Christmas Eve

Just finished wrapping all of my gifts. I love wrapping presents. There's just something about it. I'm not much of an artist, but gift wrapping is a creative outlet for me.

It's really nice to be home, with the exception of sleeping in my old twin bed on a 15 year old mattress. It's not nearly as comfortable as my bed back in SD and my back is not happy about that. Lucky for me, my folks have a hot tub, so I spent the morning soaking and reading Skipping Christmas.

My mom and I went and saw Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events yesterday. We both thought it was clever and pretty good, but dark and certainly not a movie for children. I wouldn't recommend paying full price for this movie...catch a matinee or wait for the DVD.

To be honest, I'm still in a haze from Wednesday. So much good news and a great homecoming. I can't help but dance a little jig from time to time. When I get the urge, it doesn't matter where I am...I did it in the breakfast aisle at the grocery store yesterday. I really can't believe my good fortune and I am so thankful for it. A substantial weight was lifted from my shoulders and now I can enjoy myself, content that things are falling into place.

A couple of people have asked what my top choice is. I'm waiting to see what happens with Kellogg & Chicago before I put too much thought into that. Then it will come down to admit weekends (which I plan to attend as many as possible) and if there's any scholarship money offered. Right now, Anderson has a slight edge on McCombs due to my CA residency & the entertainment management opportunities.

Others have asked if I'm still going to apply to Wharton R2. My answer: You bet your ass I am!

Merry Christmahanukwanzakah to all!

And the hits just keep on coming!

Not another admit, but I did get invited to interview at Haas. Woo-hoo!

Thanks for all the notes of support and congratulations. I really can't tell you how happy I am right now. My folks and I are headed out to dinner at my favorite Mexican restaurant here in my hometown and trust me, we will be throwing back the Margaritas!

The next time I whine about being stressed about my applications...

Please smack me and tell me to shut up!

I got accepted to Anderson & McCombs today...Merry Christmas to me :)

Got into Seattle around 10 am this morning, turned on my cell phone to find a voicemail from McCombs....hmmmm :) Wonder what that might be about? Talked to Claire about an hour later and got the good news.

Then my dad and I finally got home from lunch and walking the golf course about 15 minutes ago, and I log on to find an acceptance email from Anderson.

Wow. I'm on Cloud 9. Thanks to those who have been keeping me positive the past couple of weeks (Dirty Martini & Classy particularly). Happy holidays to all!

I've been inspired...

So I'm throwing my hat in the ring for Wharton Round 2. 4 essays in 16 days? No problem!

What pot?

BTW, congrats to all the Wharton Round 1 admits, and double congrats to Brit-Chick for the Wharton/Kellogg Double Play Day! For those who didn't get in, best wishes for the rest of your apps. Come party with me in Limboland!

A watched pot never boils

That's my new theory. I'm thinking so much about getting notification of a decision that it's somehow cosmically preventing a decision from being rendered and/or released.

Since dings have been among the decisions released from Kellogg & McCombs, I guess no news is just that, no news, at this point. It's neither good nor bad. So here I sit, stuck in neutral.

Haas released a batch of interview invites last Friday, but I don't expect to hear anything until January. No action from Anderson yet, or at least none that has been posted on the BW forums, as far as I can tell.

Good luck to Wharton Round 1 applicants. I am a tad jealous of your position. Not only will you know your fate tomorrow, but today you know that you will know your fate tomorrow. Much better than Limboland.

Nervous

First off, let me offer my congratulations to Classy & Aregon on their Cornell admits. Way to go guys, you totally deserve it!

Now, as to the post title, it's my current category based on Clear Admit's definition. The wait is starting to get to me. I'm completely distracted at work, mainly because there's not a ton of stuff to be done right now. All the hard work was last week, now I'm just tying up loose ends before the holiday and completing year end review stuff. Trying to come up with specific behavioral examples for peer feedback while refraining from speaking in platitudes is a bit taxing. Completing my self-appraisal has been easier since I've just put myself through all these introspective tasks for b-school apps. I have plenty of examples ready and waiting in my arsenal. However, it's not really helping my efforts to ignore the fact that my phone is not ringing. Re-reading already submitted essays isn't a good thing, yet that's what I'm doing for my self-appraisal and now I'm finding I'm not as pleased with my essays as I once was. As I've mentioned before, this process has inherent peaks of confidence and valleys of doubt, and I'm currently kicking it in a valley. All I want for Christmas this year is just one decision.

