Mihkel
To there and beyond
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Tuesday 05 Jun 2007
That’s the way ah-ah-ha-haa WE LIKE IT!
It has been very productive times.
I can’t quite figure it out yet if it’s more fun than work or more work than fun.
Need to give it a deeper thought… When I find out I’ll let you know!
Meanwhile some of it documented here (click them for more!):
Sunday 13 May 2007
Tempo magnifico
Days just vanish and weeks fly by faster than Ferraris. Still, atmosphere is much more relaxed than the last term. People realize that this is the last term of that fairy-tale and try to take things more easy. Many already have jobs, even more are close enough and the rest have understood by now that they will be well off in any case.
There’s a lot of sports going on. Just recently we had a varsity day with Cambridge MBAs. Lovely weather, Oxford won by mountains and huge party took the day together - everything exactly as it should be.
Next weekend about hundred of us are going to Paris for the Olympic Games for all the Business Schools in Europe. Apparently this weekend with 1000 MBAs from all over is one of the highlites of the whole course. And the parties - they just keep coming on here!! In light of that, the schoolwork is not that much less than previously. I will be hit with deadlines pretty-pretty bad in few weeks time…
Will keep you posted how it goes.
Thank You family for coming over - was so nice to see you here in Oxford!!!
Monday 16 Apr 2007
Half-way
Must say, the second term in school was quite a tough cookie to bite. It was just all over and everywhere, 13 weeks non-stop marathon. Very useful exercise to practice meeting deadlines.
The lectures session flew by with 24 assignements in 8 weeks and people were surprised that they already had to present their Entrepreneurial Project in week 9. Then the exam study week was suddenly there. After the week of exams and the following party was over, we were caught off by the fact that we still have 3 assignements to go…
Believe me, I was rather wasted when I flew back home after that. Clearly, if you still have your whole life there as well, certain things pile up over the months and then you have your 2 weeks of vacation to sort them out.
My break this time was the 3 days in my summer house where I went to sauna more than three hours each day and refreshed myself in the 4 degrees Celsius river. On those blessed days I spent only 2 hours in Excel 
Seriously, in a way it is walking on the edge. But if you know that and manage it carefully it is the best way to go. For me at least. For now at least. Eating only good healthy food and regular physical exercise - two extra life-saving bonus-skills that the Oxford experience has so deep-rooted in me that I can hope to never ever leave them again.
Is Oxford what you expected it to be? How is it?
Got that one over and over again when I was now back in Estonia for two weeks. Well yes. I came here for intensive experience. Hard work, hard party, pushing my limits in every frontier. I got it.
The town is a fairytale, the school is cool and classmates are the best of everything. After the last term proved the value of Oxford name in entering new industries with a start-up, it would be just utterly irresponsible to complain about anything.
Sometimes I keep surprising myself how cheesy I can be…
But, at least so far, that IS life in 2006/7 for me in the town of Oxford.
Wednesday 21 Feb 2007
Back in business
The warranty took 14 days, *thank you* HP….
I posted new pics here
Lot of things need to be done. Ciao for now!
Song of the day: Queen - Don’t Stop Me Now (lyrics)
Wednesday 07 Feb 2007
*Full* capacity utilization
So it is. It doesnt take too much imagination to fill up the remaining 1,8 hours a day that I still seem to have some short term control over of. Busy as hell, first term doesn’t even come close. Salsa and yoga lessons that I barely managed to start I had to quit already.
It has been quite a ride. Overriding theme is Entrepreneurial Project that we have to submit in the end of this term. Our project is to evaluate size and attractiveness of market opportunities that eye tracking technology creates in online market research. Doesnt say much? I concur. Came across the concept myself first time only few months ago. But now I’m ALL into it. Last week our team had a most useful (and not a bit less fun 
) visit to the world leader of eye tracking technology in Stockholm. Its now all up to us to put together a great and useful project….
OK, looking forward to polish up this post sometime soon. Lot of pics and thoughts I would like to share, but one of the ‘divine interventions’ in the project is that the keyboard of my laptop has stopped working. Need to give my baby to HP warranty for 7 days tomorrow morning, how am I gonna survive this distant relationship!?!? In other eye tracking related ‘revelations’ I had my first ever eye stye, the inside version. Those 3-4 days were torture… And I also want to talk to you of speaking to machines as opposed to people and the whole small vs big issue, but its 2am again and I got to go to get my 5,5 hours of sleep. Thanks to Sergo! I have now been officially visited in Oxford. (pictures)Talk to you later!
Wednesday 10 Jan 2007
Ready for another go
Incredible holidays!!! Those few weeks were everything they needed to be. 
Exactly the kind of restless rest I was looking for. Like always, my plan to greet this New Year in peace failed miserably. Ended up in the part of Mexico 180 km south of Tallinn. Luckily so. It was really good fun as among other things we (re)discovered with my highschool friends the long lost talent of singing each and every random song from the head. Loudly, of course. Until sunrise, once again.
And then the trip to French Alps together with 10 MBA-s practically the following day: super-awesome! Perfect weather, chalet of our own with the chef, incredible nature, fantastic company, funny games - couldnt ask for anything more! I was also most satisfied with my first ever appearance on the slopes, I actually managed those days without any considerable fall-down. Longest track had 1,3 km difference in altitude and the snow conditions were perfect. I LLLoved this stuff!
