Tagged

I've been tagged by poweryogi. Thanks a lot, Yogi, it's not like I don't have anything better to do with 4 interviews and a midterm next week. Due to my previously stated policy, I won't be tagging anyone else.

Here you go....

Four Jobs I've had in my life:
* Babysitter
* Summer school teacher's assistant
* Cheerleading coach
* Restaurant hostess (with the most-ess)

Four Movies I can watch over and over
* Ferris Bueller's Day Off
* Love Actually
* The American President
* Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Four Places I have lived
* Pullman, Washington
* Richmond, Virginia
* San Diego, California
* In a fraternity house for a summer (and lived to tell about it!)

Four TV shows I love to watch (I still have a TV, and DVR helps me find time for my shows)
* 24
* Lost
* Grey's Anatomy
* Pardon the Interruption

Four Places I have been on vacation
* Budapest, Hungary
* Paris, France
* Kauai, Hawaii
* Vail, Colorado

Four Websites I visit daily
* ESPN
* Pink is the New Blog
* Americablog
* Go Fug Yourself

Four of my Favorite dishes
* my dad's mizutaki (he's not Japanese, but he cooks like it)
* my dad's kung pao chicken (he's not Chinese, but he cooks like it)
* my dad's arroz con pollo (he's not Mexican, but he cooks like it)
* a big, juicy, medium-rare filet mignon (preferrably grilled by dad, of course)
(Honorable mention: mom/grandma's sausage fondue)

Four Places I would rather be right now
* Kauai
* San Diego
* Seattle/Home
* Detroit (next weekend), with a Super Bowl ticket in hand...GO SEAHAWKS!

Playing games

Last night, I attended a ladies' poker event, co-hosted by Chicago Women in Business (CWIB) and the GSB Risk & Gaming Club. It was mostly a learn to play event, although there were a couple of us there with a little poker experience. I've played a little, mostly for fun/zero-stakes, and I'm still learning betting strategy. Play was pretty slow, but it was a good time. I finished just out of the money. However, I left at the end of the night as a likely co-chair of the Risk & Gaming club for next year! How this happened, I'm still not sure, but I'm actually pretty excited about it. Should be fun.

Super Seahawks

Wonder of wonders, last week the Seattle Seahawks ended a 2 decade playoff win drought and tonight they won the NFC Championship for their first ever trip to the Super Bowl. In Detroit. A reasonable drive from Chicago. We are totally road tripping, tix or no tix.

I am so freaking happy, I can hardly believe it. I've been a 'Hawks fan my entire life...I fondly remember going to games in the Kingdome, cheering on guys like Steve Largent, Curt Warner, Kenny Easley, the Boz, leaving with my ears ringing like I'd been to a concert. This is just so sweet, I only wish I was in Seattle right now to celebrate with my fellow Hawk Fans.

Deflated ego

Well, tonight I got my first round of on-campus interviewing closed list results. It did not go as I had hoped. At all. Quite a blow to the ego, the first of many to come, I'm sure. I'm disappointed, but not without hope. I did make two closed lists, both great companies that I would be happy to spend the summer working for (and interviews I should enjoy preparing for).

Since I want to go a non-traditional post-MBA route (sports industry), I was pretty selective with dropping resumes for on-campus stuff and I've been trying to mentally prepare for the likely game of chicken I will end up playing with the end of the school year and securing an internship. Even so, bad news is bad news, and rejection is never an easy pill to swallow.

So tonight I had a big bowl of ice cream and I'm evaluating my options, trying to decide what (if any) open lists I will bid for tomorrow. I'm also doing some more internet research to make sure I've got plenty of options/irons in the fire on the off-campus front.

On a brighter note, I've made my spring break plans official...I'm headed to surf camp in Costa Rica with 5 other GSB females, and I can't tell you how excited I am to go! I managed to get in one surf lesson in San Diego before I blew my knee out, and didn't get around to taking another after rehab. So this is my second chance to add surfing to my boardsports repertoire. Plus, I've wanted to visit Costa Rica for a long time. Should be a fantastic trip :)

Good luck R1 GSB Applicants

Just wanted to post a brief note before I hit the sack....good luck to all of the Chicago GSB Round 1 applicants expecting decisions this week. Word on the GSB message board is congratulatory calls will likely begin tomorrow afternoon, with all decisions posted Wednesday morning. I know you are all anxious, I remember those sleepless nights well, but do try to get some rest and have some fun over the next couple of days.

