Creepy tributes

Saturday arrived in London, and against all odds the sun decided to put in an appearance. Not that it warmed things up much, but Londoners are depressingly deprived of sunlight, and every little bit helps, especially when it starts getting dark at 3:30pm. Ugh.

No matter how hard we tried, though, we were unable to leave the house before 2pm. That's because it takes my sister forever to get my nephew ready for the road. And THAT is because my nephew is royalty, and must get his gourmet breakfast, morning snack, lunch, and light exercise (and associated bowel movement) before he agrees to remain stationary long enough to be put into a stroller. I took my revenge on him, though, by bundling him up so tight that he wasn't able to move an inch for the rest of the time we were out.


We spent the day walking around the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge, and then heading over to see the Parliament buildings and Big Ben. I know I'll be back in London again, and I want to take tours of these places to learn some of the history behind them. That's one thing London has in excess supply - history. Outside of the Mediterranean countries, there are few places that can boast continuous civilization for millenia, not just centuries. London is one of them. Construction on the Tower of London, for example, started in 1078 and Westminster Abbey was built in 1045. These are old places which have withstood countless footfalls, from those of peasant farmers, to empire kings, to ... me. That was a cool feeling.


No trip to London would be complete without a visit to Harrod's, that iconic shopping mega-destination that is one of the largest department stores in the world. Although a pioneering British shopping icon, since 1985 the department store has been owned by Egyptian billionaire Mohamed Fayed. Fayed's name is famous not just because of his financial empire, but also because of his son Dodi Fayed's romantic association with Princess Diana. Which is where the creepiness begins. Since their death in a 1997 Paris car crash, Dodi and Diana have been memorialized at Harrod's by way of some strange tributes.

The first is a whimsical cast iron statue, showing Dodi and Diana dancing happily with what looks like a seagull, and with an inscription that reads, "Innocent Victims."


The second is a shrine built on the lower level of the store, with soft-focus shots of Dodi and Diana looking down upon the public. As if this wasn't weird enough, there is glass case front and center at the shrine which contains:

• A wine glass with visible lipstick marks, supposedly the last dinner vessel to touch the lips of Diana.

• A huge ring, with a mega-diamond rock stuck in the middle, supposed to be the engagement ring that Dodi purchased for Diana the day before their deaths.

The entire display evoked a sad feeling. Maybe this was a father's heartfelt way to grieve for his son and daughter-in-law to be, but instead it comes across as a kitschy way of shoving a conspiracy crusade in the faces of passersby (Mohamed Fayed has repeatedly claimed that the death of Dodi and Diana was planned at the highest levels of the British monarchy, with involvement of the British Secret Service).

Our visit to Harrod's was shortlived - the massive crowds eventually got to all of us, including my nephew, who by this time had managed to break free of his bonds. With his umpteenth diaper change starting to fray at my sister's nerves, I wisely recommended that we head back home and call it a night.

An ode to Facebook

There are few applications that I feel have changed my life - Gmail is one, and MS Money is another (does that make me a complete geek?) Facebook is definitely a close third.

I was a grudging adopter of Facebook at first. Social networking sites have been around for a while, and I've managed to stay detached from them all, despite emotional pleas from my friends. Friendster, MySpace, Naseeb - all have come (and in my opinion, gone). But there was something elegant about the simplicity of Facebook that drew me from the start. It wasn't gimmicky, and it wasn't a place dedicated to online firtation. That, and the fact that within days of creating an account, I was in touch with people from all over the planet, some of whom I had not seen in almost twenty years - both helped to make me a big fan of the site.

So why mention Facebook while I sit blogging in London? Well, it is because of this website that today I met up with an old friend of mine from grade school in Spain. We had discovered each other online, and on a whim I shot him a message to see if he would be around while I was here. Sure enough he was, and we picked today afternoon to meet for lunch.

I found the pre-meeting anxiety comical. I took extra care picking out my wardrobe for the day, and of grooming my increasingly sparse hair (it's a good thing Saeeda was not around, because she would undoubtedly have felt a twinge of jealousy.) The train ride into the city from my sister's house was uneventful, probably because I kept my mind occupied with reading material, but before I knew it, I was standing in front of the ticket counter at the Bond Street tube station, anxiously sifting through the strange faces milling around me as I tried to strike as non-chalant a pose as possible. Would I be able to pick out James from the crowd? I hadn't seen him since 1991, and he didn't have that many pictures up on Facebook.

But there he was. Bearded, wearing glasses, and a lot taller than I remember him, but James nonetheless. With pleasantries exchanged, and the requisite repetitions of "@%£$ man, how the hell are you?" out of the way, we walked over to a corner cafe near Christopher Square, and away from the maddening crowds of Oxford St.

There are few things in life more epiphanous than reviewing your past with an old friend, because you come face-to-face with someone who knew you when you were a completely different person. Through the reminescing, you are able to review the different paths that your lives have taken, and you learn a tiny bit more about that most confusing person in the world - you. And reminesce we did.

We talked about old teachers, places, and most importantly, old friends. There were stories of sheer tragedy - the friend who turned his brain to mush on an overdose of drugs; the friend who lost his mother to cancer and his father to financial ruin; and the intelligent friend who hit some bumps along the way, and is now stuck in a no-hope situation in the middle of nowhere. But there were also stories of great success - of friends who were never going to amount to much, but are now raking in the millions on the European race car circuit (!); of friends who completed their PhD's in engineering and are pursuing successful careers in Spain; and of friends who settled down continents away, and are married to the people they love, with children that they adore.

Time flew by, and I was struck by how lives for our children are going to be different from those of my parents and those of ours. My parents speak nostalgically of childhood friends that went their separate ways and are now only vague memories. In contrast I can reconnect periodically with my old acquaintances using applications such as Facebook. Will our children ever have a valid excuse to fall out of touch with their friends? Will social networking sites make it impossible for them to say they don't know what someone is up to these days?

Seeing James was one of the highlights of my stay in London, even though I've only been here two days. Experiences such as these are invaluable, since they allow you to circle back on your life and strengthen the delicate bonds that are always at risk of snapping. Hopefully we'll stay in better contact from here, and hopefully there will be others that I will reconnect with in the future. For making this happen, I thank you Facebook.

(PS, the picture at the top is from when I was in Spain, and was around twelve years old. James is in the blue shirt in the back row, and I'm two to his left).

Death of a leader

I wanted to write a separate entry for this. Even though my day was spent having fun in London with my sister, I was never really able to keep the thoughts of the day's events in Pakistan from my mind.

Benazir Bhutto had been assassinated that morning (London time). With an unpopular war abroad and racial and civil unrest at home, Bhutto had represented a challenge to the heavy-handed Musharraf that had caught the attention of policymakers around the world. Until today, she had led the only truly "pan-Pakistan" political party, one that had managed to reach across the ethnic and sectarian boundaries that are so prominent in South Asia, and had successfully withstood the Pakisani army's efforts at emasculating it (practically from the time of its founding by Benazir's father). With her death, the experiment with democracy that Pakistan has pretended to flirt with for the past 60 years can be returned to the cryogenic freezing facility from whence it originated.

The riots that have followed Bhutto's death have been no surprise, especially to the people in Pakistan. I spoke to my parents immediately after I found out what had happened, and they told me how markets and workplaces had emptied in the blink of an eye that day. One of our relatives was shopping in the busiest areas of Karachi, when suddenly people had started running in every direction. Someone somewhere had started yelling that Bhutto had been killed, and it didn't take long for people to understand what was coming next. Karachi was going to burn, and it was only a matter of time until the first flames arose. Customers ran so fast that some tripped out of their shoes and didn't bother to return for them.

It was the same at workplaces too. Businesses and corporations shut down immediately, and employees tried their best to get home before the rioting started. Not all of them were successful, though. My parents were surprised at home by my cousin and his friend, who showed up unannounced. Both of them lived on the other side of town but worked closer to where my parents live. They had tried to make it home, but the rioting had already started - after trying to weave past mobs on a rampage, burning vehicles, and advancing police, they had wisely decided to come over to our place for shelter for the night. My dad told me he had never seen two grown men as scared as those two. And that scared me.

The question is, can Pakistan recover? Will Bhutto's death shine light in areas that need it badly, and force Musharraf and the other political parties to come together in an attempt to keep the country from burning? Or will there be a doomsday scenario - extreme violence leading to civil war, with the army losing control of the country and perhaps its nuclear weapons, forcing the US and its allies to pre-emptively invade and seize control?

