Springy

You are fortunate that I have nothing to do, am early for class and have brought my laptop with me. All of that adds up to another post. I’m sitting outside and its lovely. I even wore shorts yesterday! Spring has finally arrived and I plan to enjoy as much of it as possible, especially because I have a feeling that within a week it could quickly revert back to winter – the trees have yet to blossom so I have a feeling they know something I don’t. For those of you from McGill, I’m sure you’re aware of our version of the beach, the sloping hill outside of the Redpath Museum (an excellent museum by the way). Well Sandy and I have found the Stockholm School of Economics version of it – a set of 5 stairs in their buildings courtyard that only receives sun from 10 till 3. Everyone crowds on these little pieces of concrete, hardly a substitute for the beach but it will have to do. Its funny though because everyone is still either bundled up or dressed in their power suits. The sun still feels good though and you can often see people with their eyes closed and their face tilted up towards to the sun to try and capture as much of its warmth as possible to make up for the long winter.

Went to see my first official concert in Sweden last Friday. I had been to a music award show thing that had some performances but I don’t really count it. Anyhow, one of the first things Sandy and I did once we got to Stockholm was buy tickets to the Arcade Fire and finally we saw the show. And boy did it disappoint. Yes, I said disappoint. The AF had previously been one of the best shows I have ever seen (Vancouver, 2004) but tonight everything seemed against us. The doors for the show were at 7:30, with an opening band playing. Sandy and I figured we could arrive around 9 and catch the end of the opener before AF came on. We showed up at 9:15 only to find the AF already on stage. What we heard was good but by 10:00 the show was over. They only performed one song for an encore (Wake Up) and by 10:10 the house lights were up. We paid a fair bit of money for those tickets (like anything else is Sweden, tickets are expensive too) so we were definitely disappointed – especially considering most shows in Canada go till around midnight or later. Only later did we find out that Win, the lead singer of AF and a McGill alumni, had to cancel the rest of the tour due to his sinus infection and that he was getting sinus surgery. Hard to hold a poor showing against someone getting sinus surgery, so hopefully he gets better and we can catch them again in the new year. Cool venue though, looked just like a big top tent from the circus – lame crowd though.

Travelling Man

I’m not dead. I could say that this very large gap in posts was due to a busy schedule, or a protest against media invading my life but really I’m sure all of you know the real reason: I’m lazy. I’ve accepted it, why can’t you? (Note, this is different from procrastination, because I have no mental block preventing me from updating my blog, just a general lack of motivation). I also justified my lack of posting by comparing to a lack of postings from my MBA colleagues, however this isn’t really working out as some have started posting more (good work Gunter) while others still need to do more (ahem, Angus). Regardless, here’s the Coles Notes version of the last month (one last note, this may be a long post so I would recommend following some advice from Bill Simmons and maybe printing this out so that you can read it in comfort on the toilet or someplace else)

My first school term has just ended. Had my first exam in Sweden and the last of my MBA career last Wednesday. I have found that the professors here treat you like children in explaining the rules and expectations of courses, such as covering every note in the syllabus which I could read just as well as they can. However, this was in stark contrast to the exam in which I basically sat down and while everyone was still getting their pencils out and generally settling in they shouted ‘go!’ and that was it. Three hours later and much verbal diaherria on my paper later, I was done. It was an alright test. I didn’t smoke it but it didn’t kill me either. Plus, here in Sweden the grades are divided into three. Pass (50-69), Pass with merit (70-84) and Pass with distinction (85+). So really all I had to do was beat a 69% on the test and I would have done just as well as if I got an 84%, which I believe I did. My other class was a test in my willpower to avoid killing my other group members. It was a Cross-Cultural Management class, which means very touchy-feely subject matter. My group needed to produce a paper, which we could not agree on. Once we finally had a topic we went our separate ways to write it – or apparently I did and no one else because I returned with my part written, only to find out that they wanted to change the topic. Basically the whole project resulted in 6 group meetings in 5 days for a 8-page paper. The last day everyone wanted to meet to just go over it, although I was still the only one that had actually completed my part. For those of you who don’t know, Sweden has a very collectivist society and never before have I clashed with it so much as with this group. I definitely learned more from dealing with my group on cultural relations that I did from that course – although I also learned that my group members were idiots (apart from the German guy). So now its on to the next and final term of my MBA. Fingers crossed for better teams as it will be summer near the end of the term and I doubt I will have it in me to restrain from screaming at dumb group members. Polite Canadians my ass.

Marathon training is going alright. Well, was going alright. Took a break last week to go traveling and then this week I was pretty unmotivated due to a bit of a cold I picked up along the way. But up until that point Sandy and I were running about 4 times a week with a nice long run on the weekends. With the weather getting better it’s much easier to go for longer runs. Our longest so far was about 17km but tomorrow we’re planning on going 20+, maybe even attempt the half marathon. Need to step it up a bit though, those 42Km are still scaring me to bits. We also have been hitting the gym 3 times a week and I play ball 2 times a week. This basically takes up the majority of my time during the week, as once you throw in stretching and showering all that activity ain’t easy on the schedule.

Those of you who know Sandy can attest that his fashion sense is unparalled so it will be no surprise that we recently visited the two most fashion oriented cities in Europe in Milan and Paris. Actually it was more because we had places to stay for free in those cities but they still were both incredible. Milan was so warm and gorgeous. Everything I thought a European city should be. Small streets, big piazzas, mopeds everywhere, old buildings, liberal drinking restrictions, etc. It was nice to see our MBA friends and they were more accommodating that we could have ever asked for. Everyone’s Italian was much better than we expected. Very impressive. We weren’t in Milan long but it was long enough for both Sandy and I to question whether we made the right choice in exchange locations. Paris was awesome in both uses of the word: cool and overwhelming. That city is huge and Sandy and I did our best to try to see the whole damn thing in 2 days. Day one consisted of Versailles, the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame Cathedral. Day Two consisted of the Louvre, Sacred Heart Cathedral and a sweet yet entirely creepy and weird David Lynch exhibition at the Foundation Cartier. Both days featured a heck of a lot of walking and finished with incredible food – thanks to both Angus and Philippe and a nice French restaurant. It was nice to finally be able to read at least some signs in a different language but it still reminded me of my monolingualness at dinner when I was the only one who couldn’t order in French (thanks Philippe!). It was still pretty cool to have a crème brulle for dessert in the same area as that Amelie movie was filmed – as I cracked the caramelized top I chuckled a little. Saw the Moulin Rouge too, although it’s nothing like the movie with Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor. Actually, its surrounded by nudie bars with Irish pubs scattered around too. Too many other comments to list for the entire travels such as the overindulgence seen at Versailles or the Louvre. Oh, and the Mona Lisa was the exact same size I thought it would be (despite everyone else thinking that it should be bigger).

Next up for trips is a 7-day journey to Russia via Latvia and Finland over the Easter holiday. Then 2 days after getting back from that I’m off to Barcelona for a basketball tournament with the school. Looking forward to trying to travel by the train to Russia because traveling with Ryan Air was like taking the greyhound bus. Cramped seats, odd-looking people and no guarantee where you’re sitting. Still worth the 2 cents I paid for each ticket (plus about 20 bucks worth of taxes).

Alright, hopefully those 1200 words helps sedate any cravings you have about my life for the last month. Too bad everyone has probably given up on even checking my blog for new content so people won’t even see this post. I’ll try to do a better job now of keeping up but in the end, don’t hold your breath. I’m lazy.