Coco and Camarao do Brazil

I am so tired.

That kind of tired that seeps into your bones and makes them heavy as rocks, that crawls in behind your stinging eyeballs, the kind of tired that you feel you'll never be able to shake off.

And I only recently came back from vacation.  Something's rotten in the state of Res, I tell you.

Speaking of vacation, I am way overdue a posting.  So here it is, a brief but exclusive glimpse into the glamorous Brazilian adventures of Res and Hottie:

Friday: Res bails early from CoolCo Sub and hops onto a small plane to a London with a big suitcase full of dresses.  Hottie has just returned from Houston (obviously).  The two of them are exhausted and skip the big Friday night out in London.

Saturday: Res and Hottie wait for pre-ordered cab.  And wait some more. Cab doesn't show up. Learn to never trust anyone but black cabs.  Make it to Heathrow in time for plane (and pancakes at Giraffe). Spend a long time in a flying metal tube. Land in Rio.  It's hot. Hottie has a couple caipirinhas. Res is a party pooper and goes to bed.

Sunday: Our fearless heroines decide to jump off a mountain.  Not before signing beautifully drafted liability waiver, specifying that it applies to all hang-gliding activities such as "take-off and landing (including, but not limited to, crashing)". Despite said waiver, both girls manage stunning, crash-free landings. Spend rest of day recovering on Ipanema with some coconut water and a couple camarao. Res takes first caipirinha.  And second.

Monday: Trusty host Daniel takes the girls on tour of city.  Gets them lost in Tijuca National Park.  Explains ups and downs of marriage over large skewers of meat. Then plonks them down on a bar terrace overlooking Santa Teresa for caipirinha o'clock.  Where we meet a yacht stewardess and a straight man with a T-shirt that says "Flower". Res takes a bit of a fancy to Brazilian beers. At dinner, Hottie attempts to identify menu options by making barnyard animal sounds at the waiter and Res orders a mint tea only to receive a small swamp in a bucket.

Tuesday: More beach time.  The girls even manage to squeeze in a run and purchase bikinis (size large, therefore covering half a butt-cheek; we learn that what we think of as "normal" bikini bottoms are referred to here as American bikinis, diapers or parachutes. Lovely).  Then Christ the Redeemer goes all mystical in the fog and Copacabana sparkles from the top of the Sugarloaf, before it's time to samba the night away at the fabulous Rio Scenarium.  More caipirinhas are had.

Wednesday: It rains. Res gets a sunburn (rainburn?) and turns into a bit of a camarao herself. For good cheer, Res and Hottie purchase Havaianas and try to sing for beer money. It doesn't work. Res orders fish for dinner and gets beef. Never mind. There's always more samba to save the day (until a senior citizen decides to demonstrate his trademarked pelvic thrust move and the girls run away... fast).

Thursday: Bye bye Rio, off to Paraty.  It rains. Paraty is nonetheless charming.  And serves wonderful caipirinhas.  Res gets a samba lesson from a waiter.

Friday: Sunshine in Paraty makes for idyllic beach time. Res misses her coconut water, though.  In the evening, the girls are entertained by the fabulous Yara and Richard Roberts and eat the best food of the whole trip. Res makes farofa and feels pretty pleased with herself. Hottie learns how to make caipirinhas and London cocktail nights are transformed forever.

Saturday: Last day in Brazil, spent in Sao Paulo with INSEAD alumns and friends. Much food, drink and dancing is had by all.  It rains.  That's because Brazil is sad the girls are leaving.

Sunday: Plane, more plane, an early Monday morning breakfast at Heathrow, another plane, and arrival in Zurich.  The vacation is over.  Time to prepare work trip to South Africa.

More on that in another post.

Let's be done with 09

After the birthday doldrums, it was time for the levity and cheer of a winter wedding in Brussels, providing me with a much-needed break from myself (with the help of a little champagne and a lot of INSEAD friends).

It also meant another round of having to explain what I am now doing with my life. To a roomful of people who, like me, sweated tears, blood and euros to earn their MBA and, unlike me, are actually using it. And yet, everyone I meet seems enthralled by the idea of packing it all in and writing the novel. They don't seem to think I'm insane, or selfish, or immature, or naïve, or any of the million other adjectives that spring to my mind. So why is it that I do?

And do they know how hard it is to answer the well-intentioned "how's the book" question? Well, to be honest, after reaching 12,000 words, the book's in a bit of a slump. So much so that I wake up some mornings seriously doubting whether another word will ever get written. It frightens me. And yet I want to write, I love to write, and I love this book. But somehow, it isn't happening right now. I could blame it on the imminent move from my beloved Marais-nest, but really swine flu, climate change, or martians would be equally valid excuses.

Fundamentally, what I'm suffering from is a great big giant bout of self-pity. I assure you, dear friends, I find it almost as exhausting as you do.

