Holidays are here!!

The finals are over.. and so is the party that followed it. [Was that a party or what!!]
A fabulous end to a fabulous semester... it is time to take a pause and recharge the spirits!

So wish you all a Merry X'mas & a Fabulous New Year!
And so I'll end my last post of the year with this great line I came across... Eat till you're stuffed, drink till you fall and laugh till you hurt!

Happy Holidays!

Here comes another bubble

Check out this really funny video on the tech bubble... or its non-existence thereof!

I saw this link on a Don Dodge post.. also read his post on trading two $50K cats for a $100K dog!

'Beowulf' is out, finals are in...

Finals week is here! It's not too bad... I've seen worse!

Btw..the futures market for Beowulf has closed[Check my earlier post for the details]. The movie earned less than $77 million when the market closed, as against my estimate of $86 million in first 4 weeks. I still had a few of the 'less than $80M' contracts, so I did make some money - though not as much as I thought I would!

Interesting observation - The Will Smith movie "I am Legend" released last week and grossed $77M on its opening weekend; Beowulf did less in 4 weeks.

The 'Manimal' turns 31

'Manimal' is the moniker given to one of our MBA classmates...
I've just posted sum pics of the party we had..

For those who don't know the 'manimal', I just came across a YouTube link.... watch out for the narration at the end.. I found it really funny!

Tippie Marketing Forum

The MBA Marketing Forum was held on Friday...and neither snow nor the ice storms could dampen the spirits!
It was great to hear alumni reflect on their time during MBA and how that translated into their current career paths and goals. I particularly liked the presentation by Jeff Myers, currently VP-Special Interest Media at Meredith Corp.. Jeff literally walked us through a turnaround story at his company and it was almost like an impromptu strategy class! Albeit one of the most entertaining strategy classes I've had.

And as for the fencesitters considering a marketing career, I'm sure the forum would have swayed them over...
And the lunch did help too! Yes Jim, it was the best lunch of the semester.. :)

East Asia beckons...

Today evening we had the pre-departure session for our Hong Kong-China trip next month.
The session was a lot about the course work we need to do before leaving [The trip is part of the course in International Marketing]. Four case studies and two other assignments due before Jan-2nd... So there goes my winter break.. :(

We leave for Hong Kong on Jan 9 for the two week trip. We'll be visiting over six companies across Hong Kong and mainland China. This is in addition to classes over weekends and other events like the one planned at the Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce.

I've got the feeling that I'm in for two amazing weeks! I can't wait!!

Just another manic Monday....

And no.. I don't wish it was Sunday.. coz I was working on the weekend too!
There were a couple of reports due today [I'm writing this on Tuesday night] and that was way more work than I had estimated.
One of the reports was a financial reporting analysis of John Deere and boy..was that was a mixed bag!
The part I liked best came after we turned in our reports. We had Dan Dolan, the Director of Management Reporting at John Deere, come to class and talk to us about the case. It was great to hear the 'insider' version of the case and why Deere does the things it does.
And this is one of the things I really like about Tippie. Lots of the work we do in class deal with real life data and this makes the analysis seem much more relevant. And then actually having someone from the company talk about it and answer questions gives you a clarity of understanding which I don't think is possible otherwise.

Well.. now I've got a couple of days with no deadlines and that feels good! But considering that finals are around the corner, I wonder if I should be feeling so relaxed..