Ambasadorial Scholar Tobin writes_Aug 20/08
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What Happened To July? - Well, its 6:15pm and I am at work waiting to go to a corporate dinner where they will attempt to woo myself and two other CSR MBAs into staying with the company. The plus side of it is that I get a gourmet 4 course meal out of it, the down side is that I will have to engage in witty banter and avoid saying something silly such as how I liked Lego as a child and my dream was to go to legoland - this happened at the last meal.
I have managed to survive two months at ArcelorMittal and I am still going strong. It has been an amazing experience and I have learned a ton - I have also learned that working 9-6 everyday does not allow much time to work on your thesis and consequently, I will also soon learn how to write a thesis in two weeks.
I have been on two business trips to Luxembourg, sampled their office cafeteria which is really an antique dining hall where all the employees are treated to a three course lunch for 7?, including endless red wine from the largest corporate wine cellar in Europe. I have requested if I should ever move to Luxembourg that my office be adjacent to the cellar.
I have also most recently been to Quebec to film a corporate responsibility movie for the company that will be shown at a massive conference in India next month. I was the client on the shoot and so I took it upon myself to introduce the entire film crew, who were from England and France, to the finer things in Canada - Tim Hortons, Buffalo Wings, Molson Canadian, Poutine and Root Beer. The film shoot was really cool, we got to go to a massive open-pit mine as well as a steel plant and then flew to Montreal for the weekend. Sadly, I flew back to London that day and was unable to sample some of Montreal's famous nightlife, but I was able to replace my loss with cookies and chocolate ice cream in business class on the way home.
In other more regrettable news, I have had to send my house-boy home after an ugly incident of him refusing to vacuum or bake more cookies. It is always hard to send your little brother to the street but he had his chances. Steffen had spent the last 6 weeks 'living' in my apartment and thus doubled as moocher/house cleaner. It was so nice to be able to come home after work and have the house cleaned, the laundry done and the bed made (for some reason it really made me miss my mum). Initially here to find work in London, Steffen was unsuccessful in finding work - it was a hard day for him, not only having to get up before 1pm but then being turned down by every place he applied to - 4. So instead we embarked on a mission to watch a movie every night, and we did.
Not much else has happened other than that since I last wrote, we have seen a few concerts, seen a few bars and pretty much seen the summer disappear. Now the real fun begins..20,000 words of it. I finish here at ArcelorMittal on August 29 then I move back to Nottingham in an attempt to hand in my thesis on September 12 and then it will be all over!
Tobin