My long awaited Chicago interview

Well, the fourth attempt was a charm and tonight I completed my interview for Chicago. I think it went pretty well. It was so conversational that it's hard for me to remember what specific questions were asked/answered, but I left feeling like my interviewer understood what I'm all about. He was a fairly young alum (98) and he works in the same industry as me so it was easy to lay the groundwork of the interview and really spend most of the time talking about why Chicago and why strategic planning/sports media & management. He was enthusiastic about my career plans and told me about his consulting experience and how that could be a back-up plan for me (work for a large consulting firm in their media/entertainment division or an industry specialized boutique consulting firm). He said that if most of my job search was off-campus, I could horde my bid points and use them to specifically target the big consulting firms and guarantee an interview. I thought that was helpful and indicated some confidence in my candidacy. We also talked about his experience with LEAD, both as a 1st year student and as a 2nd year facilitator. I think being a LEAD facilitator would be something I'd be interested in doing should I end up at the GSB. It sounds like an awesome experience.

I spent Turkey Day with a bunch of friends who are also non-native San Diegans. We had quite the spread and I'm glad it wasn't at my house because otherwise I would have gorged myself on leftovers. A couple of those friends are MBA grads who are working on starting up their own company, so it was really interesting talking to them about the whole MBA process and how they are making use of their knowledge (and of course their network) in their new venture. I went in to work for a few hours on Friday to get a couple of things done and make sure there were no fires to be put out since the rest of our team was OOTO. Saturday I met up with some friends for a little wakeboarding. IT WAS COLD! So much for that 120 degree rule I was talking about earlier. We met at the lake at 8:30 but it was pea-soup foggy and we couldn't launch the boat until the fog lifted 2 hrs later. Even then, it was still cloudy so the sun hadn't warmed up the air all that much. 54 F air temp, 55 F water temp. BRRR! Actually, it wasn't so bad while I was riding (except for my toes, and they turned purple to let me know when it was time to call it quits). It was worse in the boat afterwards. Thank goodness I packed my ski hat. And my friend just installed a heated shower on his boat...that warms the feet up quick :)

Stayed as far away from the malls/stores as possible this weekend. I'll have to go later this week to find a dress for our holiday party, but otherwise I will do all of my shopping online. It is just so much easier, especially when you have to travel. Rather than trying to fit everything in my suitcases and hope it doesn't get broken by careless baggage handlers, I ship everything to my parents' office and have them set it aside in my old room. I've done it this way every year since I moved away from home and it works like a charm.