Scary times, my friends. Scary times.

Madame Tussaud's

A little more refreshed, today my sister and I decided to head into the city to visit the big landmarks and meet up for dinner with Kaleem after he got off work.

Certain memories from the time I lived in London have came back to me quickly. As we spent the day in London, I remembered riding the Underground to get around town, visiting the city's parks with my parents, and of course, hanging out at Madame Tussaud's. My sister commented that the last time we had visited the venerable museum was as kids with my mother. Now we would be visiting the museum together, with one of us towing along a child of her own. Life doubles back on itself in interesting ways.

The museum was crowded and there was a lot of jostling as people rushed to stand with their favorite celebrities. Travolta and Samuel Jackson were chilling off to the side, so I hung out with them for a little bit ...

... before I ran into Jessica Simpson and found myself mesmerized by her big ... hat.

It was only a matter of time before I was going to run into a desi celebrity, and sure enough Shahrukh Khan was standing in a corner with a goofy smile. Well, anything that SRK can do, FRK can do as well, goofy pose and all (and yes, those are Amitabh and Superman in the background...

The funniest part of the museum, I felt, was running into pranksters who would stand really still in silly poses, and I kept thinking they were wax statues too. The museum added to this confusion, because throughout they had placed occasional statues of "tourists" snapping pictures of the other statues, or of walking with their "kids" beside them.

After the museum Saima and I headed over to Canary Wharf, where we met up with Kaleem and had a delicious dinner at Nando's - a halal Portuguese chicken restaurant, which provided a combo that is not quite typical.

London, like any other major city, is bustling with energy. It was ten at night and it was freezing outside, and yet people were still out shopping and having fun. I took this time-delayed shot on Regent's street, one of the prime shopping areas in the city:

London, land of the CCTV

The flight over to London was uneventful, other than the fact that someone somewhere took mercy on my knees, and upgraded me to United's Economy "Plus". Although it is the most dastardly form of price discrimination ever, the extra three inches of leg room were a life saver for my aging frame. I watched "SuperBad" during the in-flight entertainment segment, and have to admit that the movie was hilarious even though I was watching it on a tiny screen with sound that went in and out the whole time.

Memories of London from my six-month stay here when I was eight years old started coming back to me as my brother-in-law drove me to his place from the airport. The same narrow lanes, the same rows of houses huddling together, the same driving on the wrong side of the road. My sister lives north of the city in Greater London, and her house is in a quiet cul-de-sac shared by three other houses. My arrival here soon caused commotion though, as I hugged my sister (who I hadn't seen in two years), and came upon my nine month old nephew (who I had never seen). I'm still trying to figure out how his facial muscles are able to support his cheeks and lower lip all on their own:


Most of the rest of the day was spent sleeping off the jet lag, eating lunch, sleeping off some more jet lag, and then venturing into the city with my family. We headed over to St. Christoper's square for some Lebanese dining, and I was completely taken aback by the number of CCTV cameras everywhere. One corner had FIVE cameras pointed in every direction. Can you even imagine something like that in the US, where people complain about privacy issues with red-light traffic cameras? Kaleem, my brother-in-law, told me that on average, one is photographed THIRTY FIVE times between stepping out of their house in a suburb and getting to work in downtown London. THIRTY FIVE!

I'm going to have to make sure I drop my nose-picking habit while I'm here.

I'm off to London!

As the title to this blog reflects, I have fallen prey to my desire to travel again, so I'm off to visit my sister in London. Although I've transited through Heathrow and Gatwick multiple times, the last time I spent more than a night in the land of the Queen Mother was in the 1980's, when my dad was briefly posted there for work.

The goals for this trip are to introduce myself to my brand new nephew (almost 9 months old now), and to see what all the fuss about this "Europe Rising" thing is. Stay tuned!

True heros

Imagine my surprise the other day when I got an email from my friend Rangina Hamidi. Any time I hear from Rangina is a pleasure, and to be honest, a relief. You see, Rangina is in Kandahar, Afghanistan, and I get to hear from her so infrequently that inevitably I start wondering if she is doing ok. Until I get another email from her, and I get to rest easy for a little longer.

Rangina is an Afghan American who I became good friends with while we were both undergrads at the University of Virginia. After graduating we went our different ways - I started my career in consulting, and Rangina decided to go work for a nonprofit. Until 9-11 and its aftermath.

Fiercely independent and an ardent believer in women's rights, Rangina wasted little time leaving all the comforts of the US for the hardship of Afghanistan the moment the Taliban regime fell. I don't think she had any idea what she was going to do once she got there, but she knew she wanted to help somehow. Today she is being honored live on CNN for the work she is doing in her home country (www.cnn.com/heroes).

Watching CNN describe Rangina's work makes me think long and hard about the opportunities for impact that each of us are provided with, and how many of us actually seize those opportunities. Rangina is working with the women of Kandahar, helping them market their beautiful embroidery across the world (you can find out more at www.kandahartreasure.com), while I am handing out notepads and pens to receptionists. Ok, I know, I exaggerate. I'm doing more than that, and I'm proud of my work. But my point is this - not so long ago Rangina was faced with a difficult decision. She could remain in the US in relative comfort and try to help Afghanistan remotely, or she could pack up her belongings and head to a dangerous environment to use her upbringing and education to help the women of her country. Rangina chose the latter.

What would I have done, if faced with the same situation? What would you have done?

The reality of the field

So it's coming up on three weeks since I've been out of training and have been placed in the real world of field sales. I've learned a few things that our trainers conveniently forgot to mention, or simply did not emphasize:

• Doctors have better things to do with their time than to listen to a sales rep deliver a marketing message.
• You occupy the rung below single-cell amoeba on the food chain as far as the people you interact with are concerned.
• Doctors think they know everything, but they don't. In turn, their patients risk receiving suboptimal treatment because of the doctor's refusal to listen to facts that run contrary to their beliefs.
• With all this pressure, saying what you want to say in a precise, effective manner is an art form.
• If you can't develop a thick skin, don't show up to work.

What a wake up call this has been. Before I started this job, I thought of sales reps the same way most other people think of them - nuisances that make your product purchasing decision unpleasant. This image shattered once I got to training, where I developed immense respect for the sheer volume of knowledge a pharma rep needs to learn in order to do their job effectively. Being in the field has been another wake-up call. I can't imagine how some of these reps do their job day after day for years on end. I don't understand how they dig deep within themselves to find the motivation to go on after facing yet another close-minded physician. I don't understand how they spend hours on end working by themselves, with almost no support or interaction with their coworkers.

So far I've been happy if I can get my name across to a doctor before he starts walking away. My favorite story from these last three weeks happened in week 1. I was visiting an office for the first time, and walked up to the receptionist to introduce myself, mention the products that I carried, and ask if the doctor was available. The nurse looked me up and down and asked what else I had with me. Confused, I repeated the products I was responsible for. No good. "What ELSE do you carry?" she asked. At this point I admitted defeat. "Umm, what would you like me to carry?" I asked.

Which is when the receptionist told me that unless I had some premium items (i.e., pens, pads, etc.) for the staff, that I wasn't getting back to see the doctor anytime soon. Of course, yours truly had no premium items at the time, so I started to leave, crestfallen and teary-eyed. I had almost reached the office door, when I heard the receptionist call out behind me, "Sugar, I'm just messing with you. The doctor is on vacation!" The entire office staff laughed heartily.

*sigh* Abused AND ridiculed. I need a hug.

For me, this experience is a dose of bad-tasking, albeit necessary, medicine. I thought I had strong communication skills coming out of business school, but I've quickly learned that I don't stand a chance against a polished sales rep. In school we were taught to develop 5 minute elevator pitches - speeches to have on hand to deliver to your company's CEO should you run into them on the elevator up to work. 5 minutes? Are you kidding me? Seasoned sales reps that I've seen in action can deliver impactful messages that will stop a doctor in their tracks in 20 seconds. If this is the only skill that I pick up from this rotation, then I'll be a happy camper.

