My Days at Michigan

Greetings from Michigan

2008-05-20T16:20:00.000-07:00

[Editor's note: I drafted this months ago, but have been remiss in posting! This is beginning to feel like the entries in my old diary: "Dear Diary, I'm sooooooooooooooooooo sorry it's been such a loooooooooooooooooong time since I've written..." LOL]

After my graduation, my parents and I spent about a week traveling around Michigan. Since we graduate so early, a lot of stuff was not open yet, but we were able to see a good amount of things. Many photos are on my parents' computer, so I have not included them here. Maybe if I get around to it, I can post some better ones from this trip in a future entry.

We began in Detroit at the Ford estate. John came with us for this day, despite feeling under-the-weather. He was a real trooper and I'm glad he was able to come!

Ford had a whole generator on his estate that powered everything, and ironically, on the day he died, the river powering the generator flooded and knocked the power out on the entire estate. So he died without power, the same way he came into the world. He had built this tunnel underground connecting the generator/garage with the house.

He also had a bowling alley in the house:

I loved this room -- I think it was the living room. There was this huge fireplace and then a large room with wood floors, but my favorite part were the glass doors that opened out onto a large porch.
This was the dining room.

A pretty hallway leading down to what used to be the indoor pool!

The next day, my parents and I headed out of town. We ended up staying at this bed and breakfast outside of Battle Creek. It was modeled after a French chateau, and it was beautiful. We were the only people there besides one woman who we got to talk with over breakfast the next morning. This was the view from my room.

The chateau:

One thing we ended up doing a lot of on this trip was walking around historic districts of various Michigan towns. This was the town of Marshall, MI with its National Historic Landmark District of 19th century houses. It was a cute little town that is also the home of the American Museum of Magic and Turkeyville, USA! :-) Since most places were closed or you needed to call ahead to schedule a tour, we just walked around the neighborhood and ate lunch at the local restaurant called Schuler's. Schuler's has been there for 98 years and has mostly German-type food.

This was one of my favorite houses we saw:

We thought this sign was funny:

The downtown street (it seems that all of Michigan's towns have this kind of downtown area, which I love):

This is their most famous historic house, the Honolulu House. It was built for the town Judge who had served as U.S. consul in the Hawaiian Islands. It apparently has some cute features to it, like pineapples everywhere, but we did not get to go inside.

Next, we headed over to St. Joseph's on the coast of Lake Michigan and stayed there overnight. The next day, we headed up to the little town of Saugatuck on Kalamazoo Lake. Unfortunately, most things were not open yet, but you could tell that it was an adorable place to be over the summer. We drove over to the shore and took a few pics. You can see that it wasn't exactly warm out!

Then we headed to Holland, MI. I ended up coming back to Holland a few weeks later with John, so there are more pictures of this town to come in another post.

My parents and I decided to stop at this tulip farm. They had thousands of beautiful tulips! They also had a wooden shoe and Delft "factory", which was really just a few little workshops that you could see through open windows along the back wall of their store.

Mom on the recreated Dutch bridge leading to the tulips:

Me on the same bridge!

We took about a billion photos of the tulips, but some of the better ones were on my Dad's camera.

I liked this photo so much, I fooled around with it a bit on Picasa (see photo below this one).

We made our way further up to Ludington, which used to be the big lumber town in Michigan. They would send the lumber down the river to Grand Rapids where they would use the lumber to make furniture. (Grand Rapids was the furniture capital of Michigan.) There was an interesting story about a town near Ludington called Singapore. According to legend, when all the trees had been cut down, everyone vacated Singapore which had been a booming lumber town. Because the trees were no longer there to block the wind, enough sand was blown over time to bury the town! (A different version of the story says the townspeople broke down the buildings and took them with them when they left, so there is no actual town underneath the sand.)

Anyway, we watched a beautiful sunset on the beach.

There were these little piles of sand where the sand around them had been blown away by the wind. They looked like little rocks, but they were just sand.

The next day we stopped by Historic White Pine Village on the outskirts of Ludington. It's basically like a little Greenfield Village, where they brought in historic buildings from around the area.

This is a photo of PO Boxes in the historic post office:

A historic trapper's cabin...and a historic trapper! Ha ha - just kidding. :-)

Some old ice cream topping jars in the soda shop.

Liam's new baby carriage! Ha ha. It was actually funny how similar this carriage is to Liam's stroller.

Okay, so when I was little, we used to go to Bob's Big Boy. Then, they closed all the restaurants around here. So when I saw one in Ann Arbor, I was planning on going before I left. Well, there was one on our trip! Hence, the photo. :-) The burger was great! Better than a Big Mac.

After Ludington, we drove through the Manistee National Forest. The most interesting part was that they were doing controlled burning throughout the forest. We got to see and talk to the firefighters about it. We walked up to this platform that gave us a great view of the lake, but also a chance to talk to some other people who were up there bird watching and fire watching.

After the fiery forest, we drove up to Sleeping Bear Dunes. It was probably my favorite part of the trip. You can see here that the dunes are between Glen Lake and Lake Michigan. Both lakes were incredibly blue.

Looking out onto the dunes. Sleeping Bear Dunes are the highest sand dunes outside of the Sahara desert, reaching 460 feet!

I think it's a little hard to tell from this photo, but as we walked up the dune, it looked like we were on the edge of a cliff!

You can tell a little more from this photo how high the dunes are when you look at the crests of the waves down below.

There was a designated dune for people to run down, so Mom and I went up and wrote "LOL" in the sand, which are my nephew's initials. I think we also look kind of like aliens!

Only AFTER hiking around the dunes a bit did we see this sign. Who knew this was cougar habitat??

We spent the night in Traverse City, having come much further north than we had originally intended. But I'm glad we went up there because it was immensely beautiful in that part of Michigan. Our next stop on the way back to Ann Arbor was in Grand Rapids. Once again, we walked around their historic district, called Heritage Hill. There was this Frank Lloyd Wright house, called the Meyer May House.
We spent the night in this gorgeous hotel, the Amway Grand Plaza. This was the historic part of the lobby:

The view of Grand Rapids from our room. I really liked this town. It was more of a city than Ann Arbor, and had a cute downtown area.

Our last stop was the Frederick Meijer Sculpture Garden. They had a butterfly exhibit going on. I have been in one butterfly exhibit before and I must say that despite the beauty of the insects, it does freak me out a little bit to know they could land on me at any minute. :-) But we survived and made it out into the sculpture part of the garden.

This is a cast someone did of Leonardo Da Vinci's horse. In 1482, Da Vinci was commissioned to make an equestrian statue. He designed this horse, but was never able to make it. An American sculptor undertook the task and thus stands the 24-foot high bronze "American Horse". It was pretty impressive! That's my mom and dad at the foot (literally) of the statue.

This may look like my mom is holding a giant spade, but it's an optical illusion! ;-)

The Meijer Gardens was our last stop on the way back to Ann Arbor. The week around Michigan was great and I'm glad I got to see more of the state before I left. I just wish it had been warm enough to go to the Upper Peninsula. I have heard that is great. Well, I'll just have to go back!

Graduation, Take Three

2008-05-15T15:19:00.000-07:00

On April 25, 2008, I graduated for the third time in my life, this time with a masters in business administration. I always knew I wanted to go back to school and get a masters degree, but I never really imagined it would be in business. I always pictured myself pursuing anything from neuropsychology to archaeology to marine biology. A lot of "ologies". :-) But in the end, this made the most sense for my life and I am absolutely glad I did it. Not only did it position me for the career I want to pursue, but I met a lot of great people and had a multitude of interesting, challenging, and fun experiences over the past two years.

My parents arrived Thursday evening and we grabbed a late dinner at one of my favorite places, Grizzly Peak. I also gave them a tour of the house since they had not been up here to visit yet this year. On Friday we went to a nice reception thrown by the Dean at the business school. All the students and their families were there, and luckily the weather was really nice - sunny and warm. My parents really enjoyed getting to meet some of my classmates and their families. It was catered with what I guess you would call heavy hors d'oeuvres. We were there chatting for a few hours before having to go back home to get ready for the big ceremony.

Unfortunately, Shannon had already left so she was not at graduation. So, it was just me, Mike, Eric, and our families and significant others at the house. John arrived and surprised me with a balloon and some beautiful flowers!

We started putting on our caps and gowns and those pesky hoods that no one could figure out how to put on correctly. Once I put everything on I really felt like a graduate! We probably spent a little too much time taking photos because we rushed out of the house right when we were supposed to be there (sheepish grin). But, luckily, about a few hundred other people were on the same timetable, so there was no problem once we got there. We still had a while to wait.

There were a bunch of people taking photos so that's why we are all looking in different directions in this photo.

All the graduates crowded into the halls of the Crisler Arena, where Michigan has its basketball games. We grouped together in our sections and started taking photos. I found some of my good friends and we all got in line so we could sit next to each other. It was extremely hot in the waiting area - we were all stifling underneath our polyester gowns. We were hoping it would be cooler in the arena itself, but no luck! At least after a while the air came on and it cooled a little bit. Anyway, after waiting in the holding pen, we finally processed into the arena with our sections.

My section was front and center! I was literally three rows from the stage, which was so nice compared to my undergrad ceremony. I always envied those graduate students who sat in the front! We had some time once we got in there to look around as everyone else filed in. I found my parents and John sitting in the stands.

We had several speakers and hundreds of students to go through, but the ceremony actually went by very quickly. Our speakers included the dean, our keynote speaker John Denniston from Kleiner Perkins, and several grad and undergrad student award winners. Overall, the speeches were very good, especially when compared to my undergrad keynote speaker. I don't know if any of you WM grads remember that speech, but it was SO boring! Mr. Denniston spoke about the greentech industry. I felt like the theme of most of the speeches was basically: be businesspeople with heart and passion. Don't just do something for the money, and have a life in addition to work. So all in all, a good message. I think my favorite speech was from one of the undergrads who wrote a cute Dr. Seuss-esque poem.

After all the speeches, they started calling each student by name to walk across the stage. It was run like a military operation! I guess those Operations professors made their money on that day since it was so efficient! After the PhD students, the evening MBAs, the executive MBAs, and the Global MBAs, they started calling the full-time MBAs. We went section by section, and so eventually they came around to my section, Section 4, and my row. I handed the notecard with my name on it to my friend Aaron and he called my name. Off I went across the stage, shook the dean's hand, and received a decorative Ross School of Business tile instead of the actual diploma. They shuffled us through a staged photo just off stage, and then back to our seats ("keep moving, keep moving!"). It went by so quickly! I guess it was pretty representative of the past two years in that way.

After hearing the rest of the MBAs and all the undergrads get called, the ceremony was over. I met up with my parents and John to take a bunch of photos and afterwards, the four of us went to a late dinner at the Chop House, the nicest restaurant in town in my opinion.

