Seize the day

The program was held by University of California (don’t get it wrong, it is in Washington DC) as a result of a consortium of 16 leading business schools in the US. In our session there were 81 participants (full or part time MBAs) from 8 business schools. The objective is providing students with an inside view of Washington as a political marketplace and the effects of government upon corporate strategic planning (quoted from the website http://www.washcampus.edu/courses/mba/default.asp).

The program has the length of 33-34 contact hours including 3 hours exam that worth 3 credit hours. The preliminary readings were about 150 pages of articles and part of books about the 3 pillars of modern government (legislative, executives, and judicative systems as well as how they are related to each other). I only did one third of those readings since I was more busy preparing the logistics (so I didn’t have to cook too much during the Washington DC stay).  

I found the course director and moderator, Dr. Gerald J. Lynch, a prominent faculty and expert that led our classroom effectively. He is an Associate Dean for Programs and Student Services, Krannert School of Management, Purdue University). Some of the speakers, based on my opinion, are probably not too clear in delivering the material. They kept talking without some structures (or maybe it was just because I was too far behind? It is always two sides of the coin, right?). Some of them are very straight forward and only repeating what was in the handouts.

Some are naturally great speakers. One of them was Megan; she is a journalist. What I can tell about her is that she is so passionate about her job that it is so much more than something she does for a living. She’s smart, brave, and (I hope) still retains her idealism. She was the only woman speaker and probably the youngest. She has her own blog and uses it as cross-checking mechanism for information (of course she assumed that all important and true information are accessible through the net). She explained more than just long talks about how journalism could change the world in some ways; she also told us how a human brain works in reacting to good news and bad news. Bad news are always more interesting, shocking, and inviting since naturally some parts of our brain are easily alerted by that kind of news. She also mentioned about the imbalance of news from Iraq since based on her research, almost all the western journalists hardly speak Arabic and the Arabic translators mostly come from one side. So the stories ultimately only speak for that side. There are still many things unfold in Iraq due to language and culture barriers beyond the war lines. Hmm, very interesting.

We also had a game in which we were divided into 8 groups. Each group has to follow every step of the game with the ultimate goal to make the Senator in our group reelected. We have to do many things including fund raising, meeting with local constituencies, meeting the lobbyists (that was one thing our group didn’t do), and working with interest groups. We had some very short visits, too. We visited Russel Building in Capitol Hill (met some Head of Staff of some reps and met a senator from Texas), the US Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the Eisenhower Executive Office Building (met one of 3,000 staff in White House; he handles the Management Budget Office), and National Press Club (where we had lunch in the last day and met with both Republican and Democrat press counselors).

The “field manager” of the course: Lisa and Natalie were so responding for things we needed, at least from my experience in getting a prayer room in the building and the invoice for my company reimbursement process. I also mentioned to them that it will be better if they can provide some preliminary sessions for international students who have very little knowledge and exposure to the material.

Well, let’s hope for the best result in term of grade. I think I did relatively fair. I still got some bonuses, though: big city, lot of lights, lot of interesting places, new experience, and meeting with Mas Agus –who is now working in IMF– and his wife; people I didn’t see for a long time. We stayed at Randolph Tower Apartment (we actually got a penthouse, thanks to Mas Agus). It is a very nice neighborhood near to Virginia Square Metro Station and Ballston Mall. I shall come to DC someday with Kaylia. She must be very excited. To sum it up, the 10-day trip to DC was worthwhile.

Finally the semester is over.

I took the espresso doubleshot from Starbucks to keep me going with my F506 prep today and guess what happened... I am shaking now. My head is spinning and my stomach is hurt. Have I told you that caffeine and I is not a good match?

I just hope that those 3 chapters will still remain in my head until Thursday morning. Oh by the way, the A546 presentation was not so bad. It's one thing I consider to celebrate (means three more to go). Other small thing worthnoted is about 2 IU football players getting the NFL draft in the first round. Tracy Porter is picked by the Saints and James Hardy by the Buffalo.

I can’t believe that the semester is almost over. 4 more days and I’m done. A half-MBA. Sounds great.

I wouldn’t put much stuff in this blog now since I’m totally exhausted after finishing my project with A546. It’s a lot of hard work but I wouldn’t complain. I got great teammates, very good professor to consult with, and interesting case with General Motor. I considered that 689 pages of financial statement interesting (instead of intimidating) to make myself be in positive manner.