As for me, this quarter has been like being shot out of a cannon (or so I would imagine since that's never happened to me). Seems like we've gone from 0-60 in 3 seconds flat this time around, probably because we didn't have the cushion of CORE to ease us back into it. Plus, recruiting is going full steam ahead. I've dropped 8 resumes at this point and have a few to go. At this point, I'm wondering why I thought it was a good strategy to take 4 classes during winter quarter. Note to the Class of 2008: don't be like me and think you're smarter than the second years, believe them when they say you should NOT take 4 classes during winter quarter.

Happy holidays

Coming to you live from Sea-Tac airport.....

It's been a nice, relaxing week back in the Pacific Northwest for the holidays. Had a great Christmas with my family, got to see my friends (and how much their babies have grown!), check out my brother's new house (and see how much he's grown!), watch a bunch of movies, and basically hang out.

Highlight of the week may have been enjoying steak dinner, not once, but three times. My dad laughed at me when I scarfed down a monstrous t-bone my first night home. Steak is not in my grad student budget and it had been five months since I had red meat not of the ground chuck variety. My dad's advice: start dating some higher class guys who will buy you a steak! Sage advice from dear old Dad.

Hope the holidays have been good to everyone :) Have a wild, crazy, and prosperous New Year!

Where the heck am I?

Ever wake up and have no clue where you are or what time it is? Happened to me this morning. Where am I? (Sweet home WA) Who's bed is this? (My old twin bed) What freaking time zone am I in? (Back in the old PST) It's no wonder that I woke up confused since it's the 3rd bed I've slept in over the past 4 days. (I would imagine this happens to consultants. Prostitues, too!)

Flew back from Vail on Monday, spent about 36 hours in Chicago, then flew home to Seattle for the holidays. 3 different time zones, 3 different beds/bedrooms, totally disoriented when my alarm went off this morning.

Vail was buckets o' fun. Pictures will have to wait til I get back to Chicago since I forgot the cable for my camera and can't upload them. Huge ski area, beautiful views from the top, incredible snow. It snowed all day the first day we skied (9 inches of fresh powder!) and the next day the sky cleared and WOW. We were there for a week and had plenty of time to ski and just hangout. My body was shot by the end of the week, my calves cramped beyond the point of return. The trip was worth every penny and I plan on going on ski trip again next year.

Stick a fork in me...

I'm done. With my first quarter of my MBA at Chicago GSB.

Yeah, its been awhile. I've been busy and lazy as far as blogging is concerned. The problem is like letting dishes or laundry pile up. You don't do them for awhile, the pile gets so big and the task so daunting that you will continue to put it off until you run out of silverware or underwear and have no other choice. Same with blogging. Each week that passed was just that much more that I needed to update. But today I'm breaking the seal with a massive post, hopefully anybody still reading this won't be too bored. Just warning you though, I will be without my laptop for about a week coming soon, so I may not make another update til Christmastime. Anyway, on to the big show....

Classes

Microeconomics: Thank god my bid for Turbo Micro failed. Topel's "baby turbo" was more than enough to keep me occupied, and I was an Econ major! In one of the first couple classes, Topel told us that his Micro class would be different than anything we might have taken before and that's just the way its done at the University of Chicago. Sure, UofC is (or has been) home to the most influential modern economists and more Nobel Laureates than you can shake a stick at, but really...could it be that different? Seemed kind of arrogant to me. Turned out to be true. Things that were taught "take it as given, no need to prove it" in my Micro classes at WSU were completely broken down by Topel. He really focused on the theoretical and the "why" behind everything. Which made for interesting lectures, but when our group got to the problem sets....what?!? Figuring out how to apply the theoretical was left completely up to us to figure out. No easy task. But excellent preparation for future classes and work. Because UofC is Econ's Mecca, most (if not all) classes have some foundational economic aspect(s). Topel's Micro was an excellent "prepare you to think like an economist so you won't get your ass handed to you in the future."

