hot shower as quickly as possible. I was (and am) afraid of making my flue get even worse.
Out of the shower, alarm again. But faint, in the distance. Lakeside 3 and 4, this time. But they don't have to walk all the way to Scarmann House. Oh, this unfair world! I dressed myself properly this time, took my camera and went out in plunder mode; I wanted to document the misery I was subjected to in other people's faces. But it seems I am too nice a guy and didn't take any pictures. Or maybe I was afraid of the possibility of being lynched by a furious mob of half naked students.
At least the whole operation secured me a nice breakfast. Not a bad way to start the day at all.

P.S.: Chirs has also written about it, of course. But he wasn't that positive about the whole thing.

 

 

 

 

It seems that Stephan has been having lots of free time on his hands. On the other side, he has also been quite busy taking pictures. Combine both, and you have his photo albums online:



The photo above was taken during our Kick-Off Week in early September. Click on it.

He also took loads of pictures during the Official Graduation in the Mannheim Palace's Grand Hall.

Enjoy.

Got my scooter on Monday. And it was a really good acquisition, I am using it often. It is at least 40% quicker than walking, and more fun too.
I know I look silly on it. But I do prefer to spend the little spare time I get doing things instead of walking.

The Allumni Association organized a forum on Telecom on Monday. I wasn't going, but went. Good company and I am here to expand my horizons, right?
I am glad I did.

 

We had 3 presenters, and the first one, Gabriel Solomon, did an excellent job of downloading a huge amount of information in a very short time. A couple of seconds per slide, that was it. It was maybe even a tiny bit too fast, but I surely liked it and time flew by, great style.
But not only the style of the first presentation was interesting. Actually, I found that the whole discussion was highly interesting for me. And the data Gabriel provided was very relevant.
They were talking about the situation onf the mobile phone market and infra-structure in Africa. This is not information you get served on a silver plate on a daily basis.
It reinforced my wish to study more about the economics when you are dealing with the poorest. There is lots of good things to do getting the majority of this planet economically involved, and there is money to be earned while doing it.

Well, I am a bit behind schedule in many things, but want to post daily here during this week. I imagine that this week will be one of the busiest of the term, with the biggest amount of new information and experiences in a very short time.



We had a very interesting presentation on team management by Nick Arding on Monday. Or was it Tuesday? It is really easy to get mixed up, so much has happened in such a short time. But it was on Monday. And it was really a great presentation, obviously very refined by countless repetitions and presentations in different events.
Learned not only about organizing a climbing expedition of Royal Navy Marines to the summit of Mount Everest, but also how to use photos and music effectively, though I am a bit suspicious of music with PowerPoint, still.

Yesterday we had the day to get to know our syndicate groups. I am part of what has called itself the Young Stars group (I am no fan of the name, and they know it. But at least we are not called Oceans 11, like 3 other groups.). We are 11 people and, according to a very interesting exercise with coloured cards, we are quite varied in our personalities, but complement each other quite well. The whole day was used to build a simple gliding plane.
Some conflicts in the morning and a bit more focused work in the afternoon, after a review session. But I was glad to see how the team worked. I put myself in front of the team for most of the time due to the nature of the task. It was a good learning experience, but it is not something I want to do too often, I know I can act like a bulldozer sometimes. And I've gotten honest and direct feedback, which I appreciated.



But it is already too late again, almost 1 a.m., and I should be sleeping. So I will not write about the C.V. writing sessions with the fast speaking people of Penhella, or about the first accounting exercise which took ages of my lunch to be completed, or the Alumni meeting some 5 of us attended in Leamington Spa tonight. But I'll put one photo here and, if the upload has finished, the link to another album of photos.

http://picasaweb.google.de/ferbress/070925WarwickTeamBuilding

070925 Warwick Team Building