blog of kaiyen

I think I may have hit the wall after 2 years in the evening MBA program at Santa Clara University. 

Bear in mind that, as an evening program I, like many of my classmates, work all day long, then go to 1.5-3 hours of classes at night.  Generally we either go for 1.5 hours 4 nights a week or 3 hours 2 nights a week.  We then do homework on the nights in between and I generally dedicate one whole weekend day to make sure I get everything done.  I juggle a lot of things.

I started the program Spring 2007 so I am literally 2 years in.  I am just about finished, as well.  I decided to wait a bit to maximize my odds of taking the final class, dubbed Capstone, along with a group of people that would make a good team.  

For some reason, I am struggling far more this quarter than in previous ones.  Below 70% on one midterm (though exam percentage for the class is cumulative over 3 tests), about 80% on the true midterm (25% of grade) in my other class.  In both cases, I clearly knew the material but just didn’t focus enough on the test.  That’s a sign of being lazy and/or getting tired.  

I know it’s difficult to work and go to school (and run a business).  But I have handled it so far so I’m a bit surprised.  And while there is a part of me that is frustrated at not excelling, I am now worried about getting dual low-B’s…which means I need to be worried about the possibility of C’s.  

Hopefully things will pick back up in the Summer, when I take only one class, and then in the Fall when I’m hopefully rejuvenated from the Summer break.  But that’s a hope.

Bernanke: Stress tests to lead to improved bank supervision – May. 7, 2009 .

This is kind of crazy.  The results of the stress tests of banks to determine exactly how much more bailout money each needs came out, as far as I could understand, today, May 7.  Lots of news about the results were posted yesterday, May 6, with fairly consistent estimates (with Bank of America coming in a few billion less than expected (apparently a few billion is good news?), and Wells Fargo and Citi the other two that would need money).

Today, the day on which the results are actually posted, I can’t find any articles other than this one (at first glance, on my google reader lists), that actually talk about them.  And this is Bernanke’s response, not the actual results.

Weird.

Amazon’s Widescreen Kindle DX: Winners and Losers – BusinessWeek.

Eh.  Everyone knows by now about Kindle DX.  But there are a few points in here that I didn’t know.

1. They won’t have any advertising.  ”Being good and moral?”  I guess so.  Missing out on a massive revenue stream that would really challenge newspapers?  Uh. Yeah.
2. No discount to existing customers.  Bastards.

Then again, I’ve had a Kindle on my wishlist since v1 came out and no one has bought one for me yet…