2009 meets 1979

I was standing outside the auditorium yesterday around lunchtime when I heard someone saying 'Here is an MBA 2009 student'. I turned around and found myself being introduced to a gentlemen some 30 years older than me. He was from the MBA class of 1979. 'So how is life?', he asked. 'Life is good', I replied, my standard answer to that question. I had just come out of the powernap room, so I actually did feel quite OK at that very moment. 'Well, then you are not learning enough', he said. From that I gathered that the workload around here is not something that was invented yesterday. It was here in 1979 as well. 'But the volleyball court is missing', he continued, 'it used to be between the old building and the restaurant.' I afterwards realized that I don't even know which building that is the 'old building'. I assume it must be the building with the reception. If that is the case then the volleyball court must have been where the table tennis is now.

Reflecting on that conversation afterwards painted a picture in my mind of what this place is all about. Although the buildings and the sports we play may change, the fundamentals remain the same: Hard work and good fun.

The dungeons are buzzing these days. Everybody is running flat out trying to coordinate the work across the groups each person is in, getting the piles of cases read and the numerous assignments in on time. Despite the insurmountable workload the class still chooses to prioritizes Accounting with Professor Stewart Hamilton. I have read tomorrow's case on the Mannai Corporation twice and made an effort to answer the questions. I really look forward to an interesting discussion with my classmates whom I know also have been working hard on this.



Table tennis is a favorite pastime during lunch breaks. Apparently volleyball played the same role in 1979.



The MBA 2008 Ultimate Frisbee team is preparing for the MBA tournament that will be held in Paris mid may. Here Cathinka Scheie [Norway] shows the talent of the team. Left-to-right it is Wouter Naessens [Belgium], Chia Chia Lim [Singapore] and Ilya Syshchikov [Russia] watching.



Carsten Bremer [Germany] selling the idea of Micro-finance to Valeria Pavlyukovskaya [Russia] in the IMD café.