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You are currently on the first leg of a plane flight to Taiwan; one of your elementary school friends is getting married in Taiwan. Unlike the overwhelming majority of American elementary school friends, somehow you and your Group of 5 are still a unit even after scattering around the world; you were told this happened because you are a sentimental guy. Who knew?
Anyway, your first leg is a red-eye from Oz to KL; the time is somewhere between 12:00AM to 2AM, depending on how many time zones you have crossed. You are too groggy and disoriented to realize you may have actually gone backward in time; the only reason you are even aware of this is that you were awoken by the nice Malaysian waitress who offered you tea. Maybe she is part English. In England, it is probably tea time. Of course, you are time-traveling over Australia and are very far away from England.
Unfortunately your airline believes that time traveling is a genteel experience that can only be truly appreciated with a cup of tea, and the cabin lights stay on as the tea is being served. You cannot sleep with light, so you time travel, in your mind, back to first term.
The following is a recap, intended as a resource for the new January intake. You remember the anxiety your class felt in September; you hope the following information will relieve some of the January intake’s anxiety that you witnessed firsthand during an interview panel. It is not a how-to guide; it is simply a broad-brush recollection of some of your takeaways after your first term in Oz.
Life in Oz
The most striking recollection you felt about school is your Australian experience… this exposure taught you that you want to stay here post-graduation, at least until you can build your career. Learning about the Australian culture was rewarding and fun, as one of your favourite pastimes is learning new ways of thinking. Oz is different enough to be exciting but close enough to share common ground with the US; this happy medium let you function while concentrating the bulk of your mental energy on excelling at the Melbourne Business School.
Academics
The academic experience was much more consuming than you thought it would be, given the tales you heard from your friends 'studying' at American B-schools. Here at MBS, your grades determine your likelihood of getting interviews from the strategy consulting firms, so your specific target was the grades to guarantee you interviews. You worked long hours to reach that goal. Additionally, you took a 20 hour / week part-time job at a boutique consulting firm to make sure that you want to work in strategy consulting (you do), and this combination of responsibilities left you almost no free time for entire months at a time.
In retrospect, the choices you made were good ones given the information available. You are writing this blog to offer additional information in case a new student has similar decisions to make.
Life as a student
The lifestyle was not as much of an adjustment as you feared, mostly because you really enjoy the flexibility student life affords. Here at MBS, you basically have unlimited work and unlimited time to do it in; you rarely left the B-school mindset because you thrive in these kinds of environments. That being said, you found the breadth of the material daunting, enough to prevent you from truly mastering all the material that was taught during the term. That is not because you are stupid… there is a lot you simply wanted to learn, and your classes, for the most part, emphasized breadth rather than depth.
Internationalism
Melbourne Business School’s student body is extremely international without a clear cultural majority. This leads to many, many different cultural norms while working in groups and interacting with each other; even syndicate ground rules vary exponentially between groups with different racial mixes. During the course of the term, you learned tolerance and acceptance in a way that very few others would even attempt to understand, and you are a better person for it.
Feedback
Melbourne Business School taught you the value of accurate feedback; during the first six to eight weeks of term, before your tests, you had no reliable way of measuring your performance amongst your peers. But this did not stop a noteworthy minority of your classmates from trying. You learned from this; in the end, those who performed the best were generally the ones most concerned with learning, not necessarily the ones who had the most correct answers. However, for those first six to eight weeks, those with the answers generally managed to convince the others that they were smart, mostly because they believed it themselves. In this way, you learned that confidence can be as important as ability.
Living in the small pond
Melbourne Business School is a very small school, and in the Aussie tradition, the hierarchy is relatively soft. The school takes care of its students and listens to what you have to say -- during the course of the semester, several abnormal requests were granted without hesitation. In fact, every abnormal request you have heard of from your classmates has been granted, though you do not know the final outcome of the most abnormal request of them all, which occurred after your last final exam. But even if that outcome did not materialize, it is readily apparent that Melbourne Business School goes out of its way to take care of its student body.
