And we thought only the Judges knew how to party...

Please oh please oh please let them be inviting students to this:

I mean. A to the Mazing.

CVP presentation tomorrow... Ack!

Jen

And we thought only the Judges knew how to party...

Time shrinking, heads growing

So last week I received the same fabulous compliment three times: I look thinner. Yes, I know I should say this with immense excitement but, as nice as it is to hear it, my trousers (that's the word you use in Britain!) do not lie. No, I am not loosing weight!
So being presented with this enigma of confused impressions, and in the spirit of academic discovery, I thought about the issue for 5 mins last night. I am happy thus to report that I have a very exciting solution. Please, if you are intrigued, do read on...
Seeing that we are at the end of term, I am concluding that I have learned ALOT! As a proof of this learning, I present my exponentially growing head. And how do I measure my head size, you may ask? Easily by comparing it to the rest of my body: my head must be HUGE at this point and the rest of me looks tiny in proportion. As a result, I look like I'm shrinking...but, really, it's my head that is growing!!!
I do wonder if this continues as a trend, when will my head get too big and just fall off my shoulders?...
(Head size monitoring will continue next term)
AJ

Time shrinking, heads growing

Cambridge Photo of the (Thank Goodness it's Fri)Day

It's Christmas at Judge Business School! 

Actually, Christmas has come to all of Cambridge and the twinkle lights are looking lovely. It's a nice reminder that the holidays and our well-deserved BREAK (read: exam study period) are just around the corner.

But is it just me or is this tree a little sad looking? Endearing, but a little pathetic. Kind of like the tree in A Charlie Brown Christmas:

Now, if I were a pessimistic person I would say that the rough, scraggly tree in our lobby reflects the rough, scraggly state of the global economy - but obviously I'm not going to go there.

Happy Weekend, all! Many of us are off to Sir Paul and Lady Judge's Christmas Party on Saturday night!

With pre-Christmas Cheer,

Jen

Cambridge Photo of the (Thank Goodness it's Fri)Day

Please DO Stop the Music

A fair warning to you all: I am hoping, but cannot guarantee, that this post comes across as more than a wimpy, whiny rant. 

But seriously? If the jerk who lives upstairs doesn't learn to turn his music down I am going to have to go up there and throttle him.

Except he's probably not a jerk. I have found that few, if any, of the graduate students I have met here are jerks. In fact, most of them are ridiculously interesting (my next-door neighbor studies the psychology of terrorism - I mean, whoa) and incredibly brilliant. I have actually met this music-playing upstairs neighbor on a couple of occasions - once in the dining hall, and once when I went up to ask him to turn the music down. Which he did. Very politely. He seems nice. 

But still. It is uncanny how he always seems to play his music loudest (read: wall-vibrating-bass-loud) on the nights when I am determined to get to bed early. After I've already put on my pajamas. And really, really don't want to have to walk upstairs - in the cold, since this bizarro dorm has no internal stairways - and buzz his room from outside to yell into the intercom for him to please turn his music down because I am the loser who is going to bed at 9:30PM.

Instead, night after night, I stay up later than I should in the hopes that he will turn his music off. I attempt to train myself to fall asleep to the music, as if the thumping bass is a lullaby just for me. All the while my frustration - with him, with his taste in music, with myself, with my taste in unassertiveness and early bedtimes - is building... to what breaking point I have no idea.

But. But! I am almost a full term into an MBA program! I am learning things about myself and the way I behave in difficult situations. I am learning, in fact, that I don't speak up for myself enough! Which sometimes results in venting that can be a little over-the-top. Best to communicate before blowing up, right? I need to get over the fact that it is ridiculous that a) I am living in a dorm at all; and b) that I have to deal with a loud neighbor - I mean I was so over this in undergrad, and that was years ago! - and just address the situation directly.

... Or I could give it another few minutes. Just in case he turns the music down on his own.

Ack!

Jen

Please DO Stop the Music

RIDE TO ELY 骑车去伊利

MBA in Cam is not all about study. And I decided to made my trip to Ely (17 miles away) by... no , definitely not by this iron horse, but by my beloved BIKE.

How do I know Ely? Well, I listen to the radio every morning. "from Cambridge and Ely" is the sentence I hear almost every hour. And what else? The Cathedral and Oliver Cromwell's House.

At one of the towns along the road, I met this old man. He has been using waste iron to build fairy tale figures since his retirement years ago. Every passers by are invited to his yard and take pictures. I still can not figure out how he can piece the iron together--amzaing!

RIDE TO ELY 骑车去伊利