Au Revoir

Au Revoir

It's good-bye Chicago! Tomorrow is my last exam (Operations -- God, I hope I pass) and only a few hours later I'm catching my flight out to India. The car's been shipped, as have most of my meager possessions. What's left will fill two suitcases, or be discarded.

Does it feel strange to be leaving? Not really. Personally, I can't wait to get out of here, and get on with life. Job, money, wife (not in that order) await. Not to mention, of course, Singapore and the promise of some much deserved (?!) travel.

So, to all my friends at the GSB: au revoir. As for everyone else, I think I'm going to call an end to diphThong.

Cheers!

New York state of mind

New York state of mind

The 10 day vacation in Philly is over. Finals are approaching. This week is the last of my classes at Chicago. Yeah, it's exciting! I leave for India next Thursday, spend a month in India, before heading off to Singapore. Might do a trip out to Angkor Wat. Samir's been telling me to learn some Bahasa, for my trips into Malaysia and Indonesia (yes, the trips are, as they say, in the offing). It (Bahasa) is easy, he says.

But let me digress. Philly was boring and fun in parts. Thom's party was fun. Vidihi's party was also fun. Body-shot pictures were taken, but have not been posted. Will not be posted. Dhoom 2 was awesome. Better than Casino Royale, which, I haven't yet seen. Went to Rutgers! It's been, what, oh, I forget, too many years. We drove around, saw the BAMM dorms (I lived in Metzger), Clothier on College Ave, Winkler back on Busch. It all looked the same. I didn't realize I'd missed it so much! (The Raritan was as dirty as ever!) Couldn't find my way around to Hill. Oh, well.

The boring parts were when Deepti et al were busy with their unending home-works (of the grade-disclosing kind) and their BCG case-competition. So get this. If they win the thing, they're guaranteed a summer internship. Except they don't find out if they've won or not, until after all the regular interviews are over, and all offers have been made. Huh? I seriously don't get it.

Drove into NY, post Rutgers. (With a little sojourn in Edison of course, of the prandial kind). This was the day after thanksgiving, and Holland Tunnel was brightly lit with "NY Grid Lock Alert" alerts. Headed to Times Square. Again, it'd been a while since I'd last been. And I'd forgotten the massiveness of everything. It (the square) was awesome. Wandered aimlessly for a while. Got a drink at this Hawaiian bar with the most skimpily clad waitresses. Awesome (said waitresses). Then we headed to the Village, after a quick conference with Cherishma. Go to Bleeker and McDugal, she said. So we did. Hit a hookah bar, the kathi roti place (the roti was good, the kathi was dubious), Mammud's. Everybody knows about Mammud's. Okay, so the Falafel's were good, but, really.

My cab back from the airport today, caught on fire. First, there was this major skidding action going on, and the cabbie is like, did you see that, and I was like, yeah, and he was like, OMG, I'm freaking out. Then, we cruise for a bit (in a more or less straight fashion). Cabbie goes, oh, there's smoke. So we pull over, pop the hood, and sure enough, the engine's on fire. I gently suggest that perhaps he should turn the engine off, which he does, after which I suggest (also gently) that he might consider calling me another cab. He was a little surprised that I didn't want to continue to riding in the same cab, but after some more (gentle) persuasion, relented.

Then there was this little incident of SOFP (sudden onset of food poisoning) at the SABG career panel. The pizza did look uncooked, and Nikhil had had 4 slices, but I, with my one peperoni slice was done in with astonishing alacrity.

So you see, nothing much has been going on. Jonathan was pressing me (yes, yes, the pun is intended only) to blog. So.

yo ho ho and a bottle of rum

Wharton's halloween party rocked. I went as a pirate, complete with clip-on ear-ring. Yeah, yeah, I know: scary.  Deepti went as a naughty schoolgirl, due in part to a malfunctioning sailor-girl outfit. Transit was jam-packed by the time we got there, which was around midnight. Since I wouldn't have recognized anybody anyway, I didn't try. Random he-devils (too many people dressed in drag for my taste) were introduced to me, and at least one person tried to make conversation with me, at which point I glared at them from the other side of my key-holed eye-patch, but that didn't seem to have the desired effect. An innocent brunette clutching an apple in her hand, dancing inside a black leather settee with a removable top (of said settee) turned out to be Laurie. We danced a bit. Then there was this Indian woman she-devil who kept finding my behind to bump into all night long.  I swear.  I didn't mind too much.  She had a velvety behind.  Velvety red. But not enough skin, I must say.  There was a police-woman who was bumping and grinding and grinding and grinding this guy in a toga.  But still.  Not enough skin.  I'd heard crazier things about Wharton parties.  What up?

The rest of the weekend was pretty boring.  Deepti was studying for her "Finance" mid-term.  Here's my exposition on Wharton v. Chicago GSB.  Wharton: pre-fixe curriculum makes for a somewhat simplistic and tedious "core".  Their Finance class is mostly about NPV and growing annuities.  I don't recall any one at Chicago GSB ever teaching me annuities, growing or otherwise. It was mostly stuff you either knew or picked up along the way.  The only upside of a fixed curriculum is that everyone is in the same classes, so you get to know your classmates.

This week is pretty light.  I have to interview a millionaire for my New Venture Strategy class.  It's good to have rich cousins.  Then there's an LBO case to do for Entrepreneurial Finance and Private Equity.  I liked the VC stuff.  This debt stuff is too scary.