You'll never know how the world is going to break down

Which is why you need to have friends. Like Em. Who hold your hand and make jokes.

At the Union trying to study after Nicole the bitch housemate spent the better part of the morning yelling at me. Don't ask.

Somewhere there's a piano playing.

Here. Read how to stay awake in boring presentations.

1. Before (or during) the next class, presentation, or lecture, prepare yourself by drawing a square. I find that 5" x 5" is a good size. Divide the card into columns-five across and five down. That will give you 25 one-inch blocks.

2. Write one of the following words/phrases in each block: Synergy, strategic fit, core competencies, best practice, bottom line, revisit, expeditious, to tell you the truth (or "the truth is), 24/7, out of the loop, benchmark, value-added, proactive, win-win, think outside the box, fast track, result-driven, knowledge base, at the end of the day, touch base, mindset, client focus(ed), paradigm, game plan, leverage.

3. Now check off the appropriate block when you hear one of those words/phrases.

4. When you get five blocks horizontally, vertically, or diagonally stand up and shout "BULLSHIT!"

Now read "Real Testimonials" from satisfied players.

"I had been in the class for only five minutes when I won." - Adam W., Atlanta
"My attention span in class has improved dramatically." - David T., Orlando
"What a gas! Class will never be the same for me after my first win." - Dan J., New York City
"The atmosphere was tense in the last process meeting as 14 of us waited for the fifth box." - Ben G., Denver
"The speaker was stunned as eight of us screamed 'BULLSHIT!' for the third time in two hours. The Bull**** Bingo Championship will be played at the next meeting." - Rod H

Happy playing.

Martinis at Mantra

So like JJ got married in Puerto Rico a few weeks ago. Tell me this picture doesn't make you want to throw caution to the winds and take a vacation!

Last day of classes

Was the last day of classes today. Had a nice little cohort event and thankfully did not get the class vote for worst-dressed woman. Also did not get the vote for most likely to be the first millionaire but that's ok.

Should've gone to Cornwall's with the crew for some beer and conversation but instead stupidly decided to spend some time with Em who is a royal pain in the arse. Why the hell do I always end up bonking barbaric desi men?! Why can't I find a nice metrosexual who lets you order first at restaurants and treats you with respect in front of your friends?! Is it so wrong to want to be thought of as a lady simply because I AM ONE?!

Sigh. Mysteries of life. We may never know. Maybe he's just jealous that my boobs are nicer than his. Or maybe my balls are bigger. We may truly never know.

Mike Zapolin is coming to speak at 7 pm. I have one hour to kill. I am too irritated at Em to study. Maybe I will go sit in the sun for a bit. That is if there is any sun. Was 65F this morning and will be 40F this evening. Stupid Boston weather. Stupid Boston. Stupid Boston people. Stupid Boston desi people. Stupid Boston desi men. Stupid desi men that I always end up bonking.

AAAAARRRRGHHH!

Us to Samsung: Viral Marketing Doesn’t Work, Please Stop

Did you ever click a link and then have the window open up somewhere under all your other windows and then all of a sudden some crappy happy house starts wiggling through your speakers and you can’t find the window to turn it off and then you find out it’s some half-assed viral marketing crap designed to create a buzz for a product—most probably a UMPC—that’s already been flogged to death but by God they have a little countdown timer on there in hopes that your ass will return and stare at an annoying, constantly looping commercial? Well it just happened to me. It’s something called WhatsEveryoneLookingAt.

Vos oeufs et mon poisson

Em is back from Gotham looking very brown and quite cute. If only he would do something about those red eyes. Looks a bit freaky at the best of times.

Spent the morning working on my operations management presentation with The Evil Empire team. We now begin the analysis on the dairy farm with a loud, resonating moo. Gawd help us.

