Live Report

I have decided to try a special kind if post today. A Live report. Courtasy of my Blogger iPhone App.

18:15 First stop: Cold Call.

Walking there I can hear the music playing. Apparently today the LASA band is playing. Just got a phone call reporting that sone food has been set asside for me.


















Good Mexican food. Good friends. Good music. Makes me sad that we are leaving this place soon.

19:15 Marketing and martinis.
The annual marketing club event. You can guess the theme. My friend and i were champions of Cornhole a game i just learned last week.

20:15
Japan and Korea party at the Jefferson Ridge club house.













Saki Bombs, kareoki and Japan/Korean food. I never knew there was such a thing as octapus balls. There's a bet going on about what time the first person will go in the pool. Had the chance to mass sing "That loving feeling" before we left.

11:30
J's birthday party. LASA style. Had to give up TNDC tonight. Thankfully, prioritizing is one of the most important aspects you learn at Darden.

SHE Auction

Every year the National Association of Women MBA (NAWMBA) organizes the SHE Auction. The Shelter for Help in Emergency's goal is to eliminate domestic violence and the auction is a great source of donations. This year the event was held at the Boar's Head Inn, which is a good enough reason to attend by itself. A red carpet greated the guests along a reception of two of our more entertaining second year students. Various items were on sale in a silent auction from artistic photographs to a basketball signed by the Cavaliers. During dinner, a live auction was running selling the higher priced items such as a flat in London that went for a thousand dollars per night and a famous dinner made by a few of our professors.

This is one just more example of Darden students giving back to the community during the two years they are here ( and having fun while they're at it).

A few items has some fierce competitors. My main rival for the basketball did not want it to get on the hands of a non-double 'Hoo.

The evening ended with dancing to the wee hours of the night.

While the dancing was still going on, a few of us second years retreated to the inn's old-fashioned bar.

As for the basketball, I joined forces with my friend and after sending his girlfriend to bid for us, I now have a 50% stake in a basketball investment.

Wacky B-School Traditions

Business Week reviewed some wacky b-school traditions and for some reason they've picked Darden's section B bird tradition as our "wacky" tradition. Most b-schools (including Darden) practice most of the reviewed traditions anyway in some form or another (unless they are completely lame).

Granted, the bird tradition is one that no other school has, but it's nothing compared to section D's traditions. Also, a mustache competition is clearly best practiced in a southern school.

Darden Cares 5K

Satruday morning. Woke up, got out of bed. Dressed up business attire... and running shoes.

Yes. Today was the Darden Cares 5K run for the UVa Children's hospital.

Everybody wins. The hospital gets our donations, we burn some calories and get an excuse not to go to the gym for a few days, we all have some fun and last, but not least, we get more points for the Darden cup.

My section (Section D!) won first place in both male and female categories (leftmost and rightmost in the photo below that would be remembered in generations to come).

There was a best dressed competition as well as the craziest dressed competition starring wonder woMAN and a runner (from my section) wearing a speedo, a bow tie and cuffs.

The best professors in the world - Sing it with me

Yesterday I found out that there are still a few gems in C'Ville I haven't had the pleasure of drinking in as the Dardenite TNDC crowd crammed up the Bel-Rio - Bar, live music and more important: food after 22:00! Having Fridays as reading days this Q makes TNDC much more attractive when examining the go no-go decision tree. The jewel in the crown last night was the faculty band (featuring students as well). 

Check out the link to see my strategy professor can do more than talk. 

I Survived

Is that all you've got?

That's right, I survived Black November. It's really overrated. 

It's interesting to see how different people prioritize and balance their lives. Some focus more on the job search and some on studies. I'm leaning more to the studying part, but I'm shifting towards the job search. Between organizing the job trek to the west coast, the various competitions I've taken part in and studies, I barely had time to breathe, and so I’ve finally succumbed and learned to let go the aspiration towards perfectionism. This capacity to multitask and prioritize and handle extreme load is a motif I hear over and over talking to alumni and really makes Darden grads shine on the job.

 

I allowed myself some time off today and went to my first UVa Basketball game, which turned out to be very exciting.

Tomorrow morning we’re heading towards Manhattan, where we’ll be having the third thanksgiving dinner this week with my brother and my Dad, who’s visiting the US now.