In summary, MBS’ first term was an excellent experience, and nothing worth being anxious about. Certainly it was academically difficult, but that was mostly because you are pursuing strategy consulting. At the same time, you learned a great deal and met some truly exceptional people.
Next term, you will still be pursuing strategy consulting, and while your impending case interviews may threaten to negatively affect your stress and well-being, you are determined to be more confident and less anxious about the experience.
^_^
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
College Interview
You found this past week busy. Very busy. And as too often happens in your life, the busier you are, the less often you can take steps back to think. And reminisce. And think about how and why your life fits together with such cohesion. This thinking is important because you want to grow; you are deathly afraid of being 28 years old for the rest of your life. Most people your age are scared of getting old, but you… you are looking forward to the day your skin crackles, because every pang of arthritis means another bit of knowledge gained. Eventually, you will lose your hearing, and eventually you will be smart. For some reason, these two things are related. You believe this, you feel it, and you know it in your heart… but you realize you still have a very long way to go, especially when it comes to arthritis.
And even more so when it comes to interviews.
For the past number of years, you have been interviewing high school applicants for your collegiate alma mater. You did this in Hawaii, in Seoul, and now in Melbourne… and though it is absolutely depressing, this has been the biggest constant in your life for the past five years. But, you enjoy it. You fundamentally enjoy conducting these interviews. Mostly because you still feel a misplaced sense of duty, or perhaps because you want to believe that you are still as charming as you once were. You like almost all the kids you interview, mostly because they are so optimistic about their very uncertain future.
You are not optimistic. At least, you are not as blindly optimistic as you were when you were 18. Though you still consider yourself quite young and inexperienced, you’ve been exposed to enough failure to shake your previously unwavering faith in cosmic equality; you no longer believe that everything works out for the best. Now, you believe that mistakes are inevitable, and if you can learn from these mistakes and don’t close too many doors while making them, only then will you become a better and more effective person. Only then will you grow. For some reason, growth is very important to you. Certainly more important than arthritis.
So, with some amusement, you recount the story of Saturday, of your interviews with two hopeful members of Penn’s class of 2013. In Korea, you got in the habit of conducting multiple interviews during the course of the day, mostly because you had so many interviews and such limited time. For most, you were the foreign Coffee Bean guy, at lunchtime, you took your interviews to lunch and became the foreign guy who ate foreign food. You are comfortable with both of these labels; it is exciting and cool to be foreign in Korea. There, it is rather rare. Here, it is not rare. In fact, is it common. Everyone in Oz is from somewhere else, even the Aussies identify with their country of ethnicity. They are German-Australian or Italian-Australian, or even New Zealanders, even though their ancestors have lived here for the past 150 years. Your unsmart American mind still can not wrap its head around this.
No matter. In Australia, you decided to become the chocolate guy – after all, there is a decent coffee and chocolate shop next to a nearby landmark (a clock! you are never late for these interviews), and everyone likes chocolate. You always thought high schoolers were too young to be drinking coffee anyway. At least in Oz. In Korea, they’ve probably been drinking coffee their whole lives in order to stay awake during their 18-hour English memorization sessions. But not in Oz. So here, you meet at the chocolate shop instead of the coffeeshop. This past weekend, you had multiple interviews, and so you went there multiple times.
Somehow, one of your interviews had ESP. This is good, because it counters another interview you had who could multiply three digit numbers in her head, in seconds. In this age of calculators, you are not sure how this skill will ever come in handy, but still you admit that this multiplication mastery is extremely impressive.
You are, after all, spending lots of time trying to learn the same proficiency for your upcoming consulting interviews.
But you are not trying to master ESP. This, you think, will remain beyond you for quite some time, even if you spent hours a day trying to learn the secrets of the cosmic universe. But it was not beyond your interview. When you walked into your chocolate shop, she suddenly blurted, ‘Weren’t you here this morning?’ It was slightly accusatory. Somehow, you had done something wrong. You had betrayed her, you who secretly wish you had arthritis.
