and Leo?

All this talk about Diego and no news of Leonardo? that can't be right!

Especially since he's been making lots of progress lately: he can almost sit by himself (we prop him up with a few cushions still), he loves hopping around in his baby bouncer and he's started on solids and can hold his sippy cup all alone. But the best thing of all is that he's a real smiler and has a lovely laugh... especially when Diego's doing anything even vaguely funny: he obviously adores his brother.

Here go a couple of pictures:

Diego's birthday

On the 24th of March Diego had his second birthday and since it was Easter Monday we decided we would spend the day as a family and have a party with some friends later. The original idea was to take him to Linton Zoo but after Sunday's snowfall we thought it would be better to change plans...

It turned out to be a good idea: on Monday I made a cake and then we just relaxed while Diego enjoyed opening and playing with his presents at his own pace (veeeeery slowly!). Nicola and Martin and Carlo also popped in to say hello and have a slice of cake and we had lots of phonecalls from friends and family (you can see Diego talking to one of them in the pictures below).

We also went out for a short walk in the park and Diego loved stomping on what remained of other children's snowmen!

Today we had a party with some of the other MBA families in Links House's garden house which was kindly offered to us by the wardens so the kids would have more room to mess around in. It was good fun and Diego had lots of lovely presents.

Thanks to all of you far and near for contributing to our bundle of happy memories!

Pues sí, está nevando

Antesdeayer decía que se esperaba nieve para el fin de semana. Y aquí está la nieve.

Ayer el tiempo estaba loco. Salía el sol, a los cinco minutos granizaba, luego paraba, llovía, volvía a salir el sol, nevaba. Así lleva todo el día.

Hoy ha amanecido todo nevado, aunque al rato se ha puesto a llover y la nieve se ha fundido.

Spring, global warming and local cooling

Spring starts today but it looks much more like winter. I believe in global warming. As you know I come from Sevilla. But here in Cambridge it looks like we are experiencing a kind of local cooling. As you can see in the weather forecast for the Easter weekend we are going to have below zero temperatures, wind, rain and maybe even snow. Cool! ;-)

We were planning to go to the dark side on Saturday, have an egg hunt party at Christoph and Ina's on Sunday and go to the Linton Zoo on Monday, but if the weather is bad we will stay here and try to find some indoor activities to do.

Monday is Diego's second birthday and we wanted to do something special. Some of our friends are going to be away during the Easter break so the birthday party will probably be on Wednesday or Thursday.

I have to go to JBS but it doesn't stop raining. I'll go anyway...

Exams over, assignments pending, GCP in progress

I wish I were an undergraduate in Cambridge. Their terms really last only two months and they don't have many hours of lectures. Today the city was half empty because the Lent Term is officially over and most of the undergrads have left. We, MBAs, have to finish some assignments and work in our Global Consulting Project, so life is not that easy for us.

Of course I'm simplifiying things a little bit. Undergrads in the University of Cambridge are very bright people, the best students from the UK and around the world. Normally they are mature, responsible, smart and focused people and though they might not have many hours of lectures they still have lots of revisions with their tutors, books to read and essays to write. I kind of like this academic model. You have much more room to focus on your priorities, you have to be responsible and self-motivated, and you always need to be able to integrate distinct information and produce knowledge.

But let's go back to the point of this post. First, we finished the exams for the term. Friday we did Strategy and International Business, two exams that as usual we had to write one right after the other in a three-hour slot. It's not easy to switch from one subject to the other on the spot and above all it's not easy to handwrite for three hours. I'm not used to it anymore and my hand and wrist hurted. My handwriting is even worse than it was when I finished my undergraduate degree and I wonder how the examiners can understand it.

I did the Strategy exam first and chose the question almost nobody else chose. There were two questions, one about strategic alliances, the one I chose, and the other one about strategy frameworks, the one everyone expected and almost everyone did. I was going to do it but I like to go against the stream so finally chose the alliances one. I didn't do the best exam in my life, nor the worse, so it should be ok.

Then I did the International Business part. In this case there were three questions and we had to chose one. I chose again the first one, which was about the shift and blurring of the boundaries of the firms in the Global Business Revolution. It was basically writing about the "cascade effect", the favourite theory of Peter Nolan, probably the best lecturer I have had so far in the MBA. I was a bit tired in the end and though I made all the points I wanted to make I probably didn't organise and express my ideas as well as I could. I still need to improve my English and my essay writing technique.

But thought exams are over, I still have three assignments pending. The People Management group and individual assignments and the Global Marketing individual paper. I'm working on them but they are due next week so I still have some time to waste with my blog.

