Dowbrigade

Bright and early Monday morning, after a bad night with a terrific head cold and shoulder
tendonitis aggravated by another vainglorious weekend of Fall Tennis. I just got my first
peek at the list of 14 international students with whom I will be working daily until
December (copy below, the last names have been censored to protect the innocent).

Looks like I’ll be working a tough room this fall. Seven men and seven women. Ages 17 (! much younger than
normal) to 35. Their business experience ranges from mid-level executives in large corporations and ministries to, well, how much business experience can a 17-year-old female have? Nice variety of cultures and native languages, though. 9 countries, and some
less common ones too: Paraguay, Poland and the PRC, for example.

These are the most advanced business students in our program. They give them to me, I guess,
because I am opaque enough that they can’t figure out if I am really smart or really dumb
until the end of the semester, and by then its too late.

I’ve already gotten a heads-up about the 35-year-old mainland Chinese guy. He’s part of a
contingent from the Ministry of Commerce. We are supposed to make an extra effort to keep
these customers happy, because there’s a lot more where they came from. The first day is always a rush. I’ll try to post a brief de-briefing tonight.