Hey there. I hope all of you had a happy holiday and have fun things plannedfor this weekend's New Year's celebrations. After getting back from Brazil, I had a pretty low-key Christmas with my family and enjoyed spending the entire day eating, relaxing, and doing nothing past that. It's so great to not have to worry about getting up for classes or for work.
Although I don't have to do any school work, I'm still spreading myself too thin during this winter break. Going to school 3000 miles away from here makes it difficult to keep in touch with my friends back on the east coast, so, whenever i come back, I try to see as many of them as possible. So far, I've been making that long drive back and forth to DC daily to meet up with people and it has me wiped out. Also, I overcommitted myself to helping business school aspirants with their applications, so I've been using most of my free time this week to review essays often into the wee hours of the morning. I love helping people with B-school stuff because I didn't have any current students to help me through the process, but I'm going to have to retire from the "B-school assistance game" soon. Finally, I'm also trying to find time to work on a web site design project for a non-profit that is in the start-up stages. I agreed to help with it a couple of months ago after a friend of mine directed them to me, but finding time to actually put in work on it has been difficult. Dang, if things are this hectic for me now, I'd hate to see how things will be when the Winter quarter starts up in a couple of weeks.
OK, I've got to take my mom to the airport. Take care and, if I don't get another chance to write an entry before this weekend, I hope all you have a Happy New Year!
Whew, this has been a long 8 days in Brazil so far and, now that I've only got today and tomorrow left, I'm feeling too worn out to do anything but chill. The past 3 days here in Bahia with two of my roomies has been a mixture of relaxation, great conversations, and straight-up comedy....the last part is especially due to my man CG. He's a youngin' (24 yrs old) who loves to go out so he can mack and kick it, which would normally be fine in the US, but down here in Salvador, it isn't so easy because none of us speak Portugeuse. Being able to speak Portugeuse wasn't a big problem in Rio de Janeiro or Buzios because those are tourist locations and many people speak at least some sort of English, but it's a whole different story in Salvador. Here, an only-English speaker would just go out to a club and stand on the sidelines because none of the potential dance-mates would understand him. We have so many comedic stories about CG trying to go against that certainty that he'll get a whole chapter in my autobiography when I write it. :-)
One other thing that has hampered us in Salvador is that the music is totally different than anything we're used to. In Buzios, we were able to hear American hip-hop and top-40 at bars and clubs, so it was easy to dance and have a good time, but, here, it's all about Brazilian music. When we went out on our first night here, the three of us just stood around and watched everyone else because it was so hard for us to catch the rhythm of what was coming through the speakers. Everyone on the dancefloor was having a great time, but, as three black dudes from America used to bumpin' to hip-hop beats, we were like fish out of water. And we couldn't even order good drinks because we couldn't communicate in effective Portugeuse to the bartenders. needless to say, this segment of the trip was filled with fewer late nights hanging out on the town than the first half of it.
I should also add that I finally found some of the Brazilian women that people in the US tell stories about...we've seen some gorgeous ones in Salvador and they've all been "regular folks" who were just doing their day-to-day thing. After having spent time in three different brazilian locales, I've observed a decent set of women here and decided that the mean of Brazilian women is about the same as that of American women, but the standrad deviation is much larger in Brazil than in the US (if you don't understand that statement, think back to your MBA Core Statistics class -- B-school education goes much further than just dollars and cents ;-) ). If any of the fellas reading this entry are thinking about coming to Brazil, I've got three pieces of advice for you: learn some basic Portugeuse, hang out at the beaches, and be single (it's hard to be an effective wingman otherwise).
This has been a good trip, but I'm pretty much worn out and am looking forward to getting back to VA so I can take a vacation from my vacation :-)
I'm writing this entry from a hotel room in Salvador, Bahia and I'm currently in the middle of this vacation. So far, the trip has been a good one overall, but it didn't exactly meet up to all of my expectations. I wish i could have written an entry earlier than this, but it's been hard to find time and an available internet connection that I can use long enough to throw some text into this blog. Fortunately, I've been writing a journal of my comings and goings to share with my GF when I get back to the US, so I'm able to reference that as I write up the following summaries:
Day 1-2 - Rio De Janeiro
I originally planned the trip to brazil with three of my roomies (all of us are Black), but then we found out that a group of guys from our class (all of whome are white) were going to be going to Brazil too, so we decided to coordinate a trip together. I thought this would be a great experience for me because I'd done a lot of kickin' it with many of my classmates, but I hadn't really hung out with this other group of cats yet.
