Economic turbulence ahead for 2006?

Normally in the fixed income market, there is a direct relationship between the length of an asset’s term to maturity and the yield from that asset. For example, the yield on a 30-year bond should be higher than that on a 10-year bond, and that on a 10-year bond should be higher than that on a two-year note, and so on and so fourth. Any deviation from this is results in an inverted yield curve.

 

An inverted yield curve is an MBA student’s worst nightmare because historically it has been a reliable indicator of bad economic times ahead. This happened in November for the first time since 2000 and happened again earlier this week. Only twice in the past 50 years has the inverted yield curve not been followed by a downturn in the economy. The most recent occurrence was in 1998 when there was a financial crisis in Russia and Long-Term Capital Management had just gone out of business. Investors in droves moved their money into bonds, thus raising bond prices and lowering bond yields.

 

I have heard stories from alums that graduated from Kenan-Flagler a few years back about how bleak the job market was when they graduated. I personally hope any downturn in the economy won’t happen until at least the fall when by then, I have hopefully secured my full time post graduation job offer.

Quizzing the Sage of Omaha

Without a doubt the highlight of Mod II has been the trip in November to see Warren Buffett in Omaha. It was a great opportunity to see how his mind works to logically analyze business (and other types of) situations. I know from emails I have received due to the blog that Buffett has a large following in the blogosphere and no doubt this posting will receive a bit of attention. I therefore wish to make the disclaimer that while every attempt will be made to present an accurate portrayal of what he said on November 14th, this blog posting is by no means an official record of what he said to us.

One of the first questions asked was about good parenting. Buffett said parents’ verbal message should be consistent with their behavior. He also talked about what he values in life. He said “if you tell me who your heroes are, I can tell you how you will turn out in life. Life is not played with a rewind button, there is only a play button.” He also said one cannot decide whether one can kick a football 70 yards or dance like Fred Astaire, but can only make decisions over other matters such as whether to be generous and to be kind.

A vice that Buffett repeated warned against is greed. He said “I don’t fool around on borrowed money. I have always been happy with what I have. I don’t live any differently than I did 40 years ago, same house, same office.” He said “I think people get greedy because they think they can be happier if they have more money and can buy more things.”

Buffett talked about what types of businesses he likes. He said the worst kind of businesses to be in is the type that requires the owner to keep putting more and more money into the enterprise. He talked about his 1989 investment in U.S. Air as an example of this type of business, “as the ink was drying on the check, my money was gone.” He jokingly said he has an 800 number that he calls every time he gets the urge to buy an airline.

He talked about his investment this past summer in Forest River, a manufacturer of recreational vehicles. His negotiations began in June when he received a one and a half page fax from its owner Peter J. Liegl. When he met with Liegl, he was exactly as he had anticipated. After the deal was made Buffett wanted to hire Liegl to run the business, he asked Liegl what salary he wanted and the reply was “I don’t want to make any more than you do.” He said he tends to hire the person that sold him the business to run it. He also looks for people that like the business rather than those out for themselves or out to make money.

Buffett looks for businesses with an enduring competitive advantage that will remain relatively unchanged in the future. He gave Coca-Cola as an example of a business with such a trait. He wants the brand to be associated with happiness, and with institutions such as Disneyworld and the Olympics. He jokingly said he wants to give out Pepsi at funerals. Gillette is also another brand with an enduring competitive advantage. He likes to measure a business by whether a competitor with deep pockets can influence the market. “I can give you $5 billion and you cannot take the business from Gillette.” Another reason he likes Gillette is he can understand how the business will be like 5, 10, 15 years into the future. He said the Internets will not change the shaving business and he has no reason to believe management will change. He talked about his 2001 purchase of custom frame manufacturer Albecca, which he described as “a business with a moat around it.” He then added “I cannot tell you what Intel will be like 10 years from now but I know what this business will be like.”

Someone pointed out the extra cash his company is holding and asked whether he intends to pay a dividend to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders. He said he will consider such a move only if there is nothing intelligent to do with the money within a reasonable time. “Our experience has been that you do find things but not everyday.” His experience has been that the worst time to find value in the market is when everyone else is excited about the market. He gave the example that on the day NASDAQ hit its all time high was the same day Berkshire Hathaway stock hit its all time low. He pointed out that there is an “unusual corollary” involved with a possible dividend because heowns a large stake in Berkshire Hathaway and therefore a significant percentage of any dividend will go back to him and he would have to look for ways to invest it.” He said he wanted his company to keep at least $10 billion in cash because of the insurance business. He wants to be prepared for the “hurricane that makes Katrina look like a warm up act” and for the possibility a nuclear bomb detonation will prevent the stock markets from opening. He then said something which implied that he believes most insurance companies are not prepared enough for such possibilities by not sitting on enough cash and planning to rely on lines of credit to pay out policy holders.

His comments on inflation were “I always feel inflation is in remission, you can’t get rid of it.” He said one “guarantee” about risk is that it is not measured by beta. His definition of risk is it is incurred when you exit your circle of competence. He believes the only two courses you will ever need for investment management are one on how to value a business and another on how to think about the stock market. He recommends that we all get into the habit of walking around our neighborhoods and trying to understand the local business and the logistics behind them.

He believes that much of his wealth is attributed to luck and that he’s benefited from having been born a white man. He said society, along with geography and timing have contributed. He believes there is an advantage to being born in the United States but that advantage is not as big as it was 50 years ago. He defines wealth as “a claim on future goods and services” and said he does not believe that being born into a wealthy family should entitle one to claims on others’ goods and services.

Later on that week I met a recent Kenan-Flagler alum at a recruiting event for a major Wall Street firm. When I mentioned the trip to see Buffett he said if he had known about it, he would have taken time off from work to go with us. Getting the chance to meet Warren Buffett was truly a remarkable experience.

New year’s present from the state government in Raleigh

And it’s a present that keeps on giving, or in this case, taxing. Starting January 1st, the state gas tax will increase by 15 percent, increasing gas price by 2.8 cents per gallon

                         

Some of you Kenan-Flagler folks who are traveling outside North Carolina may want to fill up your gas tanks before returning.

“Previously, on the West Wing”

After my operations final on Saturday, I had the chance to catch up on the latest episode of the West Wing. Even though the show is not nearly as good as it was before, I am still a fan and it’s the only show my VCR is programmed to tape regularly. The episode was particularly memorable because less than 24 hours ago, John Spencer had passed away.

There was one line from the show I really liked. It came from John Spencer’s character, who was running for Vice President of the United States, talking to his campaign manager Josh Lyman. The campaign was not going as expected and Josh was about to be fired for having made a string of bad decisions.

“These are tough calls, it's impossible to know how they are going to turn out, what’s important is how you respond when you get it wrong, how you react, what your next move is.”

Mod II goes into the history books

The hardest part of MBA curriculum at Kenan-Flagler came to a close yesterday when I completed my macroeconomics final. Last night we had another end of Mod party at the Martini Bar on Franklin Street. The $450 tab set up by the MBA Student Association ran out about half an hour after the event started. 

