Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Things have been pretty crazy

With the move to Lausanne now less than three weeks away, things have been hectic over here for Ashley and I. We've been running around like crazy people making sure we are taking care of everything we can for the move, and we've also been trying to enjoy spending time with our friends and family.

At home Ashley and I are in full-on packing mode. We've been bubble-wrapping, sorting and boxing everything up, so the house is a huge mess. In a matter of days we'll be loading a truck with all the belongings that we want to keep, but can't bring to Lausanne. Then we have a long drive South to take everything down to my mother-in-law's basement, since she graciously agreed to hold onto our stuff for us. It's a complicated operation, since we don't want to forget something up here that we'll then have to throw away, but we don't want to bring something with us that we will later need!

At work it's now been widely announced that I will be leaving, so I've been in full-on transition mode. I've been writing up documentation about all my responsibilities, and having a ton of meetings to train my colleagues so they can take over my duties and keep things running once I leave. I figure one of two things will happen: either the bank will fall apart in my absence, sparking a new world economic crisis; or all my co-workers will finally realize what a slacker I am, asking themselves "is that it?" when learning about what I do.

On the bureaucracy front, it gives me great pleasure to say Ashley's visa has finally been issued - although not without some hiccups. After following up with the IMD support staff (who then followed up with the Canton), we discovered our application had landed in the wrong department somehow. So they got it to the right place and processed it for us, and sent the authorization to the Embassy in DC. Great! All set then right? Not so fast - they sent it with a later arrival date than we needed! So we had to circle back and request that they revisit the dates, but thankfully it all worked out and now Ashley has a swanky new page on her passport.

On top of everything, we've been pretty productive on the baby front too - we've gotten a good amount of shopping out of the way, and have carfully sorted the things we'll bring with us and the things we'd like our family to bring when they come visit. We have also completed a labor and delivery course at a hospital nearby, which was very informative and actually fun - well, except maybe when they talked about some of the more graphic and painful details! Hopefully we will be better prepared when Little Marshmallow is ready to join us. We've also had a couple of baby showers - following the American tradition where friends and family get together to celebrate the upcoming arrival of the new baby, and bring the new mom lots of gifts. It's generally a women-only event, but we had a co-ed one as well. It was a lot of fun to celebrate with all our wonderful friends and relatives who we will miss so much!

I imagine things will only keep getting crazier, but I am hopeful Ashley and I will be able to navigate through it all. It's surreal to think how soon we'll be in Lausanne, but we are very excited!

5 comments:

  1. Good luck! Went through the same exercise two months ago! It will be very satisfying, relaxing and invigorating to be done with this process.

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    1. Thanks Yordan! Good to hear that it will all be worth it in the end. Looking forward to seeing you in Lausanne soon!

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  2. Hello, Thank you for this amazing blog. I am Naser from UAE and very much interested in doing my mba in IMD. I really like to have your prospective with regard to INSEAD MBA!

    Best Regards..

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    1. sorry, just clarification: I am comparing between the two programs. Naser.

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    2. Hi Naser - that's a good question. Both INSEAD and IMD are excellent schools, so you can't really go wrong with either one. Your goals should be the most important consideration - what do you want to get out of your MBA, and where do you want to go afterwards?

      The student experience at IMD is likely very different than the one at INSEAD. IMD's small class size makes it a more personal experience and a sense of "family" among the class, but the pace of the program is very intense. IMD's student body tends to be a little bit older as well. IMD's recruiting strength is in industry - if that's what you're trying to get into then there seems to be no better place than IMD. But obviously INSEAD also has great placement stats.

      I'd say think about what you want to get from your MBA, and try to reach out to a few alumni from each school to get a better sense of the culture of each school.

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