Happy New Years!

I don't have much to say this morning as I rush to get ready for a big country feast tonight at a friend's house, just Happy New Years! 

2010 has been a busy year - I already knew before Christmas 2009 I was coming to IE, so the GMAT and applications were over with, but all the preparations started this past January. I finished my three years with the Tampep Association in Torino in May, and went back over to the other side of the pond to visit my family in the States for three months. And then I moved to Madrid! 

2011 will be my IE year, and from the last two months of 2010, I know it will be a good one. Term 1 will finish in February, term 2 in May, then hopefully I'll be off on an internship, I'll come back to term 3 in September, and finish with term 4 and graduate Dec. 16. It's going to go by fast, so before 2011 begins, this is a little reminder to myself to enjoy it! 

See you next year!

it's a marathon!

Last week, post-long weekend, and this week the homework has piled up, work group deliverables are nearing their deadlines, club management of Net Impact is being handed over... meaning, I am managing my time to the max and finding it hard to schedule some blogging time!

Any quality MBA program will be demanding. Perhaps one down side of the one-year program, however, particularly IE's in which content and credits is not decreased but rather squeezed into 13 months by having a shorter summer break and more hours in the classroom (which in the end is optimal because we're not scrimping on any of any knowledge) is the challenge of information retention. I often feel like I learn mind-opening concepts everyday, but I have to really struggle to retain that information as the next teacher rushes in or as I finish speed-reading one case study and swiftly move on to the next. Tonight, some pricey, but infallibly yummy dulce de leche ice cream is helping me get through another truckload of reading (and yes, I put my MBA skills into practice  at the supermarket by  recognizing my consumer confidence in the brand and its quality, knowing it would make me a happy camper.. make fun of me now).

Nonetheless, general spirits are still high, despite the occasional tensions in my work group and in others' as we move past the getting-to-know-you phase and into the period in which we really need to all contribute, else we waste time or produce below par results.

Despite the time that it takes away from reading and completing exercises, I am really enjoying the few club events I have been to so far as the November 2009 intake prepares to graduate, leave, and pass on leadership roles. The Entrepreneurship club seems like it will be really instrumental in helping those who want to start a business while at IE or immediately after, or even longer down the road, have a smaller community within the IE alumni community, to turn to for resources - both knowledge-wise and for networking. The Operations and Strategy clubs will hopefully provide some insightful events to develop my knowledge on the career paths I'm looking at transitioning into.

So this is the IE MBA - school, extracurriculars, and.... career management. Today I had my first formal meeting with my adviser in Career Services. In the next few days, I will be sending my CV out to a dream employer and will be hoping for the best!

Easing the pain of the workload: amazing Madrid weather (it's been in the 50s! Fahrenheit, 10-15ºC), unending possibilities to explore new restaurants and bars on the weekend with friends, and the long weekend I mentioned in my last post. Thank goodness my boyfriend eventually arrived last Sunday, despite the air traffic controller strike (although he should have arrived Friday), and we were able to escape a bit into the countryside and I had a breather before this pre-Christmas break marathon began. We stayed two nights outside a little town called Zuheros, and one night in Cordoba. Andalusia was beautiful - olive trees for miles and miles. We visited a cave were humans lived back in the Neolithic period and braved torrential rains in Cordoba to see the Mezquita (mosque).

Zuheros seen from above

moments before, a 10-minute roadblock

working with your building materials - Castle of Zuheros

and term 1 (our lives with homework) begins

Since term 1 has started (this past Monday), I've slept a total of probably 17 hours in 4 nights. The excitement and newness is keeping me from getting stressed out, but adjusting to life again with school (vs. work) homework is a process! LOTS of reading.... for all seven of my term 1 core classes: Managerial Economics, Marketing Fundamentals, Entrepreneurial Management, Organizational Behavior, Information Systems, and the numbers classes as I'm calling them (even though all the classes involve numbers), Quantitative Analysis and Financial Accounting. 

I can't say which is my favorite yet (we just started!), but I'm pretty sure I will learn a great deal from all of them. I'm looking forward to getting to know my group mates better, to writing a business plan, to being able to develop strategy using tools I could never have understood before like income statements or human resources frameworks, and to learning - I like being smart!

I think where I'll have to concentrate on managing my stress, more so than with schoolwork, is the job search. It's hard not to compare yourself to others. And, even though Career Services and the students from the previous intakes make you feel positive, like the opportunities are out there and you just have to grab them, internship and job applications add a whole new layer of homework. My short-term strategy: 1. Keep meeting new people. They keep telling us to network for a reason - every day I feel like I meet someone new who worked for a consulting firm or company I'm interested in. 2. Get a million emails sent! This weekend. Now I need to follow up with these people I've met, and with all the Georgetown and IE alums available to me online via alumni databases. Another recurring piece of advice I've heard over and over again at my short time at IE is to ask good questions. If I ever get any of these informational interviews, they'll be my first chance to ask some of those excellent questions to figure out what company fits me...