Speaking of Christmas, I cannot wait to go home! A week from today, I'm headed back to the Pacific Northwest for a week with family and friends. I haven't seen my folks since my trip to Hawaii and I haven't seen my brother in a year. I will also get to see my two best friends from high school...one had her first child a couple of months ago and the other is 7 months pregnant. We're going to have a little mini-shower for both of them. Hard to believe that many of my oldest friends are married with children now, especially when those types of life events are not even on my radar right now. But I grew up in a small town and most of the people that never left (or left but went back) settled down pretty quick. Completely different life from mine. I can't imagine being satisfied with that, but everyone has their own unique vision of happiness and satisfaction. I'm happy that my friends are happy, and I can't wait to spoil their children!

As for stress relief, I'm getting my hair cut & colored tonight, one of my favorite activities. You see, I'm a tomboy in the sense that I love sports, camping, and getting dirty, but I'm a girly-girl too. I love hair and make-up stuff...I am a product queen. The gal who does my hair is really cool. She's a few years older than me and she's going to school part time for her English degree (and she studied in Spain during the summer), so we talk more about literature and travel than typical salon gossip. Plus, she gives a great head/neck massage during the shampoo...that's worth an extra $10 in the tip, at least in my book.

Circuit overload

My nerves are fried. The first McCombs admit was posted today on the BW boards, so now I've got two reasons (K & McC) for my heart to stop every time the phone rings.

I was already on edge from the weekend. My upstairs neighbor and his buddies decided to go on a bender and wake the whole apartment building up at 3:30 am Sunday morning. I even heard my neighbor warn his buddy to shut up or else he'd wake up the neighbors...too bad he allowed him to continue to holler obscenities for the next 45 minutes. Then yesterday, I had a ton of laundry to do, 5 or 6 loads, so I had the dryer running all late afternoon and into the evening. We have a shared laundry facility that is adjacent to my apartment on the ground floor. I went in to get my last load out of the dryer around 9:30 pm and was startled to hear snoring outside the window. Some homeless person had found the space between our building and the brick wall next door nice and cozy and warm due to the dryer. I know the homeless have to sleep somewhere, and we certainly have a lot of them in San Diego due to the climate, but I'm not comfortable with one snoring outside my bedroom (my window faces the same brick wall about 10 ft from laundry area). I'm a single woman, and my building is pretty much all single women, save for the guy who lives upstairs. However, he is a doctor and works crazy hours. Plus, he's a little guy, I'm pretty sure I could take him. Anyway, it's a personal safety thing. I don't want this guy figuring out he's got a prime spot, then figuring out we're all women and hanging around long enough to figure out our daily routines. Not cool. So I talked to the gals next door to me, then called the police non-emergency line. They took down my information and said they'd send somebody out. I finally crawled into bed around 1 am, having given up on the cops making an appearance after waiting 3 hrs. Of course I didn't sleep very well because my senses were on high alert and I was wide awake with every noise. The cops never did knock on my door or call me back, and I never heard anybody confront our camper. So now I've got to keep an eye out for him and I've been playing phone tag with my landlord this morning because I need to bring him into the loop. Fun times.

Holiday Eating Tips

Got this in an email this morning. I thought it was pretty funny and worth sharing. I don't know who the original author is, otherwise I would credit him or her. Whenever I get a really good email joke, I always wonder why the creator doesn't brag to the world that this was their little piece of genius and contribution to workforce procrastination. Take credit, funny people!

Holiday Eating Tips

1. Avoid carrot sticks. Anyone who puts carrots on a holiday buffet table knows nothing of the Christmas spirit. In fact, if you see carrots, leave immediately. Go next door, where they're serving rum balls.

2. Drink as much eggnog as you can. And quickly. Like fine single-malt scotch, it's rare. In fact, it's even rarer than single-malt scotch. You can't find it any other time of year but now. So drink up! Who cares that it as 10,000 calories in every sip? It's not as if you're going to turn into an eggnog-aholic or something. It's a treat. Enjoy it. Have one for me. Have two. It's later than you think. It's Christmas!

3. If something comes with gravy, use it. That's the whole point of gravy. Gravy does not stand alone. Pour it on. Make a volcano out of your mashed potatoes. Fill it with gravy. Eat the volcano. Repeat.

