Scribbles

The crazy week concluded on Saturday with the student council meeting and then party later at night. To
be honest, most of us were absolutely drained after Outward Bound. I wondered how I was going to muster the energy for all the activities, but alas who’s gonna quit now? The student council meeting, held by the December promotion, introduced us to the policies and functions of the council, including national week preparations, section representatives, and campus organization guidelines. It went fairly smoothly.

Afterwards, us Monty gang quickly returned to the chateau to refresh for the party. I took my shower bath, got dressed, and performed a series of food swallowings that I can barely describe as eating. Despite our fatigue, we were excited about the party. We’ve been told that it’s one of the largest ones of the year and our eagerness to unwind was brimming. To add to that, the preparations for the party seemed rather elaborate. The corporate sponsor, a top consulting firm, sent out official invitations to join in the festivities at chateau de Vaux Le Pénil in Melun. Buses would ferry us from campus to the party, and private shuttles would run all night taking us home. This was mainly to prevent drinking and driving. After all, what self-respecting party would dare to not offer an open bar?

As a side note, INSEAD has done a tremendous job spreading the message about the perils of drinking and driving. Given the few tragedies in the past, the school pushed hard to avoid any repeats. Driving under the influence is dangerous everywhere, and for us in Fontainebleau, when you throw in fog, wild animals (boars, deer, etc), empty forest roads with alcohol clouded judgement, you get a sure recipe for disaster. In the first two weeks of the period, all us students participated in the “Drive Safe” campaign, led by one of our top marketing professors. Each group submits a poster and marketing ideas to promote safe driving for students. The top ten entries (including out group) would be displayed the following week and then a cash prize rewarded to the top winner. The forces that be actually allotted a big time slot for this activity in our official schedule, highlighting its importance valued by the administration. I believe they were successful in reinfocing the notion in our minds by our actively working on it. When I arrived at Monty, one of members was quite forceful about this issue, and made us all swear to never drink and drive. For me, the school campaign was just icing on top.

At the party, we finally wound down for what felt like an eternity. Surrounded by the friendships forged throughout the week and the December promotion folks, we P1′s danced the night away. The energy and vibe at the chateau were simply fantastic.

The only take away from the whole night was the shuttle service. Because they didn’t properly anticipate the number of people leaving towards the latter part of the night, many of us waited for hours before getting on. When our gang finally got on, the driver refused to take us home, citing that his contract had expired at 5am. I offered to pay him and he refused. I then asked him who was in charge, and he said his boss went to sleep already. After 10 minutes of negotiation between us and two other drivers, they reluctantly opted to drive us back to campus instead of home (which was closer too). In my half-druken broken French, I berated the driver the whole way back, expressing my disbelief at the sordid display of unacceptable service. Luckily, those of us that drove had sobered up over the long wait between the party and arriving back to campus, and dutifully brought our exhausted group home safely.

On Sunday we had the “random dinners” event, a series of dinners hosted by P4′s to treat us P1′s. Too tired to even bother signing up, I took the day off to rest and recover. Nonetheless, the week was the most intense welcome week in any educational or professional institution I’ve been part of. Intense, exhausting, fun – an extraordinary jump-start for the year to come.