Basic tips to survive....

A great entry from Susana:

My name is Susana, and I am a strong fan of this diary, I read it every night. I subscribed to it at the very beginning of the year and since then, I have not missed it once… I think you may call it a bit of an obsession, on the other hand, since my boyfriend is one of the writers of this diary, I guess I will probably not be asked to talk about it with my shrink.. just yet.

At the moment I am living in Denmark, although I am Spanish, and my boyfriend, who is Danish, is living in Switzerland.. if it sounds weird to you, that is all right. It also does to me. Let me share with you how this works, you can call this entry:

“Basic tips to survive a long distance relationship with an MBA student in times of a financial crisis while you try to be supportive but in reality you can’t wait for the year to end”

1. Don’t try to understand the workload – I am sure some of you may be fans of the famous “Lost” series. Well, the workload of an MBA student is like the black smoke, forget about trying to make sense of it. Yes, you may do like with “Lost” and go to those websites where they try to explain all the loops of the program. You can do the same thing and get his/her schedule and find out about the project and the leadership papers, and the start-up companies, and the trip to South Africa and x, y, and z.. only the students seem to be able to keep track of that!

2. Make sure you are enrolled to a fidelity program for your regular airline company - really. Not only that, in case you lose your job, you will always be able to apply for a job as cabin crew. When the pilot says “Cabin crew, prepare for landing”.. I feel like standing up and joining them, my carry-on luggage is designed to survive all the controls of all the airports of the world and I can get a train ticket from Geneve to Lausanne with my eyes closed. It’s a lot of fun though, you get a lot of time to read your favorite books, or catch up with your emails from work or listen to your iPod or watch some very good movies … without commercials!

3. Be truly supportive – yes, I know, I have also tried the whole “yes, I am really happy for him”, I have even tilted my head to the right and smiled at the same time, just to show how wonderful it really was this idea of his, to live thousands of kilometers away from me. And even then, there are times when it is tough and I wish IMD would not be located in fantastic Lausanne, so he would be able to commute every morning like all those “normal” couples of the world. The truth is that he really loves it and for me, he is not the only one learning every day. You can see him like that pilot from “The Little Prince” stopping to find out that the world is much more interesting, diverse and fascinating than what we were really used to give it credit for.

4. And finally, be prepared for having to endure the bad moments of life on your own.. Like having to watch a Real Madrid – Barcelona game ending 2-6 at the Bernabeu and not having him there by your side!

Anyway, at any time, the experience is really good, it makes me smile when he gets to work with an NGO in Kenya or when he talks about people from all around the world or when, as a partner, I can join the Summit for Responsible Leadership or when he is so tired, that we decide not to go out for dinner and we end up dancing to “The Killers” in the kitchen. ..

Susana