Mid-trip update (WARNING: This post is more boring than usual)

I am finally over the jet lag. It took me a few days but I’m on EST at the moment. Unfortunately I am flying to Seattle tomorrow so it’ll get messed up again. Hopefully it won’t be as difficult when I head back to Tokyo.

Yesterday I went to my third school in a week. It actually wouldn’t have been that bad except yesterday was an all day event. Besides listening to presentations I had to meet and greet dozens of my future classmates. There was a really random situation at lunch. The MC of the day sat down and asked me about my background. It turns out he went to the same undergrad institution as I did. He was a freshman when I was a senior and we had never seen each others faces until yesterday. One girl overheard our conversation and said her brother graduated the same year as me. Her brother was actually some guy I knew very well.

Business schools tend to all have the same marketing plan. They all talk about the world-class education you get but for the most part emphasize the experience working with your fellow classmates at your school. Whether or not they live up to that billing is for the candidate to decide.

When I went to Maryland/Smith’s admitted students day, I got that vibe. It felt like a cult, but in a good way. I had never seen so many people genuinely happy to be affiliated with an institution like that. Whether it was a company, school, or club. They did a great sell job and my interest in the school has certainly spiked. We also saw a professor teach a class. He did an unbelievable job putting the concepts in plain language and got us to work together to solve it.

I am not sure if I got the same feeling at USC. The other candidates I met during the visit did not impress me when I talked to them. Granted it could've been an off day. The student "ambassador" I met, however, was great. The guy was so into USC you would think they make him down a jug of USC kool-aid before he meets prospective students. He is the type of person I want to go to school with.

My visit with Texas was somewhat in between the USC and Maryland visits. The other candidates I met were really smart guys. The current student was also very informative and smart as well. This wasn’t a “welcome day”, it was just a campus visit so I didn’t get the same sell job I got at Maryland. I attended an “Energy Law” class which was interactive, but did have some animated students talking about nuclear power waste. Overall I got a good impression but wish I had the chance to attend one of their admitted students days.

Up next: University of Washington. They have a very small class – around 100 students. The other programs I am applying to have a significantly higher enrollment. The advantages of a small class is that you know everyone. The disadvantage is that you get less opportunity to network. I don’t mind that however, as I don’t really have a problem making those connections outside of school. Hope this will be a good visit.

Eating crabs w/ my boys from growing up. Then the Oscars tonight (sorry I couldn’t think of anything else to write). Should be a chill day.

REVERSE CULTURE SHOCK

I just got to LA this morning. Flew United. They ran out of beer so I tried to drink myself to sleep on wine but it didn’t really work out. It basically means I’ve been up since around 8am Monday morning Tokyo time. It is now noon on Monday… California time. You do the math.

I’ve been living in Japan a long time. Enough that I look right first when I cross the street. Almost got killed today because of that. Luckily I got to the Taco Bell in one piece. There is one about 1000 feet from my motel. And this is the first time I’ve been in a motel since I was a child. This place reminds me of the movie Monster with Charlize Theron. To make matters worse the chain lock on the door is broken. But even if I got it replaced I wouldn’t feel any safer since it was broken last time.

So I’m sitting in Taco Bell (my traditional post-flight meal) I am wolfing down a Chalupa and see two girls sit down. One of them had two tacos on a tray and her friend had 6 tacos on a tray. So I’m thinking to myself wow she can put down tacos like a champ. At which point I notice a car waiting in line for the drive-thru. A couple, the guy is driving. He’s got both hands on the wheel while his girlfriend is feeding him fries. So yeah if you’re following this story correctly, they bought fries and are now in line to get tacos as well. Yes, I am definitely back in the States.

I also had to tip a driver of a shared van that didn’t even put my bag in the car, then told me to pay him in cash after I already pre-paid via the internet.

I think this might be the right time to move back to the States as I am losing touch with what was once normal to me. My buddy DA says that I am going to be the first and only person in my class to drop out of business school to move back to Tokyo. I hope he’s not right lol. But living in Japan for the past 5 years has me convinced that Japanese people are the most normal people on Earth. That is a compliment.

