:Nintendo Widow

I saw this and thought it was time for some good old-fashioned blog-filler. Here goes:

Sarah’s 2007

1. What did you do in 2007 that you’d never done before?

Choose a job for the experience, not the money.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I quit making new year’s resolutions years ago.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

No.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
My granddaddy died in February.

5. What countries did you visit?

Canada, China, and South Korea

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007?

More confidence, and more money.

7. What dates from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

10/18 - The day I gave a speech in front of 300 of my peers.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Being proud of myself and not constantly worrying about what others thought.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Being a less-than-stellar employee because I didn’t like my job.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
No

11. What was the best thing you bought?

I think it’s the best thing I didn’t buy. I learned to resist my strongest urges.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Mom, for continuing to try new things - like a musical vacation this month!

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Certain role-models in the business community

14. Where did most of your money go?

shoes and fancy cheese and wine

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Going home to Texas in September

16. What song will always remind you of 2007?

“Lucky Lucky” by Vandebilt

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
 a) happier or sadder? 
b) thinner or fatter? 
c) richer or poorer?

Happier, same weight, richer

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Partied

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Beat myself up

20. How did you spend Christmas?

Traveling all over Texas visiting family

21. Did you fall in love in 2007?

I stayed in love.

22. What was your favorite TV program?

Heroes

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

I dislike a certain flakey person but no hate

24. What was the best book you read?

Speed Tribes

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?

None - same old favorites

26. What did you want and get?

More wonderfully warm and caring friends

27. What did you want and not get?

Nothing. I was very very fortunate.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?

I didn’t watch very many movies. I absolutely loved “Brick.”

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

Danny and I did dinner and a movie. The night before, I partied with my best friends. I turned 30!

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

If I had asked for help when I needed it. Being tough does not pay off.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007?

80’s

32. What kept you sane?

Danny and the cats

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

David Anders

34. What political issue stirred you the most?

The way my friends planned their careers and lives around getting an H1-B visa.

35. Who did you miss?

My mom. I don’t get to see her enough.

36. Who was the best new person you met?

Lauren

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007.

Be yourself. Seriously, your friends will still love you when you’re at your wits end.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
“I’m so lucky lucky.” - Vandebilt

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I am now gainfully employed. I will start my full-time consulting career in July of this year. I accepted the job in late December and I’m so glad to have it taken care of. Now I’m staying busy with my new part-time job: TAing a marketing strategy course for executive MBAs. It is very interesting but it is a lot of work. Despite the late nights and occasional early mornings, it is completely worth it. I get free tuition, a stipend, and I get to learn about marketing strategy.

My other classes this quarter are Problems in Capital Management (Finance), Brand Strategy (Marketing) and Ethics. I’m very excited about all of them although Finance will be my most challenging. I know nothing about finance but I need to get some financial knowledge out of my MBA. I really enjoy finance but I certainly do not have a knack for it.

In other news, Danny and I went back to Texas for Christmas, saw our families, enjoyed the beautiful weather, and ate lots of Tex-Mex and BBQ. Our visit was very busy so I was glad to come home and recover for a few days before classes began on 1/7.

One more confession: I’m addicted to facebook. I don’t know how often I’ll update this blog since facebook let’s me do more. Of course, this blog is only limited by my own creativity and the desire to learn how to upload videos of kittens from cuteoverload.com. Yeah, you heard me. Kitten videos = awesomeness.

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I’ve been offline for a few reasons.

1. I’m lazy and I forget to post updates.
2. I’ve been an interviewing machine.
3. I’ve been enjoying myself IMMENSELY.

Last night, I got together with ten of my classmates from Korea for a Korean bbq dinner. We spent three hours eating, talking and drinking. Afterwards, a dozen of us went out for karaoke. I had a ridiculous amount of fun; so much fun it should be sinful. I think we need to make this a mandatory quarterly event.

I do have a bit of stuff to do but I find myself reassuring 1st year students everyday. I tell them that it will get better, they will pass, and things next year are much more relaxed. Today, I even got a hug for my reassuring words. If only I’d known (and believed) these things last year, I would have been a much much happier MBA.

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It’s 7am and I’m chatting with my global project team. As part of my Managing Across Cultures class, I have to complete a project with students from three other countries. I’m chatting with a student originally from Brazil who is studying in Finland, a student from Hong Kong in Hong Kong, and an east Canadian student in California. We have to create a PowerPoint presentation by the end of next week and present it to each of our classes.

Despite what I had originally thought, the language barrier is not the biggest challenge. Instead, it’s the time difference. We cannot communicate over email alone. Instead, we must use live chat to agree on our plan before moving forward. Despite having three time zones to deal with, our team is much more flexible than other teams. I got lucky that one other teammate is in my time zone. Otherwise, we’d be juggling four time zones!

The project is interesting. However I wish our deadlines were pushed back by two weeks. I have a full-day interview on Friday and then I’m offline for my Women in Business retreat this weekend. I have Monday off, but I’ll be up early again to chat with my team that morning. Still, it’s easier to chat in my pajamas than catch the early bus to school for a conventional meeting.

I’m home sick today so I’ll be working from home. I have two phone meetings this afternoon. I’m missing one class but my classmate Yoshi has my back. I would normally never miss school, but I think my professor would rather have me stay at home than infect the rest of my classmates with my sore throat. Plus, I want to feel better before my big weekend! Sigh. The timing of this illness sucks.

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Over the last three weeks, I’ve been busy organizing MBA club events, interviewing for post-grad jobs, taking midterms, and volunteering. Although this sounds like a lot, I’m much less stressed than I was this time last year.

