A life in transition

Back from hiatus

2008-01-07T12:31:00.000-06:00

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

2007-07-31T20:17:00.000-05:00

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

2007-07-04T20:44:00.000-05:00

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

2007-07-02T20:33:00.000-05:00

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

2007-06-24T21:30:00.001-05:00

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

2007-06-20T19:11:00.001-05:00

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

2007-06-18T20:05:00.001-05:00

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???

2007-06-10T16:04:00.000-05:00

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

2007-01-23T20:36:00.000-06:00

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

2007-01-20T13:08:00.000-06:00

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

2007-01-07T16:28:00.000-06:00

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!

2007-01-01T19:40:00.000-06:00

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!

Midterms are over

2006-11-07T13:30:00.000-06:00

Midterms are finally over! And by ‘finally’ I mean that the tests are over and the results have been received. Well, the receiving part wasn’t too fun, but, at least I have finals to try to make up for it. Now I’m spending a lit of time focusing on recruiting. Since I am interested in finance in a company, it is as if the recruiting process is my oyster. Every company has some sort of finance function, so I can go to any presentation that is geared towards any function and say “I’m interested in corporate finance” to which I will be given contact information for the appropriate recruiter.

Presentations are great. I am able to learn about companies in many different industries and what products and/or services they currently offer or plan to offer in the future. Since business really interests me, I enjoy learning more about different companies and the functions they are recruiting for. One of the perks of presentations are the goodies. We get shirts and water bottles and post its among other things. American Express gave us Rubix cubes where they replaced the basic solid color squares with pictures of their products like the Gold Card and the Traveler’s Cheque card. Even though presentations are great, I am limited by the fact that there is only one of me and I don’t have enough time to go to everything. For instance, yesterday there was a corporate finance presentation for Microsoft, but I had to attend the Merrill Lynch commodities group presentation. And later that night, Lehman Brothers (a bank) had a presentation, but I RSVPed to attend a dinner sponsored by Kraft. Its all too much. Today, I am going to a presentation for the Federal Reserve Bank of NY in the morning, Mattell early evening, Sears after that, then I have to run downtown to the Blue Water Grill restaurant for a dinner with McKinsey!

In other news, my mom was in town last week. Our time together was real chill. We went to Chicago GSB’s DuSable conference on Friday night where we heard Chris Gardner, the inspiration for the new movie The Pursuit of Happyness, speak, and where my mom was able to meet a lot of my friends. The rest of the time was spent sitting on the couch and talking politics. Overall, it was a good visit.

It's been awhile

2006-11-01T15:37:00.000-06:00

There has been a lot going on in my life the past few weeks. I was MIA for most of the latter half of October studying for exams. Please don't ask me how they went. All I can say is ”Thank goodness for the final exams”. I'll admit that I was kind of lax in studying for the first half of the quarter, but now I know that I need to get my rear end in gear and really buckle down on studying.

In addition to exams, internship recruiting started last week. Our campus was inundated with companies and banks coming to give presentations to first year students. I am very fortunate in that I am recruiting for corporate finance jobs instead of banking. For those of you who don't know, those who recruit for banking usually want to be Sales & Traders or Investment Bankers. Because the competition for those internships is fierce (or so we programmed to think) recruiting is hard core. They have recruiting events almost everyday, from lunch-n-learns to bank presentations to dinners. If there is a bank you really want to work for, you need to go to all of their recruiting events, which for most banks are about 7 or more. But most people have more than one bank in their sight, so they need to times 7 by the number of banks they are activity recruiting for. Since I removed myself from the recruiting scene, I only have a few presentations per week to attend. I don't know what I would do if I was recruiting banking. Probably attach an IV to my arm and have it drip coffee.

Outside of school things have been awesome. I have a part time job working at the Chicago Bear's home games as a dessert cart girl for the executive suites. It is the easiest job ever! We go to a suite with our dessert cart, the people in the suite file out and point to which dessert they want, and then we put it on a plate and hand it to them. Yeah, really, that's all I do! I am in at 10am and done by 3pm. Only downside is that I don't get to see the game, but I can tell what’s going on by listening to the cheers coming from the suites.

