Getting the First Offer

The day after hiking in the Wichitas I received an early Christmas present when the consulting company I interviewed with in San Francisco called to give me an official offer. It was the biggest relief of 2010, because after 6 months of job searching, more than 50 interviews, many rejections and and countless hours of frustration, I knew that I had at least one good job prospect no matter what else happened. The people I had met with in San Francisco all seemed really great, and the work would have been very interesting, but I wasn't super excited about moving back to California because I had already lived there and because the whole goal of going to an MBA abroad was to get a job abroad.

However, I got to relax for a few days and enjoy the wonderfully warm Oklahoma December (75 degrees!) before getting back to business to continue following up on other job leads.

Hiking in the Wichita Mountains, Oklahoma

Although the majority of Oklahoma is flat, if you drive an hour and a half southwest you come to the Wichita mountains, some of the oldest mountains in the world. Now they are more like overgrown hills because they've been eroded over millions of years, but the most impressive area is Elk Mountain, which is an entire mountain made up of boulders.

My good friend Shawn and I decided to go hiking there a few days after I arrived back in Oklahoma, on a beautiful sunny day that hit 70 degrees only a few days before Christmas. Shawn is well known among our friends for bypassing the trail and instead heading straight up the mountain, climbing and jumping from boulder to boulder. Going hiking with him is more like going mountain climbing, but without ropes, and it's scary, exhilirating, and challenging, and a true total body workout.

The views at the top were well worth it, and we even spotted a buffalo way off in the distance.

The Perils of Flying Back to the US

On my last night in Switzerland, post move out inspection, a big group of us went ice skating near the Olympic museum in sub-freezing weather, then had one last Swiss fondue dinner and said goodbye for the dozenth time.


Instead of flying directly home I was flying the next day to San Francisco for an interview with a consulting company, before flying on to Oklahoma City for the holidays. 
Since I was officially homeless I spent the night at my friend Stephanie's house and we talked until after midnight. Then I got caught up on all my emails and made further arrangements for staying in San Francisco. I finally got in bed at 1:30 and had to get up at 6:30, which came too early. As it happened Stephs water heater broke the night before so after the first 15 seconds my shower turned unexpectedly ice cold. I had to heat up water in the electric kettle and bring it into the shower to splash on myself in between gasps for air while rinsing under the cold tap. My head hurt from too much beer at ice skating, my wrist and elbow were badly bruised from my only fall ice skating while trying to do a spinning trick, and Steph is the only girl I know who doesn't own a hair dryer, so my morning was not going well.

Steph dropped me off at the train station and ran home to clean her apt before her own exit inspection. I lugged my 4 bags up to the platform just as the train was arriving and was at the back of the line to board. After struggling to get my bags up the stairs I realized I was trapped among 3 other travelers in the bicycle and baggage hold because all of the seats on the train were full. As I bent down to pull my bags into a more organized collection I was walloped in the bridge of the nose by a womans laptop bag as she turned around suddenly. The pain was sharp enough to bring tears to my eyes and all of a sudden the collective events of the morning overwhelmed me and I was fighting unsuccessfully to hold back hot tears of frustration.

Things got marginally better when I arrived at Geneva airport because there were trolleys available right on the platform and I was able to load up my bags into a more manageable transportation method. Once I was checked in my only lingering consternation was my backpack, which, with carrying my laptop, 2 large coffee table books, and an enormous stack of administrative papers, topped out at nearly 20 pounds, and my stubborn headache, that made every step excruciating.

I stopped into a shop that seemed to sell travel items such as headphones, neck pillows, travel mugs, and small gadgets, and the like, and inquired of the salesclerk if she had any headache medicine (Avez-vous quelquechose  pour un mal-a-tete?) At first she started off very Swiss and said, "no of course I don't, this is not a pharmacy" (silly me), but then she relented and went to her purse where she took out a small pouch filled with her own reserve of medicines brought from home. She popped out one large white pill with a name I didn't recognize and handed it to me, but my head hurt too much to care about technicalities and I downed the pill with gratitude.

