The Life of Julie

2011: A Fond Farewell

2011-12-31T13:57:00.003-07:00

For as long as I've been blogging, I've written a New Year's/year-end post to sum up the year and look forward to the year ahead.

Travel: This year, I've hiked along the Great Wall of China, ridden Icelandic horses, driven through the Scottish highlands, visited friends in the UK, taken a "self-portrait" with the Penny Lane street sign in Liverpool, eaten soup dumplings in Shanghai, driven a snowmobile on a glacier in Iceland, earned a certificate for mastering the "perfect pour" at the Guinness factory in Dublin and watched musicals in London. Oh, I will certainly miss all of the long breaks that come with the student lifestyle! On the plus side, I have fairly ample vacation time at work and, oh yeah, an income.
Graduation: In May, I fulfilled a long-term goal of graduating with my MBA. I can't even begin to sum up how much the decision to move to Charlottesville and pursue this degree has changed my life. I now have friends across the globe, opportunities that just weren't there for me three years ago, and a job which I love and at which I am challenged.
Move to Boston: In the back of my mind, I dreamed of living in Boston ever since I visited on my MBA school tour over three years ago. I remember telling my sisters how excited I was about going to Boston Pops concerts if I ever did get to the city. While I was job searching, I wanted to be as flexible as possible, but really, really wanted to live in a "walkable" city. Since moving to Boston in August, I've felt incredibly blessed. I ditched my car less than a week into life here and have not regretted it even for an instant. I got a Zipcar membership, but have only used it once. Also, in December, I made it out to my first Boston Pops concert!
Physical Health: Not being one for New Year's Resolutions, I waited about three weeks into January to take my first visit to the North Grounds Gym. Not being one to do anything halfway, at that time I got back on the Weight Watchers train, started running and hired a personal trainer. Nearly a year later, I'm proud to report that I've dropped two to three sizes (depending on whether you go by numbers or letters) and can run a full 9.5 km (could probably do more, but I'm slowly building up my endurance).
Faith: If anything is really responsible for the joy I'm experiencing right now, it's renewed relationship with God. I've had my ups and downs in this area all throughout my life, but after struggling during my first year at Darden, I found an AMAZING small group at my church in Charlottesville, and they encouraged me tremendously. I've really been focusing on getting involved with a church here in Boston and making sure that I make time for my relationship with God... But most importantly, if I've learned anything in 2011, it's that ultimately there is nothing on this earth that really satisfies us. What matters most is that I'm falling in love with the God with whom I will spend eternity.

While 2011 certainly had it's fair share of challenges, heartbreaks and disappointments, the overwhelming theme of the year was hope, joy and adventure. And the best part is that it isn't joy from life events or external blessings, but a deep, abiding joy that comes from feeling like I finally have my priorities straight and am deepening my relationship with my amazing God.

Some things I am looking forward to in 2012:

Now that I'm in a stable routine for the foreseeable future (no more switching between work, school, internships), I'm planning on finally getting down to the goal weight I set nearly three years ago
Running a half marathon
Getting settled and established in my job - it's been a steep learning curve so far!
Getting to know new people here in Boston
Serving at my new church

Church Shopping

2011-11-21T20:10:00.003-07:00

There are all sorts of analogies which can be applied to the process of finding a new church congregation to be a part of when moving to a new city. Given my past experiences with moving to a new city, I wasn't expecting the process to be so laborious that it would need an analogy, but alas, the Boston church hunt was not as easy as the Charlottesville church hunt (first one I went to was amazing AND I found the best small group ever) or the Edmonton church hunt (some 20 years ago... again, the first church our family went to was having a picnic and that was enough to garner our loyalty...).

Anyway, the most fitting analogy that I can find regarding finding a church is one on dating. As with dating, the first thing you do is find some sort of superficial characteristic by which you can judge whether a church is worth a visit. In my case, a whole variety of characteristics appealed: young adults group, church plant by my favourite pastor Tim Keller, recommendation from a friend, good music. Some churches lost my interest after a first visit (we didn't make it past the first date). Others I tried out small groups or attended multiple Sundays. After a few weeks, not feeling particularly well on a Sunday morning, I got frustrated and simply gave up altogether. I won't say that I attended "Pillow Pentecostal" or "Bedside Baptist" because I think that's a cop out, but I also didn't drag myself across town to find a church.

With some churches, it wasn't that there was anything wrong with them, it was just that they didn't quite fit right. I didn't see the connection, and while I didn't see it at the time, it was because God was directing me to the place I have ended up.