4. As for mashed potatoes, always ask if they're made with skim milk or whole milk. If it's skim, pass. Why bother? It's like buying a sports car with an automatic transmission.

5. Do not have a snack before going to a party in an effort to control your eating. The whole point of going to a Christmas party is to eat other people's food for free. Lots of it. Hello?

6. Under no circumstances should you exercise between now and New Year's. You can do that in January when you have nothing else to do. This is the time for long naps, which you'll need after circling the buffet table while carrying a 10-pound plate of food and that vat of eggnog.

7. If you come across something really good at a buffet table, like frosted Christmas cookies in the shape and size of Santa, position yourself near them and don't budge. Have as many as you can before becoming the center of attention. They're like a beautiful pair of shoes. If you leave them behind, you're never going to see them again.

8. Same for pies. Apple. Pumpkin. Mincemeat. Have a slice of each. Or, if you don't like mincemeat, have two apples and one pumpkin. Always have three. When else do you get to have more than one dessert? Labor Day?

9. Did someone mention fruitcake? Granted, it's loaded with the mandatory celebratory calories, but avoid it at all cost. I mean, have some standards.

10. One final tip: If you don't feel terrible when you leave the party or get up from the table, you haven't been paying attention. Reread tips; start over, but hurry, January is just around the corner.

Remember this motto to live by:

Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, martini in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO what a ride!"

I love that last bit. I fully intend to enjoy the gastronomic pleasures of this season, then get right back on the diet and exercise wagon after the first of the year. In fact, I'm kicking around the idea of starting another blog for diet/exercise/weight loss. I'd really like to get in better shape before summer & b-school. I found my blog to be helpful in keeping me on task with b-school apps and it might provide the same outlet fitness-wise. Something to think about.

Doubleheader, baby!

Only in California...

Today, I wakeboarded AND snowboarded, and I was home by 6 pm. Unbelievable! I made plans earlier in the week to go wakeboarding this morning with my friends, B and A. A had been planning to go ride motocross after wakeboarding, but that was moved to Sunday. So she sends me a text message last night to tell me that and ask me if we should hit the mountain instead. A is definitely a little crazy and she has the ability to bring out my crazy side. Last night (still hungover from the office holiday party Thursday night, mind you) I was just crazy enough to say "Sure! Let's do it!"

It sounds ambitious, but it really is do-able here in So-Cal (assuming your body is up to it). A and I met up in Escondido at 7 am and headed up to Lake Elsinore to meet B at 8 am. No fog this time, nothing but clear blue skies, so we launched the boat right away and got to it. The water temperature keeps dropping, it was down to 52 degrees F today, but the air temp was high 60's and we had a dry suit so we were toasty. It was only the three of us and the water was beautiful glass so we each took two nice long sets and got off the water by 11:30. Cleaned up the boat, grabbed some food, then started the trek up to Mountain High. It's right on the border of LA & San Bernadino counties and it's just an hour drive from Lake Elsinore. We were up there by 1 pm and got ready pretty quick for part two of our little doubleheader. This was only the second time I've snowboarded in California (thanks to last year's ACL injury) and my first time at Mountain High. It was pretty nice, although a little crowded which is to be expected on a Saturday at LA's closest ski area. It was warm & slushy spring-like conditions, but we had a good time. We didn't last too long though. A couple of runs and both of us had legs like Jell-O, so we called it a day.

Needless to say, I am one tired kid and I'm going to be one sore kid tomorrow. I think a hot bath with epsom salt is in order. Was the doubleheader fun? You bet. Would I do it again? Maybe. We'll see how I feel tomorrow.

I feel like a real California girl now.

And so it begins...

News flash from the BW message board: Kristen, from Kellogg Adcom, recently announced that they have started releasing decisions for Round 1.

My stomach is in knots now.

Best wishes to my fellow blogging Kellogg applicants Brit_Chick, Kalki, Aregon, and Swoop!

Wishin' and hopin'

And thinkin' and prayin'
Plannin' and dreamin'

*but*

No news on the b-school front.

