Vision before Execution

Today I attended a seminar called 'Vision before Execution', taught by Eric Clemons. I won this class in the pre-term auction. The topic of the class was essentially 'Risk Management' and how to predict undesirable events in the future. This can be done by analyzing patterns - 'remembering the future'. The class was a nice contrast to my other, more quant heavy pre-term classes (finance, accounting, managerial economics, and statistics). To be honest, I don't totally understand what the seminar was about, but it was entertaining. Some analogies cited were:

1) What to do when you're driving 150mph and your breaks don't work (turn off engine)
2) What to do when you land at an airport and 750 people are in line at customer service (book a hotel for a week)
3) Predicting the quagmire in Iraq (when people are fighting for non-economic reasons, it's hard to win)
etc.

It was nice to use a different part of my brain (the philosophical / conceptual part) for a change. Professor Clemons went on many tangents, and spent quite a bit of time talking about Brewmaster's Guild. In addition to consulting for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Department of Defense, Professor Clemons is a beer reviewer, works for Victory (a Philly brewery), and is an expert on barbeques.

The most important lesson from the lecture? Hop Devil by Victory is apparently a great beer.

Like a Ton of Bricks

Among other things, surfing is about persistence, and that's a lesson I learned today. I went surfing in Ocean City, NJ with 3 other Wharton classmates and had a great time though it was the hardest surfing I've done.

We left Philly at 6:30am and were in the water at 8:30am. We had 3 - 5 feet waves with weak onshore winds. I bought a rash guard (a tight shirt to protect the chest from scrapes and rashes) but it wasn't that effective. I rode a 9 feet board for 1 hour of the 1.5 hours I was in the water. The waves were 'pitchy' meaning that they crested quickly and broke abruptly, near shore. Apparently, this is how all of the surfing is on the east coast. I've been surfing 8 times in Santa Cruz, Half Moon Bay, Jaco (Costa Rica), Wakiki (Hawaii), Rabat (Morocco), and Oualidia (Morocco). All of the places I've surfed have had slower, rolling waves of a maximum of 2-3 feet.

Today's surfing was quite a bit harder. Wipe outs were more intense, which I wasn't prepared for. Getting pummelled by a wave was like being hit by a ton of bricks. Just swimming out 100 feet to the surfing spot was hard enough because one had to get through 4-5 strong waves. Several times I was knocked back to shore and had to start over. I was fairly defeated and demoralized about half way through the day. Today's session felt like white water rafting in Costa Rica back in 2003, when I rafted a choppy river just after it had rained and our raft flipped twice. I was shaken and didn't want to get back in the water for the rest of the trip, though I eventually did.

However, today I learned some new techniques for getting through waves out to the surf spot, which involved some combination of the following: ducking under the wave, leaning into the wave, jumping when the wave approached, turning sideways to let the water go past me, etc. After about an hour I got tired and switched to a classmate's body board. I wore fins, which made it harder to walk. However, with a body board, it's much easier to get through the waves because you can just swim through the waves and let the board come with you (it's attached to your bicep). The critical lesson I learned was that the force of the wave is highest right at the break point. So do your best to avoid hanging out in the spot where the wave breaks. Today, you would only get smacked around. But with waves that are over 6 feet, you could end up paralyzed or with a broken board. Not a good situation to be in.

While I barely got up on the board for about .5 seconds, today was an important day of learning. East coast surfing is tougher, and requires persistence to get through the waves and to recover from wipe outs. 3 feet waves feel like 10 feet waves, and wipe outs where your under water for 3 seconds feel like you're under water for 10 seconds: it feels worse than it looks. Mentally, I have to accept that almost every attempt to ride a wave is going to result in a wipe out, but when it happens I need to relax. In about 5 seconds (max), I'll be back up to the surface. I don't have great lung capacity but even I can hold my breath for about 30 seconds so there's no reason to panic. So I'm excited to get back to Ocean City for Round 2. The first time I was caught off guard, but next time I know what to expect. I plan to wear a wetsuit and bring a sizeable amount of determination to my surfing venture in Ocean City.

