Bay Area and Loan or Bust

After a couple of weekends sans travel, I’m looking forward to a five day trip to the Bay Area this weekend. I’m traveling for the first time with my new girlfriend, which should be awesome! (incase you read this), and we will be staying at my sister’s place in Berkley, which should be interesting (but nothing to worry about - also incase you read this). Aside from mini diversions to Stinson Beach, Sausalito, and Napa and/or Sonoma, I’m hoping to mainly meander throughout the city and to fit in as many food/wine stops as our appetite and tolerance will permit. I’m also looking forward to a huge crapes and fresh fruit breakfast at Mama's some morning. I have a great picture of the church next door to Mama's that I took the first time I went there for brunch and now I always think of it when visiting SF comes up. Another fun happening would be to meet up with any SF LBSers that may read this. If there are any out there and you're interested, please leave me a comment or send an email and hopefully we can coordinate.

In some LBS related news, I’m finding that funding options are fairly scarce for someone with my profile (may fit well with LBS’ diversity goals, but banks certainly don’t love it!). Being an Iranian resident/citizen living in the US, but going to school in the UK, appears to be the perfect storm for being excluded from nearly every scholarship and loan out there. The loan programs that are available are the LBS/HSBC arrangement (far from guaranteed), and with a US cosigner, the ISLOAN and IEFC programs. As for scholarships, the LBS managed, but highly competitive, Vodafone, Citigroup, Mark Le Goy, and Merrill Lynch are available as is the Aga Khan Foundation’s scholarship/loan award (I missed the 03/31 deadline). What’s sucks is that despite LBS’ generous financial need bursaries, my making US wages places me outside of the financial need range, but this doesn’t take into account that I may not have any other funding options available to me. I’m hopeful that everything will fall into line before too long, but with 4-8 week timelines for loan approval and only 12 weeks to go before school starts, I could run out of time to secure a loan and consequently a UK student visa if my loan applications hit any snags.

MBA or Bust

Confirmation that the MBA sweet spot (need for a break from work) for many is 27-29 years old...and that I've surrounded myself with many like minded friends. Another good friend was just accepted, bringing the class of 2008 total to 5!

LBS: me (R2) matriculating
Berkley: John (R2) / Dan (R4) both matriculating
SMU: Matt (R2) / Shaun (PT) matriculating

Georgetown: Jeremy (1st yr)
SMU: Greg graduated in 2005
Berkley: Kenny graduated in 2005
Stanford: Robert graduated in 2004
Wharton: Matt graduated in 2004

While these guys are already part of my "network", I look forward to enhancing this nebulous MBA marketing-term-group with many new friends at LBS. I'm also hopeful that the numerous exchange opportunities at LBS will either reunite some of these friends and I over the next two years or at least help me make many more new like minded friends (or expand my global network as the MBA Adcom would surely say).

Quotes - 4x5

Tennenbaums
Eli: I always wanted to be a Tenenbaum.
Royal: Me too, me too

Eli: [reading part of his newest novel at a press conference] The crickets and the rust-beetles scuttled among the nettles of the sage thicket. "Vámonos, amigos," he whispered, and threw the busted leather flintcraw over the loose weave of the saddlecock. And they rode on in the friscalating dusklight.

Richie: Did you say you were on Mescaline?
Eli: I did indeed. Very much so.

Royal: Richie, this illness, this closeness to death... it's had a profound affect on me. I feel like a different person, I really do.
Richie: Dad, you were never dying.
Royal: ...but I'm gonna live.

Eli: [immediately after wrecking his car] Where's my shoe?


Fletch
Stanton Boyd: What kind of a name is Poon?
Fletch: Comanche Indian.

Fletch: Why don't we go lay on the bed and I'll fill you in?

Fletch: I'm John.
Gail Stanwyk: Ohhhh, John. [they laugh]
Gail Stanwyk: John who?
Fletch: John Cock... tos... ton.
Gail Stanwyk: That's a beautiful name.
Fletch: Well, it's Scotch/Romanian.
Gail Stanwyk: That's an odd combination.
Fletch: Yeah, well, so were my parents.

Madeline: I'm sorry, who are you again?
Fletch: I'm Frieda's boss.
Madeline: Who's Frieda?
Fletch: My secretary.

Dr. Joseph Dolan: Right. Now, how long have you had these pains, Mr. Barber?
Fletch: No, that's "Babar".
Dr. Joseph Dolan: Two B's?
Fletch: One B. B-A-B-A-R.
Dr. Joseph Dolan: That's two. Fletch: Yeah, but not right next to each other. I thought that's what you meant.
Dr. Joseph Dolan: Arnold Babar. Isn't there a children's book about an elephant named Babar?
Fletch: I don't know. I don't have any.
Dr. Joseph Dolan: No children?
Fletch: No elephant books.


Caddyshack
Carl Spackler: So I jump ship in Hong Kong and make my way over to Tibet, and I get on as a looper at a course over in the Himalayas. A looper, you know, a caddy, a looper, a jock. So, I tell them I'm a pro jock, and who do you think they give me? The Dalai Lama, himself. Twelfth son of the Lama. The flowing robes, the grace, bald... striking. So, I'm on the first tee with him. I give him the driver. He hauls off and whacks one - big hitter, the Lama - long, into a ten-thousand foot crevasse, right at the base of this glacier. Do you know what the Lama says? Gunga galunga... gunga, gunga-galunga. So we finish the eighteenth and he's gonna stiff me. And I say, "Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know." And he says, "Oh, uh, there won't be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness." So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.

