:Nintendo Widow

The interpretive dance of the unholy trinity was a huge success. We turned it into a skit with props and a soundtrack. We were completely silly and had a great time. I either totally scared my classmates or thoroughly entertained them with my goofiness. We ended up having three “actors” and a narrator. Let’s just say that I wore a tiara and did a kind of weird square dance with my on-stage love.

And that’s all I’m going to say. I think it was recorded so the video will haunt me for years to come.

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Although the headline sounds bad, its actually good. It snowed on me tonight on my way home from my teammate’s house. It has stopped and it doesn’t appear to be accumulating on the ground.

Now I’m sitting by my fireplace sans cats. I got Danny a new remote-controlled Mario cart toy at Nintendo today and he’s been taunting the cats with it. I think the car noises scare them more than the movement.

My trip to Nintendo was fantastic. I had to sign an agreement that I wouldn’t take any pictures or wander around on my own. After that, I met my host and we had an extended chat about international business, Japan, living in Japan, and following up on long and short-term career and lifetime goals. I also got to see the Nintendo “museum” with the dates and descriptions of each game and game system Nintendo has sold since it began in the late 1800s.

One of the highlights was my trip to the Nintendo store. I had to have my host sign me in before I could purchase anything. I knew I wanted to get some stuff for Danny since he is always on a quest for new Nintendo paraphernalia. I finally decided on two Super Mario Cart remote-controlled cars and a coffee mug.

I know it sounds silly that I was agonizing over whether or not to get a coffee mug or a stuffed Mario doll but Danny is a HUGE Nintendo fan. He could have easily spent 300.00 or more in there. The pressure was on.

In other unrelated news, I have two second-round interviews tomorrow and Friday. I think I will be fine even though I’m a little nervous. Having a 30 minute interview at the on-campus career center is more laid back than a 6 hour “meet the firm” onsite interview. I won’t be interviewed for six hours straight, but I will be on-site for that long. Even though its stressful, it is still pretty exciting.

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Despite the fact that I got a whole nine hours of sleep last night, I looked pretty worn out today at least according to my classmates.

This quarter has progressed at a breakneck pace and I think it’s approaching light speed as we get closer to finals. Here are a few new developments listed in no particular order.

I was elected president of BizComm today.
I was elected co-VP of speaking events for Women in Business.
I have two second-round internship interviews next week.
I have only one small step left before filing my taxes.
I have an informational interview at Nintendo of America next week.
I discovered that Washington liquor stores are now stocking my favorite brand of vodka (Tito’s Handmade Vodka). I bought two large bottles.
I have two weeks left before I take my finals.

Now, I’m finishing the first draft of my team’s final marketing assignment. After that, I’m going to think about additional flourishes to add to my group interpretive dance of the impossible (or unholy) trinity to be performed tomorrow night at the MBA Talent Show TG party. I’m SO not kidding.

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On Friday, our strategy professor grilled us on our midterm papers. As a team, we had to come up with a comprehensive turnaround strategy for a failing company and include the financial data to support it. Since this is our first strategy class, many of us were stymied by this assignment. Our professor cold-called us and grilled us on our assumptions. We’ve come to expect this teaching style, but for me it can be quite intimidating. In fact, it’s pretty stressful.

After the first hour of class, he relaxed a little. He explained to us that he is being tough on us for a good reason. When we’re in a boardroom defending ourselves, we need to be prepared for anything. Although this is a tough lesson to learn, it is absolutely necessary and, as our professor said, those board members won’t be as easy on us as he is.

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Heh, at first I wrote “busty but better.” We’ll save that post for later.

This week: One internship interview tomorrow morning. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. This is just first round so I probably won’t find out anything soon.

I survived last week and got some of my tests back. I did about as well as I thought. I survived Finance but I need to practice doing the problems faster. I would have made a better grade if I hadn’t run out of time.

I didn’t make a great grade on my macroeconomics midterm but I did much better than I did in micro. GOD that class sucked. I’m glad to move on to easy stuff like Finance. haha

I turned in my marketing midterm on Saturday night. It was a take-home exam and we had until Sunday night to finish it. I think it went alright. I guess it just depends on what the prof is looking for.

To officially end the month of hell, Danny and I went on a DATE on Saturday. I know, it’s shocking! We saw Smoking Aces (meh) and then hit Wendy’s for some late-night food. On Sunday, I caught up on some studying and did laundry. It was the best weekend I’ve had in a long long time.

In other news, I was elected VP of Program Development. Now I guess I get to make blogging official. We haven’t had time to do anything about it but I’ll start recruiting compatriots early next quarter.

Next week is going to be rough, but we have a three-day weekend to help us through. This quarter is quickly drawing to a close. I’ll be in China this time next month.

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The other day, some poor soul had to lift and carry my backpack. I watched her face contort into a pained cringe and I knew then that I had given her a cruel, cruel task.

