Fitting Right Back In

I can just sort of walk back into my life on the Upper West Side...two years later.

Many store fronts are for rent, many of my good friends have left (Liba, Becca...), my husband is in Singapore, and other things have changed, but mostly it's the same. I absolutely love New York City, and I absolutely love my and Matt's life that we had when we were here.

Since I arrived on Thursday night, I have run around like crazy -

• breakfast with Ellen (who just got married, mazal tov!)
• lunch with Leslie (who is due in two months, b'sha'ah tova!)
• interview for internship (which was super exciting, and I would love it!)
• dinner with Whitney and James (who just had a baby, mazal tov!)
• breakfast with Erin (who is graduating rabbinical school and just got engaged, mazal tov!)
• walked in Central Park for hours with Liz and Michael (who haven't lost their jobs, yeah!)
• ran into Jimmy whom I took to Temagami in 1997 (kind of feel weird that I looked the same enough for him to recognize me...)
• hung with Jeremy and Terese (who are going to have a baby this week, b'sha'a tova!)
• dined with Flyer and Ari (whom it was great to catch up with!)
• met Diana, Eli and a bunch of INSEAD folk at a bar (which had good beer, good atmosphere, and obnoxious service)
• will have breakfast with Ruthie, and hopefully see Jon and David.

Could it get any better?
I have basically walked all over this city (or at least the UWS and Central Park), and I just love it here. I love the feeling in the city, I love the accessibility of everything. I love the people (my friends and the general "people") here. I love the food. I love the energy. I just love it. I know that when I'm in Singapore I'm fine there, and I like the life we have created, but being back in the city makes me want to move back here. Immediately. Not gonna happen that soon...

Beets

I have finally had to start doing some work at school this week, which is good. I was getting worried.

This week included meeting up with two great people from my past life as well as three beets. I'll get to the people first.

I got to see Sarah who was an active student at GW when I worked at Hillel. She is simply superb, and she's putting all of her political activism into a law degree, and I know she's going to do great things. She took me to a place called Monk's which has a really neat atmosphere and Bell's beer! She also told me for a new loan forgiveness initiative where they forgive your law school debt if you work for public interest places for ten years. I don't really trust initiatives right now, since the whole world and all of the rules within it seem to be changing, but if that works, that's awesome.

I also got to see Julie, who is one of my parents' friends' daughter. We definitely saw each other from time to time in our childhood, but I don't think we have seen each other in years. It was excellent to sit down and talk. So interesting when you grow older and more able to connect with certain people- for no particular reason. She took me to Good Dog, where there were cute pictures of dogs on the wall, and great beer.

Finally - the beets. I crave roasted root vegetables all the time. It might be because we don't have an oven, but whenever I go to the grocery store and need to find something for dinner, all I want is roasted squash, sweet potatoes or beets. Two weeks ago there were no beets, so I was sad and had roasted orange vegetables. Last week, the beets appeared, and I immediately went home and roasted them.

First, I forgot about the mess of the beet. There is purple all over the kitchen. My hands were purple. I just felt purple. I even got a purple splatter on my white macbook keyboard. What a mess.

Then, I forgot about the aftermath of the beets. I would think it would be gone by now, because I had the beets on Tuesday, and it's Friday, but my excrement (in all forms) is still red. It sort of freaks me out.

The Convenience of Convenient

My friend, Tali (happy birthday, Tali!!) told me to live on campus. She said that INSEAD would be hard to navigate from Bedok. Tali was right. I stayed in Bedok, and it's been hard. My commute in the morning is 1 hour and 10 minutes, and though I get a lot done on the train, I have to leave at 6:45 in order to for sure make my first class. If I miss all three modes of transportation, it could take 1 hour and 45 minutes...It sucks. I don't like the commute. When I go home at night. I'm home. I don't go out for dinner with INSEAD folks, and I don't go to the bars with them too often. When I do go out, I often feel bad, because it means I won't see Matt at all that day (Matt are you reading my blog while I'm gone?).