 

While I am glad that Mod II is over, I am keenly aware that Mod III presents new challenges. Immediately after I finished my exam yesterday, I received an email from the Office of Career Services informing me that one of the companies that I had dropped my cover letter and resume for had pre-selected its list of students it wishes to interview and I am not on it. While I certainly did not expect to be on the ‘closed list” for all the companies I had “dropped” for, getting the email was a sober reminder of what I have to worry about for a good part of Mod III.

Time-Out after strategery

The strategery final this morning was pretty much what I had expected. We had to apply the frameworks from the class on scenarios involving joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, and entering and exiting an industry. The exam was closed book but we were allowed to bring in a “cheat sheet” with our notes from the class. Many students brought the same “cheat sheet” into the exam, the same one that was passed to us from the second years, the same one that no doubt we will pass onto next year’s students. There was one question that threw people off. It had to do with firm competitive advantage. He used a term that was covered in class but not mentioned on the “cheat sheet” and a lot of students had trouble answering it. I would not be surprised if I get a 0 out of the 15 points allocated for that problem.

After the exam, I had lunch with some classmates at a place on West Franklin Street called Time-Out. It came highly recommended from another classmate who attended UNC undergrad, one whom I suspect reads this blog. The cashier was a jovial fellow who kidded around with customers waiting in line. When he rang up my order of broiled chicken, French fries, and potato salad and I gave him exact change, he said “you’re a gentleman and a scholar.” My response was “not after today’s exam I am not.”

“Functional psychopaths” make the best traders and investors

"In a study of investors’ behavior 41 people with normal IQs were asked to play a simple investment game. Fifteen of the group had suffered lesions on the areas of the brain that affect emotions.

The result was those with brain damage outperformed those without.

The scientists found emotions led some of the group to avoid risks even when the potential benefits far outweighed the losses, a phenomenon known as myopic loss aversion." - Reuters article

I am tempted to crack a joke about my classmates that are looking to go into sales and trading or investment management. But I won't.

That was a hard one

Unfortunately I am not talking about the punchline to some dirty joke you may have heard in high school. I am talking about this morning’s operations final.

                         

Operations is the hardest class this Mod. Many alumni I meet remember it as one of the more challenging classes. To those of you who are not familiar with MBA classes, operations is a class that answers the question “how do you run a business as efficiently and profitably as you can?”  This means how to maximize the capacity of a restaurant and its subset operations (ie the bar, the waiting and dining rooms), the efficiency of a company’s supply chain, or the profits of the local newsvendor (also known as the classic newsvendor problem).

I like the class a lot but find the material to be next to impossible to understand. I heard someone say that last year’s final exam had a 40% average. We were given gave us last year’s exam to study from. I thought today’s exam was much harder. I noticed that it had a total of 180 points and since we had three hours to do the exam, that translates into an average of one minute per point. I am hoping that this exam’s outcome will be similar to that of last Mod’s analytical tools exam. I thought the test was impossible but ended up getting a score slightly above the mean because everybody else did just as poorly as I did.

Close call in finance

During Mod I there were a couple of times when I showed up to class late because I had overslept. I eventually began using a backup alarm clock. The system has worked well and not once did I oversleep during Mod II, that was until this morning.

 

I spent the entire day yesterday in McColl studying for finance and went home early to watch the Apprentice and to get a good night’s sleep before my exam. I neglected to set my alarm clock before I went to sleep and when I woke up, it was 8:35 and I had 25 minutes until my final exam.

 

By the time I got to McColl, it was already 8:55 and all the good seats in the rooms had been taken. I pulled up a chair (I purposely chose one with a writing surface) next to an AC outlet (I forgot to turn off my laptop last night and the battery was drained) and did the exam in the front of the room The questions were not any harder than the practice problem sets we had to do for class but it felt much harder because we had a time limit.

 

The professor that taught the first part of finance during Mod I used to encourage us to perform an “internal sanity check” on all our answers. One of those “internal sanity checks” saved me today. In one of the problems, we had to calculate the Rs (cost of levered equity capital) and the Ru (cost of unlevered equity capital). When I completed the problem, I noticed that my Ru was bigger than the Rs. This failed my “internal sanity check,” which tells me the weighted average cost of capital should always be lower than the Ru, and the Ru should always be lower than the Rs. Turns out while calculating the capital asset pricing model, I had plugged in the market risk premium as the market return.

 

I am hopeful I can get an H in finance. On three of the problems I am certain I got right. The other four contained so much detail I really had no way of ascertaining as to whether I got them completely right or not.

 

And in case you are wondering, my second alarm clock did not work this morning because I had tinkered with it yesterday. I noticed that it was five minutes behind and in my attempt to set the correct time, I turned off the alarm function.

Bob Grant to retire from radio

"After an on-air career that spanned more than 50-years and made him one of the most influential voices in political media, talk radio giant Bob Grant is leaving WOR Radio in New York." - NewMax.com article

This means nothing to about 99.9% of my regular readers but I just learned thirty minutes ago that the man I grew up listening to on the radio, Bob Grant, will do his last radio show January 13th. I dare say there is no one alive today (other than Jesus Christ) who has influenced me more than the man often referred to as “the King of Talk Radio.” In the past couple of years, I have not listened to him as much as I did when I was young but I still tune in to him (either on the Internets or in the winter time when the AM radio signal travels much further after the sun goes down) as often as I get.

I will blog more about this in a subsequent post.

Smoked the marketing final

The marketing final was much easier than I had expected. This goes to show that I tend to not just over-worry about things, but worry about things that are of relatively low importance. The marketing class this Mod has the most amount of reading, the reading material comprised of a textbook that I never open, and a thick binder that holds all the class slides, case readings, and articles.

 

Today is the perfect day to have this final because it was 24 degrees when I woke up this morning and I don’t expect the temperature to rise north of the freezing point anytime today. After dinner tonight I am going to put a log in the fireplace, get the fire going, and toss in all my marketing material. Oh wait, I can’t do that here because I don’t have a fireplace anymore.

Marketing the Xbox 360

About one week from now, almost to the exact minute, I should be handing in my macroeconomics final to our beloved professor. That historic moment will mark the end of my first semester in graduate school and the completion of one-fourth of my MBA degree .

In the meantime, I have tomorrow’s marketing final to worry about. The final will be on marketing the Xbox 360. Yesterday, our professors (I use the plural because this is the only class at Kenan-Flagler that is using the team teaching concept where two professors rotate to teach the class) handed out a 49 page packet of press releases, news articles, and pretty much everything you need to know about the Xbox 360. Tomorrow we will apply the concepts and tools we learned this quarter on the product.

Our professors showed us the following Xbox 360 television ad in class yesterday to get us hyped for the final.

Down the final stretch

I fired off the first batch of cover letters this morning. Wednesday is the last day of classes, I have an in-class final for marketing on Wednesday. My first “real” final is finance on Friday, followed by operations on Saturday, strategery a week from today, and macroeconomics a week from Tuesday. This year’s last exam is pretty late because they gave us an entire week off (plus two days) for fall break. I believe next year’s final exam schedule will be a bit earlier because we won’t have as much time off in October.

