At HEC Paris, mvlti svnt vocati, pavci vero electi!

Friday, December 29, 2006

A trip to Jouy, Versailles...and basic needs

As we now have a car, we drove to Jouy en Josas for a look around, to sign the contract for the house and to register the car in its new home department for which we had to drive to the Prefecture in Versailles. The house turned out to be quite nice (perhaps even underserving of an MBA student), in a lovely setting overlooking the forest, with daylight flooding the rooms and a huge basement where I can anticipate a few MBA parties! :-) The only hiccup is the slope of the driveway which is rather steep for us to comfortably drive up a car (ah yes, the rent is just as steep!). But, the garden in front of the house makes up for this and I anticipate a few football games with my son in the summer when the sun is out and shining. Time permitted, of course! But then, should one not always have time for one's family? Ain't that the essential message of work-life balance? Let's just wait and see.

Just in case the other half decides to use the car and not the RERs to go to work, I have negotiated a deal with her - who else - to borrow her old bike. After a good pressure wash, and proper air drying, and some sprays of the French version of WD40, it is all ready to speed up and down the hills of Jouy. It is a race bike and the brakes are not positioned where I would like them to be so don't be surprised if you hear of an MBA student from HEC falling off his bike and landing in a hospital! Journalist would die to be able to predict news in such manner! As for Jouy, it is a small town with enough shops and amenities to meet the needs of its small population of inhabitants. I would prefer to live where my wife will work, which we also visited, as it is closer to Paris central, and appears a lot livelier than the quiet, scenic, and mellowed sorroundings of Jouy. Of course, the setting in Jouy is perfect for intellectual enlightenment and for pushing the boundaries of one's knowledge frontiers - we will see about this too. A livelier sorrounding may offer the temptations of the 'devil' at work to distract oneself from the pursuit of an extravagant MBA. Extravagant you ask? Well, HEC Paris, being a part-publicly funded school, is very reasonably priced (Euro 38000 for tutition fees) in comparison to some of the other schools in Europe (don't even mention American schools where 38000 in any existing currency is pittance) but money is money and, as my mother would say, it does not happen to grow on trees. The cost and the value you get out of it, and attending a top international program, are some reasons for doing an MBA from HEC Paris. So, if you are planning on applying, take these into account. But, as HEC Paris gets more popular and its brand name becomes the lingua franca of every MBA aspirant around the world, I see the cost going up. I would love for HEC Paris to prove me wrong! So would you, future MBA. :-)

Alor, I have also found out, thanks to the very efficient HEC intranet for MBA admits, that I have to take a Test d’Evaluation de Français as soon as we start. Seven years of visiting France on and off and attending French classes here and there, I can assure you, have not prepared me for this. I am going to be stumped as if I were Warne's 700th wicket. I can get a hair cut and order a baguette a la boulangerie but, hey, I am not sure if I am ready to negotiate deals in French yet. So I go to HEC!

That's all for today...and I end with a couple of pictures; the house and the cycle. I will create an album on Jouy en Josas later. I have also noticed that active bloggers tend to hibernate once they start school and, hopefully, I won't be one of them but if I do I am just fitting into the crowd. :-) And, you will pardon me!

Picture below is that of our house - invert the image if you are really keen to see it in full glory.

And the cycle...

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