Anyway, I came across Mosaic in a completely unsuspecting way. There was a T ad that caught my eye every morning. I didn't think anything of it until I was doing a search on Google for something completely unrelated to church, and an ad popped up there. Following the ad brought me to the webpage, at which point I discovered that two of my favourite superficial church characteristics were met: it was a ten-minute walk away and the services were at 10:45 a.m. (A Goldilocks time: not too early, not too late)

Still debating Saturday night over which church to go to, I slept in on Sunday morning and my timing to get to Mosaic was perfect. I went to the first service and... well, it was fine.

Mosaic may never have made it to a second date, except that I just had a feeling... and being lazy, the default is always to attend the closest church with the most convenient time.

Something amazing happened the second Sunday I attended Mosaic. In case you are not familiar with how church works (and have somehow made it this far), community happens something like this: at some point in the sermon, someone at the front tells everyone to stand up and greet their neighbour (at my Cville church, we were supposed to give them a "high five, handshake or hug"). Everyone stands up, has a brief conversation with their neighbour, and promptly sits down and forgets the person sitting beside, in front or behind them. At the end of the service, if you came alone and don't know anyone, you duck out without being noticed, and if you want to find "community" in a church, you join a small group or volunteer.

There was no mid-service greeting time at Mosaic. Instead, as I was ready to make my I-don't-know-if-this-is-where-I-want-to-attend bolt out of the door, someone came up to me and said "hello." Completely unprompted by the pastor! Say whaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...? After talking to her, as I was leaving, the pastor shook my hand at the door, had a lengthy conversation with me, and told me we should go for coffee.

I'd be lying if I said I was sold right there. That very afternoon I saw another T ad for a church only a five minute walk away. I considered trying THAT one out, but when I went to the Mosaic community group on Wednesday night and everyone was so WELCOMING, I decided against trying something new. In the dating analogy, I was seeing Mosaic almost exclusively.

Anyway, this past Friday, Mosaic and I had the equivalent of the "DTR" (define the relationship talk). It was a "family meeting" and we talked about membership classes. Membership classes are pretty much the equivalent of church marriage, except until death do us part, it's until a move to a new city do us part. While part of me feels some commitment phobia, I also feel excited about what God is doing in and through Mosaic, and I desperately want to be in on the ground floor.

But, more importantly, Mosaic is a place where I've found community. When I said someone greeted me after the service however many Sundays ago, I was underemphasizing the quality of the community. This is a church where people hang out on their own volition, everyone looks out for one another, people stay after church to eat together (I'm cooking this Sunday - lasagna, if you're interested and live in Boston!) and everyone genuinely cares. I can't even begin to tell you all the amazing experiences I've had over the past few weeks, but I'm so happy and excited.

I know that, just like falling in love, I'm in the honeymoon stage. There will be bumps along the way. But commitment means getting the good and the bad and it means holding on and fighting for great community when obstacles come up. In the meantime, I'm just going to soak in the blessings and spend my days grinning widely.

PS I don't actually know anything about dating or falling in love, so hopefully my analogy is accurate.

Can't Go Wrong in the North End

2011-09-17T15:28:00.002-06:00

It seems that since I've moved to Boston, I've spent more time with company or out of town than at home alone. This past week has been no exception. My aunt and uncle were in town and looking for a good restaurant where they could take me (and my cousin who is staying with me) out for dinner.

Anyway, from my month experience in Boston, I've discovered two types of really good food options: Italian or seafood. The choice of Italian naturally led us to the North End.

I love the North End. It is fast becoming one of my favourite places to hang out in Boston. You can pretty much pick any restaurant and it will be amazing... So I always wonder at the insane lines outside places like Giacomo's and Mike's Pastry. It seems the theme is to serve only dinner and wine at the restaurants, and leave the dessert and coffee up to one of the many other cafes along Hanover Street.

We stumbled upon Panza - the highest rated in the "$$" price range on Yelp that accepts credit cards. It was delicious, incredibly delicious, with portion sizes big enough that I still have leftovers two days later. (It didn't hurt that my aunt and uncle didn't have a fridge in their hotel!)

After dinner, we moved on to Caffe Vittoria, a place I discovered last summer because it was a favourite of one of my friends who already lived here. My first experience at Cafe Vittoria was with the cannolis, but my Little Black Book of Boston suggested was the best place in Boston for tiramisu. So I finally tried the tiramisu, and it did not disappoint.

Back in the Saddle

2011-08-26T21:56:00.001-06:00

So I am alive, as it turns out.