The flight from Dulles to Rio was a long one (with a stop in Sao Paolo) so I was dead when i got to the hotel and met up with my peoples on the first day. We ended up going out to a nice dinner as a big group and our dinner restaurant converted to a club later in the evening. with all the stories I'd heard about the party scene in Rio, I was excited to see some wildness and people having more fun than I'd ever seen before. Also, I thought back to the Snoop Dogg 'Beautiful' video and was expecting Brazilian women to be on some goddess type stuff that would have everyone's jaws on the floor. Unfortunately, I was wrong on both counts. The club DJ was playing some of the most horrible techno music I've ever heard and there were a bunch of lazer and smoke effects that were just plain cheesy. And, the women in Rio were decent, but nothing unlike what one would see at any club in the US. The most shocking thing was that the Brazilian locals in the club couldn't dance for anything. I thought that these cats were born doing some ridiculous dancing, but, if that was the case, their rhythm must have faded in old age. That first night was decent, but a big letdown from a partying standpoint. Good thing I had my classmates with me or else I'd have been miserable.
The second night was a similar gameplan with us going out to dinner as a group and then trying to experience some Rio nightlife. The restaurant was a great Brazilian steak house with an all-you-can-eat buffet for about $35-40 each, but the after hours stuff fell flat again. We spent over an hour trying to buy our way into a club that we'd heard was supposed to be the jumpoff and never ended up getting in. next we moved to another spot that we'd heard would be so-so but we went there ebcause no one was ready to go to bed yet. Once we got there, the place was actually "so-so-minus"...the music was more bad techno and, this time, people just stood around without anyone dancing. It was just plain weird. It did give me time to converse with my classmates over drinks though, so it was all good. By the time we finished up those two days in Rio, I'd had a good time, but it was more because of the people I was there with and not Rio itself.
Day 3-4 - Buzios
On Friday, we took a 2.5 hour bus ride from Rio to Buzios for a couple of laid back days in the sun. After the disappointment with Rio, I wasn't expecting too much from Buzios, but I had a great time. The days were spent hanging out and sight seeing in the city's downtown area and the nights were filled with dinners out with the group and kickin' it in the bars and clubs until 3-4am. One of the highlights of my trip came on the first night in Buzios when I had a great convo with several of the people in my traveling group. It took place at about 1am at a bar in the downtown area and involved a conversation between me, my man Detavio, an asian female classmate, and two white male classmates...we spent a good 60+ minutes talking about our preconceptions about race and classmates when we entered the GSB and how those views had changed in the past 4 quarters. In fact, I found out that I started off last year with a noticeable chip on my shoulder about race that I knew was always there but thought I'd be able to hide. I've done a whole lot of growing in the past 15 months and that conversation and the additional bonding that it sparked were proof of that.
I left Buzios early this morning with 2 of my roomies and took the long bus ride back to Rio so we could catch a ride to Salvador, Bahia in the northern part of Brazil, which is supposed to be heavily made up of Black Brazilians (Brazil has more Black people in it than the US does). Now, I've got 4 days in Bahia and it should be much more laid-back and chill than the first half of the vacation. I think I'm just going to chill out on the beach with my roomies and do some sight-seeing around here. This vacation is just what i needed to unwind after a long quarter of classes, activities, and recruiting stuff. Hopefully, I'll have a chance to do another update soon after getting back to the US.