Statistics: What can be said about Stats? It's icky, it's kinda boring, it's stuff I kinda remember from undergrad but usually have to look up in a book if I'm forced to use it. It's a foundation course, it's a chore you just gotta do. I refer to my professor as the Silver Fox. Bester has a head full of silver hair, but he's only 28 years old (!) and the guy is like the damn Energizer Bunny. He has so much energy and I really don't know how he does it. My class was Thursday 6-9, and it was the last of 3 sessions he would teach in a 24 hour period, yet he still managed to keep the energy up most of the time. He made it fun because his enthusiasm for the subject (and for teaching it at Chicago GSB) was both obvious and contagious. The problem sets and midterm were pretty fair and I usually scored above the mean, but the final kicked my ass. I rarely fail to finish a test but I did last night. Not a good feeling, until I started talking to my classmates and realized that very few people finished. We'll see how it turns out.

Operations Management: I wanted to put off Accounting and Marketing til Winter quarter because (a) I only wanted to take 3 classes and I wanted one to be case based but (b) I wanted to take Marketing from McGill and she was only teaching in Winter. So I chose to take Ops Management and get a breadth requirement done. Plus, I had never done anything like it so I figured it would be an interesting and different class to balance the previously travelled roads of Stats & Micro. I ended up really liking this class, taugh by Adelman. I mean, sure, the guy does tell bad jokes that no one but him laughs at, but I think he's a darn good case discussion facilitator. This class was a nice mix of quantitative & qualitative case work, and I really enjoyed the business process simulation we did in November. Overall, it was nice to look at business from an Ops perspective, something I had never really done before.

I think I managed to pull a B average, although I won't know for another week or so. As for next quarter, I got my perfect schedule....

• Monday: No class
• Tuesday: Accounting with Roulstone (morning), Marketing Strategy with McGill (afternoon)
• Wednesday: Managing in Organizations with Wittenbrink (afternoon)
• Thursday: No class
• Friday: Competitive Strategy with Bertrand (afternoon)

Really looking forward to next quarter, should be fun and hard.

Career Stuff

Attended the handful of presentations of companies coming to campus that interest me. I will probably participate in on campus recruiting for 6-8 companies. Other than that, I've been working on my off-campus research, collecting information from websites, trying to find alumni to contact, etc. It's kind of daunting. I'm pretty sure I will end up playing chicken with my internship...meaning most of the companies I would really like to work for do just-in-time hiring so I probably won't have an internship secured until May. Could be stressful when a lot of other people start getting their offers from on-campus stuff in February/March. I will just have to stay focused and positive. I've got some things coming up that could be very helpful. A friend and I attend the Promotion Marketing Association Law Conference here in Chicago last week. They had a couple of interesting Sports Marketing panels and I made one good contact that I need to follow up on this weekend. In addition, the Employer Development office at Chicago GSB has been working on some new relationships with professional sports teams like the Chicago Cubs and the Seattle Mariners! Very exciting stuff. I've actually been in contact with HR at the Mariners and I'm going to have an informational interview with them while I'm home for Christmas. Also, the Chicago Bulls are having a career fair with 25+ other Chicagoland sports teams and related businesses on December 20th, so I'm sticking around to attend that. It will probably be mostly for sales jobs, but it's worth a shot to go check it out and maybe make some good contacts. There's another job fair hosted by the NCAA in Indianapolis after the first of the year that I may try to attend as well.

Social/Fun Stuff/Weather

Still working out a lot and going out a lot. I love this city. I leave on Monday for a week in Vail on the Chicago GSB ski trip with about 100 of my classmates. I didn't do a Random Walk, so I'm really looking forward to a vacation and a week of pow-pow. It will probably be my only chance to snowboard this year since there is no "real" mountain anywhere near Chicago (those landfills converted to ski areas in Wisconsin don't count).

I'm attending a couple of holiday parties this weekend, and then my housemates and I are going to do family dinner Sunday night to celebrate Christmas early before we all head separate ways for the holidays. We did a full Thanksgiving dinner and had so much fun, we're going to do it again.

