Rugby and National Weeks

It has been over a month since my last post. An indication that things have been a little quiet on the western front recently? Quite the opposite, actually. It is one of the truisms of keeping a blog that the more time you spend doing things that might warrant a blog entry, the less time you have to actually write that entry.

The last month has been, by any measure, a genuinely intense time. The first set of exams came and went. Exams here start as soon as classes finish - so study time is limited to late nights and a single weekend. To an extent that actually reduces the stress they cause, because it is over quickly.

Exams were followed by the 'break' which was actually nothing more than a long weekend, from Thursday to Sunday. I spent the weekend visiting the other half in Oxford, which gave me an interesting chance to compare the two towns. Oxford certainly has Fonty beaten for pubs and going out opportunities, and probably edges the history stakes, with the Oxford Colleges offering something unique which the Fonty Chateau can't match. France is France though, and the 70 pounds we spent on crap sushi in Oxford reminded me that the French have a few things going for them too.

After the relative calm of the break the second period (P2) got underway - and its been hectic ever since. The academic workload has increased, but even more demanding has been the increase in social activities and the beginnings of the career hunt that accompanies an MBA.

In the midst of all this I must have been feeling a bit overwhelmed, or drunk (probably a combination of the two) because something convinced me to join, of all things, the undefeated INSEAD Rugby Club. I'd been asked by a lot of the players to come down and have a go, based on a misplaced assumption that being Australian somehow qualified me as a rugby player. While I have recounted the phantom try incident already, and can still say I wouldn't have fallen for that one, I'm afraid that beyond that I still can't contribute all that much to a rugby team. Presumably it was on realising this that they stuck me at fullback. Its been 15 years since I last played a competitive game of rugby union, and I can safely say that little has changed in that time. Playing on the outside of the back line (I used to be a winger) still involves more standing around and hoping than actual play, as the chances of the ball passing through four sets of hands without falling remain pretty low, and when you do get the ball, its still mainly a matter of running a few steps before someone pulls you to the ground and 10 overweight people come and step all over you in search of the ball. The only minor change in France is that all this happens at a very wet 2 degrees celsius.

The game may not have changed, but the post match rituals certainly have. We played a club team here a few weeks ago, and were all treated to the French version of post match beers. Being in France, the beer is supplemented by wine (as well as some guys rancid home brew) and the usual party pies and sausage rolls are replaced by baguettes, cheese and pate. Then, and this is not a typo, people start standing on chairs and singing about crocodiles. I haven't entirely mastered the ritual yet, because other than 'crocodile' and some numbers I don't understand any of the words, but the number of crocodiles increases over the course of the song, and with each increase, the number of people standing on chairs or tables also increases, until, eventually, 'tout crocodile' is the cue for everyone to be up on a chair. There are hand gestures all the way through, which make me think the song probably also involved an elephant and something else with a tail. A quick look at Youtube suggest 'Ah les Crocodiles' is popular with drunken social gatherings and pre school children alike. Here is one sample INSEAD's own favourite post rugby song, about a Chicago department store, does not have that sort of cross demographic appeal.

Outside of rugby, I managed to squeeze in two weekends away as well. Kate and I hit up Amsterdam, with all that Amsterdam entails. I always thought the Dutch were probably a bit like the Germans, but judging by the hour long wait associated with ordering any form of food or beverage, they take more closely after the French. It is a beautiful city though, even after you find out that the many canals also form the city's only sewage system.

Last weekend I went to London for a reunion. Before the blog there were group emails. If you happened to be one of the people whose inbox I cluttered up back in 2004 with much exaggerated tales of my intrepidness in travelling around South America, you might remember I spent some time teaching English in Peru. In London the Calca crew from 2004 had a reunion - for most of them it was the first time I'd seen them since my last day in Peru almost 7 years ago. I won't bore you with the details, but it was a great night, and fantastic to see them all again.

Finally, this week one of INSEAD's great traditions took place - National Week Bidding. Over the course of the year there are six national weeks, in which one nationality gets to take over the campus and stage events, dinners and parties relating to that culture. To decide which weeks take place there is an election process.

This year the candidates were: Russia and Eastern Europe, Latin America, Israel, Iberia, Canada, Dragon Week (China), Japan and Korea, Heart of Europe (Germany, Austria and Switzerland), USA and Italy. The multi nation combinations are common, and in fact a crucial tactical move. For smaller nations like Austria or Korea, it gives them a chance to get involved, as they probably wouldn't have the numbers to organise a week alone, while for others its crucial not to split your regional vote. Each person gets six votes, and most people want a mix of regions, so its important not to compete with a rival from your own region head on. This year for example Latin America combined and romped home in first place. The USA and Canada decided to run separate campaigns, and predictably, split the North American vote and found themselves both out of the running. I asked a Canadian about this and was told that it just couldn't happen because of the rivalry between the countries. Apparently Japan and Korea and Russia and Eastern Europe can all put aside a few centuries of warfare to cooperate, but the USA and Canada simply can't get past differences in opinion about the correct way to pronounce 'about'. Its a shame, because they both put on fantastic bids, with the US girls donning cheerleader outfits for the ocassion, and the Canadians offering everyone a Canadian passport.

Voting took place on Monday, but before the vote, everyone gets a chance to make their pitch. The afternoon starts with all the competing weeks setting up a stand in the bar to promote their plans. The tactics here are pretty simple - offer as much free alcohol as possible and try to convince everyone that your nation throws the best parties. A little bit of behind the scenes diplomacy doesn't go astray either. In scenes even FIFA would be proud of, there are plenty of blatant exchanges along the lines of 'I can get the Germans to vote for Canada if you can get the Canadians to vote for us'. Of course, in the end the ballot is secret, and the absence of a credible commitment mechanism (thank you Professor Bennedson) makes all the talk fairly meaningless.

Without an Australian bid I got involved in the Heart of Europe bid. It took a while to convince some people that I was in fact a German, because they had always seen me as the typical Australian struggling to stay awake in half the lectures. In fact, in one of the stranger coincidences of my life, we found the Heart of Europe stand was manned, for most of the afternoon by two Albrechts, one dressed in a German soccer uniform, the other in lederhosen, conversing in broad Australian accents. Yes, there is another Australian named Albrecht at INSEAD. For most of the afternoon my job was simply to hand out shots of jaegermeister and supervise rides on our star attraction, a life size cow. If that sounds odd, there are some photos on facebook that might explain it.

After the party each team gets to show an eight minute video. Here the tactics really are predictable. INSEAD is about 60% male, and it appears that teams have long since figured out that it is wise to target the largest group. Most of the videos spend considerable effort highlighting the beautiful women of their country. That strikes me as strange, because, regardless of which nations win, the people at each party will be the same - INSEAD students. Latin America simply will not be able to deliver Gisele Buendchen to Fonty, so her existence seems a poor reason to vote for them. You can't argue with success though - the only bid without significant emphasis on female beauties was the HoE bid (our only naked appearance came from a young Arnold Schwarzenegger), and we only scraped into sixth place, while the Russians stormed into second place on the back of (not literally) many blondes.

This weekend the action continues - I'm off to Val d'isere for the opening weekend of ski season, with 60 of my closest friends, then back to work for a few weeks before exams roll around again, then finally a christmas break. Right now it is 12.40am, probably snowing outside again (it did this morning) and I am about to go and find an online stream to watch Katich and Watson start to chase down the poms' poor total at the Gabba - thank you Peter Siddle (to most people at INSEAD, this sentence makes no sense, so I'm glad I can write it here and know that at least some people share my joy)