My last blog post was over a month ago, but life has been crazy since then. I spent the first three weeks of August settling into Boston and entertaining guests.

On Sunday, I flew out to Chicago for my first week of training. It was intense. Like, 7:30am-until-6pm-social-activities-starting-at-6:15 intense. The important thing, though, is that I can't wait to get started! This whole week made me think I needed to pinch myself because I'm at a place where I've wanted to be for a long, long time.

I could go into details, but I'm exhausted.

Of course, my life took an interesting turn today.

You may have heard of Irene. She's heading toward New York as I write this, and she stopped all air traffic heading to the East Coast tomorrow. Since I have to be in Princeton on Monday morning, and there's no telling what Irene is going to do, I was scheduled last minute on a flight out of Chicago and get to spend the weekend in Princeton, NJ, where the power is most likely to go out tomorrow. I am celebrating the occasion with chocolate cake and cava. My original plan was to stay with a friend in Manhattan for the weekend, but since Manhattan is pretty much getting evacuated, that fell through.

What an adventurous first week of being a consultant.

Anyway, if you still read my blog, please leave a comment and let me know if I should keep blogging. I enjoyed blogging about my life at Darden, and if anyone out there would enjoy reading about my "exciting" life as a consultant, let me know!

Eye Spy

2011-07-20T08:52:00.001-06:00

The very last thing I did in London was ride the London Eye to get a bird's eye view of the city before I left. Unfortunately, the rains came and ruined all my potential pictures, but at least they left behind a beautiful full rainbow spanning the city.

Castles and Roses

2011-07-20T08:43:00.001-06:00

Call me cliche, but roses have always been my favourite flower. So when I discovered that roses grow everywhere in the UK, I was quite excited and took the expression "stop and smell the roses" quite literally. I also took a lot of pictures of them! Given the ever-present threat of rain in the UK, when I had two back to back days of rain in Edinburgh and London, I took the opportunity to wander through parks and gardens: Princes St. Gardens in Edinburgh which is right under the castle, then Hyde Park in London.

Airline Woes

2011-07-16T14:54:00.001-06:00

Is it just me, or are airlines competing to see who can provide the worst customer experience possible?

When I found a direct flight from London to Edmonton at a reasonable price, I was so excited! I booked with Air Transat because it was a little bit cheaper than Air Canada.

Well, it looked cheaper through Expedia.

Air Transat has a reasonable weight limit for long haul flights, but what they don't really tell you up front is that Thomas Cook, who actually operates the flight, only allows 20 kg for your checked baggage. And while I have a handy fold up bag that I can attempt to stow some of the excess weight, they put a 5 kg weight limit on your carry-on (I was allowed 10 kg on my 50 minute flight from Dublin to Edinburgh), AND you're only allowed one bag. So forget carrying on a purse and extra bag.

Air Transat also sent me a very helpful email today, three days before my flight leaves, to tell me that I can select my seat ahead of time. Yay! So I called their customer service, only to discover that Thomas Cook requires you to book at least five days before the flight leaves. Five days? Seriously? So yippee... I get to show up to the airport super early on Tuesday morning or risk being sandwiched in the middle seat. Thanks Air Transat and Thomas Cook for your assistance with my stress-free travel.

The frustrating thing is that if I'd known to look for this, I could have checked before I booked my flight and made a decision knowing all the relevant facts. But I feel stupid for not looking into it, and am now paying the consequences. It won't be a big deal: worst-case scenario, I pay an extra $100 and have to spend nine hours between two linebackers. It just frustrates me that the entire airline industry seems to be in a competition to outdo each other to belittle and nickle-and-dime the customer. If JetBlue can make air travel low-cost and low-hassle, with no hidden costs and a pleasant experience, why have so few other players caught on?

I've heard Virgin Atlantic is supposed to be good. And the fact that JetBlue has started to codeshare with them instills some confidence in that conclusion. Having a home base in Boston will hopefully offer a few more options so I'm not stuck with Air Transat ever again.

Highlands and Islands

2011-07-13T16:31:00.001-06:00

After two Londoners both told me I HAD to do a Highlands tour while in the UK, I figured I'd better heed their advice and book one. As I was looking through my photos trying to narrow down the few that I actually wanted to post, I realized how breathtaking the whole trip was. There are two main features that really stood out in the highlands and the Isle of Skye. First, the castles. They are all built into the natural landscape. The history that goes along with them is always interesting, and a big reason why I'd rather pay more for a tour than rent a car myself. Second, I love being on the island and seeing the distant islands. After the first day driving up to Skye, I was expecting a cloudy mystique, but the sun came out for the last two days of the tour.