Philadelphia is a new world. My dorm is a block from campus. I could leave ten minutes before class and be on time. I can go for a group meeting at any time, go home and change, and then I can go out for dinner. I can do anything I want. I'm a 15 minute bus ride from Center City rather than a 1 hour bus ride or 40 minute MRT ride from downtown Singapore, and I am loving it.

Convenience really is convenient!

(Not so) Starbucks Experience

I wish I didn't, but I like Starbucks. I like that they're pretty much the same around the world (minus some green teas, some other random flavors and the look of the people who work there). I like that I can study there for as many hours as I want, as long as I spend $3 on a latte or something like that. Since I have been in school, I have spent many a-Sunday at the Starbucks by our house in Siglap.

I just had a not so pleasant (not so) Starbucks experience.

The Penn Bookstore advertises Starbucks on their window. My mom gave me $40 in Starbucks gift cards. I haven't had coffee yet today, and the pots in my suite grossed me out too much to boil water for tea. What a match. I went in.

First I had to walk nearly a city block just to get to the escalator, then I had to circle all the way back to the cafe (that had Starbuck's logo, etc). I thought I would get a really special treat - vanilla latte (skim milk, sugar free vanilla flavor, and only half the regular amount of vanilla). I gave her my gift card to pay, and she said, "this is Barnes and Noble." They don't take the card. I'm WAY WAY WAY too cheap to pay for this coffee for myself. I would actually never have gone in there. Of course I didn't want to say that, so I said, "well it sure looks like a Starbucks, but okay." Then I realized she charged me $3.30, and I was confused. I kept looking at the receipt and the prices on the wall, which were $3.10 for a small one, $3.65 for a medium sized vanilla latte. There was nothing for $3.30. I asked - out of curiousity, "where does this number come from" - a little line we learned in our negotiation class. They said that the prices have changed, but the numbers haven't come in yet for the signboard. Hm. Unethical? YES!!! That's not the price they're charging...AND the drink is way to sweet and it isn't even hot. What an unpleasant experience.

Washington DC

I just came back from a super eventful weekend in Washington, DC (where I wish I had more time to see more people I love there, so I super apologize if you're reading this, you live in DC, and I didn't see you this past weekend).

Some highlights:

• I saw four babies that belong to friends all in one day.
• I got seriously shit on by one - I heard it, felt it, smelled it, and it even went through his pants (but miraculously didn't get on my ONLY sweater and jeans that I had brought!) - Julie and Aaron can take credit for that.
• I saw my wonderfully strong and amazing friend Elissa.
  
• I saw what Elissa (another Elissa) has done to Dan and Matt's old apartment. It looks super liveable and really cute!
• I ate Greek food and Ethiopian food which I don't get too often in the 'Pore.
• I spent two nights in an apartment with a wonderful Freya, a superb Aaron, two cats (Elvis and Murphy) and a really good dog, Ella. It was a little like a zoo, but only when the cats were on the refrigerator.

All in all, it was a wonderful wonderful soul cleansing weekend with people I love.

MAZAL TOV to Gal and Ohad!! They had a baby girl this past weekend!

Cold Calling

Cold calling is brutal. In my horribly cold calling class yesterday I was trying to figure out what is so horrible about cold calling. Who cares if someone asks you something you're supposed to know, and you don't know it? Does it matter?

I figured out that there are three main things that a professor can get out of cold calling students.
1) They can see who did the reading (sort of...to be discussed later).
2) They can stimulate class discussion.
3) They can horribly embarrass students and make them feel horrible.

I'm pretty sure there is space for all three of these at different points in life, however I am NOT a fan of cold calling for reason #3. Not a fan at all.

I have had 17 professors at INSEAD, and none of them cold called for this reason. They all gave the option to say "pass" or ask one of your classmates to respond in your stead. I'm sure that this impacted our participation grade, but who really cares (non-grade disclosure...).

