Living, exponentially.

How long would a bottle of whisky last in my room, I wonder. Pretty long, I'd imagine, but then again, how would I know until I tried?

The most interesting conversations and ideas sometimes come from the strangest places. I have one of these almost everyday now, it seems. Today's came during Happy Hour in the Common Room. Ok, admittedly, strange ales and strung out MBA students provide a fertile enough ground for interesting / strange conversations, but during a chat with Nuno and Anna from Portugal and Argentina, the idea of how we were 'living exponentially' came up. Such a powerful phrase, no?

It's Friday night and I have had (obviously) a few litres of beer - we won't go into how much exactly. But let us recap Week 2.

Monday -
6 hours of lectures + seminars. Followed by various other sessions, thanks to which I had to miss a talk (3 talks over Mon-Wed, actually) by a Nobel Prize winner. A crying shame, but just an average day at Oxford. Pub quiz at College.

Tuesday -
Lectures as above. Fun, they were, of course. Then there was an exchange dinner with Hertford College - this means you dress up and go to another college for the evening. It starts off with some sherry / port in a reception area (usually the Middle Common Room of the college) and move to their dining hall. It is a formal, sit down, 3 course dinner (wth wine of course), served by a catering staff. Very nice, once you get past the fancy cutlery and formal costumery.
Reached home in a strange state - a mixture of tipsy, anxious, despondent, resigned, focused, and sleepy - partly due to the alcohol and partly due to the Finance assignment (our first for the year!) that I had done didley squat about. Slept at 3 am, but not before sending some strange emails (apparently), giddy with insomnia.

Wednesday -
Go through classes in some parallel sleep-wake universe. Submit assignment and eat a meal as reward.

Thursday -
Get up at 5.30 (after sleeping at 1.30 am) to go do that thing you do over here - rowing. It appears I am on my college team (the amateur one, of course), so I am likely to be in a regatta towards the end of November. Great fun, new experiences. The river (the Thames, but called the Isis in Oxford) looks very pretty in the early morning light. Like most of the ladies also out and about, practising for the Women's teams. There is something eminently watchable about 8 ladies carrying a boat from the boathouse to the water (those things are heavy! The boats, not the ladies, of course). And I mean, they manage very well and I have to give them credit. And then, they row. Nice. Also, this is the closest I will get to any real exercise.

[Aside : A few days ago, when trying out for the volleyball team, I ran a few laps on the Iffley Road track, the same track on which Roger Bannister ran the first sub-4-minute mile in 1954.
And then some further fitness/training later, I realised I was not as unfit as I thought I would be (or as some others), but a lot less fit than I should be. I resolved to join the gym immediately, a plan I abandoned shortly afterwards. Regrettably I couldn't join the volleyball team because they practise 3 times a week plus a match, which can be home or away, and both the captain and I knew I would not be able to make that kind of time committment.]

Of course, I turned up late for the Finance lecture. Again. Ran from that to a recruitment presentation by a consulting company. Had to leave that halfway to run to college, for a lunch with my 'Graduate Adviser' (responsible for overseeing my academic progress, and also my well-being, in general), who just happens to be the president of the College AND a knighted economist. Very cool person for his stature. Had to shave and dress up for that. Man, I HATE the shaving.
Ran back to the business school for a team meeting with my study group, to dicuss our next assignment, due on Sunday. Then another class, then a gobbled dinner, and a sprint to the Oxford Union, of which I am now a cardholding Life Member, to attend a debate on "This house would vote for change over experience", referring of course to the US Presidential elections. Was great fun, gotta love British humour. Was also tickled to see Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in the audience along with us commoners. My, how I hobnob, no?