I went to the Chargers-Broncos game yesterday and had a blast despite horrible weather. I felt like I was back in Seattle. It was 55 degrees and pouring rain most of the day. We had a group of about 50 people and we started tailgating around 10 am. I had to break out my ski jacket because it is the only waterproof jacket with a hood I currently own (really not necessary for life in San Diego). Anyway, started the day with bloody marys and shots of Jagermeister so that kept us warm. The Chargers are doing really well this season. They are currently leading the AFC west and the Broncos are right on their heels so this was a big game...hence a sell out. It was very loud in the stadium and it was an exciting game that came down to the wire as the Broncos rallied in the 4th, but the Bolts pulled it out. My voice was gone at the end of the game and I fully expected to wake up this morning with a nasty cold, but I feel pretty good.

The Seahawks just blew a 10 point lead in the final two minutes of Monday Night Football to lose to the Cowboys. Ugh. At least my fantasy football team won.

I was a little surprised by the BCS selections yesterday. This system sucks. We need a playoff (just like every other sport at every division level in the NCAA), but money talks so we get the status quo and something to talk about Monday morning. I'm happy for Texas that they finally got a BCS bid, however I really feel like Cal got shafted. They are more deserving of a BCS bid than either Pittsburgh or Virginia Tech. And I'm a traditionalist so I don't like the idea of a non-Big 10/Pac-10 Rose Bowl...it's just not right.

Why not?

So yesterday I get a call on my cell phone around 11 am PST. It's a number I don't recognize from an area code I don't recognize. At first, my heart skips a beat..."Is this a call from McCombs?" Nope. It's someone from Arizona State's MBA program, calling to make sure I was aware of their San Diego reception. It was held tonight at a hotel in downtown San Diego right near where I work. The guy has me on the phone, I've revealed that yes I know the hotel and it's less than a block from my work, so naturally I agree to attend. I get off the phone and I'm kinda feeling...ugh...I've been to so many receptions, my applications are done, it would take a total failure of five applications to get me to consider applying to ASU and now I've been talked into going to this reception during one of my busiest weeks at work. Great. Little did I know...

Earlier today I tell my co-worker that I'm going to this reception. He asks if there's going to be free food. I tell him there's a pretty good chance of that, so he decides to go with me. We head over there around 6 pm. Well I'll be darned if this isn't the best reception, food & beverage-wise, I've been to all year. It was hosted at the W hotel, which is very swank and cool. They had fantastic heavy hors d'oeuvres and get this...open bar. Nice. This was the only MBA reception I've attended that offered booze. It's unlikely that I'll even apply to ASU, but hey, thanks for the free goodies! It felt a little funny when alums asked if I was applying to ASU, trying to spin a story about having a couple apps in to other places first round and maybe applying in a later round. This was completely different than any other reception I've attended. There was NO formal presentation. Zip, zilch, nada. No powerpoint, no brief words, nothing. Just mingling with alums, a couple staff members and current students. Anyway, we had a good time, met a really cool prospective applicant for class of 2008 and I gave her my business card so I can hook her up with information, and I enjoyed exchanging snarky comments with my co-worker (who now wants to accompany me to any and all future MBA-related events even though he has no interest in an MBA).

Tonight's reception was also a nice preview of the fare the W has to offer. Our office holiday party will be there a week from tonight. It should be really nice. I hope we've ordered the beef wrapped asparagus spears, they were awesome.

Now, a couple of folks have asked when I expect to hear back from schools. Here's a run down (in order of anticipated decision notification, with area code noted because I am a dork and looked them up after yesterday's gut check):

McCombs/Texas--(512)--Could hear any day, supposedly 3-5 weeks post interview. Looking at the BW thread from last year, it looks like those who submitted apps in early November were notified by mid-December. No decision deadline due to rolling admissions.

Kellogg/Northwestern--(847)--Probably won't hear until after the holidays, however some R1 applicants last year were notified of favorable decisions in mid-December. It was only a handful so I'm betting on January. Decision deadline for R1 is January 17.

Anderson/UCLA--(310)--Pretty much same story as Kellogg. Decision deadline January 19.

Chicago--(773)--Last year decisions started being release about 2 weeks before the decision deadline. This year's R1 decision deadline is January 21st, so this will be mid-January at the earliest.

Haas/UC Berkeley--(510)--This one is a little different. Interviews are by invitation only. Looking through BW thread for R1 last year, invites really didn't start going out until the beginning of January, then decisions started going out after the Super Saturday interview weekend in late January. The decision deadline for R1 this year is January 31, so this is probably the last school that I will hear from.