“What do you have in here?” she asked. “Oh, books and my laptop” I replied. It didn’t sound like that much, but my backpack is pretty darn heavy.

Here’s what’s in my backpack today.

- laptop (IBM Thinkpad) 4.8 lbs
- Macro book (about 2 lbs)
- pencil bag (pens, white-board markers, HP 10BII calculator) 1 lb
- Strategy coursepack (about 2 lbs)
- umbrella .5 lbs
- gym clothes in a snazzy QFC bag (1 lb)
- water bottle (1.5 lbs)
- binder 4 lbs
- phone .75 lbs (it’s big)
- laptop case 1 lbs
- laptop cable 1 lb
- padlock .5 lbs
- other random crap .5 lbs

Total 20.5 lbs

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I fell asleep at school today. I was working on a team strategy paper in the MBA lounge this afternoon and I just needed a nap. My teammates were working on a question and I needed their answers before I could add my part. I was sitting in the back of the cube with my head resting in the corner. I thought “Wow, I could just go to sleep here and it wouldn’t be a big deal. My teammates are right here. They can just wake me up when they need me.” It made perfect sense.
I told them that I would be “resting my eyes” for a few minutes. I hope they weren’t too disgusted. I think they were more amused when I tried to groggily answer a question from a team in the neighboring cube. At least the carpet marks on my face weren’t too noticeable.

This week has been it. We are at the end of our ropes. We smile and just pray that we’ll get to sleep for more than 4 hours a night. I’m exhausted, but I’m not half as tired as my classmates who have additional electives and competitions this quarter. I have an additional two-hour class for my study tour, but that only meets twice a month.

In other news, Danny and I hit the liquor store on the way home from dinner and I got a fresh bottle of vodka to celebrate the end of hell week, or at least when I turn in my take-home marketing midterm this weekend.

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I had my Finance midterm this morning. It was tough but not as toenail-rippingly painful as I had imagined. Like Jonathan, I like Finance but I think it’s having second thoughts about the relationship. Until then, I can treat it sweetly and give it extra attention until it comes around and we make beautiful mathmatical music together.

Tomorrow afternoon I have my macroeconomics midterm followed by a late night of strategy project cramming. I will be able to breathe a deep sigh of relief on Thursday night. I still have a take home marketing midterm for the weekend, but I’m not terrified by that. I probably should be a bit more wary but I’m not. I haven’t the energy for worrying about what might go wrong.

In other semi-related news, I’m running for one of the MBA student government VP positions. The program development VP is a fairly new position and I’m going to use it to try to get the MBA blogging thing up and running. We have a lot of interest in the blogging initiative, just not the time to do anything about it. Maybe by the end of spring we’ll have something working. I’m always optimistic.

Despite the pile of work, I do see a light at the end of the tunnel and, as a result, I’m in a much better mood than expected. I hope it lasts through tomorrow night when I’ll be slogging away at strategy.

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The number of group projects required of us this quarter is bordering on ridiculous.

This post from Isaac cracked me up.

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I am not good at writing cover letters. I’m a writer for crying out loud but I don’t know how to market myself. I’m not overly modest, but I have a hard time saying that I can positively contribute to XYZ company with my limited knowledge and experience. Since I’m a career changer, I have the most to gain from the experience. I need to get better at spinning it so that it sounds like I’m “doing them a favor” by offering them my expertise.

I know that companies offer internships so that people like me CAN get experience, but it’s just a weird situation for me. I’ve never had to market myself. Usually I got recruited for a job because some of my skills showed up in a resume text search.

As for marketing myself in-person, I’m pretty good at that. I like talking to people. I like finding out what they do, what they like about their job and ultimately what they’re looking for in an employee. It isn’t always that simple, but I can smile and get across who I am in person or even over the phone better than I can on paper.

I’m not stressing about this too much. I have an appointment tomorrow with someone at our career center to look over my cover letter and give me tips on how to market myself. I am applying for a really cool internship and I want everything to be as perfect as possible. I’m not worried about it, but getting another pair of eyes to look over my work will put my mind at ease.

In other news, I’ve been busy. One of my classmates put it nicely: the level of work isn’t harder, but the level of team projects has skyrocketed. It’s true. I’ve had team meetings every day this week except for Wed and that’s because we didn’t have class on Wednesday. I had OTHER meetings, but no sanctioned, official team meetings.

Midterms start on Monday and I’ll be spending all weekend doing finance practice problems and reviewing the IS-LM model for macroeconomics. A long weekend of studying is fine. The kicker is the Strategy paper my team has to turn in in a week. I’m not even going to think about it right now.

In other other news, I’ve been talking to fellow classmates about starting a student-led MBA blogging initiative. Apparently, something is in the works already but I want to add my thoughts as well. I think it is a great idea and would really help get the word out about the program. Visiting a school and talking to the administration is one thing. Reading what the students are actually doing is extremely helpful in terms of choosing a program. I hope this initiative gets up and running before the end of the year. Nerdy MBA bloggers unite!

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