My Problem

I got confirmed at my job. Go me!

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News on other fronts - according to a family member, who was a HR consultant, I have a seriously severe problem.

My problem is that I do not know what I am good in.

After much tedious and painful discussion that laid bare my many faults and weaknesses, it was decided that I really do not know what I want - my ambitions are only because I am in love with the company brand. Therefore, I am basically an empty shell with no talents.

It hurts that somebody would say something like that? It may be true, it may not, but it is painful to have to sit there and listen to somebody blast away at your ambitions and dreams and hopes and beliefs that you had about yourself. Yes, I may not be the greatest, but surely I should be allowed to have dreams?

At the moment, there are only apparently two things that are clear. I crave acknowledgement and I only enjoy the theoretical aspect of things. Which field, industry, etc - apparently I have no inclination.

Nevertheless.

I shall slog along hoping to achieve greatness someday...

World MBA Tour

Rushed from work to the MBA Tour, definitely worth attending if you really want to dig in deeper and explore - but definitely go with a list of schools in mind. Or at least a rough idea on what you are looking for.

INSEAD - Perpetually surrounded by people asking all sorts of brilliant questions, in foreign sounding accents too (probably due to their overseas work experience). Hard to get the INSEAD spokesperson to answer your questions unless you are standing all the way in front (which yours truly did :P ). After looking at my potentially fellow INSEAD applicants, I am seriously thinking hard about how much I want to get into INSEAD. Yes, it is a brilliant school with a brilliant rep and brilliant peers - but how realistic am I to getting in? I lack the working experience as well as the ideal undergraduate academic results (and area). Core abilities they want, analyticals skills, team work and one more that I forgot :P

Empresa - Spent quite a bit of time with the spokesperson, who was all in all a rather friendly guy giving lots of advice to applicants. Spoke to him about doing an MBA focused on Entrepreneurship (which Empresa is supposed to be known for) and Business Strategy and a career in management consulting. Also on their admissions process since they have their own entrance exams. Definitely on my consideration list, though have decided to sit for the GMAT (mid-2006) as it would allow me more time for preparation, and if my mark falls short, then will I only sit for the entrance exam (early 2007). Key to the interview - any thing goes as long as I can convince the interviewer to accept my justifications to why my background should be accepted.

Vlerick Leuven Gent - Small school and probably not as well known as the other schools such as Wharton, INSEAD etc. They are actually planning on maintaining their small class size (50 - 55 people) for 2006 onwards. Did not really ask much as I had already spoken to their online representative before, though I did ask for their local alumni. Key to the application - show that I was in control of my work history and decisions made.

Hult International Business School - A USA school that I have never heard off (though ranked 22 by The Economist). Was nicely surprised that not only was it a USA school that offered a 1-year program, but in addition that they are currently offering a scholarship worth USD14,000 for all accepted applicants for 2006. I cannot seem to find much information on this school but for what it's worth, if you are interested, this is the information that I have found on the school. Quite interesting, a boutique school (?). What do you think? Is it worth applying just for the scholarship? Was told to send in my CV to gauge my my % of being accepted....

Shopping for more

A week of non-stop eating and shopping thanks to playing hosts to an ex-housemate who decided to drop by on her way back to Japan and my girlfriend that was kind enough to take an entire week off from work to spend time and show my friend around town with me.

Women have this incredible ability to shop shop and shop some more, for the same items day after day after day. It does not seem to matter whether they have been to the shop before, it is always a "just-in-case-i-missed-something" visit.

And I swear I have put on at least two kilos in weight since all I did was to eat! And show my friend some hospitality by taking her to all the good food spots that I know. Maybe I burnt off the calories by shopping though - 6 hours of walking in a shopping complex has got to burn off something at least!

Really appreciate my girlfriend spending the week with me and my friend, in some ways it allowed us to do things together, things that never would have been done without my friend - like shopping for 6 hours a day. But then, I got a nice silky blue necktie out of the shopping so in some ways it was worth the pain, but my feet have never hurt so much. But the time spent with her was good, real good...

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TopMBA.com and the World MBA Tour comes to town this coming week. Not too sure whether I will be able to go and check it out - though most information I have already got via emails and websites, but perhaps there is always something extra that I could get from going to the tour. Wish they did not hold it on a weekday though, makes it hard to attend.

Self worth and a week pass and upcoming

Today I learnt that I have an ex-classmate earning 5 times my salary. All in all, honestly, it affects my personal self valuation. Maybe I should have had gone into the same industry as her, maybe studied a little harder, be more focused and prayed a little more. I do not know whether she is the exception, but heck, I feel pretty small compared to her. She is an SAP specialist, whether or not she has reached/is reaching the ceiling limit, I do not know, but it could be.

commented "If you compare IT and banking, it is like comparing two pyramids of different sizes, IT being the smaller pyramid, you go up faster, banking being the bigger pyramid, you start lower, you have more to go through, but when you get to the top, you are much higher compared to IT"

p/s I think I have self image problems.

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Over the week I received a call, asking me to attend a "Problem Solving Test" event for a dream company. From what I know (having once attended such an event), the test is modeled/a variation of the GMAT. The last time I attended it (earlier this year), I barely managed to complete it and scored a miserable 66.67%.

Not only that, but I actually rejected the company when I realised that the job being offered was something that I did not want to do, and had a very narrow future (I was told that there was a 1% chance that I would be allowed to do branding). I was also told "if you do not accept our offer, you will never have a chance to work with us, we only offer people one chance"

So based on my past score (miserable), my past communications with the company (bad), I figured that I had maybe a 2% chance of getting what I wanted, so I did the only sensible thing a person would do.... I attended the testing event!

Why was I driven to do so, I will never understand. But hey, the test seemed much better this time round. So maybe I will improve on my past score. And have a chance.... :)

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Bumped into an old old acquintance (who was involved in setting up the dot com years back), he is an investment banker. I should touch base with him and find out more about investment banking and how to get involved into it, he mentioned briefly that my next move would to progress from business banking to corporate banking before heading for a merchant bank (eta 3 1/2 years)

Interesting

Nice week

What an enjoyable week, with national holidays, I only had to work for two days this week. Quite relaxing. Spent my time just going out with friends and visiting my girlfriend.

On a side note - my parents are beginning to discuss my marriage! *gasp*

i) Who would be footing the reception dinner(s) bill?
ii) Who should be invited to the reception held for my family?
iii) How should the reception be like?

Oh woe is me. My parents are taking an active role in my marriage plans. Of course telling them that I only plan to marry AFTER doing an MBA (3 years time?) does not seem to affect their speculations very much. In addition, I keep telling them that my girlfriend sees no rush in our getting married.

Maybe I can throw them off my track by introducing another girl! Although that would probably earn their disapproval for my fickle and promiscuous behaviour, not to mention the wrath of my girlfriend!