Decompression and recompression

I feel, it has been a pretty tough week. As tough as an average week in the building blocks. Coming back from abroad and being dumped straight into classes and the ICP project with a Friday deliverable to the clients.

This weekend my girlfriend was here. There is nobody that like her can make me relax and we immediately went into 48 hours of eating, sleeping and day dreaming about the 'normal life' that we soon will be leading again.

Taking it easy for a weekend is a sin in IMD language and always comes back with a vengeance. The last leadership paper is due tomorrow morning at 8.00 and I still have quite a distance to go on it. On top of that I need to get my suitcase packed again; tomorrow morning at 8.42 the train departs from platform 4 to Geneva from where we via Istanbul will find our way back to Ngong Road in Nairobi.

Life is good, but man, why does all the good have to back stacked so close.

This afternoon we went to the Open House at the Trimoto Harley-Davidson dealership in Cortaillod not far from Neuchatel. The trip was arranged by Christian Steiger from IMD, who also arranged the motorbike weekend into the French Alps a month ago. Christian is a passionate Harley maniac with several bikes in his garage.

My own bike is a bit egoist-bike, a bar-hopper if you want. It is a so-called naked bike with no backrest, a minimum of a backseat and as little equipment as the law allows. Not the most comfortable thing to be a passenger on. It is actually not even comfortable for the driver, if you go more than a couple of hours.

My girlfriend and I have therefore been talking about renting a real touring bike for a vacation trip. So when we got the chance to take one of the big Electra Harleys out for out quick spin, we took it. Here Jean-Claude explains all the ins and outs of it.
This bike has more buttons than the keyboard on my computer. Here is radio, CD-player, MP3-player, intercom, cruise-control, heating in the handles and a host of other luxury items. The only button on my own bike is the start-button, so it took me a while to figure this one out.
It is Christian Steiger standing in the back.

And off we go, just for a quick 15 minute trip. We were immediately convinced that this is the way to tour a country. On this kind of bike you sit so comfortably that you just can go on for hours and hours. We agreed that we next spring will explore our new home country Italy on a big comfortable motorbike like this one.

Back again! This bike is so heavy that it helps with an extra hand when you go backwards.

Tour de Southern Europe

It is 23.00 here in Genoa, but I feel like it is much later.... or earlier in the morning. Perhaps I still have a bit of Singapore time left in me. Out there it is 5.00AM now.

Yesterday morning my parents picked me up in Frankfurt airport. They left Denmark on Monday and had via Bremen taken the trip through part of the Rhine valley. From Frankfurt we drove west towards Strassbourg, where we caught the so-called Alsace Whine Route. The route goes through 170km of vineyards at the foot of the Vosgian mountains, small picturesque villages with colorful houses and flowers everywhere. It looks like it is straight out of a fairytale. We had apparently hit the peak of the harvesting season, so everywhere we met these tall funny looking grape-picking-machines and tractors with trailers full of grapes. We went into a small place to buy some wine, but they were so busy harvesting that they barely had time to serve us. We got our wine, though, and we also found small places where we could get bread, cheese and sausage, so finally dinner was secured. French dinner that is. Awesome!

Alsace has throughout history been thrown back and forth between Germany and France, but since 1919 it has been in French hands. The German influence is still significant and everywhere you see names that are a mix of German and French. Just take the small town of Dambach La Ville as an example, or Haut-Koeningensburg – and old castle on mountaintop where we stopped by. In the late afternoon we found the highway back to Lausanne, had our awesome French purchases for dinner and went straight to bed.

This morning I had the pleasure to show my parents around the school. They saw the dungeons, the powernap room, the auditorium, the canteen and all the other places that have been the center of our lives for the past nine months. Most of all they met the people I have been working so closely with. I have been gone for three weeks, which is an eternity at IMD. Trying to catch up with everyone on what had happened during those three weeks proved impossible. I will have to spend all of next week doing that.

In the afternoon I got on my motorbike and headed off towards Genoa with my parents in the car behind me. My girlfriend now lives in Genoa in Northern Italy and I will be moving here when done in Lausanne in December. This was a good time to bring the motorbike here for good. I am out for a big part of October and if we get into November it gets too cold and too risky to move it. The six hour drive was quite an experience. Particularly the winding road on the way up to the St Bernard mountain pass reminded me of the motorbike trip in France only a month ago. We started with sun and 22C in Lausanne, were hit by 12C and rain on the Italian side of the St Bernard tunnel and ended up with 26C upon arrival here in Genoa.