In other news, my mom is coming to visit tomorrow! She is over in PA visiting Granddaddy and made plans to stop and see me for a few days. We're going to go to the movies and get our hair done and go to the aquarium. It’s going to be a blast!!

We're #1!!!

2006-10-13T08:36:00.000-05:00

Yesterday the Business Week rankings for the top Business school were announced, and we came out on top for the first time ever! This is pretty significant because the BW rankings are the #1 authority on the quality of b-schools for many. The rankings only come out every other year so I can relish in this accomplishment during the rest of my tenure in school.

The school set up a live feed of the announcement yesterday so I decided to stop by and check it out. I walked into the student lounge and saw a movie screen which displayed what looked like a chat room. There were introductions and such, and then they started revealing the schools beginning at number 30. For the first 20, they were revealed in groups of five with about a one minute pause between each grouping. The crowd in the student lounge didn't have much of a reaction for the unveilings, until they showed number 10 - Columbia. That got a few cheers from the audience. Then, the top 9 were unveiled one by one with what felt like significant time between each posting.

9 - Duke (No response from the audience in the lounge)

8 - Berkeley (Haas) (Once again, not much of a response)

7 - MIT (pretty quit)

6 - Stanford (The crowd let out a big 'Ooooo' as if we were saying 'Ooooh, they ended up being kinda low')

5 - Michigan (Not much crowd reaction)

4 - Harvard (Lots of claps in the room because, well, doesn't everyone want to beat Harvard?)

3 - Kellogg (Many people started cheering for two reasons... Kellogg was #1 last time, so this now freed up that slot, and, they are our rival city school so, we want to trump them whenever we have a chance)

2 - Wharton (Of course this caused the biggest cheer of all)

1 - For the first time - Chicago!

But you know… I knew this would happen. About two weeks ago I was walking down the steps in our Hyde Park center campus and saw this guy, Thomas, looking over the railing at nothing. I then looked down and noticed photographers. I was all "Thomas, what is going on?" and he replied "This is Business Week, they are taking pictures today." And yes, they stayed on campus allll day. True, the probably went to all of the top 10 schools to take pictures, but, as soon as I saw them I had a gut feeling.

In other news, we had our fist snow in Chicago yesterday. It was only October 12! However, the weather experts, whoever they are, are predicting a mild winter this year. We'll see about that.

National Black

2006-10-03T03:22:00.000-05:00

Last weekend I was in Atlanta for the National Black MBA conference. It is a yearly conference organized by the National Black MBA Association which is part leadership institute, part career fair, and part networking event. I went down for the career fair and to meet up with MBA students from other schools who I have met over the past few years. Overall, the conference was worthwhile. I was able to meet the folks at American Express (for those of you how don't know, I am an American Express Diversity Fellow) and make contacts from other companies represented at the career fair. I was also able to see many of my friends from other MBA programs. There were a few pleasant surprises as well.... I randomly ran into a friend whom I hadn't talked to in about a year, and ran into a guy I used to know at IBM who I hadn't talked to in almost two years. Honestly, I didn't think I would ever see either of them again, but, you never know when life will have you cross paths with others from your past. Oh, and I also met one of my old college roommate’s former co-workers. That was random.

We'll see the effects of my visit to Atlanta later this year when the internship interview process is in full effect. I hope the contacts I made over the weekend will prove beneficial during that time.

In other news, nothing big is going on. Just getting in the swing of things with classes. We only started class about two weeks ago. The thing that stinks is I'm already a little bit behind! Being in Atlanta set me back a bit, but, I have the rest of this week to catch up on everything.

My new guilty pleasure

2006-09-18T23:25:00.000-05:00

Last week I was flipping through my basic cable channels and came across this awesome new show called Fashion House. Why is it so awesome? Well, it’s an hour long cheesy soap opera, which airs nightly. Each episode's content is about 20% of flashback footage, so if I miss a day, I'm not lost. Modeled after Spanish novellas, the show will tape 65 episodes and last 13 weeks, when all stories lines will tie up. Fashion House stars Bo Derek (isn't that cheese right there? I mean, last time I saw her was on 7th Heaven.), Morgan Fairchild (whom I have only seen in two episodes so far) and a cast of other actors who I'm pretty sure were hired on to the show to serve as eye candy. The mediocrity of the acting can only be matched by the mediocrity of the writing. The story lines are typical soap opera fare... a woman who heads a fashion empire (Derek) is being courted by a much younger man whom she owes money. He tells her the debt will be forgiven if he marries her. BUT... he is somehow connected with Morgan Fairchild who is Bo Derek's nemesis. OH, the drama that ensues!