Last weekend, we tailgated with a bunch of friends at Soldier Field for the Bears/Packers game. We had a good time, but damn...it was cold! The weather has SUCKED. BIG TIME. Worst start to December in like 50 years for Chicago. It hasn't been above 32 degrees F since November 29th. This week, I had early morning finals on Tuesday and Wednesday and when I left my house at 6:30 am it was like 5 degrees, sub-zero with windchill. Then, last night as I'm taking my Stats final, a blizzard decided to roll in. I finished my test at 9:30 pm and had to dig my car out of 7 inches of snow. Took me about 15 minutes, then my drive home (normally 20 mintues) took 45 minutes. Plus, I have a rear wheel drive only SUV, so it's always fun to go around corners leading with the ass end of your vehicle. Fun times. My friend who used to work for UofC Law said that they never put pictures of campus in the snow in their recruiting publications because they don't want to reinforce how bad Chicago's winters are (even though campus is GORGEOUS in the snow). So, I apologize to the U of C if this post gives Chicago winter a bad name, but 2 years in San Diego made me soft and this sucks! It is supposed to warm up to the 40s this weekend so there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Now, to really make it up to any readers I have left, here are some pics from my Chicago antics the past few weeks...

Our beautiful Thanksgiving table, turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, fresh cranberries, green beans, rolls, homemade pumpkin pie...we know how to do it right! And about 2 bottles of wine per person, plus after dinner Texas Hold 'Em and Trivial Pursuit.



Tailgating at Soldier Field with 2 out of 3 of my housemates. It's about 10:30 and 20 degrees here and we are *choosing* to spend the day outside (yep, no tickets to the game but someone brought a TV and we watched the game there...crazy, I know)



Yeah, tailgating for Bears' games is WAY more fun than tailgating for Chargers' games in sunny San Diego! /sarcasm



Whiskey keeps you warm. It's a fact.
Whaddya think...should I include this in my resume drop to Jim Beam?

Winter has arrived

First snowflakes of the season are falling right now. Today's forecasted high temp: 35 F. Current temp 33, wind chill 21.

Today is the first day I've really truly missed San Diego. What have I gotten myself into? It's only November 16th!

Just the weather report for now, full update on school and life coming soon (I promise, KV!).

I forgot about tests

5 years out of school will do that to you. T minus 30 minutes til my first midterm (Business Statistics). I feel pretty much ready to unleash my stats prowess on this thing. Coming midterms include Operations Management Tuesday morning (open book/open note) and a rumored-to-be-brutal take home group midterm for Microeconomics due Nov 9th. (Seriously, the grapevine is saying the thing will take 20-30 hrs!)

I also had my midterm LEAD feedback session this afternoon. My facilitator and I had a nice discussion about my goals, how I'm progressing, how he and my peers feel I'm doing relative to my goals and the objectives of the course, and how that stacks up with how I think I'm doing. There are certainly some things I dislike about LEAD, but in general I've been really impressed with the content and presentation of the program and I think something to be gained for everyone.

This week has kinda sucked trying to get back on track. Just as I was getting into a rhythm school-wise, I take off for a long weekend in San Diego. The weekend was a lot of fun, although the sun failed to appear AT ALL during my time in SoCal. My friends' wedding was really nice, I got to see some old friends from Richmond, and I also had time to visit with my SD friends. Anyway, I had a boatload of homework and housework waiting for me when I got home Monday evening and I've been playing catch up ever since (and catch up is not easy when in B-school). I'm glad I'm not planning on going anywhere for Thanksgiving, because I would be in bad shape trying to play catch up right before finals.

Congrats to the World Series Champions, the Chicago White Sox! After a nervous September, those guys played lights out in October. Pretty magical run. I'm bummed I'm not going to be able to make it downtown tomorrow for the ticker tape parade.

Off to my test, wish me luck :)

Back in a suit

Since recruiting officially kicks off for first years today and I have three presentations to attend (Reebok, Pepsico/QTG, and Jim Beam), I had to pull my suit out of the back of my closet for the first time since MBA interviews. Today is going to be a long day. Met up with my Microecon study group at 8 am, then met with a 2nd year who interned at Nike for breakfast at 9 am. Now I'm trying to squeeze in some blogging and homework before the first presentation at 11:45. My last presentation will end this evening at 8 pm. Not sure when (if) I'll be able to work out today, let alone make sure all my homework is done for classes this week. I also need to get a head start on next week's readings and problem sets, since I'll be in San Diego Friday-Monday. I think I'll be lucky to average 5 hrs of sleep per night this week.

Life moves pretty fast here at the GSB. Recruiting is starting up, midterms will happen by the end of the month, and Thanksgiving is right around the corner. Wazzu was on a semester schedule, so this quarter schedule is a totally new concept for me. Plus, all my classes meet only once per week....that is only 10 sessions of class before finals!