This was the view outside my B&B in the morning. We stayed in the town of Portree, which is little more than some B&Bs, seafood restaurants and gift shops.

The Old Man of Storr. I was disappointed we didn't climb up there, but it was cool seeing it shrouded in clouds.

View from the Quraing mountains.

Lighthouse at the very edge of Skye. I have a million pictures I could post of the ocean with the mountains in the background, but as I've always been partial to lighthouses, I chose this one.

A highland cow on the side of the road. Just for the record, though, it's pronounced "heeland coo".

Eilean Donan castle. This is the most photographed castle in Scotland, and I'm sure I contributed significantly to the count as I sorted through 30 or so pictures in an attempt to decide which to upload.

I don't love this picture, but I didn't get any really good ones and HAD to post a picture of Loch Ness. I didn't see Nessie, but being on the big lake (all the water from all the other lakes in England and Scotland combined could fit in Loch Ness) and seeing the black water (from all the peat runoff) gave me some insight into why there is so much folklore around Loch Ness.

After three days exploring nature, it was time to head back to the beautiful city of Edinburgh.

Edinburgh Castle is the focal point of the city, and the reason the city is even here. The high hill presented a perfect place to set up a defense against the English, and over time, the city grew around it.

Ever since arriving in Scotland, I've been told I need to try the scotch whiskey. Even one of my friends from home who does not drink told me I needed to bring back scotch. Since I am not partial to whiskey, however, I figured that if I was going to invest in a bottle of scotch, I had to learn something about it and find one I like. So, I went off to the scotch whiskey experience to learn about whiskey and find one I liked. I am posting this picture because another friend told me I needed more pictures of me. (now that I've learned about scotch in Edinburgh and Guinness in Dublin, neither of which I particularly enjoy, I owe myself a visit to France or Italy for some wine!)

Okay, so I wore down... Just had to post another photo of the Skye coastline.

Edinburgh Sunset

2011-07-09T15:33:00.001-06:00

So the truth is that I haven't been up to much today other than packing (I had a 20 kg weight limit for my plane ride and had to figure out how to get my suitcase below that... And I had success! 19.4 kg), flying, riding in taxis, catching up on overdue Skype conversations and getting completely drenched in what the people from Edinburgh call "not even a shower".

But as I ate dinner in my hotel restaurant, I caught a glimpse of a beautiful landscape beyond the hotel, so I climbed up the hill beside the hotel and snapped some photos.

St. Paddy's Land

2011-07-08T16:43:00.001-06:00

After getting a good deal on a hotel in Dublin on one of my travel websites, I added Ireland to my UK trip. Even though the trip has been quite quick, I've thoroughly enjoyed Ireland and can see why it's been the beautiful backdrop for many a movie.

The one thing I was told I HAD to do in Ireland was drink a pint of Guinness. Not being a particularly huge fan of beer, and even less so of dark beer, I not only obliged, but took a step further and visited the Guinness Storehouse (essentially a museum) and got my certificate for mastering the perfect Guinness pour. I also managed to consume my requisite pint.

Today I got up bright and early (I don't care how early you get up, it's likely too early if you're setting your alarm before 6 am on vacation!) to take a trip to Connemara and Galway City. It was in Connemara that I could see every romantic Irish movie ever made, and it was great to be there, jumping on the bog and walking along the side of the road next to the sheep.

Galway Cathedral. The inside is made of Connemara marble.

Connemara countryside.

Kylemore Abbey

Killary Harbour

Snapshots

2011-07-07T03:38:00.001-06:00

If I've learned anything while traveling, it's that you simply have to pause, enjoy the moment and know that you can never adequately capture an experience in a photograph or describe it in words. But as my train zips along the Welsh coast somewhere just beyond the Penmaenmawr train station, I want to attempt it, no matter how impossible a feat, (that is, during the moments my view is obscured by tunnels or walls) if only so that I can remember this serendipitously beautiful moment.

A rainbow stretches across the bay, though not quite full as the right side fades into the low cloud cover that brings a hazy blanket to cover the rolling hills just beyond the bay. Ahead of us, and visible on the left of the bay, a low, tree-covered hill holds the tunnel we are about to pass through. And to my right, endless stretches of sandy beaches with gentle waves rolling up on the shore - the same kind of beach that always invites me to pull off my shoes and walk in the area where water meets sand.