 

In a few days the marathon continues.

Work hard & Party hard

In the rigorous program at Darden we work hard, but we also party hard. My ears were just recovering from TNDC, where a classmate’s band –Die Manic was playing, and I was back in class for the ‘Crack the case workshop’ learning how difficult case interviews are going to be. In the evening, it was time for the 100-case party – a 20 year old tradition of celebrating

 completion of 100 cases. This year we had an 80’s theme. What could be better than a full night with the best era of music the world has ever listened to?

The buses took us to an unknown location in an attempt to reduce the number of people driving there. I find it amazing that everyone just took a break from worrying about the financial crisis, the job search, exams and duties and was having plain fun. 

Football

I was still asleep when the 9:00 Kegs 'n' Eggs, hosted by a classmate, started.

I did, however, make it on time to the tailgate to get fuelled up with the local brewsky - Starr Hill -which is quite good. For some reason they don't allow alcohol in the stadium. Go figure.

Yes, it was the first game of the season. College football.

If I have ever been to a football game before, I was probably too young to remember, so for me, this was a first time experience and what an experience it was.

Around 60,000 people come into town and block the streets and fill up the parking lots. People who live near by Scott stadium sell their parking spots for 15-20$. This was a day to leave the car at home. Aparently yesterady was a new record for the stadium's capacity. 64,947 people watched the ranked third place USC Trojans treat our Cavaliers as cannon fodder . It's not Beaver Stadium (largest stadium in the US) but still quite impressive.

The walk to the tailgate and thereafter the stadium revealed sights of many many tailgates spread along the way as well as plain ol' picnics on front lawns with the background of thousands of people walking towards the stadium. It was amazing to see how everything turns into a celebration in the US. We have nothing even remotely similar to that in Israel. The closest would be probably the post victory celebrations after Maccabi won the Euroleague. But still, it's not liket this.

We had only one chance to sing our victory song - yes only one touchdown for this game, but the moral was high - at least for the USC folks it was.

A classmate explained the basic rules of the game and I dicovered that it's actually interesting and that I actually liked it. I'm finally in a country where I can relate to the national sports. I can't wait until baseball season starts - that stadium is a footstep away from my house.

The game and it's festivities take over one's complete day, so now I'm behind on all my school work/career/etc.

But you know something? There's another game next. We're playing Richmond and I intend to be there.

Go Hoos!

Camp Darden

Darden is known for its rigorous program. It was actually a part of why I chose Darden. I like to push myself to the extreme, testing my limits. So I was planning on August 18th as the start date. What I didn't take into account is the load I'll have during the pre-matriculation period. According to the wide recommendation for people with no finance/economics background, I registered for the economics and accounting pre-mats. I also took the career orientation workshop and attended some of the international workshops, the last one's theme was "why are americans like that?". As a dual citizen, I play both sides of the field so I switch between international and american at my convenience. There's a lot of red tape involved in being a dual citizen, but I won't write about it now.

To sum it all up I've had classes at 8:00 am up until around 16:00 including Saturday (!) and that has left me little time to finish up on my Darden assignments. There's a checklist provided by Darden with a time consuming list and at the end of it they told us to relax and enjoy the rest of the summer, which kind of made me laugh as I was reading it in my war zone of an appartment.

Surprisingly, the pre-mats turned out to be a lot of fun. The Dardenites that were around the past weeks in Charlottesville started going out, having parties, going bowling, having more parties and there were also some parties. What started as a mailing list that kept on growing as more people turn out in C-Ville and more events are added to the mixer and was later transfered to a google group is now known as Camp Darden.

Every day involves at least one of those activities usually ending up pretty late and the next morning people actually appear in class at 8:00 am. i didn't have the American college experience (beer pong is unheard of in Israel) so I'm having a lot of fun experiencing these now.

A few nights ago I attended an Edward Fourtyhands for the first time and besides the fact that the only 40 oz. bottles I found were bud & bud lite it was great. Besides being just great people, class of 2010 turned out to be a real fun bunch as well.

Now all that's left is to finish all of my assignments for tomorrow in the half day that still remains of this beautiful Sunday :P