Hawaiian shirt day

Bill Lumbergh: "Oh, and remember: next Friday... is Hawaiian shirt day. So, you know, if you want to, go ahead and wear a Hawaiian shirt and jeans." [Office Space]

Training is almost done with. It’s been a really, really long slog. Really long. In fact, I was discussing this with one of the other MBAs going through this experience with me, and we realized that we’d been studying medicine non-stop for the last 60 days. I’m practically ready to open my own practice.

This last week of training has been different, since it has involved attending a real live Regional Sales Meeting. These are events held every few months where the sales force of a large geographic region – Chicago in this case – comes together to hear about the latest updates from management, discuss performance-to-date, and study the latest articles/research that has been published regarding their drugs. But it all starts with Hawaiian Shirt Day.

That the people in Sales are different is by now old news to me. But the way this difference manifests itself in all aspects of a salesperson’s life continues to surprise me. I’ve attended regional meetings before when I was a consultant, and they are usually serious events with some revelry on the side. Sales meetings are revelry with some serious events on the side.

We started with Hawaiian shirts, which we were all asked to wear for the first day of the three-day meeting. This was to get us in the right spirit of accomplishment, since the most successful salespeople (the “All Stars,” as they are called) get to win an all-expense paid weeklong vacation to Hawaii at the end of the year. These All Stars represent the top 10% of the sales force, and attaining this ranking ensures that great stardom will accompany you everywhere you go. The difference in making an All Star versus winning a consolation cash prize for second place is measured in the tenths of a percentage point, which means that things get pretty competitive. It’s an interesting concept, and not one you see repeated too frequently in industry. Sure, there are performance appraisals that lead to higher bonuses, and some sort of chairman’s awards that lead to a desk display piece, but the prizes are generally not the kind that great memories can be made of.

This particular regional meeting opened with goody bags, Beach Boys music, and hula hoop concerts. I didn’t know anyone there other than my fellow trainees and the sales team that I had done some field travel with, but it seemed every other person was best friends with everyone else. There was a lot of hugging, high-fiving, and merriment for the first hour. Although the day eventually progressed to more serious discussions of the state of the business, things quickly got back on track towards the end with music and limbo contests. Yours truly decided to get into the spirit of things, but rapidly realized that a) I’m too tall to limbo, and b) I have zero hip flexibility. How cool would it be if other industries lightened up like this? Can you imagine a regional meeting of strategy consultants partying it up, with the managing partner teaching a group of junior consultants the finer points of hula-hooping? The world would be such a better place.

Although part of my brain is completely fried from all the training that I’ve been attending, the wiser part of me realizes that life is going to be different once out in the field for real (next week), and that I’ll be praying for the next sales event just so that I can wear a Hawaiian shirt again.

Throwdown on Church Street

Saeeda and I have been diligently hunting for houses in the Chicago suburbs, while I've been in Sales training, . Although my Sales rotation will keep me downtown, it is only a matter of time before I am transferred back to HQ, which will then require a horrendous 2 hour commute (one way) from downtown Chicago. So we've been mostly concentrating on looking at places in the northern suburb of Evanston, from where both of our commutes are going to be manageable.

We taken our time, probably more so because of the great buyer's market that we're in right now. Home sellers are receptive to cutting prices, houses are staying on the market for months, and buyer are generally not competing for the same property. I say generally, because this past weekend it became clear to us how quickly things can change.

On Sunday Saeeda and I returned to a new housing development that we had first visited in July, just when we were starting our housing hunt. Located conveniently close to public transportation, this development on Church St. pushes up against the lower-income part of Evanston, and so our concern for this entire time has been whether this is going to be a good investment. This Sunday we wanted to revisit to see how much more construction had taken place, and what units were still available for sale.

The sales office was a zoo. There were prospective buyers everywhere, and the agent working that day was clearly overwhelmed. Luckily, we were one of the first people there, so we were able to corner the agent and ask most of our questions before he got pulled away by another lady. It quickly became clear to us that interest in this development had picked up significantly in the time that we had been exploring our options elsewhere in Chicago, so we decided to put down a reservation on one of the units. The reservation was a refundable amount of money that would simply enable us to spend 10 days to decide whether we wanted to put in a contract. So we pulled the selling agent away as soon as we got the option and told him of our decision. The agent gladly got us the forms, which we filled out and returned to him. At which point he turned a little pale.

Apparently the other lady that he had been attending to had decided to put down a reservation for the same unit. It was amazing how quickly our entire mindset changed. Faced with the prospect of losing a desirable property, we completely abandoned the laissez-faire attitude we'd had for the last three months. Panic set in. The agonizingly long debates that we'd had each night debating the pros and cons of the 30 or so properties we'd seen so far instantly became irrelevant. The list of top properties we had been considering for the last few weeks quickly whittled down to one - Church Street. We had to have this place.

Which is when our real estate agent stepped up her game and earned her keep many times over. Nancy had come recommended to us by a friend of mine, and had been the perfect complement to our easygoing attitude during our entire real estate hunt. Not pushy, always supportive, and a pleasure to be around, Nancy was more a nice older relative than real estate agent. But the moment she realized that there was going to be a rumble, and that some tough negotiating was called for, she transformed before our eyes.

With quiet, commanding authority, Nancy calmly told us to leave the sales center, as things could get ugly. She told us to immediately head home to retrieve our checkbooks - the reservation amount was completely refundable and it would give us an edge against the lady now looking to reserve the same property that we wanted. As I left the sales office, I could clearly hear the other lady begin to complain loudly upon learning that someone else wanted the house that she did.

The drive home to pick up our checkbook was an enlightening one. I realized that this whole time Saeeda and I had been suffering from option paralysis. Just the fact that we could take our time and look at all the houses that we wanted meant that we were stuck trying to figure out exactly what we wanted. Facing a high-pressure situation had quickly whittled down our options and forced us to make a decision, one that we had been agonizing over for months.

It took us 40 min. to return to the sales center, where we were met by Nancy - there was no sign of our competition and the house was ours to reserve. I would find out later that Nancy had negotiated quickly and efficiently to find flaws in the other lady's candidacy, and to instead promote our own. Faced with the option of picking, the builder's agent had decided to go with us. The relief was immense, as was the gratitude I felt for Nancy's ability to negotiate hard. I know I've learned this stuff in class, but theory is one thing and the practical reality of a situation is another completely.

Now begin the 10 days of making sure this is the perfect place for us. I wonder if we're going to wait until day 9 to make that final call...

I begin to understand

Week three of sales training just ended, and all of us sales-reps-to-be head home for a week of regional field travel, where we'll get to visit actual physicians and practice the theory and techniques that we've been learning in class. I'm excited to finally use the Jedi mind tricks, and especially the cool Vulcan death grip, should a physician prove more stubborn than I expect.

Actually, there's been none of that in training at all. And therein lies the dilemma I am now facing. I'm starting to understand what this is all about. I'm starting to see how little I knew about the business of selling pharma, and how hard it really is. I'm starting to appreciate my fellow sales reps, and am beginning to be humbled in their presence - some of these people are tremendously hard workers, and care deeply about improving patient lives, even if it means facing up to an ignorant doctor. And that's the most surprising transformation of all for me. I'd never have used the word "ignorant" with the word "doctor" before, but a big part of the charisma and mythology surrounding physicians is turning to dust right before my eyes.

I'm starting to realize that there are a lot of doctors out there who stopped learning once they left med-school. That there are simply too many demands on a physician's time to keep up with all the research that can direct them to patients in the best manner possible. That even those doctors who got "C" grades in college and barely cleared their board exams truly believe that they know everything, but that I, a mere sales rep, am better informed about the cardiovascular disease state and the best cholesterol treatment algorithms.

I'm also beginning to see that somewhere along the way things went horribly wrong with the US healthcare system, and with the process of selling medicines. Sales techniques got out of hand, doctors began to abuse favors provided by the reps, and the reps began to bend over backward to provide the most unethical of benefits to physicians that were willing to prescribe their products. There is a reason we are hated and treated like dirt. But as with all systems that swing too far in one direction, there is a reversion to the mean. Abbott has a zero-tolerance policy and FDA oversight means that now there is no leeway for reps to do the things they used to be able to do (i.e., take doctors out on all expense paid cruises).

It'll take a while before our reputations are restored. And maybe one day this system of selling is going to have to be done away with completely. But for now this is how things are. And if I want to change any of it in the future, I must spend time in the ditches, learning the ropes.

This sales rotation is going to be more of an eye-opener than I ever thought that it would be.