Friday -
Rowing again in the early morn, but some bleddy people didn't turn up so we didn't have enough people for an Eights boat. So we had to practise indoors on the rowing machines. Whatte waste, all that prettiness outside, but it was good because we got to work on our rowing technique. So far, it has been just a bunch of people in a boat rowing the way each person thought rowing is supposed to be done, in some cobbled together co-ordination. I realised that rowing is a true team sport - none can perform without the others. Gotta love these early morn moments of clarity, no?
Friday being the only day I don't have official classes in the morning, I took it easy and had breakfast (at long last!) at college. Then played some pool in the college bar. Funny story - I had signed up for the pool team and showed up for trials 2 weeks ago. I was early, nobody else was there yet, so I started playing by myself. As people started trickling in, I played against whoever wanted a game. After a few games I was introduced to the college team, and it turned out I had beaten the captain, the vice captain and other members of the first team. Sweet. So they promptly put me on the first team, and league matches start next week.
So anyway. Where was I? Ah yes, so played me some pool. Then ran to the business school for an accounting study session, gobbled lunch, ran to an Oxford Business Network meeting for Management Consulting. Went immediately into a Decision Science class and really ran from there to Happy Hour at the Common room bar.

Straight into a conversation on living exponentially. How appropriate.

Here's to a higher power [:-)].



" ^ "

I need to be a bit higher. Just a little bit.

Over the past couple of months, I've had some interesting...moments, for the lack of a better word. As the words fly off the keyboard right now, I remember the night in Bangalore and the weirdest dream I've had in a while. It was so surreal. reality seeped in at some point and I found myself at a strange but irresistible crossroads. this dream was more real than most 'real' experiences i've had. i found myself sitting up in bed, in a strange house, with new people, and slipping in and out of the dream. analysing what i thought was happening, and then allowing myself to slip back into the dream so the story and analysis could move forward. and repeat.

i give up on capital letters. just a little bit.

i live in adrenaline-fuelled days and alcohol-fuelled nights. neon signs turn to black and white before my eyes. people caught in my camera automatically show me the shades of grey that we are all really made of. people with a purpose in life scare me. drowning in my ocean of logic-driven intelligence, i realise i have no real knowledge. only information.

that scares me. just a little bit.

how did it come to this? i am only socially relevant when high. ironically, that is precisely the moment society becomes irrelevant to me. like tonight, when i ditched my brilliant colleagues to go listen to some presumably poor people strumming guitars in the backyard of a pub, and photograph other beautiful people who had presumably done the same.


^

Of things new

"Welcome, NS, to what is likely to be the most transformative year of your life"

This was the thought running through my head on the bus from Heathrow to Oxford. And it wasn't too far off the mark.

It's been a week and so far I've attended seminars with the former CEO of Intel, the ex-chairman of the FTSE and the ex-CEO of Aviva life insurance (a company worth the small sum of 45 billion pounds), leaders from the world of Finance, Management Consulting, Social Entrepreneurship and a host of others, including a guy who heads the Oxford Institute for Science and Civilisation,considered 'one of the 15 people in the world the new US president should listen to'.

And classes haven't even started yet.

My classmates range from Russian heiresses to Brits working in NGOs in Africa, from CEOs to Indian entrepreneurs working on clean energy, from investment bankers and financial wizards to Bulgarian risk management analysts, from documentary film makers to doctors, from corporate lawyers to miners. Architects. Real Estate developers. Steel Magnates. Scientists. From all over the world. I'm surrounded by thought leaders from every corner of the globe, and that's just within one single building housing the business school. Let alone the rest of the University.

I am overwhelmed.

Every day and night over the past week has been different, new, and exciting. I started tonight with a quiet dinner with a Canadian scientist who discovered a new kind of stem cell and is part owner of a company developing that technology, an Indian-origin forensic psychiatrist who has connections with top government and industry personnel in every field, and a few other people. This then moved to drinks in the pub where I met other new friends, including a Georgian with his own vineyard, a Thai investment banker, a Singaporean who works with the government on developing tourism, and a whole bunch of others. I ended the evening playing guitar alongside a street musician, and even earned him a little money!

This is going to be an amazing year.


^