d=1/u

In light of the looming Corporate Financial Policy exam tomorrow morning, I should really be concerning myself with the do’s and don’ts on how to create a replicating portfolio and how to derive the Black-Scholes Option Pricing Model with my right pinky while standing on my left foot. Instead, I’m replicating a Nutella & banana crepe, only without the delicious, fluffy crepe bit, and using two slices of taste-neutral toast instead.  OK, that was a stretch.  Give me a break; I’m busy plumbing the depths of my lungs for expectorant and probing the depths of my soul for another “Ah ha.”

I’ve already written off the Leading Organizations and Marketing exams, so effectively, in my head, there’s only one test left.  By that logic, I should be studying my heart out for finance, but I can’t seem to peel myself away from the television and the continuous loop of quasi-depressing news that gives CNN its flair.  If nothing else, it provides a pleasant British-accented (why do they only seem to have British accented anchors in Europe?) backdrop for the counterfactual history games that I’m playing in my head.

What if, instead of being typically taciturn, I had whispered a little louder?  What if, instead of expecting to be expected to be a mind reader, I had really listened?  What if I had taken a page from the playbook of a particular group mate of mine and learned to never know when to shut up?

What if my father had swallowed his pride and taken the money?  What if the Tet Offensive hadn’t succeeded in changing American policy towards the war?  What if my mother had just called it quits?

Well, then I probably wouldn’t be worrying about betas, deltas, and binomial trees.

“Better hit the saddle, ranger.  We’ll be late for lunch.”

-Gene Autry

Schedule

Monday: Group meeting, optional lecture on Napolean EDIT: Napoleon as a manager, write new post instead of writing the LO paper

Tuesday: Group meeting, find outfit for Winter Ball

Wednesday: Group meeting, frantic rush to finish Corporate Financial Policy assignment due on Thursday

Thursday: Turn in last finance assignment, and yup, you guessed it, group meeting. Attend INSEAD Cabaret

Friday: Turn in Leading Organizations research paper, begin exam panic

Saturday: Winter Ball

Sunday: Resume exam panic

M-Tues: Last P2 Classes

Wednesday: “Study Break”

Thursday: Exams

Friday: Exams

Sat-Sun: Study^10

Monday: Exams

Tuesday: Exams

Wednesday: Exams They may take our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom!

P3 is around the corner. Aggggggghhhhhhhhhhh!

Electives

P2 is halfway done, and the glass is half full? Oh god, how it pains me to type that. The latter bit, that is.

Bidding for our first elective courses starts in 8.5 hours, and I have no idea what I plan on taking. Finance with a dose of strategy? Media with a dash of entrepreneurship? Communications with a pinch of negotiations? Decisions, decisions. It’s almost like figuring out what I’m going to wear tomorrow, only not so bad.

INSEAD allots each student a pool of 200 points/year to bid for electives, campus exchanges and small furry rabbits. The system is based on a marginal bid structure, whereby the number of points you actually pay for a class is equivalent to the bid of the last person to enter the class. Say, for example, that there are 96 slots open for a particularly popular class. You can bid anywhere from 1 to 199, and if the the 96th slot gets in with a bid of 1, you only give up one point. Problems arise when people bid 1 for a not-so-popular class, expecting to be guaranteed a spot, only to find out that the winning bid is 2.

Whoops.

Since there are classes which are only offered in specific periods, on specific campuses, with specific star professors, you really have to map out the classes you want to take for P3, P4 and P5 ahead of time.

On that happy note, I’m going to go drink 4 liters of water to offset the half case of beer I just ingested.

Bon nuit.

Vinieron, Fueron

“A monopolist (INSEAD campus bar) faces the following demand curve (perfectly inelastic) for beer at 12:00 noon on the day of the last exam:

Q_d=16,837+56P

Please calculate the profit maximizing and revenue maximizing quantities.”

Yes, that’s right; the slope is positive. If you’re a P1 and actually caught that, your 50K Euro have been well spent.

By the look of euphoric, rapturous, orgasmic joy on students’ faces at noon today, you’d think that England won the World Cup or something. INSEAD should really schedule  the Open Days for new and potential admits on the last day of P1 every year. They’d have no trouble convincing the “I’ve got to choose between LBS and INSEAD” crowd to plunk down their deposit. Immediately. In cash.

The bar area was so full that it wasn’t possible to walk through to get to the cafeteria. I ended up swinging a wide arc around the smokers’ patio and going through a side door in order to get lunch. On a regular day, you might see a few small groups sitting around, chatting over the thimble-sized drafts the bar has on offer. This afternoon, I don’t think I saw anyone with anything smaller than the cannonball-sized goblets that they keep on hand for occasions like this. I swear, these things are the size of a small child’s head.

So yeah, for you “academically oriented” folks out there who’ve heard rumors about INSEAD being a cake walk, rest assured; it’s not. The exams are long, tedious, spleen-grinding affairs that are as much a test of your grasp on the material as a test of your stamina. I’m certain that part of the reason so much beer was consumed today was not because people were thirsty or wanted to drown their sorrows, but rather because we’d had every drop of life sucked out of us over the past 3 days and needed something to fill the void.

