My Yellow Brick Road & MBAT

I'd like to start off my entry of self reflection with a profound quote by the President of the United States:

There's nothing more deep than recognizing Israel's right to exist. That's the most deep thought of all. ... I can't think of anything more deep than that right now.
--George W. Bush

Washington, DC
03/13/2002

Since I decided that Risk Management might be the career I'm meant to be in, doors started openning for me and life started to get a little easier. It's almost like God finally gave me a break and every bad thing that could happen didn't actually happen to me anymore. Additionally, even some good things started happening to me. Maybe I'm finally finding my way after all.

So 2 weeks ago were the MBA Olympics in Paris, an event where some 20 top European business schools compete in various sporting activities. I was on the salsa team. We started practicing for this event very late, and had just wrapped up the full choreography literally 2 days before the show. There were 11 salsa teams competing in total, and as we watched them practice, we thought: man, there are some good dancers here. We ended up saying that no matter what happens, we are going to go out there and have the most fun possible. We ended up winning the silver medal, with LBS (London Business School) in 3rd, and Bocconi with the gold. We all were ecstatic.

The Performance:


The first night's party was pretty amazing. We had the LBS band on stage, and a nice atmosphere at HEC. When we got back to the hotel, Thilo, Bruno & I stayed talking outside with a beer until they closed the bar. The second night of course, was the salsa show. Later that night I became bored, but my new Spanish teammate Santi saved the day when we managed to dance the night away. Turned out to be a good night. The next day I went to Paris to see Florian and Olga. There I met Florian's super sweet friend with a Ph.D in Neuroscience Laurent. We ended up talking about neurons and risk management. The French men were awesome at showing us around their wonderful city. I absolutely loved Paris.

Perhaps the last day at MBAT in Paris was the best of all. I came back from the city quite late, missed the BBQ and headed down to the party and the open bar. The whole party atmosphere at HEC from the drinks to the music to the venue reminded me of college, and that made me very happy. After a few beers, I started meeting some of the LBS crowd. And in that crowd I've probably never met such a great dancer since New Orleans (where I was called the budi dancing queen but let's not get into that). I've never had this much fun dancing non-salsa since I was at Tulane. You know that saying "Dance like no one is watching?" Well we did, and everyone was watching. I ended up spending the night with the LBS crowd while I missed all the IESE/ESADE action which involved lots of singing "Te Quiero IESE", standing on tables with flags, wine pouring and Bonzai chants. But it was worth it. I really missed classic New Orleans partying that night...

I don't know why, but coming back from MBAT in Paris injected new life into me that I haven't felt in a long time. Things were going right, my struggling in almost all areas of life had subsided. I didn't feel like such a screw-up in school. I met some of the most wonderful people that give me butterflies. And I wasn't scared to ride a moto anymore. Maybe it was the lucky Portuguese rooster. Maybe God is finally giving me the thumbs up for my new direction in life. As JD in SCRUBS used to say, "Every so often a wizard comes along and tells you exactly what you need to hear." That we had the brains all along. Or that we had a heart all along. Or even that we had the courage all along. I don't know where my life will ultimately end up. All I know is that I'm just here, following my yellow brick road...