Once on board and in flight the flight attendants told us to lower our shades so that people could take a nap, but this was a daytime flight and we would be arriving in Washington DC in the middle of the afternoon, so I suspected it instead was a trick to encourage passengers to sleep so they wouldn't be so needy and the flight attendants could have a more peaceful working day.

My headache returned and I thought once again, as I have many times over the last year, that I couldn't wait to return to the land of cheap and easily accessible ibuprofen.

We landed in Dulles 1 hr and 10 min early because of unseasonably strong tailwinds, but as we got off the plane and rounded the corner for immigration my heart sank because there were no fewer than 500 people in line ahead of me. After 45 minutes of semi-delirious swaying while trying to maintain my balance with my 20 lb backpack I made it through the line, where the immigration officer told me "welcome home."

I ran immediately to a newsstand where I bought two gossip magazines and the latest Discover (100 Top Science Stories of 2010, always the best issue of the year) and then walked 20 minutes to get to my gate in the next concourse. As I approached my gate I reached for my IPhone and discovered in was not in any of the usual places in my pocket or purse. Panic set in as I threw down my bags and rummaged through everything I had with me. No phone. Definitely no phone. 



I ran back along the concourse frantically trying to remember any place I had stopped. I ran to the customer service counter because I had asked for a seat reassignment from them. They didn't have my phone but a very nice United Airlines woman asked me for my phone number and called my phone from her phone. Lo and behold someone answered it, but the connection was too bad and neither person could understand the other. She hung up and called back again but this time no one picked up. I went from hopeful to miserable, thinking that someone had realized they could get away with it. The United Airlines woman told me to go back to the newsstand because probably they had it. I was extremely doubtful, but obeyed, and when I arrived and announced that I had been there a few minutes before the cashier said "yes, I remember you, here is your phone."  I could have kissed her.


After I returned to my gate I bought a lovely fountain soda to calm down and sat there thinking that all I wanted was to get home. Instead I had another 6 hours of flight and a full day of interviews to go. 

Moving out of Switzerland

During the first week of December, as I began to pack up my apartment, I realized I was sad to go. I finally really liked my little apartment, and I had finally formed a really strong bond with the many students who were my neighbors.

I felt a wave of sadness when I turned off my refrigerator Sunday morning to let it defrost before the cleaners came Monday morning.The last things left were a stick of butter, a half eaten block of gruyere, four jars of jam, 3 eggs, a carton of orange juice, and, fittingly, a can of heineken and a bottle of litchi champagne.


The apartment was furnished, so it still seemed full even though most of my stuff was gone. But the last few days of getting my apartment packed up were very depressing. When I'm by myself for that many hours with no reason to interact with the world I start closing in on myself.


However, I couldn't wait for $2 beers and $3 hamburgers. For the faces of my oldest and most trusted friends and the familiar sights of our favorite hangouts. For the comfort of waking up to coffee aromas and dishes clinking gently in the kitchen. I couldn't wait to bake Christmas cookies and hear Christmas music in every store. To see the salvation army bell ringers smiling merrily in the freezing cold. For taco bell, for classic 50s, for pancakes and bacon at a diner, for tex-mex, for people who know what "please make it spicy" means, for real fountain soda, for ice in my drinks, and waiters who aren't surly and will try to do a good job in the hopes of more money. For movies in English with no annoying subtitles. To be around friendly strangers who think nothing of telling you their life story while waiting in line at the supermarket. I couldn't wait to wrap Christmas presents and give the gifts I'd accumulated for people throughout the year.

One day, when I was out buying Christmas presents, I asked the sales clerk why one version of an item was on sale, (quel est le raison pour le prix special?) and she replied, "because it's less expensive than it used to be". This was such an idiotic yet logical response (so very Swiss) that I decided it wasn't worth my time to explain what I really meant.


