The Chantastic Blog

Remember how much I love my sleep? Well, maybe I change my mind, because, my goodness, why would I be up at 8:15 right now? Man, it feels soooo good to be awake right now. At 8:15 in the morning. During what’s supposed to be my holiday. When I’m supposed to be recovering from 4 months of stress and sleep deprivation. Nope. Nothing could make me happier than being awake right now. And this has definitely not happened continously throughout my entire Christmas holiday at home through no fault of my own. No, it’s entirely natural and my fault that I’ve woken up in the middle of my sleep the last week and a half. My fault. Nobody else. I don’t want anyone to get the impression that this is anybody’s fault but mine. So I’m going to methodically go through every other person here and clear them of guilt.

It’s not my dad’s fault. He’s awake right now, but on the computer and listening to whatever he’s listening to via headphones. He does this every morning. Couldn’t be quieter. Can’t be his fault.

It’s not my mom’s fault. She’s at work. She’d have to be quite skilled to wake me up from there, wouldn’t she? Can’t be her fault.

It’s definitely not the fault of the visitor we currently have staying at our place. I know this has nothing to do with anything, but did you know that Marisa Tomei won an Academy Award in 1992 for Best Supporting Actress? Wow, that was random - I’m not sure why I mentioned that for no apparent reason. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Marisa Tomei’s fault that I woke up. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah - stereotypes. Stereotypes are horrible. Those are awful characterizations of groups of people. They’re never actually based on facts. Take teens for example. We all know that they never talk incessantly on the phone. At all hours of the day. And night. That never happens - it’s just a stereotype. What an awful, awful stereotype. I would hate to be on the receiving end of that stereotype. Let me repeat - I would hate to be on the receiving end of that stereotype. I cannot stress that enough - I would hate to be on the receiving end of that stereotype. It would be so unfair. I mean, to be on the receiving end of that - repeatedly, over and over, until you want to punch the wall - would be just awful, wouldn’t it?

I know this is completely random, but I really like my house. Been living here since I was about 8, and grown up in it. It’s fantastic and was perfect for my parents and I. On the second floor, we’ve got three bedrooms - the master bedroom where my parents live, and two other bedrooms. The master bedroom is on one side of the floor, and the two other rooms on the other side. One of the two rooms is mine, the other is the guest room. What a great, great layout for a family of three. Lots of quiet and privacy for my room as I’ve grown up. It’s been fantastic. Good thing I definitely have that to come home to this year. Man, wouldn’t it absolutely suck if I didn’t have that? Good thing I definitely had that over the past 10 days.

You know who I really enjoy? Mariah Carey. You know what she does all the time? She’ll write about one thing, but it’s really about something else. It’s really quite brilliant, this whole reading between the lines thing. She does it all the time. I think sometimes she does it so that the subject she is talking about doesn’t realize that’s who she’s really talking about, just in case if that person were to somehow stumble upon her song or her lyrics. Man, that’s brilliant. What a great idea.

Since I’ve been back in Edmonton, my dinners have included: steak, turkey, prime rib, a Chinese restaurant, a Korean BBQ grill buffet, an Indian restaurant (not my choice), and a Japanese restaurant.

I guess that’s pretty good, but does it really compare to what I’ve been eating in Toronto or my culinary talents?

I’ve heard very good things about The Wrestler, so I decided to search for an Edmonton movie theatre that shows it before returning to my busy MBA life in Toronto. Naturally, the closest movie theatre that shows it is in…

Today, I’m giving a little history lesson called, “The Economic Impact of The Chan on Alberta”. Let’s go back in time to 2000 to 2005, shall we? As I was pursuing my studies at Western during this time, the Alberta economy started to emerge with the possibility of a fully matured and educated version of The Chan returning home to Edmonton. Alberta was just on the cusp on booming based on the possibility of my return to spark a boom the likes of which had never been seen before in Alberta.

Fortunately for residents across the province, I did return to Alberta after I finished my M.A. in Ecomomics in 2005. From 2005 to 2008, there was an unprecendented economic boom in Alberta. Single-handedly, my presence led to job creation everywhere in the province, and workers all over Canada flocked to Alberta to get some of this Chantastic action. I shudder to think what would have happened if I had stayed in Ontario and disappointed the expectations of Alberta. Probably an economic recession, with a chance of a depression, I think.

Starting in late 2007 and early 2008, however, Alberta’s economic growth continued to grow, but at a slower rate. Why did it start to slow? Well, I was accepted into the Rotman MBA program in early December of 2007, and accepted their offer in late December. Is it any coincidence that the growth in Alberta’s economy started to slow when news got around that I was leaving Alberta? Sure, the economy was still growing, but that was because my mere presence was keeping the economy afloat. The future was looking bleak with my pending departure, and that put a clamp on future growth and investment in the province.

However, nobody - not even me - could have forseen the huge impact my departure would have on the Alberta economy. I left for Toronto in mid-August of 2008. By September, oil prices were plummeting like crazy, and within three months, the economic feasibility of some projects in the oilsands of Alberta ceased to exist. The problem with those projects, of course, was that the feasibility of these projects was based on The Chan’s presence in Alberta to stimulate economic growth. Now, a bunch of these projects have been shelved, and billions of dollars that were going to be spent have been removed from the economy. People are being laid off, others are returning to their home provinces, and the prospect of future growth looks bleak. Not even I could have expected how my departure would cripple Alberta’s economic growth, although to be fair, I am a very humble person by nature.