 

While we are on the topic of the next school year, congratulations to the Kenan-Flagler Class of 2008 early action applicants who received their acceptances today. For those of you that did not receive the news you were hoping for, don’t be discouraged. I recommend following up with the Admissions Committee by continuing to express your interest in the school. One way you can do this is by sending a letter along the lines of this sample form letter.

Sex in the Forbidden City

The December 12 issue of Time Magazine had an article about the changing sexual attitudes in China. The headline is so hilarious I cut it out and clipped it to my fridge.

"Sex, Please--We're Young and Chinese

A generation after Mao suits, China is coping with an epidemic of free love

Li Li has lost exact count of how many men she has bedded, but she knows the number is far above 100. "I don't keep statistics," says the former journalist, 27. But she isn't averse to kissing and telling. For the past couple of years, Li has kept a blog--written under the pen name Muzi Mei--that has chronicled everything from her penchant for orgies and Internet dating to her skepticism toward marriage when it means staying faithful to one man. This fall the Beijing resident posted a recording of her own lovemaking sounds that would make Paris Hilton blush. More than 50,000 people simultaneously tried to download the 25-minute podcast, crashing the host server. Despite government attempts to censor it, the sex diary is so popular that Li's pen name is intermittently the most searched keyword on China's top search engine. "I express my freedom through sex," says Li, unapologetically. "It's my life, and I can do what I want."

Trader at major Japanese bank mistakenly costs firm $224 million

How do you say "D'oh!" in Japanese?

"The trader at Mizuho Securities, who has not been named, fell foul of what is known in financial circles as “fat finger syndrome” where a dealer types incorrect details into his computer. He wanted to sell one share in a new telecoms company called J Com, for 600,000 yen (about £3,000).

Unfortunately, the order went through as a sale of 600,000 shares at 1 yen each."

There's more ...

"The slip caused immediate shockwaves in the Tokyo market as traders tried to guess which firm had made the mistake. Fearing the impact, traders sold shares in all Japanese broking houses and the sell-off led to the value of the Nikkei 225 falling 2 per cent. It was only later that Mizuho admitted that one of its traders had made the error."

But it doesn't end there ....

"If Mizuho has to accept the loss, it may have to sell many of its stockholdings to raise the money, creating further pressure on Japanese stocks."

And to add insult to injury ...

"As if the hapless trader was not unpopular enough, the firm also cancelled its end-of-year party, scheduled for last night."

The entire article is here. Enjoy.

In search of summer internship

One of the things I find overwhelming about business school is walking around with the knowledge that the decisions that I make over the next 17 months will affect a good portion of the next ten years of my life. I was feeling that anxiety last night as I looked at the Office of Career Services’ listing of companies that will be interviewing on campus starting in January. I have between now and next week to map out which companies I want to intern with and submit my resume and an individually tailored cover letter. The companies will then receive all the resumes and cover letters from Kenan-Flagler, make a decision as to which students they wish to grant an interview to, place those names onto their “closed lists,” and resubmit the information back to OCS. Students on the “closed list” then sign up for a time slot and any time slot that has not been spoken for by the pre-announced deadline are allocated to other students via a bidding system.

                                                

The last time I looked for a job was more than four years ago. I am once again feeling the type of anxiety and inadequacy that (I hope) is normal for all job applicants. You know you are about to enter a situation where you will be judged and you will find out just how strong your cover letter, resume, previous work experience, understanding of business concepts, and salesmanship skills are.

How universities manage their investments

I enjoy reading about the strategies taken by universities in managing their billion dollar endowments. There was an article in yesterday’s Daily Tar Heels about recent moves by UNC Management Company, the company in charge of managing the $1.4 billion UNC Chapel Hill Foundation Investment Fund. According to president Jon King, their strategy is to “find asset classes that are not the hot assets today — ones that may be a little bit out of favor — but still significant aspects of the economy.”  They did just that five years ago by investing in the energy and natural resources sector, which at that time was considered unattractive. Their investment paid off and returned a 45.7 percent gain in the 2004-2005 fiscal year.

 

The article also talked about investment strategies taken by neighboring schools. Some schools own positions in forests, which make money by periodically cutting down subsections and selling the timber. I know that Harvard University, which has the largest academic endowment, owns forest in New Zealand. The article mentions that it, along with Wake Forest University, own forest in the Pacific Northwest.

 

And in case anyone is keeping track, Yale has the second largest academic endowment with $13 billion, the University of Chicago has $3.6 billion, the University of Virginia has $2 billion, and Wake Forest at $1.1 billion.

 

7:40pm update: I found this article bookmarked on my computer about Yale's endowment's stellar return in the most recent fiscal year.

 

"Yale University's David Swensen, who oversees the school's $15.2 billion endowment, produced the highest returns among managers at the richest U.S. universities, beating his competitors at Stanford and Harvard with investments in hedge funds, real estate and private equities."

“Freedom is on the march”

"Tens of thousands of people marched through Hong Kong on Sunday to protest the slow pace of democratic reform in this former British colony, but the territory's Beijing-backed leader again rejected demands to set a timetable for achieving universal suffrage." - Washington Post article

I had mixed reactions to yesterday’s pro-democracy protest in Hong Kong. On the one hand, I was delighted to read about people around the world continuing to clamor for something as fundamental to the average American as universal suffrage. But at the same time, it angers me when I compare what's happening in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Hong Kong, to what goes on in our own country where less than half of all registered voters bother to vote in most elections.

"Yours is a very bad hotel"

I had my first all nigher last night, stayed up most of the night working on the case competition, I slept for about two hours. Surprsingly, after my group's presentation this morning, instead of going home to sleep like I had planned, I ended up staying at McColl and going to class.

My marketing professor showed us a PowerPoint presentation that's been floating around the Internets titled "Yours is a very bad hotel."  It was an attempt by an irate customer to illustrate her frustration with the poor services she received at the DoubleTree Club Hotel in Houston, TX. It goes to illustrate something I thought about earlier today after my group had presented. I went onto the school's shared drives and looked at the PowerPoint presentations from last year's case competition participants. I was really impressed with their ability to make their point across using PowerPoint. I think PowerPoint is an incredibly important skill that I need to master in the upcoming seventeen months.

Exclusive: John Mayer attends 10 year reunion

I have it on good authority that musical sensation John Mayer attended the Fairfield High School ten year reunion this past Saturday. And that the double doors of the high school were still standing on Monday morning.

"At the same time ..."

The Office of Career Services requires that before any student can sign up for an on campus interview, the student must first go through a mock interview. A mock interview is a dry run of an actual interview conducted by a second year student who interviewed and interned in the same industry. Even though it is not an actual interview, every attempt is made make it look like a real interview as possible. This means we have to pick a company and show up, dressed in business attire, as though we are interviewing for that actual company's internship position.

 

I had my mock interview this afternoon. I did not do spectacular but did not do as poorly as I could have done. My interviewer was impressed with my understanding of the chosen company but felt I did a poor job at explaining how my background has prepared me for a finance position. He pointed out certain areas on my resume that I can use as strong sell points and gave me tips on how my skills in the technology field can translate into a career in finance.

