Punting

Last week, a few of my classmates and I decided to take a break from studying for exams to go punting. Punting, pushing a flat-bottomed boat along a shallow river with a pole, is an age old tradition at Oxford and you can't really say you've lived in Oxford unless you've spent some time flailing around in a punt.

"Punting is not as easy as it looks. As in rowing, you soon learn how to get along and handle the craft, but it takes long practice before you can do this with dignity and without getting the water all up your sleeve."

– Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat (1889)

Well, contrary to what Jerome K. Jerome's characters set out to do in his boat, we had no intention of doing with dignity. We donned what I thought was my finest punting attire, went to M&S to load up on picnic snacks, and bought the mandatory bottle of Pimm's.






Of course being in England, the nice sunny weather quickly turned to stormy rainfall but we didn't let that deter us...

Heading Down Under

I just booked my ticket for a summer in Australia!!!

Part of the Oxford Said Business School MBA programme involves the completion of a summer consulting project (SCP). The SCP pairs four MBA students with a company looking to solve a tractable business problem. I'm on a team that is going down to Australia to work on exploring the opportunity for a group of wineries to set up their own international distribution network. Needless to say I'm excited to spend my summer (unfortunately Australia's winter) on a wineyard working on an interesting project with a really fun bunch of people.

Other than the great business learning experience and the chance to taste some amazing wines, this trip gives me the the chance to spend some more time roaming the world. Since we're stopping in Thailand for a week on the way back to London I will be able to boast that I've visited every continent (except Antarctica) in the last twelve months. At 31 countries I'm slowly filling in the map but still have a long way to go :



create your own visited country map

Yogurt Toss

A few weeks ago, while lying on the beach in Croatia, a group of us invented a new sport (or maybe it's better to call it a game). We were cleaning up after a bit of a picnic and we started throwing our empty yogurt containers (picture a yop bottle) into the garbage cans that were spread along the beach. Being competitive, type-A personalities we got really intense about trying to get them in and ended up playing for a couple of hours all up and down the beach.



We've now imported the game to the happy hours at Oxford's Said Business School. Friday afternoons, when the weather is good, we go out back and get a casual game of yogurt toss going. It' fun, simple and always leads to a great celebration when someone manages to get one in (it's a lot harder than it looks). Check out this celebration from the inaugural Canadian Open:




From the roof of the school:




I have a feeling this sport is going to spread like wild fire. Check out www.yogurttoss.com for a list of the rules.

Broken Wing

Well, I've had quite a few adventures since the last blog post. I've been through another term and had my spring break, which allowed me wander around and explore a bit more of Europe. I rented a car with a few friends of mine from the business school and took a drive through the Czech Republic, Austria, Slovenia, Bosnia and Croatia.

My friend Eric, who considers himself to be quite the driver took the lead on driving. As soon as we picked up the car in Prague he jumped behind the wheel and took off through the parking lot. On our first turn out of the driveway of the rental lot, smack, we crashed into a cube van. Thirty seconds into a two week road trip and our first accident. Too good to be true. Before the rental guy could see what was going on we quickly evaluated the damage and decided that with a bit of handiwork the rental guy in Slovenia wouldn't notice.





After getting back from that trip I started the trinity term of the MBA programme (at Oxford we have three terms each year and for some reason they call them Michaelmas, Hillary and Trinity). Two weeks into the programme a bunch of us from the class went to Paris to compete in a sports tournament for the top MBA schools in Europe. I played squash (came third) and rugby. It was the first time I've ever played a competitive rugby game so I was a little nervous going in. Our first game was against a French team and from across the field they looked terrifying - these guys knew what they were doing. Luckily, five of our starting players (we were playing sevens) were really good players. The plan was to work the ball amongst them and the ball wouldn't really get out to me on the wing very often.



Well, that was the plan. It went well in the first game, our guys dominated the middle and we quickly went up by a big margin - i even got the ball a couple of times and had lots of room to run (I even scored a try). That got my confidence up a little too high because by the time we reached the semi-finals I was running around tackling all sorts of people and I ended up badly dislocating my shoulder. That's the end of my short rugby career and my introduction to learning to type one-handed.



My x-rayed shoulder



Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. Everyone needs to go to Dubrovnik in Croatia. it's the most amazing place.



See more pics on my flickr page
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ptfrohlich/

Is anyone still looking at this?

Hi there,

It's been more than five months since I last posted so I'm not sure if anyone is still looking at this site. I've heard from a bunch of you that you want updates from my life at Oxford but I'm sorry, I've just been too busy to spend time writing my blog. In the times that I'm not in class, studying, or meeting with my classmates the last thing I feel like doing is sitting in front of the computer and writing about myself. There are just too many interesting things to do around Oxford.

Don't really have time to write too much because I have a couple of big projects due soon. I'm working in two different groups on the projects. In one of the groups I'm working with two South Africans and two guys from New Zealand. In my other group there are two guys from India, a guy from Kenya, a guy from Taiwan and a girl from Kazakhstan (yes, we went to see Borat together). Needless to say, the group is very international and I'm learning a lot about people in different parts of the world.

I'm still finding some time to fit in a bit of travel. Since the program started I've been to Amsterdam, London, LA, Morocco and back to Vancouver. Check out some pictures...

First day of school



Oxford



Dining hall at my college



Matriculation at my college - Exeter



Burns Night



London



Morocco



Beverly Hills

Oxford Bound (or is it bound to Oxford?)

Sitting here in the Vancouver airport waiting to board the plane for England. Describing my mood is similar to the beginning of every retirement announcement I've ever seen, "it is with mixed emotions that I announce the retirement of .....". My emotions are mixed because on the one hand I'm really excited to get to England and start school. On the other hand I'm really sad to leave beautiful Vancouver and all of my great family and all of my great friends. Spending two weeks here rekindled a lot of great friendships that I'm going to miss over the next year.



But by far the biggest reason I'm upset about leaving is that I haven't had a chance to meet my new niece/nephew. I hope to meet him/her soon.



So now I have to decide if I want to continue the blog during my time at Oxford. I'll see if I have enough time to squeeze in a post or two.

Home again, home again

It's hard to believe that my South American adventure is already over. In two very short months I managed to cover a lot of ground and use a lot of different modes of transport. I was transported around Brasil and Argentina by:

-car
-bus
- plane - I flew 33,869 kms ( I know, I should pay for some greenhouse gas tax emmision credits)
-kiteboard
-dune buggy
-ferry boat
-taxi
-foot
-sandboard
-hang-glider (sp?)
-skis
-shuttle bus
- more bus

You'll note that I wrote all of those modes of transport in the form of a list. I did that because
lists:

- are easy to write
- make it look like I've carefully chronicled my journey (when in fact I haven't)
- make it easy to create humour by simply repeating an item on the list
- are easy to write

I stole that joke from Will and Ian Ferguson's How to Be a Canadian so you can blame them if you think it was bad.

Anyway, now that I'm back I've had some time to reflect on my trip. The standard question is, "what part of the trip did I enjoy the most?" It's really hard to say. I saw some amazing places, had some amazing experiences and met really wonderful people. Most of you know that the year leading up to this trip was a really tough 0ne for me. The simple act of travelling by myself was, and I know this will sound sappy, good for my soul. Getting up every morning and doing exactly what I felt like doing was what I needed. It remineded me of the things that I like doing - the things that give me energy. This trip helped me take my heart's candle and relight it. (Bonus points for naming the song that generated the previous line)