Tuesday, May 5, 2009

‘Disoriented’

‘Disoriented’

We are only a couple of days away from convocation and we have been spending most of the week getting ‘disoriented’. Yes – we are in the middle of ‘disorientation’ week; a week of decompression and social events to become unacquainted with the daily MBA work load and reacquainted with fun.

Thought it would be interesting to recap some of the highlights from this week.

Saturday: Ivey Formal, aka “prom” night. What a night! Can’t say I remember it all unfortunately ;) Good friends, good company, and lots to celebrate – enough said. I was honoured to be selected by the class as the winner of this year’s MBAA Outstanding Contribution Award. Thank you!

Here are some of my favourite memories from the night: when Gerard Seijts was awarded professor of the year, the crowd chanted ‘cuuuulture cuuulture’ over and over. Here’s the background on this one: Professor Seijts’ most used word during his Leadership course is the word ‘culture’….add on a Dutch accent and you’ve created an Ivey MBA’s favourite phrase; ‘cuuuulture’. At the end of the night, we found a video camera that had been left behind. We got excited and a few of us began filming some pretty interesting videos at a late hour. We had a good laugh watching them the next morning. One particular Doctor (let’s call him Dr. Ethical) tried to convince me to pawn the camera in exchange for some shawarma at Barkat’s. Barakat is a popular shawarma joint frequented by Ivey MBA students.

Sunday: Ivey Circle Goodbye/Hello Lunch + Bowling: Geeta (my wife) was President of the Ivey Circle during the school year. The Ivey Circle is a social group for the partners of those attending Ivey - It’s a support network for our partners and they do all kinds of things ranging from social events to charitable drives. We spent Sunday afternoon socializing with Ivey Circle members; saying bye to those of us leaving and hi to those that are just joining the new May class. Sunday night was all about bowling. Team 5 met up for an early dinner, reminiscing on our year, putting together bowling 101 summary notes for the class and discussing our bowling strategy ;) – Just kidding! Fun times, fun times!

Monday: Paintball + Pub Crawl. I haven’t played much paintball (only once before), but I must say that it was quite the experience. I have a few war wounds like many others. It hurts when I sit ;) We pubb’ed it up at night hitting three locations in as many hours. Pretty crazy night to say the least. I can’t say I was expecting it to be a super-fun night after a long, tiresome day of paintball in the forest, but it turned out to be a lot of fun.

Tuesday: Golf + rest time. We played a round of 18 at Forest City National – best ball format. It was awesome being out for the first time this year. I can’t say I played exceptional but I hope to play a lot more during my summer break. Following golf, I came home and fell asleep and I guess that’s why I’ve got energy to write this right now.

That’s my mid-week update. Stay tuned for the rest of it after convocation.

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