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.

My Adventures in the City Thus Far

The past nine days have been pretty eventful for me. Last weekend my ‘special friend’ came up to visit for two days. We spent the weekend walking around different parts of the city and trying out various restaurants and bars. On Monday I went to a spa where I had my first manicure and pedicure in years! Prices here are pretty cheap compared to other places I have lived so I need to take more advantage of that over the summer. My spa treatment also included a chair massage and I finally came to the realization that quickie massages don’t work well for me. I’m too tense because I’m anticipating some type of sudden, painful, rough hand movement. I can do okay when I’m in a private room on a table, but not so good when I’m in an open area in a chair.

Thursday evening was pretty eventful for me. I met up with my friend from high school, Shannon. We hadn’t seen each other in nine years. Shannon lived down the street from me the second time I lived in New Jersey. We were both in band and hung out during Senior year. I was in the car during her first car accident, as was her mom, and true to the statistic this accident occurred within a mile of our homes. I met some of her friends from Paris (she lived there for a few years studying music) so now my set of New York friends has grown a little. We met up on Sunday to see a movie then went to dinner in Korea Town with the Paris Crew.

On Saturday I explored my neighborhood, Brooklyn Heights, a little bit more. I found a few cute boutique clothing stores and came across a bunch of restaurants and cafés. I also realized that there are a few movie theaters by me and made a trip over to the famous promenade. The promenade has a great view of Manhattan and from a distance you can see the Statue of Liberty. That was my first view of the statue since I arrived in New York which is kind of surprising considering how much I’ve gone around and explored the city.

Smoking

One thing that has kind of surprised me about New York in the past 11 days is the number of people who smoke. I know that living in a large city I’ll see a lot of smokers, but it seems that most of the people who smoke are those wearing suits and looking like they work at a bank or consulting firm or law firm – people who should know better! I swear, I see more people here smoking than I did in North Carolina.. a state so important to the tobacco industry that there is a town called Tobaccoville and the state house of representatives just recently prohibited smoking on the house floor! I wonder if most of the people here have been smoking since they were teens, or if they picked up the habit since they started working so as to be part of the ‘in crowd’. Then again, smoking is thought to be a stress reliever and since many people here work insane hours they may be unable to partake in other healthier stress relievers, like exercise. Speaking of exercise, did I mention in any of my other blogs how the gym I get free membership to for the summer is awesome, because it totally is! Maybe those smokers should check it out.

I miss Sametime and Bluepages

There were several times during the school year when I wanted to ask a classmate a real quick question but the only options I would have to ask the question would be to either send an email or hunt down the person on campus (I don’t get very good reception in the GSB building so cell phone communication is out). “Dang, I wish we had sametime” I would tell myself while thinking of ways the tool could be incorporated into our school computer network. The same thoughts are now entering my mind at BS. This is the first time since I graduated college where I work in an environment that doesn’t have instant messaging capabilities…. And its hard to get used to! Sametime was great because you can see if someone is on or off line.. if they are off line chances are they aren’t working so you don’t have to waste your time calling them up only to get their voice mail which you would often times follow up with an email anyway. You could also shoot a sametime to your manager to stop by and see you after she’s off the phone rather than do what I do now and send an email message with the subject line “I figured out the problem. Stop by when you are done. –eom”


I’m also feeling nostalgia for Bluepages. Here, our phone directly consists of entries which include telephone number, title (here, the only titles are VP, AD, MD, and SMD), department, and office location. Compared to IBM this isn’t much information. You know… when I look up someone’s name that I need to call I’d like to see a picture of what they look like so I can put a face to the name. Also, knowing their report to chain would be helpful so I know where they fit in the overall organization of the firm. Shoot, even knowing info like projects they’ve worked on in the past and financial and software tools they are proficient with would be nice. Now I have to go and actually meet with people to learn more about them. Sheesh.