But let’s not talk about tests. There’s a whopping 4-day break (inclusive of a 2-day weekend) ahead of us where we have no work….No, wait, we do! Yay! So those of you who are going to Barcelona, Morocco, Rome, Pakistan and various bits of France, don’t forget to bring your case reading that’s due on Monday!

Bon voyage.

Examen

So the first two exams have come and gone.  Only four (I can’t count) three more left to go before the much-awaited 4-day break.  More to come when I can once again differentiate between my fingers and toes.

Welcome, all you D08 bloggers.  You’ve all been linked.  Now share the traffic love.

Exciting, isn’t it?  I remember those pre-INSEAD days.  Oh, the fond memories of three months ago.  Enjoy it while you still have a minute to call your own, and see some of you on campus soon!

Arboles

I can’t remember the last time I sat on a couch, let alone the last time I sat on a couch and watched The Daily Show. This is probably because I don’t follow the program, but that’s neither here nor there. Yet here I am, laptop on lap, and eyes flitting between retired Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, former supreme commander of coalition forces in Iraq admitting that the US is in a “never ending nightmare” due to the “strategic failure of senior leadership” and a spankin’ new, crisp, white MS Word sheet. Though I’ve lost my drive to post everyday, I don’t seem to have lost my love for serial commas.

What makes sitting on the couch so special, you ask? Well, the imminent arrival of exams on Monday has something to do with it, as does the fact that I really can’t remember when I last took a minute to unwind. The schedule here is hectic, as I’m sure you’ve gathered from the post (or lack thereof) of other J08 bloggers. If you’re fond of never having a free minute and always having to choose between multiple things you really want to be doing every hour of the day, then you’ve made the right choice coming to INSEAD.

For example, after the last class of P1 concluded today, I had to choose between having a beer or three at the campus bar, and heading to a secluded corner to immerse myself in the joys free cash flow valuation. I really wanted to do both; the former because Beer Is Good and the latter because if I didn’t, I’d be so far on the left side of the z-distribution that I’d end up in China, but since the activities were mutually exclusive, I had to pick the latter.

That’s one choice I won’t dwell too heavily on, but let me give you one that you may face as an INSEAD student. What if you were presented with a situation where two firms you were interested in working for, in two divergent sectors, say, oh, finance and industry, were both hosting a presentation, at the same time, on the same night. What’s that you say? That the choice is a personal call, and that I should create a decision tree with the weighted probability that I would actually get a job with the firms involved, discounted by (1 + H), where H = How Much I Really Want That Job?

Hmm. Got it all plotted out, now? Good. Now tell me what you would do if both firms were only on campus one time out of the year, and this was your only chance to glad-hand with the honchos who’d be interviewing you. Unfortunately, this scenario is not the product of my sleep-deprived, stress-addled mind, but rather, was something I experienced on the third day of class.

Life can be broken down to a series of little choices, right? So when do I find out whether or not I made the right ones?

- 3 STDEV, u=2.5

I’m doing horribly in school and quite probably toeing the FAIL line!

This should be a bad thing, and would cause undue concern under most circumstances, but since I’ve slowly been telling myself I’m not here to get on the Dean’s List, it isn’t and doesn’t.

Well, the lack of concern in and of itself gives me pause for, uh, concern, but I’m weaning myself off of the need to be in the top percentile and focusing on what I’m here to focus on, which is, err, hmm. What was it again?

The weather. Yes, that was it. The weather. We had a few days of sun, but it’s back to the gloom-and-doom of Fonty Forest. So much for the skirts and sandals. It’s back to not-so-flattering bundles of heavy grey stuff that makes everyone look like depressed sheep.

And here’s an excellent segue into a totally unrelated subject that might interest the fresh meat of the D08 class:

Things I Wish I Knew Before Moving to Fontainebleau, In No Particular Order

• If you haven’t lived in France recently, take whatever you’ve budgeted for the year, multiply it by 1.5 and add a few extra grand for silly stuff, like eating
• Not having a car is totally viable and will save you a few grand, if you A) Live 2 minutes from school, B) Do not want a social life, C) Like to beg for rides to the market so you can, like, eat and stuff
• Gasoline is ridiculously expensive
  • Those who bought/leased diesel cars were the smart ones after all, as there’s a 0.15-0.25 Euro differential between a litre of petrol and a litre of gazole (diesel)
• Food is ridiculously expensive
  • A meal of XYZ mystery meat and fries, or a small-ish sized pizza at a restaurant in town will damage you for 11+ Euro
  • A weekly trip to the local supermarket to stock up on staples will somehow shaft you for something in the 30 Euro range
    • I bought 3  4  EDIT(Apparently, B-school have teached me how too ad) oranges the other day for 1.60 Euro. Not 3 kg. Not 3 bushels. 3 as in 1+2.
  • A sandwich at the bar on campus goes for 3.61 Euro
• Beer is ridiculously expensive
  • A pint of Heineken at a ratty bar in town will hit you for a minimum of 6 Euro
• Office supplies are ridiculously expensive
  • A standard ringed binder at the local supermarket will run you 3+ Euro
  • 5 pack of black Papermate pens set me back 5+ Euro
  • It is impossible to fine horizontal-lined notebooks or notebook paper; everything in France is gridded, and, you guessed it: expensive
• Not speaking French doesn’t work here, at all

To be continued…

A bientot.