As so many people have said, an MBA is all about time management. There are so many different things you can do in your two years at school. TOO MANY THINGS. It is physically impossible to do everything. I feel pretty fortunate that I realized this early on. I've perfected my ability to say no. If I get an email that is non-priority (i.e. about anything other than class, recruiting/networking specifically related to what I want to do, or the three clubs I joined), I don't let it linger in my inbox as a potential distraction. It gets deleted. Might I miss out on some fun stuff? Sure, but participating may have come at a cost to my priorities. I'm not willing to make that trade-off. MBA admissions officers aren't kidding when they say you should have a pretty good idea of what you'd like to do after your MBA coming in to the program. If I wasn't fairly certain of the industry & function I'd like to pursue, I think I'd be extremely overwhelmed right now.

Time management also means making time for "sanity" activities. For me, this means not letting my schedule sacrifice some quality time at the gym at least 5x per week. This means not attending every single GSB social event so that I can spend quality time with my non-GSB friends. This means scheduling myself some alone time, even if it's only 15 minutes, every day. This means keeping Saturday sacred for some quality time on my couch watching college football (even when the WSU Cougars decide to break my heart 3 weeks in a row).

That being said, let the recruiting insanity begin!

Holy crap

The White Sox are going to the World Series! Awesome. Going to try to get tickets when they go on sale Tuesday. Won't be in town for Game 1 or 2 (headed back to San Diego for a wedding), but it's worth a shot to get tickets to a possible Game 6 or 7. I can be an adopted Sox fan for the World Series, right? (Sorry M's)

I should be studying

But this weekend I've done everything but study. Yesterday was filled with college football viewing and reading a non-school related novel I couldn't put down. Last night, my friend and I hit the Vic Theater to see Jim Gaffigan do his stand up comedy act. Very, very funny, and the audience was totally into it because Comedy Central was there taping his act for a special to air in January.

Today I hit the gym, then my friend and I went and saw Proof. Excellent movie, I highly recommend it. Gwyneth Paltrow is amazing, she gave a raw and completely vulnerable performance. But she's not the only star of the movie. The University of Chicago also plays a big role, and the shots of campus (and the city) are beautiful.

I think I'm actually going to study now. Ops management homework awaits.

Shouldn't complain

I hardly have room to complain about my long day. My stats professor lectures from 8:30-11:30 am and does the same routine all over again from 6-9 pm. At least I get to sit and listen!

Long day ahead of me

Got out of bed at 6 am this morning so I could make it down to Hyde Park by 7:30 for the GSB Women's Welcome Back Breakfast. Way too early for my taste (but I understand they have to accommodate people with 8:30 class). I am not a morning person, but the breakfast and the company was worth getting out of bed so early.

I was up until midnight last night working on stats homework, then I called it quits knowing that I would have time today between the breakfast and my first class (LEAD @ 1:30) to finish it up. After LEAD, I'll have a break for dinner then Stats from 6-9. That is a nearly 14 hour day at HPC, gotta love it. I'm tired, it's been a long week. Don't think I'm gonna make it to TNDC ( Thursday Night Drinking Club) tonight. I'm glad I don't have class tomorrow. I can sleep in, hit the gym during the mid-morning lull, have some lunch, then come down to HPC in the afternoon for a group meeting and an appearance by Jack Welch (brought to campus by the GSB Distinguished Speaker Series committee).

MIA

Yeah, I know I suck. The past week and a half I've been telling myself anytime I have a spare 30 minutes I'll throw together I quick post to the blog, which is pretty much how I'll need to do it going forward if I'm going to keep this thing up. So Friday afternoon I have a break and sit down for a quick blog to find...Blogger down for maintenance! Just my luck.

Classes are going great. It's a completely different experience from undergrad. I'm so much more motivated to actually learn. What a difference a few years of life in the "real world" makes! Context is cool. Plus, if these three professors are any indication of the overall quality of the faculty, I think I'm in for a great two years. I never would have guessed that a three hour Thursday night statistics class could hold my attention. (Especially when planning to head to TNDC for beverage consumption and socializing immediately after class!)