My first week in NYC

I’ve been in New York a little over a week and so far things have been going well. I started my internship last Monday with a half a day of orientation. Orientation at BS is the same as every other place I worked. They went over dress code, security policies, showed us a video of what a great year 2006 was and how 2007 will be just as great, if not better… you know, the administrative stuff you always go over when you start a new job. Needless to say I was pretty bored. One thing that is different now than when I attended job orientations during high school and college… an emphasis on electronic communications like the proper use of cell phone, texting, and internet use during work hours. When I had my first job back at the Camp Zama library in 8th grade cell phones weren’t even thought of. Now I use mine at some point almost every day to make after work plans with my classmates in the city.


Speaking of electronic communication etiquette, someone needs to give that lesson to the sales clerks at Macy’s. I spent about half of my weekend there shopping for clothes and shoes since they were having a big sale and noticed that at some point at least 1/4 of the sales clerks were on their cell phones. I don’t know about you, but I would think that someone who has a customer service role where they are actually face to face with customers would know better than to use their cell phone while working…. Or tell their customer that they are going to lunch in ten minutes and can only assist you until then… but that is a different story.



Anyway, back to my internship… I sit on the 35th floor of BS’ headquarters building which is located in Midtown Manhattan. I have an office (which I share) that has a window with views of the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building. Every time I look out the window the soundtrack of Annie plays in my head… actually, when I’m walking around the city scenes of the movie pop into my head, especially the scene where the orphans have escaped from the orphanage and they are trying to get to Daddy Warbuck’s estate and they have to walk, like, 100 blocks to get there.



Outside of my internship things are well. I live in Brooklyn Heights which I have found out is one of the most expensive parts of the city, but my rent is cheap. Plus, my rent includes membership to this really awesome gym on the same block as my building. Seriously, this is the nicest gym I’ve ever been to. There are machines I’ve never seen before that work out muscles I didn’t know existed! And, they have lots of classes everyday that are free! My goal is to go at least four times a week. We’ll see how that goes.

Where have I been???

I know it has been MONTHS since I last posted on here and all I can say is “I’ve been busy”. Besides, I’ve seen or talked to most of you since my last posting in January so you know what I’ve been up to. For those of you I haven’t spoken with, here is a brief update: I ended the internship recruiting season with a couple offers and chose at accept an internship offer with BS in New York City. I will be a part of their financial management associate program working on a top secret project with the legal department. Well, the project isn’t top secret, but I’m not sure if I can tell you about it. Anyway….

After the winter quarter I spent my spring break volunteering with Presidential Classroom in DC. I’ve been volunteering for a week for the past four years and am usually fine, but I was worn out this year, you know, since I had just finished exams and was recovering from the beast that is called interviewing. The week after I arrived back in Chicago from DC we started our spring quarter and it was just BRUTAL. I took four classes, which generally wouldn’t be that bad, but I picked my schedule based in times that were convenient for me (no Fridays or Saturdays and as many afternoon classes as possible) without really looking at how involved the classes were and how much work was due each week. I went from having about four hours of outside class work per class for the fall and winter quarter, to nine hours spring quarter and that isn’t including a history class I took outside of the business school which required at least 20 hours of reading each week. Add on the responsibilities of being a 2007-2008 co-chair for the Financial Analysis and Treasury Group and you get a busy quarter!

So, my first year of B-school is over and I am now in New York City ready to spend 10 weeks back in the working world...And I’ actually looking forward to it. New York should be fun this summer since there are, like, 150 of my classmates here… even though about half of them are bankers so I’ll never see them, and from what I hear I’ll have some semblance of a work/life balance so I’ll be able to go out and see the sights. Once my internship is over I’m heading to Belize to lead a Random Walk trip… this is the same type of trip I took to Turkey last year before school started, but this year I get to lead the trip! It’s all beach and will be a great break from seven months of school and internship.