I started to a little bit depend on the caffeine to keep me awake. It worked fine when I had to go through all the chapters in G572 last term. And now, I think I will need more caffeine for the three finals in Thursday.  After Thursday, I will officially announce that the spring has come for me.

When it comes to caffeine, I’m not talking about Starbucks. I like Starbucks, but it’s just for fun except one time. I remember when Ika and I were in Chicago in mid December. We were freezing and we definitely needed something to make us warm before continuing our walking. I said I wanted whatever she ordered. I didn’t realize that Ika ordered Frappucino and we both ended up sucking the ice. Cool but not so fun. But hey, that’s what people say about the Starbucks experience !

I'll take some rest now for couple of hours then be prepared for the presentation tomorrow morning. One step at the time.

This week was a long one. Not to mention what happened to my team mates in Accounting, Finance, and Econ class. I was just lucky to miss the interviews and job-searching crowds. I was staying at the school last Tuesday-Wednesday until 2 am to finish our Target case. It was not too hard but I think I made mistake by building our own model rather than follow what's available. I thought it would be easy to develop the model ourselves. It was, until we got to the hardest part : balancing and valuation models. Hours and hours were wasted on those. Steve was awesome and sharp; he helped me a lot. Sometimes, I wonder if I didn't loosen myself in the last 5 years, wouldn't I ever get close to what he accomplished? At least I admire his spirit to learn and be persistent as well as detail & perfect in every step. I missed that kind of person inside me. I was like him a bit quite a while ago. I just lost her due to easy compromized life. I don't know if I still able to regain it. Let's just see.

The exams in general were fair. Not that I could knock them all. If you consider that 70%-75% score (except for F520) is good enough, then I'm probably off the hook. You see..., I just put myself in an easy situation with such low standard and expectation... I might not too concern about the grades in the paper. What I care so much is that will I be able to internalize and grow the knowledge (if you say so) for the future usage. People might say that I'm not that fun with this program but again..... the sunk cost keep haunting me. I wouldn't be here if it's for nothing.

Well, congratulate me for passing this 7-weeks alive. Still have another week of work, though: merger & acquisition case.

I'm gonna make it quick in random order. In the news: Ika has news about her upcoming new family member in early fall this year. My team presentation on ECB has been delayed until this Tuesday. Kaylia's I-20 is still in process. My company refused to reimburse my New York academy trip (as well as the Washington campus program). Monroe Library is one of my favorite place in Bloomington. I still drive badly :( maybe because I don't have any great motivation at all. I still fail to come to the gym and exercise. My Accounting final project is huge and would take a lot of time. I'm 3 chapters behind in another Accounting class. Econ final will happen in less than 72 hours and I still have readings inventory. F520 final is approaching, too.

Well, I'd be better stop now. Seems to me I deliver no add value at all in this blog.

I've been missing Miss K like crazy. I think she doesn't miss me that much; which is good for her. I'm considering to invite her living with me for the rest of 9 months in Bloomington. I can't just take her here without knowing how she's going to feel about living in a new place with completely new situation and arrangement. She's a complete person with brain and heart and I'm afraid that she will be dissapointed just like most people are feeling when they have to start living the Bloomington way. I am okay with the town (it's actually close to what I imagined) since I decided it myself. But what about her when most part of decision will not be on her?

I keep asking myself why I would take her here. Well, frankly speaking, it's me who needs her to support me and as a mother I need to know everything about my little girl. I'm kind a person who doesn't like to be surprised. And I experienced a lot of surprising moment, both good and bad, about her since I left. Second, I don't wanna lose anymore time with her. As I always keep in mind, she will grow up very fast before finally be able to make up her own decision and be more independent of me. I wanna enjoy every minute left.

But then the questions keep going. What can I offer her? What kind of life I can give her? Certainly, it will not be an easy one for both of us. Financially, I am just at par with my income. With regard to time management, I assume that I'll be so much smarter next semester that I'll be able to take care the business (classes, reading materials, assignments, group meetings) during daylight before I pick her up from the childcare at 5.30 pm. I pray that this assumption would be valid. In health issue, I will make sure that she would get the immunization complete; I'll manage the health insurance as well as healthy meals (it'll be challenging.....:)).

I will plan it carefully but I just let the final decision rest on Him. If I can bring her here, I hope Miss K and I will have fun gazing the stars in some midsummer nights, going to the theater, swimming, going to the zoo or museum or library, watching some games at the stadium, cooking together, dining out, or just walking inside my campus and having some friendly chats. I really hope that our decision to invite her to come here is the right thing to do. I hope she'll be happy here even if she finds out that things are not as great as she thought. I hope she will feel well-fulfilled just being with me. I know I am when I'm with her.

