This period is tough

The "elders" of the school, those students who entered 5 months earlier than we did, warned us: The second period (in which we are currently in) is much harder than the first period, completed in early March. They are correct in terms of work quantity - we have almost one new case per course per session to review before the start of class (after which commences some Harvard-style Q+A). But it's not as heavy on completely new, brain twisting concepts. Put-call parity is one notable exception. Instead, the coverage feels much more practicable than last period - especially Strategy, Marketing, and Leading Organizations. I spent pretty much all day yesterday reading the optional reading - because during week this reading is the first thing to get de-prioritized, assuming it ever makes it into the work queue at all.
Ah, "de-prioritize" - that practice I partake in on a daily basis. Reminds me of a little story this week - I was walking with some of my Chinese peers, who were speaking in Mandarin amongst themselves. What you find among Chinese who've spent a lot of time in international circles is that they often use English words intermingled with Chinese speech. Instead of just being a widely used technical English word, it might be an English word that conveys a special idea or emotion. Recent examples I've picked up include "frustrated" and "de-prioritize". I'm interested in language usage, so I asked my Chinese friends why didn't they just use the Chinese word for "de-prioritize" - after all, didn't this word exist in Chinese? Their response: "Of course we have this word in Chinese!". To which I said, "Great! So what is it?" About two minutes of head scratching and nervous contemplating ensued, after which they could not come up with a suitable word to describe de-prioritization. I'm fond of supposing that words and linguistic constructs in modern Chinese should reflect the accumulated collective experience over 4000 of Chinese history. So I retorted, "You mean in 4000 years no Chinese has ever de-prioritized anything? Man, you guys work HARD."
Last point on Chinese - I thank you for praying to your favored Supreme Being, minor deity, or capricious zephyr for my success on the Chinese exam. I've passed INSEAD's exit language requirement, and so it's one more major hurdle off my plate!
I realize I'm remiss on photo-posting. There's been a number of recent photo-heavy events for which I've sworn not to post photos, due to the cross-dressing nature they may or may not depict. Such is culture at INSEAD. Off to an IT meeting, I'm representing the class to improve our ancient IT systems vis-a-vis the school administration. One day that quixotic effort will be worth a blog post in itself.
Also on deck for coverage: Next week I must write about the Entrepreneurial Bootcamp we had. Stay tuned.