I turn 28 today. I feel like this is a bit of a nothing birthday - much like 26 and 27. 25 was kind of a big deal for being a quarter of a century, the point where any decent batsman has made a start and should go on to have a good innings, and I imagine 29 will start feeling like a countdown to the big three O. But 28? What really happens? I feel much like I did last night (only no longer tipsy).
But I am always given to overthinking things, and I couldn't help but spend some time reflecting on the merits, or lack thereof, of turning 28. On the downside, I am no longer eligible to go on Australian Idol. On the upside, there is no longer any risk of me ever going on Australian Idol. It's an unusual birthday this one, planted as I am on the other side of the planet, where October is when it gets cold instead of the usual introduction to the looming summer, surrounded by about 500 new acquaintances, very few of whom, with the exception of the facebook (ab)users, have any idea that it is my birthday. I would imagine that this year, we will not consume entire cartons of beer, cut holes in them and use them as pretend Ned Kelly helmets while throwing coins at each other, nor will we be getting out the BBQ, then catching the ferry in to the city, only to be ejected for drinking too much mango juice. Even a night of headbanging in a Czech night club seems out of the question. So it won't be like previous birthdays.
I might go out and eat some unspeakable part of an animal, then wait an hour for my main course, and then sit around waiting for the waitress to come and take a dessert order, which I don't want but was already included in the price, and then wait another thirty minutes to get served. By the time the bill comes, it won't even by my birthday anymore. Or I might have birthday drinks at a bar somewhere and start them off at 11pm, to keep in time with the locals.
Of course, a birthday is always a good time to reflect on that whole 'what am I doing with my life' question. For the first time in four birthdays that question doesn't start with 'should I quit my job', which is a good thing. Unfortunately it starts with 'OMG I don't have a job', which is not so good. But the advantage of being back in full time education is that I feel justified in not thinking about being unemployed for a while, so I've turned my mind to other things.
I said that I don't feel like the countdown to 30 really begins until 29, but even at 28 I couldn't help but start thinking about one of those 'things to do before I turn 30' lists. I started with the inevitable comparing to people of my age who seem to have achieved a lot more. Fortunately, looking at the sports stars is not as depressing as it used to be. While its still a little weird that at 28, sports stars are considered to be on the downhill (anyone heard from Ian Thorpe lately?), at least I am confidant that I didn't run the risk of peaking too early. I am fairly sure that 4 years oat the bottom of the pecking order in a couple of mid tier professional services firms does not represent the peak. Less good is the fact that, at INSEAD, there seem to be quite a few people running around who have started companies or done other impressive things by my age. I started a company once too of course, but I don't think Sydney BBQ Boats will go down in the annals of good decisions ever made.
So its best to leave work related achievements aside for a while and concentrate on other things I'd like to do before I turn 30. During another interminable accounting lecture last week (how you can devote eight weeks to the difference between cash, income and assets remains a mystery to me) I made a list of all the countries I'd been to. I was mildly annoyed at the confederates for losing the Civil War and depriving me of a couple of extra countries (who knows how many we could have ended up with), but still surprised that the count came in at 37, with the criteria of spending more than just a few hours transit in the country (so a boat ride to the Argentine side of Iguazu Falls didn't make it, but a day trip to Tijuana was enough to count Mexico).
It is of course completely absurd to aim to visit countries for the simple sake of racking up numbers, but being in Europe does provide a chance to start boosting that number quite efficiently. A weekend trip will easily be enough to tick off Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg (I will have to find a reason to stop in Luxembourg) in one go. I still want to check out both Denmark and Norway, and when things warm up again, Krakow, Budapest and St Petersburg should be doable in a weekend each. That would be 45, and a quick trip to Eastern Africa, where I still want to see Kilimanjaro, gorillas and the massai, and I'd be getting pretty close to 50. Then I could become the ultimate travelling dickhead, regaling backpackers, who are secretly wondering why a 30 year old is in a hostel, with stories about how all those 50 countries were better when I was there because they were unspoiled by tourists - I hate when those tourists get to countries before me.