There are castles and city walls and sheep, all set against the Welsh countryside - green, rolling hills and the occasional rocky hill thrown in the mix. Some fields contain cows, normally not an exciting sight, but British cows are the cow-iest kinds of cows: white and covered in black patches. And rolling through towns, the train window affords me a glimpse of old houses and churches nestled in among the hills.

I did snap a picture, but with the angle I wanted, there was no way to avoid the reflection of the train window. So it will serve only as a reminder of a beautiful sight I witnessed on an unexpected July morning.

Penny Lane is in My Head

2011-07-05T16:44:00.001-06:00

It's Tuesday, I think.

I left London on Friday to head to Bristol and spend the weekend with some good friends from home. She is pregnant and had her 30th birthday while I was there, so it was a good time to visit! We spent the weekend going for a lot of walks, celebrating with some of their friends and going for dinner at a fabulous restaurant (if ever in Bristol, Zizzi's was amazing!). I also stopped to smell a LOT of flowers, which didn't abode well for my once dormant allergies.

Monday while they worked, I headed off to Bath to take a tour to Stonehenge, see the Roman Baths and take a free walking tour of Bath. I was tired by the end of the day, and moderately underwhelmed by Stonehenge, so my photos reflect this. I will post a "true" picture of my Stonehenge experience: surrounded by tourists! (of which I am one, I know. Sigh.)

Today I hopped on a train to Liverpool. Not really knowing what to expect, other than knowing it was the birthplace of the Beatles, I've really enjoyed Liverpool. As it turns out, the entire dock is a World Heritage Site because so many of the individual buildings had already earned that distinction. While there, I had to take a Beatles tour, of course, and I was glad that it was accessible to even me, who enjoys Beatles music but doesn't know much beyond that.

This inconspicuous looking house is where John Lennon grew up!

When You're Tired of London, You're Tired of Life

2011-06-30T12:43:00.001-06:00

There are places in the world more different than Reykjavik than London, but at the moment, it hardly feels like two places could be more different. I got my first London wake-up call when I went to watch the changing of the guard yesterday morning only to discover I was too frustrated with the crowds to stay until the end and escaped instead to Green Park to sit under a tree and read. Vowing to avoid all places touristy, I started ambling along only to break my vow when I stumbled on Westminster Abbey.

Traveling in London has given me a bit of a traveler's epiphany: I want to see a place for what it is, not what the postcards and travel books make it out to be. In London, that means accepting the fact that a million tourists are going to get in your attempted shots of Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey, so understand that is part of the package and photograph accordingly. It also helped me get through today, when a massive strike/demonstration meant the tour bus I was on got utterly off-track. I decided to hop off the tour bus and just walk, ending up seeing a side of London you don't see every day: the London filled with Police everywhere and the London street full of people picketing and marching for whatever justice they are demanding. The Julie that would have been eager to check sites off a tour list would have been frustrated at the inconvenience, but with this new travel paradigm (which I started to develop in China) of just wandering to see what you see, I must say I ended up enjoying the day.

Of course, it can't hurt that in two days in London, I haven't felt a drop of rain. (it was threatening while I was on my river cruise today, but I missed the rain ducking into a Starbucks for a reading break)

So the pictures I share of London are less focused on all the famous sites (though I did get a nice photo of the parliament buildings and Big Ben) and more on the things I found interesting along the way. Google images, I'm sure, will provide much better pictures of the famous buildings and parks, though sadly, they won't have my face in them. ;-)

A butler out walking dogs in Green Park near Buckingham Palace.

Tourists clamor to take pictures with the guards.

Possibly the most useful signage in all of London, "look right" reminds you which way the cars are coming from on this side of the pond so you don't inadvertently walk in front of one!

Police walk with the peaceful strikers.

A group of teenagers (I think? My age radar has been way off lately) also demonstrates. I find it kind of ironic seeing as how I think the strike was somehow related to pensions, but it's nice to see they are thinking of their future.

One of only two photos of famous sites I'll post, we saw the bridge go up on the Tower Bridge during our river cruise. The guide seemed to imply it was some sort of treat, but also said it happens 500 times a year... Don't know that I'd call that a rare occurrence.

And finally, the Parliament buildings and Big Ben.

Landmannalauger

2011-06-27T15:38:00.001-06:00

Today, I booked a last minute tour to Landmannalauger. I haven't figured out exactly what the name refers to, but my day involved another waterfall, multi-colored mountains, swimming in a natural hot spring stream, hiking through a lava field and driving the 4x4 tour bus through some fairly barren landscape.