Then had a very bland lunch with VR at Pho's Lemongrass restaurant. Ordered Pad Thai. Prolly shouldn't have. VR was telling me about the play at HBS that had Erik Petersen build a robo-dean that was programmed with all the key learnings of every HBS case ever written and then takes over the world (or at very least, the campus).

iiriiiiriiririiiririiriririiririririiriiiririririririiiiririririririririririririririririririririrrrrriririi

Sorry, that was me tapping Classical Gas on the keyboard.

Spent 8 hours working on my strategy paper with Vannie and Vishal. Now at the Union with Em. And they're kicking us out. So I shall post and head out into the rain. See you on the flip side.

So annoyed now

I've been stood up. Stupid boys.

Wake Shake!

Booyah! Just finished my marketing plan in a record 1.5 hours. Professors, I know you try to get me to do my work in advance but you just don't get us hot potato managers. If there ain't a deadline looming, the work ain't gonna git done. But oh the quality of output when stressed for time! Wot price I ask you, wot price the quality?! Ah the adrenaline. Calm down Wolfey you say? It's just a paper you say? 40% of my grade I say! Yes, but Wolfey, no great guns. Doctors save lives everyday you know. Go eat a rabbit I say.

It's raining again, blast it. I'm hungry. I shall heat leftover pizza and veg out in front of tele until lovely-haired Jamie writes back to say that my plan is crap and that I've been voted off the island.

In the mood for drinks tonight but still nursing strange chest/lung infection and so think best course is to drink more hot milk with coffee and pile on the blankets.

Here, read snippets of marketing team meeting conversations:

Jamie: Wolfe, are you writing your part in 1st or 3rd person?
Wolfe: 1st... makes more sense
Jamie: hm this worries me because the rest of the paper is in 3rd
Wolfe: oook then.. i shall change it to 3rd

Wolfe: everytime amr changes his stuff, the marketing plan changes

Wolfe: so since our product has changed from juice with drugs to meal replacement with drugs, i would think our product X segment changes too
Wolfe: pxsm.. for short... because product x segment matrix is hard to type

Jamie: ok you know the benefit seg
Wolfe: which one?
Jamie: the one amr recently sent
Wolfe: 1st or 2nd? pre or post?
Jamie: should be done with the same attributes on the value curve
Wolfe: ah..yes.. it should.. which it is not
Jamie: correct.. i think amr used the attributes that describe the concept
Wolfe: so change the benefit segment would be the 2 million dollar answer
Jamie: yes - but which groups do we form then
Wolfe: i still don't like the idea of changing the value curve mind you
Jamie: maybe both?
Wolfe: it confuses everything
Jamie: oh no we shouldn't change that
Jamie: defintiely not
Jamie: leave it as is
Wolfe: how form both groups?
Wolfe: no no.. i mean.. i don't like that we changed it from the original
Wolfe: sigh
Wolfe: so ... now wot?
Wolfe: who am i targeting?
Wolfe: what's going on?
Jamie: ahaghhgahgahgh
Wolfe: who shot the sheriff?

Wolfe: we stay with the first 3 groups.. see.. we take the 2nd round people and sort them into AIOs and others.. no no! we take the 2nd round people and we identify their AIO behaviors! and from THAT we make our bene seg.. since we are finding out how consumers fill the need
Jamie: ok, so are you saying all of them should fit in AIO
Wolfe: in some way shape or form, yes! (on a global zen-like manner)

Amr: this is very important

Wolfe: all this talking has made my throat dry.. i shall get a refil of tea and brb
Amr: Jamie, what needs to be modified? I don't understand
Jamie: ok sorry.. we have the 2 charts, the product x seg matrix, and the benefit segmentation.. these are segmenting attributes and products into 3 groups.. and in the updated versions, they are different groups.. according to the examples, these groups need to be the same
Amr: can I call u?
Jamie: yes
Wolfe: don't cry for me argentina
Wolfe: dum dee dum dum
Wolfe: can i call you too
Wolfe: you can conference me in
Wolfe: ah it's lonely at the top