Here are some photos for your enjoyment!

The cameraman for the jumbo tron. I think I may have made it on there because he was pointing the camera right at me during the national anthem.

People processing into the stadium

The program and notecard that we wrote our names on for the announcers.

I spotted my parents and John in the stands. Sorry for the grainy image.

The hoods.

The dean

My friend Sach, giving his speech.

We had these weird long things under our regular sleeves that showed we were getting a masters degree.

Disorientation Week: Gladiators, Ready!

2008-05-15T13:51:00.000-07:00

Yet another DiSorieNtatIon week activity: Gladiator Joust! This one was organized by my roommate Mike and took place on the lawn of the Hill House. The Hill House is basically the business school frat house, although both women and men live there. It's always occupied by business school students and is the site of at least a few big parties every year.

So I don't know if you have ever watched the show, American Gladiators (if not, you should tune in this Monday because it is very funny to watch), but this is an event they do on that show.

This is Mike and another MBA2 who I don't know jousting. Mike was definitely the champion except when he went up against my friend Chris Wilson, and then it was a pretty even tie.

Here I am getting dominated. I think I was afraid to hit too hard.

And me getting dominated again. :-)

Me having fun bouncing on the bouncy floor. You can't quite tell by this photo, but I am actually in the air.

Now was my time to shine! I went up against Shannon, who was more afraid to use force than I was and who was a much more even match.

I thought this was hilarious: this guy Dan was just laying out on the edge of the bouncy pen while all this jousting action was going on around him. He almost got knocked off a couple times.

Another view. Mike and Kevin were jousting off of the podiums while Dan was peacefully laying there.

Now Evan came and he was the first one to use the head gear. I thought it looked really funny.

Canoeing in Action

2008-05-14T15:57:00.000-07:00

I forgot to post this canoeing video on the canoe trip post!

Disorientation Week: Mystere

2008-05-13T13:50:00.000-07:00

Another one of the events I went to during DisOriEntaTioN week was a dance called "Mystere", modeled after a Cirque du Soleil show, I think. It was a TON of fun! Our house had a pre-party to which about 60 people showed up. We got all dressed up, which is always nice. They had buses as usual to take us to the venue, a nearby country club.

Here are some photos from our pre-party:

John in his new suit :-)

Me, Annie, Aaron, and Shannon. Aaron did not originally intend to go to the dance, so he was dressed very casually. But he ended up going to the dance after all!

Annie, Aaron, Mike, and John

A view of the crowd in our dining room

Dan (we went to elementary school together), Falguni, Eric, and me

Me, Max, Evan, and Tiffany

Mike and Katie (Katie used to live in my current room)

Me and Shashi, an old section mate

Me, Eric, and John (and Eric's head is not actually touching John's shoulder although it looks like it and we had fun laughing about it)

Me, Amer, Vidhya, and Falguni. Amer and Vidhya met during last year and are now married!

The roomies: Mike, me, Shannon, and Eric

The roomies being crazy :-)

Another view of the crowd, mixing and mingling like good business students should :-)

Aaron and John: bosom buddies :-) (They get along really well.)

John and me all dressed up

Shannon, Aaron, and Manjari, all my old section mates

So, Aaron almost always sticks out his tongue for photos and I used to do that a lot, so it's kind of a thing when we take photos together.

Norbert, me, Eric, Shannon, and Manjari

Me and my Mill Creek Towne buddy, Dan

I love Eric in the back of this photo :-)
Falguni, me, Manjari, Lara, and Emily

Manjari, Lara, Christian, me, and Tanya

Eric, me, and Emily

Max, me, and John on the bus on the way to the dance

My friend Erin and me at the dance

This is my twin, Vicky. She and I were born at the exact same minute. I mean, don't we look alike?? :-) She was one of the organizers of the dance.

Sach and me

Jess, Ed, Joi, and me. All section mates.

So, at this dance, the DJ was awesome, but they also had a room with gambling and a belly dancer perform. This is a view of the Blackjack table. The girl on the far left is Bridget. She was an intern with me at Toyota. Next to her is my section mate Nate.

A view of the crowd in the gambling room.

Some craziness!

Even more craziness! Well, at least with me. :-)

I think you know these people by now.

Some dancing with the gang. Suzanne is the girl on the far left.

Andy Davis (awesome guy who I drove back to DC with over winter break last year), Suzanne, and me. All DC peeps!

On the bus on the way home after a late but fun night.

And on the walk home from the school.

It was such a fun night, and everyone I know had a great time. :-)

Disorientation Week: Gently Down the Stream

2008-05-06T16:27:00.000-07:00

I can canoe. Canoe? :-)

The week leading up to graduation is called DiSoriEntaTioN week and MBA2s plan all sorts of fun activities. I wasn't able to participate in all of them, but I did attend several events, so you will see a few entries for each event I went to.

The first one was a canoe trip down the Huron river, which flows through Ann Arbor. It was a gorgeous day and SO much fun! I shared a canoe with two of my roomies, Mike and Shannon. Somehow I got the middle seat in the bottom of the canoe, but it wasn't so bad. Since I couldn't really steer the canoe, I had less of a job to do, and part way through the journey we gave my paddle to another canoe that had overturned and lost a paddle. So then I didn't have to do ANY work! :-) The trip took a total of about 3 hours or so and about 60 people went.

Me and my friend Sach:

Here we are listening to instructions:

Our royal chariots:
Shannon, Mike, and me, ready to take on the river!

This is the family of a guy from my section named Cory. He is very nice, super smart, and somehow managed to be one of the only people who always did the homework despite having three little girls at home. He used to be a professional beach volleyball player and showed his athletic skills by doing a backflip off the back of the canoe! You can tell his daughters just adore him. His wife Kerri was also very nice whenever I saw her at events. They looked so cute in their canoe, I had to take a photo.

Here is a closer photo of the girls. Unfortunately, the middle daughter Izzy was diagnosed with leukemia last year, so it has been a very trying year for their family. But they have been amazing through it, and Izzy is getting better every day!

I cracked up because their youngest daughter Ryan was laying like this on the bow of the boat the whole time, like a figurehead. :-)

Some fellow canoers:

Looking back at a few of the bridges and other canoes coming down the river:

Me and Mike:
Shannon, our canoe master:

These are two of my classmates, Amer and Chaumanix. They were on the M-Trek (a pre-school trip) with Shannon and apparently had trouble with their canoe and flipped it on a river trip during that. So they were happy to be doing so well on this trip! Paddle High-Five!

At one point, we hooked up with two other canoes and drifted down the river together. This is a girl named Kati and Shannon:

A girl named Elise and my friend Sach:

A view of the river:
Me, Mike, Elise, Sach, and in the way back is a guy named Steve:

Luckily, we made it down the river without incident, although at one point we went through some tiny rapids and almost got caught on a huge rock underneath the surface. But we survived!

Common Grill House Dinner

2008-05-06T13:49:00.000-07:00

Going back to a few weeks ago...

The Casa Minerva gang went out to a nice dinner at The Common Grill -- the same place John took me for our Valentine's Day dinner. It was delicious! After dinner, we drove by the Jiffy plant, which is just down the street in Chelsea.

An MBA

2008-04-25T21:39:00.000-07:00

I am officially an MBA! WOO HOO! I graduated today. Walked across the stage, flipped my tassle to the other side, shook the dean's hand, threw my hat into the air (kind of), and took a bunch of pictures. :-) I am too exhausted to write more right now, but here is the only photo I currently have from today on my computer, thanks to a friend of mine who emailed it to me.

More to come...!

California House Dinner

2008-04-22T13:47:00.000-07:00

As I have mentioned before, my favorite night of the week is house dinner night. (We actually just had our last one.) :-( About 3 weeks ago, it was Shannon's turn to cook. She wanted to use up all the lentils she had, so she made lentil soup and Eric made a Chilean drink called Pisco Sour, which is kind of like lemonade. We watched the movie Dazed and Confused since Eric had never seen it before and it is kind of an American classic for our generation. Our friend Elaine joined us (the blond one) and we had a ton of fun, as usual. :-)

This is one of my favorite photos, of me and Mike.

Me and Eric.

And me and Shannon!

Anniversary

2008-04-22T13:45:00.000-07:00

Just catching up on posts now that my exams are over...

John and I celebrated our one-year anniversary of dating last month, on March 30. I was supposed to have been in Maryland that weekend, but as you might remember, I was sick and had to cancel my trip. So, since we hadn't anticipated being able to do anything and since I was under the weather, we decided to stay in and cook dinner instead of going out. When I was home for winter break, I went to a business lunch at Ted's Montana Grill and had my first buffalo burger. It was love at first taste. I have been wanting one ever since, but they are hard to come by. Lucky for me, Whole Foods is so awesome that they actually carry buffalo meat that you can grill (and it's not that much more expensive than regular beef!). We planned a menu of buffalo burgers, potatoes, asparagus, and dessert (soy ice cream for me).

Maybe other people know this (perhaps you culinary experts out there), but I did not realize that frying potatoes in oil causes them to make this noise that is kind of between screaming and birds chirping. It really reminded me of the baby mandrakes from Harry Potter that always screamed in their horticulture classes. Since it was my job to make the potatoes, I was fascinated by this and thus, took a video so you can all enjoy it as well. :-)

This is me enjoying the delicious buffalo burger that John so nicely cooked on the grill outside in freezing temps.

John also bought me these really cool flowers. I liked the fact that they weren't your typical flowers.

The stems were kind of crazy bendy...

Hair Cut

2008-04-11T17:05:00.000-07:00

Over the past two years, I have enjoyed letting my hair grow long. But lately I have gotten a bit sick of it, and it was just getting in the way, always getting caught under things. Plus, spring is coming and I felt like a change. So, I got my hair cut yesterday. I think it's cute, a little shorter than I imagined, and I'm a little afraid to see what it will look like when I style it instead of the hair dresser!

Here are the before and after shots:

She took off about 4 inches all around, but she "undercut" the back of my hair, which means I basically have tiny short hairs underneath the longer hair on the back of my head and there she took off about 9 inches! Let me know what you think!

Goodnight Gracie

2008-04-09T11:58:00.000-07:00

Over the past few weeks, I have been hearing about this great cover band that plays classic rock and blues music every Wed and Thurs at this club in Ann Arbor called "Goodnight Gracie". Last Thursday I was able to go check them out. I went with my roommate Shannon, our friend Chris who goes to watch them every time they play, and a few other friends showed up later on that night.

Gracie's (as we call it) was a cute little bar, very small, in the basement of a popular b-school spot called Live at PJs. Incidentally, they make great martinis! :-) The band consists of three guys, and I don't know their name (if they have one), but the lead singer is Laith. They are awesome. When you first see Laith, he is not the best looking man in the world. As Chris said, he looks like he could be the librarian that works in the stacks. But inevitably, as I find happens with almost any guy, as he started to sing he magically got better looking! (Ladies, are you with me on this?) He often went off on great guitar solos and Shannon told me that one other night the drummer had some 7 minute incredible solo. They started off the night with some Jimi Hendrix, and later on played Rolling Stones' "Beast of Burden" and some Buddy Holly at our request.