It's my last night in Reykjavik. Tomorrow, I'm hoping to get in a run along the harbor before I fly off to London. I'm a little worried because the luggage weight limit is lower than it was flying out here... And lower than my bag weighed in at... So I guess I'll have to wear a few more layers to fly into Britain!

Golden Circle (Iceland Part Three)

2011-06-26T15:12:00.001-06:00

Iceland is growing on me very quickly, though it's hard to say whether that can be attributed to it's sheer beauty and the amazing people and how much of that is due to my need for "nesting" and the fact that I have been here long enough to know my way around my little corner of Reykjavik.

Yesterday, I had the funnest time I've ever had doing laundry. There is a little cafe called the Laundromat Cafe, and in addition to having a great conversation with the girl seated next to me at the bar after dinner, I met a couple from Edmonton (my home town) and had a glass of wine with them as we all waited for our laundry to dry.

Here are a few pics from biking around yesterday and climbing up the eight-storey, tallest tower in Reykjavik.

Today was an absolute highlight. My aunt had a connection with a tour guide from her recent trip to Iceland, and I joined him and a nice family from Norway to tour Iceland's Golden Circle and snowmobile across a glacier. The tour was given from a luxury 4x4 and included off-roading up crazy hills and driving through glacial rivers. Thanks Svenni!

View at Thingvellir National Park, site of the Icelandic Assembly.

Gullfoss Waterfall

View from my snowmobile

On the middle of a glacier

Strokkur, the geyser, goes off every five to seven minutes

Hot pots in a meadow

Crater lake

More from the Other-World (or Iceland Part 2)

2011-06-25T13:25:00.001-06:00

The wonders of Iceland have been keeping me busy and active, but with D leaving today and a nasty cold slowing me down, I've finally gotten an afternoon to explore Reykjavik and sit in a coffee shop and back up some pictures. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to upload the pictures from today's excursions, but I'll post a few from Thursday and Friday - busy days spent horse back riding, lounging in the Blue Lagoon and hiking through Thorsmork.

Icelanders are weird. I say that somewhat hesitantly, being of Icelandic heritage myself, but as I've walked around and observed, I've seen a variety of people in homemade bunny costumes, in whale costumes, and most recently some sort of oddly dressed bachelorette party (I can only assume) in which one girl actually had cups in her hair. Of course, the highlight from my colorful characters of Iceland tour was the young man being towed behind a truck on a platform playing drums... Shirtless with the tan line from a bikini top (I can only imagine it was a spray-on tan). To top off all of these interesting observations, I heard a statistic on a tour the other day that 70% of Icelanders won't deny the existence of the "hidden people" (trolls, dwarves and elves... There are three kinds.).

Of course, they are also very endearing, and I haven't met one yet who wasn't friendly and accommodating. When my tour bus driver forgot to pick me up on Wednesday, one of the staff from the tour company ran from his office to collect me at my guesthouse and walk me over to the harbor for my whale watching tour.

In a Word - Wow! (or Iceland Part 1)

2011-06-23T03:23:00.001-06:00

Iceland has a beauty that is haunting, surreal and volatile. As one of my professors told me before I left, Iceland is different than anywhere else in the world... This was reinforced as my tour guide pointed out some "fake crater" formations and mentioned that this is the only place you can find them on earth... But you can find them in Mars!

I could wax poetic forever about Iceland, but instead I'll post some pics from my trip yesterday out to Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon.

There's No Need to Panic

2011-06-13T21:40:00.003-06:00

On Thursday, I leave Charlottesville.

While I am sure that everything will be fine, my apartment is currently in a state of almost-complete disarray and I worry simultaneously that I won't get everything out of my apartment and that what I want to take to Boston with me will not fit in my car.

It should all be fine, but these are the things you think about when you can literally count in hours the time you have to get everything done.

But it will all be fine.

Someone recently posted a comment asking what I've been up to... well... since I finished my last exam over a month ago, I've somehow managed to keep myself busy with things as random as strawberry picking and roller coasting riding (twice!), have taken many, many trips (to the Outer Banks, DC, Boston for an apartment, Louisville for my roommate's wedding), did two consulting mini-projects, said "see you later" to a lot of friends, and slept in many, many times. The past few weeks have seemed like "filler" weeks while I wait for the highlight of the summer - Thursday's "move" (aka transfer of stuff to storage to Boston) and subsequent Europe trip. In exactly a week, I will be in Iceland.

