Doing it for the kids: C4C auction (1 of 2)

One of the other really cool things about Spring at Stanford is that we have the Challenge 4 Charity (C4C) weekend double. The idea is to raise money for 2-3 nominated charities in the area (usually where some classmates are volunteering, and almost always where there are children - leading to the repetitious catchphrase, "it's for the kids"!). This year, we chose Yes Reading (which helps kids to read well and do other stuff good too) and BUILD (I'm not sure what they do, but I think it involves, um, building) ...

The first part is the fundraising auction part. GSBers are invited to submit "prizes" that people can bid on in a silent auction spanning 48 hours.



I offered a few things:

• cooking a meal for 4 with my friend Robyn
• a beginner's cooking lesson - learn how to use a wok
• a one hour beginner's guitar lesson (you'll notice a theme here, and it has to do with the fact I can do a lot of things to "beginner" standard only)
• a car wash
• a pancake breakfast with me and my 5 housemates next year to watch that great movie "Anchorman" ...

My items raised a few hundred bucks! Even more when you convert to Australian $$ !!

It was pretty crazy, seeing some 400 auction items closing in a mad Friday afternoon flurry ...


I ended up buying "one term's triathlon lessons" for $70 and membership to the marketing club for $20. Hey, it's for the kids ...

... but it was not to end there. The "highlight" of the auction weekend was a live auction of 20 "high demand" items. If you thought the previous auction items went for a lot of money, this part was crazy. If it wasn't for the kids, it would be pretty wasteful!

For example, people won: (yes, these are US dollars - and yes, these are students bidding and paying!)

• A photo shoot with 15 of the most built 2nd years in the wine country for $2200
• A round of golf with Charles Schwab for $1500
• A night on the town with 12 first year guys for $2900

A lot of these items were accompanied by stage demonstrations, which ultimately led to many of the guy groups taking off much of their clothing for no particular reason ...

The most expensive item? A sailing trip with 30 of the first year girls. Here they are "Advertising" their item with a dance to some sailing song (not "In the Navy" methinks) ...



... This went for a staggering $6,500 US dollars!!!

Hey, it's for the kids, ok! =) We ended up raising some $120,000 US dollars.

Whoa.

Doing it for the kids: C4C sports weekend (2 of 2)

Complimenting the auction weekend is a sporting weekend, where 7 other business schools on the west coast (such as UCLA from LA, and Berkeley nearby, etc) - who have done the same fundraising, volunteering etc - stroll out to Stanford to compete in over 20 different sports over the course of three days. It's a huge operation, with well over 1000 people (yes, all MBAs! scary) streaming in.

There were the traditional type sports: soccer (World cup! of sorts), basketball and the like ... to new favorites: like DODGEBALL.



I tried my hand at trying to get into the 22-strong Stanford team (yes, we had tryouts) but found myself extraordinrily sportingly inferior to many of my classmates, who could throw and dodge like nothing else. And yes, my name got "left off" the team list ... oh well.



It was a fantastic weekend. I took part in the (extremely painful) 5K run around the local hills, as well as men's volleyball B (which we lost) and mixed soccer (which we won ... due to the fact that we had a girl on the time who was part of the US soccer team (!), and that I played a "supporting" role ...)

And Stanford won! Yaaaay - well, the sporting bit anyway. We don't talk about the other parts ...

Get Dunked: The SMIF family fun fair

To try and encourage MBA students to work for non-profits who, let's face it, don't pay quite as well as for-profits do (if at all!), we have the Stanford Management Internship Fund, or SMIF. SMIF basically subsidizes people who work for non-profits over summer so that they get the average salary rate - meaning that almost 10% of our year ends up working for non-profits! nice, but expensive (you do the math!) ...

To raise money and awareness of this, we try and get each other to donate money to the cause; and hold a bit of a fun fair: aptly entitle the SMIF carnival. There's fairy floss, jumping castles, sno cones ... and of course, the dunk tank.

I was "elected" to "sit in" on the dunk tank:







Whilst dunk tank water - even in the middle of spring - has a tendency to be extraordinarily cold - FREEZING! If it wasn't for charity, I would've asked for money to heat that thing (!) ... still, it was a great day. Plenty for us to smile about!

Welcome to Spring Quarter: International Party

Spring Quarter is where the sun comes out, and the party shifts from being in the snow fields (See previous post) to right in our backyard (literally!). And, just a few weeks into term, it was time to to unleash the first of a few almost-summer parties: THE INTERNATIONAL PARTY.

There was a Mexican maranachi band ...



Pancakes from the Netherlands - Scandanavian ones I guess?!



Japanese students in, um, Japanese outfits ...



And mixed drinks from a lot of places! (in this case, Costa Rica!)



... in all, there were over 30 tables, filling out the courtyard in Schwab. It was a great atmosphere and most of the business school (about 500 or so people?) came around for a bite. There was some exquisite and elaborate dishes - from actual korean BBQ to some great desserts and noodles and stuff ...

As for the Australian table - it was kind of lame. I was a bit rushed for time, so I organized an "Australian kids birthday party" - well, at least the kind I had.

All we had time to do was make fairy bread ...



... and this game called "pin the tail on the kangaroo", which was suspiciously like the American version involving a donkey. But hey, at least it gave use the chance to blindfold people and spin them around ... =)

The Swiss Alps with Reto

Picture 74575, originally uploaded by John Foong.

My friend Reto lives in Thun, a beautiful town nestled at the foot of the Swiss alps and next to the giant Lake Thun (naming coincidence?). Man, Switzerland is beautiful – the combination of huge mountains, beautiful lakes and lots of chocolate and cheese definitely gets my thumbs up.

We spent the weekend sailing on the lake (ok, I was sitting in the boat eating pastries, the other guys did the sailing), visiting the towns (they’re pretty small! But nice) and climbing mountains in the Alps (assisted by large cable cars. I did have to climb a set of stairs to get to the cable car from the ticket office though, giving me a sense of athletic adventure …).

Yosemite Sam!

So, thanks to the new Qantas Sydney-San Fran direct flights, my parents came over for a few days to see me just before school starts. We toured Stanford for a bit, caught up and chatted ... and then headed into San Francisco for the night, to ready ourselves for today's activity: YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK.

Yosemite National Park is BIG. It's famous for two things: beautiful rock formations and big, big waterfalls. It's a very popular camping and hiking spot (such that, in the summer, despite its large size, it is really packed!). It boast the 2nd/5th/6th (depending on who you believe) waterfall in the world - some 750 metres tall. Whoa!

Unfortunately (From a walking point of view), it has been POURING in San Francisco ...



... we thought there would be a chance we'd miss the rain by driving 3 hours away to Yosemite, but we were wrong ...



... The good news is that the Waterfalls were out in force, hurtling down at huge rates, making lots of lovely splashes ...



[let's see that in close-up!]



... and rivers!



To match the freezing weather, there was even snow ...



... and lots of cool misty fog-type stuff ...



... though some people will go anywhere for a good wedding photo! =)



It was great to see my family again and get psyched for what is going to be a HUGE term. Bring it on! =)