EDIT: I've re-read through this post a couple of times. I'm not going to change it because I feel like it was kind of a funny experience and I had a couple of glasses of wine and it captures that. I do want to add that I think this post may come off a little snobby, but that is not my intention at all. All of the ASU alums I met tonight were really cool and it is a respected regional program. It also has a pretty good sports business program, and the dean is a former Whartonite, so I have a feeling this program is going to continue to improve. I don't think it's the right place for me at this time, but I think it is an up and coming program.

Quick turnaround

Logged into the Chicago application system this evening. My interview is already showing up as "Complete" just two days after it happened. Gotta love interviewers who are on the ball.

On the other hand, the check I mailed to UC Berkeley over a month ago has still not cleared. Huh.

Just finished watching a Tivo'd show and ended up on ABC, which is showing the Nick & Jessica Christmas special. Sugar shock! And quite possibly the worst lip sync job ever by Jessica, which is saying a lot considering her sister Ashlee's botched SNL lip sync. You'd think they'd at least try to make the lip sync flawless this time around. Ugh.

The Amazing Race is back on and this season has been entertaining so far. It is by far the best reality show on TV. Love it. However, they seem to have this recurring theme of subservient, weak women who just take heaps of verbal abuse from their male partners. Last season it was Colin & Christie, this season it's Jonathan & Victoria. I think every episode so far has featured at least one scene of him absolutely SCREAMING at her. We are talking complete meltdown, screeching at her like a little bitch. Where do they find these people?? Anyway, last night's Detour happened at the world's largest IKEA store and was a choice between counting misc items in a large crate (2K+ of all shapes & sizes) or building a desk. So I'm pretty sure I would have opted to build, and I certainly would have switch to build if we were wrong after two counts. There were a couple of teams that just kept counting and getting it wrong, over and over again. It was pathetic. I really think the key to winning this thing is not worrying so much about speed and focusing more on making smart decisions and planning ahead when possible. So many teams have caused their own demise by getting so wrapped up in the race/speed aspect and making really horrible decisions. Although it does make for good TV!

The secret is out

As I've posted on here before, my boss and my close co-workers (all 2 of them) are all in the loop with my business school plans, but I've kept it quiet at work outside of that small circle. I really wanted to keep it on a "need to know" basis until I had some decisions in hand and my boss was down with that. So imagine my surprise when I sit down in a meeting with several representatives from each department and have one of the senior managers (from a department other than mine) ask me how the b-school apps are going. Loud enough for other people to hear and go "What's that you say? You're applying to b-school?"

{picture my smiling face trying to hide the shock and desire to kick my boss's ass}

Yeah, not so happy about that, but what's done is done. I had my regular one-on-one development meeting with my boss shortly afterwards and I grilled him a little. I definitely felt betrayed by him and was not happy about the public ambush, but so it goes. He explained that at first he only told his boss (which is perfectly acceptable) and wanted to keep it that way. However, with the departure of one of our team members in early November and some reluctance by our site director to backfill the position, he had to bring more people in the loop and make the case for the backfill to maintain continuity of the business since I'll be leaving in less than a year (unless a catastrophe happens) and it will take a few months to hire someone and get them up to speed. He was in a crappy position and I understood why he did it, I just wish it could have been a little more discreet and I wish he would have told me before or immediately after he let the cat out of the bag so I wouldn't be caught off guard like that. The other thing that I'm worried about is corporate politics and what impact this might have on my performance rating/bonus. People are much less inclined to promote or reward someone who has plans to leave and they may make assumptions about checking out/slacking off in the final weeks. We'll see what happens, I just have to keep kicking ass and taking names and hope for the best.

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.

The monkey has left the building!

After losing the last 6 straight to the bad guys (including the last 3 as the heavy favorite), my Cougars have finally brought the Apple Cup home to Pullman! This win salvages a less than spectacular season, and it means the puppies of UW have gone o-fer in the Pac-10 for the first time in decades. BUWAHAHAHAHA! I love it! I will admit that last night when all was said and done, it hardly felt like a celebration. All I felt was relief. I couldn't really enjoy the game as I was watching it because I was so tense that shit was going to happen, AGAIN, like it has the past 6 years. The Cougs have such a knack for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, they even have a personalized verb for it....to Coug it. So while it looked like the game was in hand midway through the 3rd quarter with the Cougars up 28-10, I felt like I was going to throw up as I watched the Huskies start to rally in the 4th quarter. I don't think I've ever been so relieved to see time run out. Those last 90 seconds felt like forever. 28-25, Cougars win. Phew! I'm really happy I Tivo'd the game so I can watch it again and actually enjoy it and celebrate this victory the right way. I'm so happy for our seniors and for Wazzu fans everywhere and I hope this is the start of a new streak of Apple Cup wins for the good guys.