 

The entire interview was videotaped and I am going to have to force myself to watch it sometime. This reminds me of 2000 when Al Gore's campaign advisors obtained a videotape of the Saturday Night Live skit parodying the former Vice President's performance during the first debate and forced him to watch it to make him realize how poorly he did.

 

My interviewer did say something surprising that I am going to have to watch for on the videotape. He said I used the phrase "at the same time" on at least ten different instances during the twenty minute interview. I do use that phrase quite a bit but do I use it too much? I will let you all be the judge of that.

New Yorker Magazine: How Goldman Sachs is carving up its $11 billion money pie

"Last year, the New York State Comptroller's office estimated the average bonus on Wall Street to be a clean $100,600 (or $15.9 billion split among 158,000 employees). Early estimates of the 2005 bonus pool reach as high as $19 billion."

The investment banking boom continues ..... Entire article here.

"Just kicking arse and taking names"

I love quoting lines from one of my favorite movies.

 

After spending nearly a week away from Kenan-Flagler, I am finally ready to finish out Mod II.  As of right now, the only things standing between me and the completion of the toughest Mod in the MBA program are one finance case competition sponsored by a bank in Charlotte, a "trading game" sponsored by a New York City investment firm, five final exams, three finance assignments, two operations assignments, one strategery case write up (that I know of), one Habitat for Humanity project, and something personal that I hopefully will get around to doing in the next twenty-three calendar days, God willing.

 

It's good to be back. More importantly, it's good to finally have my mind back in the building! 

Giving thanks

I complain a lot. That should not be news to any of you that have regularly read this blog. But on this Thanksgiving, I am going to force myself to jot down a couple of things I am grateful for. Please keep in mind that while some of these may be trivial to you, they certain are not to me.

 

In no particular order, the following is an incomplete list of things that I thank God for on this Thanksgiving 2005:

 

1. My study group at Kenan-Flagler. I cannot think of a group of students that are more intelligent, thoughtful, supportive, and considerate than the ones that I have been fortunately enough to have been paired with during these past two quarters.
2. Christians at Chapel Hill. Between the people I have met in church, the Kenan-Flagler MBA Christian Fellowship group, and one particular professor I met when Ken Elzinga spoke at InterVarsity in October, I feel I have found a supportive group of Christians I can fellowship with.
3. My downstairs neighbor at Chapel Hill has an unguarded wireless network that I have been using for free since the day I moved in.
4. I feel God working in my life over the past four months. During fall break in October, I mentioned that I was feeling a sense of peace over my situation at Kenan-Flagler, almost as though God was telling me to continue doing what I normally do and He would take care of the rest. In the time since Mod II has begun, He has continued to make me feel more at ease about other aspects of my life. There are some personal issues that I have struggled with for a long while, for so long I am embarrassed to tell you how long. On two separate occasions this month, I felt bothered by something that reminded me of these issues and each time, I felt God telling me to leave things up to Him.
5. My mom has started to read the bible.
6. Even though I am not attending a business school that was my first (or even second) choice, I am certain that attending Kenan-Flagler is a better option for me than spending another year in my previous situation.
7. The Virginia Advocate is back in business at UVA.
8. Even with all the scandals about prisoner abuse, unreliable intelligence, our national government has done a reasonably good job in protecting us from a second terrorist attack and in retaliating against the thugs responsible for 9/11.

Ni hao ma?

There was a story on World News Tonight last night about public school districts in places from Brookline, MA to Portland, OR starting to teach mandarin Chinese to their students. This is largely due to the realization of the importance that China will play in tomorrow's economy.

"The Driscoll teachers like to tell their students that if they learn Chinese, they will be able to communicate with nearly a third of the world's population - the seven percent who speak English, and the 18 percent who speak Mandarin."

Kenan-Flagler offers a one year long foreign language class where students learn business communications skills in either Mandarin Chinese, Portuguese, or Spanish. I had originally signed up for it but over the summer I decided against taking it because of the time commitment involved. I can still take it during my second year and I am going to consider giving it a shot.

Bat out of hell

I am scheduled to fly out of Raleigh/Durham International Airport later this evening, weather permitting. I say that because for the first time in a long while, it's been raining in Chapel Hill and as a result, the time for my flight keeps getting pushed back.

 

A second year told me over the weekend that Mod II is "pretty much over." By that he meant that by now I should have a pretty good grip on the materials covered in my classes. Unfortunately for me this means I am screwed in strategery, marketing, operations, and macroeconomics.

 

I am going to set my sights real low this Mod. As long as I don't get an L (low pass) and hopefully an H (high pass) in finance, I'd be happy.

Advice to the Kenan-Flagler Class of 2007

I came across another blog last week belonging to a current second year in the Kenan-Flagler MBA program. He had written a post at the conclusion of his first year listing all the lessons he had learned during the first four Mods.

 

The post can be found here. But I am going to copy and paste from his blog the nine bullet points of wisdom that he wishes to pass to the Class of 2007:

 

1. Prioritize Prioritize Prioritize. When you are inundated with work and responsibilities in the first semester, remember why you came to b-school and focus on developing that area.

2. Foster a deep relationship with your study group. They are going to carry you on so many things. Treat them with the respect they deserve.

3. Don't be a book worm - get out! Socialize. Connect with as many people as possible. Remember, "A P is a P is a P"

4. Develop your weakness. If you are a quant jock but suck at the "soft skills," do your best to develop those skills.

5. Lead. Give speeches. Take on responsibility. Prior to starting in the fall last year, I joined up with the head of the e-ship club and we put together plans to have a west coast trek to meet VC's and entrepreneurs. I planned the trek and made the connections to the VC's and entrepreneurs. It was an amazing experience that allowed me to foster relationships with my classmates, work with second years, and connect with some great people on the west coast. The people I met on the west coast helped me immensely later with career advice or making connections to other folks.

6. If you are married, dedicate time to your spouse. They are priority #1 - remember that!

7. Be prepared for rejection. I realize that most of you to this point have never faced rejection after an interview or two or three or four. Get ready to be dinged. It happens.

8. Connect with your professors. They will give you very candid feedback on your job search and will potentially offer connections to the appropriate hiring managers.

9. Ask the blindingly obvious questions ... you will benefit and your classmates and professors will love you for it. I have to admit that I wasn't good at this ...

 

On behalf of the Class of 2007, thanks Vince!

Has anyone seen my wife?

I have had several conversations this past week that gave me the impression that there is someone here that I should be on the lookout for. Let me explain.

 

Earlier this week I was at an event talking to an alumni. He mentioned that he met his wife during his two years at Kenan-Flagler. He also said that there were eight couples from his class that met in the MBA program and ended up getting married. One of my classmates then turned to me and asked "have you found your wife yet?"  I had no idea why he chose me to pose that question to and simply answered "I have no idea."

 

This afternoon I was at a tailgate before the Duke game. I was talking to two classmates, both married. One excused himself by saying he had to go talk to his wife. The other then said he had to go find his wife. The first student, who is well aware of my marital status, then asked me if I knew where my wife was.

 

So if anyone here at Kenan-Flagler sees someone that looks like she could be my wife, please tell her that I am looking for her. Thank you.