My motel is less than a mile away from the USC campus. I am attending an information session, followed by a class visit and tour. Afterwards I will be interviewing with a “Senior Associate Director”. So far I feel like I have been doing well, or at least as good as I possibly can be at all my interviews. So I won’t change anything. Perhaps I will wear my glasses instead of contacts but that’s about as big as any change will get.

Staying here until Wednesday at which point I will move to Austin, Texas until Friday. Looking forward to going out on a Thursday night in a real college town. Hopefully I don’t end up in the gutter on 6^th street.

I am flying to DC/MD/VA on Friday for Smith/Maryland’s admitted students day on Saturday. Staying till Monday, at which point I will move on to Seattle for a visit to UW. Flying to LA on Wednesday then get on a plane Thursday that arrives in Tokyo on Friday. It’s a lot for 11 days, but pretty important towards my decision and I’m sure their decision about me. Hopefully the people at USC and Texas like what they see.

Leadership

I started reading Leadership by Rudy Giuliani. I have a lot of time on my hands these days and figured it would be a good read going into b-school.

The book is a pretty easy read. To put things in perspective – I NEVER read books. The last book I read was in 2002, and I pretty much read half of Leadership in a day. A lot of it has to do with how he handled the events and aftermath of 9/11. As I was in the city at the time, it is interesting to see how he balanced running the city and not letting his emotions get the best of him. Don’t get me wrong, it was a time where you should show your emotions, but a lot of people looked up to him and he was responsible for getting the city back to normal as quickly as possible. He did a great job in my opinion.

I agree with a lot of the things he says on leadership. For example, one of his principles is to “Always sweat the small stuff.” Basically, it is the manager’s responsibility to know what’s going on with the organization he is running. If he knows why his people is asking him for something, he won’t need them to explain why they need what they’re asking for every time need something. It’s also good to know why an organization does things a certain way. Not everyone will love every aspect of their job, but if they know how it fits into the big picture then it certainly makes it easier for them to bear doing the things they don’t like to do.

Got some good news yesterday – I got into University of Washington Foster School of Business. I guess the admissions director liked what she saw as I was not expecting to hear from them until the end of March. The early notification also bumped up my interest in Foster. Not to say I wasn’t interested (I did in fact apply there), but as I mentioned in my last post - it's nice to feel wanted. After I received word I did a lot of research on living in Seattle. It sounds like a fun town.

So far here’s the tally:

Maryland – IN
Foster – IN
Texas/McCombs – Anxiously waiting to hear from them on a final decision. Should be any day now.
USC – Interview and campus visit on March 2
Hawaii – They never received my transcript so I had to resend it. This was delayed about a week due to the Northeastern snowstorm. Hopefully they received it.
Duke – 95% chance I am getting flat out rejected. No waitlist no nothing.

I will be in the states March 1-11 looking at schools - LA, Austin, College Park, Seattle and back to LA in that order. I didn’t plan on going back again before school started but I anticipate my decision being harder than I initially thought. This trip should make it a little easier.

One last thing, James and I will be doing my last bartending gig at IBEX on Sunday, March 21. Proceeds going to BEER FOR BOOKS charity. Details below. Please stop by. It’s for the KIDS!

Event page here.

When: Sunday, March 21, 2010 at 8:00pm
Where: IBEX Roppongi - ARIES BLD 4F, 3-15-24, Roppongi, Minato-ku
Cost: FREE, 100 yen of each drink will go to Beer for Books charity
Entertainment: DJ spinning R&B/Hip-hop, pole dancers, stud bartenders

Map: http://bit.ly/cpOH9k

Taiwizzle

I’ve been in Taipei since yesterday. Very cool town. If I were to describe it I would say it’s a very toned down China. Same food, but a cleaner place in general. Not as many people yelling in your ear.

Got in yesterday evening and only had time to hit the night market. Okay, maybe they yell at you there, “Irasshaimase!!” Yes, Japanese for me. But the food is great and CHEAP. Today hit the breakfast buffet then prepped for my b-school interview with the University of Washington. Finished that up and came back to the hotel. Jumped on an afternoon tour that ended up being just me. The tour guide was really interesting. His name was “Jack” and he said he was 65 and was a farmer by trade. Dude got sent to the US, which is how he learned English, at the age of 18 in some farmer exchange program. Also ended up going to the Philippines to work on some farms over there. Jack took me to a 5 places in the city including the Chiang Kai-Shek memorial which had a cool changing of the guard ceremony. He also ran into his grandson there. Totally random.