This morning was weird. We rarely get thunderstorms around here and we had a doozy around 6:30 this morning. Lots of very loud thunder and pouring rain. Now, it's beautiful, so I'm going for a walk around the bay!

FINALLY!

I finally got my Chicago interview scheduled after the 4th attempt. Yippee! Man, that was frustrating! I had almost given up hope. I had been in contact with a member of the admissions committee this week and she told me if I still hadn’t heard anything from my assigned interviewer by Monday that they would either waive it or consider a phone interview. I’m really happy to get this thing scheduled because I feel like meeting someone face-to-face and being able to ask me questions and get to know my personality is a really important piece of my application. It’s interesting that the first interviewer assigned to me (that had recently moved to Cleveland) used to work for the same company as me, and the guy who is actually going to interview me works for a competitor. It’s a small world here in San Diego (definitely in terms of financial services companies)!

I’d like to send a shout out to all my fellow bloggers who received Wharton interview invites…you guys rock! Good luck with your interviews

TGIF…it has been a long week at work. Our quarterly forecasting process is ramping up and I’m taking the lead this quarter. In addition, we put together a pretty comprehensive strategic reporting deck this week and presented to senior management today. My boss was WAY stressed out about it and was in turn stressing me out, but the presentation went really well and I got great feedback…best presentation to senior management yet! Just in time for year end performance reviews, gotta love it. Is it happy hour yet??

No major weekend plans here. I need to get caught up on the chores I neglected because of long hours & stress this week. Never again will I rent an apartment without a dishwasher! Apple Cup is tomorrow, 4 pm PST…Last time WSU won was 1997, the game was in Seattle and I was a sophomore in college. It was an awesome game; they clinched a Rose Bowl berth and we all partied hard in Husky Stadium. It has been much too long since my boys won, but this is the year we get that damn monkey off our backs, I can feel it. Go Wazzu! Go Cougars! Beat those stinkin’ mutts!

UT/McCombs Interview

I completed my interview for McCombs today. I met with an alum who graduated a couple of years ago at his office. It lasted about 45 minutes and was a very casual conversation. I was a little nervous because the website said the dress code was business or business casual…which could mean a variety of things. My office is casual (I mean casual…I wear jeans most of the time and wore flip flops pretty much every day this summer). Since I would be leaving mid-day for the interview and didn’t want to change, I went with business casual. My boss and direct colleagues know what I’m up to, but people outside our team don’t and I’d prefer to keep it that way. Anything dressier than slacks and a sweater set would draw way to much attention at work. The alum I interviewed with works at a local investment management firm, and while I was pretty sure they’d be business casual (this is San Diego not New York, after all), there was a chance my guess would be wrong and I’d feel uncomfortably underdressed. Lucky for me, I was right.

It was interesting because he asked me if I had trouble finding the place and I said no, I didn’t because I had been there before. He of course asked why and I answered him honestly…I had been there a couple of months ago for the Kellogg information session. Gaaaah! Have now admitted interest in another to school to interviewer!!! Doom. Dooooom. (Yes, I’ve just re-read Bridget Jones Edge of Reason, so that was Bridget-inspired.) Anyway, he put me at ease and said obviously you’re applying other places, don’t worry about it, this interview is just about your fit with UT/McCombs. Phew! A brief summary of the things we talked about:

--walked through my resume
--future career goals/why mba/why now/why McCombs
--talk about experience working as a part of a team in work experience
--hypothetical situation: you’re a part of a team and someone is not carrying their weight, what do you do
--what part of your application do you think could use some improvement
--any questions I had for him about UT/McCombs/Austin

He told me he was going to go off the script a bit and I’m glad he did because I think I was able to genuinely portray myself in my answers to his questions. I felt like it went really well and he confirmed that when he told me he would be strongly recommending me for admission and that he felt I would be a good fit for UT. He gave me his card and told me that he knew I’d be getting admissions and that if I needed to bounce some ideas off him or one of his colleagues (they have quite the range of MBA program representation) to give him a call. Very nice guy and a great representative for McCombs.