So, why do I watch? Not sure. Usually because I can't find anything else on TV that interests me in the early part of the week (I have to dump FH on Thursday's for Celebrity Duets). Also, because the 'actors' are pretty, the fashions are cutting edge, and, I know its only on for a short time, so I can get totally wrapped up and know that in 13 weeks I won't have to waste my time any more.

On the school front... nothing new. We are still in orientation and as of now I don't have any classes for this quarter. Great.

My first week of orientation.

2006-09-11T22:41:00.000-05:00

It has started. My life as a student has begun. The month of summer vacation is over and now I have been jerked back into the reality of life. It all began last Tuesday when the University of Chicago GSB welcomed me, and my fellow first year classmates, to the orientation program. So far everything has been overwhelming! The first day was spent going over basic school programs, like the Dean of Students office, student group programs, and academic planning. My fellow classmates and I had to be on campus from 8am to 7pm, so it was a tiring day.

The next morning I had to be at school by 6am so that I could board a bus to attend the GSB’s LEAD Outdoor Exercise (also known as a retreat) in southern Wisconsin for two days. The purpose of LOE was to prepare us for our first quarter mandatory class called LEAD (Leadership Effectiveness and Development), as well as to bond with our cohort. Before I go on, let me give you a brief overview of cohorts. Our GSB class has 10 cohorts with about 55 members each. Each cohort is further broken down into squads of about 7 people each. During the autumn quarter, our cohort will be meeting together for our LEAD class, where we will break up into squads for small group work. After our LEAD class is complete, our cohort will still work together to compete in competitions against other cohorts in events like the Cohort Games and Golden Gargoyles. Our cohort earns money for each event we win, which we can use at our discretion. Anyway, LOE fulfilled its purpose. We participated in team building exercises and made an afternoon trip to a ropes course. In those two days, I was able to really see the personality traits and leadership styles of those in my squad. I was also able to do some self reflection on my own leadership style. I have some things I need to work on to become a more effective leader, and I hope that LEAD can help me develop my leadership style throughout this quarter.

The busses rolled back into Chicago on Friday morning. I spent a few hours napping and watching Judging Mathis that afternoon. Two of my friends from Raleigh, Adam and Gina, flew in to town later that day. I took them to Giordano’s for Chicago deep dish, and then we went over to the Hancock Building to check out a high rise view of Chicago. The Hancock Building has a cocktail lounge on the 96^th floor which we visited to enjoy a cool beverage. After I left Adam and Gina, and I went to rest up for a GSB social event at the White Sox game the next day. All of the students were given a free ticket and $10 in Comisky Bucks. I only stayed until about the sixth because it was just too cold to stay outside!

Orientation today (Monday) was very similar to last Tuesday. The day was filled with presentations and included lunch and dinner. One thing I have to say… we do get fed well. I don’t have to worry about fixing dinner until Thursday! And I really like the food at UC. I loved the food at Duquesne too. There must be something about my taste buds and generic cafeteria food.

My Labor Day weekend, 2006

2006-09-05T22:52:00.000-05:00

My friend from Raleigh, Kelii, was in town this past weekend for a yearly get-together with his buddies from college. I met up with his crew on Saturday evening for dinner at ESPN Zone where we all watched the Hawaii Rainbows lose yet another football game. Later, we headed over to a place called Betty's Blue Lounge to meet up with even more alum's from Kelii's college.

Sunday was more eventful than I thought it would be. It started out with a BBQ/Birthday party hosted by one of my Turkey trip mates. After that, I met up with members of my cohort (more on cohorts later) for some drinks, and while there, heard about an impromptu GSB social event being held at a bar close to where we were. My cohort arrived at the social event around 10, but I left at 12 thinking that I needed to catch an 'El' train before they stopped running. I found out, to my excitement, that one of the train lines which runs past my apartment operates 24 hours! So now, I can go out alllll night and make it home without having to pay $15+ for a cab.