So yeah, the band was great. But I think the best part of the evening was seeing the townies dance. It was a pretty heavy townie feel, which is quite unusual in Ann Arbor. There was this group of about 6 middle aged townies who were busting a move on the dance floor. It was hilarious. And please don't misunderstand me -- I'm not knocking middle aged people's dancing skills. These particular people were just characters and had hilarious dance moves (and hopefully you'll understand once I describe them).

First, we got intrigued by a soap opera-esque story unfolding on the dance floor. A man and a woman who looked very normal and probably in their late 40's got onto the dance floor together. We all assumed they were together since they looked like husband and wife. He was a pretty good dancer, but her only dance move was to hold her arms up in the air, half bent, and move them up and down. Plus, the kicker was that she was wearing a fanny pack. Yes, a fanny pack. Anyway, then a younger woman (probably early 40's) got onto the dance floor. She looked like she should be in a county-western bar...in the 1980's. Bleached blond permed hair, tight lowcut tanktop, and tight jeans. Anyway, she was a much better dancer than the other lady and started moving in on the guy. We were pretty shocked when the man started dancing with this "other woman" instead of his "wife"! I felt especially bad for her since I figured she had been dragged onto the dance floor for him since she obviously wasn't a great dancer. Anyway, we were enjoying trying to figure this out and feeling indignation on the part of this poor woman, but we discovered that they weren't together after all. We never figured out their exact relationship, but it was clear that they were not married.

Flash forward to later on that night...Fanny pack lady (who looks like she just wandered out of suburbia with a polo shirt, ankle-length khakis, and white keds) was doing her one dance move (at the same pace no matter how fast the song was) with a new dance partner...a tall hispanic man with corkscrew curly hair about chin length, gold earring, tight jeans, huge silver belt buckle, and cowboy boots, and a great smile plastered on his face. He was salsa-ing like there was no tomorrow, bending down to touch the floor, and hopping back up, kicking his leg out. The two of them made such an unlikely dance pairing - it was hilarious. At least he got her to loosen up a bit - she actually bent her knees at one point.

Then you had 1980's woman dancing with a new man...short spiky gray hair, football t-shirt tucked into tight jeans, and a silver chain hanging around his neck. He was also having the time of his life. First thrusting his hips forward into the air, then trying to imitate Mr. Salsa and doing his own salsa version.

Finally, there was this younger guy (probably early 30's) dancing by himself, cavorting around in some very random dance moves.

Like I said, hilarious! We all sat there for a lot of the night, watching these people dance and having fun.

Here is a clip of the band from a different night (got it from my friend Chris):

Lactose Intolerant? Check.

2008-04-02T20:26:00.000-07:00

Many times have I wondered, "Am I really lactose intolerant, or is it just other stuff that makes me feel ill?" Well, that question was answered pretty definitively tonight. We had another roommate dinner, this time a traditional Chilean dish since my roommate Eric is from Chile. Despite my telling him yesterday that I can't have anything with milk, cream, or cheese, he forgot and made part of the dish with a bunch of milk. Luckily we could leave that part off, so I was able to have the dish sans lactose. But I thought I could try some with the milky corn substance, too, since it would have been such a small bit of milk. I had one bite and decided it was too milky. Well, about 2 hours later I was VERY ill and regretting the day my stomach came into existence. I have had no other food that would have made me sick in the past few days, which is usually a problem in deciphering what causes my stomach to be upset. So I can only conclude that it was the little itty bit of milk I consumed. So never let there be any doubt that I am indeed lactose intolerant and no, it is not worth the stomach ache to eat dairy.

Feeling fine now, by the way. :-)

Dinner and a Show

2008-03-30T09:50:00.000-07:00

This post is about a month and a half overdue. :-) For Valentine's Day this year, John surprised me with a very thoughtful date. I had mentioned a few weeks before this that there was a theatre owned by the actor Jeff Daniels in a nearby town and there was a restaurant there owned by someone who had a show on the Food Network. Well, John remembered and planned out a date of dinner and a show!

This was in the nearby town of Chelsea, MI. The restaurant is called "The Common Grill" owned by Craig Common. It turned out that he does not have a show on the Food Network, but he does have a cookbook out and I guess is fairly well known. The food was excellent and the atmosphere was very nice. It was nice feeling like a grownup again. :-)

Chelsea is a very tiny town, and was kind of like a miniature Ann Arbor, about one block long. There were lots of art galleries, the restaurant, and a few other stores.

The theatre is called The Purple Rose, and is very small. The audience sits around the stage, so it is very intimate. The play we went to see was called "Vino Veritas". It was an interesting story that revolved around 4 characters. They were two married couples who were best friends and neighbors. One of the couples had gone on a trip to Latin America and came into possession of this wine made from the skins of blue tree frogs. It had the power to make the consumer tell the absolute truth. On Halloween night, the two couples get together and drink the wine. All secrets come out and it threatens the relationship of one couple while repairing the relationship of the other. It was really good and well acted.

The lobby.

Entering the theatre.

Some photos from the show.

Happy Belated Easter!

2008-03-30T09:11:00.000-07:00

Happy belated Easter everyone! I took these photos with John's camera on Easter, but just got them downloaded onto my computer. John and my friend Suzanne and I went to mass and then Suzanne and I met up with her boyfriend for a nice brunch at one of my favorite places, the Broken Egg.

This is the church I attend, called St. Mary's in Ann Arbor. I love the old style architecture. We were so surprised at how empty it was up until literally 5 minutes before mass. We arrived a half hour early thinking that parking and finding a seat would be nearly impossible given that it was noon mass on Easter. But I guess being a college town and having approximately 10 million mass times that day, I guess there weren't many people at each service. But like I said, 5 minutes before mass the place filled up to standing room only!

We always sit in the choir loft, with the organ.

I got this hat for Christmas and have been waiting for a chance to wear it. I figured since Easter is about wearing fun Spring-like hats and bright colors, this would be a good time.

Talib Kweli

2008-03-27T21:19:00.000-07:00

You may be asking, "what or who is Talib Kweli?" Well, Talib Kweli is a hip-hop artist that John and I went to see on Monday night. He is one of John's favorites and I greatly enjoy him as well. I remember months back there was a petition going around to try to get him to come perform here, so I guess it worked! He performed at the Power Center, which is an auditorium I had never been to before. It was fairly old, but every seat in the house seemed to be a good one. The place was packed and it was a great show. The opening act was beatbox champion Rahzel. He was amazing. Here is a video of him doing a popular Kanye West song, "Jesus Walks". Keep in mind that he is making every sound you hear. It becomes especially impressive when he sings the melody over the beat. It gets more complex as the song goes on.

By the way, he is the dark shape at the front of the stage. The white guy is DJ JS-1, who you can clearly see is not playing any music.

Sicky

2008-03-27T15:22:00.000-07:00

For the past few weeks, I have been counting down to the time when I could visit my new nephew, Liam. I booked a flight for this weekend and of course, I came down with a bad cold yesterday. My roommate Eric has been sick for a few days and now my other roommates feel sick too. Eric feels really badly about it, but it's not his fault. Just bad luck! Since Liam is still developing his immune system, and Stephen and Annika have a difficult enough schedule as it is without being sick, I decided to stay here and cancel the trip. Needless to say, I was very disappointed about it. But I will hopefully be able to reschedule for May and by that time, he will be more active and spend more time awake anyway.

So I have been on a TV/movie marathon and bought a huge box of tissues so I won't run out. It's also snowing outside (again), so at least it's the kind of day where you want to stay in anyway. I'm hoping this won't last very long, but the good thing is since I had planned to be out of town, I don't have anything I need to do, so I can pretty much stay in and relax all weekend.

Here is a recent photo of Liam:

"It's Great. To Be. A Michigan Wolverine!"

2008-03-23T15:41:00.000-07:00

Thus goes one of the many Michigan cheers (also found with MANY other sports teams). We chanted it last night along with a couple thousand other people at the Joe Louis arena in Detroit after we won the CCHA championship. CCHA is the Central Collegiate Hockey Association, the conference that Michigan belongs to. Michigan has the #1 hockey team in the nation this year, and a bunch of my friends and I drove to Detroit to watch the championship game against Miami of Ohio (the #3 team). John and I had planned on going to the semi-finals on Friday night with a couple of my friends, but we were the lucky recipients of 8-10 inches of snow, so we backed out. Yesterday however, the roads were all clear and a group of 8 of us headed out to the city. The game wasn't extremely exciting, but we won 2-1, so that was good.

Here are some photos:

My friends (from front to back): Bob (aka "Boston Bob" from William and Mary, Dan, and Aaron. All four of these guys were in my section last year).

As a side note, the Rosstache competition is underway where men grow out beards and mustaches, then get bid on for charity. That's why Aaron has all the facial hair.

Then, Iyates (Bob's Colombian girlfriend), me, Suzanne, and her boyfriend Brian who is a resident in the med school.

Me and Suzanne.

The players celebrating our win.

The leftovers from the celebration. :-)

A little video from the end of the game.

Follies: Because It's Business School

2008-03-20T16:58:00.000-07:00

The title of this post is the name of the show I was in before spring break, and the reason they named it "Because It's Business School" is because that is the answer to most questions about our daily lives, including the question, "Why would I choose to get on a stage and sing and dance in funny clothes in front of all my classmates and professors"? Because it's business school!

Follies is the annual parody show the business school puts on that makes fun of life at Ross. It is always hilarious, and I decided to join the cast this year after seeing the show last year. Since I auditioned with a song as well as a "dramatic" reading (two scenes--one from "Mean Girls" and one from "Airplane!" where I had to try to speak jive), they assigned me a singing part in the live show (the show is a mix of live acts and pre-recorded videos). It was SO much fun and I got to meet a lot of cool people that I didn't know before as well as hang out with old friends.

I was cast into a medley, which was the largest skit in the show with 16 people. I sang a parody of the Michael Jackson song "Rock With You" with a first-year student named Paul (we sang it as "Mock With You" in reference to the mock interviews and case studies students do in preparation for interviews and classes). Our skit directors made glorious glittered suits out of suits we bought at the Salvation Army. Our medley was the talk of the night, and I especially got tons of comments on our outfits. It was definitely a hit! I am so glad I decided to join the cast this year and got the chance to perform in a live show again. It definitely reminded me of the shows I did in high school.

Here are some photos. I actually wrote this a long time ago, but I just got photos from the people who actually had their cameras at the show (I forgot to bring mine!). In addition, they make a DVD of the whole show, so I will have that to show people too eventually. :-)

Be prepared!