“Actually I was,” you replied, surprised at both her question and tone. “I like this place. Why do you ask?”
Of course you liked the place. Why else would you take her there? Why else would this become your interview place of choice? But no matter.
“I’m friends with -----” she replied, mentioning the name of an interview you had completed earlier in the day. “She told me about the interview.”
“She’s a nice girl,” you improvised. It wasn’t that much of an improvisation; she really was a nice girl. “I learned a lot from her. For instance, what do you think about…?”
And so it began. Without being able to ask the behavioural questions you’d prepared, you improvised a few good ones before following up with every single thing she said, which still managed to give you a good sense of who she was and what she was doing. You both found the experience rewarding.
And you learned to prepare backup questions, or at least, to not ask every single one of your softball questions to every single interview candidate.
This is only the second meaningful lesson you have learned in the new year. But at least on Saturday, whatever hair that fell off your head will not have gone in vain.
^_^
And even more so when it comes to interviews.
For the past number of years, you have been interviewing high school applicants for your collegiate alma mater. You did this in Hawaii, in Seoul, and now in Melbourne… and though it is absolutely depressing, this has been the biggest constant in your life for the past five years. But, you enjoy it. You fundamentally enjoy conducting these interviews. Mostly because you still feel a misplaced sense of duty, or perhaps because you want to believe that you are still as charming as you once were. You like almost all the kids you interview, mostly because they are so optimistic about their very uncertain future.
You are not optimistic. At least, you are not as blindly optimistic as you were when you were 18. Though you still consider yourself quite young and inexperienced, you’ve been exposed to enough failure to shake your previously unwavering faith in cosmic equality; you no longer believe that everything works out for the best. Now, you believe that mistakes are inevitable, and if you can learn from these mistakes and don’t close too many doors while making them, only then will you become a better and more effective person. Only then will you grow. For some reason, growth is very important to you. Certainly more important than arthritis.
So, with some amusement, you recount the story of Saturday, of your interviews with two hopeful members of Penn’s class of 2013. In Korea, you got in the habit of conducting multiple interviews during the course of the day, mostly because you had so many interviews and such limited time. For most, you were the foreign Coffee Bean guy, at lunchtime, you took your interviews to lunch and became the foreign guy who ate foreign food. You are comfortable with both of these labels; it is exciting and cool to be foreign in Korea. There, it is rather rare. Here, it is not rare. In fact, is it common. Everyone in Oz is from somewhere else, even the Aussies identify with their country of ethnicity. They are German-Australian or Italian-Australian, or even New Zealanders, even though their ancestors have lived here for the past 150 years. Your unsmart American mind still can not wrap its head around this.
No matter. In Australia, you decided to become the chocolate guy – after all, there is a decent coffee and chocolate shop next to a nearby landmark (a clock! you are never late for these interviews), and everyone likes chocolate. You always thought high schoolers were too young to be drinking coffee anyway. At least in Oz. In Korea, they’ve probably been drinking coffee their whole lives in order to stay awake during their 18-hour English memorization sessions. But not in Oz. So here, you meet at the chocolate shop instead of the coffeeshop. This past weekend, you had multiple interviews, and so you went there multiple times.
Somehow, one of your interviews had ESP. This is good, because it counters another interview you had who could multiply three digit numbers in her head, in seconds. In this age of calculators, you are not sure how this skill will ever come in handy, but still you admit that this multiplication mastery is extremely impressive.
You are, after all, spending lots of time trying to learn the same proficiency for your upcoming consulting interviews.
But you are not trying to master ESP. This, you think, will remain beyond you for quite some time, even if you spent hours a day trying to learn the secrets of the cosmic universe. But it was not beyond your interview. When you walked into your chocolate shop, she suddenly blurted, ‘Weren’t you here this morning?’ It was slightly accusatory. Somehow, you had done something wrong. You had betrayed her, you who secretly wish you had arthritis.
