Cohort Cup - Dodgeball

Cohort B came in 2nd place, losing to our hated in-cluster rivals, Cohort A. This was the first time Cohort B has ever lost in dodgeball. We won the learning team retreat dodgeball tournament (Cohorts A - F). Our strong attendance is usually the source of our victories.

In the official Cohort Cup tournament, we dominated the early rounds. We beat A and C to advance from our Cluster, and then beat Cohorts I and E to reach the final. In the final, we faced an A team that had doubled in size. Our first 5 minutes were terrible, and our best players were eliminated. The rest was history.

We came in 2nd place, earning us 11 points. But we also got 3 points for style, thanks to posters etc., so we're now first place in Cohort Cup. Only 1 second year showed up, which was pretty sad. Lack of attendance from 2nd years is going to hurt us.

Q1 Catchup

The pace of life has picked up substantially in the last few weeks, as if pre-term wasn't busy enough. I placed into Accelerated Accounting, Accelerated Finance, waived Managerial Economics, waived Operations and Information Management, and received permission to substitute an HR strategy class for Managing People at Work. I had planned to take more waiver exams, but I got tired of studying for the exams so decided to just take the classes.

My Q1 classes are:

Accelerated Accounting
Accelerated Finance
US Healthcare System
Statistics
Marketing Strategy


I was waitlisted on the Quantico leadership venture, so I may try again in the Spring. This leadership venture takes you to a marine base to experience a day in the life of a Marine officer.

I got a new laptop because my old one crashed, and was luckily able to retrieve my old data. I also got my Droid X, and so far I love it.

Q1 is pretty busy, but I suspect later quarters won't be as busy. We had a Club Expo last week and I saw a lot of cool clubs, all of which I would like to join. But I will have to pick just a few and go with those. Right now, I'm thinking Soccer, Entrepreneurship, Surf and Beach club (the one we're starting), and maybe a few others.

That's all for now!

Pub + WGA Jersey Shore Party

Social Thursdays are here again. Yesterday I went to my first official Pub and later went to the WGA (Wharton Graduate Association) Jersey Shore party. Pub is simply awesome: all you can drink beer, wine, etc. and all you can eat pizza. It's a place for 1st and 2nd year's to congregate after a not-so-hard week of work. Have you ever seen the Smirnoff Ice commercials where bros 'ice' other bros? (by giving them a Smirnoff ice and forcing them to chug the bottle with one knee on the floor?) Well, I got iced. I actually had more fun at Pub than the Jersey Shore party.

Later I went to the Jersey Shore Party. I just started watching the show and I like it. The characters are over the top. It's a stupid show but it's entertaining. Funny thing is, I tend to go to the Jersey shore a lot for surfing. In fact I'm going on Sunday since we have an HCM party at a professor's house in Margate. I think we need to bring back 'man jewelry' - heavy chains, rings, etc. Interestingly, a lot of guys in India (the bhaiyas) dress like the Jersey shore cast. I'm hoping the Jersey Shore dressing style goes mainstream. Why be subtle when you can be loud?

The party itself was pretty fun, with everyone in costume. My costume was a little weak. I lacked jewelry or the loud, tight shirts that the guys wear on the show. One guy came dressed as Snooki. Just about every party at Wharton seems to be a theme party.

Psychoanalyzed

As part of MGMT 652 - Foundations of Leadership and Teamwork, I had to take a personality test. My stats were compared to that of the incoming Wharton class (parenthetical data is the standard deviation):

Metric	Ravi	Class
Positive Affectivity	4.09(.83)	3.77(.90)
Negative Affectivity	1.93(.92)	2.55(1.13)
Extraversion	4.50(1.00)	3.41(1.01)
Conscientiousness	3.75(.96)	3.59(1.10)
Emotionality	2.00(.82)	2.39(1.00)
Agreeableness	4.50(.58)	4.16(.80)
Openness	5.00(.00)	3.87(.92)
Decision Style: Maximizing / Satisficing	2.92(1.26)	3.13(1.23)

Explanations of these traits can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits

What do you think, is this an accurate representation of me? (sorry for the big space, HTML tags are doing something weird to the page)

Poconos White Water Rafting

Last Sunday I went whitewater rafting with 11 friends from Wharton in the Lehigh area (about 2 hours from Philly). The river was an easy Class 2 - 3, so there was a lot of time for splashing and squirting other rafts with water guns. One of the fun things about rafting this river was that we guided our own raft, as opposed to having an experienced guide in the raft. About 30 rafts went in our session. The two Wharton rafts (of 6 people each) emerged in front of the pack - I guess our teamwork class paid off :) But having rafted about 15 times, I knew how to steer and guide the raft. Only one guy in our raft fell out of the raft (twice). I also rescued a stranger who was ejected from his raft (not that he was in any serious danger).

After rafting, we went to Jaipur for dinner, since it was on the way home. Luckily for us, the son of the owners of Jaipur is a first year at Wharton in the Healthcare Management program. So dinner was on the house - I had my favorite Sarson Saag and Jalapeno naan. I can't wait to go back!

Surfing, Round 2

I went back to Ocean City on Tuesday for another round of surfing. I went with one of my friends - we left at 6:45am and returned at 11:30am. This was perfect timing because my MGMT 652 simulation began at 12pm. My classmates were shocked that I could fit surfing in before class. Most didn't know where the beach was. Anyways, I had a much better outing this time because I wore a wetsuit and used a longer board. Plus, I was better at avoiding waves as I swimming out to the break point. Lastly, I'm getting into better shape, with my weight being down to 156 lbs now. As a result, I got up 3 times during the day. But the best part of the day was seeing dolphins - that's right - dolphins! They were about 100 feet from me.

I was going to go to the beach again this weekend because Hurricane Earl was supposed to create huge waves (8 - 12 feet) in New Jersey. The other term for 8 - 12 ft is double overhead - it's what good surfers dream of. Being a beginner, I wouldn't dream of surfing in double overhead conditions. Boards can break in those conditions. But I definitely would watch.

I'm now working on starting a surfing club with a bunch of other first years. I estimate that 50 - 100 students would be interested in becoming members. We may expand our club to include general beach visits and scuba diving. I was thinking about calling it the Wharton Waveriders, how does that sound?