Rejecting Driven People

As you may imagine, the intake of your average leading international business school comprises of some fairly driven people. The kind that have bitten the whole career thing so hard, and are so absorbed in shaking the living daylights out if in a bid to reach SUCCESS that some people like myself just find them a little bit too overwhelming. Which is brilliant. That's half the reason for going there. But then I don't think I would like to live with people like that. It would all be just a little too much. Splitting the whole work and play thing is important, after all.

Filling a house full of interesting people in such case becomes quite a difficult balancing act. On the one hand you need to make enough noise and make yourself appeal enough to the more laid back group of people. On the other hand, in the rush to secure accomodation the numbers are such that you will get a huge amount of interest from the Driven contingent. You end up playing a tip toe game with people. Personally, I find it very hard to say "No. I don't want to live with you". And I think my housemates also have the same difficulty. So you end up coming with excuses.

But anyways. I digress. I am pleased to announce that we have what a poker player would be delighted with - a Full House. And by golly I think we've done well - they all sound like pretty fab people.

All that leaves is everything else to do logistics wise, which is still a mind blowing amount.

In other news, I got ranted at in French on the phone by some random woman when trying to find out more about car insurance. Annoyingly she refused point blank to keep her rant wording constant when repeating it, thus scuppering any chance of me putting my listening comprehension skills through the repetition machine. I have no idea wha she was saying. Still, it seems one can buy short term car insurance to go over to France, so I can insure a car and buy myself a week to go and get ranted at in person come August. I'm sure once I start waving my arms around the French will suddenly become crystal clear.

Blue Money

Clearly anybody considering splashing out an eye watering sum of money for an MBA owes it as a mark of respect to their savings, prior to obliterating them with a speed which puts Concorde to shame, to at least put some effort in finding some other source of money. Enter the world of scholarships. Where one must write concise essays of why they are possibly better than the rest of all the world, and definitely better than all the other applicants.

I'm not someone who has this philosophy drummed in them outright - and a small part of me is a little bit repulsed by it - I tend to think of it as a little arrogant. But then put some eye watering amounts of money on the table, and small parts of you tend to get ignored quite rapidly.

I hate writing essays like that though - it's not something I do easily, and I find myself spending inordinately excessive amounts of time doing miniscule revisions which in the end probably amount to a practically non existent improvement in quality. Still, for a few EURk, a small amount of effort has to be put in.

I started the whole escapade by deciding I was going to spend a week and not a day more writing essays. Otherwise it just would have taken too long. I picked my 4 scholarships from the A-la-Carte menu INSEAD provides (there's all sorts) and did my best.

I expounded the virtues of wanting to help my home country by starting a business there. I tried to convince people how their scholarship money will play an instrumental role in this. Is it all true? Well, it's a grey truth. Funny how free money changes your perception. I certainly haven't lied. But begging for cash is a tricky task when one has next to no clue what direction their crazy life will judder down in 12 months time. I'm smart enough to know that putting that down in an essay will not make you look like you're the best of the world, or indeed better than all the other applicants.

Imagine my indifference then, when I got turned down by 2 of my 4 applications outright. I was not at all bothered. I don't actually _need_ the money, although I will be left with absolutely nothing at the end of the MBA. Does that count as need? Who knows.

But then one of the scholarships invited me for an interview. All that was revealed to me were the names of the people on the panel. And then Google transformed this list of names into a "Who's Who" of British Aristocracy. People who have achieved tremendous amounts. People who made me feel so small and insignificant to even question my sanity sending the application form in the first place. It was to be a true Blue Blood interview.

The interview itself was incredible, despite lasting a mere 20 minutes. I have always had a certain sense of admiration for aristocracy. Their ability to put someone completely at ease no matter what the circumstance is is incredible. The way they listen when you talk and seem so completely absorbed in what you are saying (even though they can't possibly be as they must have heard the same thing over 10 times already) is captivating. And the intelligent questions they ask in this well thought out manner, and the topics they cover was simply fascinating.

So did I get the scholarship? Well, I don't know yet. But I had a tremendous time in the 20 minute interview. And given that I have no expectations, it will just be a nice bonus which may mean I am under slightly less pressure to find an enormously well paid job come 12 months time. I should know within the week. Fingers crossed.