So now you know what life is like for a post-graduate, pre-work Dardenite. I think my experiences have been pretty typical, judging from conversations around C'ville and pics on Facebook. Stay tuned for pics from my summer travels!

Ah, So There's the Hype

2011-05-22T15:52:00.004-06:00

In my last blog post, I noted that there was little fanfare as I finished the last requirements of my degree. Fast forward through a week and a half of strawberry picking, roller coaster riding, running along the beach and partying like I'm in a Freddy Prinze Jr. movie to TODAY, and I got my fanfare.

My parents flew in all the way from Edmonton, Canada to join me in the graduation festivities weekend, and it has certainly been a busy weekend filled with receptions, pig roasts and, appropriately, a visit to Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. Today was the BIG day, in which I attended not just one, but two, graduation ceremonies - the "final exercises" on the UVA Lawn and the ceremony on the Darden grounds where I actually received my degree.

And so, with that, this chapter of my life ends. I tried to avoid goodbyes today, feeling fortunate that I could pinpoint times that I will see most of my good friends here again in the near future. I've been so honoured to have my parents in town, AND to have had family watching from across the continent (well, from Canada, more accurately) on the Darden stream as I was "conferred" my degree.

Today officially marks the beginning of my three month vacation and I'm excited about heading back to the Outer Banks tomorrow to kick off my summer travels and spend some time with my parents.

Congratulations to all my fellow graduates - I am truly honoured to be a part of the Darden Class of 2011.

Surreal

2011-05-10T21:03:00.003-06:00

There was no fanfare or champagne cork popped or choir singing this afternoon, but at 2:27 p.m., my entire world changed. Sort of.

2:27 p.m. was the time, according to Outlook, that I sent off an email declaring that I had finished the final deliverable of my MBA. Classes finished less than an hour and a half before that, and in true Darden style, the final class was epic. Two students did a presentation "summarizing" all of the learning from the course - though if you replacing "summarizing" with "mocking", you would have a better idea of how the presentation went down.

So I'm done. Pinch me. I thought that the news of being finished would entice me to sprawl out on the grass and read something truly frivolous. Instead, since procrastinating is something that only needs to be done when there is something to procrastinate from, I didn't take it easy and instead made a dessert for my potluck (Nanaimo bars - a Canadian treat - in case you're curious), tidied up all the areas of my apartment that got bogged down with exam clutter and folded all my laundry before heading off to my evening events.

For more than three months, I get to live without setting an alarm clock, and without feeling pressure to perform in any way, shape or form. This will probably be the last time in my life that I have that luxury - the luxury of no email coming in on my phone that demands my attention (it'll switch from "can you do X on the group project" to "the client needs that analysis by the morning") and nothing that will bring out the competitive nature that drives me to not be a slacker. I've got more trips lined up in TripIt than I've ever had slotted at one time, and it all promises to be very exciting. (Stay tuned for posts from: Outer Banks, DC, Boston, Iceland, England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland and Canada!)

I'm just ignoring the fact that the next few weeks are going to be filled with way too many goodbyes.

Memories of a Time Long Gone

2011-04-30T21:37:00.004-06:00

My parents are moving in less than two months.

You may not care about that, but since I will not be heading home until after they move, it meant a Skype date with my sister as she held up every single possession of mine that is in my parents' home to ask whether I would like to keep it, trash it, or sell it at a garage sale.

Some items were no-brainers - books that had no sentimental value, a bottomless pit of office supplies, and a couple of laundry baskets that wouldn't be worth shipping down to Boston.

What was hard to throw away were all the little knick knacks I'd collected over the years. I mean, who really needs a Veggie Tales eraser? (Bob the Cucumber and Larry the Tomato, anyone?) What about the pack of mints I bought at Hoover Dam? (Best Dam Mints) Or the San Francisco key chain with my name on it?

As I went through all of these items, it struck me how much my identity used to be tied up in the things I chose to like. There was a lot of penguin, Veggie Tales, and travel paraphernalia. I had huge posters of my favourite band (Switchfoot ;-) ) and collages of special seasons of my life.

Though I didn't have to do the physical throwing away (thank you Becky!), it was still hard to let these things go. In fact, I took screen shots so I could remember. But the reality is that I no longer have any use for my "I Hate Cuddling" button or my "Boys Are Smelly" grape-flavoured candies. Not only do they not represent who I am any longer (though don't get any ideas about invading my personal space), I have also moved on to someone who keeps the mementos to a minimum. Perhaps that is the function of being about to head to live in my third city in as many years.