In completely unrelated news, I had to share the funniest sporting moment I have been witness to since the incident of the Nick Tragoustis bow. Last weekend the INSEAD v LBS rugby game was played here in Fonty. I've been fielding a lot of questions about why I don't play, given that I am Australian and know the rules. I had stuck to the line that knowing the rules doesn't really compensate for being crap at rugby, and that also, being Australian, I've been unlucky enough to watch a lot of rugby, and quite frankly, it's a close call between rugby and accounting lectures. As it turns out though, simply knowing the rules can be quite helpful. Late in the game INSEAD were leading by a single point, when they completed by far the best play of the day. A long kick from deep inside their own half, followed by a crunching tackle that caused the LBS full back to drop the ball, and an INSEAD breakaway for a length of the field try. The crowd were celebrating, the team were celebrating, and especially the player who ran the ball in was celebrating. So much so that he kept running, arms in the air, well past the dead ball line, without ever making one essential move - putting the ball down. He was American, and figured if a touch down doesn't require you to touch the ball down, why would a try? Five minutes later, and with the last play of the game, LBS scored the winning try.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Friday, October 1, 2010
Le Blog
Another Friday afternoon, and for the first time in two weeks I have time to do something unproductive - which in this case is updating my blog. Or le Blog, as I will now call it. It could be la Blog though, I'm not sure.
I've been trying to learn French for a month now, and progress is slow. The French still harbour a bit of a hope that their language can be seen as a world language, harking back to their glory days as the world's cultural leaders. I understand that desire, but I have to say that it might help if they made their language just a little bit less impenetrable to the outsider.
The basic problem with learning French is that somewhere along the line the French people seem to have lost that essential connection between the alphabet and the language, because there appears to be no true relationship between the letters on a page and the word that is spoken. The common theme is that the last syllable of a word just drops away, but not in any systematic way - just about two thirds of the time, and for no reason related to what those letters might be.
Then you get to French numbers. Up to 60, its ok, but after that it gets a little strange - to say seventy you say sixty ten. 75 is sixty fifteen. At 80 it gets better - four twenties. And if you want to get to 99, try four twenties nineteen. I suspect the reason the French are having so much trouble containing their budget deficits may be that, with such a number system, they just don't count all that well.
Trouble with the language has also led to me developing a somewhat inaccurate reputation in French class, to the great amusement of my teacher and class mates. In one of the first lessons we were asked whether we knew any french verbs. At that point the only french I knew was 'voulez vous couche avec moi', which I knew was not appropriate for a French class. However, I assumed I could use a literal translation, and 'coucher' would simply mean 'to sleep' - a perfectly innocent verb to contribute to the conversation in the right context. Not so - the verb does not mean to sleep (dormir) and does not have an innocent meaning. So in my first French class, the only thing I was able to contribute to class was a verb that basically translates as 'to shag'.
Since that point its been assumed that I regularly use this verb, and every time verbs come up, coucher is repeated as 'max's verb'. This week we learned about meals, and the French teacher specifically pointed out that I might like to use the phrase 'would you like to have breakfast with me', which I am told can only be taken one way in France.
Language aside, its been an intense couple of weeks here. Think about how much work you would have had to do at uni if you actually had to read every assigned reading for every class. Then imagine you were doing a degree compressed into half its usual length (MBAs in most of the world take two years). It makes for very busy days. My days at law school were basically spent not learning a thing for 13 weeks of semester and then studying like a mad man for two weeks before exams. Here that is not an option, as the exams start as soon as classes finish, so you have to stay on top of things as you go.
Then there is the group work. All assignments here are done in a group - the international bunch that I mentioned in the last post. Groups, I have to admit, pose a new challenge. Most of you will know that admitting I am wrong, or even entertaining the notion, is not something that comes naturally to me. Yet my group seems strangely unconvinced that I am always right. Maybe they just need to spend more time with me ;-)
Finally some favourite quotes from some of my lecturers. I should mention that one thing about this place that shows is that it takes teaching very seriously. I remember well the many research focused professors at Sydney Uni that had very little interest in teaching, and did a very poor job of it. While research is a big thing here too, the lecturers are all very good, which makes a great change. But they are all European, and while they all speak near perfect English, they still manage to drop some great quotes to liven up their classes once in a while:
Economics lecturer, as his phone started ringing mid lecture: "Oh, its my mum" - hangs up the call. He laughs - "Doesn't matter, she is half dead anyway" Realising that the class is in shocked, awkward silence: "oh, I mean deaf, not dead"
Finance lecturer (with a thick German accent): "vot iz a cashflow?" - "vell, cash flow is ven it makes ring ring, ja?" (referring to an old till)
Same finance lecturer: "But vot iz the differenz betveen Bernie Madoff and Sarkozy? Madoff goes to jail for his ponzy scheme, ja, but ze french government continues, ja?"
