Fair Winds and Following Seas....

The year was 1994.

The day was December 18^th.

The bullets were five.

The blood was crimson.

The story is mine.

I have always been a talker. From the moment I muttered my first word and every day in between. But, on a cold winter’s night days after turning thirteen, my talking developed a different purpose: understanding people.

I firmly believe that as people we do the best we know how in that moment. A bit presumptuous, but maniacs aside, people do the best they know how. The challenge is to understand why, a challenge I gave to myself on the night that five bullets pierced the passenger side window of our family car.

A man I did not know sat perched in dark car, behind darkly tinted glass, down just far enough to see the shadow of a face. And then in a moment, likely compelled by his desire to have acceptance from his circle of friends, he applied the force to a trigger that sprayed five bullets into our car and he was gone. In his wake he left behind bullet casings, shattered glass and a solitary bullet, that by the grace of god, lodged itself in the palm of the hand my mother used to cover her head.

So many things came out of the day including my intrigue for understanding people. So I talk to them.

The past three months in Spain have been an amazing opportunity to talk (a lot) and listen to people from different countries, cultures and religions. We all bring our different stories to ESADE and I have been honored to spend the past three months learning about so many new people and we have had a blast along the way.

Of course, with every great story, the road to get here was accented with challenges that forced us to take a deep breath and think for a moment about what motivates and influences us all. In a way the coursework is secondary to our experience here in Barcelona. Even our group work presented a non-academic challenge: how to merge six cultures, leadership styles, communication methods and habits. Furthermore, the challenges of leveraging the knowledge of sixty ‘section mates’, creating memories with 180 classmates and sharing stories with a group of experienced 2^nd years. One thing carries us through, the understanding that in every moment we are doing the best we know how.

So thank you ESADE for listening to me talk, answering my questions and letting me understand where you come from and what motivates you.

To my beloved Team 2, I wish you the best next term and look forward to ‘work free’ time together.

Class of 2012, I look forward to more fun times come January – enjoy the break.

To the Class of 2011, for those of you moving on to your next step in life, best wishes and thank you for imparting your wisdom on us. Fair winds and following seas.

And to the man behind the dark window, for whatever reason you felt compelled to pull the trigger, I understand it was the best you knew how in that moment.

Ted Meets Ram in Barcelona

I knew that Barcelona would introduce me to cultural experiences I had never even heard of before, but on an ordinary November Saturday I stumbled upon the unlikeliest of experiences.

November. In the States this symbolizes a month to celebrate Veteran’s Day, Thanksgiving and Black Friday or remembrance, thanks and SHOPPING, respectively. My favorite of those three is hands down Thanksgiving; a US holiday predicated on family and thankfulness, not without controversy, but definitely without gifts! To non US Americans and my ESADE classmates, it’s an opportunity to taste some of the famous Thanksgiving Turkey they hear about. Unfortunately, it’s quite a labor intensive holiday so we’ve limited the official 2010 celebration to US Passport holders. Lo siento!

The thing about Thanksgiving is that you cannot be a chef and enter the day cold turkey (pun very much intended). In an attempt to acclimate ourselves in a Spanish kitchen, Stilts, OVietnam and I set out to practice the big day with a rehearsal Turkey Day. We educated our Lebanese sous chef and even allowed two Canadians to the table, but not after an eventful preparation day throughout Barcelona.

The day before our rehearsal, we met OVietnam at Mercat de la Boqueria to pick up none other than ‘Ted the Turkey’. Upon first entering la Boqueria I smiled with a hint of rebellion; my sheer presence here was me turning my nose up to the food standards of the States. We meandered through food stand after food stand until we found the selected meat counter…OH MY GOD is there going to be a HEAD on our TURKEY….ok focus, not all the turkeys have heads on them. WAIT! I signed up to help with Thanksgiving, but I did not sign up to chop the head off of a turkey. Thankfully, we ordered the headless variety and so what if Stilt’s hasn’t yet mastered the metric system and grossly overestimated kilos. We were now the proud owners of a 20lb turkey (WAY too much meet for 6 people). Practice Thanksgiving here we come!

