A new period begins...

I'm a slacker blogger, that I admit. I've not blogged as much as I wanted to because the events of the last few weeks have transpired to rob me of that precious commodity of time.

There were the exams: the Z-curve freaked everyone out. MBAs just can't deal with competition in a laissez-faire manner: someone's got to be at the bottom, and its not going to be me, so that's what I'm studying so hard for. Couple the Z-curve with the fact that everyone of us had a heavy dose of game theory in the economics course, and you've got a phobic bunch indeed.

The logic goes like this:

1. I have to study real hard. Why? Because I don't want to end up at the bottom of the Z-curve and repeat any particular course.

2. It appears that 4-5% of people will fail anyway, regardless of how well he does. So this means that the profs will fail someone.

3. This means that if we have a hard subject (like Accounting or Finance), then its all the more important to work really hard for it. Why? Because I can't afford to fail them.

4. Hey, wait a minute. What about the easy subjects? No good: the 'spread', or to use the statistics phrase, the sigma will not be significantly big. This means that the everyone's scores is likely to bunch around the same general score.

5. That's not good either. Because it means that if I'm unable to answer any particular question at all I'm doomed! Everyone else will do better than myself and I'll repeat the course later!

6. Ergo: study like a maniac and burn precious time doing so. Its the only dominant strategy because that guarantees that those who don't study as hard won't do well (unless they already come with the experience, the bastards...)

Still, it was great fun. I actually made quite a few friends while cramming for the exams, especially those from the other section.

Oh yes, and then there was the post-exam party: champagne, high-class joint, then club.

:
:

What? You want me to talk about it? Right after the last paper (damn Finance. Damn Lily Fang) we headed to the roof for champagne, paid out from the pockets of latecomers, sleepers, and the cell phone misdemeanors in class. I happened to have landed in each category exactly once, had the grand honour of having my sleepy pic taken, so I was part of the contribution. I will not describe the late night hijinks at the night club, but it was sufficiently late to rob me of any sleep because I was catching a plane at 7.05am the next day.

7.05 Thursday morning: JetStarAsia, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Followed on Friday with a boat ride up the Tonle Sap to Siem Reap to see Mr Ang Call What. :) My bad: Angkor Wat.

Angkor Wat brought out the tomb raider in me: alas I lacked the assets to match those of Lara Croft, and the weaponry too. Still, it didn't stop a crazy bunch of Inseaders from invading the temples and making inane comments.

"Wow, take a look at that great carving."

"It is really beautiful isn't it?"

"Impressive."

"It is so amazing."

And so on and forth - our vocabulary failed us when it came to being awestruck, and after the 50th "Wow, take a look at that" one suffers serious temple fatigue. However, Angkor Wat and the other temples in the area (Ta Phrom, Angkor Thom, Bantay Srey) are seriously worth a visit. I was of the spirit that I will visit the place again, and took the step of leaving my SLR at home as a result.

It felt weird going temple raiding without my SLR: there was so much that I could have captured on film (oh... on jpg if you insist). But you don't know the people I was travelling with: my slow speed through the temples would have brought my tuk-tuk buddies to tears with waiting. :) And spending 2 days there isn't much (too bad about the short break and rescheduled flight, sigh), so I swore I will go there again someday. At my own pace.

So there: the exams marked the end of a period. That short trip to a nearby country (did I mention going to the Killing Fields? No? Maybe next time.) brought me closer to a few of the friends I've made. To round off, today then marked the beginning of the new period, missing students et al. It was weird to have a third of the class missing in action but hey, these MBAs party hard (and cutting a few classes shouldn't get in the way of it... damn banking / consulting smirks - why are they even here?).

Class begins again...