Sales Training

Ok, yes, so I've been bad about blogging for a while, but it's because I've been wrapped up in the excitement of starting a new job, and making sure I work hard to impress everyone. I must say, though, that at times I feel like I'm back in business school, which is disturbing. Allow me to elaborate.

Given that I've entered Abbott Labs's rotational program for MBA grads, I get to choose where to spend my first year-long rotation. The natural place to start is Sales, where you get to see at the most basic level how a pharma company generates sales for its products. However, this means swallowing a humility pill, and becoming one of the unwashed - a sales rep.

Yes, go ahead, stare - I don't mind. Really. Ok, well, just a little bit. Alright, I want you to stop staring now. Seriously.

I will agree that pharma reps generally generate the same warm fuzzy feeling that do used car salesman. When I told my cousin Ahmer, who is a doctor, what I would be doing for the next year, she flat out refused to believe that I had spent $150,000 on my education to get to this point (she then told me how much she hated sales reps - don't worry Ahmer, we're coming after you). For that matter, my father still doesn't completely know what I do (although he suspects - shhh, don't tell him). My friends know simply that I am in a rotational program. Finally, I myself have had to suppress major doubts before jumping into this situation. But slowly I am beginning to understand.

Part of this enlightenment has come from the last two weeks, where I have been sequestered in a hotel near Chicago, undergoing Sales training and cramming my head full of medical knowledge. Because I will be working with cholesterol medication, I've had to learn the ins and outs of cardiovascular diseases, their causes, their diagnoses, their treatment algorithms, and the competitive landscape. For eight hours a day I join fellow MBA grads to sit in class, listen to lectures, and study. And take exams. Which I have to clear at a 90% or better. I'm allowed to fail a test once, but I have to retake the test the next morning and pass at 90% or better. Or I'm fired.

When was the last time you felt pressure like that? When was the last time YOU scored a 90% on anything? I know mine. I was in 5th grade and I got a 95% on my math test. Heck, even scoring high wouldn't be that big a deal if it wasn't for the fact that my livelihood depended on it. I'm competitive, and studied hard to get an "A" just as much as my fellow student throughout my school years. But at the end of the day I could always go home even if ended up with a "B" grade. Not here buddy. This place isn't for the weak of heart. The pressure, as they say, has been on for two weeks. And I will be the first to admit that I failed my first test, but I will just as quickly add that I recovered, and passed the makeup test with flying colors. I also feel better knowing that fellow students also tripped just as I did - the picture below was surreptitiously captured on my cell phone camera, and shows the review session that was held for all those individuals who failed the first exam. As you can see, I am hardly alone (I have blurred faces to protect privacy, for now - you know who you are and you better play nice.)

Still, suffering through the equivalent of a semester of med school every week would be ok if it weren't for the other individuals in the class with me (in addition to the ten or so MBAs) - the 160 or so sales reps. I am surrounded by happy, energetic people. Type A personalities. Energy levels are so high that were anyone to consume ANY caffeine I'm convinced they would explode. Everyone applauds everyone else all the time. No instructor question ever goes unanswered. I am never left to myself, because someone is always approaching to engage me in a conversation. By the end of the first two weeks I have found myself withdrawing and becoming "the quiet guy." It's crazy. The whole situation is like being in b-school again, but with super-high energy, happy, energetic people who would put the competitive b-school type to shame.

It has, in other words, been a rough start.

Scones with a side of Saudi oil

For the last big outing before they left for Pakistan, Saeeda and I decided to take my parents to high tea at the Peninsula hotel in downtown Chicago. Both Saeeda and I had wanted to sample their afternoon tea, after having done the same at their sister location in Hong Kong. Since my parents are big tea aficionados, we thought this would be a nice experience for everyone.

Although the hotel is tucked away on a side street off Michigan Ave., the interior of the hotel is beautiful, and is befitting of the "Peninsula" brand. Spacious, luxurious, and well appointed, it practically smacks you in the face with it's premiere status as you walk its halls. I found myself thinking if my clothes were expensive enough to be worn inside.

Tea was held in a grand ballroom space and was delicious. The china was fine, the scones perfectly warm, and the teas flavorful. The real fun that I had, however, was listening to conversations around us, one of which caught my attention the moment we sat down.

Soon after we had situated ourselves, several gentlemen in dark suits came and sat down beside us. There were three people of Arab origin, and one white gentleman, all four of whom spent some time exchanging pleasantries. About ten minutes into our tea, two more men joined the four - again, one was Arab, and the other white American. Through the discreet glances that I was able to steal, I could tell that all men were wearing the finest suits possible, and had lavish accessories to go along with them - Rolex watches, silk ties, gold tie-pins - the works. The two American men sat next to each other, and the four Arab men sat across from them.

It was clear to me that this was some sort of business meeting, and that a negotiation was about to take place between the Americans and the Arabs. After all, what better place to conduct business than over tea in a nice hotel, after which all parties can retire to their rooms and fly back to their places of origin the next day? It was the actual scale of the negotiation that blew me away. I soon began to hear snippets of conversation such as:

"We see a great future in a Saudi oil partnership"
"... that much money is going to have a significant impact on our liquidity, not to mention an effect on global markets..." (this from the two American gentlemen)
"... $2 billion ... " (the Arabs)
"... we can go no higher than ... [couldn't hear the rest]" (the Americans)

and so it went. It was really hard for me to concentrate on our own conversation, especially since this was the last time the four of us were going to be dining out together for a long time. The whole time I was thinking about the sheer amount of money that was about to change hands just a few feet from me. Who said that these things happened only on a golf course? Hogwash.

The men were still negotiating when we left, and it was all I could do to prevent myself from asking for their autographs as we walked by. After all, these guys are the real powerbrokers in our world.

It also got me thinking about what location I'd pick for my own business negotiations. I think golf is overrated, and I refuse to play the game. However, I do appreciate the concept of an athletic competition rather than tea for conducting business. So should I ever make it to the point where I need to buy or sell a company or two (or move $2 billion in global markets), I think I will do so by asking the other party out to the basketball court.

We'd start by shooting free throws, which is where I'd gauge their accuracy and general shooting form, from where we'd progress to a general shootaround. That's when I'd casually broach the topic at hand. Serious negotations wouldn't start until a game of 5-on-5. I would let my deputies hash out the details with their counterparts between plays. The heavy negotiating would take place between myself the other lead negotiator. I picture getting the ball in the low post, dribbling twice and saying, "your asking price is much too high; you're going to have to reconsider," and turning around to shoot over my man. Upon scoring (you actually think I'd miss?), I'd run back to my end of the court, giving my adversary time to compose his response. He'd dribble to his right, fake left, and dribble back to his right to drive to the basket for a layup. "This is our final offer," he'd say as he would leave the ground for a layup.

At which point I would jump from behind and swat his shot away. "I think it best that you reconsider," is all I'd say as the ball would fly out of bounds, with one of my deputies running to recollect it.

And so on it would go. So much more fun, no? Besides, it'd mean that I'd only ever negotiate with worthy physical adversaries. And after concluding a tough game of street hoops, THAT'S when we'd head for tea at the Peninsula.

Jack Bauer vs. Jason Bourne

This past weekend I saw the greatest action movie of the summer. The Bourne Ultimatum stars a dark and world-weary Jason Bourne, ready to beat people silly to get answers that will put his demons to rest. Matt Damon is phenomenal as Jason Bourne, and over the course of the three movies he has truly made the role his own. As I left the theater after what felt like a non-stop, two hour adrenaline rush, I started thinking about other uber-spies, and how they stacked up against each other. For whatever reason, the first name that popped into my head was that of 24's Jack Bauer (perhaps because I have come to find him increasingly irritating lately).

The best way to determine the better agent in anything other than a barroom brawl in a closed room is to look at the major weapons in each agent's arsenal: street smarts, tech smarts, and martial arts. I would define street smarts as an awareness of one's environment and the ability to manipulate said environment; tech smarts would be the ability to use advanced technology to one's advantage; and martial arts would be one's proficiency in combat (armed and unarmed).