A Week in Review

Monday: I wake up at 5am to catch the 7.13 Eurostar to London. For the first hour of the journey, I try to be good and look at colourful slides on the pharma industry. When my eyes start glazing over I give up and watch 2 episodes of Damages, trying to figure out who the Glenn Close character most reminds me of.

Bleary-eyed, I walk into my team's "kick-off" meeting already wishing the day was over. We do the obligatory tour de table description of personality type / development goals / team norms and then get to the substance. Which is when I realize everybody's talking in molecule names and I'm in big, big trouble.

Tuesday: I discover Itsu at lunch. I fall in love with Itsu. Especially that low-fat Japanese duck soup. I decide that maybe in my future reincarnation I could be opening up Itsu branches all over Paris.

Wednesday: We have a big work dinner to celebrate a team member's rise to partnership. The guy is my age, happily married, and loaded, and he keeps complaining about how he only managed to squeeze in two 10Ks and one karate training this week. This is probably meant to impress, but I can't help thinking it's sad that he feels it would be so shameful to pass for just a regular guy.

Thursday: I get into work early, after only 4hrs of sleep, because I've been asked to "get comfortable" with some scary-looking financial model the manager's decided to dump on my lap. Turns out this model, built by a small army of junior consultants with geeky engineering degrees, has several major errors in it and I get yelled at because I don't catch them all within the first half hour. Give me a break, it's not quite "Where's Waldo"...

Friday: INSEAD party time, something I've been looking forward to all week. When I get there, a friend of mine who's also working at BM tells me he quit that very afternoon. Although I knew he'd been unhappy, the news throws me because he's one of the most serious, ambitious guys I know. To be honest, I'm a bit jealous.

Later, during a tearful chat on the rooftop terrace, my friend Banker Girl tells me that girls like us are destined to remain stuck in high-status, high-stress jobs that make us miserable, because we'll never be satisfied with anything else. One third of me is sad that my friend is feeling so low, one third is worried she might be right, and the final third wants to slap her. Instead, I grab a taxi back to the hotel. Inside I'm reeling, I want to go home, and I wish the Boy was here.

Saturday: The blues (or Audrey's reds) are still with me when I wake up this morning, so I head over to the park for a run. Seeing as I haven't exercised in longer than I'd like to remember, the run does not go well, but at least I'm moving. Then I go cheer myself up at the bookstore, and pick up one of the Penguin notebooks so I can scribble this post from a nearby Starbucks. And I take my time, too, since there's a Tamil protest keeping me from crossing the street back to my hotel.

So that was my week, folks. Let's see how the next one goes.

Settling In

In terms of settling into my new apartment, I'm not doing a very good job. There are still a few (too many) boxes around, I'm still sans wardrobe, I'm still taking hours to find my stuff in the mornings, and there's still no food in my fridge.


But in terms of settling into my new Parisian life, I think I'm almost there. I really thought it would be harder, and lonelier, than it has been. While at INSEAD, everyone was talking about Dubai, London, Singapore, and I was worried I was going to get left behind. Instead, I now find myself in the "most happening" city in the INSEAD world! Whether it's because of the current job market, the fact that Paris is on the way to most places, or simply because people have finally realized this is the most beautiful city in the world (there's the chauvinist in me), France's capital has definitely become a hub of INSEAD activity. At least once or twice a week I find myself surrounded by former classmates having dinner, going dancing, celebrating housewarmings or making Charlie Chaplin films (don't ask). And of course there are the old friends, the ones who have stayed true despite the Fontainebleau hiatus during which I fell off the face of the earth, and who are now happily re-found.

So here I am with a busier social life than I have ever had, requiring the investment of significant physical and emotional energy. Don't get me wrong. Despite what some have said, this is not a continuation of INSEAD. Things today are very different; this is not just another "P". The people around me are not the same as a few months ago, or the ones I would necessarily have expected to be part of my new life. Some friends have been lost (or at least temporarily displaced) by the effect of geography, timing or life's unpredictable quirks, and others gained. Happily, there are also the two or three people I am so lucky to have kept close, and with whom I am now developing something perhaps more serious, and more "real" than what we might have had during those fickle INSEAD days.

A new career, a new apartment, a new city, new bonds, new feelings (not to mention a new, historical, US political landscape - go Obama!)... These first few months of my post-third-life-crisis life have been rife with upheaval, an ever-changing cartography I'm now slowly adapting to. Fortunately, some things never change. Like the fact that I can still ramble on for hours about absolutely nothing just for the pleasure of sending my thoughts into the ether. Like the fact that it's often a strong emotional reaction to someone close to me that gets me writing, and yet I never actually write about it (is that frustrating for you, I wonder?!) Like the fact that cigarettes, beer and melodramatic music (Pink Floyd, this time) always get the creative juices flowing.