On December 14 when I had my exit inspection for my move out, I wasn't sure what to expect. My friends who had already had theirs said sometimes it took 5 minutes and other times it took an hour. Mine lasted an hour and a half, because the agency insisted on looking through every item on the furnished list to verify it it was really there. We ended up in a short argument about several things, including 2 missing teaspoons, but since I was never given the list of items when I moved in I argued that I could not have possibly known that there should have been 6 teaspoons instead of 4. She also accused me of drilling holes in the bathroom tiles since they had never been marked as a defect on her previous sheet, but when I pointed out to her that there was absolutely no reason why I would have been drilling holes and leaving them exposed, she relented in a huff, but I was obviously not on her good side anymore.

Graduation and Graduation Ball

We officially graduated from IMD on December 3rd, with a morning ceremony in the school's largest auditorium. The graduation speaker was Bill Roedy, the CEO of MTV Networks International, and his speech focused on always pushing for what you want to do, pursuing your dream. We each got to walk across the stage as our name was called to receive our diploma and gifts from the university.

The graduation ceremony was followed by the graduation ball in the evening, which turned out to be the party of the year. The event was organized exclusively by the students, but paid for by IMD, and we rented out the grand ballroom of The Palace hotel in central Lausanne, generally considered to be the best or 2nd best hotel in the city. It was a formal event, complete with tuxes and ball gowns, or the option of wearing traditional ceremonial dress from our respective countries.

The ball started at 7pm with cocktails, continued with dinner at 9pm, and was interspersed with "Oscar" awards and singing and dancing performances put together solely by the students and partners. The Oscar awards included awards such as "Best Actor and Actress in a Leading Role" (the students who created the most lasting memory in our minds), "Best Costume Design" (the student who had the most outrageous fashion during the year), and "Best Director" (our favorite professor).

I performed in three acts, first singing "You've Got a Friend" while Thom played guitar, then doing a choreographed pop dance with my classmates Juliet and Bei, and then singing with our "IMD choir" Shoshaloza and We Are the World.

The performances were followed with dancing, and although the party was scheduled to end by 4am at the latest, we were surprised to discover that when they finally kicked us out it was nearly 6am! (Meaning the party lasted nearly 11 hours, and that we danced continuously for more than 7 hours).

It was a fantastic end to an intense year, and none of us wanted it to end.

Thanksgiving in Switzerland

The 6 other Americans in my MBA class and I decided we wanted to celebrate proper Thanksgiving, complete with actual turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans, and cranberry sauce. The American Thanksgiving holiday is, of course, not a holiday in Switzerland, so we had to make elaborate plans for getting all the food we needed cooked in time for an evening meal even though we had to be in class for 8 hours that day.

The various necessary ingredients were remarkably hard to find there. We had to order a turkey a week in advance from a specialty shop and the largest size they could come up with was 5 kilos, or around 11 lbs, with which we needed to feed 12 people (the 7 of us plus friends and family).

George and his fiance Anali had offered to host, but their oven didn't work, so I volunteered mine, but we couldn't figure out how to baste it if we were all at school all day, until my classmate's partner, Craig, who lived directly above me, agreed to stop down to my place every half hour to check on it. Pre-made cubed stuffing was not available, so I bought baguette bread and dried it in the oven, then crumbled it into bits and mixed it with onion, celery, and chicken broth. Gravy, mashed potatoes and green beans were fine, but Nicki, who was in charge of cranberry sauce, could not locate cranberries anywhere in Lausanne, so she had to improvise with frozen mixed berries and cranberry juice, but her creation was fantastic and could have fooled the best of us.

Our resident technical expert Nick streamed in American football, which we projected onto the wall, and it felt like a true American celebration. It was one of the most fun Thanksgivings I've had, and we even got the first snowfall of the year that night, with massive fluffy flakes falling before turning to water in the street.