“Actually I was,” you replied, surprised at both her question and tone. “I like this place. Why do you ask?”
Of course you liked the place. Why else would you take her there? Why else would this become your interview place of choice? But no matter.
“I’m friends with -----” she replied, mentioning the name of an interview you had completed earlier in the day. “She told me about the interview.”
“She’s a nice girl,” you improvised. It wasn’t that much of an improvisation; she really was a nice girl. “I learned a lot from her. For instance, what do you think about…?”
And so it began. Without being able to ask the behavioural questions you’d prepared, you improvised a few good ones before following up with every single thing she said, which still managed to give you a good sense of who she was and what she was doing. You both found the experience rewarding.
And you learned to prepare backup questions, or at least, to not ask every single one of your softball questions to every single interview candidate.
This is only the second meaningful lesson you have learned in the new year. But at least on Saturday, whatever hair that fell off your head will not have gone in vain.
^_^
Monday, January 12, 2009
high school reunion pt 2 -- the chance meeting
*this entry meant to be read directly after high school reunion part I
But this would not be a high school reunion, though… without a high school friend, right?
Enter high school friend.
The summer night was comfortably warm and dry; ideal weather to walk fifteen minutes in heels, if such a thing exists. The NYU group spent the time gazing wondrously at Melbourne’s spacious streets, or perhaps blankly and blearily jet-lagged from the LA to Melbourne flight. They needed to be dazzled; they needed their flight across the world to count for something. Something they could tell their families about, the experience that would make it all worthwhile. Really, you are not so different.
You saw him innocently enough, as you ushered in the second end of the group. Of course the group had separated; true New Yorkers are in a hurry, even in Australia.
But there he was. You hadn’t seen each other in 10 years. He looked the same, asian features and easy smile still as warm as you remembered them. He said you looked the same too; your edge and balding frame had gone unnoticed when compared to the shock of time. Was it really 10 years?
Yes. This chance meeting left you stunned. You checked out, effortlessly carrying an unremembered conversation with him and his classmates; it would be a stretch to call them friends as most had just met on the airplane. Just like it would be a stretch to call you friends; you hadn’t talked to each other in over ten years. Sure, you were friends then; you had been in the same Singing Group, you had both been actors in the high school musicals. More than that, you got along well, your closeness was relative, and your acquaintances had significant overlap. But this was before college and responsibility. You were living far simpler lives as broke boarding-school students; your greatest luxury was splitting a dorm-provided large pizza while sipping freshly mixed Nestea powder. For true indulgence, you ate forty cent Ramen noodle cups. Sometimes you even used proper cutlery.
That was who you were. This is who you were. And if you had chosen differently and decided to attend any of the other American Business Schools, this is who you would be. The non-stop meet and greets, the intimate conversations with strangers. The name games; the random list of acquaintances you knew who attended each others’ universities. The common mastery of the very peculiar Ivy-League society. You had forgotten how incestuous and unintentionally intimidating the whole thing was; you had forgotten how comforting that interconnectedness and understanding could truly be. You had never realized it was not the world until you left it.
But it was home, it was safe; everyone here was a friend of a friend. Maybe that too is a stretch, but you believed it at one point. Just like you believed that life came around; that the Power of Karma was greater than the Power of Inertia.
Now, you have seen too much, and you are not so sure. But you are sure that while you may miss that life, the world is bigger than that, now.
But it still feels nice to go back to what it was, at least for a night.
^_^
But this would not be a high school reunion, though… without a high school friend, right?
Enter high school friend.
The summer night was comfortably warm and dry; ideal weather to walk fifteen minutes in heels, if such a thing exists. The NYU group spent the time gazing wondrously at Melbourne’s spacious streets, or perhaps blankly and blearily jet-lagged from the LA to Melbourne flight. They needed to be dazzled; they needed their flight across the world to count for something. Something they could tell their families about, the experience that would make it all worthwhile. Really, you are not so different.
