We had a speaker the other day about returning to school...coping with the stress and all of the new changes. There are a LOT of changes.
The woman was actually really good, and she talked about not letting things bother you - like if a car cuts you off in the morning, just to get over it, because life is just like that. Be flexible. Etc. In theory, I totally agree, and I have been working on that. My specific task is the way people walk in Singapore. I know I have bitched about this before, but it really drives me crazy, and when people cut me off and then stop, or don't walk on the right side of the escalator, I really do get pissed off, and I give people dirty looks, and I want to push them. This is not my normal personality, and I'm not sure where it comes from, but I'm working on it.
It's not so easy to not let these things bother you.
Today I tried listening to an album that really calms me. I think that worked, but then I can't listen to NPR. Hm...I will have to figure something else out in order to become a flexible, not angry walker in Singapore.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Schedule
I'm definitely a structured person. I like to know what's coming next, and I like to be prepared for it. This isn't to say that I'm not a flexible person, but I just prefer to be organized.
Our class schedule does not help me with this.
The first time I was in grad school, I had a certain class on Tuesday mornings, another class on Wednesday afternoons, etc. Not INSEAD. We have classes all over the place. Sometimes we even have two sessions of the same class back to back. Other times we don't have a specific class for over a week. It makes no sense, and it has basically glued me to my calendar so that I know what's coming up next.
We have five classes, all with preparatory reading, some with homework to hand in, some with exercises that are just meant to help us, and we have to be prepared for each class. A few of our profs have said that they are big fans of cold calling, so we *really* have to be prepared for class, but we haven't seen too much of that yet.
The good news is that after today, we don't have finance for ten days (this class is extremely difficult for me to understand).
In the meantime - I'm just trying not to drown in all of the work, and I'm trying to stay ahead of the readings a bit, since I don't have any of the text books, and there are very few on reserve in the library. We'll see how long this lasts...
Our class schedule does not help me with this.
The first time I was in grad school, I had a certain class on Tuesday mornings, another class on Wednesday afternoons, etc. Not INSEAD. We have classes all over the place. Sometimes we even have two sessions of the same class back to back. Other times we don't have a specific class for over a week. It makes no sense, and it has basically glued me to my calendar so that I know what's coming up next.
We have five classes, all with preparatory reading, some with homework to hand in, some with exercises that are just meant to help us, and we have to be prepared for each class. A few of our profs have said that they are big fans of cold calling, so we *really* have to be prepared for class, but we haven't seen too much of that yet.
The good news is that after today, we don't have finance for ten days (this class is extremely difficult for me to understand).
In the meantime - I'm just trying not to drown in all of the work, and I'm trying to stay ahead of the readings a bit, since I don't have any of the text books, and there are very few on reserve in the library. We'll see how long this lasts...
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Weird Things about this Weekend
So there were a few weird things this weekend.
I went to a movie that is part of an Israeli Film Festival. Here in Singapore. Yup. That's weird.
I went to the movie with four other people. There were five in total (I'm sure your math is good...). FOUR of us were wearing black t shirts and jeans. That's a very high, unlikely percentage.
I got my third pedicure ever on Saturday. It was wonderful. The lady who was taking all of the disgusting dead skin off of my feet was talking to the lady next to me in Chinese. It seemed like they were talking about me, so I smiled at the lady next to me. She said, "she said you must wear shoes everyday, because my feet are much worse than yours." Hm. Wear shoes as opposed to WHAT? I then realized that it was wear shoes as opposed to wear sandals - which was correct until I started school one month ago. I wore shoes everyday. I have white, ex-pat, prissy feet.
I used to run into people in Ann Arbor ALL the time. People hated walking across the diag with me, because I couldn't make it across! Broadway was the same. Walk me on Broadway - any time any day, and I will run into someone. Not true in Singapore. I have probably run into five people in Singapore - and two of those occasions were the same guy. This weekend I ran into TWO people at really unlikely places. One was a woman whom we went on a dive trip with a few months ago. She was working out at a gym that was next to the bar I went to on Friday night. The other was Matt's co-worker, and this was standing in line for fishball noodles on Saturday afternoon at the same hawker stall.
Finally - this isn't weird - I wanted to share some super cute things. Tonight I ran a program for families in the UHC community here. It was on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. I won't go into why, but each family was asked to bring a fruit that has some significance for their family and tell us why they brought it.
