Heard the buzz? The Special K spirit is alive and well in Aldrich 110! A big cheer for Cedric Moret and the crones of OK, who’ve truly gone the extra mile to help the next generation bid reality farewell and embrace HBS life to the full. Personal letters from OK predecessors taped under our desks were just for starters; the handover culminated in Smurf Day, when we K kids dropped our real names for spot-on smurfly substitutes. Congrats to Finance prof. Randy Cohen for playing it cool on arriving to teach our first FIN1 class only to find himself staring at 86 strangers dressed in blue, wearing floppy paper hats and identified only by their smurf-names. (First reader to identify the following K-mates wins a small gift of the author’s choosing: Bad Ass Smurf; Red Lacey Smurf, and 6-Sigma Smurf.)
Not easily intimidated by the stellar insights traded daily in class, a select few Ks have dared compete for prestigious special awards. Monday saw Meg Stern collect the Blue Desklamp Award for Smart Commentary during an otherwise turgid trip through DEC’s End Point project. “40 weeks MLT for a computer,” remarked an astonished Meg. “That’s longer than it takes to make a baby!” Papa Smurf and new President Lou di Lorenzo demonstrated a leader’s poise in accepting the Brick Award for his helpful attempt to clarify how seriously LEAD Professor Nitin Nohria intends to take our exam grading: “Can we assume you’ve read the case, Professor?” No awards, but honorable mentions for stoicism go to fave Bulgarians Svet Yordanova and Tedi Gouneva for letting TOM Professor Sandra Sucher’s reference to the “Balkanization of Quality Control” pass unchallenged.
It’s not just in the classroom that Ks are making their mark on the HBS community. The Social Enterprise Club now proudly boasts Nicole Hanrahan as its new President, while the European Club surely can’t go far wrong with Marie-Anne Popp in charge of membership and marketing. When not running for office, some of us make pretty good cross-dressers too, as anyone who’s seen the Priscilla photos will attest. (Prize winner Paul Tranter and pretty girl Kwame van Leeuwen, step on up.) Rumors that some sectionmates are founding a new Transvestites Anonymous club to relive their walk on the wild side at the Fairmont Copley Plaza remain unconfirmed.
A healthy rivalry has sprung up between NK and NI, our Aldrich neighbors and auditors during Shad factory day. Most Shad match-ups worked just fine, though one bunch of feisty K-mates reportedly came within an inch of violent confrontation with their NI auditors over the sticky issue of wire length. All is now forgiven after our crack team of snowball fighters led by Navy SEAL Bill Berrien decimated the NI ranks in front of Spangler on Storm Day. We await an opportunity to dish out the same treatment to our subterranean cousins from NH and NJ on one of the rare occasions when they see the light of day.
Watch out for a post-midterm update on the Life of K soon.
Photo by Julie Russell