OOTO

At the company where I used to work, "OOTO" was short for "out of the office."  Whenever a  co-worker went on vacation, he would send out an email with the subject "OOTO until xxxx" to let others know of his impending absence.

 

Ever since Monday when I came back from Omaha, I feel as though my mind has been out of the office. I have work to do and I don't particularly care. All I can think about is leaving town next week for Thanksgiving. It's as though my mind has left the building.

 

This is not a good thing because I still have lots of work to do and lately I have been dropping the ball. I had to hand in a form today to the MBA Office to inform them which section of Management Communications I want for next fall and I almost completely forgot about it. This afternoon, I received an email from the Office of Career Services about a company presentation that took place last night, a presentation that I had signed up for but had decided not to attend because I was working on an assignment due today. The email politely reminded me that I am obligated to attend all the presentations that I have signed up for.

 

Classes didn't end until 5pm today because of my operations professor had scheduled a guest speaker. This was followed by a mock interview workshop presented by an investment banking firm. I then stopped by the firm's happy hour at the Carolina Brewery and came back to the school for yet another presentation by a big name consulting firm. Now that I am finally done with presentations, I would much rather blog and read the New York Times than to do any work.

 

Maybe I will finally get around to do that Warren Buffett write-up that I have been promising you guys.

Morgan Stanley to axe seven percent of managing directors

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/16/business/16place.html 

Circle the anomaly

Which of the following five items do not belong with the other four?

77 degrees        Sandles        Shorts      Short sleve shirt      November 16th

That's right, today is November 16th and I am sitting at the Latane Plaza outside of McColl wearing shorts, short sleeve shirt, and sandles. Today's supposed to hit a high of 77 later.

My operations professor arranged for a tour of the Honda Power Equipment factory in Swepsonville this afternoon. No operations class, a field trip, and summer-like weather in North Carolina, who can ask for anything more.

Sound familiar?

I have been so busy since getting back from Omaha that I have yet to have the chance to do a write-up on the Warren Buffett talk. However, I came across a web page at the Tuck School of Business that includes a good write-up of a trip a group of their students took recently to Omaha. The trip sounded like an exact duplicate of ours with a tour of the Nebraska Furniture Mart, followed by a question and answer session with Buffett, and later lunch at Gorat's.

 

While we are on the topic of reading things on the Internets that sound familiar, there is a blog at Kenan-Flagler called the KFBS Onyen. It is named after the login that every employee and student has here at UNC, pronounced "onion."  The KFBS Onyen comes out quarterly and spoofs individuals, events, and organizations here in the Kenan-Flagler community. The most recent issue had a posting that begins with the following:

 

"There has been a great deal of consternation over the 1st Year that writes a personal blog about his experiences here at Kenan-Flagler. For those of y'all that haven't read it, the 1st Year in question waxes poetic about a rival business school which snubbed him, causing him to seek refuge in Chapel Hill. To make matters worse, let's just say the writer doesn't toe our company line that KFBS is an academic utopia where the administration is strong, the faculty is beautiful and all of the students are above average."

 

The rest of the article can be found here.

The second richest man in America

Our schedule began this morning when our trolley took us to the Nebraska Furniture Mart. This Berkshire Hathaway owned company has been operated by the same family for over forty years and advertises itself as “America’s largest volume home furnishing store.” In addition to furniture, it sells electronics, record music/movies, and rugs. On any given day it holds tens of millions of dollars of inventory within its walls and tries to attract customers by selling new release movies and music at prices $3 to $5 cheaper than its competitors.

After the furniture store, we went straight to the headquarters of Berkshire Hathaway where Warren Buffett met with us for just under two hours in the top floor of the Kiewit Center. He began by informing us that the format of the meeting was not a talk, but rather a question and answer session where he would answer our questions on anything ranging from investing, politics, to more personal matters.

During the talk, the specifics of which I will blog about in a subsequent post after I have had the chance to go through my notes, a couple of things about the man were evident. First is that he has a sense of humor. He pointed at the Coca Cola products that were laid out in the back of the room and jokingly said that because his company owns 8% of Coca Cola, the profits of one out of every 12 cans of Coke goes directly into his balance sheet. I was amazed at his ability to recall details, names, and dates. But the most striking thing I have noticed is Buffett’s complete lack of pretentiousness. He surprised us by arriving at the meeting room 15 minutes ahead of time and did so by walking up the same narrow flight of stairs onto the 16th floor that many of us did (there was confusion as to which floor we had to go to and a bunch of us got off the elevator on the 15th floor and had to make the walk).

After the talk, we went to lunch at Gorat’s Steakhouse, a place Buffett had mentioned during the talk as an example of "sophisticated dining in Omaha. I remember reading about his favorite steakhouse in a magazine article a few years back. He drove there in his Lincoln Town Car and allowed four students to ride with him. When lunch ended, we went outside and the approximately 80 students (about 30 from Kenan-Flagler and 50 from McCombs School of Business) mobbed him as we fought one another for the chance to have our pictures taken with the Sage of Omaha.

The biggest surprise I had today was running into a familiar face among the students from McCombs. When I had my Kenan-Flagler interview in January, I met another applicant that I had exchanged business cards with. Unfortunately we never corresponded afterwards. He is now a first year at McCombs and I had the chance to talk to him during the tour this morning at the Nebraska Furniture Mart. As I was leaving Gorats, I gave him my business card and asked to keep in touch. I just hope he is better at emailing than I am.

Blogging from the Heartland

Greetings from Omaha, Nebraska where later today around fifty students from the Kenan-Flagler Business School and the McCombs School of Business will meet with legendary investor Warren Buffett. 

 

When I got off the plane 30 minutes ago at Eppley Airfield, the weather was a chilly 35 degrees. This is quite a change compared to the unusually warm weather we’ve been having in North Carolina. For comparison purposes, it was 68 degrees when I arrived at Raleigh Durham International five hours earlier.

 

During the first leg of the flight to Atlanta, I sat next to a graduate of the Kenan-Flagler MAC (masters of accounting) program. He currently works for a computer hardware manufacturer. If you are an MBA student, chances are you are right now using hardware manufactured by his employer. We talked about our experiences with our respective programs and turns out he’s taken some of the classes that I am either currently taking or plan on taking next semester.

 

The rest of the trip was boring but I did get the chance to take a nap on the flight from Atlanta to Omaha. I am going to need it since we have an early start later today.

Dodged the bullet

I blogged earlier about the importance of diversity, diversity in personal finance. More specifically I had warned against the natural inclination to chase after yesterday's returns by investing in assets that seem to be making tons of money for everyone else.

 

Yesterday’s Washington Post had an article about the latest financial bubble that is in the process of leveling off, if not bursting altogether.

 

"With housing supply higher and demand lower, prices have fallen from their summertime peaks -- though prices fluctuate every month and often decline in the fall because summer is the busiest home-buying season. Nevertheless, some slides are evident almost everywhere: In the District, the median price -- the point at which half the houses cost more and half cost less -- was $425,000 in October, down from a high in August of $435,088. In Fairfax County, the peak was in July, when the median price was $503,000; in October, it was $489,450. The peak in Montgomery County was also in July, when prices hit $460,000; the median price in October was $429,000."