Jamie: i am super confused about amr's exhibit now
Wolfe: hah
Wolfe: he used a 5X model instead of a 3X one
Jamie: hmm
Wolfe: is it legal you ask.. is it kosher? can this be done? i see the doubt

Jamie: the marketing plan looks good!
Wolfe: you like it you like it? i'm very proud of myself..
Jamie: haha good job!
Wolfe: and i used a framework
Wolfe: voluntarily
Wolfe: with no coercion

Jamie: ok i will do some editing tonight.. still have not gotten Juan's part :(
Wolfe: he's online i think
Raymond has been added to the conversation.
Weimin has been added to the conversation.
Wolfe: oops.. wrong buttons
Wolfe: juan is not online.. and now weimin and raymond will wonder why they're talking to each other
Jamie: HAHHAA
Wolfe: i should have been voted cohort rep.. i bring people together
Jamie: LOL

Is it wrong to want a cheeseburger for breakfast?

Saturday morning cartoons are getting worse. I miss Cartoon Network. Kids WB sucks. I need to get cable. So like Sketchers has the Z-strap to replace laces on sneakers. 'Cuz you know, kids these days are too stupid to learn how to keep their laces tied. Yes, I know that I have problems with that too but that's not the point. Have you noticed that green tea really has no taste? Somewhere in the hype of antioxidants and therapeutic properties, we have forgotten that green tea tastes like dishwater water. On the flip side, I have nice Turkish biscuits. Looking to get a nice jacket for Em since I was mean to him yesterday. You will be horrified to learn that all online men's clothing websites have nothing but overpriced crap. Oh look, Batman's on. I like batman. Wot's a good website for nice jackets? You know, the Spring/Fall types. Casual yet smart. I have coffee with Ashan at 10:30 at Campo di Fiori. Can't decide if I want to work there or come back home. 'Sposed to be cold today. I DO NOT get the deal with Pokemon. What is up with that?! No really. Didn't sleep again last night. Em's gone to Gotham to fight the evil Crank. Or rather NYC to see his uncle. I shall lie down for a bit.

I'm cold

And my hot water bottle has renegaded. Stupid boys.

Now I can't sleep.

Blech blech blech.

Stupid boys

Stay with you when they want and won't stay with you when you want.

An object is an object until it's a class

Does this mean that otherwise they're classless?

Gave the OOP course waiver exam today. Pray I pass. I refuse to fork out $4k on veebeedotnet. I will revolt.

Start by fixing your day

So like I'm at Espresso Royale trying to write my marketing plan for the fabulous Consumer Behavior final project which, if you must know, is this revolutionary beverage that is essentially juice with drugs. Yes, it will sell. Especially after I write this kick-ass marketing plan for it.

But I got distracted by this BW report on building the Airbus A380. Dude, you so have to check this out. I want one.

And if you didn't think that Virgin would make much of a splash in MENA, think again. BTW, I didn't know Emirates had so much moolah! I want to work for Virgin. There was a Virgin idea competition at school earlier this year. But I didn't have enough team members. Plus it was $75. Charging MBAs a nominal $75 to come up with your next million dollar idea is just stupid. As Resh would say - eat the costs, bastards.

I've heard Chug de Punjabi 4 times now. It's on repeat. I think I'll leave it on.

The rising tide raises all ships which is free unless you're the moon

So like after being admonished for not reading Resh's inner thots for like 3 months now, I figured I'd take a break from the Nokia case and catch up. Turns out that he's discovered style. Who knew. And apparently there's this big bruhaha (stop there, it's not meant to be a bruhahahahaha) about 3 flat panels at work. Ah, if I only had the Spin pictures handy. Listen, foo, the world is beyond 3 flat panels! You need to get you some wall-mounted television action so you can do some serious stock quote news headlines Brit comedies Photoshop editing.

Also, I have to watch all these desi movies man. And who is this Vish chap anyway?