You saw him innocently enough, as you ushered in the second end of the group. Of course the group had separated; true New Yorkers are in a hurry, even in Australia.
But there he was. You hadn’t seen each other in 10 years. He looked the same, asian features and easy smile still as warm as you remembered them. He said you looked the same too; your edge and balding frame had gone unnoticed when compared to the shock of time. Was it really 10 years?
Yes. This chance meeting left you stunned. You checked out, effortlessly carrying an unremembered conversation with him and his classmates; it would be a stretch to call them friends as most had just met on the airplane. Just like it would be a stretch to call you friends; you hadn’t talked to each other in over ten years. Sure, you were friends then; you had been in the same Singing Group, you had both been actors in the high school musicals. More than that, you got along well, your closeness was relative, and your acquaintances had significant overlap. But this was before college and responsibility. You were living far simpler lives as broke boarding-school students; your greatest luxury was splitting a dorm-provided large pizza while sipping freshly mixed Nestea powder. For true indulgence, you ate forty cent Ramen noodle cups. Sometimes you even used proper cutlery.
That was who you were. This is who you were. And if you had chosen differently and decided to attend any of the other American Business Schools, this is who you would be. The non-stop meet and greets, the intimate conversations with strangers. The name games; the random list of acquaintances you knew who attended each others’ universities. The common mastery of the very peculiar Ivy-League society. You had forgotten how incestuous and unintentionally intimidating the whole thing was; you had forgotten how comforting that interconnectedness and understanding could truly be. You had never realized it was not the world until you left it.
But it was home, it was safe; everyone here was a friend of a friend. Maybe that too is a stretch, but you believed it at one point. Just like you believed that life came around; that the Power of Karma was greater than the Power of Inertia.
Now, you have seen too much, and you are not so sure. But you are sure that while you may miss that life, the world is bigger than that, now.
But it still feels nice to go back to what it was, at least for a night.
^_^
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
About You (video)
Above is the video you helped create for the Melbourne Business School. Actually, you did not help that much, but you provided the material.
You were, after all, the principal actor. And you were terrible.
You were so terrible, in fact, that the camera crew finally gave up and resorted to following you around, for roughly two weeks, during midterm season.
Perhaps, however, Tribal DDB had originally planned to follow you around. At least, that is what they told you during the 100th take of you sitting on your couch, trying to remember the things you liked most about Melbourne. In the end, you gave up. And they gave up, as the very loose script you both had come up with flew out your figurative sixth story window.
All of the footage, therefore, was completely unscripted… except for the voice-over, which was written by you beforehand, taking about 10-15 minutes before being edited by this absolutely amazing company, with an amazing young man named Cameron Peirce doing the bulk of the filming, editing, and video work. His vimeo profile (not very updated yet) is available here.
You really like the video, especially the part at 2:00, where you clink glasses with Henry before he watches you drink. Drinking buddy indeed. You will never let him live that one down.
There is, however, one major omission from the video... for whatever reason, none of your material about Korea made it into the final cut, except for a passing remark about the pollution. How terrible is that? As mentioned many times, you loved many things about Korea and a significant piece of your heart is still there. You specifically mention this because your friends in Korea need to know you love them even if they were unfortunately cut out of this 3 minute spread video spread.
^_^
P.S. You hope your readers click on Sin's video at the conclusion of yours; that girl is awesome, and has the most fun voice you have ever heard. :)
Monday, January 5, 2009
high school reunion pt 1 -- meeting the American MBAs
When you first decided to move to Oz, you decided to not go back to the US. Your sticking point was not the society, the weather, the cost of living, or the future career opportunities. It was the people. Over 300 million people currently live in the United States, this 300 million includes almost every single significant friend you have ever made in your life prior to your two years in Korea. Your choice to make your home in a place not called Korea or the US is a Big Deal; while you know you will keep in touch with many, you also know that you will never actually be present in person for their lives, and, from Oz, you will not be able to truly share the important things… only follow along from a distance. As they are doing with you, through this blog.