I don't know why I look so serious in this picture. I definitely felt clownish in the bright red lipstick. It was funny when I made the supply run to CVS to get liquid eyeliner, bright red lipstick, and fishnet stockings. :-)

At the beginning of the skit, I walked across the stage to where Paul was sitting to sing to him and try to get him to stop studying so hard.

Then we began to sing and dance together. He definitely loved those Michael Jackson kicks!

Backstage photos...

The entire medley cast...

Backstage waiting for the show to begin. We had an opening and closing number that the cast participated in.

The medley cast again in our dressing room...

A Little MD in Minerva

2008-03-20T12:35:00.000-07:00

Last week, my roommates and I started having weekly dinners together. This is something we should have started at the beginning of the year, but this is the first term where we all have the same night off. It is definitely my favorite night of the week!

Each week, one of us plans and cooks dinner with the help of the others, if needed. We eat and have conversation and then we watch a movie. Last week, Mike made Pho (pronounced "fuh"). It's a Vietnamese soup with noodles and beef, and then you put other things into it if you want like limes, soy sauce, and onions to give it flavor. He also made potato scallion pancakes, which were delicious. We had a great time giving Mike advice about his upcoming date and talking about dating and the different moves we have all pulled/experienced over the years. Then we watched Transformers, a great movie.

Last night was my turn, and I decided to bring a little Maryland into the house by making crab cakes. I had never made them from scratch before, but wanted to give it a try. I looked up the recipe online and surprisingly, every web site had almost the exact same recipe. So I decided it was a great sign that it was the right/a good recipe! And it's not too hard, either. You basically get lump crab meat and mix it in with bread crumbs, mayo, mustard, Worchestershire sauce, and eggs, then fry on each side for about 5 minutes. They turned out delicious (to my delight)! I also made asparagus and fruit salad.

Everyone enjoyed the dinner and we watched a movie called "Across the Universe". It was something I had seen previews for and have been wanting to see, but never knew when it came out in the theatres. It is kind of a musical based in the 60's, about the revolutionary time period, the war, and of course, a love story. The neat part was that it was all told through Beatles songs. The director carried it off very well. The whole time all I could think was "wow, so this is what it would sound like to have someone re-do a Beatles song well! (as compared to the American Idol Beatles episodes.)" I think the American Idol singers are great, but seriously, the arrangements and the way the songs were sung in this movie were way better than on Idol.

Here is the trailer:

All in all, it was a great night hanging out with my roommates. We were informed by my roommate Eric that next week will be Chilean Day. He is from Chile and will prepare a traditional Chilean meal that apparently takes a few days to cook. And we are having Chilean wine. I don't know if we will watch a Chilean movie or not, but I asked if we have to speak in Spanish. I think we should try it!

Comments

2008-03-20T09:44:00.000-07:00

Sorry if anyone has been having trouble posting comments to my blog. I had received a couple of spam comments, so I changed some settings not knowing that it was restricting you valid people from posting. Anyway, hopefully it is fixed now. Let me know if you have any trouble with it.

"If You Have a Phone..."

2008-03-19T20:39:00.000-07:00

"...YOU have a lawyer." That was the slogan I most remember from those attorney-at-law commercials so prevalent on the TV and radio growing up. But the commercial I heard last night might take the cake. It went like this (no lie):

[male voiceover] "Are you considering doing away with your spouse? Consider divorce." Then followed the name and number of So-and-So, attorney-at-law.

I could not believe it! I was half laughing, half stunned. I have never heard that pitch before. And just having come from my social marketing class where we talked about how to grab an audience's attention by making it relevant to them made me wonder just who this commercial was targeting. The image that popped into my head was people surreptitiously convening with hired hit men in their cars, making nefarious plans to "do away with" their spouse. I couldn't believe this ad was so blatantly targeting these people! Are they really that large of a customer base for a divorce lawyer? Running out of the run-of-the-mill aspiring divorcees?

I guess the bad part is I didn't remember the name of the lawyer, but I did remember how awful I thought the ad was. He won't be getting my business!

Mike Doughty, Blind Pigs, and Cigarettes

2008-03-16T21:37:00.000-07:00

Last night, John and I went to a concert at a club in Ann Arbor called The Blind Pig. The artist was one of my favorites, Mike Doughty. He used to be in the band Soul Coughing, but is now on a solo career. I guess you would call what he plays "alternative" music, although I know that is not very descriptive. I first discovered him through a song in Veronica Mars (I Hear the Bells), and he has also had a song on Grey's Anatomy (Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well). Then he has several other songs that have played on the radio (including one from his new album called "27 Jennifers"). When I first heard 27 Jennifers, it was when everyone was discussing names for Liam, and I thought that was representative of the whole don't name your kid something too popular rule. The first lines of the song are:

I went to school with 27 Jennifers
16 Jens, 10 Jennys, and then there was her

Anyway, after listening to his new album on iTunes, I wasn't too sure that I would like all of his songs - maybe this was just a case of liking a few good songs from an artist. But the concert exceeded my expectations. He was great live and I loved all of his songs. Plus, he was funny and personable and even made jokes about Gary Kasparov and Ayn Rand, which gains bonus points in my book. Another thing he did that I could appreciate was to make fun of the "fake" encores that all bands do nowadays. He said, "we have come to a very important part of the rock concert - the song before the fake last song of the show." He said that after the fake last song, they would step to the side of the stage for about 30 seconds during which we could clap or do whatever we wanted, because they were going to come back on no matter what we did to play the real last song. :-) He did one song using recordings of random sayings. He used some sort of electronic board with a bunch of buttons on it and played various sayings in a funky rhythm. That was pretty unique.

There were just a few problems about the concert. First, the Blind Pig is basically a black box of a club, about the size of matchbox. Okay, maybe slightly bigger than a matchbox, but you get the picture. Low ceiling, tiny stage, standing only. Now add to this the fact that the smoking ban has not yet come to Ann Arbor and lucky for us, the people all around us were smokers! This made the air thick with smoke and pretty hard to breathe toward the end of the night. I was so glad to get out in the fresh air! The other problem was that John and I got there fairly early and grabbed what we thought was a great location to watch the show - it was right next to a counter that we could lean against so we wouldn't have to purely stand up for a few hours. But as the concert went on, more and more people crowded in front of us. Back home this might not be as much of a problem with all the short people, but here in the Midwest where they grow 'em tall and strong, I found myself contorting into all sorts of positions to try to see the stage. Luckily, there was a mirror on one wall where I could see Mike Doughty's reflection.

Despite these annoyances, we had a great time and actually stayed throughout the entire concert, which I didn't think we would do since it was late on a Sunday night. John has already reserved his new album at the library!

Whirlyball!

2008-03-15T15:40:00.000-07:00

I experienced something today that I had never heard of before coming to Ann Arbor - the game of Whirlyball. I don't know if any of you have heard of this game, but it is SO much fun! You can play with a max of 10 people (5-on-5) and the whole thing lasts for an hour (at least, those are the blocks of time you can pay for). You ride around in bumper cars (so already this sounds like fun, right?) and use scoops to throw whiffle balls at a basket. The basket looks like a basketball backboard but in place of the regular net, there is a hole in the backboard with a net in it.

We played with some of John's friends in a 3-on-3 game. It was a ton of fun, but I am SO sore and it took me a long time to even score a basket. In the bumper car, you have a lap seatbelt on, so whenever you get bumped by someone (or run into the wall), you get a jolt into the seatbelt. Thus, I have some bruising on my hip bones that I put ice on when I got home. My abs are sore from contracting whenever I got bumped, and my upper arms are sore from throwing the ball, so it was a great workout! The only part I didn't like was the fact that the bumper cars have no brakes. So once you get going, you can only stop by running into something, turning sharply, or letting the car slow down naturally (but that takes a long time).

Anyway, I would highly recommend it if there is a Whirlyball place near you. I think we will go again before I leave for the summer.

Here is a photo from the web since I forgot my camera:

Liam Orion

2008-03-14T14:29:00.000-07:00

I became an aunt today! And more importantly, my brother and sister-in-law became parents for the first time! I can't quite believe it yet. I think once I see a picture or see the tiny tyke in person, it will become more real to me. I think that one thing that makes it seem not as real is when I think of birth stories and stuff, it is in reference to my parents going through that with me or my brother. And thinking that my brother and I are at that same stage (he and Annika are now like my parents) is weird to think about.

Anyway, yesterday was the first really nice day here in Ann Arbor since winter started. The snow almost all melted, people were out playing Frisbee and beer pong, and it was nice enough to walk around with a light jacket (at least, until the sun went down). So Liam was born on a beautiful day (at least where I am)! Annika had a c-section since Liam was in the breech position, and everything went really well. He was born at 12:34 (cool time!), has deep blue eyes (at least, for now) and light brown hair. I was on the phone with my parents several times to check in and see what was going on since I couldn't be there myself and I got to talk to my brother briefly around 2:00.

I finally got a picture of Liam last night. I am anxiously awaiting more! My caption for this is, "Whatchu talkin' about Willis?" :-D

Thus begins a long and hopefully wonderful journey for Liam Orion Luke. Welcome to the world, baby!

A Magical Adventure, Part 1: The Magic

2008-03-13T16:15:00.000-07:00

Come magic your way with me through my spring break in the land of eternal happiness, where all your dreams come true...Disney World! Michigan, unlike most other schools, has their spring break at the end of February, which some might call "the winter". I guess they knew just how much we needed time away from the bitter cold and never-ending snow. It was a week long, and I spent the first four days in one of my all-time favorite places on earth, Disney World! Technically, my time there encompassed Universal Studios as well, but I like to lump them all together into one big ball of fun. :-)

John has a sister who lives in Lakeland, which is between Orlando and Tampa, and I had never met her. So we decided to visit her and go to the parks. We arrived Friday night and I loved exiting the airport into 70-degree warmth. Then the magic began on Saturday morning when we went to the Magic Kingdom, my personal favorite of all the parks. Even though I have been to Disney World many times throughout my life, it still has not lost its wonder for me. We rode in on the monorail after parking in the Donald section (I think). I have always thought the monorail was cool, especially when it goes through the "Contemporary Hotel" (which was probably contemporary in the 60's). It was hilarious because as I voiced this to John and Kate as we entered the hotel, the two young girls behind us screamed in chorus, "Oh my God! This is SO COOL!!!!!!!" (By the way, just about everything in Disney World makes me smile, especially seeing and hearing kids' glee as they discover it. Everyone is just so happy in Disney World. Kind of like when I visited Google, now that I think about it...).

