No excuse not to call your mum

Trying to think of some things to post that may be of use to people comnig to the UK to live or go to school...

Of course you'll want to call your mum, and other people back home. Calling cards are one way to go, but one of my classmates early on told me about Telediscount as an alternative. Kind of like 10-10-321 in the states, just call 08444 621 621 to call the us for 2p per minute. Other access numbers at www.telediscount.co.uk.

Then there's also skype, which I didn't end up using, but is very popular among my classmates.

So you'll have a way to call home for relatively cheap...finding the time will probably be the more difficult part.

One more paper to write

The last stage of the MBA here at Cambridge is the Individual Project. It's a (maximum) 12,000 paper on a business/management topic of the student's choosing, with the assistance of a member of the business school factory.

Topics range from studies of M&A trends to consulting projects to a study of customer relationship management for MBA programs. I chose to write about baseball. That's right, you can take the boy out of America, but you can't take the American out of the boy. It's actually a study on sabermetric (i.e. statistical) approches to evaluating player performance. I've included the project proposal below to give an idea of what it entails (click on each page for a larger, more readable view).

Small World

This morning I headed off to Hughes Hall for breakfast with Jen and one of my classmates from Jordan--my fellow MBA BBQ Master:

After a while, a large group sat down the table from us. They must have overheard Jen and I talking and asked if we were American, then asked where we were from. Jen said Florida and I said Wisconsin, to which they exclaimed, "so are we!" Turns out they are a group from UW-Oshkosh taking a couple summer courses at Cambridge and they just flew in this morning. Always great to see some people from back home.

On the way out, leaving Hughes, we saw a few people coming in--easily recognized as more Americans (and, I assume, with the Wisconsin crew). The ability to pick fellow Americans out of a crowd is certainly a skill I learning since coming over here--I didn't even realize it would be possible. Funny that I came to Europe to learn about the rest of the world and in the process also gained a greater perspective on my own home country...I guess some things are easier to see from the outside than the inside.

Sad day in the UK

Today started as any other normal day. All these horrific days seem to begin that way. Fortunately I am physically ok myself, just a bit shaken, after today's attacks in London.

It was a grey, typical day as I rode my bike to work for the fourth day of my summer job at Transversal here in Cambridge. After having lived in New York and experiencing 9/11, I knew London would be a potential target (despite my previous post about security for the Queen's visit, I promise this is not a national security blog). Being 45 minutes away in Cambridge makes me feel safer, but I go to London often enough and I have enough friends who live there or go there regularly to make it something that crosses my mind occasionally. Sadly, today the fear of those thoughts became reality.

I overheard some people in the office discussing power surges affecting the tube, so I figured I'd check Google News myself, only to find the news getting worse and worse. Something about a bus too, and another train, maybe three buses. I felt the anxiety build up and return inside of me as I recalled how on 9/11 I heard one plane, saw number two, then was told of two more, then a policeman called out "there might be more!" I knew my parents and family would be worried, so I wanted to call them immediately, but it was only 4am central time in the US, so I opted to start sending emails to let everyone know I was ok.

Classmates did likewise, as we are sort of each other's families away from home, to make sure everybody was ok. While it would be ideal to be with family on a day like today, it is certainly comforting to have such great people around me here. It seems that nobody I know was directly affected, so I count my blessings, but my prayers go out to all of those affected.