Easter: Family Dinner; Jeff and Tim's Birthday Party

Although my photographic record presented here might not suggest it, the MBA experience is actually quite academically rigorous. So when the opportunity to relax and get away from it all presents itself, I happily take advantage. (Witness my previous 13 posts).

One such occasion was the Easter long weekend, when I took a 5 day holiday to return to Toronto and Kitchener-Waterloo and pay a long-overdue visit with friends and family.

Highlights included an evening in K-W with the family, where Jen and I reacquainted ourselves with my parents, brothers, in-laws, uncles, aunts, and nieces and nephews. We also managed an epic celebration of Tim and Jeff's birthdays on the roof-top of my former (and hopefully future) apartment building in Toronto.

The roof top party was (I think) the fourth instantiation of our tried and true formula: high energy drinks with 60 of our closest friends before heading to a club at 12:30am. And I dare say that nobody was disappointed with the outcome...with the possible exception of the unfortunate occupants of the penthouse suites one floor below, but unlike prior years, we received no noise complaints (to my knowledge).

Razor and Jeff "Birthday boy" Meister provide hospitality to two of Razor's co-workers

Glenn and Deitra discuss valuation approaches to complex financial derivative products, but do a good job of hiding it.

Fred and Liz enjoy a married couple photo op, while Jeff seems to be losing the interest of his counterparty (to Alex's amusement in the background).

Noel definitively answers the age-old question of how to get to Funky-town.

Razor, Tim and Shakila celebrate with two new-found friends to the left.

Heart-felt birthday wishes are exchanged between the celebrating parties, while Noel dutifully plays witness. Jeff and Glenn dial it up a notch, while Jen patiently tolerates their antics.
Nancy, Saleem, Suni and Glenn take a well deserved break from the get-down happening beside them.
Jen and Shakila engage in what can only be described as "free-style" salsa dancing, while Glenn and Ralf look on unimpressed.
Fred and Liz, relieved after successfully making the dangerous journey all the way from Waterloo.
(Bonus points for participating in a full night of partying, even though they had to head out at the crack of dawn the next morning. Folks who came from abroad at great trouble and expense appreciated it).
It's 2:00 am and Razor and Ralf are tired, but Shakila is just getting started.
Yun, Jen, Shakila and Ralf. In matching blazers, Yun and Ralf are ready to head to the U of T library.
Group photo number 1: A fun loving crowd.
Group shot number 2: Equally fun loving...this time fuelled by fine champange.
In response to widespread concern that champagne might be wasted, Jeff selflessly dispells all fears. Phew!!

Dinner Party #5: April Fools Dinner

As is usually the case, this post is both late, and not in chronological order. But it's here nevertheless. On April 1st 2006, after placing a brief but hilarious happy-birthday phone call to Jeff in Toronto, I hosted 11 of my section-mates to dinner, assisted by John (of course), as well as Clemens Guth.

I won't bore the readership with the details, it went off much like the others: 3 courses, considerable wine consumption, music selection and speakers provided by Alex (in absentia), and great laughs provided by everyone.

Afterwards, we headed up to the rooftop of my building for a party that was already underway, thrown by another section-mate of ours. All things considered, it was a big night.

Also worth mentioning that I imported a Toronto tradition for the first time by hosting 6 people for brunch the following morning. That shall now be a permanent part of the formula...great times.

Mac, myself, and Christine

Andre and Judy chill out after the main course
Dylan turns up the heat on the creme brulee...
...whilst I add the finesse

The Franco-German friendship extends beyond politics as Clemens and Marc help each other digest the succulent meal
There's no end to Marc's bliss as girlfriend Catherine rescues him from Clemens

World MBA Rugby Championships - Duke University, NC

The weekend of April 7th-9th was the much anticipated (and grandly named) "World MBA Rugby Championship", held at Duke University, Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Harvard is always a favourite to win, but we usually seem to run into one of two problems: University College, Dublin (Smurfit School of Business) or the Richard Ivey School of Business (Western Ontario). This year it was Smurfit that knocked us out in the semi-finals, but seeing as they're undefeated in the last 3 years of the tournament (the only years they've participated) we should feel good that we kept them within 3 points, and in fact led most of the game.

A number of questionable calls certainly contributed to the defeat, as did the fact that only a small fraction of their players are actually business school students, though every team has an outsider or two. Great tournament overall though, easily the highest quality rugby we've played all year.

As this tournament was packed into two days, and is the most important of the year, the socializing was kept to a respectably low level. But since that is a relative measure, we certainly managed to get out for a beer or two.

Late night dinner upon arrival in NC. (Individuality is shunned when we socialize as a team). Inevitably, there's a commonwealth table or to. Pictured are Captain Carl "Lavos" Lavin (England), Next year's Captain Flint "Iron Side" McGregor (South Africa), and Sam "Turbo" Gray (England).