Wakeboarding & Football

Hit Lake Elsinore today for a little quality time on the water. It's been about a month since I've been wakeboarding due to weather, friends in town, too many things to do, etc. I needed a wakeboarding fix BAD. I left San Diego at 7 am; it was a beautiful morning and a nice drive. Unfortunately, when I got to the lake it was pretty much blown out (i.e. wind chop), but we were all dying to ride so we gave it a go. It was CHILLY but tolerable, especially with a drysuit. My minimum requirement to ride is 120 F combined air & water temp. We were well above that (water 60 F, air 68 F) but the wind made it feel a lot colder. The lake was all chopped up except for one little corner, so we each got a couple pulls in and called it a day.

Washington State got waxed by Arizona State yesterday. (And the Seahawks lost today...ugh...at least my fantasy football team is kicking ass.) Always sucks to see my team lose (especially when it eliminates their chances a bowl game) but I thought TBS did an excellent job with the broadcast, especially the halftime ceremony to honor Pat Tillman and retire his jersey. All the ASU players wore "PT" stickers on their helmet. WSU coach Bill Doba & the team also wanted to honor him by wearing PT helmet stickers and did so after getting the OK from his family. I thought it was a very nice gesture and it reaffirms by belief that Doba is a class act. Time to move on from the loss as today is the first day of Apple Cup week. The Apple Cup is the annual rivalry game between Washington State University & the University of Washington. WSU has lost the last 7 in a row and it is time to get that monkey off our backs. These guys now have nothing to lose, and this will be a psuedo bowl game for both teams, so I think it will be a very good game. Wish I could get back to Pullman to see it, but I'll have to settle for getting together with a big group of San Diego Cougs at a bar to cheer our boys on. Beat those stinkin' Dawgs! Go Cougars!

One apple farmer has used the rivalry to create new marketing idea..."branding" apples with the WSU and UW logos. Pretty cool!

No Whammies

I had to take mandatory anti-money laundering computer-based training at work today. That was 30 minutes well spent. Now I know a lot more about money laundering than I did before and if I’m ever in the unlikely situation where I need to launder some dirty cash, I have an idea of what NOT to do. Somehow, I don’t think this was the intention of the training. Anyway, every time we have to do stuff like this, I think of that old Warren G song… “REGULATORS!!! Mount up!” …Bank Secrecy Act, Patriot Act, FCRA, TILA, FDCPA, OFAC, AMLA, GLB, Sarb-Ox…you want job security? Work in Compliance!

I think the 4th attempt might be a charm on the Chicago interview. This time I was assigned an interviewer, given contact information, and he actually lives in San Diego. No reply from him yet, so I’m not officially declaring victory, but I feel closer to it. No word yet from Haas on an interview invite; keeping busy preparing for McCombs interview next week.

Speaking of Chicago, it’s been report by PowerYogi that Chicago has extended it’s Round 1 deadline from 11/12 to 11/15. Interesting. At least they notified people before the R1 deadline, unlike Michigan. Makes no difference to me, my app has already been launched into adcom-land. I think there were a couple other bloggers out there with Chicago R1 aspirations that had given up, hopefully you guys can pull something together for Monday.

Now that the apps are done, it’s time to start worrying about paying for this little endeavor. So I will spend this wait time investigating scholarships, financial aid, etc.

I have two recurring b-school related dreams. One worst case scenario, the other best case scenario. The first dream slash nightmare…I don’t get in anywhere, I don’t find out until the end of January so I’ve missed all R2 deadlines, have to re-take the GMAT, roll the dice in R3, and end up stuck in a job I don’t particularly like. The second dream I wake up with a smile on my face every time….get in several places and they offer me lots of scholarship money, I get a great performance rating and therefore a big bonus in March, quit in April (or they decide to downsize and I get a severance package, even better!), put my stuff in storage and travel until it’s time to go to school. Just picture me crossing my fingers, knocking on wood, rubbing a rabbit’s foot and saying a Hail Mary (even though I’m not Catholic)... "C'mon Option #2, BIG MONEY, NO WHAMMIES!"