1) I brought an apple, because when you bite into it, it's sweet, like my family. (Adina, Jer - doesn't this remind you of a joke you once heard - in 1984 or so?)
2) I brought a star fruit, because it has five points, and we have five people in our family, and when you cut it, it's pretty.
3) I brought a banana, because when you peel it, it's really sweet and wonderful inside, but first you have to peel it to get there, like our family.
There were others, but I especially liked those.
I went to a movie that is part of an Israeli Film Festival. Here in Singapore. Yup. That's weird.
I went to the movie with four other people. There were five in total (I'm sure your math is good...). FOUR of us were wearing black t shirts and jeans. That's a very high, unlikely percentage.
I got my third pedicure ever on Saturday. It was wonderful. The lady who was taking all of the disgusting dead skin off of my feet was talking to the lady next to me in Chinese. It seemed like they were talking about me, so I smiled at the lady next to me. She said, "she said you must wear shoes everyday, because my feet are much worse than yours." Hm. Wear shoes as opposed to WHAT? I then realized that it was wear shoes as opposed to wear sandals - which was correct until I started school one month ago. I wore shoes everyday. I have white, ex-pat, prissy feet.
I used to run into people in Ann Arbor ALL the time. People hated walking across the diag with me, because I couldn't make it across! Broadway was the same. Walk me on Broadway - any time any day, and I will run into someone. Not true in Singapore. I have probably run into five people in Singapore - and two of those occasions were the same guy. This weekend I ran into TWO people at really unlikely places. One was a woman whom we went on a dive trip with a few months ago. She was working out at a gym that was next to the bar I went to on Friday night. The other was Matt's co-worker, and this was standing in line for fishball noodles on Saturday afternoon at the same hawker stall.
Finally - this isn't weird - I wanted to share some super cute things. Tonight I ran a program for families in the UHC community here. It was on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. I won't go into why, but each family was asked to bring a fruit that has some significance for their family and tell us why they brought it.
1) I brought an apple, because when you bite into it, it's sweet, like my family. (Adina, Jer - doesn't this remind you of a joke you once heard - in 1984 or so?)
2) I brought a star fruit, because it has five points, and we have five people in our family, and when you cut it, it's pretty.
3) I brought a banana, because when you peel it, it's really sweet and wonderful inside, but first you have to peel it to get there, like our family.
There were others, but I especially liked those.
Everest Training
So...I'm not training to climb Mt Everest, but my friend Tenley is. She and her husband Jeff are climbing a part of the mountain in about a month. Tenley is doing training to get her body ready for 12 days of trekking...
Yesterday they went to a mountain in Malaysia, and today they did a training in Bukit Timah Nature Reserve. I went with her this morning. Basically we went up and down these long "natural" staircases. It was probably really good for our legs (and maybe butts too?), but not the most exciting thing to do. Luckily I like Tenley, so we had fun together.
I wanted to share an experience from this morning. Tenley brought a plastic bag full of carrots. During a rest, she took them out, and she was about to start opening the plastic bag, when a monkey came trotting up to us making a weird grunting sound. Tenley and her quick responses threw the bag of carrots into the forest. The monkey immediately broke open the bag and enjoyed a huge carrot...all the way until the end. It was scary. It reminded me of this time when the monkey attacked me fo
r my banana peel.
I took this picture with my phone, so it's not so clear, but this is the end of the monkey enjoying the carrot, and the bag of carrots is somewhere to the right of the picture, next to the tree.
Matt is coming back tomorrow morning. I'm glad, because I really enjoy life so much more when he's a part of it. I can't wait to have him back...and neither can the Kitty. She keeps watching the doors - even when I'm going to sleep in my bed, she is watching the doors, as if she's ready for him to walk in at any moment. I keep telling her, "four more days..." "Two more days..." etc, but she doesn't seem to understand.
Yesterday they went to a mountain in Malaysia, and today they did a training in Bukit Timah Nature Reserve. I went with her this morning. Basically we went up and down these long "natural" staircases. It was probably really good for our legs (and maybe butts too?), but not the most exciting thing to do. Luckily I like Tenley, so we had fun together.