Street Smarts

While both Bauer and Bourne show amazing street smarts, I feel that Bourne has the upper hand here. Bauer is overly reliant on CTU assistance for many of his infiltrations and enemy confrontations. Be it multiple gigabyte blueprints that are instantly transmitted to his PDA or his near constant voice connection to CTU via an always-charged cell phone, Bauer is constantly supported by CTU. Bourne, on the other hand, has repeatedly proven to adapt and improvise solo in order to make his way out of, or into, any location - be it highly-guarded embassies, covert CIA headquarters, or off-the-grid safe-houses. Bourne comes equipped with an innate sixth sense that lets him adapt spontaneously to whatever environment he finds himself in, whereas Bauer cannot do so without CTU assistance. Advantage Bourne.

Tech Smarts

I will not try to argue the absurdity of the technology at Bauer's disposal. Even if you disregard the fact that all of the US's spy satellites are seemingly at Bauer's disposal whenever he gets bored, even the least tech-savvy has to admit that some of the things on 24 defy common sense. My favorite remains a scene from season 1, where Bauer is looking over Chloe's shoulder while they try to figure out the connection between a plane bombing and a train derailment. Although I'm hazy on the details, I remember Bauer asking Chloe to hack into some airline's database to pull the passenger manifest for the last week (done at the push of a button), and then to hack into the train's logs for the last week (also done at the push of a button). He then tells Chloe to "merge the databases" which, amazingly, Chloe does and ... wait for it ... you actually see the visual representations of these two "databases" merging on screen. There's not enough room on this blog for me to explain how ridiculous this is on multiple levels, but unfortunately, we have to use that which we are given. And unfortunately CTU LA has at its disposal some of the craziest technology in the world.

Bourne, on the other hand, uses little to no technology, and instead gets his information the old fashioned way - surveillance, informants, or good-old physical coercion. Bourne's tech smarts come in the form of knowledge of surveillance and tracking techniques, and how best to defeat these. Case in point: the CIA's best minds spend three movies trying to track him, and Bourne is able to consistently evade his hunters. This then just comes down to what is better - having technology at your disposal, or having the ability to defeat that technology. I'm a technophile, and I have to believe that you can't outrun technology forever, so Advantage Bauer.

Martial Arts

I've been a practitioner of the martial arts for the last 13 years (with stupid b-school getting in the way of things), and although I'm no walking killing machine, I have some knowledge of the combat depicted in 24 and in the Bourne movies. Jack Bauer's single greatest martial art move appears to be his ability to yell at amazingly loud levels whenever he confronts an opponent - "MY NAME IS JACK BAUER. PUT YOUR HANDS UP OR I WILL SHOOT!" This usually turns his opponents into quivering masses of jello. If, however, this does not work, Jack will put someone in a choke hold, strike the side of their neck, or generally do something equally goofy that works every time for him. It doesn't matter whether Jack's opponent is a mall security guard or the Presidential Secret Service detail. They all fall for simple punch-kick routines.

Bourne, on the other hand, kicks major ass using impressive martial arts techniques. You only have to watch him combat the assassins sent to eliminate him to understand how lethal Bourne can be using everyday items (heck, in the second movie he beat a German assassin silly using just a paper magazine). From what 24 provides, I can't believe that a Bauer-Bourne fight would last long at all. Advantage Bourne.

Winner: Jason Bourne

So there you have it. Jason Bourne is the better spy. And I'm glad, because while 24 has devolved into a nuisance that I refuse to watch next season, the Bourne series have spent time working on realism. We see Bourne's vulnerability, we see him get hurt, we feel the pain of every punch that he lands. Bauer just runs around scowling and yelling at people.

By the way, while I was writing this, I realized that there are three "JB" initialled heroes that I know of in the same genre - Jack Bauer, Jason Bourne, and James Bond. Further, a "J" first name appears quite popular: "Jim" Phelps of Mission Impossible, "John" McLane of Die Hard, and "Jack" Ryan of Tom Clancy novels come to mind right away. Why is "JB" so popular? Why is a simple first name starting with "J" a passport to becoming a super-cop? Or am I just a victim of a selection bias?

To be the best of what's left

So summer has been passing by merrily, and I've been doing my fair share of sightseeing and Chicago-appreciating. I've also been making headway in regards to my basketball game. After a sensational outing a few weeks ago, it's been more of a struggle getting accepted by the regular players, and I've had to work hard to not make a complete fool of myself.

So the other day, I showed up at my gym, and started shooting around. Guys filtered in, until eventually we had ten and it was time to pick teams. Two people shot 3-point shots, made them, and became captains responsible for picking teams out of the remaining eight players.

Now, most of us remember the excruciating agony of waiting around to be picked to a team from days gone by, when it was either high-school gym class or the neighborhood kiddie soccer game. In fact, our youth is probably littered with such depressing memories (if yours isn't, then screw you). And no one relishes being put in that same situation again. My strategy is usually to look bored and make no eye contact with the guys picking teams, as if I want to say, "you bore me. I don't really want to play for you anyway. In fact I'm glad I'm being picked last because that'll lull everyone into believing I suck, when actually, you suck."

Here, however, I had no legitimate reason to be picked early. I've already said that everyone I play with is much better than I am. And so it came down to the last three players, with yours truly still available. At this point one of the captains decided to do away with the "I'll-pick-then-you-pick" approach, and said "ok, we'll take Sean and Faisal, and you take Mike." The other captain looked at him with incredulity.

"What? " he said. "Why do you get to pick the best of what's left? Stick to the way we've been picking the teams!"

Ah, music to my ears. I've made it to the point where I'm considered "the best of the rest." Which means there's at least one other person now who is perceived to be a worse player than I am.

Look out baby, 'cuz I'm making progress!

100 Amazing Acts

It's getting harder and harder to think up things to do and places to take my folks while they're here with me. Luckily, Chicago is a town where summers are packed full of activities and events, so it doesn't take too long to come up with a destination. The highlight for this weekend was tapas at Cafe Babareeba (best tapas in Chicago), followed by a Cirque Shanghai performance at Navy Pier. "Bai Xi" (or 100 Amazing Acts) as it is known in Chinese, follows in the footsteps of ancient Han tradition, and it's name is a reference to its practitioners' seemingly endless abilities.

I've enjoyed seeing Cirque du Soleil perform before, and after reading reviews I figured that Cirque Shanghai was going to be something similar. The show was definitely entertaining, though not quite for the same reasons as a Cirque du Soleil performance. The acrobats were highly talented, of course, and displayed uncanny flexibility. From the flying trapeze artists swinging through the air, to the juggling tightrope-walking unicyclists, to the human-pyramid-forming children - all displayed a balance and elegance that was exquisite.

No, all of that was fine. It was the music that got to me. The show started out ok. With the six hundred year old Forbidden City as its stage backdrop, the performance had kung-fu performing acrobats going through their hypnotic moves to the beautiful strains of huqin music. Modernity was tastefully represented with electronic percussion and drums subtly blended in, and the overall effect was quite authentic. Until Act 2 began, and with it the Mission Impossible theme song.

Here popped out gold clad male acrobats, able to do push-ups with their fingertips while supporting more hand-standing acrobats on their necks. But all I could think of was Tom Cruise dangling from nylon rope as he struggle to prevent drops of sweat from falling on a pressure-sensitive vault floor.

The same problem continued with the juggling unicyclist, as she balanced saucers on her head while juggling tennis balls with one hand. To more movie music.

By the time two more male acrobats showed up and squared off in mock combat, I thought I'd heard enough. But that was when Queen's "We Will Rock You" came on the speakers. I couldn't take it anymore. While the two "traditional Chinese acrobat" combatants twirled impossibly around each other, I turned to Saeeda in frustration and asked her what the hell was going on.

"That," she replied, "is called globalization."

The Interrobang

With all this free time on my hands, I've been able to hit the gym with regularity. Results have been slow, but at least I'm not out of breath when I climb a flight of steps. The gym atmosphere has helped keep me engaged - the machines are nice and new, the staff helpful, and the other patrons are serious lifters, all of which helps to motivate my own workout. The problem with my gym is that the music selection leaves something to be desired. I'm no music junkie, and admittedly I have very little knowledge of the music world. Still, it kinda sucks when you're reaching failure on the last rep of the last set of your bench press, with every fiber in your body trembling in an effort to squeeze out just one more ounce of energy, when Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" comes on the speakers. Game over.