What’s up, y’all. As I sit here typing, I am on the verge of passing out from exhaustion because it’s been such a long quarter. Fortunately, it is now officially over because I just emailed my last final paper to my “History of African-American Education” professor. It feels good to be done, but I have to kick myself because I cut it way too close on my assignments for the end of the Fall quarter. As I said in my last entry, I had a ton of things due in the final week and a half of the quarter and I let job interviews cause me to get a late start on everything. This last Education paper isn’t due until Monday at 5pm PST, but I had absolutely nothing written until 9pm last night (Saturday). In fact, I didn’t even start trying to gather my resources (books and articles) until Thursday afternoon because my other assignments kept me from being able to start on this one and, by then, many of my desired sources were unavailable. Thank goodness for Google because I found a ton of great stuff on there that allowed me to source information for my paper. When it came to actually writing the paper, I was a MONSTER and was able to knock out 22.5 pages in less than 27 hours. I don’t think I’ve ever written anything at such a pace in my entire life and the only thing I’ve ever written as longer than this was my 85+ page senior thesis at Princeton. Unfortunately, it usually isn’t possible for me to write for quality when I write for speed, so this paper is AWFUL!!! I know that I’m usually a pretty tough judge of my own stuff, but there is no way that I should get a good grade on this joint. I’m just hoping that my professor takes pity on me and gives me a B so I can count it toward my Ed. School credits toward the MA.Ed degree.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I’m back in VA right now and have been since last night. I came back before the due date for this last paper so I’d be able to spend a few days visiting my family before embarking on the highlight of my Winter break, a 10-day trip down to Brazil…that’s right…BRAZIL BABY!!! I’m going to be meeting up with three of my four roomies down there to kick it and we’re also supposed to link up with a group of folks from our class at the GSB. We’re all leaving on the 13th and will arrive on the 14th and will stay down there until the 23rd and arrive back in the US on the 24th just in time for Christmas. I’ve never been down to brazil before, but, from what I’ve heard about the party scene and seen in the Snoop Dogg “Beautiful” video, it should be a great trip. And, I definitely learned my lesson from the September trip to Asia so I won’t be getting into any potential scuffles with the locals. If they mess with my drinks, I’ll just let it ride…I’m not trying to get locked up in a South American jail because I’m not enough of a baller yet for anyone in America to come to my aid if I get hemmed up.
Now that I’m at the end of Fall quarter, I’ve had a chance to reflect on things and realize that the past three months has been truly great experience, even though I’ve felt like I’m running myself into the ground at times. I took a set of great classes, including two that I now consider to be the best two courses I’ve ever taken…and that includes going back to my first stint in grad school and to my undergrad years. I was able to get an offer from the company that I came to business school to get into and have signed that offer. I’ll be moving to a city where a McKinsey salary will have me big ballin’. My term on the GSB Senate has ended, so I’ll have a lot more free time starting next quarter. And, some other life stuff happened on the side that have things looking up for me all around. As I think back to how stressed I was at this time last year, it is hard to believe that only three academic quarters has passed since then. I’m really looking forward to getting back to school in January and enjoying it with nothing to concern me for the first time at the GSB…
What’s up, y’all. I just had McKinsey ATL’s sell weekend this past weekend and I loved kickin’ it with those people. They did it up SO BIG for us and got me really excited about starting work there next Fall. That’s right…I’m signed, sealed, and delivered. I gave them my accepted offer letter on Friday morning during the presentations session and it’s official: your boy will be working at McKinsey. Unfortunately, I have to turn down two really good offers, but, in the end, I decided that McKinsey was the best place for me to start out my career given what I want to learn in the first few years after B-School. Also, McK is the company that I came to business school to get into, so it just felt right to accept their offer. Stuff is finally coming together for me and it feels amazing.
Incidentally, I finally got the “HELL NAW” from BCG this past Thursday afternoon, but it didn’t even phase me. It was sort of like when I found out that I’d gotten into Stanford and then received word later that same day that HBS wasn’t checkin’ for The Kid. I wish I could give you the entire story of how tough this situation with BCG was, but I don’t want to totally smear BCG (I’m finally learning to keep some of my stories to myself). What I will say is that they told me on November 16 after I interviewed that I’d find out my fate within 2 to 7 days…I didn’t get the rejection call until Dec 1 (15 days later)…You’ve got to love when companies follow through, huh?
Enough about the job stuff…let’s talk about school. This is the last week of classes for the Fall quarter and it feels like I’ve got a ton to do. I’ve already turned in the final paper for one of my classes, but I’ve still got 4 more final papers to knock out. One of them (for my Formations of New ventures class) should be fun because it’s a 5-pager about my ideal entrepreneurial career and the only problem I should have with that is keeping it concise enough to fit into 5 pages. Another one is a 10-pager about my views on leadership and whether I want to be a leader in the future, which should be another one that I struggle to keep within the page limits. Sometime this week, I’ve got to find time to meet with my Corporate Finance study group to work on our take-home final, which I’m hoping we can hit a homerun with because I love that class and want to come out with a good grade. The final assignment is the one I’m worried about. It’s a 20 page paper for my History of African-American Education class and I haven’t started anything on it, not the outline, the research, or even thinking about what I want to write. It’s due next Monday, but I’m going to be flying back to VA this weekend, so I’ve got to get that joint done this week before I go. It’s going to be a LONG WEEK with that one.