I am loving every minute of the MBA, including the academic part. Right now, I am studying for Managerial Economics. Karlitos has more experience with this concepts, but I am catching up!

Seriously, I am enjoying myself like a kid with a new ball (or so we say in Spanish), learning at classes. The highlights:

• Finance and Financial Accounting: I had zero education in these areas. And I am learning a lot and very effectively. Good teachers who know their stuff. For these classes, having an engineering background helps, because the concepts are simple, mathematical and straightforward
• Managerial Economics: Ten years ago, I did Economics 101. Now I am relearning the basics. Great fun. Exam in two days. Let’s see how it goes.
• Strategy: I am learning a lot. Amazing classes, giving excellent frameworks, good discussions, better cases, top teacher. The class I am enjoying the most. Every lesson provides new insights on how to set up succesful businesses and how to develop a good strategy.
• Information Systems Fundamentals: I got the results of the test yesterday. Very good news, I waived it, to have more free time with other stuff.

Part of the classes succes is attention to feedback, as Manish reported. Professors are responsive, and that is much appreciated. I would prefer some courses to go a little bit faster, but polls suggest that overall people are ok with the pace. Myself, I take advantage of the slower pace in some classes to review the concepts while on class.

To finalize, and I know you know, but wikipedia is the best source of information ever!

Ceteris paribus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ceteris paribus is a Latin phrase, literally translated as “with other things [being] the same,” and usually rendered in English as “all other things being equal.” A prediction, or a statement about causal or logical connections between two states of affairs, is qualified by ceteris paribus in order to acknowledge, and to rule out, the possibility of other factors which could override the relationship between the antecedent and the consequent.

Do you want to see a real picture of me?

Even better, do you want to see me in a video?

The ultimate: Do you want to see me dancing in a video?

Click here: Desafío CPI 1.0 and watch the video.

My good friend Remo, the genius behind the Spanish blog CPI (which I used to coauthor) has compiled a tribute to Matt Harding, (the guy that danced all over the world) and I have volunteered 4 videos.

PS: If you like the history, please digg his video so his blog gets the attention it deserves.

Answer to a comment by -tvu after my rant against BT:

Are the businesses in London that slow? How difficult is it get cell (mobile) service started?

Do not worry, -tvu, my set up in London was as easy as it could be. I have installed myself in California, in Paris, in other cities in Spain and this was the easiest by far. London deserves a five-star rating for easiness of instalation. In retrospective, it was as easy as the “USA without the work permit”.

• Cell phone: I use pay-as-you-go. You go to the store, you buy a phone in cash and start making and receiving calls.
• Bank account: If you are a student, you follow London Business School instructions and you walk out of HSBC with a bank account in your first visit. They do a lot of checks and the interview takes about three hours (lots of paperwork), but if you follow the checklist as I did, everything goes smooth.
• Flathunting: You need to do your homework and know what you want and what you do not want. That is the most difficult part. If you start visiting rental agencies without a clear criteria, they can drive you mad. Horror stories talk about 30+ visits to appartments. In my case:
• I arrived London 25 days before start of classes (not to flathunt, but it helped a lot)
• I prepared a detailed list of specifications of what I wanted. That took me two days walking around neighboorhoods and two quick visits to appartments to realize what was going on.
• I printed it out and made copies.
• I visited many rental agencies and discussed with them what they had. Quick tip: Avoid foxtons unless you are desperate, although they have the most useful website, these are, in my personal opinion, the most manipulative flat sellers of all.
• I said NO to many of their offers, the ones that did not fit my requirements
• I said YES to ten visits, all of them good, and got a very good feeling of what was out there and for what price.
• I picked up the flat that I loved!
• Utilities: Electricity, water and gas work from day one.
• IT: Telephone and Broadband have been way slow, as discussed in my previous post

My previous post was probably misleading. Only activating broadband with BT has felt like an episode of the Twilight Zone. In general, everything has worked out extremely well.

After a group of legionaries is beaten up by the gauls, they imagine: “With such huge strength, they can’t be human… they must be gods”. Julius Caesar is informed, and laughs. He gives the Gauls a series of 12 tasks, inspired by Hercules (but new ones, since the 12 Labours are outdated). The Gauls have the chance to become the new masters of the Roman empire if they can solve twelve tasks set by Julius Cesar. — Douze travaux d’Astérix, Les (1976)

I am not comparing my MBA start to Asterix’s or Hercule’s twelve tasks. The workload is intense, and I have not written in weeks, but the reason behind it is the MBA and external alike.

The reason I quote this animated movie is because of the 8th task: Asterix goes into a Bureaucratic building and has to find Permit A-38. The bureacratic building is nicknamed “The Place That Sends You Mad“. He finds all sorts of unproductive folks, contradicting information, bureaucratic barriers of all sorts. Our heroe almost goes crazy, wastes hours and, by tricking the system, obtains the desired A38 permit.

That is exactly what has happened with my last task in my to do list to settle in London. Due to the extreme uneficciency of BT (and I am not going to get into the details), I have had to wait for two months, spent about 10h at the telephone sorting things out, and finally placed an order.

Seriously: Two months until I got my broadband (a key modern day need, right after running water and a fridge) activated. Unacceptable!

However, and at the end of the day, I am very happy:

I have broadband, therefore I will post more often!