To be honest People Management has dissappointed me a little bit. It's an elective but I think it overlaps too much Management Practice and Organisational Behaviour. I expected something more practical, more "how to manage people" from the manager point of view, rather than revising again conceps like motivation, leadership, etc. But it's still useful. All the MBA alumni I know always say that while you are taking the course everyone pays more atention to the hard (quantitative) than to the soft (qualitative) courses, but that in the end, when you become a manager, what you really use the most is your soft skills.

On the other hand Global Marketing has even exeeded my already high expectations. Eden Yin is really an extraordinary lecturer. And when I say extraordinary I say good but also out of the ordinary, original, politically incorrect, challenging and fun. Their lectures are highly interactive but for some people his style is too harsh. In my opinion his attitude is part of the course and completely necessary. You need to question your assumptions, cure your cultural myopia and change your mindsets to be a good global marketer.

And as I mentioned before, while all the undergraduates are on holiday, we have to do our GCP. I'm doing it in a team with Andrés, Robyn and Will at Saatchi&Saatchi, one of the world leading advertising agencies. Our project coordinators are two MBA alumni, Jasper and Jane, which I believe is a great advantage because they know our expectations and also our potential and limitations. And our tutor is Allègre Hadida, the Strategy lecturer. She knows very well the company and his CEO Kevin Roberts and is being of great help.

Of course, after all this work and the exams we had a Pub Night at The Anchor on Friday. I went out late because I had dinner at home, put Diego to bed, and wasn't too sure about going out. I was a bit tired. But in the end I'm happy I went out because when I got there the party was at its peak and I had two or three hours of good fun and interesting conversations with colleagues. I even did my internationally famous "flag". I'll post a picture if I find it.

Pizza night

Don't believe a word of what Miriam said about her pizzas yesterday. They were fantastic. One of my colleagues said it was the better pizza he had ever tasted.

I went to watch Cambridge United football match against Woking with the guys who are doing the Global Consulting Project at Everton F.C. They requested the help of other football fans for a focus group for a market research and invited us to the match in exchange.

The match wasn't as good as the previous one we went, but Cambridge won again and they are second in the league. We might go to see other matches if they play for a promotion.

As in the previous time, I went with Diego. He didn't pay too much attention to the football, but behaved very well, enjoyed the singing and played a little bit with Juan, Dorji and Andres's son, Cristóbal.

Miriam rang me during the match and asked me if we wanted to have a pizza at home. Finally Juan, Luis, Dorji, Oliver and his brother Thomas joined us and we spent a very nice evening drinking beer and wine and eating crisps and pizza.

Tonight more social events, dinner at Carlo's kitchen in Magdalene College.

Baking!

I'm officially having a baking frenzy!

Yesterday I made pizza for some of Paco's classmates... but it was rather a rush and the result was not too great but today I really enjoyed baking my first loaf of bread in a long time. To be fair, I must confess I've just bought a great book on bread, so I just followed the recipe but the loaf looks quite good... I'll tell you how it tasted when we've tried it, I still don't trust my oven here... we just don't seem to get along.

And here go the photos to prove it:



The tulips are from last night (Thanks Dorji!): don't they look lovely?

Actually I've just found out that they grow masses of tulips around here and there's a big fair on in May... it would be fun to go have a look.

Yesterday I also discovered yet another bookshop I hadn't been in: they do story time for kids so I might take Diego there another day.

El más difícil todavía: con tres cucharas

Diego sigue superándose a sí mismo a la hora de comer. Ya os habíamos contando su técnica para sujetar el tenedor con una mano y comer con la otra.

Pues el otro día inventó algo nuevo. Cómo comerse dos platos de chícharos con tres cucharas. Me remito a las imágenes.

Geoffrey's birthday

As I said in my previous post we went to Italy for the weekend to join all the Allen family in Geoffrey's 60th birthday. For the ones who don't know it, Geoffrey is my father in law.

It was a fantastic family event because for the first time in a long time all Miriam's brothers and sisters (6 in total) got together with their partners and kids. So as you can see in the picture, we were 32: the 2 grandparents, the 12 parents, the 17 kids plus aunty Elizabeth, Geoffrey's sister.

The venue was the Cascina Colombara, a farmhouse near Pavia where most of Miriam's brothers and sisters live. It was a great idea because there was lots of space and things to do for the kids.

Weather was lovely and I even had the opportunity to see my friend Tommaso, a great marathon runner that I met while training near the cascina a few years ago.

A pity Diego was a bit poorely and wasn't in the mood for too much playing. Anyway, he got there one of his favourites toys, the tractor you can see in the picture and that he now carries everywhere. Thanks to the Gibbons for the present!