No Lo Se

I feel obligated to write, but I’ve got no clue where to start. The active J08 bloggers seem to have everything covered, with pictures to boot.  Classes are moving along at a fairly insane pace, P1 is more than half over, exams are right around the corner and I still have no idea what the hell a T-Account is.

Note to all future intakes: The idea of trying to catch up on the previous week’s worth of work on the weekends doesn’t fly.  Either do it during the week, or don’t do it at all.  Something always manages to come up on Saturday, and Sundays are reserved for sleep and a visit to the marche (food market/flea market) in Fonty center.

Those with an interest in finance have begun the interview process and I seem to have missed the ocean, let alone the boat.  I guess that means I wasn’t cut out to be a financier in the first place.  That, or I’m just lazy.

“Club 16,” one of the nicest big houses I’ve been privileged to see, is hosting their second P1 party this evening.  The theme is Oktberfest, and the email invites have advised people to bring beer.  Seeing that in France, wine is cheaper than water and beer, I’m curious to see what kind of supply they end up with.  Alas, I’m staying in this rainy evening and cuddling up with Ross, Westerfield, Jaffe, Jordan’s Modern Financial Management, 8th Edition.  I hear portfolio covariance calculations make for warm bedfellows.

Bon nuit.

MBTI

I should really be studying for the Prices & Markets (euphemism for microeconomics *shudder*) quiz that goes down at 0830 tomorrow morning, but I’m going to milk my illness instead and drink so much tea that my bladder is building a little Ark, just in case.

So we scored our Myers-Briggs Type Indicator in Leading People and Groups (LPG) today.  I wasn’t horribly surprised by my neat little 4-letter personality, but some of my peers were shocked.  Hah.  Refer to my previous line about INSEAD MBAs not being able to read people.  Or maybe it’s all an indication of how great of a networker I really am?  If it walks like a duck…

LPG is one of those classes where you walk in not knowing what to expect, and walk out knowing even less.  No one has any clue how the hell we’re going to be tested on the material presented in this class.  Oh, wait, what material?  Let me qualify this rant with the disclaimer that I really enjoy the class, and think our professor is great.  But come on, we’re assigned a serious amount of reading to do before each class, and we end up covering maybe 1/6 articles.  The rest of the time is spent in open discussions about tangential offshoots of the subject du jour.  To make things super-duper crazy, we’re asked to just shout out any and all contributions, which flies in the face of every other professor’s “please raise your hand and wait to be called on like a good 2nd grader” policy.  Madness, I tell you.

A wise old Chinese man once told me that the best pot of tea is not the first, but any thereafter.  It has to do with the leaves being given time to soak, or something along those lines.  I’m moving on to pot number six.  At this rate, the next one should gild my innards.  My mother always told me I had a heart made of gold.

Yeah, this post was disjointed.

Question of the Day:  Are you an E or an I?

Semana

This post is about a week late, but oh well; life has been busy, and busy is good.  For a full synopsis of INSEAD J08’s Orientation Week, check out Res I(p)sa’s post, or be patient and maybe you’ll get something out of me eventually.

The chateau parties do live up to their reps. Or at least this first one did. So far, the Montmelian party has been the largest INSEAD get together I’ve attended. Barring the long walk from the gate to the house itself, and the “sacrifice a virgin by moonlight” lighting that was going, it was a blast.

The weather held, and it was a perfect night to have an outdoor party.  Music was pumping from one of the residents’ Bose iPod speakers suspended from a 2nd floor (3rd to the Americans) window, the beer fridge was overflowing and INSEADers were mingling by the light of tiki-torches.  I don’t think I saw anyone without a beer, wine, or occasional soda in their hand, and no one was ever alone, unless they were walking to the can, and even then not 100% of the time.

Props to the Chateau Montmelian crew for putting on a great  gig.

Monday kicked off Orientation Week, which has felt more like Cult Initiation Week, with a heaping plate full of mental hazing.  Forms, forms, forms.  Forms in original form.  Forms in triplicate form.  Forms to request more forms.  Forms to fill out so that INSEAD and the French government can take even more of your money so that they can print more forms.  Had the whole fustercluck been a bit more organized, I would’ve felt better.  As it was, the tutorial on how to go through the process was something to the effect of, “Here’s a chopstick.  Now go herd 39 cats in to this cubicle.  You have two hours.  Go!”

On top of handing over another few hundred euro for things like tax stamps and preemptive library fines, there were “introduction” classes held all week, which run through Saturday.  That’s right; we have eight hours of lecture this Saturday.  Why exactly am I paying for this?

Lastly, and by far leastly (a DTLF-coined phrase, yet again), I’m starting to settle in a bit.  I’ve met some great people, firewalled myself from the not-so-great, and hope that I start believing that this is all for real, soon.

Back to my 2am jambon, camembert, baguette sandwich.  Here’s to health and late-night artery-clogging snacks.