Tomorrows elite

Look at these guys... This is what tomorrows elite looks like, getting prepared for the job at the #11 ranked business school world wide. Who ever said learning couldn't be fun!?

These are by far the smartest, brightest, and most motivated kids I've ever seen. After all they're on a quest to find a hidden treasure, deciphering codes, solving puzzles and negotiating alliance agreements.

Marketing blurb

I just got this from the CEIBS newsletter:

CEIBS Welcomes MBA Class of 2007

August 23, 2007. Shanghai campus -- The CEIBS MBA program, ranked 11th in the world by the Financial Times, held a grand Opening Ceremony on the Shanghai campus today to welcome the incoming Class of 2007. The new students mark CEIBS largest-ever MBA class, with 194 new students. As a group, the new students also represent the most internationally diverse class in CEIBS' 13-year history - hailing from 26 countries -- as well as being top caliber in terms of prior work experience and academic background.

Needless to say that I kind-a like the "top caliber" part ;-)

Source: http://www.ceibs.edu/media/newsletter/21444.shtml

There's something seriously wrong here

I won't comment on this one. Just compare T-shirts with faces and then draw your own conclusions...

BTW I did neither plan, nor support or encourage this...

Like a bridge troubling the water

There goes our team, building a bridge from quite unfitting raw materials, spanning 2.5 meters and supporting at least a 50kg person. Boy, beware of worker bees is all I can say here... I'd gladly trade my project manager role for a more relaxed job description next time!

Smart use of technology

Team building excercise: For one minute juggle three balloons per person. The number of balloons which never touched the ground will be your team score.

Now, arguably, there are different strategies that one can choose to score as high as possible... Standing in a circle, working in a corner, having free workers who catch balloons that went astray...

However, there was one team, that came up with a highly innovative solution: The use of A/C suction airflow...

Building Idunnowhats

This guy's name is Rhett. He works for the imaginatively named company IWNC (aka "I will not complain") which seems to have applied its guiding principle even towards the guy who came up with that name...

Anyway, Rhett took on the great responsibility to mould us into functioning teams. However, participation for this event was in different teams than those we'll work with for the coming semester. So while it was great to get to know new people and do fun stuff such as juggling balloons, throwing thread balls to each other and bulding bridges, one could arguably question the team relevance of the day.

However, IWNC. We definitely had a fun time and many could get a first glimpse at how hard it can be to manage a bunch of highly motivated team mates who all "just wanna help".

The Swiss(tm) Connection

This is Eric from Switzerland. The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy would probably describe him as being "mostly harmless". However, he makes me feel pretty guilty as he's making hell more progress in Chinese languange learning than I do. What can I say...

At least he's told me his secret: chinesepod.com

Creating a better world

Today I kickstarted an initiative to improve information delivery to international students. I've set up a Wiki where everyone can add the information they were desperatly lacking before they came to Shanghai. Hopefully people will contribute. For the time being, it didn't really provoke a huge rush of action... (as in "I'm the only one doing this")

The site is located at ceibs.wetpaint.com

Feels like home...

For those of you guys who are planning to visit me: I found the Swiss corners all around town, where you can feel right at home. I even got myself an original Boursin cheese and a loaf of pain francais!

Out of proportion

I don't mean to criticize, but some things in this Country simply seem to be out of proportion. See for yourself...

Sechuan Cuisine

Not everybody likes it hot. But Jimmy apparently does... The art of eating Sechuan cuisine, by the way, is actually much less related to being resistant against insanely hot peppers, but rather to developing a sixth sense about what not to eat and when not to bite. Turns out even native Chinese people try to avoid the small pepper balls which are known to have a devastating effect on even the most heavily abused tastebuds.

Get the complete picture at picasa

Hard evidence

What else is there to say ??!?

A dance club with a view

Yesterday night we went to Attica, a really cool club at the Bund.

There clearly were two distinct types of CEIBS students hanging out there: Those who wanted to celebrate the completion of their math exam and those who were trying to quickly forget (read "drown") their experience of said exam...

In any case, the club sports an outdoor terrace with a great view on Pudong and can be greatly recommended. The DJ in the R&B room absolutely knows his trade and never ever missed a beat!

Even though initially we had a bit of an argument with the front door person because we were a few minutes late and thus they wanted to charge us extra money, eventually we got to the manager who tried hard (and actually succeeded) in transforming us into happy customers who will certainly return there many times for the weekends to come...

Get the complete picture at picasa

I'm no good at basketball

I've got that much figured out by now...

While it seemed like a great idea to do some sports today, I probably made more friends with the opposite team than with those fellows who invited me to play with them.

Jetlag strikes hard.

I arrived in Shanghai at 2:40 pm today.

As I cannot fall asleep, I figured I might as well set up a blog for my MBA study time at CEIBS.

When I left Switzerland yesterday evening I heard Marques' Vayamos Companeros on the radio and I thought "gee, fate really has a voice of its own". However, soon after came Nelly Furtado's song All good things come to an end which, personally, I figured was fairly inappropriate and just plain mean...

However, after an eleven hours flight and half an hour of desperatly looking for the award-winning-badly signposted Maglev train at Shanghai airport I instantly knew what Nelly had been talking about: The dorm room I'm writing this in.

No, I will not post any pictures of this place. I'm just not the kind of person who likes to publicly humiliate himself. But then again, you get what you pay for, and I might just have been slightly too thightfisted when booking this place, sharing 10m2 with another student.