Week 3 Hilary

The week that everyone was dreading has now passed. This was the one on the schedule that made everyone blanch as 4 (yes 4) assignments were due in. One large group assignment (40% of the total module's marks), one medium individual (12%) and then two smaller individual ones. It was a tough week.

The large group assignment was for Marketing, and despite being a new group (we are not in the same groups that we were in for Michaelmas), we seemed to work really efficiently. We will see how good we were when the marks come out... Actually, on the subject of marketing, I have to admit that this was one the reasons that I came to B-school as this is a subject that until 3 weeks ago I knew nothing about... amazing the progress one can make in just a few weeks.

This week, I discovered Google Analytics; a product that allows you to reasonably accurately see who has visited the blog, from where, what domain, etc. It also tracks the number of new users vs existing ones... its great. Due to this, you will notice the new piece of advertising on the top of the blog. Please click on this as I would like to track the 'ongoing links'. I may even make a little money on it.

Also, this week, I found out that an old university friend of mine is about to do the Round Britain Rally. Check out his blog as he prepares. Round Britain Rally, Goodwill 4 Charity

That's it. This week's extras were as follows:

Rowing

Yes, finally, I was out on the water this term. The river has been amber/red flagged for quite a while thus restricting any training to the erg (rowing machine) room. Which is not fun! As expected, I was hopeless (having not been on the water for a couple of months) which was made worse by the fact that we rowed in a 4 (as opposed to an 8). You cannot hide your poor performance on a 4! Oh well. It can only get better.

Cognizant Lunch

An informal lunch with Sanjiv Gossain, VP of Technology for Cognizant Europe, to discuss forging a relationship between SBS and Cognizant for the future. It appears that they may take on some MBAs this year. It would be great for one from SBS to get in!

Booz Allen Hamilton

A recruitment presentation from Booz Allen Hamilton consultants designed to give us the personal touch (like the Bain one last week). This was another great event and I was really impressed by people and culture presented.

Semi-Mid Term Party

Another party organised by John Stanton, this time at the Bridge and Anuba here in Oxford. Unfortunately, despite it being Saturday night, many of the MBAs were still tucked away in the library finishing their Marketing/Finance assignments and so turnout was not so good. Never-the-less, it was fun and I include some photos below.

Haruyo, Akiko, Namiko and Sophie

James, Julie, Me, Archit, Ashish, Patrick

Yoga

Namiko and I tried our hands at Yoga today at the business school. One of our MBAs (Diliana) is a qualified Yoga instructor and holds 1.5 hour sessions on a Sunday afternoon. Having completed my assignments, Namiko and I decided to go along. It was a fairly rigorous workout however we really enjoyed it and will probably go back again.

And finally (maybe most importantly), this week I found out that I had passed all of my Michaelmas exams (and some of them quite well). What a great feeling! 6 down 12 (or so) to go.