Summer of 2008

Number of Countries visited: 5

1. Sweden
2. Denmark
3. United Kingdom
4. France
5. India
   

Number of days in each country

• Sweden: 5
• Denmark: 5
• United Kingdom: 45
• France: 3
• India: 11

Number of days in Singapore: 8

Number to airports travelled through: 6

1. Schiphol airport, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2. Arlanda airport, Stockholm, Sweden
3. Københavns Lufthavn airport,Copenhagen, Denmark
4. Changi airport, Singapore
5. Chattrapathi Shivaji International airport, Mumbai, India
6. Heathrow airport, London, United Kingdom

Number of flights taken: 8

1. Singapore - Amsterdam
2. Amsterdam - Stockholm
3. Copenhagen - Amsterdam
4. Amsterdam - Singapore
   
5. Singapore – Mumbai
6. Mumbai – London
7. London – Mumbai
8. Mumbai – Singapore

Courses cleared: 3

1. BSM Scandinavia at SMU
2. Business development and ICT Innovation at LSE
3. E-business in the Digital Age at LSE

Friends made: Countless

Memories created: Priceless

It was a memorable summer. It was the best one of my life so far. A wonderful to way to spend my last summer as a student.

End of "Calm before the storm"

So it is 1st of June 2008 today, the start of yet another month.

The onset of June also means that tomorrow morning is my first exam.. I am not entirely nervous. But the fact that I am not nervous is making me slightly nervous. Crazy am I not?

At this point of time I am just desperately praying for my 4 exams to go smoothly and get over fast! Though not that fast that I don't get enough time during the exam itself.. If you know what I mean. Anyways I can't wait to officially get done with 3rd year at SMU. I will be just 1 year away from graduation. That in itself is another bittersweet event creeping into my life.

However before that I have many other things to look forward to. The 1st of which is my BSM to Scandinavia!! *wooohoooo* Less than a week now. I am so excited. I have finally opened up my suitcase and starting thinking of what all I want to bring with me to the other side of the globe. That brings me to the highly intriguing fact that I seemed to have misplaced 1 pair of shoes and my brand new deck of UNO cards in the house! I am totally baffled. I just hope I can find the UNO cards before Saturday as I want to have the safety of UNO cards to keep me entertained on the Scandinavia trip.

Anyways as the title of this post says, I am bracing myself for the storm to hit tomorrow at 9am. Wish me luck! Hopefully I will survive and be back to blog about my survival stories :D

Let me leave with this group photo of the BSM group with the Danish ambassador. It was taken when she visited us during 1 of our seminars.

Singapore, Modern while Asian

This is the video my group mate and I prepared to introduce Singapore to the Scandinavians. We choose the theme of 'Modern while Asian' for our video. This was to reflect and emphasis an aspect of Singapore we feel the Scandinavians might not know about. Do check out this video and leave your comments and suggestions!

Taste of Scandinavia in Singapore

So today officially marks the end of the pre-trip preparatory classes. Over the course of these classes we had 3-4 guest speakers, visited 3 companies, 2 presentations and 2 out-of-class gatherings. All in all it has been a nice introduction to all things Scandinavian.

The out-of-class gatherings have been the most fun!
The first one we went for was the Young Scandinavian Professionals networking session at Indochine (Clark Quay). It was a nice relaxed evening with drinks, classmates and young professional Swedes. I not only got to learn more about Scandinavia, I also got to know my fellow BSMers. I personally felt that that was the most important take-away of that evening. After the networking session we went for the Lifestyle Launch party at Barfly. There our group got photographed by the magazine photographer and we got our 5 seconds of fame :)

Our next out-of-class outing was a dinner reception at the Swedish ambassador's house. Now I have to tell you he has the most beautiful, breath-taking house I have ever seen in Singapore! Once again the evening was lovely. Mingling with the ambassador, his beautiful wife, some other Swedish people, Tom (our prof) and fellow BSMers was a needed change from the hectic schedule I have been having. Most importantly I got to wear my little black dress again after my birthday!


Anyways after hearing just how wonderful Scandinavia is, I am really excited about finally going there. Good thing too cause only 9 days are left! Just wish I didn't have 4 exams before that...

The countdown to the awesome summer has begun!

30 days from today for me to fly off to Scandinavia..

I am still overwhelmed at the thought of going to Sweden and Denmark. Each time I go for a BSM class it seems more and more real. I am getting really excited. The trip is not a simple tourist trip, it us a business study mission. We will be making company visits and be required to keep a daily journal to be handed in at the end of the trip. That sure brings some pressure along on the trip. But well no complains as I still get to travel extensively.

During the classes and via a lot of literature, I have gotten to know more and more about Scandinavia. Scandinavian culture, weather, food and lifestyle is so vastly different from what I have been exposed to living in India and Singapore.

I will be there during the summer time. For them summer means highest temperature of 20deg C and 18 hours of daylight in a day! The Scandinavian region is also known to be very windy as it is very high up north in the world. That explains the long-long summer days as well. This also means that even in summer some regions experience snowfall..

Food wise it is so different. The common meat is pork. Beef is considered the rich man’s food while chicken is rare! Potatoes are very common though fish is the most abundant. The fish is usually pickled with the most varied of ingredients. I’m actually considering going vegetarian for the 10 days I will be there.. Oh and they like their food salty. That goes for their candy as well! Their water is supposed “to be the best water in the world”, in the words of a Swede. So yup looking forward to tasting their water.

We’ll be staying at 3 different hotels. 1 in Stockholm for 4 days, 1 in Almhult for a day and 1 in Copenhagen for 5 days. In between we will be travelling all around these cities in chartered bus. It is going to quite the adventure. I just wish I had better company along with me on the trip. Good company is integral to having the maximum fun out of a trip anywhere!

Some photos of Denmark

Some photos of Sweden

All set for summer 2008

Dear Charu Srivastava
I am delighted to welcome you to the LSE Summer School. The attached file contains the text of the offer letter from the Summer School which will be posted to you shortly. If you have any questions about the offer, invoice or other aspects of the Summer School, please contact us (summer.school@lse.ac.uk).

Lyndon McKevitt
_____________________________________________________________________

Dear BSM Scandinavia candidate,

I’ve had a rough two weeks agonizing over whom to include/exclude for the BSM Scandinavia. Because of so much interest, I’ve upped the numbers to 12 guys and 16 gals. Even after increasing the numbers, I still had to turn some down. But you are among those selected to go. Congratulations!

To confirm your participation in this BSM, please see Amber at the General Office, Level 5, LKCSB, sometime between February 18 and February 22. Bring with you a non-refundable deposit of $500 either in cash or in cheque (made payable to SMU). If you do not make payment by February 22, I’ll be giving your spot to an alternate candidate.

Know that costs for the trip at this point total $3200 – this amount includes airfare, hostel and hotel accommodation, and a good part of our transport costs (and even breakfast on several days!).

Regards,

Tom Estad