But first, we had to run some errands as I was headed to a Diwali party later that evening. Prior to the week leading up to Diwali, I had never heard of the holiday. Shame on me, but this is all part of me learning! I learned a little about Ram coming back after being banished and the symbolism of good defeating bad and the marking of this event known as the ‘Festival of Lights’. In an effort to fully explore my newfound education, I decided to drag Stilts through Raval in order to find a festive outfit to wear to Bollywood Restaurant later that night. Ted came too.

Earlier, I mentioned the food standards of the US for a reason. In the States, you pick up your Thanksgiving Day turkey and it’s wrapped up nicely in a tight plastic wrap and its innards are neatly placed in a plastic bag inside the carcass. Not in Spain. As we weaved through tourists, pickpockets and policemen on La Rambla, Ted the Turkey was sticking half way out of the disproportionately small plastic bag, each leg flopping in an opposite direction with my every step.

I borrowed Stilt’s Spanish to ask a local souvenir shop owner where I could find native dress for the Diwali party. Ted and I stood off to the side and drew awkward stares from passersby. After being pointed in the proper direction, I stopped to grab some cash from the ATM—American female with an excessive amount of bags in her hands, fumbling with her wallet on Rambla equals prime target for some of the ‘wallet regulars’ in that area. But the 20 pound turkey hanging halfway out of the bag and now leaking from a small hole was more baffling than anything else.

But Diwali and Bollywood were our motivation and we charged on until we stumbled upon the desired location. The shopkeeper quickly dressed me with some festive garb. I am still not sure if she was excited that an overly eager American Catholic was dressing up for Diwali party or if she wanted to rush me out the door because a turkey was poking out from my bag and leaking on her floor, but that is neither here nor there.

The Diwali party was a blast! I showed up in my new outfit and shocked a few people with my commitment. ESADE took over the restaurant and transformed it into a dance floor, hired Bollywood dancers to boot! It was great to see some of our more reserved classmates relish in the glory of the Festival of Lights and teach us a few of their native dance moves. The following day, in between basting Ted and slicing apples, I looked at the photos from the evening. My favorites were the random ones I snapped from my toes focusing on the center of the dance floor. I never captured a specific person or persons, but I did capture smiles on EVERYONE’s face. For me, east met west in Barcelona for a day.

It was an experience that I am thankful for this November.

Vernacular Abuse

Dear Facebook, Skype, GChat, BBM, Whatsapp and Email,

Boy have we had a big two months!

I never really understood the impact you have on everyday life. You should be commended…well I’m pretty sure the monetary compensation you generate for your founders is commendation enough. So I just want to personally thank you. Over the past two weeks we united forces and really made some monumental impacts.

You see, I have this thing with words and unfortunately when the stork dropped me off at mom and dad’s house 28 years ago he forgot to leave a filter. I’ve been grappling with this oversight for years. Here in Spain they blame it on me just being American, but back in the States the lack of filter still provides countless hours of entertainment and embarrassment beyond acceptable levels. It’s a work in progress, but the sheer volume of words I use is tough to manage. After a detailed analysis a co-worker and I came to the conclusion that I talk on a 9 to 1 ratio compared to the average person. I talk in riddles and rhymes at all the wrong times. And that is where you come in to the picture.

Who would have known that I could exercise the 9 to 1 ratio on 6 platforms simultaneously? Do you know how much we got accomplished this week? I’ll tell you.

Let’s start from the beginning, when I lost my voice. Detrimental, I know. I was lost too, but Skype you really stepped it up here. The phone was clearly not an option as I intermittently made honking noises that sounded like an injured goose. I had a speech to give and I practiced (at a whisper) over Skype with my audience. I also used your instant message feature when whispering gave way to pure silence. I never regained my voice in time to deliver the speech, but time wasn’t waiting for me and the week moved on.

GChat, Whatsapp and BBM, thank you. You carried me through a rather long week of anticipation. Election results and a top secret retreat provided a little anxiety and I still could not speak without sounding like an overweight truck driver. Using your technology I could still keep up my communication level, just in written and far more permanent form, but most importantly I could still express myself across platforms. Amazing. I really seized the opportunity too.

I owe a lot of thanks to each of you for the past few weeks.

Skype: Thank you for allowing me to interact with my mother as she packed me a box of winter clothes. Barcelona is getting colder and the cold marble floor in the morning is getting painful. I have contemplated not showering twice now to avoid the long cold barefoot walk down the hallway to the shower. I’m going to start losing friends if I don’t get my slippers sent sooner than later.