So here, then, is my proposed solution: for the discount salary of $200,000 per year (to be paid for by the Alberta government), I am willing to return to Alberta upon completion of my MBA. I am giving a massive hometown discount, as my representatives have heard rumors that other provinces are considering bidding on my services with a price tag in the range of $1 million per year. But I am a loyal person, and am willing to give the right of first refusal to the place where I grew up. And really, a price tag of $200,000 is miniscule compared to the billions of dollars and economic stimulus I would bring to Alberta.

I have made my very generous offer, Ed, and the ball is now in your court. Consider this choice wisely, as your legacy as premier depends on it. Do it for yourself, your wife, your family, or heck, do it even for the guy in the bear costume that no longer works for the Alberta government.

Four months into my MBA, here are some things I’ve observed at Rotman. Some things I’ve been expecting, but most have been surprises.

The Rotman faculty - I’ve been extremely impressed by the teaching ability of the faculty, and their backgrounds. All of the profs have been good, and some have been downright amazing at teaching. True, some students haven’t liked all the profs, but I haven’t had any real problems with them, and there hasn’t been that one prof who just can’t teach worth a lick.
The second thing I’ve been impresesd with is the backgrounds of the profs. As I’ve talked about at length before, I had Superwoman as my Strategy prof last quarter. But the other profs also come from a who’s who list of schools, having either taught at or gone to schools ranging from Northwestern, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Penn, Chicago, Berkeley, Dartmouth, and London Business School, just to name a few. I mean, my Finance prof is a former VP of Equities at Goldman Sachs!
A fun little game I discovered when I should have been studying in my spare time is what I call, “How famous are you?” Go to Yahoo’s seach engine and start typing in a prof’s first and last name. See how many letters of that person’s name you have to type in before Yahoo’s search engine automatically draws up the name as a suggestion in the drop down menu below. In the case of both my Superwoman Strategy prof and the former Goldman VP, all I had to type in was their first name and the first two letters of their last name before it showed up in the drop down menu. I was being taught by academic celebrities! Then again, I’m kind of a big deal too…

The competitiveness of the students - Maybe I was a bit naive, but I didn’t think it would be this competitive for marks among students. I think part of it has to do with finding jobs in the current recession, and the only thing us students can really control at this point is to get good marks to increase the probability of getting interviews. Having said that…

The comradery among the students - …there’s been an amazing comradery among the students. Despite the competitiveness, nobody’s out to screw anyone over (at least as far as I’ve seen and experienced, anyway). There’s a “We’re in this battle together” mentality among the students, and we’re like one, big, 250-person family. Everybody is willing to help each other out, even though theoretically that is not to one’s advantage. But it’s a good sign that people know to draw the line between being competitive, and just being an ass. That’s not to say that there aren’t problems and issues among people, similar to any family. You stick five strangers in a project work group for three months, have more than fifty such groups, and it’s not a shock that things aren’t going to go smoothly in all 50+ groups. But overally, I’ve been impressed with the character of the people at Rotman.

The number of closet fans of The Hills - I found four such students in my section alone (for some reason, they were all girls - is The Hills a show typically watched by girls or something?), and I think that they were going to keep it a secret because of the stigma attached to watching melodramatic reality TV. Fear not, because I am completely shameless about watching The Hills, and I need people to talk to about the show. So I now have about five people I routinely talk to about The Hills, and I’m sure that there are more fans in other sections that I will discover in the new year. I’m like a superhero unearthing the potential of The Hills in each and every one of us.

The work ethic of the students - Some of the students here are damn near killing themselves with a work ethic I’ve rarely seen, and I mean that in a good way. I know one guy who’s still running his own business on the side while doing his MBA here - he doesn’t sleep much. Another person was still working part-time for her company and dealing with work issues for the first month of school. There’s no way I’d be able to balance all that with school and the priorities I’ve set, so I admire them for it. Others might not have anything going on the side, but their work ethic is still remarkable.

The drinking ability of the foreign students - Those guys are not messing around when they break out the hard alcohol!

The humour of the students - For some reason, I seem to get along with damn near everyone because everyone here seems to enjoy cracking jokes. Don’t get me wrong, we don’t have 250 amateur stand up comedians here, but just about everyone I talk to can fire off a funny line or two, which helps break the monotony of the huge workload.
Obviously, there are some people I get along with better than others, and that’s pretty much directly correlated with how funny I find the other person. And when you’re stuck in the same place nearly everyday with the same people for over three months, you’re bound to form bonds with the people you’re comfortable with. For me, it seems that’s a whole lot of people. So even after this wild and wacky two year torture journey they call an MBA is over, I think I’ll stay in touch with a whole lot of them because they’ve become more than just classmates - they’ve become frie…

Sorry, I couldn’t finish that sentence without throwing up in my mouth. To balance the kumbaya feel of this whole post, my next post will be completely egocentric and self-serving. Stay tuned.

It’s so freakin’ cold in this city that I checked the weather forecast to see when (if?) it will finally warm up. I discovered that if you want to be cheered up by a weather forecast, you should probably not check Yahoo.

Here’s a running diary of my twelve hour trek from my Toronto apartment to Edmonton.

3:25 PM ET: Leave my apartment for the airport during a snowstorm. I decide to take the subway, and then connect to an airport shuttle from the end station. This seemed to be a better idea than taking a shuttle straight from downtown because Toronto isn’t exactly known for dealing well with extreme weather.

3:27: Throngs of people waiting for the subway. I move all the way down to the farthest end of the platform where there’s less people, and then I hog as much space as possible along the platform so that I can maximize the possibility of being the first one in the door since it’s very likely the subway is going to be full. How do I do this? (more…)