You have many friends in the States, as you have many friends in Korea. You care about them a great deal. And as new and exciting as Oz is, and as good a fit as it is for you, you wish you could move everyone you care about to this wonderful place, this paradise. But you cannot. And since Melbourne is so geographically far from Korea and the US, you have all but given up unplanned face-to-face meetings with anyone from your past, a past that you adore, one that includes some of the best memories and some of the most internally beautiful people anyone could ever be fortunate enough to meet.
Until yesterday.
Yesterday, about 40 NYU-Stern MBA students came to Melbourne Business School as part of a ‘global-business’ something. At first, you are surprised that they picked Melbourne... but you quickly understood because they are studying business in New York. To many New Yorkers, global awareness is taking a flight down to Miami and speaking broken Spanish to the McDonalds cashier… a cultural adjustment means moving to San Francisco and adjusting to the non-angriness while waiting in an amorphous line for overpriced Starbucks. You are sure that at least a significant minority of these New York Visitors have never left their homeland prior to this trip, you are also sure that the vast majority will never work anywhere besides the DCs and Chicagos of the US, which seem insignificant when compared to the Bangkoks and Shanghais of the world. You are sure because, for roughly the last two years, you have been a New Yorker.
No longer. For the next two weeks, you are from New Jersey.
Yesterday, you attended an MBS-sponsored dinner with these NYU-Stern people; the people that made the opposite choice you did and are currently living the alterlife you chose to reject. In true alterlife fashion, each one of them asked the question that you have been at peace with since the beginning; this peace lets you know that you did, in fact, choose the correct continent; at least, a more correct continent than the one you were born in. This, you are sure of.
In the span of 15 minutes, you met more people from Jersey than you had met in the past 5 years combined; people who not only knew that Jersey was a state, but also knew exactly where you were born based the Mental Map of all true locals, much like the Seoul subway map that will be engraved on the back of your eyeballs for the rest of your life. Your Gwanghuamun and Gangnam is their Cherry Hill and Paramus; your transfer at Sadang Station is their, your, exit 8a on the Turnpike. But they will almost definitely never see Gwanghuamun or Gangnam or even Itaewon. Because they will never work abroad.
It is then you realize that you are not, can never be, one of them. You have grown too much, your path unique and impossible to follow. You are a traveller, a citizen of too many places to list. Your heart is still in Hawaii, in Seoul, in your university, in your New Jersey boarding school, in a thousand other people you may never see again.
You are not sure you could get it back even if you wanted to. You are sure that part of it belongs somewhere else. In your own alterlife, perhaps, with the possibilities and people you’ve left behind.
Their heart, on the other hand, is where it has always been, where it will always be. With them.
^_^
You have many friends in the States, as you have many friends in Korea. You care about them a great deal. And as new and exciting as Oz is, and as good a fit as it is for you, you wish you could move everyone you care about to this wonderful place, this paradise. But you cannot. And since Melbourne is so geographically far from Korea and the US, you have all but given up unplanned face-to-face meetings with anyone from your past, a past that you adore, one that includes some of the best memories and some of the most internally beautiful people anyone could ever be fortunate enough to meet.
Until yesterday.
Yesterday, about 40 NYU-Stern MBA students came to Melbourne Business School as part of a ‘global-business’ something. At first, you are surprised that they picked Melbourne... but you quickly understood because they are studying business in New York. To many New Yorkers, global awareness is taking a flight down to Miami and speaking broken Spanish to the McDonalds cashier… a cultural adjustment means moving to San Francisco and adjusting to the non-angriness while waiting in an amorphous line for overpriced Starbucks. You are sure that at least a significant minority of these New York Visitors have never left their homeland prior to this trip, you are also sure that the vast majority will never work anywhere besides the DCs and Chicagos of the US, which seem insignificant when compared to the Bangkoks and Shanghais of the world. You are sure because, for roughly the last two years, you have been a New Yorker.