GChat: You hide so discretely behind the pdf version of marketing slides on my PC. I’ve promised to give you up during class time except in the case of emergencies, but I just wanted to tell you that you have been incredibly useful in talking to people on the other side of classroom. I will miss the flashing orange during class time, but I have you on my phone too, so do not fret.

BBM and Whatsapp: You allowed me to connect with people across the globe at all hours. Allocating time between the two of you is tough, but my dedication really picks up as the night drags on. I find more and more time to devote to you right around 2am. You facilitate my ability to put my foot in my mouth quicker than I could have ever considered. Wow, the wonders of technology.

Email: You add value too. For after insertion of foot-in-mouth, you step in and allow me another opportunity to poor salt in a wound, but in a far more permanent fashion. What would I do without you? You allow me to make permanent reminders of temporary feelings….you are kind of like a tattoo. Plus the fact that I can have you in my pocket…priceless.

Facebook: I haven’t fully embraced your chat feature. I was turned off by you when you first showed your face. You had too many glitches and I really just lost interest. I am considering giving you another chance, but you too have served a purpose these past two weeks. After my uninhibited communication, follies included, you were there as the perfect spot to post some esoteric message about my latest blunder. You are irreplaceable.

Wow. Countless reasons for gratitude. It’s been a long two months and all of you have been key players of dragging it out so painfully long. I look forward to more useful interaction as we continue on our journey together. I flirt with the idea of separation, temporary of course, but I never have the ability to part. I feel we just go together like old ladies and slot machines.

Until our next IM, Email or ambiguous post….

Unaccustomed Earth

Human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long a series of generations, in the same worn-out soil. My children have had other birthplaces, and, so far as their fortunes may be within my control, shall strike their roots into unaccustomed earth. –Nathaniel Hawthorne

Pause. Breathe. Reflect….carry on.

Pre-term has come and gone. Marks are set and rather inconsequential at this point. Term 1 and everything it has in store for us has pierced our reality and we strap in for another several months of academic pursuits.

But September was more than just another month in our calendar year. We all set out on this journey with different motivations and varying goals. We converged on Barcelona – a foreign land to some but home for others. We blindly opened ourselves to 179 others from day one. We walked into living situations with perfect strangers without question. We humbly accepted new roles and accommodated new norms to promote the success of five other people. We stumbled a time or two and will again, but for the coming months this is our unaccustomed earth.

These are our days to learn from each other and exchange ideas, opinions, cultures, food and drinks. And we are going to have a blast doing so. So perhaps for a day or a weekend and maybe even just for a moment…

Pause. Remember the streets and sidewalks that robbed the soles from our shoes, where we promised ourselves this opportunity. Oh! the carpal tunnel syndrome we still battle, developed from writing our essays, our ideas and our beliefs.

Breathe. Now that it seems the ESADE West-Nile-Bird-Sars epidemic has subsided – we can all breathe.

Reflect. We had ideas in those essays, we had goals – personally I may have thrown in a little blue sky to help with the admissions process, but the message was still the same – grant me this opportunity and watch me flourish.

In my moments of reflection, I have realized:

In this single month I have made ‘lifers’. (How can you possibly NOT remain lifelong friends with someone that shares more than 100 friends in common with you on Facebook?)

I am an amazing air fiddler.

Sundays are not for shopping, perfect for drinking.

The flashing lights at the pedestrian crosswalk are less a warning-more a sign of imminent danger.

You can bond over happy meals from McAuto at 4am.

If this whole clean energy thing doesn’t pan out, I have a future in horse whispering.

Just because the hairdresser cut your neck – no discount is guaranteed.

Taxis don’t frequent uphill neighborhoods quite as often after midnight.

Everybody loves a good nickname.

Some people just need to sleep right here. Right now.

And also, that while our stay in Barcelona may only be temporary, we are all setting about to strike new roots in our own unaccustomed earth – watch us flourish.

Now carry on….               

¿Cómo se dice "narcolepsy"?

Meet ‘Stilts’. She is from Chicago. We are going to hide her identity from the Google search engines so that when she runs for President of the United States it will not be THAT easy to find out about her debaucheries while at ESADE. Anyway….more on that another day.