To start off, my 30th birthday two weeks ago was really fun. We had a TG the night before and I got to enjoy the last remaining hours of my 20s with many good friends. On Saturday night, Danny and I opted for a dinner and a movie. We saw Michael Clayton, ate at ZTejas (one of my favorite Texas-style restaurants) and just chilled.

Regarding school, my scholarship speech on the 18th went well. I was completely exhausted by the end of the day because I had the speech, a project interview, a job interview, a club happy hour and a mentor reception. After that day, I was ready to never put on my suit again! The interview was a bust but I wasn’t too upset. I was surprised that I was asked to interview in the first place. The interviewers were nice, but it almost seemed like they were qualifying leads rather than interviewing actual candidates. I might interview for a different job at the same company, but that interview was just….strange.

After that day, things have gradually picked up in intensity. My part-time research project is coming to a close. I’ve had two more interviews and I have two more 2nd round interviews scheduled for next week. I completed a midterm last Tuesday, let two club lunchtime events, and then rushed off to volunteer at this year’s annual sushi and sake festival. The festival was very fun, I got to meet lots of local business leaders and I got to fill my belly with wonderful sushi for free! How can a starving student turn that down?

This week will be hectic but I’m not too stressed. It will end with the annual MBA Women in Business club fall retreat. WiB rents a gorgeous cabin on Puget Sound for two days. We relax, drink, eat, go shopping, eat some more and basically just relax in a beautiful setting. I’ve been looking forward to it for six months. Also, by then my interviews and research project will be over. I’ll just need to relax and enjoy the company of my fellow female classmates.

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Today I attended the naming ceremony for the Michael G. Foster School of Business. This name will be on my diploma when I graduate in June.

Right now I’m in the library with some very wet feet and a cup of hot tea. It is raining so hard today. It rains almost everyday but it’s usually not this bad. Maybe we’re in line to beat our rainiest month ever (November 06).

The last few weeks have been fun and busy. I drove a van full of people to Woodinville on 10/6 for the annual wine tasting tour. I didn’t get to taste any wine but that’s okay. I was still recovering from the MBA party the night before. It was fun but I was so glad to get home that night and just relax.

Last weekend Danny and I went to Beaverton to hang out with friends. Although there isn’t a ton to do in Beaverton we were fine. It’s a very nice place and we usually end up just hanging out at our friends’ place. I got a lot of work done and still had time to watch Blades of Glory.kk

Tomorrow is going to be tough but very cool. I’m the MBA speaker at this year’s annual scholarship breakfast. I love public speaking but I’ve never spoken in front of 400 people before. At least I’m somewhat prepared. I’m very honored that they asked me to do it. After the speech, I’m heading to Amazon where I’m interviewing one of my classmate’s friends for a research project. Then, I have a 45 minute job interview on campus, a meeting with my career counselor, class from 3:30-5:30, a BizComm club welcome happy hour and then a business school mentor reception on campus. The next morning I’m driving to Bellevue at 6:15 to take notes for a monthly executive round table discussion.

Then I turn 30! Whoohoo!

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Life, is that you? It’s been so long since we’ve seen one another that I almost forgot what you looked like.

Direct Marketing is over and, even though it totally kicked my butt at times, it was worth it. I loved the class and I recommend it to everyone. The teacher is tough and sometimes the assignments were ridiculously complicated but I learned so so much.

Now that DM is over I can focus on my two other electives and my part-time research project. My classes are going well so far and I’ve been busy finishing up MBA club stuff.

The next few weekends should be fun: wine tasting in Woodinville this weekend, trip to Portland the next, and then tailgating at the husky game for my big three oh.

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Unlike most schools, our fall quarter lasts from late September to mid-December. This means that most people got a break after Labor Day. Even though I don’t officially start my quarter until Wednesday, I’m already playing catch-up in terms of school work (early, condensed direct marketing class), regular work (short-term paid research project) and club stuff (Women in Business and BizComm). Therefore, I spent five hours this afternoon at a local coffee shop hammering away at a PowerPoint presentation, sending and responding to emails regarding the research project, and making sure that I’ve covered all of the bases for the four club events I’ve helped plan between now and December. It’s all coming together but I really needed that 5 hour time to just focus and knock some stuff out. I’m still helping with new MBA orientation on Monday and Tuesday. This shouldn’t be too hard. The toughest part is remembering where I have to be and what time to be there.

Tomorrow I’m meeting with my Direct Marketing team. We have a presentation due on Monday and another short one due on Friday. It’s going to be a wild week but most of it should be interesting….and I mean interesting in a good way.

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After not hearing anything for a year, I got an email from my old GMAT study buddy Tony. Tony is completing his second year at Wharton after working for Goldman Sachs in Tokyo all summer. I’m so excited to hear from him! It doesn’t seem like it’s been that long since we were taking timed GMAT quizzes in the summer of 2005. I’m so glad I never have to go through that again. We still have a lot to do between now and graduation, but I feel like the fun has just started. Fun, as in, no more core classes! My current classes are tough, but at least I can choose whether or not I want to take them. The only required class remaining is ethics.

Now onto that “easy” job search and I’ll be done!

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It has been a hectic week. Here’s the breakdown.

- Attended 22.5 hours of Direct Marketing class last week.
- Spent Saturday night and all day Sunday working on team presentation for Direct Marketing.
- Gave a ten minute presentation to 115 incoming first year students.
- Spent 45 minutes presenting case on Monday night. Survived.
- Slept for 10 hours last night. Delicious.
- Talked up my team’s Korea/Japan study tour at the certificate fair during lunch today.
- Took ten first-years to the Queen Anne neighborhood as part of the Challenge for Charity auction item procurement quest thingie.
- Came home, ate Mexican food, and am now getting back to Direct Marketing case analysis.

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