Now I have a day and a half to catch up on things with my girlfriend, my parents, my email, my homework for next week and all the other things I have neglected for the past three weeks. There is no such thing as a full-off weekend just yet.

Delivery and Celebration

It has been a long and intense day. I just made it back after the latino party arranged by all our South and Central American classmates. It was an evening full of good food, home made caipirinhas, great rhythm, swinging hips and most of all good fun! Thanks to all the Latinos for a great evening!!

Today was also the phase 1 delivery of our ICP project to our client. We have been over the presentation again and again this week and today was no different in that respect. Our project is somewhat different from the rest as our client is not a company, but last year's MBA class represented by a panel of 5-6 people. We felt that the presentation went well and that we are on track before we move into the next phase, albeit there still is tons of work awaiting us there.

The MBA classes of 2003 and 2008 are having their reunions in Lausanne this weekend. We will use this opportunity to have the final football match between the 2008 and 2009 classes. It will be a match of epic proportions. Each team has won a match each, so this third and last match is of the utmost importance. I will unfortunately be missing it as I in a few hours will be heading out on a weekend motorbike ride arranged by IMD staff member Christian Steiger. We will be going around the lake and into France. I have been looking forward to this trip for weeks. I can wait to cruise through the valleys and climb the mountain passes.


Misayo Matsumoto (Japan) and Albert Schultz (Germany) enjoying South American food and a Mexican beer.


Chuks and Uche showed their daughter Isabella for the first time. Isabella was born only hours before Chuks got on the plan to South Africa with the rest of the class. Here they are flanked by Wouter Naessens (Belgium) and Natalie. Wouter and Natalie got married during the summer vacation.


So far this years IMD class have delivered nine babies and there is more on the way!



The partners entertained with a Brazilian dance.



Tonight was the birthday of Manisha Mediratta. According to Mexican traditions the birthday 'child' gets the first hit at a socalled pinata filled with candy. The only catch is that you have to hit it blindfolded. Alejandro Salcedo (Mexico) gives instructions to Manisha.

Rasmus Figenschou (Norway) ended up giving the Pinata the final blow with one of the tubes used for recycling paper cups. Then there was candy for everyone.

Ryo Abe (Japan), Oren Yehudai (Israel), Joost Mackor (The Netherlands), Yuri Vasilkov (Russia) and Valeria Pavlyukovskaya (Russia) under the empty Pinata

Jellybrain and a jolly-good ride

'Jellybrain' one of my classmates just wrote in his Facebook status field. I know exactly what he means. A six and a half hour Finance Exam marathon just gets the best of you. Particularly when you already have done twelve hours of exams in the preceding two days plus whatever studying you could fit in. Just to add insult to injury there was 50 pages of pre-reading for tomorrows Strategy exam waiting in our mail boxes. At least it will be the last one.

Already yesterday I had had it with exams, so I decided - against all logic - to take my motorbike out for spin. It had been more than a month and half since I last took it out, so I was surprised when it started. Inspired by Kelley's Diary entry on Monday I went out East along the lake, past the Lavaux vineyards, through Vevey and Montreux before stopping for an Ice Cream in Villeneuve.

While eating my ice cream I decided to head up into the nearest mountain, which happened to be this one. There is nothing better than motorbiking in the mountains. You just feel that you are flying up the small winding roads. Before long I caught myself humming the song 'Country road, take me home, to the place...'. I think you know which one I talking about. It is an old classic that both John Denver and Olivia Newton-John have had success with.


As I went up the road became smaller and steeper and the temperature quickly dropped. I did not expect to meet anyone up there, but to my surprise there was a typical small Swiss Inn at the top. This is the view from their terrasse. I am definitely going there again, even if only for an ice cream! The picture is taken with my phone so it does not do the view justice, but you can sense the curvature of the lake. Lausanne is in the right-hand side of the picture although you cannot see it.


Coming from little 'flat' Danmark I cannot help being amazed how people like the Swiss adjust to living in such a vertical world where everything is either up or down. I passed this little mountain railway station next to a tunnel through a cliff under a house! All of it of course at a significant incline!

It was a great and really reenergizing ride albeit it only lasted a few hours. I have promised myself to do it again soon. Then again, that is what I have been doing for the past three months......


Thorsten


Hanging out on the lawn during yesterdays lunch break between the Marketing and Global Political Economy exams.