So I've started taking my iPod Shuffle to the gym, and rely on that to keep me motivated. It just so happens that during my last workout I decided to skip past the regular songs I have, and ended up with a podcast I've recently subscribed to. Now, I understand that working out to a podcast is high on the nerd scale, especially given what I mentioned above. But, at the risk of sounding like a complete geek, I actually enjoyed the session. The podcast I ended up listening to was that from Grammar Girl , a real-life science writer whose passion is to make grammar fun for the masses. If you think I've completely lost it and am a complete loser, check out her podcast ratings on iTunes. They're through the roof.

This particular podcast's topic was on punctuating questions. Yes, I know, fascinating. However, she mentioned what is a pet peeve of my mine - the widespread habit of ending questions full of surprise like so - "He said what?!"

People of the world - a statement is either a question, or an exclamation, and not both. Pick one. Please. Not doing so has given rise to the habit where writers feel that they can show even more surprise with, "He said what!!" And REAL surprise with, "He said what!!!" Folks, adding exclamation marks does NOT make the statement any more surprising. Nor does, "He said what???" show more complete befuddlement than the simple, "He said what?" Please, for the love of English.

But this is where Grammar Girl comes to the rescue. Apparently there is a rarely used punctuation mark designed specifically for the purpose of combining a question mark and an exclamation mark, and it comes with the beautiful name of an ... interrobang.

See how that just rolls off your tongue‽ Don't you just love it‽ Don't you agree that email communication everywhere will become just that much simpler‽ He said what‽

Yes, the interrobang simply combines the typographical question and exclamation characters to form a new one - ‽

So that's it. A long winded way for me to do my part to spread grammatical clarity through the rest of the world, and to make sure that people come to love this spurned character as one their own.

Goooo, interrobang‽

Transformers ... not much that meets the eye

*** WARNING: There are no real spoilers in the text below, but if you're a die-hard fan that hasn't watched the movie, skip this entry ***

Saeeda and I watched the new Transformers movie two nights ago. It was every little boy's dream come true. There were cool cars, crazy aircraft, hot babes, thunderous explosions, and destruction galore. And it was loud. Really loud. Saeeda and I both enjoyed the movie - Saeeda because she grew up watching the cartoon, and me because of all the special effects. It was hard to tell what was real and what was not.

However, halfway through the movie, Transformers turned into Independence Day. You remember that Will Smith movie? The one that had aliens running Windows software, and the President of the United States leading fighter aircraft into battle? The same thing happened to this movie - robots began cracking jokes (they have a sense of humor?), in one scene Optimus Prime tries to stay quiet by tiptoeing around a house and hiding behind a tree (!), super-attractive college hackers figure out information that teams of government scientists can't crack, etc.

You see, there's one thing about suspending disbelief. I am fully willing to believe that there can be robots running around that transform into everyday machines to disguise themselves. But then there are other, seemingly trivial things, that bug the crap out of me. Why is that?

Oh, and maybe I can get some help with this next. You see, I never watched the cartoons as a child (they didn't air in Spain when I was growing up there), but I know enough about Transformers through pop-culture osmosis. When we walked out of the movie, Saeeda remarked that she was disappointed the robots didn't unite like they used to do in the cartoon. I said that she was confusing Transformers with Voltron. She said I was wrong. I reiterated that she was wrong. Therein ensued a passionate argument, that continues to simmer. Any help?

Quitting while you're still ahead

For my birthday (May 30th), Saeeda gave me gift membership to the Lakeshore Athletic Club near our place. Because this gym has a really nice basketball court, Saeeda figured I'd be able to start playing hoops again, which is something I've been unable to do regularly because of b-school. Still, I have a sneaking suspicion that she also wanted to make sure that all that lounging around I'm doing right now doesn't make me fat.

In any case, I had played on a Tuesday and Thursday around lunchtime, and found the competition to consist of players that ran intense full court games for 90 minutes. I didn't get the ball passed to me much, and that was ok with me, because half the time I was trying not to make an ass of myself with these obviously better players. From the two times that I played, I estimated that no one was younger than 25, and that almost everyone had some sort of prior organized basketball experience, most probably high-school.

This week I decided to go play on a Monday. The first sign that things were different was that I couldn't pick out any of the guys from the Tues/Thurs lineup among the people shooting around. Not realizing the relevance of this, I picked up a spare ball and began shooting around myself. It wasn't long before a guy yelled over to me from a table at half-court and asked if I wanted to play. I said yes, and he asked me to sign in. Hint #2 that something was up - Tue/Thurs. games required no sign-ups. Still, I signed my name and went back to shooting around, making friends by chatting with a 5' 9'' guy named "Moo" who, as it turned out, had also just recently joined the gym.

Soon after the guy sitting at the table yelled out the names of the people who were going to be playing. My name was included in the list (appropriately butchered of course). The buzzer sounded, the scoreboard on the side of the court lit up, 8 minutes went on, and the shot-clock was set to 24 seconds. Uh oh.

It was about this time that I realized I was in over my head. Looking around at my teammates, I suddenly felt ... short. 20 seconds later, any doubts I had that this was going to be a slightly more organized pick-up game vanished - about the time it took for my team to score on an alley-oop dunk. I was playing a timed and scored game with proper shot-clocks with a group of individuals who were either already playing in college, or had at some point done so in the past. Maybe not Division I ball, but enough to put my meager skills to shame.

I spent the rest of the game praying to God that I wouldn't embarrass my teammates. It was hard enough to keep up with everyone athletically, let alone work out the strategies my teammates were using on each play - something which the other four guys on my team were able to do effortlessly. We won our first game, despite my presence on the team, and also went on to win the second game.

By the third game I was feeling a little better. I had taken about one shot a game, and missed one, so I was shooting 50%. I had only been yelled at a few times by our pointguard. Not much trash talking had been directed my way by the guys I was forced to guard. The players on the sidelines hadn't made too much fun of me - in fact, I'd even gotten some words of praise for a block in the game. Still, I knew my place. Especially when regulation ended with the score tied. Overtime was going to be 2 more minutes.

It was obvious who was going to handle the ball on our side. Moo. This dude, who came up to my shoulder, was a beast. Fast, furious, and with an amazingly aggressive first step, he had fearlessly penetrated over and over throughout the three games we had played previously. I would later find out that Moo had just finished working out with Team USA in Colorado and had moved to Chicago to be closer to family. So obviously his game was good. This was made clear as he dribbled down the court with an intense look on his face, searching out me and my teammates to see where we were positioned to help him with his drive.

I decided to get the hell out of Moo's way, and hang out by the three point line. My other teammates positioned themselves in various spots, and Moo began his penetration with 10 or so seconds left on the shot clock. Dribbling to his left, he darted towards the basket, but was cut off by the other team's defenders, forcing him in a wider arc towards me. Still aggressive, Moo kept angling towards the basket, but by this time a second defender had come over to help. When the third defender started moving over, Moo realized he was in trouble - too many defenders, and no outlets left except one. Me.

I felt the ball hit my hands, and I remember glancing at the shot clock, which was down to 3 seconds. I remember thinking how cruel fate was that I was being forced into taking the last shot - I did not appreciate the pressure. I felt myself rise, go through shooting motions, and come back down as a defender bull rushed me. My view of the bucket was blocked as we collided, and I heard the buzzer sound the end of overtime. I quickly darted a look around the defender who had run into me, and realized that the ball had not rebounded off the rim. It had gone in. I had scored. In overtime. On the last shot, with time expiring.

The next few minutes were taken up with high fives from all of my teammates, and with my dazed self trying to regain composure. I do remember my first conscious thought once I settled down a little. It was to immediately walk to where my stuff was sitting on the sideline, collect my belongings, wave to my teammates, and walk off the court. If there ever was a situation where I needed to quit while I was ahead, this was it. Things just could not possibly get any better.

But I did have a huge smile on my face the whole way home.

Mr. Anthony

All this free time on my hands has not meant that I've had the opportunity to relax - Saeeda has been finding ways to keep me busy. Personally, I think the whole thing is quite unfair. Why shouldn't I be able to get up at 11am and play videogames all day long? Those things are hard to crack, and each level requires detailed strategizing and planning. My wife just doesn't understand...

In any case, today's task was to get our couches and upholstery cleaned. I know, I get assigned such exciting things. As any good business school student, I looked around and found a professional to outsource the job, by way of my cousin's husband (Khurram). I had visited his place last week, and noticed how clean the couches looked. I eventually obtained the info for the man that had hooked Khurram up - a guy by the name of Mr. Anthony.