I wanted to share an experience from this morning. Tenley brought a plastic bag full of carrots. During a rest, she took them out, and she was about to start opening the plastic bag, when a monkey came trotting up to us making a weird grunting sound. Tenley and her quick responses threw the bag of carrots into the forest. The monkey immediately broke open the bag and enjoyed a huge carrot...all the way until the end. It was scary. It reminded me of this time when the monkey attacked me fo
r my banana peel.I took this picture with my phone, so it's not so clear, but this is the end of the monkey enjoying the carrot, and the bag of carrots is somewhere to the right of the picture, next to the tree.
Matt is coming back tomorrow morning. I'm glad, because I really enjoy life so much more when he's a part of it. I can't wait to have him back...and neither can the Kitty. She keeps watching the doors - even when I'm going to sleep in my bed, she is watching the doors, as if she's ready for him to walk in at any moment. I keep telling her, "four more days..." "Two more days..." etc, but she doesn't seem to understand.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Lahser and Facebook
I graduated from Lahser High School. I don't think I can accurately remember what high school was like, or what the people were like, but at the time it seemed to me as a very diverse place - people from lots of different cultural backgrounds, and a small variety of socio-economic situations. People in general were privileged, and for the most part, I think we were a pretty smart school/class with many people who were going to go somewhere.
Facebook has a function where you can see all of the people who graduated from your school the same year as you, so I just checked that out - just to see who's on and obviously what they look like. I saw a few things:
1) There are a LOT of children. Most have young babies, but it does seem that a large percentage have kids. Scary a little bit.
2) I actually counted that 20 of the 87 people live in Michigan, which is more than I expected, but still sort of sad if you think about it. I feel bad for Michigan's economy - and worse for the people it affects.
3) There were a few people who definitely were not in our class. I have no idea who they are.
4) I only saw two other person who live abroad - someone lives in Korea, and Dustin lives in London (but I don't think he's actually in the LHS '96 list for some reason).
5) There seems to be a ton of people in the LA area. I wonder if that's a weather thing or what. How did they all get there?
Facebook has a function where you can see all of the people who graduated from your school the same year as you, so I just checked that out - just to see who's on and obviously what they look like. I saw a few things:
1) There are a LOT of children. Most have young babies, but it does seem that a large percentage have kids. Scary a little bit.
2) I actually counted that 20 of the 87 people live in Michigan, which is more than I expected, but still sort of sad if you think about it. I feel bad for Michigan's economy - and worse for the people it affects.
3) There were a few people who definitely were not in our class. I have no idea who they are.
4) I only saw two other person who live abroad - someone lives in Korea, and Dustin lives in London (but I don't think he's actually in the LHS '96 list for some reason).
5) There seems to be a ton of people in the LA area. I wonder if that's a weather thing or what. How did they all get there?
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Careers Day
Remember when you have Career Day in high school? I wonder why they add an "s" in business school? Maybe it's a "translation" thing?
Anyways - we had our CareerS Day at INSEAD yesterday. It was an entire day devoted to self reflection - using lots of neat/not so neat tools, and quite a bit of internal pondering.
I am really trying to break out of the non-profit thing - maybe do some sort of social impact job in the corporate world - but all of my tests told me I either want to be a therapist or work in a non-profit. Poo! How are we supposed to have career switches if we only know what we know? I have devoted time now to learning what is SIMILAR to non-profit...but might put me in a more professional environment and maybe even making more of an impact.
The honest truth is that at this point I'm glad to have broken out of the Jewish non-profit world...at least for now.
Anyways - we had our CareerS Day at INSEAD yesterday. It was an entire day devoted to self reflection - using lots of neat/not so neat tools, and quite a bit of internal pondering.
I am really trying to break out of the non-profit thing - maybe do some sort of social impact job in the corporate world - but all of my tests told me I either want to be a therapist or work in a non-profit. Poo! How are we supposed to have career switches if we only know what we know? I have devoted time now to learning what is SIMILAR to non-profit...but might put me in a more professional environment and maybe even making more of an impact.
The honest truth is that at this point I'm glad to have broken out of the Jewish non-profit world...at least for now.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Starting INSEAD
Luckily, this week has been much better than last. Since we last spoke (ha!), we have actually started normal classes, and we are beginning to establish a routine.
