Highlights from week number 2

Edit: Dash pictures now added, as well as short description of my weekend.

Last weekend, I spend both Saturday and Sunday afternoon studying, which enabled me to complete all the readings until Wednesday. Therefore, I was quite ahead on the reading and was able to take it a little bit easy during the week. I hope to do the same thing this weekend.

(Edit: I did... Friday night was a mooncake party BBQ at Dover, the other condo complex, organized by the Chinese students. Ended up hanging out on the rooftop garden with friends until 2am. Saturday night at Chris' place, a Canadian visa officer in Singapore. (under diplomatic priviledges) Woke up with a cold on Sunday morning, so studied all day.)

On Tuesday night, after my quasi-daily 5km treadmill run (best time so far is 31:47, 9.3km/h average), I ruined my efforts but going out to Barben in nearby Holland Village. I rollerbladed over and joined a group of about 10 INSEADers. On the way back around 1am, I raced the taxi back to Heritage on my rollerblades and it was pretty much a tie, thanks to the traffic lights.

On Wednesday night, three friends and I went to New Asia Bar at the Swissôtel. The bar is located on the 70th floor, with a spectacular view of the city center. With a Romeo & Julietta #2 in hand, we enjoyed a few tigers and prepared ourselves mentally for the Mad Dash on Thursday morning.

The fourth INSEAD mad dash is a mix between Halloween and a “race” from Heritage to INSEAD. Around 40-50 of us gathered by the Heritage pool in funky outfits and at 8:27, everyone rushes to school for the 8:30 class. It was hilarious. I wore my Maasai outfit, complete with the skull crusher and my rollerblades… I came in second after Spiderman. Enjoy the pictures.

Almost every INSEAD class has some practical applications. In my R&D management class, we built Legos. I was the buyer, and had to communicate very specific helicopter requirements to the marketing rep, who in turn passed along my requests to engineering. The product team had to deliver a prototype and production model to me within 60 minutes. It was good fun. We are doing the same thing again on Monday, but this time the production team must deliver an equally complicated automobile within 30 minutes.

In Leading people and organization, we had 60 minutes to build a device that could protect an egg from breaking when being launched from the second floor using specific building materials. Our parachute device did the job brilliantly. In a flash of stupidity, I tossed our conception sideways in the hall and the egg broke. I quickly picked up the resulting mess thinking I may have just left my mark on the INSEAD carpet.

I would like to give credit to the INSEAD cafeteria, which serves amazing and cheap food every lunch. The selection changes everyday, but always offers tasty and healthy choices for under $5. There is always at least one “Western” selection (ie: grilled chicken breast or fish fillet, tacos, one Asian, one “carving” (ie: roast beef), a noodle bar, a salad bar, and a sandwich shop.

On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday night of this week, I will be completing my PADI Open Water diving certification exercises, and will execute the open water dives in Malaysia next weekend. Therefore, I will not blog until next Monday or Tuesday, but should have interesting pictures from the trip.