Stilts and I have found ourselves explaining an etiquette guideline more and more frequently these days. In fact, just yesterday I heard her explain to three gentlemen this concept. You see….it’s a pretty good idea to never tell a woman that she looks tired. It generally equates to something along the lines of “Wow…you look terrible.” Generally, we are very aware of the fact that we look tired. There is a multi-billion dollar industry centered on concealing fatigue with makeup and/or fancy creams.

But this is Business School – everyone is a little tired - men and women alike. Makeup and creams have been rendered useless by text books, exams and Barcelona. Let’s be honest….there is a lot of studying done, but there is also a lot of ground to cover and sights to see. Due to obligations of class time, all the sightseeing is done from the hours of 11pm until 6am – there may or may not be a beer or two involved. Since arriving last month, in the 11-6 time frame I have explored Born, gotten lost in Barri Gotic and even made it down to the beach a time or two. I bet this city sure is neat during daylight.

This type of schedule does not bode well for attention spans during the 9-12am hours, otherwise known as class time. It seems that over the years, my doctors failed to diagnose my narcolepsy. It also seems that I share this problem with a number of my classmates. My latest trick for staying awake is to document the arduous attempts undertaken by classmates in an effort to not ‘nod off’.

My absolute favorite is the raised eyebrow approach – raise the eyebrows so that the eyelids follow suit. One guy gets his eyebrows almost up to his hairline. It’s so impressive I find myself trying it out from time to time – consistently astonished by the amount of concentration it takes.

The eye cavity massage seems to be popular in our class as well as the other sections. A constant methodical motion circling the orbital bone can have positive and negative effects. For some it rejuvenates the eyes and buys you an extra 15 minutes of attention span; however it can smudge your ‘I’m not tired’ makeup, lull you to sleep and/or spread bacteria into your eyes. Newsflash – everyone is sick so don’t think you are above this one.

Then there is the chair dependency – an effort to have the chair back hold your head up since you clearly cannot. Overconsumption of liquids – nothing requires your attention more than bladder control. Social media distractions, BBMing the person next to you, incessant trips to the bathroom, crossing the legs, crossing them the other way, subtle stretching, not-so-subtle yawning – all viable alternatives to achieve one common goal.

I didn’t mention caffeine…that’s a given. I developed a serious dependency on the coffee vending machine until it exponentially increased my dependency on ‘chicle’. Stilts and I have flirted with the idea of becoming addicted to Burn – an energy drink readily available on the 2^nd floor, but have yet to find a sugar free version. She has returned loyally to coffee and I recently rekindled my relationship with Sugar Free Red Bull.

Just the other day I went to bed at 2am after finishing up accounting work. I decided to treat myself the next morning to breakfast in bed…Red Bull….at 6am…

So the ‘You look tired’ line, can probably go without saying….

Kickoff with a ‘Dance-off’

180 people strong. It’s the ESADE Full Time MBA Class of 2012. We are professionals from 48 countries with varying intellectual capacities and working backgrounds that run the gamut. We all pride ourselves on our ambition and maturity and consistently find ourselves excelling at things our peers fail to comprehend. We are MBA students….here our roar……and before we know it we are queuing like five year olds on the first day of school sans the pink elephant backpack but clinging to our blackberries instead for security. That backpack was AWESOME by the way-it had ears and a trunk. Anyway, we  board a bus to La Mola for social experiment #1.

You can see fast friends visibly shaken as they are separated alphabetically on the bus rosters and will have to cope somehow. Memories of groups formed based on the first letter of our last names stream through our minds….silently for most. Me, well I share most things, requested or not. The scene at the hotel is organized chaos as we realize we are randomly assigned with a roommate to stay the night in what amounts to matrimonial beds. The ‘men’ rush to put a little bit of separation in between the beds before the surprise roommate arrives and an awkward moment ensues. I introduced myself to my roommate from Japan and dragged her to the bar immediately.

(If I continue with this blog I may have to incorporate a few lies to avoid sounding like an alcoholic, but do not be fooled…we are all leaning that way for the next two years….in efforts to boost our time management skills we plan to sprinkle in a few hangovers from time to time-we’ll call it multi-tasking).

After a nice dinner we all decided to loosen up a bit, but true to form, they had us loosen up with another competition. A flan eating contest, a dizzy bat/beer chugging relay (did anyone notice the absence of a bat and the presence of a metal pole-clear disregard for our safety after the copious amounts of alcohol served at dinner-foreshadowing for the next day) and then there was the ‘dance-off’ judged by a handful of second year students. While all the teams were practicing a coordinated routine I was busy refining my negotiation skills. According to the judges, we finished in second place with perhaps the worst dance of the night. Lesson learned….second year students not only like wine, they can be bribed with red OR white – they aren’t very discriminating.

