So, I have the privilege (or misfortune) of inheriting 2 P1s as neighbours on my lofty avenue. As such, I feel like I have been suckered back into the tempest of starting out at Insead all over again. and this being a second debunte of sorts, one can apply some sort of historical lens to suss out the “changing times”. and i gotta say, i can’t comprehend the new insead.

This story starts out with a poster. a typical insead poster, that would involve some inside jokes, a bit of nudity, and a 100% of tongue-in-cheek and in this case, topless pics of attractive insead men (*cough*). don’t frown, those of us who graduated some years back remember this! lvm, shirtless parties, some hot tubs and honey It wasn’t so long ago that we participated in the mile high club…or wore plastic buckets from Carrefour on our heads. tsk tsk.

The delivery mechanism is no different. posters in every cubby hole, SFTM mass mails….the only difference is this time — the new dean has decided to clamp down on all such offensive material, pleading that insead’s professionalism is at stake, that recruiters would be unduly affected! Unbelievable! Is this the insead that we all graduated from? From the recent fiasco with Welcome Week, and now to this (alums you know this) …can i say that I am sorely disappointed in what insead has chosen to become - an american b-school. just great! for all the reasons that we never chose to end up in an american b-school, i think insead has quickly decided that that is what it wants to be. let’s all be tested every single minute of the day, wear our polo shirts and docker pants to show how “relaxed” we are in our academic gear and dribble on about the credit crisis or the nature of deriatives. in fact, lets start every sentence with “how is the weather?!”

The offending poster!

is our true international and global appeal insufficient now? I actually think insead has been one of the few places where people of differing backgrounds, languages and cultural nooks could come together and party, and work, and create results together. along the way, we look for baseline commonalities — parties, alcohol, and of course…often small provisions of nudity being one of them. is that so bad? or wrong? what happened to the safe haven network that we could trust and depend on? how about, you know what…it’s just funny and if you need to be serious all your life, this is the one year you can take off and be comical, with no repercussions. and there shouldn’t be judgement applied. so what if you walk around with a plastic T sewn to your chest or speak in yoda for a day? Does that mean you can’t understand how to apply probalistic methods of calculating your chances of finding a job in banking? (the probability of success is zero right now by the way, for those that are curious).

so enjoy it. have some strength. create a little mutiny. let your hair down. party on. party hard, because when that mba loan kicks in, you want to be the dude that says, “100 grand in the hole but hey, at least i had fun.” i know that’s what i did

anyhoos, the INSIDE Male Escorts for the World party is tonight, at Night+Day - a non-descript art bar/ cafe near Little India. see y’all!

2 September. Some 30 heavy cartons of food, beddings, electrical appliances and the like were finally delivered to Star Shelter. Thank you everyone for your passion and zest! It was probably the shortest pitch I ever made. A simple email appeal sent to some 30+ individuals, 2 weeks to close, a cash raise of $5,050 and a giant shopping spree later, Star Shelter has all the items it needs for the next few months! so muchos gracias everyone!

In consultant-speak, this project was a “low-hanging” fruit, something that had immediate impact, was relatively easy to implement and got a lot of social capital for it. Thanks again, all you fiendishly nice peeps out there who donated either moolah or hauled boxes to my apartment. It was rather strange to live in a semi-warehouse for a couple of weeks, but hey — all in the good name of charity.

much love and enjoy the stats and pics. i took the opportunity to utilize the full palette of microsoft colours - making this probably the worst slide i have ever made but hey…guess what, when you are a bomb-ass person like me, you get away with it.

Next steps….i have 2 more fundraisers to plan this year and am on the hunt for great marketing and fundraising ideas. Gimme a shout if you believe in and have an interest for women’s issues surrounding business education, self-enablement and getting out of the poverty trap, cos that’s mostly the theme for me this year! kisses all!