[Not pictured: Welsh, Canadian, and Australian players].

The neckties of the HBS RFC.
(Quan Nguyen, Scott Pasquini, me, Saul de La Guardia, Kevin Releford).
Night before the tournament, Rod Thompson and I.
Inevitably, there are a few scrapes... (Oliver Corlette)
...and bruises. (Steve "Winky" Emerson)
Preparing for a line out against a tough Irish squad
Getting a read on the play
Traditional Jersey swapping at the end of the tournament. (Me, Pascal Ambrosie, Chris Webster, Irish girl).
The Yale rugby team.

Spring Break Photos - St. Vincent & The Grenadines

Pre-departure inspection and loading of supplies in St. Vincent.Our Social Chair (Sonia) and Treasurer (Lucy) discuss strategy.

Arriving at Tobego Keys. A tiny, uninhabited island (Morpion) that we have to explore.
Conquoring Morpion.Steak and Garlic Mashed aboard the "Freedom Quest".

The Hearty crew of Freedom Quest.Racing the Betty Blue to the beach on the next island. (We won the 1.5 hour race by about 5 minutes).
One of many fruit stands on Union Island.
Lobster Lunch back at St. Vincent on our last day.
Pirates of the Caribbean The Freedom Quest under sail (taken after the race by thevanquished crew of Betty Blue)
Reading cases at 6am outside the St. Vincent Airport. (A low point on our caribbean adventure).

A 5 hour layover in St. Maarten is passed easily at poolside, at the club "Bliss".
Our plane arriving in St. Maarten. (Why is the runway right beside the beach?)

Spring Break Sailing Trip: St. Vincent & The Grenadines

As I notice the tan starting to fade from my tremendously successful sailing trip two weeks ago, I realize that it's time I made a posting about it. In my defence, I was waiting for our boat's photo-swapping session (since I took very few) but as it's taking a while to actually happen, I figure I'd better get someting up, then maybe add more pictures later.

We left Boston at 6:00am Saturday, March 18, and returned Sunday, March 26 at 11:00 pm. I mention these times because they give you some indication as to the (in)convenience of our flights...indeed we required 4 seperate flight segments to arrive at St. Vincent, and 5 to get back to Boston.

Besides the transit however, the trip was awesome. My boat consisted of Anne-Gaelle, a girl from my section, Sonya Thomas...a girl I met through some ice-breaker activities during the first week, and three others I hadn't met (Luke Ingles, our Aussie skipper and a stand up guy all round, Lucy Chen, Luke's friend and section mate, and Lorena Droba, Sonya's section mate). Happily, our boat meshed really well socially, and we spent a lot of time laughing, sometimes even at my jokes and general tom-foolery.

At a great bar on Mustique, Sonya talked me into doing a karaoke version of "Copacobana" by Barry Manilow (it was an easy sell) and we surprised ourselves at how (frighteningly) natural we're able to sing that song. We had more fun than the audience.

On a typical day, we sailed a good 4-5 hours, usually around mid-day to afford a leisurely breakfast before setting sail, and allowing us to get into our next harbour nicely in advance of sunset. Then we'd either prepare a meal on-board (we were nicely provisioned, and had a gas stove as well as a charcoal bbq) or would go ashore and try a local restaurant.

There were 5 other HBS boats in our group, so there was a healthy amount of socializing on the boats and the establishments on land, providing a good opportunity to meet new people and mix up the group from time to time.

Roughly, our route was as follows (each transit representing a day, except for Bequia, which was two):
St. Vincent --> Mustique
Mustique --> Tobago Cays
Tobago Cays --> Mayreau
Mayreau --> Bequia
Bequia --> St. Vincent

On our off day at Bequia, we decided to race another boat of first year students to a nearby beach...roughly 1.5 hours away. They had a larger boat and a professional skipper, so they gave us a 10 minute advantage. It was a ton of fun, and Luke was great with the tactics and the fine tuning of the sails. Meanwhile, the benefit of having had the girls go through tacking and jibing the day before really paid off, and we beat the other boat by a good 5 minutes.

Of course, out boasting was well out of proportion to the significance of the victory, but we considered it an extension of the team building exercise.

I should also mention that we fancied ourselves a Pirate ship, with the entire crew decked out in bandanas and eye patches. Another HBS boat had the odassity to fly the Jolly Roger, so after several bottles of wine one evening, we convinced ourselves that we'd better steal it and fly it on the true pirate ship. We stole over in our dinghy just past midnight, and I attempted to climb over the side of the boat. After several unsuccessful attempts, Luke pointed out that right beside me was the bathing ladder; an observation that greatly expedited the mission.

So despite the punishing flight schedule (4 flights down, 5 flights to get back to Boston) it was a sensational trip, and I'm seriously considering doing it again next year.