So...I'm a little frustrated with life right now

If you couldn't tell from one of my recent blog posts, I'm kinda annoyed with my lack of fall break. This annoyance is manifesting itself in several different ways:

• I no longer understand the importance of my alarm...and tend to turn it off in my half-asleep state
• I lose track of what day it is (which, when coupled with the above means that my normal punctual self is occasionally late for class...which REALLY upsets me)
• I have minimal patience for inefficiency
• I become highly apathetic (as it pertains to things that actually matter...little things, however, continue to bug me at the same level)
• My emotions have kinda gone haywire (I'm pretty sure I almost cried during a 30 Rock episode...who does that?)

Anyway, this annoyance/"need for a mental break/neverending to-do list"/"avoidance of said neverending to-do list"/"sense of impending doom due to the fact that time continues to pass despite my denial" has not produced the happiest week of my life.

In fact, I'm quite easily annoyed as of late...here's my current list of Most-Annoying-Things-Ever (it changes regularly and is in no particular order):

1. People who correct me...especially when I know MORE about the subject than they do...
2. Habitual tardiness...once I can understand...every day? Really? Try harder
3. Talking just to hear your own voice...it's not pretty. Unless you have a valid point, shut up
4. Excessive, selfish interviewing. You KNOW you aren't going to take that job, DON'T interview! It's mean.
5. Cynicism
6. Elitism
7. Ole Miss & Houston Nutt
8. Paid parking on Dickson Street
9. People who don't do their homework...but expect the rest of the class to do it so they don't have to answer
10. Our neighbors...they're really loud and seem to have no idea that most people like to SLEEP at 3am, not rev engines and have cackling contests

I guess it's fair to say that the "I love being back in school" honeymoon phase is over. It's not unexpected, though - this happens every year at the end of October when I realize I still have a whole month before I get a break of any sort. And I usually try to be happy on my blog ('cause I'm generally a fairly happy person), but today you get the annoyed me.

Wanna know what it's like to get an MBA?
Sometimes it's frustrating.
Sometimes you get overwhelmed.
Sometimes your classmates drive you insane.
Sometimes your neighbors keep you from a good night's sleep three nights in a row.

But most of the time it's actually pretty great. Most of the time I like my classmates...and my loud neighbors... Life is just frustrating right now. This will pass, it always does. But I won't hide it. If you came here looking for info on what life as an MBA student is really like, you should get the whole picture, not just the fun parts. After all, it's all part of the experience, right? We learn from everything...or at least we try.

MBA Campus Visit Day - Come Hang Out!

Hello friends! So, you know how you've all been faithfully reading my blog and thinking "Gee, I wish I could go check out Walton. It sounds like such an neat place,"...well, guess what? Now you can!

We are hosting an MBA Campus Visit Day on Monday (November 1). It starts at 8:30 and there is a presentation, a tour, lunch, and a chance to meet with current students and alumni. The lunch I mentioned will be a "lunch and learn" opportunity with one of my favorite professors, Jeff Murray (the one teaching my favorite class this semester - consumer behavior). He's awesome - it'll be really fun.

A bunch of us will be at lunch, too ('cause, well, Dr. Murray is speaking and have I mentioned he's awesome?), so it'll be a great time to pick our brains about the application process, our daily schedules, challenges, etc.

We'd love to have you. I'm attaching the evite below (it has more info and RSVP information). Of course, if you have questions, don't hesitate to ask (via email or a comment below). Hope to see y'all there!

Burn Out

Dear U of A,

For years now we have begged you to give us a Fall Break. You continue to insist that we get one. Just FYI, the day before Thanksgiving isn’t “fall break,” it’s “Thanksgiving break.” We’re dead by then. Do you realize what you’re doing to us? I mean really. It’s ridiculous.

Your reasons in the past have been that the workload is heaviest towards Thanksgiving as we’re preparing for finals. Another FYI, it isn’t the workload we need a break from. We need a mental break, not an academic one. A chance to step away from the daily routine and enjoy time away from campus, away from people, away from responsibility.

