As you can see in the previous Multimedia message and it’s an awesome computer. I recommend it to anyone.
Once I’ve got used to it, it is a great machine, great style and great ergonomics. Plus it has no viruses, it doesn’t hung in the middle of a sentence and it looks cool 
In http://cherbe.free.fr/traduc_fonctions_xl97.html you can find translations for Ecel functions in 9 languages. Webs don't get any geeker than this…
Traduction en 9 langues de 339 fonctions d'Excel97
gracieusement offerte par Laurent Longre
I came across a quote that effectively explains my lack of enthusiasm with the game of golf. I tried playing while living at Stanford and found it boring and not fun at all. Actually quite frustrating. So here are two quotes that explain why I don’t get excited about it:
If you watch a game, it’s fun. If you play at it, it’s recreation. If you work at it, it’s golf. - Bob Hope
Golf is a good walk spoiled. - Mark Twain.
If I ever have the luxury of 4 hours to play 18 holes, I’d rather go to the nearest mountain and have a nice long walk. Who knows, maybe in a couple of years I will love the game, but so far, it seems to me as interesting as watching the paint dry…
What a surprise. If you google my name, I came in as the fourth result!
I am happy, I am famous! I show up in Google!
I guess this is one of the advantages of having an infrequent name (outside of the Basque country at least), I have a great Google rank and I am easily findable.
On the downside, I get all this impossible pronunciations of my name all the time: PA-TS-KEE, PA-TSEE, and so many others. My classmates at the school even make fun out of it, and my study group members collect all the different variations I have collected over the classes and projects.
But hey, at least they are trying! Because then there is the (in)formal conversations where my name is magically changed to that of the patron saint of Ireland:
XYZ: Hi, I’m XYZ!
PTX: Hi XYZ, my name is Patxi! (pronounced deliberately slowly)
XYZ: PATRICK, great meeting you.
PTX: Er…(should I correct her/him or not?) … (calculating probabilities of talking ever again with XYZ vs cost and awkwardness of moment and spelling P-A-T-X-I pronounced as P AH CHE as in cheese)…
You can imagine, it happens every day. And, for those of you wondering, Patxi and Patrick have nothing to do, opposite to Francisco, Francesco and Frank.To sum up, I rank high on Google (which is good) at the price of being mispronounced by most native English speakers. Well, 1 billion potential readers finding me vs 380 million native speakers misprononcing… Not a bad trade-off.
To all students in my class of 2008. If there is something smart you can do in the upcoming election, that is voting for Toby Astor for academic rep in the S.A.
He has delivered superior performance to the class, acting as a great ambassador to the faculty and the program office, and he has also kept every single person in our stream updated about what was going on.
His weekly emails with tasks for next week have been timely, detailed and accurate, and a foundation for my academic performance. He deserves a share of all the As and A+s I got.
This precious gem of academic rep has been captive, working exclusively for stream D (where everybody will vote for him), but now he is looking forward to expanding his responsibilities
In a nutshell:
Toby turbo-boosts learning at London Business School.Â
Now you can have it too! Act now! Vote!
Final note: This is an impromptu pro-Toby message, not asked by him nor paid in any way. I decided to write this message the moment I knew Toby is running. This blog does not accept publicity for running academic SA reps.
On 5/6/07, kota wrote:
Congrats! Glad to see you got the scholarship you deserve.
When will you post a how-to about getting a letter of recommendation? =)
Regards, kota.
Well, I might start now and write a little bit about the joys of letter of recommendation. Assume MBA application. Key aspects, all equally important:
How to:
Please keep in mind at all times that your recommender is making you a favour. Therefore the how part of the question answer is easy: Make it very easy for her/him. Ask with plenty of time, try to bundle all letters in one single request, even those schools that you might end up not applying to if everything goes as planned (requesting 4 letters at once is way better than 4 requests) and be open to answer any questions that might arise (in some cultures, people are used to LoR, while other countries the answer would be along the lines of “tell them to call me” and I will give a reference), etc…
But overall, get them. These letters are a key part of your application.
Oh, the other key part of the how-to is work your ass off and give amazing results to the recommender . This requires more time and planning in advance. But it generally works extremely well. She/he will be much more inclined to put the effort and say nice things about you if you have done this! If there is anything to remember from this post this is it, let me write it down again:
Work your ass off and give amazing results to the recommender
From whom:
As important as the previous one: Aim high, but keep it realistic. Ex: Say you work in GE. Try to get the letter of the person the highest rank that has worked long with you and can say good things too. Probably your office mate has worked endless hours and knows you well, but his rank is not great, and (don’t let him know) chances are he is clueless with regards as what makes a great potential individual and how to express it in a letter.
Anecdote: 3y before the MBA a friend and coworker (in a rush) asked me for a LoR. I did my best. My first LoR, I was the recommender, and I wrote it in less than <2h, in mediocre English. Of course, back then I was clueless as how the process worked, what to write in the letter and my seniority or experience was not a good endorsement. Unsurprisingly, he got resounding dings (in Dolby 7.1). Let that be a lesson to all of you.