Monday was real chill. I met up with Kelii and his friends again for sushi then went home and spent, like, 10 hours working on my resume. Now that my resume is complete I have one less thing to worry about – for now…

Turkey

2006-08-28T21:11:00.000-05:00

I just arrived home (well, just arrived meaning two days ago) from a week long trip to Turkey with a few of my fellow GSB classmates. This trip marked my first visit to a country in the Middle East and my first time visiting a perdominantly Muslim country. Well.... I have been to Indonesia and Malaysia, but I only spent about 5 hours in each country.

Our vacation started in Istanbul, which was the capital of Turkey from 1453-1922. The Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, and Topkapi Palace were a few of the tourist attractions we visited during the day. Our evenings where filled with dinners in trendy restaurants and after dinner clubbing. Our tour guide in Istanbul had a PhD in history, and was able speak in depth on the attractions. With me being the history buff I am, I liked hearing about the intricate details of the buildings and monuments we visited.

Cappadocia was next on our list of places to visit. This region of Turkey is known for its cave houses. For hundreds of years, people lived in homes carved in the caves, and spent time hiding from enemies in underground villages. The last inhabitants of the caves didn't leave until 1953! Imagine that! In 1953, people in America where driving around in cars and eating TV dinners while watching I Love Lucy, while people in Cappadocia lived in caves with no electricity and traveled around on donkeys. Well, I shouldn't look at that as odd since there are people in the world who live like that now.

One of the highlights of Cappadocia was culture night. We had dinner and a show at a Turkish entertainment spot where we saw traditional dances and donkeys! I was looking forward to seeing the belly dancers, thinking that there would be three or four women in traditional costumes doing their dance. Wrong. It was a belly dancer and she was dressed like a stripper. She had on heels, a skirt with a very high slit, and a bedazzled bra. Well, it was more sequined than bedazzled, but it had the same effect. Whatever.

After Cappadocia, we returned to Istanbul for a day of cruising the river and shopping. We ended the evening by going to dinner and getting our bags ready for our flight home the next day. Overall, the trip was fun. I'll post some pix and upload them onto my computer.

My mom’s visit

2006-08-14T12:18:00.000-05:00

My mom was in the town for the past few days, and, as usual, we had a blast! I was excited for her to come because I used her visit to officially begin touring the city of Chicago. We started out on Thursday by going to the Field Museum to visit the King Tut exhibit which is on a two year U.S. tour right now. After the museum, we walked down towards North Michigan Avenue, hung out around there a little bit, and then stopped over at the Art Institute. Thanks to Ford Motor Company, entry to the Art Institute is free on Thursday and Friday nights, so we saved a few bucks there.

Friday was pretty low key. We went to see Little Miss Sunshine, walked over the Navy Pier for a little bit, then went back towards downtown to have lunch at Maggiano’s. After lunch, we headed over to Daley Building (I think that’s the building we went to) to see a huge Pueblo Picasso metal structure. That evening, my mom decided to stay in to rest for the next days’ activities.

Saturday was the day my mom was waiting for. It was the 77th annual Bud Billiken parade. This parade was founded to support education and Chicago public schools. It is held the second Saturday in August… just before school starts. And I’ll tell you what, it really does promote education. My favorite float was presented by Washington Mutual bank. Their entrant consisted of a motorized float with huge books of different subjects stacked on top of each other. Subjects included ‘Reading’, ‘Writing’, and my favorite ‘Mithology’. In addition to floats, the parade had a few celebrities, including Barak Obama, Marquis Houston, and the Chi-Lites. The parade crowd proved to be amusing as well. We saw hoochie mamas, lost kids, and people offering to take pictures of families with a Polaroid and selling them for $1.

After the parade, we went back to my place, picked up my car, and headed over to Ikea. For those of you not from Raleigh, the ability to say “Hey, I think I’ll go to Ikea today” is a big deal. You can’t really do that in Raleigh. The closest Ikea is in Maryland, which, for me, was at least a four hour drive. Anyway, we arrived at the huge blue and yellow building, which looks like all other Ikea’s I have seen, and shopped for about two hours. I ended up with three book shelves and a few other odds and ends. Now that my bookshelves are up, I can begin taking pictures of my apartment and posting them here for you all to see.