Ty Webb: You're rather attractive for a beautiful girl with a great body.

Lacey Underall: Who's you decorator? Bennihana?
Ty Webb: No, I brought most of that stuff back with me from Vietnam.
Lacey Underall: You were in the war?
Ty Webb: [limping and patting his butt] No... Homo.

Tony D'Annunzio: Another Rob Roy, Bishop?
Bishop: You never ask a navy man if he'll have another drink, because it's nobody's goddamned business how much he's had already.
Judge Smails: Wrong, you're drinking too much your Excellency.
Bishop: Excellency, fiddlesticks, my name's Fred and I'm a man, same as you.
Judge Smails: You're not a man, you're a bishop, for God's sakes.
Bishop: There is no God...

Ty Webb: Let me tell you a little story? I once knew a guy who could have been a great golfer, could have gone pro, all he needed was a little time and practice. Decided to go to college instead. Went for four years, did pretty well. At the end of his four years, his last semester he was kicked out... You know what for? He was night putting, just putting at night with the fifteen-year-old daughter of the Dean... You know who that guy was Danny?
Danny Noonan: No.
Ty Webb: Take one good guess.
Danny Noonan: Bob Hope?
Ty Webb: Ha ha... No, that guy was Mitch Comstein, my roommate. He was a good guy.


Dr Strangelove
Colonel "Bat" Guano: You think I go into combat with loose change in my pocket?

General Jack D. Ripper: Mandrake, were you ever a prisoner of war?
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Well, yes I was Jack as a matter of fact I was.
General Jack D. Ripper: Did they torture you?
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Yes Jack, I was tortured by the Japanese, if you must know, not a pretty story.
General Jack D. Ripper: Well, what happened?
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Oh Well, I don't know, Jack, difficult to think of under these conditions, but well, they got me on the old Ragoon-Ichinawa railway. I was laying train lines for the bloody Japanese puff-puff's.
General Jack D. Ripper: No, I mean when they tortured you did you talk?
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Ah, oh, no, I don't think they wanted me to talk really, I don't think they wanted me to say anything. It was just their way of having a bit of fun the swines. Strange thing is they make such bloody good cameras.

Dr. Strangelove: Sir! I have a plan! [standing up from his wheelchair]
Dr. Strangelove: Mein Führer! I can walk!

General Jack D. Ripper: Mandrake, do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk... ice cream. Ice cream, Mandrake, children's ice cream.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Lord, Jack.
General Jack D. Ripper: You know when fluoridation first began?
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: I... no, no. I don't, Jack.
General Jack D. Ripper: Nineteen hundred and forty-six. Nineteen forty-six, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Uh, Jack, Jack, listen, tell me, tell me, Jack. When did you first... become... well, develop this theory?
General Jack D. Ripper: Well, I, uh... I... I... first became aware of it, Mandrake, during the physical act of love.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Hmm.
General Jack D. Ripper: Yes, a uh, a profound sense of fatigue... a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I... I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. Loss of essence.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Hmm.
General Jack D. Ripper: I can assure you it has not recurred, Mandrake. Women uh... women sense my power and they seek the life essence. I, uh... I do not avoid women, Mandrake.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: No.
General Jack D. Ripper: But I... I do deny them my essence.

Major T. J. "King" Kong: Survival kit contents check. In them you'll find: one forty-five caliber automatic; two boxes of ammunition; four days' concentrated emergency rations; one drug issue containing antibiotics, morphine, vitamin pills, pep pills, sleeping pills, tranquilizer pills; one miniature combination Russian phrase book and Bible; one hundred dollars in rubles; one hundred dollars in gold; nine packs of chewing gum; one issue of prophylactics; three lipsticks; three pair of nylon stockings. Shoot, a fella' could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff.

The Perfect Job (for me)

Now that my MBA application process is over, I find that I’m coming back to square one; asking: What career and lifestyle will make me happiest?

While this is a lifelong ever changing quest, I want to understand it as best as I can now so I don’t waste time and energy pursuing opportunities that are a poor match for me.

Management Consulting (MC) and Investment Banking (IB) are the two careers that I think will be most pragmatic for me to pursue immediately after graduation. These careers will prolong the rapid learning curve established during two years of school, should enable me to more comfortably repay my loans, and both match my pre-MBA experience and skill set well. To determine which I think would be a better fit for me, I have talked to many friends, read many industry articles, and most recently, I took a Live Career assessment test.

The results of the Basic Interest portion of the test point to my…

• Strong desire to lead/manage
• High interest in technical subjects
• Aptitude for persuading others, and
• Liking of being out and about

• Limited artistic abilities (really appreciate art though)
• Dislike of performing customer services
• Dislike of performing health services
• Dislike of performing clerical activities

The results of the Work Place Fit heavily point to…

• My liking of innovative and pensive work environments
• My liking of enterprising and dynamic work environments

After reviewing these results, I am once again leaning towards MC as it seems to better fit my basic interests and workplace likings. From what I know, IB is more sales/service oriented and the environment is more realistic/conventional (transactions). I also think that MC presents a broader range of career options down the line, which is important to consider given that I will likely want to completely change directions in ten years. From a lifestyle standpoint, I’d prefer to travel during the week and have most of my weekends free (MC) versus being frequently obliged to work in the office on weekends (IB). Many of my active pursuits are central to my overall wellbeing and having to forgo them on a regular basis would be difficult. Finally, the Live Career test makes me realize that I shouldn’t overlook opportunities at innovative companies, such as Google and Microsoft.