Today was the first schoolday. Picked up my course-pack, which was pretty much double as thick as last term. Nice. We have on average over 3 assignements per week. Ooh-Wee.
Saturday 30 Dec 2006
Estonia is SIZZLING
Which inevitably makes me think that what usually follows ’sizzle’? Is it perfectly timed delicious meal or a bite too crispy to bear? Anyway, there can be no doubt that things in that corner of the world are running like never before.
Economic welfare is so easy to build nowadays. Just keep the doors and windows open and it will crawl in by itself. First do a bit of PR by joining some respectable bunch of people, like NATO or EU. Then, quickly inflate your real estate with the help of global liquidity and use improving valuations to bring in more foreign cash. Back home you have to motivate companies with lean tax systems to make sure that they squeeze out and realize any increase in creditworthiness of consumers. Money moves fast, numbers increase by every round, public budget runs a hefty surplus, wages grow 20% and dividends even more. And there are still countries in the world who are not doing that!?!?
But in all my (presumably) positive approach to everything in life I cant help growing uneasy when I find NO parking place in biggest shopping centres on the afternoon of a regular working day, when people in principle should be earning not spending like crazy. One day I took a camera to my local shop with me: (1) usage of shopping carts is over 100% (2) goods are just dropped on floor in pallets (3) sound of beeping cash registers is like an electro concert. This December, one square meter of retail space in our very slowly moving household items shop generated sales of 120% of average monthly income in the region. That is outrageous. The ’sizzle’ is something you can practically feel in the air. Maybe that’s the reason we had the first ever green-grass Christmas in Estonia?
Like my own brother has proved, it only takes a bit over a year in Estonia to launch a construction company from scratch right after undergrad degree and already operate two production facilities and drive a V8 company car. Practically without initial investment and completely without any outside financing - all from operating cash flows. In a year from start.
I hear Louis sing about his interpretation of life every step of the way here. “What a Wonderful World” is a classic, so there is hope it will stand also the next test of the time and all will be as rosy when I once return to Estonia. No matter. I will return anyway. But I have tasted how much there is to do abroad before that. Let the Holidays end, let the new challenges begin.
Song of the day / Song of the next term at school:
Viimne Reliikvia - Prostituudi laul / The Last Relic - Song of The Prostitute
Sunday 24 Dec 2006
Hurray Holidays!
It was some 20 days ago that we had our final lecture day of that term. That gloriously joyful day 
was followed by death of social life for about 10 days, as most MBA-s committed to catching up on study material. But the *Resurrection* after the 6 exams we took in 4 days was easily worth all the anchorite studying in between. As you should be able to read also from this photo gallery, “pub golf” met, exceeded and just smashed all expectations related to this long-awaited event. Number of MBA-s flew to Amsterdam the day after, my respect to stamina of all those people. I fortunately precalculated my strength resources correctly and enjoyed the following days in Oxford just relaxing. 
Goodbye was not too warm. Electricity and heating were cut off by some accident for two last days and since I was incredibly bad in a squash game I planned to have just before the flight back I also missed the bus by few minutes and had to grab a taxi to Gatwick. The driver was a fun and caring guy though (we reached 97 MPH, road was too crowded to reach 100…) and in all Pakistani warm-heartness his boss called us OVER ten times to see how we are doing with traffic in catching the plane. It worked out.
It is just too good to be back home for holidays. I love my country, my home, my family, my sauna. Oxford has opened my eyes a lot with its compressed diversity. I have come to respect and understand different people (nations) more (I surely didn’t have any problems with that before, its rather a step ahead), but at the same time it is also an exercise to learn about the irreplaceable value and importance of your own special identity. In short, I like my country more than 3 months ago when I left it. But I cant describe how happy I am that I have the life in Oxford and in SBS to return to.
Everyone has its own THING. I know one, which is so inseparately me. The absolutely sober drunkenness that follows hardcore sauna session when you sit in your backyard in 0-degree rain is not to be described in words. It is simultaneously a complete reset to new freshness and wise purification of all your previous life experiences. Rebirth. Only the core remains, everything less important is sweated out. If you ever came across the term ‘entropy’ it is to my mind the best description of the effect of sauna experience. Defying the basic laws of physics, hardcore sauna dissolves your entropy level back to almost zero. Too complicated for sure if you never went to real sauna before…
Yesterday we had a small family gathering - my granduncle celebrated 50-years in marriage. ‘Golden wedding’ is how we call those rare events here. At best I’m 80 when throwing that party. Scary. Oops, Im over 2 hours into Christmas here in Estonia already. Time to bed.
See you around! I’ll keep on enjoying my days at home. 
Saturday 09 Dec 2006
I’m full
Weird feeling in the head. My hard-drive seems to be full. Now I need to save some space for operational memory, because I know what happens with computers if there is 0% of free disk space.
I will take a positive interpretation of that finding. If I am taking part of this course and my head is full, it must mean Im ready for exams. Assuming that the stuff I put in was relevant. Tell me a thing which works without assumptions???
Not so full in the tummy area. Which is a problem here in Oxford if it is weekend (college and school diners closed) and you dont cook yourself. Then you can choose between superslow service ridiculously expensive small portion restaurants and hundreds of sandwich shops. I strongly dislike the sandwich dominance here. What about extending the diversity of town into food culture here??
Going out now. Will probably end up lunching in McDonalds…