Sunday, which was yesterday, was my mom’s last day in town. We went to brunch, and then hung out in my apartment until we had to leave for the airport. Overall, we had a fun time, and I’ll miss her until I see her again.

About unpacking and Lollapalooza

2006-08-08T22:18:00.000-05:00

All of my stuff arrived Friday. To give you an update on space, I went from a 1360 sq ft 2br/2.5bath house to a 760 sq ft 1br/1bath apartment. I sold some furniture and gave a lot to Goodwill before I moved, but I don't think I did enough! My apartment looks so full! I'll need to buy some storage trunks and bookshelves to store everything.

By going through this moving process again, I realize that unpacking is like Christmas. You put all your stuff in boxes, but since you are hurried and stressed while doing it, you don't remember what you put in each box. When the boxes reach the new place, you open them one at a time, and are excited to see all the stuff you haven't seen in about a week(or, in the case of move to Japan, six months)! It is so fun!

When I haven't been unpacking, I've been exploring the city of Chicago. It really hit me this past weekend how close I am to the heart of the city. I started hearing really loud music Thursday morning. My first thought was "Oh, some garage band is practicing", but they kept playing the same song over, and over again, which was the 80's song "Relax" by Frankie Goes To Hollywood. I begin thinking "This stinks. Good thing I'll be in class during the day so I don't have to listen to this." But, soon realized, I was wrong. What I was hearing was a sound check for the Lollapalooza festival held in Grant Park, which is across the street from my apartment. I was able to hear muffled sounds all weekend from the acts who took the stage. It really hit me on Saturday night when I was able to hear the set given by one of the festival’s big draws - Kanye West. Guys, I am really close to so much in the city. Seriously, you all need to come visit!

Well, gotta go. I'm about to walk down to street to check out a hair salon.

Life: act 5

2006-08-03T16:46:00.000-05:00

Welcome to my new blog and thank you for reading my first ever posting! I started this blog so that my family and friends can know what I'm up to during the next two years. I also hope that writing in here will improve my writing and grammar skills since they have been disintegrating over the past several years :o/. Oh, and as the months go on, I hope to become more humorous in my writing. My first few blogs might be a little dry, but that should change as I get back into the swing of writing.

Anyway, I arrived in Chicago a few days ago and am ready to start stage five in my life. "Stage five" you may wonder? Well, let me give you a quick rundown on the first four. See which stage you entered my life in:

Stage 1 - April 26, 1979: I was born in S. Jersey and lived there for 10 years where I attended St. Mary's Hall located on the riverbank of the Delaware River in Burlington NJ. Those were happy times.

Stage 2 - August 1990: This was the month my mom and I moved to Japan and lived there for five years. I made a lot of friends while living there, many of whom I still talk with today. I also ate a lot of Japanese food. Weird thing is, when people I know visit Japan now, they tell me about these really odd dishes they ate, and I’m all “Who took you out for dinner? Next time, go to Yoshinoya and call it a day” In 1995, we moved back to New Jersey where I completed high school. Those two years weren’t very significant, so maybe we should call them state 2.5

Stage 3 - August 1997: During this time I moved to Pittsburgh, PA, and started classes at Duquesne University. I was involved in many things – The basketball band, a sorority, and a couple of clubs in the business school, among others. When I was putting my MBA apps together, I would look at my activities, then look at the number of courses I took each semester, and wonder how I did it all without having a mental breakdown!! .College was a blast; but, had to end at some point, which leads me to...

Stage 4 - May 2001: I made a move by myself to Raleigh where I worked for IBM. I didn't care for either of my jobs that much, I shouldn’t have been an IT person. Seriously, if I could back to my freshman year of college, I would have studied dentistry… or economics. Overall I liked working for IBM, and made long lasting friendships with people I met within and outside of work.

Stage 5 - August 1, 2006: I made the semi-cross country move to Chicago, IL, where I will become a full time MBA student at the University of Chicago. Throughout the next two years, I will use this blog to let everyone know how school is going, and how other parts of my life are going as well. Like wise, let me know how you are doing. My blog's email address is listed on this page so feel free to drop me a line....