 

As much as I love the condo I lived in before I moved to Chapel Hill, I am so glad I got rid of it back in August.

I have died and gone to heaven

But only in a secular sense.

 

Earlier tonight I had the opportunity to do something I never had the chance to do when I was at UVA, something I thought I had forever passed up the opportunity to ever experience.

 

I attended a sorority mixer. Let me pause while that information sinks in.

It was a mixer between Kenan-Flagler and Pi Beta Phi. I showed up near midnight and noticed right away that the guy-girl ratio was quite generous (at least from my perspective). At first, I felt a bit intimidated. I usually have no trouble striking up conversations with girls but not when they are so much younger than me. But after a couple of words of encouragement from my classmates, I walked up two girls and introduced myself. I was pleasantly surprised at how friendly they were. I ended up talking to many more girls than I had expected, I would be in a conversation with a couple of them and another one would walk by and the would introduce us.

 

I guess maybe it is true what they say about Carolina girls.

Lots of pressure

This has been a pretty rough week so far. I have an macroeconomics quiz today, another 15% of my marketing grade will be decided tonight as I prepare the second case write up, an operations assignment due Monday, an application due on Monday for the Global Immersion Elective I am taking next semester (more details on this later), a finance homework due Tuesday and a macroeconomics group project due on Tuesday.

 

On top of all that, I am going to be in Nebraska on Monday to meet none other than the Sage of Omaha himself, Warren Buffett. This is a trip sponsored by the Finance Club. I really don’t have time to go but the way I analyze the situation, if there are investors who pay out of their own pockets to travel to Omaha to hear him speak at the annual shareholders meeting, I should be willing to pay a bit more (cost of travel plus the value of my time) for the opportunity to be meet with him, to ask him questions, and for lunch with him afterwards. I plan on asking him about his views on the efficient market theory, but I have a feeling he is going to say he disagrees with it.

Fulfilling my constitutional obligation

After class this afternoon, I did my part to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. I voted.

 

I blogged about a month ago that I had received my voter registration card in the mail. What I didn’t tell you was that the following Tuesday I went to vote in the local primary and was almost turned away. Because I had registered so recently, my name was not on the official book printed by the Board of Elections. Fortunately, I had my voter registration card with me and was able to cast a provisional ballot.

 

When I went to vote today, my name was on the book and the process was much smoother. But since I have no idea who any of the candidates are, I simply wrote in my name for each position on the ballot.

Wall Street Journal Online Edition is free all this week

I'd like to thank McCoy for posting this on his blog, which I read multiple times a day. Speaking of the Wall Street Journal, I have not seen a copy of the paper on my doorsteps since I have returned from fall break.

Trading in five lane highways for picket fences

One of the things I realized this past weekend when I was in Arlington, Virginia is just how much I hate city traffic. It’s getting harder and harder to go anywhere in the suburban Washington, DC region on the weekends without having your travel delayed by a traffic jam. After church on Sunday, I went to a local shopping center in Bethesda, MD (across the street from McDonald’s on River Road) and there was so much traffic going into the shopping center that the police had to show up to direct traffic.

 

I imagine what’s happening in the suburban Washington, DC area is happening in cities all around the country. On the drive back yesterday evening, I kept thinking why more people don’t try moving out of these cities to more livable areas where they can afford the same lifestyle at much cheaper prices.  

 

Today’s NY Times had an article about exactly this.

"The couple sold a three-bedroom house near Los Angeles for $450,000. They bought a four-bedroom house, with two kitchens and a swimming pool, for $185,000 in Gladstone, Mo., near Kansas City.

With a monthly mortgage payment of only $496, Mr. Osegueda said he hoped he could retire by the time he was 48. In California, he said, "people need to work all their lives to pay off their home.""

AOL Relaunched

I am glad the turnaround of my favorite Internet company has happened just in time for me to have something to talk about during my upcoming job interviews.

"Wasn't it just five minutes ago that, as far as most of the world was concerned, AOL was DOA? Now it is reemerging as a force on the web. More surprising still, it's being courted as an important potential partner for companies that once dismissed the service as Internet for Dummies. Among the suitors: tech titans Google and Microsoft. The incongruity is striking. It's as if Porsche and BMW were suddenly vying for a piece of Buick. But the attractions are considerable: the more than 100 million unique visitors AOL attracts to its network of sites and gaggle of online utilities such as AOL Instant Messenger, MapQuest, and Moviefone. And now there's the free aol.com website, which was quietly launched at the end of September. The site, a portal offering news, search, and listings, is already piquing advertiser interest." - Fortune Magazine article

"We" beat Boston College

Greetings from my favorite state in the Union. I drove up from Chapel Hill this morning to attend a friend's wedding in the City of Alexandria. This was my first visit to Virginia since I started my MBA program. On my way I stopped by a gas station south of Richmond where I paid $2.16 for a gallon of gas.

I got to my destination ahead of time and had the chance to drive around to check out my old stumping grounds. I stopped by a consignment store at the corner of Pershing and Washington in Arlington County that I used to frequent. I used to stop by periodically to look at the collection of political buttons that a local dealer/collector would drop off to sell. I found three very nice buttons that would go well with my collection. As I was paying for them at the counter, the proprietor mentoined that I have not been back in a while. I then told her that I moved back in August and I was back for a wedidng today. She said she was touched that I made the point to stop by.

The wedding was beautiful. I sat at the reception with a group of students that graduated from a school we politely refer to as the Virginia Polytechnic Institute. They were on the phone every five minutes to get the score of the Virignia Tech/ Miami game. We talked about a couple of the ACC football games that have taken place in the past month such as Virginia beating Florida State only to be defeated by Carolina. I then said "and we beat Boston College today."

Pointing out the obvious

My dear and loyal readers have failed me. I blogged multiple times earlier this week that I am donating my services as a designated driver for the MBA Food Fight silent auction. I am sure the irony has dawned on at least couple of you. Come on ... all those times that I drove you guys (former co workers) to lunch and the near misses and close calls we've had. (Wink)

Speaking of driving skills. They will be put to use tomorrow as I take this blog on the road with me to Alexandria, Virginia where I will attend the wedding of a good friend of mine

A few items of interest

The bidding for the auction ends this evening. As of an hour ago, there were no takers (other than my initial bid of $10) for my offer to drive someone to the airport for Thanksgiving break but we've received several bids for my services as a designated driver.

One item that I have been watching closely is the opportunity to have dinner at the Carolina Club with a beloved retired Kenan-Flagler professor. This professor spoke to us back in August during the Monday morning of our orientation and gave us a video "walking tour" of the Carolina campus. I contacted him over the weekend and he agreed to take three students out to dinner and even offered to pay out of his own pocket. His exact words were "I miss being around students." 

I submitted bids for several other items; two apple pies baked by a second year student, a lemon lime pie donated by a classmate and his wife, the opportunity to shoot (ammunition and guns provided) with a classmate who participated in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and a glass gin bottle retrieved from the bottom of a river in Nigeria that is more than a century old. The only auction that I am currently winning is fresh cookies baked and delivered by a classmate and his wife. I don't particularly care for the cookies and plan on saving this (if I win) for a special occasion next semester when someone does me a favor or I am in the mood to brighten a particular person's day.