No longer. For the next two weeks, you are from New Jersey.
Yesterday, you attended an MBS-sponsored dinner with these NYU-Stern people; the people that made the opposite choice you did and are currently living the alterlife you chose to reject. In true alterlife fashion, each one of them asked the question that you have been at peace with since the beginning; this peace lets you know that you did, in fact, choose the correct continent; at least, a more correct continent than the one you were born in. This, you are sure of.
In the span of 15 minutes, you met more people from Jersey than you had met in the past 5 years combined; people who not only knew that Jersey was a state, but also knew exactly where you were born based the Mental Map of all true locals, much like the Seoul subway map that will be engraved on the back of your eyeballs for the rest of your life. Your Gwanghuamun and Gangnam is their Cherry Hill and Paramus; your transfer at Sadang Station is their, your, exit 8a on the Turnpike. But they will almost definitely never see Gwanghuamun or Gangnam or even Itaewon. Because they will never work abroad.
It is then you realize that you are not, can never be, one of them. You have grown too much, your path unique and impossible to follow. You are a traveller, a citizen of too many places to list. Your heart is still in Hawaii, in Seoul, in your university, in your New Jersey boarding school, in a thousand other people you may never see again.
You are not sure you could get it back even if you wanted to. You are sure that part of it belongs somewhere else. In your own alterlife, perhaps, with the possibilities and people you’ve left behind.
Their heart, on the other hand, is where it has always been, where it will always be. With them.
^_^
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year!
Marty Kihn replied to your e-mail. He is not a jerk. Quite the contrary, his e-mail is engaging, and based on this limited interaction, you like him; he has a sense of humor about him, and he does not take himself too seriously. Incredibly, he says that everything he wrote about in ‘House of Lies’ actually happened. Though this is somewhat ludicrous, you believe him. After all, he is not trying to sell you anything. Not even his books, both of which you have already purchased. As previously mentioned, you read House of Lies many, many times. Despite this, you still want to pursue a job in management consulting; it sounds interesting despite the negatives. This is a good thing, because now, you are going in with your eyes open.
You do not want to be a management consultant because you want to travel; on the contrary, it seems management consultants travel without actually venturing outside the commute between the client and the hotel room. You want to be a management consultant because you know you will find the work interesting. So you are spending part of your day studying case interviews in hopes of landing an internship. With the global economy in danger of exploding, you do not know whether consulting firms will hire anyone, but if your target firm hires a first-year MBA student, you are determined that your target firm will hire you.
You are also spending part of your day cooking; you just purchased 'the cook’s companion,’ by Stephanie Alexander, which was recommended to you by a friend who cooks quite often. According to your friend, this book is the definitive Aussie cooking bible. The main benefit of using this book, he says, other than its overall quality, is that every single ingredient listed in its recipes can be easily found in Australia. This is important, because Australians have their own way of doing everything. When your friend mentioned this, you had a brief mental image of your newfound favourite juice, one that you have been drinking for over three months --
You still do not know what a blackcurrant is. You think it tastes like a raspberry. According to Wikipedia, it looks somewhat like a blueberry and is rich in nutrients. Apparently, some people add it to Guinness to improve the taste. This, you think, may be necessary. You do not drink Guinness; it reminds you of one of your old bosses, who believed in utterly and blindly trusting authority. He drank only Guinness.
You do not think Guinness tastes bad. In fact, perhaps it is good, especially with added blackcurrant. But though you like your old boss, you never drink Guinness in a misguided protest to his fundamentally flawed ideals. You think this reason is the opposite of why people drink Coca-Cola; you think people drink Coke because it reminds them of happy occasions, while Guinness reminds you of the bad parts of the military hierarchy. In contrast, Aldi's apple & blackcurrant juice reminds you of Moving To Oz. Five months later, this is still exciting.
