Relaxing before the storm

Things have been easy and relaxed here. Contrary to other people's experience, they set up my bank account in a day and I had no major problems (apart from all my cards and cheque books being designed for Mr angel angie rather than Miss!). I'm very happy with the pay as you go mobile deal I got from O2 and we have just signed our contract for the new flat!

We'll be living 5min or less walking distance from school right in the heart of Marylebone. I think it took some (Miss) divine intervention to get this flat, but it's great to find a place without having to deal with agencies. We'll be sharing the flat with one microchip designer and one marketing manager from the Silicon Valley. I can't wait to move in and finally unpack my bags!

Apart from that, the pub crawl is keeping us all busy. There are probably around 30 to 50 admits who turn up each day. Where are the other 260 people? It's a mystery. On Monday the orientation starts and we'll be divided into four streams and get assigned to our study group. I'm very curious to find out where and with whom I'll end up!

So next week will be very busy, with orientation, introductions, our first classes and a volunteering day on Friday that I signed up for. Luckily I get to waive one of the core courses, Business Statistics, giving me some spare time in September (5 full days to be exact!) to relax and go to the gym, so I'm looking forward to that.

School is getting quite busy now, last week when I got my student ID it was absolutely deserted but now you have more and more people walking around there. Apparently Joe Stiglitz was there there other day giving an executive course on globalisation. I was quite surprised by this since I wasn't too impressed by his book Globalization and its Discontents . And I have to add I read it many years ago, at a time that I thought No Logo was a great book (I haven't looked at it since 6 years so I can't comment what I would think about it now - but at least it's quite interesting and has some interesting analysis of changes in Western labour markets). I found Ken Rogoff's rebuttal of Stiglitz's book more convincing and I hadn't expected Stiglitz to be considered an authority on the subject of globalisation (though he obviously is an authority in other fields of economics). Anyway, I'm sure it doesn't hurt to confront future businessmen and women with some critical ideas :-). They'll hear those very seldom once they're back in the workforce.

So this is a little London update before the MBA finally starts! While I'm writing this, there's a fox in front of our house "barking" (or should I say screeching? It's a weird sound!). I have never seen a fox in my life so it's funny to have one in front of your house in London! And this is only zone 2! If the fox lets me sleep, then I'll catch some sleep now.