Back from hiatus

So, it’s been a pretty long time since I last posted. Turns out the end of my summer and my first quarter back at school were much busier then I thought they would be.

I’ll spend my first post back summing up my summer for those I haven’t talked to in some time.

In June I temporarily moved to New York City with the thought that I would have one of the best summers of my life. When it ended, if asked to rank my experience on a scale of 1 – 10, I would have to give it a 2. My summer was filled with highlights and lowlights. Even though the highlights were great, they didn’t overcompensate for the lowlights.

Some great things about the summer:
• Meeting up with a friend from high school who I hadn’t seen in several years. We ended up hanging out together a couple of time.
• Seeing Michael Buble in concert at Radio City Music Hall.
• Going to see a few Broadway shows
• Hanging out with one of my sorority sisters who recently took a job in NYC
• Going up to Niagara

Some really crappy things:
• Flooding in the subway
• Pipes bursting on the subway
• Subway lines using alternate routs on the weekend and not realizing it until after passing the stop I would need to get off at
• Having a hard time hailing a taxi late at night
• Dealing with stupid taxi drivers
• Mice everywhere (thankfully not in the room I lived in)
• Sharing a dorm room for 9 weeks
• Fracturing my foot
• Of the six one-way airline tickets I purchased this summer three flights were straight up cancelled

So, overall, the summer stunk. I am so happy to be back in Chicago!

Sooooo busy

Once again I have been absent from the blogging community for an extended period of time do to my overwhelmingly busy schedule. That isn’t a bad thing though… I mean the fact that I’m so busy isn’t bad. My hectic life isn’t because of work, thank goodness!! I’m doing about 50 hours a week which is not bad at all compared to the investment bankers who are pulling 100+ hour weeks. My schedule is filled with social appointments that end up leaving me little time to do anything but sleep. I’ve met up with MBA friends who go to other schools and are spending their summer in New York too, friends from high school whom I haven’t seen in YEARS, and friends from undergrad. In addition to my social callings I have been busy getting stuff for school in order, like updating my resume, figuring out which classes to take next quarter, and taking care of things for the student group I am a co-chair of. Here are some highlights of what I’ve been up to in the past month or so:

- Took a trip to Niagara with my special friend. We stayed at a very nice B&B in Canada where we were treated to gourmet breakfasts every morning and a spectacular view of the lake. My flight home to NYC was cancelled so I had to drive home. It wasn’t all bad. I was able to drive through a bit of PA and NJ and listed to a radio station that played old time radio shows. On an episode of Gunsmoke I learned that on the frontier bullets cost $.08 so that people would be less likely to unnecessarily shoot their gun.
- Started taking a knitting class. So far I have learned the basic stitch and made a hat. Next class I’ll learn how to make a scarf. Awesome.
- Last week I caved in and bought a Blackberry. I was debating about whether or not to get one for the past few weeks so last Monday I stopped by the Verizon store to ask about my options and was introduced to the 8830 which has the capabilities of the standard Blackberry but includes an MP3 player. I don’t have an iPod so the 8830 is perfect for me. It’s only been a week and I’m already hooked. ‘Crack’berry? Sho ‘nuf is!

July 4th

I spent this Independence Day at Coney Island with one of my girlfriends from school where we stood and watched the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog eating contest. The event was pretty cool. We get there and there are about 5 vegetarians hold sings saying like “MEAT = DEATH” and “Would you eat a hot dog if you knew it had a face”. Oddly enough, the picture of the animal on the second sign was a cow, but I guess when you want to make such a strong statement and create awesome signs, things get overlooked.

Before the contest started the MC announced that the competition would last 12 minutes. I thought to myself “Dang, I don’t think I can pay attention that long” but the event was really riveting. Joey Chestnut and Kobayashi had a real race going. It was neck-and-neck the entire time and they both broke the current record in the process. Joey, like, inhales the hot dogs. I don’t know how someone can do that without choking.

After the contest my friend and I got some food. The line at Nathan’s was extremely long so we went to some other stand where we each ordered a shish kabob stick and my friend got a corn dog. My friend is from Brazil and didn’t know what a corn dog was, but she ate it anyway and really liked it. After we ate we got some ice cream and walked around the Coney Island streets and the boardwalk. On our way back to the subway station we passed by the Nathan’s sign that lists all the contest winners since 1984. Earlier in the day the MC stated that 10 years ago the winner of the event usually ate around 24 hot dogs and that was a big deal. Now most of the participants have to eat at least that many to win their qualifier to make it to the final round. The sign we passed showed that in 1984 the winner only at 9 ½ hot dogs. That’s it. This year, Joey at 9 ½ hot dogs in about 55 seconds! That’s gross.