Anyway, the monorail dropped us off and we walked through Main St. to Cinderella's castle. At first I thought to myself that everything seemed smaller in that way that things do when you visit childhood places when you are an adult. But as the day went on, that feeling went away and I felt like things were just the size they should be. :-)

As you can see from the castle picture, it was pretty cloudy that day. Unfortunately it poured down rain off and on for the first part of the day, so that wasn't as fun. Plus we had to buy $7 Disney ponchos. ($7! I must say they were quality plastic, though.) But on the other hand, it made the lines way shorter and we were able to use the ponchos on some of the water rides (like the 3 times we went on Splash Mountain).

Here are John and I trying to wrest the sword from the stone.

I won't go into all of the detail on the blog (this is long as it is), but we basically went on every ride possible for "big" people (like, we didn't go on Dumbo). They have instituted a new system called FastPass and we worked that system to the bone. A FastPass is a ticket you get from a ride that tells you to come back within a certain hour window and you can go to the front of the line. So between that and the bad weather (and the fact that we were there in February, thanks Michigan!), the longest we had to wait in line was about 20 minutes.

We went on all of my old favorites, plus rides I had never been on (Space Mountain - possibly my new favorite ride at Disney, Splash Mountain, and Big Thunder Mountain railroad). Here are some of the classics:

Peter Pan! This had the longest line of almost any ride we went on.

The Enchanted Tiki Room! This had been "updated" to include Iago from Aladdin and Zazu from Lion King, and it wasn't as quaint as before.

Pirates of the Caribbean! With added Johnny Depp character! This was the Jack Sparrow actor. Earlier than this photo, we saw him running away from some overly zealous fans (2 teenage girls running after him shouting, "Jack -- take me with you!")

Splash Mountain -- a new ride for me and John's favorite. This is based on the story of Brer Rabbit and at the end you get thrown into the briar patch, down this huge drop.

The Jungle Cruise! I thought I had never been on this, but my parents told me that we had. You go through a "jungle" all the while your guide is making punny jokes. One thing I love about these parks is all the detail that goes into the rides, even when you are waiting in line. This was the lunch menu for the Jungle Cruise.

John and his sister, Kate.

Our guide through the jungle.

I like this photo because you can see the real ducks among the fake animals. :-)

Another favorite - the Swiss Family Robinson tree house!

Frontierland!

Just outside another favorite - Country Bear Jamboree!

On another new ride for me -- Big Thunder Mountain Railroad!

We got caught for harassing Mickey Mouse (I guess I violated the restraining order from way back in 1983), so we had to spend some time in the stocks. We narrowly escaped!

We saw this show while walking through the park, but it was weird because they suddenly stopped in the middle, all the characters ran off stage, and they said they had to stop the show and hoped we could come back later.

So in addition to the old classics, they had also added some new things and my favorite of those was the Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor in Tomorrowland. It was a stand-up comedy show where the cartoons interacted live with the audience. It was really funny and the best part was that John got on the screen for one of the acts. They were telling a story and would shine a spotlight on audience members to be the characters in the story. He was picked as "Randall". So of course, I have been calling him Randall every so often since then.

One of the last rides of the night. You gotta do it...Small World!

And for your distinct listening pleasure, I recorded the song during part of the ride! Mwa ha ha!

They had "extra magic hours" that night, which means the park was open until 11. So we stuck around till the very end and saw a great fireworks show along with some of the SpectroMagic parade. Plus, we had one more ride to go on -- the Teacups!

A view of Main St. from the castle. This was just before the parade started.

A view of the castle. It constantly changed colors, and we tried to wait for it to change to another more appealing, less evil color, but it stayed on red for the longest time. So this is, as I like to put it, Cinderella's castle...in HELL!

Before we went on our trip, John and I saw a couple specials on Disney. In one of them, they talked about the elaborate technology of the SpectroMagic Parade. It is pretty cool.

On our way out, these people were standing above the exit, waving signs.

On the tram back to the parking, our driver had a fairly thick accent, so we cracked up at his announcements of the parking areas, "Meenie, Pludo, and Goopy". All in all, we had an awesome time, joking around and laughing, feeling like kids again. And I felt like I had truly accomplished something by going on Space Mountain after all these years. And it was awesome! Not scary at all. I really felt like I was piloting a rocket through space, which cracked John and Kate up to no end. But it was true! My parents told me afterwards that my great-grandfather who lived in Orlando as Disney World was being built apparently went on that roller coaster when it first opened.

It was really good to know that I will never outgrow Disney World. It will always be as magical to me as when I first walked through those gates.

I hope you have enjoyed this trip. Stay tuned for the next installment, "The Adventure"!

Life Through Many Conversations

2008-03-11T14:30:00.000-07:00

Business school gatherings involve a lot of small talk with large numbers of people -- building networks through building acquaintances. I was thinking last night that I could probably summarize the various stages of business school through the most common conversations heard at parties during those stages.

Beginning of 1st Year: What section are you in? Where are you living? What did you do before school? Where are you from? What do you want to do after school?

Pre-Christmas Break: Have you done a lot of cases (referring to consulting case interview prep)?

Post-Christmas Break: Who are you interviewing with? How are the interviews going? (and, after the offer...) Where are you going for the summer? Are you excited? Where is it located? Who else is going?

Pre-MAP: What MAP did you get? Where will you be? How long are you going for? Who is on your team?

End of 1st Year: So where are you going again? And where is that? When are you leaving?
-----------------------------------------------------------
Beginning of 2nd Year: How was your summer? Where were you working? Do you think you'll go back there? Why not (if applicable)?

Pre-Christmas Break: Where are you interviewing? How are they going? Got any offers yet?

Post-Christmas Break: So where are you going next year? Are you excited? When do you start? Can you believe this is our last term?

Pre-Spring Break: Going anywhere fun over break? Who are you going with?

Post-Spring Break: Where did you go over break? Traveling anywhere this summer? Can you believe we only have 5 weeks of classes left?

End of 2nd Year: Yet to be determined! So far, the conversations are like this: I am so unmotivated! I don't want to do any work!

Wireless

2008-03-05T16:58:00.001-08:00

Lately, I have seen many a friend's computer mess up in one way or another, losing keyboard keys, corrupting, power supply dying, etc. And the whole time I thought to myself, wow, I'm so lucky - I have never had any problems with my laptop. I LOVE my laptop! But as fate would have it, I was not to be saved from the computer curse, and in one of the worst ways possible. The week before spring break (yes, my final exam week), my hard drive up and died, taking with it most of my stuff - class notes, music, other documents, and saddest of all, irreplaceable photos.

I tried not to freak out when I saw that worst of omens -- the BLUE SCREEN! I thought, well, I'll just restart and everything will be fine. But it was not to be. I tried a couple of routes to recover data off of my hard drive, and I would say about 30% of it was able to be recovered. I am still going to try one other avenue, and after that, I think it's pretty hopeless. :-(

Lately when I have been home on breaks, my mom has commented that my laptop is like an extension of myself, always present. I never thought it was true until I was without it! I felt a bit lost and like I had way too much time on my hands. I realized how much I have come to rely on my laptop not only as a means of communication, but also as an activity. It's quite amazing how much time I spend on this thing, especially while multi-tasking with the TV. And I have noticed that it's not just me. Oftentimes, you'll find me and my other roommates all in the same room with the TV on, having light conversation and on our separate laptops. Anyway, for the first few days it was annoying to be without my link to the information highway, but then I discovered something called "reading a book" and it was quite nice! I also went on my spring break, so it wasn't a big deal to not have a working laptop.

It was really quite amazing to experience how much this little device and the internet has changed the way I live my life. I think there is a happy medium between being wired and being wireless that I will try to keep. :-)

More Snow!

2008-03-01T16:38:00.001-08:00

Yesterday was a pretty nice day weather-wise, as the snow and ice were finally melting. You could almost see the pavement of my whole street! But alas, as I went into my night class, there was a dusting on the sidewalks, and I came out of class 3 hours later to find about 3 inches of snow and it was still falling. This morning, I think we had about 5 inches. At least it was sunny and in the 20s-30s, so it was a pretty nice day. I just hope the snow and ice stop soon because I am ready for Spring!

Update: yesterday (3/10), the birds were chirping and you could see little patches of grass on the way to school. It was still in the 30's, but not windy, so it was actually pretty nice. Coupled with daylight savings time, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!

Lunar Eclipse! Lunar Eclipse!

2008-02-20T19:11:00.000-08:00

Growing up, I absolutely loved the moon and I have always felt an affectionate connection with it (and my more dramatic and supernatural side has felt a mystery about it), so I was excited for tonight's eclipse. It did not disappoint. Despite the chilling weather, John and I stood outside for a good 10 minutes watching the last brilliant sliver fade away, leaving a rust red ball in the sky. Using my new nifty Gorillapod (awesome flexible tripod) on the back of his friends' car, he got some great shots! So enjoy as I warm up my toesies. :-)

Morning Music

2008-02-13T07:11:00.001-08:00

I just got to my favorite class, Strategy for the Public and Nonprofit Sector. The professor sometimes plays funny relevant clips from YouTube, but this morning I came in and he is playing music! (and a pretty good song, I might add). Apparently he just said the lyrics are about corporate ethics, written in the wake of Enron, so it is relevant to today's class. Either way, it's nice! I think all classes should do that. :-)

This was one of the YouTube videos he played: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7M-cmNdiFuI

Today

2008-02-12T20:59:00.000-08:00

Couldn't think of a creative title for today's post. :-) I basically wanted to briefly jot down some things that happened today. I bought my graduation cap, gown, and tassel! I can't believe I will be graduating already. It seems too soon to be donning that black polyester again and receiving a diploma. Now I will be in that relatively small group of graduate students sitting up front at the graduation ceremony that I thought were so much older back at undergrad graduation in 2001. They had a pretty cool diploma frame that I want to get as well although it won't be as special to me as my William and Mary diploma frame with the image of the Wren building on it.

Speaking of my alma mater...for those of my classmates who read this blog, I had mixed feelings about the emails today from our (now) former President Gene Nichol and then by the Rector. On the one hand, I thought it was inappropriate to use the email waves to conduct somewhat of a campaign/explanation of what happened. On the other hand, I applauded what Gene Nichol had to say about religious freedom, free speech, and diversity at the College. I haven't really been following the events over the past few years, but do remember the uproar about the Wren cross. Not knowing the details, I can't say who was right or who is lying, but I just hope the College will get back on track to maintaining its high and beloved status. I'm curious to know what the rest of you alumni thought.

I went to see this guy speak tonight that has a fascinating story. His name is Patrick Kuhse. I didn't know anything about him before the speech, but now I will look him up. He's got kind of a "Catch Me if You Can" story, and even runs the same public speaking circuit as the guy from that movie. Mr. Kuhse basically made some bad decisions and ended up in an illegal kickback operation stealing money from the Oklahoma State government in the 90's. He fled the country and lived for 4 years in Costa Rica, hiding out and avoiding Interpol. He finally turned himself in, served his time in prison, and now gives talks to people like me about ethics and how to avoid the pitfalls and ways of thinking that would get you into an unethical situation. It was very interesting.

