In between it all...

... I have finally found the time.

People generally say a lot of things about the first week of b-school. With all that I've seen and heard, it is incredibly difficult not to be overwhelmed by the activities and traditions that I've experienced in the past week. Despite the hype, I've got to say that b-school's first week is vastly underrated.

In the past week, I've met people from Mauritius, Russia, Ghana, Poland, Japan, America, Hungary, Israel, Germany, Holland, Pakistan, Belgium, France and Spain and this is just in the back two rows of class.
I've seen student body get-togethers. We have Consulting club, Sigma club, Rugby club, Parenting club, Women in Business club. There's something for everyone.

In the pretext of team building, I've climbed ropes, crawled across planks and bricks spread over a large puddle while blindfolded, constructed a water balloon catapult, hit the nightspots, attended barbecues and generally had a blast.

I have attended sessions on Ethics, General Management, Financial Markets & Valuation, Financial Accouting, Leading People & Groups, Uncertainty Data & Judgment, a lecture on leadership and decision-making from the first Singaporean to climb Mt. Everest and classes have been getting better and better.
For god's sake, I've even managed to pass my French language exemption exam after only 4 months of studying it. This means I'm done with all French language study and language exams for the year. It means that recruiters could think that I could be air-dropped-off in some remote French village, trek back to the city in about a week's time and live to tell the tale (which from my career point of view, I hear, is a good thing).

I've even managed to squeeze in an hour and a half of tennis from which I'm still recovering, 2 trips for grocery shopping and 1 long train ride to Little India.

I'm still in my first week of classes. It's incredible just how much happens here. I'm like the poor little kid with his face to the restaurant window, taking in everything wide-eyed and in disbelief.

Things ought to get a little more hectic now when we have assignments due and pre-reading to do for classes and lessons get a little harder to comprehend. Somehow, I think I'll be ready and even if there's something happening at 3am, I'll have my eyes open.