Henry Low [Singapore] and Rasmus Figenschou [Norway] talking while Lisa Bridgett is watching from the back.

Exam preparation!
Fadi Sbaiti [Lebanon/US], Wouter Naessens [Belgium] and Jodie Roussel [US].

Brad Moldin [US] and Oliver Freiland [Germany] enjoying a cup of coffee before diving into the Finance exam.

The Finance exam was a killer. Here we are around four hours into it.



The reward was a cheeseburger at the harbour front.
On the left: Olivia Assereto [Italy], Marco Simons [The Netherlands] and Carsten Bremer [Germany].
On the right: Ope Adejoro [Nigeria], Yury Vasilkov [Russia], Valeria Pavlyukovskaya [Russia] and Thorsten Boeck [Denmark].

The 'cruising' season has started!

WACC, ROIC, RONA, ROOA, EVA, COD and EBIT. If Accounting was a world of rules, then Finance is a world of abbreviations. Add 'Amortization of Goodwill' and 'Net Working Capital' and we have the same challenge as in Accounting: Figuring out what it all means. It is actually not that hard to understand the principles behind it. The math as such is very simple. It is more a matter of getting the terminology right and building vocabulary. More often than not, there is more than one term for the very same thing. And to complicate things a bit more, some of the terms have different meanings depending on whether you are in the world of accounting or the world of finance. If you were in doubt: The Finance exam starts tomorrow at 8.00!

Just like Kristin and probably many others I took yesterday afternoon off. I have had my motorbike standing in the basement since I arrived in Lausanne, but had decided that the completion of the accounting exam should be celebrated with kicking off the 2009 motorbike season. I had charged the battery one last time overnight and mounted it for the first time this year. You are always a bit excited the first time you start in the spring. You never know whether the bike will start after several months in the garage. You can then add that my bike is an old 'slow-rider'. A distinguished lady with a personality. Some would even call it an attitude. Sometimes it just decides not start at all for no real reason. Just because it feels like it.

This time there was also the added anxiety of being in a foreign country, where you are not as familiar with the roads, the rules and the customs as you are at home. I was lucky, though. After a few minutes the bike fired and I could leave the dark basement and take off into a bright - but cold - Swiss spring afternoon. With fellow Dane, Simon Sundboell, in the back seat, we took off down the old lake-side road in the direction of Geneva. We had no destination; just cruising up, out and away with the old and flat Jura mountains on the right and the lake and the snow covered pointy alps on the left. A fantastic feeling for two people from a country almost as flat as the Netherlands.

I had forgotten how much I missed cruising on my bike. It is one of the few things that I know I will be doing the rest of my life. The sense of freedom is unmatched by anything else I have done. You just feel how gravity and and the power of the engine pulls you through the curves and you immediately forget all the things that normally fills your head. This year that feeling was probably even stronger because we have been so severely 'locked down' in the vicinity of the school for almost three months.

Thorsten

The bubble is building

My stuff arrived from Denmark on thursday. I have finally gotten it unpacked, so now I really feel settled in. I also got my bicycle, so now I can make the trip to the school in a little more than a minute if the traffic light on Avenue de Cour is green. Coming from little flat Denmark with no hill high enough to officially qualify as a mountain I find the steep roads of Lausanne deceiving. Let go of the break for a second and you find yourself blasting down the hill at tremendous speed. 

Most importantly my motorbike also arrived. It is now standing in the basement drained for water and gas. It is still way to cold too take it out for a spin. I can't wait for the spring to be here, so I can get my first cruise in the Swiss mountains. The coming month's schedule does not leave much time for cruising, but then again; time is always a matter of priority.

The class of 2009 officially 'inaugurated' the White Horse pub last night. A big 'Thank you!' goes to the class of 2008 for the gift that they left for us there!! For those readers who may not be familiar with the White Horse I can add that it is the regular watering hole for the IMD cattle. The staff there is very friendly and clearly used to the international clientele. Some students ventured off to other places after the White Horse closed. I went home to catch the first full nights sleep in a week.

I also start getting the idea of what this famous (or infamous) 'IMD bubble' is all about. Since I walked my girlfriend to the train monday evening I have basically not been in any other location than the school, my apartment, the White Horse and the roads that connects these three places. Next week does not appear to be any different. I do not really feel it you yet, but I see how the bubble slowly is lowering itself on us.