We’re one of the only schools around that doesn’t get a break. All of those other schools have realized the problem, why are you so slow on the uptake? We even did all the work for you! We wrote up legislation and recommendations. We got student body approval. We suggested dates and procedures and policies. All you had to do was say okay. Is that really so hard? Come ON, U of A. What’s your problem?

We all get to this point in the semester where the days start blending together. We have trouble remembering which class to go to (because we aren’t sure if it’s Monday or Tuesday), we run out of clean clothes, we turn our alarms off in our sleep. Our brains essentially take a fall break whether WE get to our not. It’s not fair to run us into the ground like this.

You want a prestigious university with top ranked students, right? Here’s a hint: Don’t burn us all out before we get to finals. Listen to the people you claim to care so much about and give us a damn fall break.

Sincerely,

Everyone

Happy Birth(week) Heather!

So, my roommate's birthday was last Tuesday. I understand that not everyone embraces the awesomeness that are birthdays, but I like them...a lot. So, we kinda spent a whole week celebrating Heather's birthday.

On Tuesday, her actual birthday, we had lunch at Rick's (naturally), then spent some time wandering Borders. Kinda laid-back (but that was mostly 'cause we had real plans for Thursday....and, she didn't know, but there were surprise plans for Wednesday, too).

Wednesday: we surprised Heather with cake, frozen yogurt (at 3 Spoons, a new place on campus) and presents after our RUF large group meeting.

Then, on Thursday we had dinner at Kobe. Did the whole Hibachi thing AND got free dessert. It was pretty awesome.

Yay birthdays - and roommates. Happy Birthweek, Heather!

The phrase "War Eagle" and I have a love-hate relationship

Every year, on the third weekend of October, northwest Arkansas is flooded with scads of crafters. There are (at least) three HUGE craft fairs that happen – with War Eagle being the original (and best, in my opinion). My “Tutu” lives up in Rogers, just a little ways from War Eagle Mill, so we almost always go together. The setting is just beautiful. This is the mill:

See all the people on the bridge? It gets crazy. Oh, while we're at it, how bout a view from the bridge?

The fairs start on Wednesday or Thursday, but I normally drive up to Rogers on Friday evening and Tutu and I make the rounds on Saturday morning. We get up super early (like 6 or 7), drive out to the farm and have breakfast at the mill. Now, there is a strategy to this early start. If you don’t get out to the farm before 9am, you have to sit in traffic for about two hours just to park. Then you have to wade through the thousands (yes, thousands) of people who got there before you in order to see anything. If, however, you are War Eagle experts like me and Tutu, you: get there early, park relatively close, have a freshly made, whole-wheat buttermilk biscuit with sausage, then wander the tents without having to move like you’re on a Tokyo subway car.

Now, you may be thinking “Why are there that many people at a craft fair?” This is a legitimate question if you are imagining the fair as a little area of a few tents with people peddling things like marshmallow guns and homemade candles. If that’s the case, you’re half correct…in that way that there are a few vendors with homemade candles. Otherwise, you’re way off. These fairs are gigantic and the vendors come in from all over selling everything from, yes, marshmallow guns to handmade wooden benches and gorgeous artwork.  

With War Eagle in particular, the fair is divided into “hobby” crafts and “professional” crafts. The professional section is grouped together on one side of the river and is judged. The hobby section is on the other side (and is a bit less organized). We normally start with the judged tents (there are 4 tents and a barn, each with four rows of about 15 booths). This year one of my roommate’s friends was in the judged tents. Her name is Autumn and her stuff is really cute…see? After a couple of hours, we head back across the river to briefly peruse the hobby tents. I have one tent that I visit every year, Vega Pottery. I buy one piece each time and I’ve built up quite a collection (Tutu got me started, my first few pieces were graduation presents). This year I also got Gigi some biscuits (with flavors like Blueberry and Steak and Mashed Paw-tater…she could care less what they’re called).

After the fair, Tutu and I normally have lunch. We opted out of fair food this year (everything from funnel cakes to Indian tacos to strawberry crepes) in favor of a tea room down on the Rogers square.

I then collected Gigi and we headed back to Fayetteville to meet up with some friends for the football game (we played Auburn) and Dickson St. Oktoberfest. This is only the second year they’ve done Oktoberfest, so it’s not very big yet, but there was a semi-entertaining brat eating contest (semi-entertaining…semi-really gross).