Is it wrong that I want to be Johnny Kalsi? No really. With every fibre of my being.

Resh, you need to open up the portals of punjab to me once again. I'm running out of music. However, I have discovered Reza Derakshani. Don't ask, just Google.

Dige is a very cool word. We should use it in everyday language. Like maybe "Dige to me baby".

Sigh. Should get out of bed now and get showered and head off to skool.

iPorn

Brilliant. And about time.

He didn't want to disappoint me

Do you sometimes feel that your heart is being ripped out and taken away from you and you can't do anything about it? I do. I feel that way now. And I don't know what to do about it.

BTW, we lost the competition. We lost to a company that wanted to put a fake product on the market and raise the prices for it. I was angry about that earlier but now I'm not. Prolly 'cuz Niku called and make donkey jokes but mostly because he reminded me of something I haven't said in a long long time.

I miss you, Ko. I hope you're well. I hope Smooches hasn't forgotten how to explode into socks. I wish I had a sock-exploder. But I don't. I have someone who doesn't want to disappoint me. I should be glad about that but I'm not.

Bakdafukup.

And it makes me wonder.

I don't want to sleep. I haven't not wanted to sleep since the days of Go.com. I used to like to sleep.

I wonder where he is now.

Net Impact Case Competition

So like I've entered this case competition with Em and Andrey and Yogi. Beech-Nut is the case. Just gave our presentations. Which, quite frankly, did not do justice to our analysis. But I did kick some butt at QnA. Find out at 7:15 if we're in the finals. Then we present again. Before that I get to hear Mike Sears speak and schmooze with Dean and CEO types. Then it's off to Boston Beer Works for some drinky drinky. Then home to stare at my piles of unwashed laundry. And to bed. Blissful blissful sleep. I've found a new way to make my bed and I quite like it. Problem is, I haven't seen the business side of my sheets in about two weeks. Was up again all night yesterday. So very very very tired now.

Em is being mildly offensive. But maybe I'm being sensitive. Who knows. At Starbucks on the 2nd floor now. I shall suffer my high heels and go back upstairs to competition realm to mingle. Wish me luck. I hope we get into finals. I hope we win too. Second or first place. Third wouldn't be too nice.

I'm too competitive they tell me. Fok off I tell them.

In lieu of interesting posts

Piyo piyo coffee piyo

I need more music. I have 2 gigs of memory left. Does anybody want my porn so I can free up space for music? Somehow burning backup cds of porn seems wrong.

Fall registration for classes opened at 7 am. Three classes were full up by 7:03 am. It's a competitive world we live in.

Fun classes for Fall - systems design for business networks, marketing research, strategy implementation and integrated marketing communication. And they're making me take database management would you believe. Gary will prolly be very glad that I officially get to learn about databases but I say I have enough experience crashing Pick'n Save's dbs to know all I need to know.

Plus, I have to take an OOP class in the summer. Trying to test out of that one. Do NOT want to spend $4000 on a stupid VB class. VB is not for me. I hire people who do VB. Stupid course. Bet they don't make the chaps at Harvard take VB *grumble*.

No rest for the wicked

Stop giving me grief about not blogging. I'm a busy woman.

Too many Chinese

It irritates me to see Arab people in global ads. Don't know why. But it does.

A chick with no chap

Horrid throat this morning. Got in late last night. Hit a lady with my bag on the train. No, not on purpose. It was an accident. Things like that happen on crowded trains. She was not pleased. Em and I jumped ship (or er... train) to avoid unpleasantness. Was hijacked on the way home by Campa and taken to Punjabi Dhaba for some chicken tikka masala goodness and really bad sardar jokes.

Got my sausage, egg and cheese bagel and other assorted baked goods from Citi Convenience and am at work trying to surreptiously read a case. I'm sure someone will figure out that I don't do anything work related when I'm at work.

I think I'll take a coffee break. Heh.

Best job ever. Hardware keeps crashing all around me and here I am blogging. Fun. Hey, this is how I could afford NYC two weeks ago.