Turns out the "have your house cleaned by a student dressed in a French maid outfit" was a joke. The student whose name was listed is a male who was volunteered by his friends. He stopped by the table this afternoon to withdraw the item but before doing so he submitted the final bid of $30 to outbid every other bidder. I am glad he was a good sport about it.

The fleecing of Carolina

The folks at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina sent me a nice letter earlier this week informing me that starting January 1, 2006 my health insurance monthly rate will be $104.  Since the letter made no reference of what the current rate is, I had to go look it up to find out that the current rate is $93.

I hear so often companies justifying their rate increases by saying that they are simply passing on the higher cost onto their consumers. It's just too bad there is no one else I can pass along my higher costs to.

Food fight anyone?

Last week’s Apprentice had a competition where the teams competed to raise money for a charity by organizing a charity auction. Students in my class had the chance to do that this week as Kenan-Flagler participates in the annual MBA Food Fight.

 

The MBA Food Fight is an event organized by students at the Ross School of Business where schools compete to raise money to fight hunger. Within Kenan-Flagler, there is an internal competition where each of the eight sections is competing against one another. The fund raising effort at Kenan-Flagler revolves around a silent auction where the members of each section donate items to be auctioned off.

 

In the past, items donated range from tangible items such as artwork to services such as golf lessons or a date with a consenting (and hopefully attractive) student. I helped out by donating my services as a driver. One of my items was to drive the winner to the airport for Thanksgiving and the other was to drive the winner home from the bars on a night of his choosing.

 

The bidding began this week and by Tuesday night I was embarrassed that my items had not attracted any bids. I decided to help get the ball rolling by bidding on my own items. I had previously calculated that volunteering to make the drives was going to cost me a certain amount of time and I was willing to pay an amount up to my value of the time to get out of having to make the trips.

 

In addition to bidding on my own auctions, I also submitted bids on other items donated by others in my section with the intentions of driving up the prices. But for the few special items that I really do have an interest in, I am going to hold off and keep my powder dry until right before the auction ends to submit my bid so I can snatch them up at a good price.

 

PS: I feel legally obligated to tell you that in some states, it is illegal for a seller to participate in his own auction. But let's just say that because the money from this auction goes to charity, I don't expect the North Carolina Attorney General's office to be calling anytime soon.

CBS Evening News with Aaron Brown?

"CNN ousted its longtime prime-time anchor, Aaron Brown, today in favor of Anderson Cooper, who has received extensive media attention in the wake of his widely publicized coverage of Hurricane Katrina."  - New York Times article

I have always liked Newsnight with Aaron Brown and thought Brown is an elegant presenter. But I am going to make a prediction here that he will end up as the next anchorman (or one of many) over at CBS Evening News.

Happy Belated Halloween

The above is the bust of Henry M. Flagler as seen on Tuesday at the main entrance of the Kenan-Flagler Business School.

Sexual harassment lawsuit against The University Club of NYC

I was at The University Club two weeks ago at a Kenan-Flagler alumni reception as part of our fall break career trek to New York City. Sunday's New York Post had an article about three female employees suing the club for on-the-job sexual harassment.

"The University Club, a bastion for bluebloods, power studs and A-list celebs, has a "serial sexual molester" on its staff who gropes banquet waitresses during classy parties and ritzy weddings, a lawsuit charges."

Here's a set of login/password to use with the New York Post Online Edition.

xwqz@lobeman.com
awesome

NBC Nightly News now available on the Internets

Brian Williams just announced on the broadcast that starting Monday, NBC Nightly News will become the first national newscast to be available in its entirety over the web. Every evening starting at 10pm Eastern, the broadcast will be available to Internet viewers, with Internet commercials replacing broadcast commercials.

I am the only person I know in the "below 30" category that regularly watches one of the "Big 3" newscasts and I think this is a big step by the broadcast news industry in its attempt to reach out to younger viewers. The move will "unhinge" viewers from either having to either be home at 6:30 or set the VCR to tape. Waiting until 10pm to stream the broadcast also resolves concerns on the part of the affiliates that the web will cannibalize the local stations.

Dole Kemp ninety six!

One of the things I like about being on a college campus is the variety of speakers that regularly come to campus. After my strategery class today I went to Dey Hall where former Republican Vice Presidential candidate Jack Kemp gave a talk on revitalizing America’s cities. His talk was the standard "in praise of low taxes and less government regulation" talk he’s been giving for the past fifteen years. He referred to Hong Kong as an "anti-poverty machine," citing it as an example of how an environment of low taxes results in wealth creation.

I had with me my copy of Trusting the People. The book had been autographed by Bob Dole during a New Jersey rally in 1996 where I elbowed my way to the front of the crowd after the stump speech. As the Senator walked by, I waved the book in front of him, he grabbed it, reached for his pen while a Secret Service agent held the book open, and signed on the first page. After today’s talk I introduced myself to the former Congressman and he autographed the book as well.

So now my copy of Trusting the People has a the first page with "B. Dole" in the middle and "from Jack Kemp (old #15)" toward the bottom. It’s going to be quite a collector’s item.

Thoughts on Rosa Parks

One of my dearest readers pointed out that I have neglected to comment on the passing of Rosa Parks and her special place in American history. While most Americans will place her alongside Dr. King as an important catalyst of the civil rights movement, the person that comes to my mind when I think of her is someone name Jeannette Rankin.

 

Jeannette Rankin was the first woman elected to the House of Representatives. She was also an extreme pacifist and voted against the resolution to enter World War I. She served for only one term but spent the next twenty years active in the political process. She was elected to Congress once again in 1940 and the following year, she cemented her place in history as the only member of Congress to have voted against America’s declaration of war against Japan following the attack on Pearl Harbor.

 

Both women shared the courage to go against doing what they were expected to do. Both also lived into their nineties.

Turning once again to Ebay

This past week I once again was asked to shell out major bucks for something I don't particularly care for, something that will go unused, and will become completely obsolete after about seven weeks or so.

I had to buy textbooks.

I tried to be smart this time by not buying any of the optional ones. I figured since I don't even do all the required work, I am not going to do any optional work! I found a couple of deals on Ebay. The local bookstore sells used copies of the marketing textbook used for $105. I got a copy (a softcover internaional edition) on Ebay for $35 (all Ebay prices include shipping). For operations, there is a novel we have to read that the store sells used for around $15, some enterprising second years are hawking theirs for $10, I got mine on Ebay for $4.25. Unfortunately I was unable to replicate my success with our strategery class. The textbook for which is a brand new fifth edition that sells for $57 and second years are pricing their used fourth editions for $35. I figured I may as well buy the new one since we used this text for another class down the line.

Watch me next year as I try to sell some of these books to the next first year class at prices higher than what I bought them for! ;)

Reporting from inside the "MBA Bubble"

One of the things that I am still getting used to is how when you're in an MBA program (or any other type of graduate school with an intense amount of work load), your work load is such that you stop paying attention to the news and other stuff happeninng around you.