Mr. Anthony turned out to be quite the character. First of all, he...spoke...like...this. Sloooooowly. This was maddening to me, especially since I've spent the last two years learning how to instantly digest large amounts of information quickly, verbal or written, and as a result have had my attention span shortened ridiculously. Second, Mr. Anthony was very talkative. Picture that for a second. A man who takes forever to say things, and has a ton of things to say.

While cleaning, Mr. Anthony revealed that he was a Cuban immigrant who had swam ashore over 30 years ago, started out as a butcher in Chicago, and then decided that his passion lay in cleaning couches. It was hard for me to believe that this man had been showing up at people's homes for three decades, and continued to enjoy his job so much that at 70 had not desire to quit. How does one discover such a passion in life? Have I discovered my passion? I better have. I just spent over $120,000 on education that is supposed to lead me to it.

Mr. Anthony did a great job. The before and after is apparent below, along with the cruddy water that was left over afterwards. Yum.

Welcome to the United States ... after 13 years

Yesterday I received what is considered the Holy Grail for every immigrant to the US. Tiny in size, it is nevertheless monumental in significance, as it changes your status from the "unwashed" to the "you're one of us!" One magically transforms from an individual who is seen as a problem for the country, to one that adds to the diversity of the country. Doors open, opportunities come knocking, and best of all, this Tool of Freedom rends asunder the Shackles of Restraint. The Green Card is truly a magical thing.

Although I arrived in this country in 1994 as a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed student at the University of Virginia, it has taken me thirteen (yes, thirteen) years to get to the point where I'm a legal permanent resident. The length of time spent in liminality has been due to the various visas I've had to subsist on (from student to worker to some sort of hybrid), as well as the plodding inefficiency of the INS (now known as the USCIS). And the wait isn't completely over - citizenship remains at least three years away.

It is precisely because of the length of time it has taken me that I feel this whole immigration amnesty things needs to be rethought. It galls me that rather than go through the legal process, and spend over a decade doing so, I could have arrived here illegally and just obtained permanent residence through the amnesty. The solution lies in making the USCIC more efficient so these ridiculous waits vanish.

Just this last week I read an article (either in the Chicago Tribune or Wall Street Journal) that discussed how the USCIS is resisting the current proposal in the Senate because it would streamline processes. Because of the reduction in bureaucracy, the USCIS would no longer be able to charge multiple fees to fund its operations - due to insufficient government funding, the USCIS has come to rely on these fees heavily. Talk about economic disincentives.

Still, I am overjoyed that I have the green card now. Although I am not a citizen - which means that I won't be able to vote, and will still have to face horrified stares at foreign airports whenever I whip out my Pakistani passport - I have acquired rights and freedoms that many will risk their lives to obtain. For that, I am immensely grateful.

Transformational experiences

Yesterday I received my MBA degree from the University of Chicago. I'm still trying to digest everything, but I know that the feeling of elation is here to stay for a while. Although I feel that my undergrad experience was more of a struggle than my grad experience, the MBA has been the more transformational affair. I feel like I actually understand how the world works a little better now. Whereas my engineering helped me think technically and dissect every detail of a problem, the MBA has given me a macro level view of the engine that moves the world. I feel a little like Neo in the Matrix - I'm seeing the Code behind the Program for the first time.

The ceremony was cool and held in the historic Harper quad on campus. U of C is one of the few places where the President of the university personally confers degrees to all candidates, which means that undergrad, Law, Med, Business (etc.) students all graduate on different days so that the president can make it to each ceremony. Still, nothing beat the hugs from family afterwards, in whose embraces I could feel my wife's patience in standing by me these two years, and my parents' pride in seeing their sacrifices bear fruit. There must have been a ton of sand flying around while I was hugging everyone, because I kept feeling this strange moisture in my eyes...

Our business school building was all prettied up afterwards for a reception, and it was fun lazing around outside, watching my colleagues with permanent smiles pasted on their faces as they hung out with their families. The food was great, and I even got some nice pictures with my friends one last time.

I don't know which way everyone will scatter, but I do know that I've come into contact with brilliant minds whose successes I will be reading about in the years to come. To be associated with them, and this institution, has been the highest honor, and I can only hope that I ably do my part to further the reputation of the Chicago GSB.

Long absences

So things got a little crazy for a while with me trying to wrap up my MBA. Final exams, prepping for the arrival of my parents, last minute shopping, all sorta snuck up and took over my time. But I'm back now. Read away!

A sign of the times

News of the Virginia Tech tragedy is making the rounds. Since I've spent most of my time in this country living and studying in Virginia, I have quite a few VT friends and acquaintances. My heart goes out to them, and the students in Blacksburg who are bravely trying to make sense of things right now.

It is a sign of the times, however, that one of the first reactions I had when I heard about this was to say, "Oh God, please don't let the perpetrator be a Muslim." In today's world, where a group of deranged individuals have hijacked my faith, my knee-jerk response to any tragedy is to pray that we haven't dug a deeper hole for ourselves.

But just as I feel great sadness for young kids with immense potential who were robbed of the chance to live fruitful lives, I also feel sadness for an immigrant community that has so far not felt the scathing eyes of public scrutiny. Preliminary news reports say that the gunman was South Korean, and I can't think of one thing that the Korean community in the US has done that would cause it to walk with shame. Not that the act of a mad gunman should reflect on a group this way, but coming from a pseudo-ostracized community myself, I know how these details rarely matter when the hate crimes start. Besides, South Koreans, like many Asian cultures, are a people where "family" comes before all else. It is quite likely that there is going to be a lot of soul-searching on their part to figure out how one of their own youth could have gone so far astray, and where his family failed him.

I just pray that concrete gun legislation results from this tragedy, and that the usual lobbying interests aren't able to bury any legal recommendations with the shameless impunity that they have become accustomed to.

When technology decides to spit in your eye

In this digitally connected world, it is cliche to state that we have developed a dependence on technology. Without our handy gadgets, life becomes a drain on our energy. Tasks that would normally take 10 seconds start taking ... *gasp* ... 15 seconds. Impersonal email must be replaced with, heaven forbid, a personal phone call should the server ever go down. Life's pictures must be captured in our mind's eye rather than our dinky cell phone's crappy camera.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not a luddite by any means. I love my tech toys, and although I'm not the first wave of adopters, I'm usually not far behind with things. But today technology sat up and spat in my eye, and has left me pseudo-paralyzed.

First, my Palm Pilot died. Actually, this had happened last month when, in a sheer stroke of genius, I decided to plug its charger into a Hong Kong outlet without using an adapter first. I couldn't hear the thing frying with the surge of electricity, but I may as well have.

Second, my cell phone died three days ago. Not it's fault, actually. The two of us have done battle together over the years, and unfortunately the scars were too many for it to bear. Put aside the fact that it is one of the only phones around that ONLY makes phone calls (that's right, no camera do-hickey, no color screens, no crazy games), even so it was only being held together by my wife's hair band, literally. You see, when I dropped it for the 100th time a little while ago, its battery pack came loose, and I needed something to hold the thing together. See for yourself.

But the worst event of all happened two days ago. My hard drive crashed. Just like that - without any crazy shenanigans on my part. The laptop simply refused to reboot. In a panic, I took it to the Geek Squad today, who after overcharging me told me that there was nothing they could do.

My life is on that computer. Which is why I take regular monthly backups to an external hard drive. That alone would have meant all was ok with the world. However, I've been working on this 10 page paper for one of my Hong Kong classes that is due tomorrow, and most of the work on it was done over the last week. So I hadn't gotten around to backing things up before the crash.

I'm screwed.

With are the chances of such a tri-fecta occurring in the span of a month. I'm left without a communication device. And given my crappy memory, I'm left without a way of recording my appointments, tasks, or my to-dos. Do I need to bring out my hunting knife and polish off my fire-starting skills next? Exactly how much more is life for me going to devolve over the next few days?

It's a brave new world out there, and I'm lonely and defenseless.

*For those of you wondering, I've swiped my wife's laptop to access the internet and compose this entry*

The future of the blog?

What to do now? In my myopic creation of this blog several months ago, I had no idea how addicted I would become to recording my daily activities. But now that this Great Asian Trip is over, what do I do? Document my adventures in ... Chicago? I guess I'll have to. Blogging has definitely taught me an appreciation for the uncommon events that occur in my daily life, so perhaps I will continue recording those.

