Friends, foes and parties

Psychology students should really come do a case-study on INSEAD MBAs. Let me tell you, when you throw 300-odd intelligent, driven people together, force them to live in an isolated bubble in the middle of the French countryside, deprive them of sleep, subject them to a stressful class schedule and provide lots and lots of alcohol, passions run high. You will suddenly find yourself BFF with someone you've know for less time than the average shelf-life of a bottle of milk, and whose last name you can't spell, much less pronounce correctly. Equally, you will wake up one morning to find yourself implicated in a full blown diplomatic incident resulting from Mr X insulting someone else's country, or asking an annoying question in class, or hitting on the wrong person at a party, and all hell will break loose.

Human relationships at INSEAD are intense, emotionally exhausting, and seem to develop at a pace five times greater than what you're used to from the "real" world. Ideal fodder for a television show...

In other INSEAD news, Club 16 (our new official house name) held its opening party this week to great acclaim. Attendance estimates ran between 150 and 250, an outrageous number in any case that we somehow managed to squeeze into our still-under-construction courtyard and the very popular terrace. Standards have been set; let the battle of the houses begin. Here is one of my favourite Club 16 group pics (I've decided any photo posted on Facebook is fair game for this blog):


In entirely unrelated news, a Swiss guy tried to get out of a speeding ticket in Canada by blaming the absence of goats. Perhaps some of my gas-pedal-heavy friends should try the same in Fontainebleau.