Argentina

After Prague I took an amazing train ride to Budapest. The entire journey was beautiful through lush green valleys with cows grazing and little houses perched on hillsides. The 7 hour journey was extremely easy and far more pleasant than flying. I arrived to Budapest and had high hopes for my hostel as it was rated 9.4 out of 10, which is something I've never seen before in my life. It said on hostelworld that it was rated the best hostel in the world in 2011. The first night I started playing drinking games with all the residents. The drinking games were organized with the hostel and started promptly at 7 pm. What struck me first is that everyone was 18-22 years old. That would have been fine, but the drinking game became absurdly raunchy extremely fast. I lived in a fraternity for four years in college, but even for those standards the stuff they were talking about was too much, especially amongst strangers and completely sober. Since I was bored in Prague with the lack of host...

Now that I am catching up on all my blog posts, I went to the European MBA Olympics at the beginning of April hosted by IESE, an MBA school in Barcelona. I competed on the soccer, basketball, track, and touch rugby teams. We didn't end up winning anything, but it was fun to run around and go to the beach. They made a really cool video highlighting the event. Once it switches to the salsa competition, just turn it off because it's terrible after that. 

Recently, I started reading the Elon Musk biography. The books starts with a critique of the Silicon Valley that I hadn’t fully appreciated. Who are the successful technology companies of the last 15 years? Facebook, Twitter, Google, Instagram, SnapChat. At the end of the 20 th century, it seemed as if technology was going to unlock human potential by giving the world access to vast stores of information. Instead, it has turned us into narcissists that obsess over the number of likes we have, take selfies, and never dare to touch food that we haven’t first photographed. To be fair, perhaps these companies were merely unlocking an innate narcissism that humans have always had. Nevertheless, the promise of a sci-fi future gave way to selfie sticks and the world’s top computer programming graduates flocked to the Silicon Valley to write code for apps that maximize clicks rather than advance the frontiers of technology. Even companies that I hold in high esteem like Google at the end...

I am on the train from Prague to Budapest writing this entry. This trip to Prague is one of the least planned trips I have ever done, and that’s saying a lot as I normally don’t plan much. I booked the flight about 10 days ahead, and didn’t book the hostel until the day of. I arrived to Prague with no fixed plans or itinerary. I wasn’t even sure how many days I would stay as my return flight is out of Budapest. As can be seen from the photos below, Prague is a beautiful city. It’s crazy that the city was founded in the 4 th century. Part of the city is called “New Town,” which was established in the 14 th century, so it is hardly new. It is just more new than the “Old Town.” The first thing I noticed about the city was the ubiquity of the beer, or “pivo” as they call it. Czechs have the highest consumption per capita at 169 liters per year, and that number counts the entire population including babies. So really the per capita consumption of adults is probably double that at aro...

P2 was chaos at INSEAD. My course volume increased from four courses to six, and at the same time I was busy with job recruiting events. The first week back to school there was an employer presentation every single night followed by networking cocktails. Students, including myself, were scrambling to finish internship applications for consulting firms as well as other big firms like Amazon, Uber, Microsoft, and others. Pretty much everyone was in firefighting mode just trying to get done the tasks due in the next 1-2 days. I was swept into the chaos because the place I had interned in the fall that had promised me a summer internship had gone radio silent. Despite turning in my application on February 9 th , as of March 15 th when all the applications were due, I had heard nothing. So, in order to make sure I didn’t end up with nothing, I jumped into the rat race and submitted applications. Unfortunately, most companies were not interested in people recruiting for the United St...

My mom and sister were nice enough to visit me for my b-day. Here's a brief account of what we were up to:  Julianne arrived early and gave a speech to eager MBA students interested in Fintech: Thursday: Walk in the Fontainebleau Forest. I decided to take J&M to rugby club’s weekly party. I knew it was a bit rowdy, but since Mom has partied more than I have recently at OYC, I knew that she could handle it. Rugby club has all these drinking games they play throughout the night. For example, at any point in the night someone can say “God save the Queen” and drop a coin into your glass. If this happens, you must finish your drink. However, they must say “God save the Queen” clearly before dropping the coin, which gives you a chance to cover your glass with your hand or move your glass. Another game involves trying to attach a hair clip to someone’s clothes without them noticing. Once the hair clip has been attached, you sneak away and shout “Ou est le peg” or “Where is t...

Easter with the Blockers was great. Every time I’ve been to Hayward’s Heath it’s the same routine that I love.  Morning: Spend 2 hours slowly eating breakfast and reading the paper. There are occasional outbursts from the Blocker clan lamenting the news. David will eventually settle into the crossword puzzle, which he can finish surprisingly quickly. Here is Oliver feeding Karis during breakfast. Quite a contrast in sizes. Afternoon: At some point after all puzzles in the newspaper have been solved and all stories read, there will be talk of taking a walk. Usually, there will be a two hour window from the time the walk is announced until the time it actually happens. The walk will be a pleasant one in the English country side. On Saturday instead of doing a walk, we decided to go to a Dulwich Hamlet soccer game. Unfortunately, Jack had broken his ankle, but Karis was there to save the day: Evening: After the walk, everyone will be clamoring for tea and many wi...