We went to Hog Haus to watch the massacre that was the football game (Auburn isn't THAT awesome...the dumb SEC refs just made it look that way...besides, they're schizophrenic, what does "War Eagle" have to do with Tigers anyway?), then spent the rest of the evening listening to an 80’s cover band at Jose’s. 

Long day, but good times with some of my favorite people. I should probably do homework now…*sigh* 

Midterms? Psh. No big deal. (Oh, and Lauren & I rock at shuffleboard)

The level of calm that surrounded this semesters midterms (for me, at least) was a little unnerving. I’ve always been one to kinda panic about tests (the Type A overachiever in me freaks out), but not this time. Like I said before, they didn’t sneak up on me – I felt prepared. And so, I didn’t do a whole lot of additional studying…it felt kinda surreal.

We started out with our Leadership exam on Monday. I studied an average amount – I went through and made my “review pages” like I always do, flipped through the book skimming over passages I’d marked and making sure I hadn’t missed anything on my sheets, but that was about it. It went well – I ended up with a 98% (aside: it should have been a 100, the ONE question I missed was rigged…the rest of the class agrees).

The exam I was most worried about was on Tuesday – Marketing Research. I think I was worried simply because there was no “best” way to study…and that just made me nervous. I filled out the study guide then went over it pretty thoroughly with a friend. We discussed the more “vague” areas and looked over the analysis problems we’d done. That was about all we could do, but I didn’t feel super prepared still. I went home and skimmed through several of the chapters and went over the study guide one more time before I felt comfortable enough to sleep. I did alright on that one, too, another 98% (don’t scoff, that’s a 98% with a 12 pt. curve…so yes, it’s “alright” not “good”).

Wednesday was our Ethics FINAL. It’s an 8-week class, so instead of a midterm, we just had a final. I probably studied the least for this one – mostly under the mindset of: it’s ethics…shouldn’t I be able to figure out the answers…? Well…yes and no. The class covered a lot of theory, so I made sure I went over those several times. I made review pages and flipped through the slides (and skimmed through the book that was never officially assigned to the class but that I have thanks to a classmate who’s taken the class before). I ended up with a 92%...for how I studied, I’ll take it.

So, midterms are over now! Yay! We’re halfway through. Does this semester seem to being going by really fast to anyone else?

In other fun news, we had our Fall Social last night. We all met up at Powerhouse and mingled with the part-time (MMBA) class as well as a few prospective students who'd come to hear more about the program. Afterwards, several of us went over to Sideways for a game of shuffleboard. The boys made the mistake of letting us play Guys v. Girls. Lauren and I beat them 23-9. Yeah, we're awesome like that - not competitive at all :) 

War Eagle Arts & Crafts Festival is this weekend. Check back for updates on that. 'Til then.

This is sort of an update

Schedule for the week?

Monday - Midterm, Class, Study, Work, Dinner, Study
Tuesday - Class, Midterm, Work, Study, Dinner, Meeting, Homework
Wednesday - Class, Final (yes, final), Meeting - then? - FREE TIME!

Hopefully I can give a full update on Wednesday. That's about as much as I can handle right now (I'm typing this during my break tonight...during which I'm watching Castle and NOT feeling guilty about it...well, not totally).

More later - 'til then.

Adventures in Puppy-Sitting

My friend Holly has a sweet little Cavalier-Poodle mix named Bella. Precious, right?

She’s a few months younger than Gigi, but they’re about they same size, so they play well together. Holly and her husband went to Dallas this weekend for the Arkansas-A&M game, so Bella and Gigi had a sleepover.

It was funny to watch them play. Gigi was SUPER excited at first and Bella was pretty upset that Will had left her in a new house with a crazy ball of white fluff, but she eventually came around. Gigi quickly changed her “OMG let’s play” attitude, though, once she realized that playing involved sharing her toys. She is not accustomed to sharing ANYTHING – toys, beds, couches, me…so she once the excitement of having a friend over wore off, she no longer wanted to play. As a matter of fact, every time Bella would pick up a toy, Gigi would run to me and poke me like, “Mom! She’s got my rope! Look! Don’t you see this is a problem?! Why aren’t you helping?” Then she’d go take the rope from Bella, bring it to me, put it in my lap, and sit on it. 

