The Chronicles of Cabo: The Wake Up Call

I made the major and healthy decision of not bringing any electronics on this trip and here I am writing this entry on a piece of paper. What a novel idea! Who does this anymore? Who blogs on their paper first? And what would Carrie Bradshaw say? But then again, I'm not writing a column in a newspaper, nor am I talking about sex, so I think this is allowed.

I'm in Cabo right now, on our second night here and since I just got woken up by our new neighbors' loud conversation, I figured I might as well write something. It's 11:30 p.m. and being the wild 29-year old going on 60 that I am, I fell asleep a couple of hours ago. After all, there's only so much swimming, ping pong, and weird cha-cha electric slides I can handle in one day! But I digress. The room we're in is absolutely amazing with one exception: for some unknown reason, there is a door that separates our room from what I believe is a suite. And behind this door, there is... a kitchen! I'm still trying to wrap my head around any possible reason why a 5-star hotel would have a kitchen. And given that between our room and this kitchen there is only a door, we can obviously hear everything! This morning I woke up to the sound of breakfast bowls being thrown on the kitchen table and after the manager assured us that our neighbors would be leaving today and there would be nobody else placed in the adjacent room, surprise, surprise! Guess why I just woke up? We have new neighbors who seem to be amazed at every single applience they see in this kitchen. It must be a cool kitchen!

I found this whole situation amazing, but my husband's fuming and is already on the phone with the manager. Me? I wonder what our neighbors are going to have for breakfast and what time they usually eat in the morning.

P.S. I'm in the hotel lobby right now on the hotel's laptop trying to find the right symbols on this Spanish keyboard, so if there are any typos, blame it on the Spanglish keyboard.

My Daily Lesson and Laugh

I just love, love, love this guy. And this time I'm not talking about my husband. I'm talking about Gary Vaynerchuk, a marketer, businessman, you name it, that has become an internet celebrity lately. Why I love him? He's a little bit over the top, but has an amazing energy, tons of experience, is super creative, and can talk for hours. Plus you learn a lot from him. He's kind of like a Donny Deutsch - another love of mine - on steroids. So if you want to be entertained, but also learn, go to his website. I can only imagine what he would say about this blurb. :)

Tradition... Tradition!

Last night we saw Fiddler on the Roof. It’s only fitting since this is the time to remember our traditions.

For me Christmas means my family all together, the smell of freshly baked sweet bread, carols, and snow. Growing up we only decorated the house for Christmas the week of the holiday. And we were all excited about that. The energy and excitement would build up to that day and then each member of the family took care of their own part of the deal: mom was in charge of the menu, dad would pick the Christmas tree and the kids would decorate it. On Christmas Eve, the whole family would get together and then after dinner, we would all go caroling at friends’ and extended family’s houses until the morning or we would stay home and wait for carolers. Then on Christmas day, the whole family would have lunch together. So for all these reasons, Christmas is my favorite holiday of the year.

Since we got married, I’ve gotten used to a new tradition: Hanukkah (which reminds me, I still need to buy candles.) It would probably not be considered kosher in other households, but in ours the menorah is right next to the Christmas stockings. And we keep both holidays, though my husband does not receive eight gifts. I, on the other hand, might and love every single one of them.

This year is the first time we are not going to be with family for Christmas. We’re going to Cabo and so it made no sense to me to get a Christmas tree. But my husband insisted on getting one, so we did. See? I listen. From time to time. Once the tree was decorated, I started feeling the excitement of the holiday. The smell of pine tree always takes me back to my childhood years and I just love it.

This year is the first time we’re skipping the tradition of being home for Christmas. It surely does not mean we’re starting a new one. We’re just mixing it up.

First Day of Bliss

It’s officially over. ¼ of my degree is done. Finished. Over. Can you tell I’m excited? As you know my now, I’m really enjoying my MBA experience and I am learning a lot. But… three months of non-stop studying, reading, meeting, papering can take its toll. Last night, after two finals on the same lucky day, my husband asked me what I learned after three months. I started telling him about all the knowledge I received. He said, “No, I don’t mean that, I just want to know if there’s any lesson you learned”. I have to admit I wasn’t sure what to say initially. Then I realized that the most valuable lesson I took from these fourteen weeks is to change your teams as often as you can. It might sound counter intuitive and inefficient, but it really helped me get to know a lot of people in my program and learn a lot about different work styles. Working with different people allowed me to go outside the comfort I had with my old team and adapt my work style to the personalities in my new team.

An extension of the lesson I already mentioned is what became my number one rule in working with teams: designate roles within the team. The way I see it you have two choices: play it by ear and just wait for the two, three weeks or whatever time you have assigned for the project and hope that everything will work out, or establish roles from the beginning. This way everybody has a defined responsibility and carries his/her own weight in the team. The one thing that any MBA student hates is having to pick up the slack for one team member that is on permanent holiday or always busy with various commitments. Plus you can’t hold anybody accountable for responsibilities they were never assigned. My various teams and I learned to spend the first meeting discussing the teams’ expectations, goals, and individual responsibilities. This way everybody was on the same page and we were able to spend the remaining time focusing on the project.

As I said though, my one-month of bliss is here. Yesterday was “glued to couch” day! I did nothing productive, wore pajamas all day long, watched TV, and checked my e-mail. (Yes, I had to check my e-mail, I couldn’t help it.) It feels strange not having to be anywhere right now or having to work on a project. But I’m going to enjoy it immensely. Monday will be a different story though. I’ll have to start operation “house de-mess-ification”. There are tens of pairs of shoes lying around, clothes that I haven’t seen in a month, and notes, books, post-its, everywhere. You can see part of it in the attached picture.

Once the mess is gone, I can focus on my plans for this break. One of the things on the list for this month is doing research for a business plan competition my team and I are participating in early next year. Then I’m working on getting some internship interviews, catching up on books that I bought in the past couple of months but never got around to reading, and finally, my husband and I are going to Cabo for seven great days of fun and R&R. I’m really hoping four weeks are going to be enough for all of this.