I'm more excited than ever about this year. So far the profs have been excellent, the content is fun, and the people are outstanding. The best part of INSEAD (so far at least...) is that there is real diversity. I remember when I went to U of M there was a huge focus on diversity, but really that meant that there were lots of different people, but none of them mixed. At INSEAD, we are all totally mixed, and the largest nationality population (Americans...) is less than 10% of our class.
The basics:
INSEAD has two campuses. One is in Fontainbleu, in France, and the other in Singapore. Our intake (or promotion, as they call it here) has 450 people, and 300 of them start in Fonty (as it's called) and 150 in Singapore.
The program is 10 months. At the school at any given time, you will find two different promotions, because INSEAD has two promotions per year - a class of December, and a class of July. Basically, they graduate 900 people per year. That's a lot.
The year is split into five periods (P1, P2, etc.). For P1 and P2, we all have the same classes, with the same people, in the same classroom, in the same seats. We do the group work with the same group. After P2, people can switch campuses. Apparently more than 60% of INSEAD students go to more than one campus. The school also has an exchange with Wharton during P4. I'm still deciding what I will do about this. Switching campuses (especially to Fonty...) seems to be part of the INSEAD experience, but I have a lot to consider before I decide what I'll do.
Right now (P1) we are taking "core courses." This includes: stats, microecon, finance, accounting and leading groups. In college and grad school I took many semesters of stats, one of micro, one of finance and a whole degree about leading groups. We have basically gone over everything I knew already in the first class. :) Not really...but I think I will be learning a LOT!
Our class has people from 65 different nationalities. If you look at a group of people, it is really rare that you will ever see two people from the same country.
All classes are conducted in English only. You need three languages to graduate INSEAD, and you need two fluent languages to get in. My two are Hebrew and English, and I just found out that I passed out of the Spanish requirement. Phew. I don't think I could focus very well on that when I have things like accounting to worry about...
My group is made up of five people - a woman from the Philippines, and the rest are guys. One is from Taiwan, one from Korea and one from Portugal. We haven't yet worked so much together, but I KNOW we will have plenty opportunity!
Hopefully this will give a context into my postings as this year progresses...
I'm more excited than ever about this year. So far the profs have been excellent, the content is fun, and the people are outstanding. The best part of INSEAD (so far at least...) is that there is real diversity. I remember when I went to U of M there was a huge focus on diversity, but really that meant that there were lots of different people, but none of them mixed. At INSEAD, we are all totally mixed, and the largest nationality population (Americans...) is less than 10% of our class.
The basics:
INSEAD has two campuses. One is in Fontainbleu, in France, and the other in Singapore. Our intake (or promotion, as they call it here) has 450 people, and 300 of them start in Fonty (as it's called) and 150 in Singapore.
The program is 10 months. At the school at any given time, you will find two different promotions, because INSEAD has two promotions per year - a class of December, and a class of July. Basically, they graduate 900 people per year. That's a lot.
The year is split into five periods (P1, P2, etc.). For P1 and P2, we all have the same classes, with the same people, in the same classroom, in the same seats. We do the group work with the same group. After P2, people can switch campuses. Apparently more than 60% of INSEAD students go to more than one campus. The school also has an exchange with Wharton during P4. I'm still deciding what I will do about this. Switching campuses (especially to Fonty...) seems to be part of the INSEAD experience, but I have a lot to consider before I decide what I'll do.
Right now (P1) we are taking "core courses." This includes: stats, microecon, finance, accounting and leading groups. In college and grad school I took many semesters of stats, one of micro, one of finance and a whole degree about leading groups. We have basically gone over everything I knew already in the first class. :) Not really...but I think I will be learning a LOT!
Our class has people from 65 different nationalities. If you look at a group of people, it is really rare that you will ever see two people from the same country.
All classes are conducted in English only. You need three languages to graduate INSEAD, and you need two fluent languages to get in. My two are Hebrew and English, and I just found out that I passed out of the Spanish requirement. Phew. I don't think I could focus very well on that when I have things like accounting to worry about...
My group is made up of five people - a woman from the Philippines, and the rest are guys. One is from Taiwan, one from Korea and one from Portugal. We haven't yet worked so much together, but I KNOW we will have plenty opportunity!
Hopefully this will give a context into my postings as this year progresses...
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