End Game for Term 2: We’ve Almost Earned the “M” in MBA

We’re now in the last week of Term 2, with only one more week to go before a three week hiatus for the holidays. I am sooooo looking forward to that! It was a un-typical Saturday today, as family and other activities took precedence over WEMBA: woke up at 7:30am to study OPIM, 9am conference call with study group on HW4 for stats, then off to buy a Christmas tree with my daughter, lunch, and her kindergarten Christmas program and dinner with the in-laws. Total studying time: an hour an a half. Shoot, I was hoping to do one of those Macro practice finals today. It'll have to wait until tomorrow I guess. It's pretty hard to study during this time of year.

There’s still a whole lot of Macroeconomics and Operations Management left to cram for though. And the Statistics HW4 to finish off. (My study group dropped it like a hot potato once Waterman said that we got an extension until this upcoming weekend.) We have almost earned the “M” in MBA at the 1/3 point in the program. It is flying by!

While I'm at it, here’s some pics from last week’s wine tasting:

I just got my Leadership essay back in the mail today, which explained the grade I saw posted on the transcript website. The distribution for the final was pretty tight, between 36 and 39, with a 37.3 average. Lesson learned: don’t write essays in pencil! Pen is much faster.

Looks like there’s a bunch of social activities just around the corner:

• Avery, Loren, Mallika, and Jenn are hosting a Wharton West Christmas Party on Sat 12/17 at Avery’s firm in SF after we finish exams. Should be fun!

• Nichole is hosting a Christmas party up in Hercules on 12/23. Sounds great, especially the hot tub, but I’m gonna miss it.

• Sam is planning a Wharton West Vegas Weekend between Term 3 and Term 4, after we’re half finished with the program. If you are interested, fill out the Surveymonkey today. Sounds like WEMBA East32 isn’t going to make it out West to join us, which is a bummer.

It is also Playoff Time for the Wartun32 Fantasy Football League. Yours truly and the other fantasy football addicts in our class just finished the regular fantasy season last week in NFL Week 13, with first-timer and rookie Nihal leading the league. This has been a weird season; lots of injuries and surprises. If someone is able to figure out a regression model for FFB that explains even 25% of the variability, I'm all ears. But it's been great to have something to talk about besides academia, and it’s been pretty funny to see how many Portugese team names we had after Brazil won for our international trip!

Here’s the regular season standings:

1. The Cats 11-2-0 .846 1441.90 W-2 8 8 (Nihal)

*2. 4th Place 10-3-0 .769 1525.80 W-8 11 69 (Loren)

*3. Quem é seu pai? 8-5-0 .615 1536.30 W-4 2 3 (Robert)

*4. Gravitas 7-6-0 .538 1445.30 W-1 3 19 (Mark)

*5. Hail Mary 7-6-0 .538 1410.75 W-1 10 32 (Richard)

*6. Rock This Planet 7-6-0 .538 1398.65 L-2 12 17 (Ron)

7. 0 points for bw??? 6-7-0 .462 1435.35 L-1 6 13 (Azar)

8. It is Finished! 6-7-0 .462 1401.60 W-2 7 24 (Bolaji)

9. Wharton Westside 5-8-0 .385 1376.05 L-1 9 14 (Adam)

10. Game Balls 5-8-0 .385 1286.05 L-5 5 13 (Guru)

11. Wheel Wold 5-8-0 .385 1275.95 L-2 4 24 (Frank)

12. Victory Feast 1-12-0 .077 1091.75 L-12 1 10 (Clay)

Quarterfinals are NFL Week 14, and feature the following matchups:

Week 14:

Gravitas versus Hail Mary

Quem e seu pai versus Rock This Planet

The Cats and 4^th Place are on bye…

We’ve also got a “Toilet Bowl” for the bottom six teams, and here are the matchups for the bottom bracket:

Here's the Toilet Bowl seedings:
Week 14:
Byes: 0 points for BW, It is Finished
Victory Feast at Wharton Westside
Wheel World at Game Balls

(If you are a U$C fan, keep on reading right here!) Oh yeah, and I gotta send a shot out to my UCLA Bruins. It’s a great time to be a Bruin, with the football team knocking ex-#2 arch-rival USC out of BCS national championship contention last week, and with the basketball team racking up a #1 hoops ranking. Did I mention that I was right behind the bench for the UCLA versus Georgia Tech basketball game at the Maui Invitational over Thanksgiving? It was sweet!

Here's what the view was like from my seats. It was pretty cool to hear Howland coach the team’s defense, which finally has caught up with all the offensive talent we’ve had over the years. And this has resulted in a #1 ranking in both the AP and ESPN/USA coaches polls. Should be a great time for March Madness….back to studying…see you all in a week.

-R