In my class yesterday, first of all, there is a guy who sits in the front row, and he has a list of students, and when they say something insightful, they get a certain number of points, and if they waste air time, they get minus points. He says that if they convert oxygen to carbon dioxide, they get one point - for being present, basically. So, you have this horribly mean (but I don't think he's really MEAN, he just plans the mean game) professor cold calling people, with this guy sitting in front marking down his review of what you say. I know this is Wharton and all, and it's supposed to be high pressure, high level business environment, but I don't really see a reason for this. One poor girl got called on, and she "um"ed and "ah"ed until she was so red she had to just stop.

I have never been cold called (except once in finance, I think, but it didn't feel so bad, since I guess I knew everyone in the class, and INSEAD is just a warmer place), and I was trying to figure out how I would react. I think I would freak out and not be able to talk. This is why I think that it's not necessarily such a good way to tell if people did the reading. It's possible that you did the reading, but you just freak out when you get cold called.

So...since I had done the readings yesterday, I decided to just raise my hand and respond to his questions even if they weren't stellar responses (which the guy taking notes for sure noted), but at least I wouldn't be cold called and get negative points and get a super red face and never want to walk into the classroom anymore.

I didn't need to exercise yesterday, though, because I got my cardio just sitting in there. My pulse was racing for most of the class. (It's a good thing, too, because my shins still haven't recovered since running on Sunday! I'm hoping I can start to exercise again on Monday. I got really messed up by that run!).

Wharton

Yesterday was our first day of classes. Wharton is WAY different than INSEAD, and it's a lot for my system to comprehend.

Wharton has 1600 GRADUATE students plus a whole bunch of undergraduate students. There are literally thousands of students walking around campus, and they don't all know each other.

INSEAD has about 900 students at a time, but in Singapore we have about 300, and you really know 150 of them. Like you actually know all their names other than a few.


Wharton is on a campus in a CITY. There is a lot going on on campus, and there is a lot going on in the city.

INSEAD (in Singapore) is in a building, which they call a campus, in a city with not too much going on that interests me.


Wharton is a building, and there is an ABP in it, but no cafeteria or place for quick coffee.

INSEAD is also a building, but there is a (bad) cafeteria and cafe, which is great to grab something between classes, as well as meeting people. I have to admit, though, that I haven't yet had a tour of Wharton, so there might be something I'm missing (though I think it would only be an area to meet, because I'm pretty sure there is no actual cafe).


At Wharton you have to buy your coursepacks. It should be about $150 (US!!!) for me, plus books, which I haven't yet looked into.

At INSEAD, coursepacks are included in your tuition (and tuition is lower overall, though our program is only one year...). Even if they added another $2000 to tuition, but then included coursepacks, I think it would be nicer. I don't like paying for everything one at a time. It's a psychological thing. I know.

Though there are a lot of differences, the classes seem to be conducted in a similar manner so far. Each of my classes has bashed HBS, which happens at INSEAD as well, and there is some case, some theory, and a lot of class discussion, which is also familiar. I do have two profs who are adjunct - actually work in the field and don't have phds, which I don't think we have at INSEAD. I appreciate that.


In the past day, I have felt like a freshman again. I haven't felt this way since 1996, which I started Michigan (I went to Michigan for grad school, and INSEAD is all in one building - and your first 11 classes are all in the same CLASSROOM, so by the time you get out of that classroom, you know your way around the building). I also felt that way when I started Lahser in 1992. It's a HUGE campus, and there are tons of buildings and tons of people, and I don't know how things work. Where do you get lunch? Where can you fill up your water bottle? What do you mean you have to pay for your coursepacks in cash only? Where is the bathroom?

In addition to the lost, freshman feeling, I'm also basically living in a dorm. I have a bathroom that I share, and I have a little, tiny room with a bed, a desk and a place for some clothes. It's too hot or too cold, and it really reminds me of Markley (minus the Shana part). I'm 31, but I'm 18 this week. Hopefully next week I'll be at least 25.