And finally, in case you are wondering...it is still freezing cold and snowing! We got about 4-5 inches of snow today on an already snow- and ice-covered ground. The really odd thing to me is that they don't seem to plow the roads here. But people just drive on them anyway. I mean, what else are you going to do? But back home, it would definitely be a "stop everything, no one should go anywhere" type of situation where they showcase for hours on the news exactly how many tons of salt are waiting in the storage houses and how many trucks they have on hand to make sure the roads don't get too dangerous. I am just very surprised at the lack of plowing and salting here in a state where you'd think they'd have that down pat! Maybe it's just Ann Arbor...

I think that's it for now. It's past my bedtime!

Baby, It's Cold Outside!

2008-02-10T08:23:00.000-08:00

Just a glance at today's weather: 5 degrees, feels like -17 degrees with wind chill.

No wonder it looked like a frozen tundra when I drove to school this morning.

Brrrrrrrrrrrr!

A Colorado New Years

2008-01-23T18:09:00.001-08:00

For New Years this year, I traveled to Colorado to visit John and do some skiing. I have never skied outside the East Coast, so I was excited to experience the wonders of Colorado skiing. I flew into Denver on December 30 (if I remember correctly) and John and I spent the afternoon driving around the city. We ate at a Mexican restaurant called Rio Grande (not to be confused with the Rio Grande chain out East), stopped in the Patagonia store, and then went to the giant REI store.

This is Union Station in Denver. I thought it was really pretty.

These are some photos from the REI store. It was inside an old factory building, so it was enormous. The first photo shows the big climbing wall in the middle of the store. I actually ended up buying a tent for $40 (originally cost $120) at their members-only garage sale. The garage sale is when they sell all items that have been returned for reduced prices. On every item they say why it was returned. The tent I found is a Kelty 2-person tent and the only problem with it was that it was a little short for someone over 6' tall. We set it up in the room where the sale was taking place and it seemed to be just fine otherwise!

That night, John, his sister Anna, her boyfriend, John's college friend Tom, and I went to the light show at the Colorado Springs mountain zoo. It was a lot of fun, even if it was freezing cold and snowing! They had most of their exhibits open (both indoor and outdoor) with Christmas lights lining the buildings and paths. The coolest exhibit to me was the tiger area. I experienced a little primal fear seeing the tiger pace around the area, melding in and out of the darkness as he went from the back of the area (which was wooded) back to the front (where we were).

Looking out over Colorado Springs.

This was a cool light set-up: It is a tiger placed over a path. So, as you walk down the path, it's like you are getting eaten by the tiger and you walk through his body (see the ribs).
The best exhibit though was the giraffes. I think John told me it's the largest population of this type of giraffe in America (or the world?). You could buy cookies to feed the giraffes, so it was really easy to get them to the fence to take a photo.

This photo cracks me up!

There was a baby there too!

So I of course decided to buy some cookies and feed the giraffes. :-) It was hilarious.

I started out with just one...Then two...

Then three! Then I ran out of cookies.

These were some really cool lights they had down a hillside that looked like water coming down the hill.

The next day we left for Breckenridge. Due to all the snow, the highway from Denver was closed. The road we were taking was also closed in the morning, but then opened up. However, it caused a huge backup. So we moved VERY slowly down this mountain pass, which was fine by me!

John's parents had gotten us a condo in Frisco, a little town between Breckenridge, Keystone, and Copper Mountain (the three resorts where we were going to ski). When we arrived, we first went to dinner at the famous Dillon Dam Brewery by the Dillon Dam. Unfortunately, due to the crowds, they were out of the item I was most anticipating -- buffalo burgers. But it was good food none-the-less. We went straight from there to Keystone, where they were having a light parade and fireworks for New Years. The light parade is where ski and snowboard instructors go down one of their slopes at night carrying a flare in each hand. It was really cool!

Here are some photos.

At the end of the slope, all of the participants put out their flares, then started shouting and lifting their boards and skis in the air. I felt like shouting "We've won! We've conquered the Germans!" Or something along those lines. It seemed like we had just won a battle or something. :-) Then we waited around for the fireworks. They were very good!

After the fireworks, we booked it back to the car and the condo. It was seriously cold. Probably about -2 degrees or something. This is a shot of the little town at the base of the mountain.

Once back at the condo, we watched the countdown on TV and fooled around with our cameras (John had gotten a new one for Christmas and he was actually reading the manual, unlike me. So he taught me how to do some things.)

We got up the next day and made our way to Breckenridge (or, Breck, as I found out the locals call it). See how chilly it was? And that was off the mountain, not counting wind chill!

The mountain.

The great thing at Breckenridge was this gondola that they put in to transport people from the parking lot in the town to the base of the resort. It was awesome.

My one complaint about Colorado skiing is the time spent in lift lines and on the lift. Since the mountains are so big (which makes for a good long run), it just takes a while to actually get to the top.

I accidentally got on the lift chair behind John and Anna.

John's sister, Anna.

No doubt that the scenery was beautiful!

I was proud that I actually did mostly blues while I was out there. I guess I can officially call myself an Intermediate skier now.

We had originally planned to go night skiing at Keystone, but decided against it since I was exhausted and it was SO darn cold outside! The next day, we went to Copper Mountain, John's favorite resort. Luckily the weather was great for this day. I think it was in the 30's. We got a lot more skiing in this day. It reminded me a lot of Snowshoe in West Virginia.

Me with John's family (except his other sister, Kate, who lives in Florida.)

John convinced me to ski on the backside of the mountain. I couldn't believe I agreed to it since all I had ever heard about backsides of mountains was double black diamonds where experts skied through the trees and down steep unkempt slopes. But he said there was one blue slope back there we could go on, so I agreed. The view was breathtaking!

You can see the sign behind me in the photo on the right for that blue slope. However, once we started on it, John convinced me to go down a black diamond. It didn't look so bad from my vantage point, but I discovered it was much harder than it looked. It was full of piles of powder, which are difficult for me to ski through. I fell several times and got very frustrated, but in the end, I was glad I experienced my first black diamond and survived to tell about it.

A video of John snowboarding down the mountain.

We drove through Breckenridge on our way back to CO Springs, and it was so pretty with lots of lights. Most of the photos I took didn't come out, but here are a few.

A short video of Breckenridge. Kind of looks like our fake Dickens Village!

It was a great trip, but next time I would like to plan more time out there so I can get more skiing in. I would recommend it to anyone!

Christmastime

2008-01-23T18:08:00.000-08:00

Ah, Christmas. My favorite time of year! And this year, due to different family schedules, it lasted a whole week! First, we got together with my dad's side of the family the weekend before Christmas. Everyone came into our house this year for the first time (that I can remember) and holed up at our house. It was like a gigantic family sleepover and I loved it. Then on Christmas Day, it was just my mom and dad and me. Finally, on the Friday after Christmas, we celebrated with my brother, Annika, and my mom's side of the family. A lot of the time that night was spent solving the abundant riddles and puzzles in my brother's house. He painted the nursery in stripes that actually spell out a coded message (still haven't figured out the message, but am looking forward to working on it more when I come home), and there is also a fun treasure hunt. Anyway, here are some pictures. (Since it is so annoying to re-arrange all these photos, they are not in the correct order, but hey, that's okay by me.)

Makoto had positioned himself on the back of the couch, in between the pillow and the back of the couch. I think he was scared of the unwrapping of presents. :-) He is resting his head next to my cousin, Dan.

How adorable is this face?

My cousin, Tom.

Yuki looked like he owned all the presents.

I took a bunch of photos of our Dickens Village, which is one of my favorite parts of Christmas. I tried to be a bit artsy.

This year we had a river and a waterfall in addition to the skating pond.

The village at night.

The village in daytime!

Our lovely waterfall. :-)

Me and my cousin, Christina.

Our Christmas tree.

The infamous, Hip-Hop Santa!

My dad and grandmom.

My aunt Sharon, Christina, and Annika.

My cousin, Ben.

Makoto had just jumped off Steve's lap (note his little butt on the bottom left).

Makoto had positioned himself this time in the crevice between Annika and the side of the chair, with his little paw up on the arm of the chair. So adorable.

Long Time, No Blog

2008-01-22T13:56:00.000-08:00

Hello faithful readers (if there are any of you still out there)! :-) So I know it has been a long while since I posted anything. I was so much better at this over the summer! Since my last post, we have had more snow, I have accepted a full-time job, celebrated Christmas and the New Year, and embarked on my last semester at business school. I'm going to post a bunch of things, so stay tuned and I'll try my best to keep this up in a more timely manner. :-)

A Job, A Job! Finally.

2008-01-11T13:35:00.000-08:00

I finally have a job lined up for next year. It was such a relief not having to stress and prepare for any more interviews! I heard back from Google around Thanksgiving that they were not making me a final offer. It was a bit sad, but I count myself very lucky to have made it that far in the process. Without that offer and with the FBI interview not until Dec 17, I had to make a final decision on Toyota. I ended up getting the FBI to move my second-round interview up by about 2 weeks so I could tell Toyota my decision one way or the other.

I flew to DC for an interview on Dec 6 (found out I was doing this just a few days before). I was very nervous and excited, but the interview went well. I interviewed with 5 different divisions and got to hang out with the other MBA grads. It was great! I found out the next day they were making me a full-time offer. Although I did not officially accept until about 2 weeks ago, I pretty much knew that was where I wanted to end up. So next year, I will be moving back to DC and working for the FBI! I don't want to put too many details about the job on here, but I can tell you each more about it off-line.

Adventures in Refrigeration

2007-12-16T13:34:00.000-08:00

Just after Thanksgiving, our refrigerator stopped working. The freezer had never worked all that well, but after noticing a stench that wouldn't go away, we discovered that the entire thing had broken. While we waited for them to fix it, we started storing our food on the back porch and inside our grill (see photos). It was an amusing experience to go out on the back porch in my pjs, open the grill, and take out my yogurt, but inconvenient none-the-less, considering the sub-zero temperatures.

Finally, we got a mini-fridge, but since we were leaving for Christmas break soon, we ended up just eating out a lot. Over break, our landlord said it had been fixed. We started to use it again only to discover that it had reverted to its old ways. At long last, a day later, we received a brand spanking new fridge. And we all lived happily ever after with our cold food!

Finals Week!

2007-12-14T13:35:00.001-08:00

The last few weeks of the term were pretty crazy. My finals week basically consisted of me getting up in the morning, working every minute all day, and going to bed late at night. I had several papers and presentations to do, and for some reason volunteered to be the final editor of the paper for most of them. (Never again!) I eventually got through it day by day, then took the weekend to relax a bit before coming home for break. I was originally going to drive home, but the swath of geography I had to drive through suffered a snow storm that weekend, so I ended up flying home instead. I was so glad to be done!

The Fist of Winter Hits - Hard!

