Friday, October 22, 2004
I'm so glad
Maybe it's the two beers I had during TGIF, maybe it's the infectious positive spirit of international day, or maybe it's the fact that I finally got a Sky Deck award, but I'm in a really good mood. Such a good mood, in fact, that a random Cream song popped into my head completely spontaneously as I walked home from class today.
This has been a difficult week at HBS, mostly due to the Red Sox. Everyone has been watching the games and so there have been a lot of late nights. Last night was the first without a Red Sox game, but there was a section Wine and Cheese event and so I got very little sleep anyway. As a married guy, I rarely see the other side of midnight, but it's happened every night this week. Even with all this going on, today was a great class day. We worked through a terminally boring Finance case in a positive manner, learned a lot about Cost Accounting in a surprisingly interesting FRC case, and then the capstone was Marketing. My section has had a rocky experience thus far with our marketing prof, but I thought today was the best case yet in Marketing, and the best case in a while overall. I had an "Ah ha!" moment, which hadn't happened in Marketing, and that really made my day. It's very rare for me to walk out of a class with a completely different impression of the case than when I walked in, but it happened today. It's really neat to have your mind changed by one simple sentence from the professor. It was nothing monumental, just "Which of these distribution channels is aligned with Aqualisa?" And like a bolt of lightning it was all clear to me. Very cool.
After class all the people who dressed in their native dress for International Day went to the front and showed off on the mini-runway while everyone clapped. It was one of those cool bonding experiences where you know that everyone in the room feels very comfortable and part of a whole. It was neat to see everyone have such pride in their countries, and even better to see everyone else respect it so much. After that was over we had the Sky Deck awards, and I finally made the cut. I finished the accounting midterm in about 30 minutes this week, for which I've received no end of grief from the section. In FRC yesterday I also remarked to the professor that Cost Accounting was indeed romantic stuff, which is one of his favorite phrases. Anyway, for those two incidents combined I finally made it to the Sky Deck Awards. The subject was relationships, and I was singled out for my platonic love of FRC. Once the initial laughter wound down I replied to the presenter that: "As my wife says, I do everything fast." It went over very well. ;)
Anyway, my friend Ben, who has found this blog to be a very convenient way to keep up on my life, remarked to me in an e-mail that I haven't talked a lot about how I feel about Boston and whether I really like being here. This post is intended to answer that question. I love the city, I love HBS, and I know I made the right choice. To quote Mr. Clapton:
I'm so glad, I'm so glad, I'm glad, I'm glad, I'm glad
This has been a difficult week at HBS, mostly due to the Red Sox. Everyone has been watching the games and so there have been a lot of late nights. Last night was the first without a Red Sox game, but there was a section Wine and Cheese event and so I got very little sleep anyway. As a married guy, I rarely see the other side of midnight, but it's happened every night this week. Even with all this going on, today was a great class day. We worked through a terminally boring Finance case in a positive manner, learned a lot about Cost Accounting in a surprisingly interesting FRC case, and then the capstone was Marketing. My section has had a rocky experience thus far with our marketing prof, but I thought today was the best case yet in Marketing, and the best case in a while overall. I had an "Ah ha!" moment, which hadn't happened in Marketing, and that really made my day. It's very rare for me to walk out of a class with a completely different impression of the case than when I walked in, but it happened today. It's really neat to have your mind changed by one simple sentence from the professor. It was nothing monumental, just "Which of these distribution channels is aligned with Aqualisa?" And like a bolt of lightning it was all clear to me. Very cool.
After class all the people who dressed in their native dress for International Day went to the front and showed off on the mini-runway while everyone clapped. It was one of those cool bonding experiences where you know that everyone in the room feels very comfortable and part of a whole. It was neat to see everyone have such pride in their countries, and even better to see everyone else respect it so much. After that was over we had the Sky Deck awards, and I finally made the cut. I finished the accounting midterm in about 30 minutes this week, for which I've received no end of grief from the section. In FRC yesterday I also remarked to the professor that Cost Accounting was indeed romantic stuff, which is one of his favorite phrases. Anyway, for those two incidents combined I finally made it to the Sky Deck Awards. The subject was relationships, and I was singled out for my platonic love of FRC. Once the initial laughter wound down I replied to the presenter that: "As my wife says, I do everything fast." It went over very well. ;)
Anyway, my friend Ben, who has found this blog to be a very convenient way to keep up on my life, remarked to me in an e-mail that I haven't talked a lot about how I feel about Boston and whether I really like being here. This post is intended to answer that question. I love the city, I love HBS, and I know I made the right choice. To quote Mr. Clapton:
I'm so glad, I'm so glad, I'm glad, I'm glad, I'm glad