The reason you bought this juice in the first place was that you wanted to try something Aussie, and you thought it might taste like grape juice. It did not, but in many ways, it was better. Now, you think you will miss it if you ever leave Oz, much like you miss Philadelphia Cheesesteaks, Samgyapsal, and the $3 Turkish kebab stand in Itaewon, which, despite the price, was consistently the best kebab you have ever had.
Most of the ingredients listed in the cook’s companion are ingredients you have never heard of. Likely they are commonplace in Oz. You are excited about this, and you will cook something new for dinner tonight.
You know it is the New Year, which represents a new beginning and a fresh start. You cannot think of a better way to celebrate it than what you are doing now, in Oz.
^_^
Marty Kihn replied to your e-mail. He is not a jerk. Quite the contrary, his e-mail is engaging, and based on this limited interaction, you like him; he has a sense of humor about him, and he does not take himself too seriously. Incredibly, he says that everything he wrote about in ‘House of Lies’ actually happened. Though this is somewhat ludicrous, you believe him. After all, he is not trying to sell you anything. Not even his books, both of which you have already purchased. As previously mentioned, you read House of Lies many, many times. Despite this, you still want to pursue a job in management consulting; it sounds interesting despite the negatives. This is a good thing, because now, you are going in with your eyes open.
You do not want to be a management consultant because you want to travel; on the contrary, it seems management consultants travel without actually venturing outside the commute between the client and the hotel room. You want to be a management consultant because you know you will find the work interesting. So you are spending part of your day studying case interviews in hopes of landing an internship. With the global economy in danger of exploding, you do not know whether consulting firms will hire anyone, but if your target firm hires a first-year MBA student, you are determined that your target firm will hire you.
You are also spending part of your day cooking; you just purchased 'the cook’s companion,’ by Stephanie Alexander, which was recommended to you by a friend who cooks quite often. According to your friend, this book is the definitive Aussie cooking bible. The main benefit of using this book, he says, other than its overall quality, is that every single ingredient listed in its recipes can be easily found in Australia. This is important, because Australians have their own way of doing everything. When your friend mentioned this, you had a brief mental image of your newfound favourite juice, one that you have been drinking for over three months --
You still do not know what a blackcurrant is. You think it tastes like a raspberry. According to Wikipedia, it looks somewhat like a blueberry and is rich in nutrients. Apparently, some people add it to Guinness to improve the taste. This, you think, may be necessary. You do not drink Guinness; it reminds you of one of your old bosses, who believed in utterly and blindly trusting authority. He drank only Guinness.
You do not think Guinness tastes bad. In fact, perhaps it is good, especially with added blackcurrant. But though you like your old boss, you never drink Guinness in a misguided protest to his fundamentally flawed ideals. You think this reason is the opposite of why people drink Coca-Cola; you think people drink Coke because it reminds them of happy occasions, while Guinness reminds you of the bad parts of the military hierarchy. In contrast, Aldi's apple & blackcurrant juice reminds you of Moving To Oz. Five months later, this is still exciting.
The reason you bought this juice in the first place was that you wanted to try something Aussie, and you thought it might taste like grape juice. It did not, but in many ways, it was better. Now, you think you will miss it if you ever leave Oz, much like you miss Philadelphia Cheesesteaks, Samgyapsal, and the $3 Turkish kebab stand in Itaewon, which, despite the price, was consistently the best kebab you have ever had.
Most of the ingredients listed in the cook’s companion are ingredients you have never heard of. Likely they are commonplace in Oz. You are excited about this, and you will cook something new for dinner tonight.
You know it is the New Year, which represents a new beginning and a fresh start. You cannot think of a better way to celebrate it than what you are doing now, in Oz.
^_^
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