What has Jeet been doing for the last 2 weeks?

Just a copy paste of the mail I had sent out earlier to all my peeps...

It's been a little over two weeks since I arrived in the 'mother-land' (a very apt reference by Russell Peters, given the sheer number of Indians here!). It's taken a while for me to get settled in, and get relatively organized enough to get around to mailing everyone, so apologies for that...

I actually only got my phone set up this morning. I was blissfully managing without one for the last two weeks. I figured it was about time I got it done - As I need to submit my request for business cards tomorrow. For which, I would definitely need my mobile up and running

Although, having had the opportunity to go through the timetable for the rest of this semester. And, having being exposed to the work/commitment ethic desired in this course over the last fortnight , it's highly unlikely I'll be able to dash off moren a mail every couple of weeks or so...

Anyways, on to the main body of my mail, or as I'd like to call it 'What Jeet has been doing for the last two weeks?!? ? Part 1' (Somehow all my mails tend to run away with me once I actually start)

My trip to UK was pretty incident free on the whole, had a bit of a layover in Abu Dhabi, but the airport was quite nice, and had free internet, so I didn't feel completely bored. Touched down in Manchester airport at about 5.30 in the evening on Thursday the 25^th and was greeted with what the English call a 'balmy' 15 degrees Celsius... Sometimes, people actually live up to the stereotypes ? yes the English are more than a little bonkers or at least a fair few of them are - you'll see them walking around in flip flops shorts and a t-shirt even in weather hovering around 10 degrees...

From Manchester, I hopped a train to Leeds, where I got the city tour courtesy my sister over that weekend. Did a bit of shopping for warm clothes there, and I also picked up this really funky Bob Marley mosaic poster, which now decorates my room wall

Honestly, it's really brilliant to arrive in a new location and be greeted by familiar faces... I had a friend who drove down all the way from London to help me and another common friend get settled in our rooms. So got a lot of very welcome practical and first hand advice on what and where to eat drink & do in and around the campus... The campus is quite well spaced out, mostly low lying buildings - the majority only 2-3 floors with a lot of green expanses (quite the opposite of the factory like Leeds University ? which as my sister informed me was the place they shot 'A Clockwork orange' That should give you some idea how congested and depressing the scenery gets.)

Classes kicked off on Monday the 29^th where I was introduced to the other 76 members of my class and to the ten in particular who would be my team members for the majority of the year. Basically the class was split into seven teams of eleven each on the very first day, and you need to work with your teams throughout most assignments and classes during the first semester and through a few interspersed in the year. The team names are the names of the surrounding mountains (or as the Scottish like to call them ? 'bumps') Ours is the coolest sounding ? Helvellyn.

It's quite an eclectic group, there are of course five Indians (with nearly half the class comprising of us, it's hard not to have roundabouts half the group from India). I'm the only non-engineer among the Indians, although one of the engineers is actually a merchant navy guy, so not your typical techie like the other three... We have the only South American in the class in our group ? a guy from Venezuela with a PhD in Mechanical engineering ? so yes, another engineer.

There's also an Irish guy from a Banking background (boy must he be glad he's studying this year instead of out there in the market...)There's a gent from South Africa (I love the way he rolls his Rrrrrs when he pronounces his name ? Richard J) We also have two Lawyers, a Russian lady and a Japanese guy. And, rounding up the group is a girl from Hong Kong who was a Finance manager with EY there, surprise surprise... (Incidentally, there are three of us from EY here, there's another super funny guy from transaction advisory team in EY Germany).

These first couple of weeks were an induction to both Lancaster University and the MBA course... There was a lot of free 'welcome' food most days so I didn't need to worry too much about cooking. Which is the one thing that really isn't all that great here ? There's no mess or kitchen kind of a place where you can get a meal. Everyone pretty much has to fend for themselves and cook practically every day. So, with my limited culinary skills, that's going to prove interesting in the days to come...

One of the free meals was an International evening last Friday, where the school provided the Chinese buffet and the alcohol, and we had to provide the desert and the entertainment. It was a fun night. I think the Venezuelan dessert was the runaway success among all the deserts. (Am really glad the Venezuelan guy is in our group, cos his wife's offered to make us more sweets during study time J so that's gonna rock) For the entertainment piece, our group did a jive to Madagascar's 'I like to move it' with me in front leading the rest of the team which was also a smash... After the first minute or so, I was leading the rest of the class and even the lecturers and the dean of the MBA in the dance ? so that was surreal...

There's been a lot of stress on personal reflection, team building and general soft skills enhancement, especially in this last week. Since last Sunday, we've had external faculty from Coverdale (a professional management training group) come and help out with team building activities, which could be as seemingly inane as counting all the cars in the vicinity, building a multi-purpose mobile or building a tower to hold a bottle of wine, using only paper and tape each with an implicit cost (victory in this task being dependent on height, stability and profitability based on cost of materials used) Each of these exercises was followed by extensive reflection...

On Wednesday, another management training group ? Outward bound, helped to take the skills learned in the classroom and apply them to more physical situations. It was one of the most interesting experiences of my life. The activities were carried out Eskdale a sleepy village in the beautiful lake district (You can totally understand why this place spawned so many of English literature's most famous poets... you feel the urge to wax eloquent, sadly I don't have that kind of ability so will spare you the torture :) ? we had rock climbing, a number of other climbing related activities, where we were decked out with harnesses and full gear. We also had to construct and navigate a raft capable of holding the entire team of eleven round the tarn (Scottish for man-made lake), a few logic based games, and a grand finale canoe & land relay.

Pictures are pretty limited to what others have taken with my mug showing somewhere... I plan on buying a decent camera sometime around Boxing Day or so... didn't really see anything I fancied in the duty free at Abu Dhabi... As of now, most of them haven't been uploaded, so you get to content yourselves with some miscellaneous nature photos from the Eskdale trip...