The venue may have changed, the descriptive text above may need altering, but we remain Desi Adventurers...

Death on a plane

Flying Cathay Pacific is a wonderful experience (not withstanding my little tiff regarding luggage issues), and they did not disappoint in my non-stop journey from Hong Kong to Los Angeles. The movies were fun, legroom plentiful, and the food quite pleasing. My experience in flying from LA to Chicago, however, was a little different.

There was a death on our plane.

We had boarded our Southwest flight without much trouble. As a matter of fact the flight was relatively empty, and passengers were spaced nicely apart. It was just as the doors to the plane were shut that the flight attendant came on the PA system, and asked if everyone had their teeth with them.

As an airline known for its quirkiness, I waited for the Southwest employee to deliver the punchline, but none was forthcoming. Apparently someone had left their dentures in the bathroom, and wasn't claiming them. With suppressed snickers, the passengers settled back into their seats, thinking that the embarrassed owner of the teeth would probably just discreetly approach the flight attendant at a later time. It was ten minutes or so later that there was a commotion three two rows behind me.

The plane had begun taxiing to the runway, and the attendants were checking everyone's seatbelts. A gentleman sitting in an aisle seat two rows behind me was asleep, and not responding to the attendants. Upon progressively rougher shaking, the gentleman promptly keeled to a side. Within a span of a few minutes, the plane was rerouted back to the gate and cordoned off by police squad cars, while the flight attendant lay the unconscious man out in the aisle, ripped off his shirt, and began applying CPR. A doctor from among the passengers began to help, and when even this did not help, the flight crew applied shocks from the plane defribrillator. EMT personnel arrived soon thereafter and took over, but it was clear to everyone on that small plane that this gentleman had passed away.

The dead body was carried away, and as it passed by I thought how the man did not look old at all. Dressed in a contemporary suit, wearing a crimson shirt without a tie, the man was probably in his early sixties. He had obviously boarded the flight fine, had used the bathroom (forgetting his dentures), and returned to his seat, where he had just ... died.

The reaction from people on the plane wasn't what I had expected. Perhaps I've seen too many movies, and I was waiting for hysterical women and crying children to raise a ruckus, while belligerent men argued for the best steps to be taken. There was none of that. Instead, there was just shock and silence - the mothers on the plane hugged their children closer, and the poor kid that shared the dead man's row huddled by his window seat.

The police came and went, and most interestingly, ground staff came to completely dismantle the seat cushions of the deceased man and replace them with new ones. Once all procedures were complete, the plane took off again, two hours late. No one cared. After all, as the captain said, our inconvenience was minor compared to the gentleman who had been carried off the plane. It was sad, to think that people waiting for this man in Chicago would be met with devastating news. Sadder still was thinking the lonely way this man had died, surrounded by strangers who knew nothing about him. Still, as I glanced up halfway through the flight I saw mothers rocking their babies to sleep, children sharing jokes, men watching movies on their laptops, and women reading while listening to music on their iPods. No one could have said that anything out of the ordinary had happened a little while ago.

Life carried on, as it always does.

The dream comes to an end

It's almost 4:30am, and I've just finished packing. I don't want to go to bed, because that would mean sleeping away the precious few hours that I have left in Hong Kong. But really there is little else to do, except perhaps indulge myself by looking back at the time I've spent here.

These last two months have flown by in a blur. Cliche, yes, but true nonetheless. The speed with which things have moved is explained perhaps by the amount of action that has been packed into each week - the travel, the dining, the classes, and the cultural immersion. I arrived at this exchange program with a healthy dose of skepticism, and leave convinced that this was one of the best decisions I have ever made. I won't soon forget the travel stories I've amassed, the people I've met, the crowds I've braved, the classes I've taken, and of course, the incessant partying I've been part of.

The Far East has blown my mind. I never came here thinking that this would be a place I'd want to be long term. It was more of an adventure - an opportunity to experience something completely different. But now that I've been here, should life ever bring me back this way, I will be one happy camper.

Although as a business student you are told repeatedly how the future lies with China, you eventually hear this enough that its importance begins to diminish. However, having visited China, and having lived here for just three months, it has become clear that the sheer gravitational pull of this side of the world is monstrous and inescapable. No economic decision that you nor I will make in this generation will be made without China and its regional economies figuring into the equation somehow. Throw India into the mix, and it's obvious that the real action is no longer in the West.

On a personal note, the cultural immersion has been eye-opening. I was arrogant enough to think that because of my world travels I would have little to learn here, but obviously I was wrong. The people and their traditions have reminded me of the importance of family, of respect, of "face", and of taking life as it comes at you. These same characteristics are present in other parts of Asia, just as they are in my cultural homeland of Pakistan, but I feel that they are lacking in the US. The cultural renewal alone has been cathartic.

I'm happy to be heading home, but I'm sad I'm leaving. For some reason I feel the same as I did when I was graduating from college, filled with emotions of sadness and regret at leaving behind close friends and a community that has imparted the greatest of gifts - knowledge. But the complementary emotions are present as well - of excitement and anticipation as to how I'm going to apply this newfound wisdom.

Thank you Hong Kong. Thank you.

Looking like James Bond

Rent "Die Another Day." Not because it's a particularly good Bond movie, nor because of the beautiful Halle Berry. No, rent it because I'd like you to forward to a scene where Bond shows up in Hong Kong, realizes he needs a new suit, and asks for "Sam."

That would be the real life Sam of "Sam's Tailors" in Hong Kong. You walk into his shop, and are inundated with pictures of rock stars, actors, celebrities, and past US Presidents, all of whom have come to Sam to get tailor made clothes. But it isn't just Sam who is famous. Hong Kong is full of great tailors, perhaps a leftover from the British occupation, perhaps due to the Asian tradition of getting clothes custom made. These master craftsmen will whip up suits, shirts, slacks, dresses, and even shoes, in a matter of days. In a true emergency, it is not hard to get a precisely fit suit ready for you the next day. Now that's what I call service.

So since I pretend to take care of my appearance, I didn't want to leave Hong Kong without having indulged myself in this regards. A few weeks ago I began looking around, occasionally visiting tailors here and there to get a better idea of what to expect. You have to learn to avoid the touts on the street - these guys walk around the main shopping thoroughfares and hunt out tourists. Aggressively, they ask if you're looking for tailor because surprise, surprise, they know of just the perfect one. No, the quality stores rely on word of mouth, and are not desperate for your business.

Based on my simple research, I selected two stores to get clothes made (diversifying my risk, just like a good MBA student.) One was Ash Samtani, a store I found by walking into several places and seeing how I was treated, and selecting a store where I felt most comfortable asking simple questions. Ash had the added advantage of being located right next to Sam's famous store. My MBA came to the rescue yet again - Ash would charge lower and work harder to keep up with the competition, which I feel turned out to be the case.

I put in an order of shirts with Ash last week, and picked things up today, and boy these babies look good. I had always been a little frustrated shopping for shirts in the US, given my height but lack of associated girth (as determined by some secret formula used by US retailers.) I usually end up with neck sizes that are too big, or shoulders that droop to my elbows. But sliding into the shirt that I had made at Ash's was pure joy - everything fit just right, and I was amazed at how flattering things can be when made to measure. Duh!

The other store I found was via a recommendation by Hong Kong lawyer friend of mine who gets all his suits made there. The proprietor is known simply as Uncle Paul, and is an old Chinese man who will fuss over you and claim to know what will look the best on you. The cool thing is that Uncle Paul doesn't write things down, and will memorize the numbers as he measures you. I had a simple black suit made here, because that was the one item missing from my wardrobe.

The results? Ecstasy. For HK $1300 (roughly US$160), I'm walking away with a US$1200+ suit from Uncle Paul's, and for HK $400 (roughly US$50), I'm walking away with the equivalent of $120 shirts. What's more, these tailors will pack their bags every six months and fly over to the US to visit various major cities, where they remeasure their clients, and bring along swatches of fabric for selection. You pick the fabric, discuss the latest styles, get the tailor to send the measurements back to Hong Kong, and within a week you receive an exquisitely tailored garment by mail.

Now that I'm going to be earning a salary again, I don't think I'm ever buying any business casual garment off the rack ever again. For me, it's all about looking like James Bond.