Marigold Kitchen

Yesterday I went to a 'Small Group Dinner' at Marigold, a Southern restaurant near campus at 45th and Larchwood. It was a high-end restaurant with pricey food, but the setting was fantastic (a house turned into a restaurant). We were seated in a private room upstairs. I've never had Southern food, and it was quite interesting. There were 10 of us at the dinner, and we were all from different cohorts. Conversation ranged from the conflict in Sudan to losing bets in drinking games to the Wharton Follies. For 10 people, we had 8 bottles of wine. How can you not have a great time with that ratio?

Convocation

The Wharton MBA Class of 2012 was treated to a lecture on the newest element discovered, 'Corporationium', delivered by Nicolaj Siggelkow. It was one of the sharpest and funniest speeches I've heard, and I guess the 4000 points or so that are need to win Professor Siggelkow's 'Competitive Strategy' class are well-deserved. After the speeches, the class gathered at the Penn Arts and Sciences Museum for a reception. The museum garden was just beautiful - it was the perfect setting for a reception. I enjoyed a nice, cold, lemonade with mint ice and cucumber. Very swanky. When will the royal treatment end? I hope never.

250 Words on Violin

I started learning violin from Smt. Anuradha Sridhar in 1989 when I was 8 years old. I was one of her first students. Before starting violin with Smt. Anuradha, I spent a few years playing Western Classical Violin and singing Carnatic music. Over the next 11 years, I immersed myself in Carnatic violin, and it soon became my primary activity outside of school. These 11 years were probably the most challenging in my life, because Anuradha demanded only the very best from us. During my time as Smt. Anuradha’s student, I played in several Thygaraja Aradhanas, a duet concert with Ravi Narsiman, and a solo concert in 1999 before I left for college.

My solo concert remains one of my proudest accomplishments. It was an affirmation of the philosophy of single-minded focus. That is, if you eliminate distractions, focus on one thing, and work hard, you can achieve something that few others will ever attempt. Reaching this goal at the young age of 17 did wonders for my self-confidence and has been the pillar upon which later successes were built. When up against another challenge – running the Boston marathon or getting through a difficult engineering class – I remember the primary lesson from my 11 years of violin. Namely, that success is not due to luck or magic, but results from passion and dedication. Thank you Smt. Anuradha for teaching me lessons that are as applicable to life as they are to music.

Shot through the heart!

And you're too late! Darling you give love....a bad name. When that song comes on, you know it's a going to be a good night. And it was a great night on Monday when 76 of my healthcare classmates and I went to a random Chinese restaurant in Chinatown to eat a gigantic dinner and sing karaoke. Good times were had by all, fueled by Riesling wine and Tsingtao beer. I sang at every opportunity I could, and even did a duet with a classmate singing 'Zombie' by the Cranberries. The girls sang 'Uptown Girl' and the guys countered with Bonjovi's 'Shot through the heart' and Michael Jackson's 'Thriller'. At one point, we were all doing the Thriller dance and forgot to sing. Even June got up on stage to sing. Ah, karaoke brings out the best in us. Did I mention that we were served 5x as much food as we could eat?

The Wharton 'Sorting Hat'

Today I felt like I was in the world of Harry Potter, except my Hogwarts was Wharton. And England was Philadelphia. We finally received our cohort assignments shortly before introductory welcome speeches - I am in Cluster 1, Cohort B. My learning team will be comprised entirely of healthcare management majors, so I have some idea of who will be on my learning team. After the welcome speeches, we went to Koo plaza in Huntsman Hall for yet another meet and greet social. As usual I met more phenomenal people. My cohort has 4-5 ex military folks who have seen action in Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm eager to learn more about their experiences. The more people I meet, the more I feel that I made the right decision to come to business school, and to Wharton in particular.