Eventually they learned to share and the rest of the weekend was full of epic tug-o-war matches (with Bella generally winning a) cause she’s bigger and b) cause Gigi would get annoyed and come tattle to me – forfeiting her shot at winning). This was one of our better moments:

We went to the farmer’s market on Saturday morning and they had a BLAST. They got cooed over and loved on and got to play with kiddos. 

They’re a sweet little duo. Today we went and hung out on Old Main lawn. The leaves are starting to change and it’s just beautiful. It was a great weekend.

Sidenote: the football game went well. We won, and in the end, that’s what matters, but I’m glad we weren’t playing an SEC team. We’d’ve gotten stomped. We HAVE to play better next week. Oh, and Bama lost…I can’t decide if this is good or bad.

I have midterms tomorrow, Tuesday, and Wednesday…blerg. I’ll let you know how they go. ‘Til then…

Week 'o Networking

We started out this week with our first midterm – accounting. Surprisingly, I was not all that worried about the exam. Just as surprising, midterms didn’t sneak up on me this year like they always do. I wasn’t at all caught off guard, which may have attributed to how easy it was to prepare. I think I did really well, so yay! (UPDATE: I made a 99%!)

After the exam, the rest of the week was, in a word, fun. I had an “interview” on Tuesday, that I think went very well (fingers crossed!), and on Wednesday, we spent the entire day at the Center for Retailing Excellence Annual Conference. Before I continue, I should warn you, I’m a bit of a geek…okay, that’s out of the way. Now, you know how some people get excited about going to a concert or seeing their favorite sports team play? Well, I was that excited about this conference. Why? Well, Kevin Roberts was one of the speakers!

Are you staring at the screen thinking “who on earth is Kevin Roberts?” Yeah, not surprised (if, however, you do know who he is, we should be friends). For the rest of you, Kevin Roberts is the CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi and the author of Lovemarks – the book that made me fall in love with this crazy business we call marketing. If you haven’t read it, you should. It’s brilliant. As is he. Click the link on his name for more info.    

Needless to say, I wasn’t disappointed by his presentation. It was hilarious and informative and interesting – I could be biased, but I was pretty impressed. He included some pretty funny videos, too (links below…but read the rest of the post first, please). The rest of the conference was good, too. Bill Simon & Bob McDonald spoke along with several others. Plus, there were a lot of “networking breaks” for us to meet some of the presenters (I got to shake Kevin Robert’s hand!...yes, I know I’m a geek…we already covered that, move on). I think we all really enjoyed the conference, and I’m glad we were able to go (especially for free since none of us could have afforded to attend without Walton’s help).

On Thursday, our week of networking continued with a visit to Saatchi & Saatchi X’s office here in Fayetteville. We met with several people (one from each of the divisions) and got a tour of the office. We got some useful information out of it as well as several business cards (which are always nice).

Today was fairly uneventful – I worked from home since my bosses are out of the country again. A friend is bringing her puppy over later to spend the weekend with us while she and her husband travel to Dallas for the game on Saturday. Gigi is pretty excited – she wiggles every time I say Bella’s name. A puppy sleepover should make this weekend fairly entertaining. I’m sure there will be pictures.

Oh, almost forgot, those links to the videos. Here you go. Enjoy!

Cadbury - Gorilla

Cadbury - Kiddos

Weekends? What are those?

Um, so this weekend was Bikes, Blues, and BBQ - I try to convince myself each year that it wasn't so bad last year and that I might even enjoy it this year. I'm always wrong.

It was also our second India class - more about that later.

In other news, the Hogs didn't play this weekend. Bama did. They won...again...but the way they played made me feel much better about last week.

Yeah, so, I have an accounting exam on Monday. And a paper due tomorrow. And a memo to write. And no clean clothes. Don't expect an update 'til at least Tuesday. Happy DayThatWasSupposedToBeAWeekendButWasn't.