At the same time, and keeping with the GE example, avoid Jeff Imelt, unless you are a VP/director (but then why would you want a MBA?). He can tell very little about you, and the smart admission officer will think: Probably they have coerced Jeff into this letter, Ding!
So try to strike a nice balance between seniority and relevant things to say. As a rule of thumb, anything above your boss’ boss is a no-no.
On the side, please think also how do you want to position yourself in the application and chose people that can help. If you want to show you are potential IBanker (why would you is another strategic question), pick finance director over HR director, etc…
How early:
Critical!!! This is the only part of the application over which you have no direct control. Accept it and plan accordingly, leave ample time for polite reminders, and be super nice when issuing them to your recommenders.
If the application process is stressing, perceiving the lack of control in this part of the process can be a killer. Think of it as a process that can expand for a long time. And your recommenders probably have busy schedules.
I insist: Provide as much time as possible. In a way, it is only about asking for help, and then waiting. Suggested approach is .a. ask for letters, .b. start your application, .c. reap letters.
What to do next:
Keep being nice to your recommenders. They have done a nice favour to you. Give them an unprompted token of appreciation (chocolate, wine, etc…). Everybody likes unprompted gifts!
If admitted, consider a nice present for them. These people will prove helpful in the future too, in unsuspected ways.
Besides, some schools conduct random or systematic checks on the recommenders after acceptance (most letters of acceptance are dependent on a check on your application). So you want them to still be happy with you when school contact.
Dedicated to all of you who overcame the frustration and tried again. Specially dedicated if you keep trying!
Let me explain you the history of a kid with a strong desire to do a MBA, and little money on his savings account (those savings dwarfed when transformed to pounds and London standards of living).
Luckily for the boy, he happened to be born in a country with a couple of foundations interested in promoting students going abroad. So the boy went on to ask for money, for a scholarship to get his studies funded. He laboriously prepared an application that eagerly sent to the first foundation
But his scholarship application got rejected.
Our protagonist handled the frustration as best as he could, and went on to apply for a second scholarship. The results were the same.
“What have I done wrong? What could I have done differently?” he wondered.
Then, one year later, he reapplied to the first institution. And the results were the same. Thanks, you are great, sorry but no.
Our hero overcame his frustration again, and reapplied. He was applying also for admission to the MBA as well. On the year of MBA application, he applied 8 times: 4 applications for B-schools, 4 for scholarships.
The MBA applications went well and he got into the preeminent global business school, a magic institution that transformed his understanding of the business world. But the foundations still found him not fit for funding. “None of these foundations fund me!” he lamented; “I guess I might not good enough for a scholarship”, he considered.
Defeated, he took the bank road, the road to another global institution, that issued him a big MBA loan at interesting conditions. Still it was a huge pile of money he was asking for!
The future of our hero was financial leverage for the rest of his MBA and the begining of his career.. Not the best, but the MBA was key.
Then, at the begining of last year, he decided that he was not going to take no for an answer. He got into deep meditation (here comes the zen part), analyze his inner strengths and weaknesses of the previous applications, and how to counterbalance. With the help of his strategy professor lessons (and her letter of recommendation), he went on to ask at the golden door.
And this time, after years of curriculum improvement and strategic innovation in the application, the magic doors opened in front of him, to his astonishment!
YUJU! YES! GREAT! :D
He was conceded an interview for the scholarship. Flying to Madrid he was all nervous (and £200 pounds more leveraged), but he managed to engage with the interviewer. In three weeks, the results came in, and our hero got his final reward: The scholarship!
As you can imagine, the hero was thrilled! A nice scholarship that paid for his second year tuition plus a monthly allowance for expenses. Financial doom could still be allowed!
YUJU! YIPPPE! :D :D
And our hero lived with minimal leverage and no financial stress until the end of his MBA!
==============
And here comes the moral of the story: even though the final score will forever read:
Denials: 7
Acceptances: 1
I still win!
To all of you who keep trying, congratulations!
Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence.
Hal Borland
Be trees, be grass!
Dear readers,
Apologies for the lack of posts. With spring in full swing, there are few reasons to stay inside and blog. However, I will do my best from now on to keep posting, or at least in being disciplined in posting regularly.
As the saying goes: A post a day keeps the low traffic away! Let’s reshape my pencils, and I am ready to blog.
What has happened in the last couple of months?
And probably more I just forgot. I will explain in more detail in future posts.
A post a day… means that please stay tuned (use the RSS if you don’t already), and tomorrow more.
I mentioned in a previous post about a beautiful ad by the FT. They have developed a micro site where you can dowload the ads:Â Financial Times - World business. In one place.
I love the World is an Island one, it has become my current desktop, although I must admit that the chain of sharks and the new revolutionaries are as funny as financial press gets:
Can you guess who is posing as Che? Hasta la virginidad, siempre!