This past Wednesday morning I was studying when I looked at the web at around 1am and saw that the White Sox had won the World Series. My initial reaction was that I was not even aware they (is that the appropriate pronoun when referring to a sports team or should the word be "it") was in the World Series. Then yesterday I was talking to some students and they were completely unaware of the indictments (or even of the surrounding controversy) handed out in Washington yesterday morning. Then this morning I watched the tape of this past week's Apprentice and was completely blown away by the ending in which all four contestants in the boardroom were fired (since no one from the boardroom got to go back to the suites, I wonder how the folks in the suites will find out who got fired in the beginning of next week's episode).

this is one of the unfortunate realities of being in graduate school.

In the wee small hours of the morning

Fifteen percent of my marketing grade will be decided in the next few hours as I compose a 750 word write up of HBS 9-596-036, better known to MBA students as the Land Rover North America case. 750 words is really not a lot, a year ago this month I was getting started on my Darden application essays and one of them was to write my life story in 500 words or less.

In the past I have always been confused about the Land Rover/ Range Rover brand, not certain as to which is the name of the brand (ie Ford) and which is the name of the model (ie Five Hundred). After spending the past three hours reading, I now know better. By tomorrow I should be able to tell you anything you would ever want to know about the difference between the Range Rover and the Discovery.

Dressing appropriately for the occasion

One thing you learn in business school is the importance of presentation, and often this means wearing the right gear for the event you plan on attending. Currently, I am having trouble figuring out what to dress up as for the MBA Halloween party tomorrow night. Making matters more complicated, I will be going striaght there from an Intervarsity meeting where the guest speaker will be the most popular professor at UVA. I can just imagine Ken Elzinga asking me "what are you up to here at Chapel Hill" as I am standing there in front of him in my clown suit holding a batch of balloons and a clown noisemaker.

This morning I put on a costume of a different sort. I dressed up for a lunchtime workshop put up by a big name consulting firm that had a recruiting presentation last night. Not having time to iron my semi-wrinkled shirt, I put on a blazer to cover up some of the imperfections. Unfortunately all this work was in vain for the recruiters from the firm did not show and had not bothered to inform the Office of Careers Services ahead of time.

Hump day

Centuries ago the Chinese used to believe that solar eclipses were caused by a celestial hound having swallowed the sun, hence blocking the sunlight from reaching the ground. They would react to a solar eclipse by banging on drums, yelling at the sky, and doing other things to scare the hound until he eventually decides to return the sun by spitting it back out.

 

I have noticed that since the fall break, the amount of sunlight I see each day has been getting progressive less and less. But unfortunately there is no celestial hound that I can blame my dilemma onto and yelling at the sky in the middle of the day will only result in unneeded attention from the University’s Department of Public Safety.

 

Between 9:15 this morning when I walked into McColl and 4:30 this afternoon when I left, my day was jam packed with going to class, rummaging through my locker, returning phone calls, going to the Dean Dome (80 yards away) to get my name on the raffle for basketball tickets, attending a company presentation, and meeting with classmates about possibly entering a case competition.

 

Lunch was eaten during the first five minutes of strategery, flushed down very quickly with two cans of Coke.

 

I never did get the chance today to speak to my professor about the spelling error on his syllabus but I did have the opportunity to harass one of my second year TAs. We arrived in school the same time this morning and as we walked across the bridge that connected the parking garage to McColl, I jokingly told her she was a world renown expert in the subject she’s teaching us about. She confessed that she was still in the process of reviewing her notes from last year and I told her I’d stop by during office hours next week to give her a pop quiz.

 

She laughed.

Spelling error on the syllabus

I wrote last month that I sometimes have trouble staying awake in my 2pm class, which is quite embarassing because I usually sit in the front of the room (at the end of the "U") and anything I do is witnessed by about one quarter of the 70 people in my section.

Earlier today I had the exact opposite problem. At the 2pm class the professor was explaining the syllabus when something unusual on the projection screen had caught my attention. While trying to decipher exactly what the passage was trying to convey, my mind began to entertain various scenarios as to how the professor would literally accomplish the goal stated on the syllabus. I was having such a tough time keeping myself from laughing out loud that I almost had to leave the room.

I am going to stop by to see the professor during office hours later this week to point out the error to him. I am sure he's aware that there should be an "s" at the end, at least that's how I normally use it.

Back to the daily grind

The one nice thing about Mod II is that I no longer have 8 o’clock classes. My days now begin at 9:30 and end at 3:20. I am going to need the extra sleeping time because the workload for this Mod looks formidable.

 

Every class I have had today (operations, marketing, strategery), has more work than its counterpart from Mod I. And the professors seem much more serious. While my professors from the last quarter were flexible with allowing students to sit anywhere they want, the three (actually four, since the marketing class is taught by two professors) today asked that students sit in the same spot the remainder of the semester.

 

I wonder if this is the Mod where the knives will finally come out.

 

Rested, tanned, and ready

Al Gore in 2008! Oh wait, wrong blog.

After blowing my fall break on career treks to two cities and one weekend at Ocean Isle with the folks from church, I am back at Chapel Hill and ready to take on the new quarter. Or at least I am as ready as I am ever going to be.

               

Mod II will be the most challenging quarter of my two years. The core classes consist of marketing, operations, strategery, macroeconomics, and finance. Marketing and strategery require case readings and the case methodology. Macroeconomics is taught by the same beloved professor who taught the finance course over the summer. Finance is a continuation of the class from last quarter, but will be taught by a different professor. This particular professor received his PhD from Wharton very recently and is only a few years older than I am. I did pretty well in finance last quarter but unfortunately I can’t take credit for it because most of the material is review from what I took at UVA. Come to think of it, much of the material from Mod I (finance, accounting, microeconomics) is material I have already had in college. I am amazed at how well UVA has prepared me for business school.

 

When I visited Kenan-Flagler in January, my student host told me that classes (time in class as well as time preparing for it) take up only a small portion your timein business school. I am beginning to see his point. For Mod II, I have already committed to a case competition and a trip to Omaha with the finance club. This is not including the work I have to do to figure out exactly what type of career I want with my MBA and to find my summer internship. On the first day of class during Mod I, my economics professor said, “you will find that with every passing day, there is less time than the day before.”

                         

Part of the challenge this coming quarter will be spiritual as well as physical. When I started the MBA application process by taking the GMAT a year ago this month, I had some expectations of what I would get out of two years in any MBA program. These expectations are a combination of things ranging from financial rewards, the formation of lifelong friendships, to successful romantic endeavors. Soon after Mod I began, I realized that while these were good expectations to have, God has never said that they were to be my expectations. Furthermore, I was reminded that God calls for us to be faithful, and not necessarily to be successful. I cannot begin to tell you how my outlook has changed since I have been relieved of my expectations.

 

When I was driving back from Charlotte last week, I began to feel an increased sense of peace about my job search, my situation at Kenan-Flagler, and my life in general. I am not sure if God was asking me to trust Him or if I was hallucinating. It also could have been caused by the relief over the end of Mod I and even possibly the alcohol from the party earlier in the week but I am curious to see how long this sense of peace lasts.