NFC Championship Game

So, yesterday I worked my last Bears game of the season, and what a great game it was! The day was full of exciting celebrity sightings. My first sighting occurred about two hours before the game. Those of us who are dessert cart attendants and help out with the Cadillac club buffet were sitting around waiting for our kick of meeting when one of the security guard girls walks by and is all "Ohhh, girls.... Chris Daughtry from American Idol is on the field right now. He's going to sing the national anthem", so like a couple of fan girls we ran outside to hear the sound check. We couldn't see Chris too well, but the sound check was nice to hear. My second sighting came about two hours later. I was serving soup at the buffet when I saw a group of young adults who looked like me like a bunch of punks. They entered the buffet area from a side entrance and were followed by stadium security so I was thinking "Poor kids. I bet the security guards think they may cause trouble so they are following them around." Then I started thinking "What are these kids doing here? Why are they just standing there? Did they even pay the $50 per plate fee for the buffet?" At one point one of the punks came up to me and asked for a bowl of soup. I was thinking I should ask "Um, are you even supposed to be here?", but decided against it. A few minutes later, I noticed one of the punks was wearing a purple tag that said 'Entrainment' so I called him over and asked "What type of entertainment are you?" and he was all "We're the halftime show," and I was all "Who are you?", and he was all "Fall Out Boy," and I turned into the biggest babbling fan. I mean, I don't even really know this group, but I have heard their songs, so I was in awe when I met them. Teoskii, the cook I was working with, took a picture with their manager. The manager was all "Dude. I'm not in the band," But Teoskii didn't care. The manager was famous by association.

After working the buffet, I went down to the kitchen to get my dessert cart and then we were on our way to the suites. After working for about an hour, I took a break and went down to the pantry to take a quick lunch. While down there, I heard a list of celebs who were at the game: Jim Bilushi, Kevin Costner, Barak Obama, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, Jamie Foxx, Will Smith. It got to the point where you could name any celeb and people would believe the celeb was really there. Shortly thereafter, me and my fellow desert cart girls finished visiting all our assigned suites and headed back down to the kitchen. While cleaning off our carts in the kitchen, other desert cart girls talked about which celebs they saw and which suites those celebs were sitting in. Once my cart was completely clean, my fellow cart attendant and I decided to go celebrity stalking. We took the elevator to the B level and shortly after stepping onto the floor we run into Michelle and Barak Obama. Michelle smiled at us and Barak was all “Hello ladies” with a big grin on his face. We later saw Michelle and Barak while they were on the elevator heading down from the suites. After seeing the Obamas for the second time, we went down to the SS level to look for Jamie Foxx since rumor had it that he was hanging out there. Turns out our sources were mistaken.

At this point, there are about 2 minutes left in the game, and it dawns on me that the people who work in my group have access to any public area in the stadium with our employee ID badges. My fellow desert cart attendant and I went out to the 300 level ticket holders seating area to watch the remainder of the game and the trophy ceremony. That was my first live NFL experience, and it was pretty awesome.

Interview time

My first internship interview is in less than two weeks! I'm kind of nervous, yet not very. After going through a few mock interviews I realize that I really like interviewing. During the 30 minute interview everything is in my hands, it’s kind of empowering. Plus, I get to talk about myself. That is always fun. Plus, you never know what to expect. You don't know if your interviewer is more interested in hearing about the cool stuff you did at your old job, or if he/she wants to know where you plan to be in your career in 10 years. It's an adventure. You never know where it is going to lead. Anyway, I hope this interview is the first of many.

In other news, I was selected to lead a Random Walk this summer. As you may remember, I went to Turkey on a Random Walk last August and had a blast. This year I'll be leading a trip to Belize with three other second years. It should be exciting. Our trip will be in the 'beach' category whereas my trip to Turkey would have been categorized as 'culture'. Going on a beach trip will be very relaxing after spending 10 weeks at an internship.

Well, nothing else new going on around here. I'll talk to you all later...