I've tried. And I did, most of the times. However, the heartbreaks sometimes just happen. I've probably passed the stage of questioning the whats, whens, and whys. I can not wasting my time while abandoning my responsibility to my family. I just happen to not knowing how else I should manage things. If all the processes should end up with clear and firm results then I failed right away. Was that because I wasn't effective, or had not tried hard enough, or merely because it is already my limit  (then I can't expect more of myself)?

I am not saying that I think it's all craps. And I wanna believe it everytime I say that it'll all be paid. And I still wanna believe that this is just a moment when I can learn more about myself. 

They’ll be all done in 7 weeks. As patented in my character to always weight the good and down sides, 7 weeks is maybe the best. Before 7 weeks, I'll get too overwhelmed. After 7 weeks, I'll get bored. In 7 weeks, I'll be perfectly ready to ..... say goodbye.

The Core had finally over yesterday. I couldn't believe that I've been through a tough quarter of an MBA. I don't wanna think about how the next semester will be (some said that I'll miss the Core more and more for the rest of the program). The things I will surely miss about the Core is the great people I've been around with. As far as I can remember, everybody talked about the same things during the Core. When you did bad in some courses and messed up with the quizzes or exams, there was always someone said, "No worries. None of normal person could do perfect in everything!". There are of course some extraordinary people who found everything easy to understand and got perfect scores without sweating. Jealousy was once the most unavoidable thing in my mind (my bad).

I was so panic and thought that I couldn't make it. I called Miss K and said that I didn't do good at school. She said, "No, Mom, you're smart. I'll pray to God so that you can do better and finish the school soon". I wanted to believe that right away. But it was hard... (sorry, K., Mommy was so much in trouble that night). 

Not until the middle of the Core that I realized I had to do something with the courses. I made a chart to make priorities; x-axis for the level of difficulty and the y-axis for the subjects importance. To be honest, Critical Thinking was the most difficult. Marketing and Operation came next. On the top 3 there were Finance, Accounting, and Quant which were both important and difficult. Strategy and Econ were in the middle, either because I was familiar with the subjects and I thought I could do many things with the materials. I always read the Strategy's cases & recommended readings and made all the analysis (however, I only spoked once or two times in each class discussion... I considered that as a big failure!). 

As the final exams approaching, I started reading the Fin, Acc, and Econ text books (way too late, baby!). I am not a big fans of scores or grades. I just wanna learn more each time, just like the snow ball which gets bigger and bigger as it moves down. In terms of learning, I learnt more of Acc and Fin in the last 2 weeks than ever in my life. Talking about grades, amazingly, my chart worked. As predicted, I screwed up my CT, Marketing, and Operation exams. I got 67 in CT and probably only got 60s to lower 70 in the last two (if I am lucky enough....). Acc and Econ went pretty well. Fin was OK, too. Strategy? I was such a big failure for my team. I couldn't do the presentation in the case competition.

Outside the class, I think I was just in average level. I joined the Toastmasters Club. I was one member of a team signed up for Asian MBA Association presidential election (I run for the position of VP of Social Event & Culture Development). I joined the Investment Banking Academy which offered many interesting things for me to learn (I regret that I also didn't perform well here). I joined the Student Admission Council which so far was the most interesting and enjoyable involvement: meeting prospective students, bringing them to class, sending notes, and hoping I can support people to make their decisions by sharing my own Kelley experience.

Off the school, I could only remember some parties and hang-out events. Colm's birthday party, fasting-break dinner at Mbak Sonya's in Ramadhan, dinner at Upland Brewery before the case competition, breakfast at CrackerBarrel after the competition, India Night, and dinner at Bill's in the middle of the exams. I watched some films at the cinema, came to a football game, came to IU Auditorium for two Broadway shows (Annie & Rent), sat for a ballet performance "The 1900's Perspective", and finished some novels during the Core (surprising, isn't it? I am surpised, too).

Running away from Bloomington, I wasn't too dissapointed. Urbana-Champaign, IL in September. The first New York City, NY trip with the IB Academy in October. New York again during the Thanksgiving break. Houston and San Antonio, TX before the final in December. And now, I am in Chicago,IL celebrating the end of the Core with Ika.

I can't find words to express it but I feel GOOD. And I still have a full 3 weeks free. F R E E.....