Don't judge me.

Electives

Have registered for NetImpact's case competition with Em and Russian Tov. Any ideas on a team name?

So should I drop the MS or not?

The new Middle East oil bonanza

The tale of Mideast money is not just a local story, however. This year, with oil prices stuck in the $55-to-$65-per-barrel range, perhaps half a trillion dollars will land in OPEC coffers -- more than at any time since the boom of the 1970s and 1980s. The Mideast oil states alone will gather in $320 billion in oil and gas export revenues.

Interesting article.

Vitamin water. Essential

Good morning!

Lovely day out there. Spent the entire weekend thinking about how much work I have to take care of but not doing an ounce of it. In fact, except for reading for today's class, I did nothing. Well I played Scrabble with Em at Brighton Cafe for our Saturday morning breakfasts but that's about it.

Sat in on the Technology Entrepreneurship Forum Friday night. Had a tray of whipped cream mousses thrown at me by a twitchy server. The dining department here at GSM does us proud sometimes with the perfect crispiness of their asparagus but they have very wound up servers. Must be all that collective knowledge in the room. Drives them batty. I know it drives me batty.

Went to the 1st Annual International Tech Strategy Business Case Competition dinner banquet (phew) on Saturday. Missed the actual case presentations but hobnobbled with IIM (Calcutta) folks at dinner who collectively said that I a)looked like a very young and pretty Farida Jalal, b)did not look Indian but could pass off as royalty and c)should be in theatre because of my expressive face. I collectively told them to fok off and quizzed them relentlessly about the b-school practices at IIM and proved, over a lovely meal of salmon, steak and more asparagus topped up with copious amounts of red wine, a mint sorbet and a fruit tart, that BU is better than IIM. Hah.

It is you know.

Pops called to tell me that some chap from some IIM got a job somewhere which pays over 10,000 pounds a month and then asked me how much I would get paid after I graduate (for the 14th time) and then asked why I wasn't getting paid as much as that Advani chap (for the 6th time) and then didn't listen when I tried to explain to him the differences between marketing and strategy folks and finance folks so I told him to go to bed.

Then went to International Night at Embassy and Modern and was bored so left at 12:30 am to come home and put in an application for structural second slab checking (which was passed, if you must know).

Went to Espresso Royale to read my NTT DoCoMo case for today and got the inside scoop on secret HBS parties from Rao. Apparently there are no orgies. The rumors are untrue. There isn't any dancing on sofas either.

Locked out of work this morning so went around the corner for a Glaceau and a chocolate croissant. Breakfast puts a whole new perspective on things, I tell you.

Psychotic bitch housemate Nicole has hidden/stolen/eaten/baked/thrown all the dish scrubby sponges for some strange inexplicable reason. Had to scrub my pots and pans with the emergency wire mesh. Blast that woman, can't wait for her to leave. So desperately want a studio of my own. People are just nasty to live with. This is why I shall never get married. I hate roommates.

Aha, I espy Basil. I shall follow him into office. Damn. Monthly reports are due.

Em finds surveys very annoying. To do.

Technology Entrepreneurship Night was fun. Met Sudha Jamthe from Moomli again. She's always fun to talk to. Had a nice dinner with some red wine and chicken with carrots and potatoes. Had a server violently throw about 16 cups of chocolate mousse (with whipped cream toppings) at me so had to excuse self and sponge down pants in the ladies'. That was fun too. Met a chap who does funky things with solar panels and a Norwegian student who smelt nice. Exchanged business cards. Schmoozed. Was fun.

Went to Al Reef after that with Em to wax philosophic over cafe and baklava. Salaam is losing weight to look good for the ladies. His dad was ferrying shawarmas back and forth. Very hospitable that crew.

Saw Aksar the other day. Good movie. Lousy acting but good plot. Horrible songs.

I shall now totter off to bed and watch March of the Penguins.