2007-12-14T13:34:00.003-08:00

These photos and videos are from before my Christmas break, but the theme applies even more now. We had a huge snowstorm just after New Years, and then in the past week or so, we have gone into a deep freeze, along with much of the country. We got even more snow yesterday and today, which makes for fun walking to school at 8:30 am. :-)

This is me in front of my house.

John on the street in front of my place.

My car, buried in snow.

First Snow of the Year

2007-12-14T13:07:00.000-08:00

I took a little video of the first snow of the year. This was back right after Thanksgiving out my bedroom window, looking into our backyard.

Thanksgiving

2007-12-14T12:59:00.000-08:00

Going home for Thanksgiving was great, as usual, but also too short, as usual! I spent some time at home and in Sperryville, and took a few photos in Little Washington and at my aunt and uncle's house. The camera didn't quite capture the beautiful colors well enough, so I tried to compensate using Picasa.

The Most Miserable Game of the Year

2007-11-17T13:14:00.000-08:00

Nearing the end of November (I believe it was Nov 17), Michigan hosted the biggest game of the year - Ohio State! I was really looking forward to the game, and most of all, feeling the over 100 years of traditional rivalry right here in Ann Arbor. Unfortunately, it was the first weekend where the weather turned bad, so it was rainy and cold the whole time. On top of that, neither team played very well. But it was a good experience, none-the-less and I'm glad I went and stayed for the whole game, unlike some of my compatriots. John's parents came into town to visit and go to the game, so it was nice to see them as well.

One of the many house tailgates on the way to the game.

ESPN's College GameDay was there for the first time in years. This was the back of the stands they had set up for the audience. Unfortunately by the time we got there, it was full.

Some of the news trucks that were outside the stadium.

You can see a reporter doing a newscast up on the raised platform on the left.

After attempting to get into College GameDay, we walked down to the pre-game marching band show.

Me at the pre-game marching band show in my layers of maize and blue. (I had on 4 layers, alternating maize and blue.) :-)

Some of the hoards of people walking behind the band, up to the stadium.
We saw these characters just inside the stadium. We didn't know who they were until later that day, when we saw a Snickers commercial. They are the actors from that campaign.

John's parents got me a ticket with theirs in the regular seats. This photo looks over at the student section, where I normally sit.This is looking to my other side, at the OSU fans. There was way too much red there for my taste. :-)

Bet you didn't know I got a Michigan tattoo on my face! Just kidding - it's temporary. :-)

Me in a poncho after the rain started getting too much to handle.

After the game, we had a little Thanksgiving potluck with John's friends. He deep-fried the turkey, which turned out so moist!

Great Googley-Moogley!

2007-11-15T18:07:00.001-08:00

On November 13, I flew to Mountain View, CA to do second round interviews with Google. It was quite the experience, and I'm glad I had the opportunity to view the mythical Googleplex. I flew to SFO on Tuesday night and met up with a few other candidates (two from Michigan and one from Wharton) on the shuttle to the hotel. We had fun chatting about the positions we were interviewing for and our respective schools. We stayed at the Sheraton Palo Alto, right across from Stanford. It was a really nice hotel and they had goodie bags for us when we checked in. Nothing too exciting, but we got a pack of gum, a Google-branded ditty bag, and a book on management and strategy.

The next morning, I woke up bright and early to eat breakfast where I met some more MBAs from all over the country. People were interviewing for many types of positions, the largest of which was Finance. The position I was interviewing for was Online Sales and Ad Manager and that group contained 6 people, 3 of whom were from Michigan.

We all loaded onto the Google shuttle to go to the campus. These shuttles were awesome! And better yet, they are one of the MANY benefits Google provides to its employees. The shuttles had cushy leather seats with headrests and were entirely Wi-Fi! Google provides free shuttle pickup to all employees anywhere in the Bay area! The Google campus stretched for a few miles and we were dropped off at the OSO building for our interviews.

First, we had the opportunity to get free drinks and snacks from one of their "microkitchens". Another benefit Google provides is free food and drinks to all employees all day! We then got an overview of the OSO department and then went into our interviews. We had three back-to-back interviews, and mine were with three members of their internal analysis/strategy team. I thought I did alright, but not great. The rest of the day was filled with lunch, an HR presentation, and then a tour of the main campus (the original buildings). The tour was really what I had been looking forward to all day.

Some highlights: seeing people ride around on the free bikes and scooters provided (even inside!). Seeing the beautiful landscaping on a beautiful day, which included seeing people walking their dogs (you can bring them to work) and visiting their children (there is a daycare on campus). Seeing pink flamingos next to a statue of a T-Rex. Okay, that one needs a little explaining. The Googleplex is where Silicon Graphics used to be, the company who did Jurassic Park (hence, the T-Rex). Apparently, some Google employees took it upon themselves to arrange pink flamingos in various patterns around the T-Rex (for example, putting them in a group around the front of the T-Rex like they were going to attack him).

Seeing and almost shaking hands with Barack Obama! Google brings many interesting speakers to campus, and Obama was there the day we were to give a speech. He happened to be arriving as we were getting toured around, and he stopped to shake hands with another group of MBAs. We were approaching to do the same, but just as we got there, he had to leave. Oh well!

As soon as we got back to the hotel, I had to hop on a shuttle back to the airport. Luckily, we got to drive down a portion of the palm-lined drive to Stanford on the way out. It was a quick trip, but definitely worth it. It was an experience that I am so glad to have had and I will never forget!

I Have Survived!

2007-10-21T22:18:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to post a quick note saying that I actually survived these past two weeks, taking it day by day! Thanks for all your words of support and encouragement. I have had two dings (rejects) so far on the interview front, with one that I'm still waiting to hear from. Hopefully things will get better and I'll get a job at some point! Anyway, not much time to write -- I just got back from the wedding this weekend in Green Bay and will be flying home tomorrow for my Fall Break. I hope to see as many of you as I can while I'm home, but if not, I'll be back for Thanksgiving too! Time for bed!

Apple Picking

2007-10-18T19:44:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday morning, John and I went to pick apples at a nearby orchard. They also bake their own fresh donuts and have hot cider. It was delicious! The donut choices are apple (plain or sugared), pumpkin (plain or glazed), plain (plain, sugared, or chocolate glazed), or blueberry (with maple or vanilla frosting). My favorite were the blueberry with maple frosting - it was just like eating a blueberry pancake with syrup, which is my favorite breakfast item. The hot cider was just perfect as well.

The orchards seemed to stretch on for miles, and they had several varieties of apples. They also had raspberries, pumpkins, and gourds to pick. We had asked which were the best apples for making a pie because that is something we had planned to do. We were directed immediately to the Prime Gold apples. They were by far my favorite that we tasted from the trees. We picked a bunch of those and then sampled one each of the many red varieties. We picked some Rome apples and then picked up a few small pumpkins for table decoration at our respective houses. It was the perfect Fall activity and the weather was perfect.

Me among the apple trees. We were regular Johnny Appleseeds. :-)

One of the best parts of apple picking was sampling the apples from the trees.

Here we are in the pumpkin patch (or I should say one of the pumpkin patches since there were 2). There were some families there with little kids, which reminded me of going to pick pumpkins with my parents when I was little. I can't wait to have kids and take them to the pumpkin patch.

This gourd was actually shaped like an apple!

Indian Wedding

2007-10-16T15:34:00.000-07:00

I had a great weekend, filled with fun and interesting events. I'll post one for each! This is about John's friend Jiten's wedding. It took place in Canton, MI on Saturday morning at the priest's home. Jiten and his bride Shubda are Hindu, so it was definitely a new experience for me.

The day began with John and I driving to a little town called Manchester to get the cake. Jiten had to order it from that bakery because it was the one one that could make an egg-less cake (Jiten and Shubda are vegetarian). Manchester was in the opposite direction of Canton, so we had to get there super early. It was possibly the most adorable tiny town I have been to. And it was made all the better since it was a crisp Fall morning, and I loved seeing all the townspeople in the bakery, eating breakfast and gossiping. There was also a beautiful stream that ran through the town. Incidentally, Manchester is the home of the famous "chicken broil"! I don't know what it is, but apparently that's what Manchester is known for. :-)

This is the bakery.

And the town.

A cute bar at the edge of town.

This is the cake! It was very pretty and simple and we sprinkled the rose petals on top once we got it to the house. And it tasted good too! It was a vanilla cake with whipped cream icing and a little layer of cherry filling.

The ceremony was about 45 minutes and the priest was really cool - making jokes along the way and explaining all the traditions we were witnessing so we understood what everything meant. This is Jiten's nephew - he is only almost 3 years old! Very tall for his age. He was so cute sitting next to Jiten. He rubbed his foot against Jiten's and then sat on his lap.

This was the altar in the living room.

Jiten and the priest, and his nephew, Aran.

This was a plate with icons of the various gods. Jiten had to put rice and flowers in front of the gods as sacrifices many times.

Before Shubda came in (the ceremony had gone on for about 20 minutes with just Jiten to cleanse him and prepare the space for the wedding), John and another friend had to hold a sheet up in front of Jiten so he could not see Shubda until she sat down.

Shubda entering the room. The man in the foreground was a member of Shubda's family who previously had to come sit next to Jiten and look at him to make sure it was the same Jiten that had agreed to marry her.

Here you can kind of see the henna on Shubda's hands. It was very pretty and elaborate and she said that the letters of Jiten's name were hidden in the design.

Then Jiten and Shubda had to walk around a fire 7 times. The last time around, Shubda led Jiten and the priest said that whoever sat down in their chair first was going to be in charge. I think it was set up for Shubda to win, and she did! Everyone was laughing. :-)

Another shot of Shubda's dress as Jiten feeds her a piece of cake.

And here are John and I.

Stressed

2007-10-07T21:09:00.000-07:00

A departure from my recent football posts, I thought I'd let you into my world o' business school as it is 12:10 am and after a fitful hour or so of not being able to fall asleep, I have turned on my favorite relaxing movie, BBC's Pride and Prejudice, and decided to share my stresses with you all since writing usually relieves me from whatever I am stressing about.

The upcoming 2 weeks will be extremely packed with important things and I feel like I have no time to complete them. This is the last week of classes, and next week is exams (which in reality is one take-home exam, one optional exam, and 3 papers). Add to that 3 (up to a possible 6 if I get second round) job interviews and a wedding, and you can begin to imagine why I am feeling the crunch.

This Thursday at 8 am I interview with IBM Global Consulting. I really don't have a desire to work for them and actually didn't even apply for the job, but they put me on the closed list (which is B-school speak for the list of students they want to interview) I'm guessing due to my experience at Toyota. Good news is that it will help me gear up for the more important interviews next Monday and Tuesday with Bearing Point and Accenture, respectively. If I get second rounds with those firms, I believe they occur within 1 or 2 days after the original interview.

