White Spaces

At school, we are repeatedly exhorted to find the "white spaces", "blue oceans", "untapped customers" that are necessary to grow a business. What I wouldn't give for a white space of my own, where I might do some growing too. This period is the most challenging one for me, raising all sorts of questions: to what extent am I happy handing in sub-standard work in order to maintain my social life and catch a couple hours sleep now and then? What have the courses taught me about where my skills and preferences lie? How much of a radical change am I prepared to make in my life, career or otherwise? Rather than achieving any clarity on these issues, I get more confused the more people I speak to. And I just can't seem to find that little space in my schedule, or in my mind, to really sit down and think about it. Resorting to the ostrich method instead, I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hoping something good happens.

It's not all gloom and doom, though. I am really enjoying the social environment at school these days. It's much more relaxed than in the first couple periods, and everyone is focusing their efforts not on ticking off lists of names of people they've met, but on building real, solid friendships. Integration with our friends from Singapore has also been fantastic, and we've even managed to build some bridges to the new December class as well.

In other news, our team is into the semi-finals round for the L'Oreal business game. That means that we now have to put together a business plan outlining our vision for our little company and its promising portfolio of brands. A fake company, and fake brands, of course, but after almost three months it really feels like our baby. Here's hoping our baby impresses the L'Oreal execs.

I feel like I should close this post with an apology. I know I have not done a very good job this period keeping my readership informed of the goings-on in my life. In fact, I've done a similarly poor job maintaining communication with my friends and family. All I can say is, I promise to do better. And to keep looking for those spaces.