I'm enjoying the group work; it certainly alleviates much of the pressure on the homework front. The only thing that sucks is schedule coordination. Location, class conflicts, etc. are an issue even with a group of only 3 or 4 people. I surrendered to the fact that although I only have classes three days a week, most weeks I'll be at Hyde Park Center Monday through Friday. Which is actually OK since I get a lot more work done here than I do at home, assuming I'm in a study room and not just hanging out in the Winter Garden. There are as many distractions in the Winter Garden as there are at home....way too easy to spend an hour or three socializing (which is nice in the rare event you have an hour to kill and nothing to do).

I am glad I was cheap and decided not to get a parking permit. I'm usually able to find a ride with a fellow north sider or my friend who works for the law school. If not, I drive myself down and to date I've had no problems finding street parking pretty much any time of day. It's easier early in the morning, of course, but even later in the day there are spots to be found as long as I allow myself time to find them.

First year recruiting doesn't start for another two weeks, but we are constantly being reminded to "mind the gap". Resume reviews, mocktail, explore more sessions, etc are all in full swing. I'm feeling pretty good about my resume, but I'll probably have a few more folks review it. I had a meeting with a career coach last week and I've got some tasks to follow up on in order to get a good start on my off campus search (since I'm not headed down the well trodden path to i-banking or consulting). The nice thing is that I've already found someone who has similar career interests to join forces with, and I'm getting involved in the entertainment & media club and much of the work I'll do for them will overlap nicely with my internship search.

I've got a group meeting for Microeconomics in 20 minutes and I need to look over the assignment again, so I'm off.

YEEEOOOUCH!

I just dropped $574 on books and course packs for Autumn Quarter!!! Talk about sticker shock, especially on the non-resellable course packs. Also, I'm wondering...the estimated cost of attendance (AKA our official budget that is used to determine our financial aid award) assumes a book budget for the year of $1650. $574 only covers 3 out of 10 courses I'll be taking this year...do the math, that is going to be cutting it close, even taking textbook buyback into consideration. Guess it's a good thing I'm under what the budget allows for things like rent.

Many of the other GSB bloggers have covered the whole bidding process that played itself out last week, so I won't get into that other than to say I didn't spend a whole lot of time trying to game the system and I didn't bid too many points. I didn't get my first choice schedule, but I did get a schedule I like. Since we have LEAD during fall quarter, and I wanted to allow myself some time to get back my study habits, I decided to take 3 courses this quarter and 4 in winter quarter. I orginally thought I would get the three foundation courses out of the way this quarter (financial accounting, microeconomics, and statistics), but then I decided to put off accounting until winter quarter so I could mix in a case course with all the quant stuff. The first year herd seemed to be willing to spend a lot of points on Marketing Strategy, so I figured I'd go another route and try to get a less popular class and not spend any points (saving them for winter like a good little squirrel). I bid on a preferred schedule of turbo micro (with an alternate of baby micro), stats, and operations management (which counts toward a breadth requirement). I didn't get turbo micro (kinda bummed because the prof sounds awesome, but kinda relieved because it also sounds like a truckload of work...20+ hrs/wk!), and I didn't get the stats section I preferred.

Schedule looks something like:
Monday--no classes
Tuesday--Ops Mgmt 8:30-11:30 am, Career Essentials in the afternoon
Wednesday--Microeconomics 8:30-11:30 am
Thursday--LEAD 1:30-4:30 pm, Stats 6-9 pm, TNDC 9 pm til I pass out
Friday--no classes/recovery from TNDC/LPF

Even though I don't have classes Monday or Friday, I figure I'll be down in Hyde Park most of the day every day, but I like the flexibility it gives me if I need to go out of town for a weekend.

We are almost finished with CORE (AKA orientation) and I'm looking forward to starting classes. Tomorrow is the last day of CORE and it's Industry Immersion, a series of presentations and panel discussions to help us explore career options and begin the process of narrowing down target industries/functions/companies. Should be interesting, even though what I think I want to do doesn't really fit into any of the typical MBA career path buckets.

There's a lot of CORE that I'd like to recap, but I think I will do separate entries for the different modules as time allows this week (I should have some time since Wednesday & Friday are free days). This will likely include the diversity module (way better than expected), career services (not long enough), LEAD so far (better than expected).

I have to say, I've been having a great time so far. The GSB may have had a reputation as somewhat lacking in the fun department in the past, but the Class of 2007 does not fit that mold in the least. My classmates are always cooking up some kind of outing, adventure, night on the town, etc. I can tell that over the course of the next two years, balancing my social calendar and my academic calendar will be a challenge. Big time.

