6 in 4, pub golf and Ryanair

Living life on the fast lane...now I actually know what this really means!

I took 6 exams in 4 days:
Monday:
-Financial Reporting: harder than expected, but should be able to pass
-Decision Science: definite pass
Tuesday:
-Developing Effective Managers (DEM): pass, but you never know for DEM?!
Wednesday:
-Strategy: pretty sure pass
-Managerial Economics (I almost sh*# my pants before this one): way easier than expected, pass
Thursday:
-Finance I: I have a funny feeling about this one (got all the formulas right, but made some mistakes in my calculations), although I'm usually really good in Finance

Taking exams in a suit, white bow tie and the gown was a quite unusual feeling, but...that's Oxford, it's different/special/weird/or whatever you want to call it, it's all that. The weirdness of Oxford was also obvious when the exams started. Everything is very formal, same procedure every day and the desks are unbelievably small. Besides that, because of another tradition we wore flowers for each of the exams. For their first one, students wear a white carnation - virgin-like. After being bloodied by the first exams students wear a pink carnation from then on for every exam.
As soon as we got done with our last exam on Thursday, the champagne bottles popped out in the car park - what a relief, it was over (for the time being)!

About an hour later some 40 of us, all dressed up as golfers (or what we thought golfers look like), met at the pub "Cape of good hope" for a pub game called "Pub Golf". Teams of 4 go out on a pub crawl and have to drink a certain drink (beer, bitter, water, coke, whiskey, cider,...) at every hole (pub). The jury determines a par (sips) for every drink and after 9 holes a winning team is determined. It was very funny, lots of hole-in-ones were scored and in the end we decided that calculating the winner's score was too difficult and just kept on partying.

After sleeping in today and nursing my hangover, I did my chrsitmas shopping and just packed my stuff. My flight back to Germany leaves from London tomorrow morning at 6, which means i have to leave oxford at 1:30 tonight (bus trip, check in time restrictions, etc.). My suitcase must weigh about 30 tons and Ryanair will probably charge me 1,000 Euros over-weight fee.
Well, after having Ryanair's business concept in a case study, flying with it make it a completely different experience - well, no it doesn't, I just had to find a way to mention that I analysed Ryanair ;o)

MBAs = school children???

Just started studying for my Developing Effective Managers exam.
While reading through my notes I found a quote from my lecturer that I wrote down at that time...so I thought I might as well share this with you:

"Teaching MBAs is the most difficult thing for a teacher - except maybe school children!"

WOW! That's something, huh?!
I guess we are difficult to teach...but comparing MBAs to school children? I don't know. We certainly behave like them sometimes ;o)

Another quote that just came to my mind (can't remember who said it though) is related to how the first trimester of our MBA felt like:

"Getting an MBA in Oxford is like drinking from a fire hydrant!"

I think that't pretty accurate & drinking from a fire hydrant doesn't seem like an easy task to me. Here at the Oxford Business School you get more than what you want and what you can deal with.


AAAwwwwwww, I should get back to studying. Looks like I embrace every opportunity to get away from studying - even writing a stupid post for my blog :)

Study, Eat, Drink & Sleep...

Study, Eat, Drink & Sleep...that's all I've been doing for the last couple of days and that's about all I will do for the next couple of days

I hardly see daylight, as I study mostly during the night.

I'm done with Decision Science, Finance and Financial Reporting. Right now, I am struggling with Managerial Economics. Clarence (a fellow MBA from Sri Lanka) will give me a small "support class" today.
I hope to start Developing Effective Managers and Strategy late today (both not very quantitative, but LOTS & LOTS of qualitative concepts).

Next week will be the big one - 6 exams in 4 days
I will start out on Monday with Decision Science and Financial Reporting...fingers crossed!

I better get back to Managerial Economics (oh, I love/hate this subject!!!)

We are all like zombies...

So far, this week has been the worst of the term!
I haven't slept more than 3 hours per night since monday, I have a major argument with my study group and I just feel completely burned out.
Almost everybody in my class seems to go through the same sh** as me. We all look like zombies...looking like death...I see people falling asleep during lectures more often than anytime before (a lot of us are taking every opportunity to get a minute of sleep)...most of us are extremely tense and study group meetings become a major pain.

I don't know how I will survive this week??? But then, it's only one more day until the weekend starts (and this term ends) with a major Hawaiian Party at the business school.