The during-the-week partying has definitely died down, although tonight I attended a big, important party - Thanksgiving! Ingredient shopping, cooking, and ticket sales took up a bit of my reading time this first week, but I love this holiday, so it was definitely worth it. Two out of the three previous years I was living in Torino, I brought the Thanksgiving experience to my co-workers in Italy. That involved pie baking the weekend before, planning out each night what I could cook ahead of time and where I could store everything in the fridge, reserving at the local butcher shop a turkey (because they had to go out an hunt me one, not a typical thing to sell/buy whole Turkeys in Italy), and taking Thursday off work to complete the masterpiece. Last year in Torino and this year in Madrid I collaborated with a group effort - much more fun, and fewer dishes to cook! This year, I am thankful for many things - the health of everyone in my family, the support of my boyfriend, but most of all, for having had the sense to choose this great 13 month experience at IE and to have met some pretty cool people so far. 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!

a long weekend in Madrid and the first day of LAUNCH

I spent this past weekend in Madrid. Many travelled north and south, but to save my budget and my internship-preparedness I stayed in the city to get some stuff done. I managed to get a few emails out to current students in my intake that previously worked in consulting firms I'm interested in interning for... still have to work on my CV and cover letters, the time is already not sufficient, even with a four day weekend! But, it should be noted what a great resource my fellow IE students are already proving to be. Just hearing their experiences with the consulting firms I'm interested in is very helpful. So besides internship prep, I had a good night out dancing near Plaza del Sol and a great next day with fellow classmates wandering around Retiro Park and attending the free MTV European Music Awards Katy Perry concert Sunday. I feel like I'm starting to make some good friends, and that is always a good feeling!

Today was our first day of the LAUNCH program. The LAUNCH program is the first part of the Accelerate program. The Accelerate program goes on throughout the IE MBA program through mini-workshops on soft-skills but is composed of three two-week periods, one before each term of core classes. So this first Accelerate block, LAUNCH, is about the following elements: creativity and action learning, inspiration and leadership, soft skills, careers, and awareness. I won't go too into detail in order not to ruin the surprise for future intakes, but I think the workshops are fun, a great way to meet more classmates, and IE has brought in some really qualified people to instruct some non-traditional, but useful b-school skills.

practicing being a businesswoman / fashionista for life

So I'm back in Italy again! Sorry for anyone reading who thought that this was going to be about Spain - I promise, it will be!

This week I've been helping my boyfriend and his brother design some bijoux for their stores. It was fun to see the immediate turn around. I designed 10 or so pins for women's scarves or coats, and five were sold the next morning! Last spring when I visited Madrid to check out neighborhoods, I also helped the bf buy merchandise from the wholesalers south of Sol. I also went with him a month ago to the MACEF trade fair in Milan. He left yesterday for China to stock up on the newest beads and bijoux. 

Watching my boyfriend and his brother start their jewelry businesses from the ground up motivated me in part to apply to business school. Through their eyes I've learned a little bit about the bureaucracy of opening a business in Italy. More fascinating still, I've seen what they pay for earrings or necklaces that I might have bought for 10 times the price or more if I didn't have them to supply me... It's really interesting to enter the world that goes on behind the small business, to see where they get what gets put on the shelf.

Fortunately, I don't like about 1/2 - 3/4 of what my boyfriend sells, so I don't steal too many possible sales from him :) I've learned to head his advice when going with him to buy wholesale: don't get what you like, get what those "boring, fad-following, tacky" teenagers or ladies like, because that's what's in the market, that's what sells, and that's what's paying the bills! So that's why five of my pins sold yesterday, I didn't make anything I'd actually want (I did that this morning hehe), I made designs I thought would sell, and so they did! Of course there are business where that's not the case, but that's not what my boyfriend nor his brother are currently dealing in.

Too bad I don't want to go into jewelry design... it was just diversion for a day for me. My ideal small business would definitely involve food... This weekend, we attended the local chocolate festival, and thank God I can't find the names of the vendors because I'd be way too tempted to seek them out and buy more absolutely amazing chocolate. Believe me, I've had my fill for awhile.

This morning, I delivered some new merchandise to my boyfriend's shop in Genova and sat down for lunch to enjoy some testaroli al pesto. Genova and the Ligurian region in general is famous for its pesto. While I've been to Genova numerous times, bought fresh pesto in the grocery store in Torino, and even made my own, I had never actually had any in a Genovese restaurant. And... the jury (me) likes my own pesto better! That's the way it goes in Italy, the food is always amazing, but everyone has their own little recipe. What I had for lunch today was a little more garlic-y and a little short on the basil for my preferences. Here's a picture of the same dish I made for my family this summer. I was given the testaroli pasta as a gift from my coworkers before leaving Italy. It came from the specialty "slow foods" store Eataly that started in Torino, but now has several locations, including a brand new one in New York. 