First Week Summary

Short version: My liver is threatening to strike.

Long version: It has been a great first week, though it started a little rough. GSB Day 1 was long (as previously recapped by PowerYogi), especially with the post-birthday hangover. There was a lot of information to be communicated to all of us, I just wish it didn't come in the form of 550+ people in one room for 3.5 hrs after lunch with no breaks and not enough AC. I definitely have some ideas for how they might do this better next year and shared them with the GSB staff via the survey they sent out.

As for my fellow classmates...top notch folks. Fun to meet so many new people, although having the same conversation five hundred times gets tiresome. (Where are you from? What were you doing before GSB? What are you planning to do?)

The rest of the week was quite an improvement over the first day. Wednesday was an early wake up call to make the trip up to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, for Leadership Outdoor Experience. I'll admit I had some reservations about the 3 day trip. I was worried it was going to be very rah-rah-cheesy, and there were elements of that, but I honestly had a great time. We did all of the daytime activities in our cohorts, and the smaller groups made it easier to get to know people. There was your usual high & low ropes courses, team building puzzle type activities, but also an afternoon of free time to play softball, volleyball, soccer, cards, hang by the pool, take a nap, etc. Lake Geneva is really pretty and we were staying at a lodge type place. The whole time I was there, I kept thinking that I was at Kellerman's (the Catskills resort in the movie Dirty Dancing).

In the evenings, there were games, dancing, karoke, etc. And lots of beer (plus whatever booze people were smart enough to pack in their overnight bags). The socializing kicked into high gear around 9 pm each night and continued into the wee hours of the morning (I went to bed at 3:30 am on Wednesday night/Thurs morn, 4:30 am on Thursday/Friday).

Needless to say, a week of averaging 4.5 hrs of sleep a night sucked the life out of me. I bonked on Friday when I got home. I don't normally nap, and I slept like the dead between 3 pm and 7 pm Friday afternoon/evening. I was supposed to meet up with the WSU alumni group to watch the WSU-Nevada game that night, but I just didn't have it in me.

The week wasn't over though. My housemates and I hosted a party last night. I'm the only GSBer in the house, so between the four of us, we had a wide variety and constant flow of people. I had a great time and I think everybody else did too. We had a ton beer & booze, and while there is still a bunch left, we drank A LOT last night.

So today I'm cleaning and trying to recover. It has been a long week. I think I need to take a week off from the sauce or my organs are likely to go on strike. GSB orientation (aka CORE) continues tomorrow with a curriculum overview and an introduction to the class bidding system. I've got some ideas for what I'd like my schedule to look like and I'm hoping tomorrow will help firm those up. I'm also hoping I'll be able to figure out the whole bidding strategy.

Off to my first day of school

Wish me luck :)

(BTW, just a little hungover from the birthday madness, but not too bad)

Final week of freedom

This is it. The last hurrah. A week from today, Chicago GSB will own me. Until then, I'm going to be lazy. Sleep in. Do something, do nothing, whatever I feel like.

August in Chicago, free as a bird, is cool.

My Wazzu friends and I had a friend/sorority sister in town from Seattle this past weekend. Fun stuff, pics below. We did the John Hancock tower, Millenium Park, shopping on the mile, etc. But the coolest thing was meeting up some guys my friend T knows and going on their sailboat for a sunset sail along the shore of the city.

Sunset Sail


View from the Ladies Room, Signature Lounge, John Hancock Tower


Skyline & Us in the reflection of the MP Bean


Millenium Park "Bean"


Wazzu ladies night out in Chicago


This weekend should be fun too. It's a holiday weekend and it's my birthday weekend. My birthday falls on Labor Day this year, just like it did 28 years ago...yep, Mama labored on Labor Day. Anyway, we've got another Wazzu friend coming in from Seattle, we're going to the White Sox/Tigers game on Sunday, then Jimmy Buffet @ Wrigley Field on Monday. I will be spending my birthday, AKA the day before school starts, in Margaritaville...God help me :)

Oh and I forgot to mention....WSU Cougar Football kicks off this week! It's the most wonderful time of the year. My boys play Idaho Thursday evening. Fox Sports NW is going to be carrying the game live, and I'm determined to find a bar in this city that's got it. Go Cougs!