Music and Memories

I listen to music to remind myself of times gone by. Music is my way of recalling vivid memories of people, places and events. There's no logical algorithm that transforms the fundamental properties of a piece of music into a memory. It's just whatever happens to be playing in the background at the time. For example, Mendelssohn's Italian symphony does not remind me of Italy, but rather of sitting next to a fat guy in the economy section of a Boeing 747. Other examples include 'How Bizzare' by OMC which reminds me of my sister driving to Micky D's, Schubert's Rondo I associate with a German girl eating ice cream in Salzburg, 'Voi che sapete che cosa e amor' in Le Nozze de Figaro is paired with Dave cooking Greek lamb, 'Summer of '69' by Bryan Adams is filed in my brain with Slim jumping up and down in Singapore, and 'Girlfriend' by Avril Lavigne will forever be categorized with Molly singing and driving in France overlooking grapes and brownish scenary. My life should be an opera.

Stuck Drifting

Imagine you are trying to run on the moon. With each kick of your feet you only float upwards. You feel frustrated because while you are in the air, no matter how fast you move your legs, you go nowhere. You try to seize each sacred opportunity to move forward when you drift back down to the ground, but the harder you kick, the higher you get stuck.
I first had this dream during my senior year of high school after college decisions have been made. This dream re-occurred during my senior year of college after I had a job lined up and again a few months before starting my MBA. Last night, I had this dream again, but this time there are still decisions that need to be made. Although I seem to be leaning towards accepting an offer from McKinsey, there's a nagging voice inside telling me I should be pursuing a financial career. I'm getting desperate trying to find the source of this nagging so I can put it to rest once and for all.

Fontainebleau

With my summer internship in London over and a job offer in hand, I trek out to Fontainebleau for the last 4 months of my MBA. Life in a small town is slow and peaceful, yet I still seemed to have found myself in a high pressure situation. I arrived to a newly renovated mansion that is fully loaded...except for toilet paper. Typically, this is no big deal as I would make a visit to the nearest pharmacy, but strangely enough, the pharmacies here only sell pharmaceutical goods. Needless to say, the urgency of this missing toilet paper situation is becoming increasingly urgent with each passing meal.

London

Updates have been few and far between due mainly to two reasons, one, the lack of Internet, and two, the confidentiality of my work. All I can say is that I'm working at McKinsey, known internally only as 'The Firm'. Aside from work, it's good to be back in London despite the living conditions. The size of my flat is comparable to that of a peanut shell with a bathroom that's even smaller. Never have I been able to take a shower, clean my teeth and empty my bowel all at the same time. It's also been quite some time since I've had the joy of evacuating my building every couple of days due to burnt toast in the communal kitchens. Ah yes, the joy of dorm living.

Goodbye Singapore, Hello Again London

Six months have come and gone in the blink of an eye. As the 3rd term starts to wind down, I am packing my bags and saying temporary goodbyes to my classmates in Southeast Asia. The metamorphosis we have undertook in the INSEAD incubator will be put to the test when we return to the work force for the summer. I am eager to revisit my old stomping ground with new perspectives on strategy, leadership, and execution. Lookout London, here I come.

An experiment only possible at INSEAD

You can understand a lot about what a person is saying without actually understanding a single spoken word. In 'Social Psychology of Management' class today, we proved this with an experiment. The class broke up into pairs with each person paired with another who spoke a foreign language fluently. As one person told a story in their foreign language, the other person had to make out the emotions (e.g. frustrated, happy, angry, etc). Though identifying emotions was easier with some languages than with others, it was always possible to see what the person was feeling. In everyday conversations this seems harder probably because we are too distracted with the spoken words and not paying enough attention to the raw emotions.
For those who are curious, languages such as Russian and Finnish were harder to identify underlying emotions compared with Spanish, French, and Italian. No wonder they are called 'Romance' languages.

Bangkok

Bangkok is hot. And when I say 'hot', I don't mean 'bring your sunglasses and sunblock' hot, I mean 'strap an air-conditioner on your back' hot. I didn't see much of the city as I was busy seeking shelter every 5 minutes. After a couple of hours roaming around on what felt like the surface of the sun, I gave up on sight-seeing and went back to the hotel and settled for a Thai massage. I was stretched and twisted in ways I didn't know was possible. I was one relaxed and rejuvenated pretzel.

P3 Negotiations

One and a half weeks into P3 and I am completely blown away. The electives offered at INSEAD are the most mind-blowing electives I've ever taken. In negotiations class, our professor gave us an example of 'negotiating the non-negotiable'. Apparently, a former student walked into a convenience store and wanted to buy a box of condoms. They were sold in packs of 3. He said to the cashier, 'but I only want 1'; a request that most people would have dismissed as non-negotiable. After a few minutes of dialog, it was uncovered that the cashier needs 2 condoms. How that fact was uncovered (and why he needs '2') is unknown, but the student walked away with what he wanted. Next time I'm in a supermarket, I'm going to pick up an 8-pack of hot-dogs and a 10-pack of hot-dog buns and try to negotiate for only 8 buns.

Angkor Wat

Nestled in the jungles of Cambodia, the hidden temples of Angkor Wat are amazing. Weaving in and out of corridors, jumping from stone to stone, and climbing trees, I felt like a real life Tomb Raider seeking out hidden treasures and battling mystic creatures of the night.
At the airport during my departure, the immigration officer (dressed in military attire) took an eternity to review my documents. As he flipped between pages 12 and 13 of my passport carefully contemplating the pointless decision of where to stamp, I heard the final boarding announcement of my flight. I said, 'please hurry sir', but got no reaction from him. Thinking that he didn't hear me, I said again, 'please hurry, I'm going to miss my flight.' He looked up at me with angry eyes, threw my passport into the corner and said he was not going to let me through. For the briefest of moments, I thought I was stuck in Cambodia. As he stood up to display his non-existent authority, I saw that he realized at that point that he had nothing more to say and had nothing to do except stare at me with stubborn eyes. As we stood there eye-to-eye, his superior officer came. They conversed, he took my passport, stamped it and let me through. Phew.

My arms are tired!

6 finals later and not a moments time to breath, I finished P2 Monday evening. The next morning I sat at Changi airport waiting to board my delayed flight to London. The restrooms on board were flooded, an on-board feature that I suspect would be quite important on a 13 hour flight. 2 hours later as we sat on the runway awaiting our turn to takeoff, the timid pilot announced over the intercom that we had to return to the gate. The handy fix done by the engineer didn't hold and the restrooms were flooded again. As we disembarked to re-board a new plane, Singapore Airlines offered every passenger lunch. Apparently, the anger of a crowd can be tamed by overcoming our primal instincts to feed.

At 10pm I arrived at my hotel and went straight to bed. The next day, after my interview, I was back at Heathrow catching a flight back to Singapore. With my carry-on bag jammed to maximum capacity, I was forced to put my sandwich in my mouth as I walked through security. All said and done, I was on the plane for 31 of the past 48 hours and will get on another plane tomorrow morning.