Sevilla-Cambridge-Sevilla-Madrid

If you expect an MBA to make your life easier you are mistaken. It will certainly make your life more exciting, dynamic, full of opportunities, but full of challenges too, and challenges have to be difficult to be real challenges. Anyway, we like challeges, don't we? That's why we are MBAs.

Well. All this argument is just to say I've got a new job and and I'm on a train right now moving to Madrid. As you may know or suspect I work in the public sector. I prefer not to give too much details. But basically I'm switching from the regional to the central government. And I'm really happy with the offer (offers) I've got in the last few months, probably none of them possible without the MBA.

Maybe from some of you moving city for the third time in less than two years is not that a big thing, but for me, married with you little kids, it's quite a feat. Moreover because two of these moves have been out of Sevilla, the best place in the world to live.

But I know I can always come back to Sevilla. Actually my plan is going to my parent's place one weekend a month.

What keeps me busy now is finding a flat in Madrid and renting mine in Sevilla. A handicap is that prices are much higher in Madrid and this is not a good season for renting my flat. The advantages are that it's a good moment to rent in Madrid, and I hope to find a nice place in a cool area. Renting gives you the opportunity of living where you can't buy.

We also have to find a school for Diego and a nursery for Leo, and Miriam will apply to Universidad Autónoma de Madrid to be trained to be an English teacher.

So I will have lots of stories to tell to my colleagues in two weeks when we meet for Graduation. I'm really exited about that.

See you next month

I just noticed I'll be in Cambridge for Graduation in just one month. Time flies!

I was in Cambridge in May two years ago for the interview day, was there last year too, of course, enjoying the last month of the MBA and some running success, and will return this year for Graduation. Great.

I bought the plane tickets months ago and have already booked a room with views to Jesus Green in the Arundel House Hotel, just a few meters from my old flat in Chesterton Road.

Jesus Green and the riverside are great places for running and that's one of the the first things I'll do on friday when I get there, going running with my friends Giulio, Giacomo, Alessandro and Ben. I also hope to be able to find a race to do on the weekend, so I have an excuse not to get too drunk during the celebrations.

This is going to be a very special weekend for Miriam and me because we'll leave the kids at home with my parents. It will be the first time we go out by ourselves for such a long time since Diego was born three years ago.

I know some of my friends will miss Diego and Leo, but we are waiting for them in Sevilla whenever they want to come. We still haven't received any visit from MBA friends in Sevilla. Looks like Victor and Daniela from Chile are going to be the first ones.

Anyway, I just wanted to say I'm looking forward to go and see everyone in JBS.

Los libros del GMAT ya están vendidos

Disculpadme por no haber borrado el post anterior. Los libros del GMAT los vendí hace un mes o así. De todas formas lo más sencillo es buscarlos por Amazon y lo más fiable es ir directamente a por las guías oficiales.

Os garantizo que es una buena inversión, y si no tenéis mucho tiempo es bueno que los compréis lo antes posible antes del examen. Mientras más practiquéis mejor.

En internet también se encuentran algunos recursos interesantes.

We are alive

We said we were going to keep this blog alive but obviously we're struggling. Many things have happened in the last few months. Probably the one that is making the harder impact in our lives is the credit crunch, financial crisis, economic slowdown, recession or however you want to call it.

This crisis -that probably some MBA colleagues have contributed to create- has frustrated the expectations of many of my friends, my hopes too, and I guess is worrying some of the readers of this blog, people taking an MBA in Cambridge or somewhere else and MBA candidates around the world.

But the MBA is not the problem, the crisis is the problem, and without an MBA things will probably be even harder. Of course we all should lower our salary expectations, should forget about some companies -expecially about the ones that went bust-, but I believe I am better prepared to do any job after the MBA and if you are humble enough to take a job that you can do better than anyone else you'll be fine, you'll be promoted soon, you'll get a real MBA job soon.

Why do I say this? Well, I'm a live example of this. I had a low GMAT, not a quantitave background, little management experience, but was very much into entrepreneurship, diversity, internationalisation, marketing and communication, and about management. And somehow I managed to be admitted in Cambridge and that changed my life for life. I hope for the better.

I have a new job since the 1st of January. The 1st of September I returned to my previous employer in a sligthly different role, but first the mere fact of having a Cambridge University degree and second that, of course ;-) I'm a better manager, took me to a senior management position within three month and now I'm the youngest guy in that position ever. I'm still working in the same sector, almost the same employer, but in a compleletely different role and with plenty of opportunities ahead.

But I have to warn you about the upsides too. I have a better job, I got a 50% salary increase, but I work longer hours and as a consequence my quality of life is much worse. I like my job, I enjoy what I do, but I have to handle lots of pressure, fire people, say no, work long hours, and that affects your personal life, specially your family life. We are ok. Miriam is happy, I'm happy. I try to make the most of the time I spend with my kids. But to be honest I hardly can see them at all from monday to thursday. This is something to think about.

More news. I had a foot injury -a stress fracture in the second metatarsal head of my right foot- last december. Now I'm back but I'm out of shape and with the new job I hardly can train on weekdays.

Miriam is very well, working part time and spending time with the kids. Diego has switched to Spanish but can speak and understand English too. Leonardo is starting to say his first words.

This weekend Miriam and I went on holiday with friends for the first time without the kids. It's being fun. We are in the hills in Huelva -Sierra de Aracena- eating great food, drinking beer, wine and rhum, playing table games, playstation, karaoke, basketball and football. Tomorrow everyone awake at 9:30 to watch Nadal-Federer in Australia.

Let's keep it alive

We have decided to keep this blog alive. The MBA is over but I still have to graduate and above all the Cambridge MBA is one year that will last you a lifetime.

Also a blog is a great way to keep family and friends up to date and to keep a diary too.

I didn't want to lose the MBA archive, as I have received many messages of MBA candidates who find it useful. That's another motivation to keep posting. Current students and alumni were of much help during my pre-MBA and I'm happy to be useful for new candidates now.

As you can see I have changed the "theme" and title to adapt to our new reality. I always talk about "we" or "our" because I believe my MBA wouldn't have been possible without the support of my wife and the joy provided by my kids.

I still plan to publish a few "retrospective" posts to tell you about the end of the MBA, the IP, our holidays, readapting home, jobs and so on.

Also, and I hope sooner than later, I'll start here a series of posts about the MBAs who come to visit us in Sevilla. Who's going to be the first?