Here are some random pictures of people, taken a few weeks ago, just to prove that there are other people here. The one on the left features (from left to right) Steffen and Max, both of whom are in my study group. The one on the right features Martin, and a number of other people that are hard to make out. This was lunch on the waterfront on a Saturday afternoon.
I'm back in blog, and I'm baaaaaaaaadddddd. At skiing at Les Diableretes, aka Glacier 3000, which is what I did today. Yes, I went skiing! Hooray. Here's a trail map:
We were mostly up in the Scex Rouge area, which is basically a massive and completely flat area crisscrossed by pomas and t-bars. "This place looks like Belgium." Martin and I scared the bejeezus out of Natalia by taking her on a run down the left side of the map to Oldenalp on the Combe D'Audon, and then from the Oldenegg (yes, these are the real names), we also tried the run down to Reusch. It was like Blue Mountain, but with massive towering rocky faces, fewer runs, and even fewer people. There are actually three runs that aren't blue. Incidentally, the run grading system is different o'er here: blue = easiest, red = intermediate, and black = hard. These black runs were not hard, however. Except inasmuch as they were almost solid ice. Thank goodness the patio at the Scex Rouge was nice, and had a live accordionist. Seriously. Live accordion in the sunshine at 3000 metres -- who could ask for anything more?
Truth be told it was very very fun. I went with Martin, Max, Natalia, and Aoife (p: EE-fa), and through a funny sort of coincidence, the place they wanted to go was the very same Glacier 3000 / Les Diableretes that Laura and I had been to last weekend. Martin has a car here so he drove, which was excellent, and it was much faster to get there (just over an hour) than last week on the train. The road up from Aigle however is really quite something: switchbacks, hairpin turns, no shoulders, fast, long, and torturous. I ate bread (I was hungry) and Natalia hung her head out the window trying not to be sick. I thank the bread for giving my stomach something else to think about. I also thank my head, for being more intelligent last night than I was on Friday night.
Yes, Saturday night at 11:00 pm I was at home reading
Institutional Perspectives on Economic Coordination. It's a feel-good story, in case you hadn't guessed. I hear Hollywood is going to option it.... or was that Bollywood? I'm not sure, but no matter. So, picture me sitting in my living room, listening to the clock ticking in my head, looking at the cool-o-meter sink through the floor, and deciding NOT to go out to yet another birthday-dance-party. Deciding to go to bed early. Deciding to skip even the casual Saturday evening beer or glass of wine. Wow, what self-restraint, you are probably saying to yourselves right now. You might have even called to someone, a significant other perhaps, to comment on how mature I've become.
Well, you'd be wrong, and this
other that you call so "significant" would have wasted their time listening to you. Because the real reason I didn't go out on Saturday was that I was still moderately hung over from Friday. Apparently Friday is when I drink too too much, and Saturday be damned.
The story of Friday is rather a short one. Class all day was group work to complete preparations for, and draft-present, our Industry analysis on the pharmaceuticals industry. Good times. I've learned a lot about Alzheimers... deeeeeepressing. At least we decided against colorectal cancer. There are some small mercies in this world. So anyways, we presented the damn thing (in draft, I remind you) at 1:45, it went off swimmingly, and we were then left to work away the afternoon merging our work with the Disease Management group (not joking). We finished at 8, and much to my chagrin, I hightailed it to catch some other people who were on their way out to dinner at the Pirate (PIRATE = K x CHAGRIN, where K is a positive integer). The Pirate (yar) was substantively better than when Laura and I went ($24 for a wiener, in case you missed that post). This time I had moules frites and they were quite tasty. Right, back to the story. I also had three beers. Then we went en masse to the White Horse, the local pub which is conveniently just around the corner from both my abode and the Pirate, and I lost track of the drinks after that. I recall the lights coming on at the end of the night, I made it home with enough steam to drunk-dial Laura and talk her ear off for a while, and when I woke up on Saturday morning I cursed my 10am meeting and my pounding crashing bashing head and stomach. I hurt just writing this post. Alcohol = poison. If you forget this, you may just find a way to remind yourself.
Anywho, that's my gig. Tomorrow I'm back in the saddle, doing all the work I didn't do this weekend. The tectonic plates are colliding here, and the work mountain is getting higher. I'm in the valley looking upwards. It's going to be a long, hard, lonely winter.
Matt and a girl from New Zealand whose name I don't think I ever caught. Matt is quite possibly the worst karaoke singer I've ever heard.
I don't really know what to say about these cows. That's why I took pictures of them. I think (and really hope) that they are ironic.
These aliens were in the display case beside the cows.
There is a lot of ping-pong playing at lunch. Much hilarity typically ensues, as you can see from the smiles and laughter, I suspect. The tables are stone, all-weather, and it turns out you can actually play ping-pong in a light rain or below zero as long as you're desperate enough.
Lastly, I felt in my last pictures that I didn't go the dessert table justice, so here it is near the start of a meal rather than at its picked-over end. They will refill / replace most of these dishes at least once during the meal. More disturbing is that there is another dessert table at the other, non-MBA student, buffet station, where alternate and additional desserts may be had.
And finally, the cheese table. It's the smallest table, but by my count, they've managed to put 12 cheeses on it, which is more than respectable. Actually, it's disturbing. There's a 12-cheese cheese plate at my disposal at lunch 5 days a week. Bring it on.