Cue the post competition dancing and cue the Belgian scrapping the salsa dancing in favor of the more ‘American’ style. There were all types of dancing skills represented but none more fascinating than the Flemish style of ‘dropping like its hot’ and then well, just staying there….on the ground amid the countless number of shattered wine glasses and spilled wine. 180 (more or less at this stage of the night)of us throwing our bodies together like we’ve known each other for years or perhaps wishing we would remain strangers.

Overall a good time, we conducted ourselves like adults, made some bad decisions, lied about them and got the rumor mill going. Then we followed up a night of debauchery with a race in cars constructed by the same fatigued and hungover crowd. No one died, there were some war wounds, but no one died.

Ayúdeme

There is always a moment. Or is that just in the movies? You know, the moment where the director opts for a fast forward replay through a picture show of the hour we just watched only to halt it in the present moment of the film. It’s all in a moment where everything catches up to you.

As previously mentioned, there was a lack of true forethought and reflection in the act of packing up my amazing NYC apartment, kissing goodbye my friends and family and moving to a foreign city I had merely heard of. It caught up to me in just one moment. The planning, studying, applications, interviews, visas, packing, unpacking, repacking….all of it was on fast forward replay when I grabbed the doorknob to leave the bathroom stall at Cerveseria Catalana and it would not open.

 It was not a simple issue of try, try again. I was locked in. And after the slide show finished in a flash, I mentally welcomed myself to Barcelona, Spain. A city I had merely heard of that was my new home and a city in which I was unaware of how to ask for help if, God forbid, I ever got locked inside a tiny bathroom stall. 

I made my way out after nearly five minutes of sparring with the doorknob in a less than subtle way. The two snickering teenagers that witnessed the act were somewhere between startled and thankful, for I had just used my non-existent karate skills to compensate for my non-existent Spanish speaking skills.

I am completely handicapped by my lack of Spanish speaking skills, which in general depresses me daily. My roommates speak Spanish as their native language and the non-native speaks pretty well too. It’s a perfect environment to learn! If only they would slow it down a bit.

I asked my roommates how to say help in Spanish and figured I could work out the tone depending on the particular dilemma I would surely find myself in again soon.

Throwing darts at a map....

I would say ‘fly by the seat of my pants’ is not necessarily applicable to my life. Unplanned, certainly, but there is an element of control that flirts with every decision I make….at least subconsciously. But then there is Barcelona.

Going back to school has always been in the plan, but I never bothered to think about when and where. Then, as the grasp of subprime mortgages loosened its chokehold, the future suddenly snapped into focus; MBA. There was a bit of a problem. I did not have the forethought to plan the finances appropriately for attending business school nor had I considered that after April 30^th 2010, most of the top programs shut their doors to new applicants.

It was April 1^st. Damn. A GMAT study regimen and an unhealthy number of essays that wouldn’t write themselves did not bode well for an April 30^th deadline, plus I had that job thing to juggle too. So Plan B. Isn’t Plan B always more appealing anyway? I never really liked the idea of staying in the United States for school. It seemed boring, more of the same.

So Europe it is, specifically Barcelona. After a quick attempt to study for said test and throwing together a few essays on the trials and tribulations of being me for the admissions committee, I stepped off the airplane and drank the air. This was going to be fun. Mind you I found Barcelona on a map about three weeks before actually coming here. I figured that was probably a necessary detail. In my research however I neglected to investigate the temperatures of this city….and more importantly the humidity.

Here I was-in a country I had never visited with my life in four bags of what I had whittled down to as being the true essentials. Barcelona. My new home. Who forgot to turn on the air conditioning? I thought thinking was tough after last month’s concussion, but this heat is making me a bit delusional. I definitely did not think this one through.

So the adventure begins. I am enrolled in business school at ESADE in Barcelona, Spain. I have never been here or met any of the people I will surround myself with for at least the next eighteen months. I need to find a home, the school, establish residency, frequent the bars and beaches and find a new footing in this beautiful city by the sea.

Did I mention I don’t speak Spanish?