Lost

This blogging hiatus is partially due to my acquisition of the box of DVDs from the first season of LOST.

One night I watched 8 episodes in a row.

(8 times 45 minutes each.)

The other night I watched 4 in a row, the last one at 3 am when I had to wake up at 5 to take a flight.

It is damn deeply addictive.

You know what I like in it?

1. it is a reality show fan's dream - random people put together in an odd and unfriendly environment, and being followed around at every corner, but with interesting flashbacks from people's past

I am not a big fan of reality shows - no, seriously, not really, I hate it (except American Idol) - but there is a Survivor-esque feel to LOST that glues you to the sofa and just makes you watch it more and more.

2. it shows stereotypes.

Quoting my (dearly missed) friend Vikas Khanna, from New Delhi/India: "One thing Insead taught me about stereotypes: they're all true."

Vikas was talking about natinalities of course. LOST is more about stereotypical book/film characters. It has the hero doc, confident in the outside but anguished in the inside; the good burglar; the bad guy; the rich girl, Paris-Hilton-lookalike; the creepy hunter; the fat joker dude; the black guy, the "most normal" ; the Asian guy and his work ethic; the Muslim soldier, committed to every task; and so forth.

3. it reminds me a lot of a personal situation.

I was thrown in a strange tropical island with a bunch of strangers from different places, different cultures and different expectations, and after a period of finding out how to survive, we were all struggling to gain trust and confidence, and we eventually had to learn how to live with each other in the best way possible.

That pretty much sums up my year away doing an MBA.