Doing touristy things reminds me of the magic and beauty of Italy... it balances out my love/hate relationship for the country. I tell everyone I never want to live here again, but really, as I'm contemplating what to put as my first choice office for 2011 summer internships with consulting firms, Rome is definitely a very close second right now to Madrid. I think with the right, challenging yet rewarding job, I'd be happy establishing myself permanently in either place... as long as I eventually get to buy my Mediterranean farmhouse with a killer garden... and maybe a small vineyard :) Dreams!

que locura!

Que locura (what craziness) would describe well my first two days in Madrid. Last night, my first night here, was a once a year event called Noche en Blanco. What it involved basically was the city of Madrid throwing a huge, night-long party. There were video and music installations everywhere, museums were open all night and free, and according to El País (national newspaper) over 700,000 people filling the downtown streets. It was absolutely gorgeous, so lively, so fun, so creative. 

The other crazy part - the mad apartment seeking going on in the hostel I'm staying in. Everyone here is looking for an apartment, or at least a room in a shared apartment. I decided right from the beginning to just ignore their phone calls, to not stress myself out if they were checking out the same apartments I am. But of course, I'm asking for tips! I saw one place today in a neighborhood I really like near the Quevedo metro stop. Two issues, one more easily resolved than the other. First, another person is also interested, so the guy who showed me the apartment has to see what's up with the person his sister showed the apartment. Second, and not so big of a deal (or at least I'm telling myself that) is that there's no oven or even convection oven... I figure I could buy a small convectional one... We'll see... I have three appointments tomorrow - two more studios and one room.

off to Madrid!

I'm finally off to Madrid today! I have a round trip ticket from Torino, I'll come back to Italy at the end of the month. The goal of these three weeks will be first and foremost to find an apartment, whether its my own or just a room. Other stuff I'll be dealing with in the next few days will be a cell phone contract, making sure all's good with my Caja Madrid account, and starting the NIE immigration documents.

I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the materials put on the IE Blackboard site in the last few weeks, and anxious about the apartment search. How many people should I live with? IE students or other young professionals/students found online? Alone? But now that I'm actually about to take off, it feels better just to be almost in Madrid... These choices are much better made crawling the streets than scraping away my peripheral vision looking at online classifieds on idealista.com day in and out. 

Hopefully my next post will be about my new home!

informational interviews and moving around the world

Today I started my draft email to send out to those lucky industry experts I will be requesting an informational interview with. Oh networking... I think it's actually a really good skill to cultivate, not just for business, but for life in general. Building up one's self confidence by reaching out to the seemingly unreachable, or learning to ask for what you want are not things most people can actually do. I ask myself so many times why I always have to decide on the most difficult and complicated paths... but in the end, I know it's the only way I feel challenged and happy with my life, because I've truly taken advantage of every opportunity I could, even if it's been lonely or demanding.

Within the various consulting firms I'm interested in, as I decide to who or to which country offices I want to make a contact with, I have to ask myself a lot of questions about my future. At first, the MBA seemed like a little breather - I'd have a bit of time to just learn and casually network before I had to decide my whole future. Au contraire! some of these internship applications for next summer are supposedly due before the IE November intake even begins! Even though I already started to outline some of these decisions in my b-school applications, I feel like I have to make so many decisions again too soon!

The first thing that comes to my mind is: I want to keep exploring! 

I am enthralled by China and its huge investments in solar energy and how its and other BRIC countries' development will affect the world economy, and natural environment... and so, how cool would it be to be where it's happening now, work a few years in China - yes please! I took a summer course in Chinese. While we only got through four basic chapters, it's a start! 

I also would love to re-learn Arabic... I was really good, I swear!!, at the end of undergrad. But then I decided to go work for an Italian NGO and I was paying more weekly for Arabic tutoring than for groceries and I had to give it up to survive my professional adventures in Italy. So what about working a few years in the Middle East? Where I could see how the energy industry is changing... But, will these offices even take me if my language skills need major work? 

Or will I want to stay in Spain? I'm afraid of falling in love like I did with Italy (although after actually living in Italy for awhile, and having to deal with their postal system and many other inconveniences, shall we say, I decided I'm only going back on a permanent basis with a much better salary). Spanish was the first foreign language I ever learned. And, I love siestas! My mother's family is from Sicily, and the last few years I've been able to go visit our cousins there in August, and nothing is more delightful than mare, mangiare, dormire, mare e mangiare di nuovo, e dormire di nuovo (translation: seaside, eat, sleep, seaside, eat again, sleep again). Taking a nap after lunch is truly a luxury everyone should experience. Spain's also a big investor in wind and solar energy. And speaking of energy, Madrid is just full of it! I can't wait!

So, I guess that I want to intern in places that I don't want to live in forever - I want to take advantage of the opportunity to move around the globe while I still don't have anything like a house or car to look after. But I do eventually want my own vegetable garden, and a library with room for a piano... in other words, to call a city home and maybe plant some long-term roots. I think ideally I'd like to work in a firm's offices in China, or Spain, or the Middle, or even South America for a few years, and then relocate to their San Fran office and travel out of there around the world. 

Good luck to myself in making this work! The first step in achieving anything is wanting it as my boyfriend says!