It's good to know there are some things you can count on.

Tedium and Nostalgia

On my way to work this morning, my ipod stumbled upon "Relax" and I almost cried. This is not a good sign. I think I may be suffering from PTSD.

Perhaps the pangs of nostalgia would subside somewhat if things picked up a bit at BM. Unfortunately, I seem to be de trop on my current assignment (whatever it is), and my manager has yet to find any use for me other than going through a small library of background documents (all of which I've already finished reading; one of the side-effects of having been a lawyer is being able to digest mountains of information in a very short timespan). So, instead of being productively employed and thus suitably distracted from my INSEAD-driven thoughts, I am sitting at my sad little desk, staring at my sad little computer and (discreetly) blogging.

The silver lining (and there always is one) is that the lack of anything BM-related to do has left me plenty of time for flat-hunting, my current number 1 priority. I mean, it's nice to be living the teenage dream of having my mother coddle me while still being able to go out whenever I want, but all good things must come to an end. It is time for me to trade in home-cooked meals, clean laundry and a vastly oversized living space for a "room of my own", à la Virgina Woolf, where everything in the fridge will be past its due date, six-months old editions of ELLE will be littering the floor and two cats will be on the verge of murder-suicide. But the parties will be legendary (apologies to my future neighbours). It's not a done deal yet but I think I may have found the perfect bachelorette pad, in my favourite neighbourhood in Paris. Fingers crossed.

Week 1 as a Nugget

There's only one person I know of who will understand the joke in the title, which just goes to show I have a very odd sense of humour, but hey, sometimes you need it, particularly when you turn your life topsy-turvy and go from law school to law firm to MBA to consulting firm and people start looking at you like you're nuts.

It's now official. I am a bona fide consultant at Big Massive Consulting Firm (BM). Well, sort of. So far, all I've done is spent one week learning how to use a telephone, how to fill in my expense reports, and how to locate the coffee machine while blindfolded and chased by a rabid dog at 5a.m. Next week, I get to replay INSEAD, and spend long hours learning how to work in a group, read and analyse a case, make a very lame powerpoint presentation and take abuse while smiling. And then I will be a bona fide consultant at BM. Assuming I get staffed on something (as opposed to "beached", which sounds nice if you're thinking pina coladas with umbrellas, but not so nice if you're thinking large, stranded whale).

So here I am, staring out the window at a grey, uninviting sky, thinking I really need to get a move on and pack my suitcase for training, and wincing as I recall that less than 10 days ago I was in the south of France, basking in sunshine and surrounded by some of my closest INSEAD friends. Just this past Friday I met a group of alumni, toutes promotions confondues, and was told by someone older and wiser than myself that I should be prepared for 6 months to one year of post-graduation depression. Oh goody. On a positive note, I was also told that no matter how cynical I might be, I was sure to keep some of my fellow MBA friends for life, a thought which cheered me up considerably.

My next plan of action (besides learning how to be a good little BM nugget) is therefore to go out there and find myself a flat (must at all costs avoid the Tanguy syndrome), and make sure it includes lots of spare mattresses, sleeping bags, closets to pass out in, so I can welcome all my friends, new and old, and turn it into a small but vital hub of cheerfulness when BM gets me down (and we all know it will).

Please say a little prayer for me to the gods of flathunting.

PS: As I was having dinner with my absolutely oldest friend last night (congrats on the engagement!) I realized that besides the occasional wedding recap, I spend very little time writing about those who have been near and dear for more than just ten months. This does not mean I do not love you, and I promise to remedy this grave injustice in the future. So to all of you who, while I have been frolicking in the forest being utterly irresponsible, have been busy working, changing jobs, running companies, buying flats, getting engaged/married/pregnant/small people, thanks for being patient and forgiving. I'm back.

Bubble Revisited

One of the drawbacks of INSEAD, particularly if you were a die-hard Fonty resident like myself, is that you could never escape the bubble. One of the advantages of INSEAD is that, once you graduate, you can always return to the bubble and even take it with you in a handy carry-on case whenever you wish.

And so it is that over the next few days, some favourite alumni of mine will magically materialize here, in the balmy south of France, from various corners of the globe, to eat, drink and be rowdy in true bubble style. Summer adventures will be told and retold, gossip poured over with glee, and more than a few ear-splitting renditions of Mika will be sung around the pool. I can't wait!

For those of you who are starting INSEAD now, or any other business school for that matter, this is what you have to look forward to. I envy you these next 10 months during which you will discover and build friendships that, come graduation, you'll wonder how you ever lived without. So, leave the stress of grading and exams behind you for a moment (I know from my keyword statistics that these are your principal concerns) and imagine all those people you do not yet have the pleasure of knowing but who you will be spending your next summer holiday getting happily tipsy with. Before jobs and other grown-up things pull a Jonah and the whale on you.