Author’s note: This is, necessarily, full of some fairly broad generalisations, but it is going somewhere– the subject matter is really broad, and I’m interested in your thoughts– in the comments. I’ll happily admit when (rather than if) I’m wrong.
Without, hopefully, making strong generalizations, (Africa is, after all a continent comprised of 53 countries, larger [...]

On the ground It’s official. I’m here, on the ground, in Kampala, and have been for 2 weeks. I’m enjoying the 25 degree heat and humidity– it’s like New Orleans in April all the time, although it (sometimes) cools down at night. A little.
And it’s “real” Africa. This is not South Africa or even [...]

After the Skoll Forum, my jet-set life continued. Blew over to Blenheim where we saw lots of nice furniture and Churchill-y stuff. I’d suggest just the grounds, though– touring through the house was a bit much… unless lots of nice stuff in big ostentatious rooms is your thing. Also saw lots of photos of Churchill. [...]

Finished exams which went, I think, fairly well. Or decently at least. Another round of monkey suits and exams, this time in the big posh Exams Schools. I’d been sick for a couple of weeks and the NHS doctors have really let me down so far. Honey and lemon, when you’ve been coughing up yellow [...]

Hilary term, aside from exams and about 25,000 words of writing, is almost over. It’s flown by in an incredibly short amount of time, filling us all with hope, fear, and god knows what else.
It’s been really good.
Saw Underworld with Ed and Jane last week, and took no pictures, but did get to feel all [...]

Man, oh, man, what a week.
First, we left our potato economy in Macroeconomics and invented money.
See, to understand a few things, it was easier if we had a single market, a single unit of currency, and a single product of production: Potatoes. Yes, folks, I took out $80,000 in loans to study potatoes. One of [...]

except, of course, I probably will.
First week of classes over! And I think some of the best lectures that I’ve had so far. For anyone who’s considering coming to the Oxford MBA program, take the Macro Econ class with Oren Sussman. Also… well, just about everything I’m taking. I’m pretty excited about all the classes [...]

My first term at Oxford is over. It consisted of six core subjects: Finance I, Strategy I, Managerial Economics, Decision Science (Statistics), Developing Effective Managers (Organisational Behaviour), and Financial Reporting (Accounting).
There were a few amazing lecturers, a few average ones, and a couple of really, unconscionably bad ones. I’ve shared my thoughts on the bad [...]

Work
One-sixth of the coursework is over and I think I could now hold my own in buzzword bingo and have mastered a few of the key models of how we sort of tend to think that the world and their well-functioning financial markets work, except that, of course, like any model, they don’t really work [...]

(warning: little of import to say, mostly rambling, somewhat incoherent, and no time to edit. You have been warned.)
I joined the Oxford Union which will theoretically get me into loads of cool events, including, last night, a talk by the Prime Minister of Turkey (a figure of some controversy currently), though I was about 10 [...]