My papers are thus: 2 ethics papers -- one big team paper on the ethical issues of Merck's HPV Vaccine called Gardasil that they are attempting to make mandatory and one individual smaller paper on some ethical issues based on a situation we will be given. 1 big negotiations paper where I have to perform a live negotiation outside of class. My original idea was to negotiate with various body shops to fix the paint/scratches left on my car by an unknown person since they did not leave a note. However, I changed my mind and decided to try to negotiate a better deal on car insurance and possibly renter's insurance. So I need to do that this week and then write the paper on it.

Anywho, thus is the nature of b-school. Trying to balance job, school, and social commitments at the same time and excel at each of them. I know that I just need to take one day at a time and do the best I can. But it seems like a lot is riding on these next two weeks. I just hope I get a job offer that I actually want and then I can actually relax and get some sleep!

Thanks for "listening". :-)

Football Mayhem

2007-10-06T20:20:00.001-07:00

Okay, I must post another football entry because one of the biggest upsets in college football history (there is a debate whether it's bigger than Michigan - Appalachian State) just occurred. Stanford beat USC!!!! WOOOOOOO - HOOOOOOOOO! (That was akin to my screaming and jumping up and down when they won.)

THE STORY
So, USC is one of Michigan's biggest rivals (we lost to them last year in the Rose Bowl) and was ranked #1 in the country until last week, when they slipped to #2. Considered one of the best college football teams in the country, USC was undefeated this year, and had won 35 consecutive home games. The last time they lost at home was also to Stanford, in 2001.

On the other hand, Stanford has only won one game this year against San Jose State, averaging a loss of about 30 points per game last season. USC was favored to win this game by six touchdowns. Stanford's regular quarterback was out having suffered a seizure last week, so in his place was a sophomore QB who had only completed 3 passes in his career.

I only tuned in to the last quarter-and-a-half of the game, but it was the most exciting football I have seen this year. Stanford was down by 6 points, 17-23 and had the ball. With 4th down and 20 to go, the young QB threw a risky pass to the receiver, who caught it amongst 4 defenders just inside the 9-yard line for a 1st down. They got within 5 yards of the endzone on the 1st down but then suffered a penalty pushing them back to the 10-yard line. After a few incomplete passes, they were again at 4th down and goal. The QB completed a pass down the left side well within the endzone.

And the screaming and jumping up and down commenced! It was unbelievably nerve-racking and so gratifying (I always like to root for the underdog, but especially in this case). It was amazing. And the Coliseum (USC's stadium) was silent. I must say that I can empathize since Michigan was in their shoes not so long ago. Then, over at the LSU-Florida game (LSU is now ranked #1 but currently losing in a close game to #9 Florida), they announced the score of the Stanford-USC game. The LSU fans all bowed to honor Stanford's win.

This is when I love football.

P.S. For more info on the game, check out these articles:
http://www.heraldnewsdaily.com/ViewArticle.aspx?id=174759&source=2
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/pac10/2007-10-06-stanford-usc_N.htm
http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_7106598

In other news, UNC (way unranked) beat Miami (almost ranked), Illinois (unranked) beat Wisconsin (#5). Unfortunately, Ohio State (#4) beat Purdue (#23).

Christmas Comes Early

2007-10-01T19:13:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was the first weekend this year with an away game, so you will be spared photos of people in maize t-shirts and a recap of the game. However, I do just want to mention that it was a totally crazy day in college football, with many of the top teams being upset by non-ranked ones. So I don't feel as bad that Michigan was beaten by Appalachian State. :-)

Anyway, most of my weekend was spent doing homework so that I could take a little day trip with John on Sunday up north. Friday was a girl's night in with Shannon, then Saturday night John and I went to a nice dinner at one of my favorite restaurants, Red Hawk. It was delicious! Then on Sunday we went to brunch at a local breakfast place called Afternoon Delight. There are 4 brunch/breakfast places in AA -- Angelo's (very popular and was our original destination, but we decided to forego the long wait), the Broken Egg (haven't been yet, but have heard mixed reviews), Gandy Dancer (been there for dinner, but not brunch), and Afternoon Delight.

The only time I have been to Angelo's, I thought that the food was very dry, but most other people I know love it, so I had decided to give it another go figuring that maybe they just had an off day. But like I said above, the wait was too long, so we went to Afternoon Delight. And boy were we glad we did! The food was AMAZING. I had a huge blueberry pancake that had been pan-grilled, eggs, and their signature cinnamon raisin toast, which is to die for. John had a bagel with lox and cream cheese and eggs Benedict, which he said were delicious. So the next time any of you are in AA for breakfast/brunch, you must go there.

After that, we made our way an hour north to Frankenmuth and the Birch Run outlet mall. Frankenmuth is "Michigan's Little Bavaria" and according to the brochure, Michigan's most visited city, with 3 million (yes million) tourists coming every year. It was founded sometime in the 1800's by a small group of German Lutheran missionaries and has retained its German feel. It's not very big, but there are a few family style German restaurants, shops, and a bunch of hotels. It was very cute. But the main attraction is Bronner's -- the world's largest Christmas store! With an area of 5 1/2 football fields, it is quite sizable. John and I had a few good laughs, but it actually wasn't quite as tacky as I had imagined.

There were several sections for various Christmas things, like tree skirts, lights, fake trees, toys, nativities, Department 56 things, etc. But the largest section was for ornaments, categorized by type. I think the tackiest ornament I saw was one of a big glazed donut. Not even a donut with icing! Just a plain, glazed donut! Anyway, we had a good time walking around and of course, I took a few pictures. :-)

This is the entrance to the store.

This was hilarious -- at the front of the store, all the men were sitting in front of the TV watching football as their wives/mothers/girlfriends shopped. :-)

Inside one part of the ornaments section -- you can see the "Cats" sign for cat ornaments.

This is a singing reindeer that can mount on your wall. Not only can he sing Christmas songs, but also country classics!

Some scenes from the main street of Frankenmuth.

The outside of Bronner's from the road.

Then we went to the outlet mall and John bought a bunch of stuff, but I only bought a cute sweatshirt from JCrew. And that was my weekend!

Casa Minerva Virtual Tour

2007-09-27T17:55:00.000-07:00

I decided to take a video tour of my house instead of a bunch of photos that you couldn't visualize very well. So, here it is. We call it Casa Minerva because we live on Minerva Rd. and one of our roommates is from Chile. I'm trying to practice my Spanish with him, but so far we usually only get as far as saying "how are you? good, thanks, how are you? good, thanks." :-)

For reference, I live with 3 other 2nd year MBA students. Shannon who was in my section last year, Mike, who I met through mutual friends last year and began to hang out with, and Eric, who I didn't really know last year. Eric is from Chile. I went to visit Shannon in Monterrey over the summer, as you may recall from my SoCal blog. Mike is going into Real Estate and Eric has decided to start his own import/export business in Chile with some friends. Anyway, here is my house!

Delusions of Grandeur?

2007-09-27T15:32:00.001-07:00

Okay, so this title refers to a couple of things. First of all, thanks for all the positive feedback on my blog! I'm glad you all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it. It's nice to be able to share my life with you all from so far away. :-)

Second of all, I had an informational meeting today for becoming an Admissions Student Counselor (ASC), which is something I have been looking forward to doing since last year. Basically, as an ASC, you get to read applications and do interviews now and as an alumna to help determine who gets into Ross. Although it's funny to imagine me "mwa ha ha"-ing (evil laugh) while determining the fate of some poor applicant, I actually want to do it to make sure we get some more Anthro, Psych, and English majors in here (mwa ha ha!) and to help spread the word as to how awesome Ross is! It will take a lot of my time from November-February or so, but I think it will be a lot of fun.

I have spent most of today catching up on homework (plus a power nap and watched the Heroes premiere!) but I did finally get a stand to raise up my television so I can watch TV in bed without a) seeing only the top half of the image or b) sitting bolt upright or on the edge of the bed. It even swivels! I am very excited about that (thanks, Mom to finding the perfect stand for me)!

The Fighting Irish aren't so fighting any more

2007-09-26T12:05:00.001-07:00

I will apologize to the non-football fans for the inordinate amount of football photos on the blog so far. :-) But, in Ann Arbor, fall Saturdays are game days and let's be honest - football is a HUGE deal at Michigan. It's definitely gotten in my blood, so I want to be sure to capture its glory before I leave and have to pay up the wazoo for tickets. :-)

This is a short video of the yell and hand gestures everyone does during a kick-off.

One of our traditions is that whenever Michigan scores, people get lifted up a number of times equal to the number of Michigan points on the board. This girl was dressed as a banana, thus, we called her "Banana Girl".

Okay, let's see if anyone else has the same reaction to this sky as I did. Think TV theme song...

(see below for the answer)

The final score. Yet another Michigan-ND blowout.

answer to the above question: "The Simpsons"

More Penn State Photos

2007-09-26T11:04:00.001-07:00

Here are some photos from the Penn State game last week.

We call these games "Maize Out" games because everyone is supposed to wear Maize. This is a photo of part of the student section. It doesn't quite capture the feeling of being there, though. Believe it or not, this game was not nearly as crowded as the one against Notre Dame.

Here are the teams entering the stadium.

John brought his friend Jiten to his first football game ever. I'll be going to Jiten's wedding in October (as well as to another one of John's friend's weddings in Green Bay, Wisconsin).

John and me, wearing maize. :-)

There were over 111,000 people here that day. Once again, the most people anywhere in the U.S. watching a football game that day.

This was the band after-game show. We walked over there to meet Hilary, Mike, and Hilary's parents.

Chicken man! (see post below)

From left to right: Mike, Hilary, me, and John, after dinner at Grizzly Peak. When we arrived at the restaurant, we were told that it would be an 1.5-2 hour wait, but the bar was first-come, first-serve. We decided to wait for something to open up at the bar. Luckily, as we were standing there, a guy came out and told us that his friend was just paying and that we could go in and take his table. It was awesome! We tried to pass on the favor as we left, but there was no one waiting at that point.

Penn State Chicken

2007-09-26T09:16:00.000-07:00

As you may or may not know, depending on how much you follow college football, Michigan beat Penn State this weekend, 14-9. It was a great game, very close and suspenseful, but our boys pulled it out (thank goodness!). On our way from the game to dinner, we stopped at John's house to get the car. As we walked down his street, we passed the unsavory warehouse that Mom will know, and just at the corner of it, hiding behind the wall, was a man in a chicken suit! He was putting on the gloves and the head was laying on the ground, but his body was in the suit. We laughed and had no idea what was going on, it was such a strange sight. Then it all became clear as we saw a giant chicken walking down the street to the laughter of the neighbors. It must have been a bet (given that his girlfriend was wearing Penn State colors)! Here is a video:

P.S. Hilary, Mike, and Hilary's parents came to visit, so you can hear their voices and see Mike at one point.