Catching up
Ahh...my much neglected blog...
So much to talk about, so little time..oh who am I kidding, it's just 2:30 AM...and I have the rest of the night..so ramble on!
So continuing where I left off, the trip to Asia was "awesome"! Between drunken sake induced renditions of "Beat it" (complete with inappropriate hand gestures and air guitaring), crazy hotel room parties and endless rounds of being "buffaloed", I actually did manage to learn something about Japanese and Chinese culture. And I'm not just talking about the fact that the women in Hong Kong *really* like to party or that you can't walk 2 minutes in an upscale hotel in China without being accousted by women trying to get you to let them give you a "massage" or "play games" (yeah, you read that right)!! No, no. I'm talking about actual, honest to God stuff like learning about how they live, how they think, their behaviour, their perception of americans...all the good stuff that I find way more fascniating than company visits and such.
And since I've gotten this question a zillion times, I'll just throw it out there... the best part of the trip for me was the Great Wall. It is truly one of the most awe-inspiring things I have ever seen. The other hot favorite for folks on the trip was the Japanese Hot Spring. Not so much for me...primarily because I refused to get co-erced into walking around nude with my buddies! Fuqua would never have been the same if I had seen Francis in his b'day suit....
aside: One of the funniest things on the trip was when we were "disrobing" in our lockers... one of the guys who worked there, kept pacing outside shouting out "guys, keep your underwears on!". priceless!!!
So after 15 days of a "rollicking good time" (see S, you can totally use that in a sentence!), I finally headed off to Bangkok to see the folks. And that's where it started. The most incident filled period of my life in the last 7 years. I swear, I have not gone 1 day without something crazy happening. It could be me being detained by immigration authorities in a foreign country, it could be me getting my license suspended (and then getting pulled over twice in the same month!), it could be me suffering my first veritgo attack, it could be me herniating my back, could be me losing my brand new suit without wearing it even once...the list is endless and keep in mind I'm keeping out the really embarrassing stuff since this blog is only semi-anonymous! It's been interesting to say the least.
And in the middle of all that was the job.
"It's been great! The team's been great. I've learned so much. It's been interesting working directly with the client, trying to balance their needs and demands with our own priorities and schedule"
I can rattle out some variation of the above snippet in my sleep now. You've always gotta be "on" in case someone high up in the firm asks you how your summer has been. Of course you're always doing a JD in your mind... "Oh, it's been great! My back hurts like a B. I gotta sleep in hotel rooms every day with no friends around and with the pressure that I'm constantly being judged. Some of the stuff I'm doing is stuff you could get a trained monkey to do in it's sleep. The rest of the time I have no clue what people are talking about and am just trying to not look like the dumbest person in the room. So yeah, it's been great."
But seriously...it actually has been great. I've learned more than I could in a couple of classes combined and surprisingly I do like the travel and the above mentioned challenge of trying to build credibility and gain the trust of the client under less than perfect conditions.
3 more weeks to go and then I go back to the high school environment, also known as Business school. I still haven't decided whether I'm dreading that or looking forward to it.
So much to talk about, so little time..oh who am I kidding, it's just 2:30 AM...and I have the rest of the night..so ramble on!
So continuing where I left off, the trip to Asia was "awesome"! Between drunken sake induced renditions of "Beat it" (complete with inappropriate hand gestures and air guitaring), crazy hotel room parties and endless rounds of being "buffaloed", I actually did manage to learn something about Japanese and Chinese culture. And I'm not just talking about the fact that the women in Hong Kong *really* like to party or that you can't walk 2 minutes in an upscale hotel in China without being accousted by women trying to get you to let them give you a "massage" or "play games" (yeah, you read that right)!! No, no. I'm talking about actual, honest to God stuff like learning about how they live, how they think, their behaviour, their perception of americans...all the good stuff that I find way more fascniating than company visits and such.
And since I've gotten this question a zillion times, I'll just throw it out there... the best part of the trip for me was the Great Wall. It is truly one of the most awe-inspiring things I have ever seen. The other hot favorite for folks on the trip was the Japanese Hot Spring. Not so much for me...primarily because I refused to get co-erced into walking around nude with my buddies! Fuqua would never have been the same if I had seen Francis in his b'day suit....
aside: One of the funniest things on the trip was when we were "disrobing" in our lockers... one of the guys who worked there, kept pacing outside shouting out "guys, keep your underwears on!". priceless!!!
So after 15 days of a "rollicking good time" (see S, you can totally use that in a sentence!), I finally headed off to Bangkok to see the folks. And that's where it started. The most incident filled period of my life in the last 7 years. I swear, I have not gone 1 day without something crazy happening. It could be me being detained by immigration authorities in a foreign country, it could be me getting my license suspended (and then getting pulled over twice in the same month!), it could be me suffering my first veritgo attack, it could be me herniating my back, could be me losing my brand new suit without wearing it even once...the list is endless and keep in mind I'm keeping out the really embarrassing stuff since this blog is only semi-anonymous! It's been interesting to say the least.
And in the middle of all that was the job.
"It's been great! The team's been great. I've learned so much. It's been interesting working directly with the client, trying to balance their needs and demands with our own priorities and schedule"
I can rattle out some variation of the above snippet in my sleep now. You've always gotta be "on" in case someone high up in the firm asks you how your summer has been. Of course you're always doing a JD in your mind... "Oh, it's been great! My back hurts like a B. I gotta sleep in hotel rooms every day with no friends around and with the pressure that I'm constantly being judged. Some of the stuff I'm doing is stuff you could get a trained monkey to do in it's sleep. The rest of the time I have no clue what people are talking about and am just trying to not look like the dumbest person in the room. So yeah, it's been great."
But seriously...it actually has been great. I've learned more than I could in a couple of classes combined and surprisingly I do like the travel and the above mentioned challenge of trying to build credibility and gain the trust of the client under less than perfect conditions.
3 more weeks to go and then I go back to the high school environment, also known as Business school. I still haven't decided whether I'm dreading that or looking forward to it.
posted by MJ at Sunday, August 05, 2007
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home