Recruiting has its perks

The interview season is quickly approaching. Yesterday we had wInterview which was an all day affair where we saw mock interviews, sat in on panels of second years describing their internship recruiting experiences, and participated in our own mock interview with a second year. I can see how the day was extremely for most people, but I had already attended most of the optional “how to perform a successful interview search” presentations hosted by career services already, so I didn’t get much out of it. The food at the cocktail reception after the event was awesome though. The highlight for me was the mashed potato bar. There two big pots of mashed potatoes, one white, one purple. The server put a spoonful into a martini glass, then one could go the fixings’ section and cover their potatoes with cheese, sour cream, chives, bacon, and various other toppings that were fit for a baked potato. This is something I will probably do in the future for dinner parties.

Some of the highlights of internship recruiting are the great perks. A few days ago I received slip in my mailbox saying I had a package in the mail room. I didn’t think anything of it since I am expecting quite a few packages this week. I went to the mailroom and saw this big ‘ol box with the return address of ‘General Mills’ (you know, like the company that manufactures Betty Crocker) and thought “What the heck?” I have a dinner scheduled with General Mills tonight, but I didn’t think they would send me a package before hand. I eventually opened up the box and it was a huge gift basket filled with General Mills products, Betty Crocker muffin mix, fruit roll-up, Total, Hamburger Helper microwave singes and a huge box of Cheerios! I don’t need to buy snack food for awhile!

Happy 2007!

I’m back! The last two months of the year were CRAZY for me so I didn’t have much of a chance to update my blog. Here is a brief synopsis of what I’ve been up to: I spent most of November recovering from my mid-term exam grades and getting ready for Thanksgiving Break. During the break my mom and I met up in Seattle to spend a few days together. Nothing too exciting to write about from that trip. After I arrived home I had about a week to prepare for finals which were held the fist week of December. I was really stressed out about them but ended up doing pretty well.

I spent the second week of December up in New York City visiting companies I am interested in interning with this summer. Overall it was a great trip. I flew in to the city the day after my last final so I was able to hang out with friends for a few days before all my office visits started. Those few days were very relaxing and helped me relieve some stress. Being in the city reminds me how much I like it and reassured my feelings that I should intern there this summer. The office visits were great too. I was able to talk to a lot of employees from the different companies and have a better feel for what a corporate finance professional does.

The day after I arrived home from NYC I flew out to New Orleans to meet up with my mom for a winter cruise. We took a seven day trip to the western Caribbean where we visited Jamaica, Mexico, and Grand Cayman. As usual, the cruise was fun. There is just way too much to do on the ships. I’m kinda bummed because I never made to one of the arts and crafts classes. I’m not really sure what you make in those classes, probably picture frames or macaroni necklaces, but it’s a great way to meet other people on the ship. For our next cruise we are thinking Southeast Asia after I graduate. Those cruises are real expensive, but, I hope to get a nice signing bonus which I can use to pay for everything.

So, for the past week I have been prepping for the upcoming internship interview season. My interviews won’t be stating for another month, but I know the next few weeks will go by quickly. I’ve already had a few resume and cover letters due to companies, so I know the big interview days are just around the corner.

Other things in my life are the same. I’m still working part time for the Bears. The team made the playoffs and has home field advantage, so that means an extra week where I get to make money. I also signed up to work some of the private parties at Soldier Field which will put more cash in my pocket. That is always a good thing.

For those of you who care, my love life is active again. I have been dating one of my classmates since mid-November. Things have been fun so far. We hang out a lot and he doesn’t get on my nerves, so I think I’ll keep him for awhile. This relationship has shown me how grad school can kind of be like high school. In early December the director of diversity affairs asked me about it since she heard about it through the rumor mill. I was all “Who did you hear about it from” and she was all “Two administrators asked me about it recently”, so I’m thinking these two could be two of the minority administrators or maybe some of the employees in career services, but, no. They were, Stacey Kole, who is the dean of the full-time program (she reports directly to Ted Snyder, who is the dean of the business school) and Ann Harvilla, who is the dean of students for the full-time program. So, two of the deans at school where asking about my dating life? Really? That just seems kinda odd….

Oh, and one last thing…., thanks to all you sent me warm holiday greetings. It was exciting to hear about your good news from the past year. I wish you all the best in 2007!