Afterwards I went to dinner with some of old coworkers from my previous company. First time to meet them. Lots of fun and they even bought me dinner. Resting at the hotel at the moment. Possible nightlife run late night.

I had a lot of MBA activity over the last week. Last Friday I had an interview with University of Texas. UT gives you two options – on-campus or off. I interviewed with an alum currently working in Tokyo. He was young (younger than me) and very laid back despite having a CPA and MBA. It was a very casual talk that I think went well. Hopefully that will convince the admissions committee.

That same night I had dinner w/ the Associate Director of Admissions at Maryland/Smith. I’m already in so it was more or less dinner with him giving me more reasons why I should go to his school. The talk went well except the fact that I took him to a restaurant that had really small portions of food. It was nice to feel wanted though. He mentioned that there is an accepted students weekend on March 6 which I am considering going to.

Today I had an interview with the Director of Admissions at University of Washington/Foster School of Business. One thing I’ve learned from experience and all the MBA forums I read is that the admissions staff interviews are much more structured than the interviews with alumni. This was no different. I think I did OK, but I wish I asked more questions at the end of the interview. I asked three and it seemed like an abrupt ending. Hopefully I am wrong.

So here’s the tally at the moment:

Maryland - IN
Texas – Interview finished. Should hear back within a month of February 5.
UWash – Interview finished. The admissions staff said I should hear back right before their self-imposed deadline of March 26, 2010.
Duke – Did not receive an invite to interview and not placed on the waitlist so 80% chance a rejection here.
Hawaii – Got an e-mail last week from admissions saying they didn’t receive my transcript despite all my other transcripts arriving. Asked them to please look again and waiting to hear back.
USC – Still waiting to hear that all my documents have been received. They say they will notify candidates of final decisions by April 1.

Heading back to Tokyo tomorrow. AY’s leaving dinner, glitterball, mom and pop will be in town, bowling party… looks like a busy but fun week.

The beginning of my farewell tour

Welcome to my first official blog entry. I have actually done this before, but in Japanese. It was more of a way to practice the language as opposed to update people on my life.

This time around should be a little different. My life is taking a turn into unknown territory and this is more or less my chance to document it. I will probably have a lot more readers this time around so I hope to keep it as entertaining as possible.

So here's a primer for those that haven't heard or seen me in a while. I'm coming up on my 5th year in Japan. I was teaching English at NOVA from 2005-2007, then went back to my old company in July 2007. That old company decided to close that office in April 2009, leaving me without a seat when the music stopped.

I worked a temp job in May and June 2009, but since then I've just been doing me. Long story short, I went to China for a month, went to the beach and played basketball A LOT, and attended my big brother's wedding. I got back in the middle of October and started my current endeavor of getting into business school.

Took the GMAT in November and got a decent score. Applied to 6 schools all for various reasons - Duke, Hawaii, Maryland, Texas, U of Washington, and USC. So far here are the results:

Maryland - IN
Texas - Interview on February 5
UWash - Interview on Feb 9 in TAIPEI
Duke - Confirmed all documents received. Waiting for an interview invite. Should know by February 3 EST
Hawaii - Confirmed all documents received. Waiting for an interview invite or ding.
USC - All documents submitted. USC is very slow with their response.

It's pretty much a waiting game at the moment. In the meantime, I need to make sure I know why I want to attend the schools I have interviews with.

That's it on the MBA side. My life has slowed down considerably since I got those applications in. Right now I'm doing a few things to pass the time. Hitting the gym and playing lots of basketball. Mom is in town so I'll see her a few times this month. Have to do a few things for my sister's visit to Japan as well. She'll be here the last two weeks in April. Planning a trip back to THE FU with W and A Dubbs. And hanging out, of course.

This jam just came on internet radio. Reminded me of the good old days at GW in Chinatown.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zk0TmajJyZI

That is it for now. I don't really have a timetable as to when I'm going to make entries, but I'll post to facebook when I do.