the mystic MBA

the recent weeks have been plagued with scandals. this country basically eats scandals for breakfast. and im sick of it.
B-school on the other hand is too fast.. or perhaps i'm getting slower. too many deadlines have gone by and i've forgotten about this blog. anyways, im looking forward to our one week break next week. i'm doing my walkabout trip to Banahaw... yes its pushing through. i've contacted someone to guide me through the mountain covertly. but i'm going there alone. im not sharing the risk of going there. furthermore, from a project management perspective, everything falls into place. from the setbacks to the opportunities, the consequences and risk factor... that's why i must go... and find the mystic in me. there are reports of NPA activity though. That doesn't really concern me as a civilian. there are lots of people from the University of the Philippines who have gone to the mountains in protest of the government. And these are people who have first-class college education. I am not an enemy thus I do not feel any conflict with them or with any of their beliefs. I'm still trying to clear the plans with the contact... so for now, they are but plans....

the long weekend

i'll be going back to my hometown Iligan City with my gf and little boy in tow. we are gonna surprise my mother on her birthday with her twin. it will be a good time to relax a bit from B-school. just a bit. i am bringing with me 7 cases for next week's class. and about next week, i have 3 major exams :-( hopefully the trip will freshen me up a little, and clear my mind of the pressures in B-school. perhaps it would be a good time to reflect. i'm fond of climbing our rooftop during midnight and gazing at the stars, wondering about life and anything.
i chatted with my high school friends on yahoo messenger yesterday and i do hope we could meet back home. i am paying my debts to my goddaughter whom i haven't seen in 4 years. she's into ballet and her mom says she like girly stuff like barbie and necklaces. i bought her fairy wings from SM that could complement her ballet outfit plus a necklace.
i just got my backpay from Siemens. i'm more than happy with the amount considering what i've done for 19 months on the operations floor. i'm thinking of getting a Palm treo 650 although i'm having second thoughts since there have been complaints about the 650's operating system crashing from time to time. i'm happy with my hand-me-down p910i phone but there is not much free applications that can be used with the p910i. plus the casing is expensive! and if i do sell it at a second hand place, still the casing is more expensive than the price i can sell it at. the treo 650 though is a far better phone as regards to functionality, given the multitude of freeware from Palm. i do miss my old m500. it was a workhorse. i'm keeping my eyes open for a good treo bargain by december. most of the people in mapalad.com, i think, are going for the iphone or the p990 for the WIFI capability. the treo 680 is pretty expensive but its not much of a leap from the treo 650. the iphone is a revolutionary phone, kinda like my p910i without the flip; but i find it too expensive especially that its not yet 3G capable.
we had our batch Operations Management game today. we were tasked to create a device wherein we can put in an egg and drop it from the 3rd floor, without breaking/cracking the egg. our team's 3 design were lemons. we discounted the idea of a parachute to dampen the free fall. we went for other ideas which were good actually but needed more design testing. the main drawback was we spent too much on materials and took too long, plus our product did not work. also, our group isn't really up to speed communication-wise and we're a bit of lagging in terms of cohesiveness.

the calm after the storm

after 10 weeks of B-school, i was able to sleep at 11pm yesterday. the Financial Management exam was finished and we had a day of lecture before another quiz in Quantitative Analysis tomorrow. it was so far one of my best sleep. i woke up around 6 am very fresh but tired of the prospect of the next few days before the weekend. luckily for us in the 16-month MBA, the faculty seems to have seen the burnout from our batch. they kinda loosened a bit of the schedule and postponed some stuff for us. it really was a bit too much... to many numbers flying around, with very little time to research your data. we were missing classes either to catch up on sleep or to study. and if we were in class, we were half-asleep or we haven't read anything. one batchmate told me he hasn't been reading any cases recently, just studying for the exams. although it seems strategic, it undermines the case method which is the same one used in the top B-schools like Stanford U. this makes me question the 16-month program. is AIM really ready for the 16-month program? or are we just labs rats? and so i relax for a few hours, so i may study again for statistics!
BTW, an MBA survey by Beyond the Grey Pinstripes (yeah such a long name), ranked AIM as 42 overall in the world. And guess what? INSEAD and Thunderbird, trail after AIM! Check it out at http://www.beyondgreypinstripes.org.