On a totally unrelated note, and in a move of blatant cross promotion, INSEAD have asked us to help them publicize the official blog, where I am one of quite a few contributors. It's aimed at potential MBAs, so probably of more interest to some than to others, but here is the link:
http://the-insead-mba-experience.insead.edu/
Scroll down a few entries to find the last one by yours truly.
I've been trying to learn French for a month now, and progress is slow. The French still harbour a bit of a hope that their language can be seen as a world language, harking back to their glory days as the world's cultural leaders. I understand that desire, but I have to say that it might help if they made their language just a little bit less impenetrable to the outsider.
The basic problem with learning French is that somewhere along the line the French people seem to have lost that essential connection between the alphabet and the language, because there appears to be no true relationship between the letters on a page and the word that is spoken. The common theme is that the last syllable of a word just drops away, but not in any systematic way - just about two thirds of the time, and for no reason related to what those letters might be.
Then you get to French numbers. Up to 60, its ok, but after that it gets a little strange - to say seventy you say sixty ten. 75 is sixty fifteen. At 80 it gets better - four twenties. And if you want to get to 99, try four twenties nineteen. I suspect the reason the French are having so much trouble containing their budget deficits may be that, with such a number system, they just don't count all that well.
Trouble with the language has also led to me developing a somewhat inaccurate reputation in French class, to the great amusement of my teacher and class mates. In one of the first lessons we were asked whether we knew any french verbs. At that point the only french I knew was 'voulez vous couche avec moi', which I knew was not appropriate for a French class. However, I assumed I could use a literal translation, and 'coucher' would simply mean 'to sleep' - a perfectly innocent verb to contribute to the conversation in the right context. Not so - the verb does not mean to sleep (dormir) and does not have an innocent meaning. So in my first French class, the only thing I was able to contribute to class was a verb that basically translates as 'to shag'.
Since that point its been assumed that I regularly use this verb, and every time verbs come up, coucher is repeated as 'max's verb'. This week we learned about meals, and the French teacher specifically pointed out that I might like to use the phrase 'would you like to have breakfast with me', which I am told can only be taken one way in France.
Language aside, its been an intense couple of weeks here. Think about how much work you would have had to do at uni if you actually had to read every assigned reading for every class. Then imagine you were doing a degree compressed into half its usual length (MBAs in most of the world take two years). It makes for very busy days. My days at law school were basically spent not learning a thing for 13 weeks of semester and then studying like a mad man for two weeks before exams. Here that is not an option, as the exams start as soon as classes finish, so you have to stay on top of things as you go.
Then there is the group work. All assignments here are done in a group - the international bunch that I mentioned in the last post. Groups, I have to admit, pose a new challenge. Most of you will know that admitting I am wrong, or even entertaining the notion, is not something that comes naturally to me. Yet my group seems strangely unconvinced that I am always right. Maybe they just need to spend more time with me ;-)
Finally some favourite quotes from some of my lecturers. I should mention that one thing about this place that shows is that it takes teaching very seriously. I remember well the many research focused professors at Sydney Uni that had very little interest in teaching, and did a very poor job of it. While research is a big thing here too, the lecturers are all very good, which makes a great change. But they are all European, and while they all speak near perfect English, they still manage to drop some great quotes to liven up their classes once in a while:
Economics lecturer, as his phone started ringing mid lecture: "Oh, its my mum" - hangs up the call. He laughs - "Doesn't matter, she is half dead anyway" Realising that the class is in shocked, awkward silence: "oh, I mean deaf, not dead"
Finance lecturer (with a thick German accent): "vot iz a cashflow?" - "vell, cash flow is ven it makes ring ring, ja?" (referring to an old till)
Same finance lecturer: "But vot iz the differenz betveen Bernie Madoff and Sarkozy? Madoff goes to jail for his ponzy scheme, ja, but ze french government continues, ja?"
On a totally unrelated note, and in a move of blatant cross promotion, INSEAD have asked us to help them publicize the official blog, where I am one of quite a few contributors. It's aimed at potential MBAs, so probably of more interest to some than to others, but here is the link:
http://the-insead-mba-experience.insead.edu/
Scroll down a few entries to find the last one by yours truly.
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