I'd also like to think that as I mature, that my identity is found less in my "Chicks Rule" key chain and more in the way that I carry myself and interact with others. Of course, despite all these thoughts, the truth is that I'm glad is was my sister and my I who had to throw away all of that stuff!

Storms, Lilacs and Transitions

2011-04-27T22:01:00.001-06:00

There's something hanging in the air, and it's not just the scent of lilacs wafting through the courtyard or the feel of rain waiting to pour.

It's the impending feeling of Change. Life chugs along normally as I sit in classes and prep for them, head out for coffee and attend regular meetings. Yet despite this normalcy, the underlying current of knowing that all of this will essentially be over in two weeks hovers relentlessly. Conversations stray toward trying to figure out whether we are excited or disappointed about moving on, and I think I find myself with a mix of both. I have spent much of my life living in and planning for the future, and this period is no exception as I read the Lonely Planet guides to Iceland and the UK and spend hours checking out Boston apartments.

At the same time, I am keenly aware that this phase of life is a huge gift. I am focused on learning and am surrounded by amazing people. The weather couldn't be more amazing (despite the two tornado warnings we've had in the last few weeks - okay, i guess the weather could be more amazing) and the spring flora in Cville is beautiful. And so I find myself challenged not to stress over the logistics of moving or start focusing too much on the walk score of various Boston apartments. Instead it's time to forget about how limited my remaining time is here and just relax and enjoy it. It's been a crazy ride over the last year and a half, and now it's time to enjoy it!

Why Thank You!

2011-04-19T14:50:00.002-06:00

As it turns out, I've been nominated for an award.

Well, not ME, my blog... but since I write my blog, it equates to about the same thing as me being nominated for an award.

Every year, Clear Admit (an MBA admissions website) runs a "best of blogging" competition to determine the best MBA applicant and student blogs. I have been nominated, along with a whole host of other Darden student bloggers. (I think there were about six or seven of us nominated.)

If you are a ClearAdmit fan and wish to vote: follow this link for details.

Pure Bliss

2011-04-14T15:09:00.001-06:00

This quarter, I'm taking two reading classes, so the bulk of my class preparation consists of reading two books before Monday every week. For my literature class in particular, the books are acutely enjoyable.

Spring has finally decided to make an appearance in Charlottesville, so I'm sitting outside on my balcony reading The Imperfectionists.

My friend and I were discussing the "good seasons" in the places we've lived and dream of living. While I can't handle the summer heat or the winter grey/brown down in VA, spring and fall are undoubtedly seasons that top most seasons anywhere else I've lived. (which is really just the Canadian Prairies, which all has a similar climate) If you don't live in Cville, I would recommend heading down to Virginia at some point in the fall or spring. I am treated daily with the slow unveiling of flowered trees and my favorite flower - lilacs. The weather at this time of year is around my optimal 70F (22C) and life is just generally blissful.

It doesn't hurt my enjoyment at this moment to know that, as per Facebook status updates, it has snowed back home in Edmonton...

Second Year, Q4

2011-04-09T07:46:00.004-06:00

The end is near.

It's a dramatic way to say it, but graduation is a mere six weeks from tomorrow.

There's been a fundamental shift from the beginning of first year to this fourth quarter we've found ourselves in. Everyone has shifted from being hopeful, eager, stressed-out students and job hunters to calm, relaxed golfers, hikers, fitness freaks, you name it. While I don't mean to diminish the plight of my classmates who are still on the hunt for full-time positions, the collective tension in the air has relaxed.

We now participate in class because we genuinely feel we have something to contribute, not because we feel the desperate need to get a participation "point" for the day. Our relationship with professors has become much more like friendship than like the typical teacher-student relationship. It doesn't hurt that two of my classes are taught my guest lecturers and not by the professors, and that we join the professors for lunch after class. On Monday night, my literature class group (yes! literature class - I just finished reading The White Tiger) will be joining our professor and his family for dinner.

This last quarter is a lot about tying up loose ends. While my reading classes offer the opportunity to think philosophically on success and great leadership, the speaker classes I am taking tie together everything we've learned in a tactical manner. Rather than discussing in broad generalizations what it's like to deal with a union, speakers will say "okay, let's have that conversation. When are you going to have it? What are you going to say?" It puts a lot more reality on the business world we will be entering in just a few short months.

In addition to finishing up my academics, my focus has turned toward preparing for my upcoming move to Boston. I'm in the process of setting up appointments with realtors and building managers while trying to figure out exactly what my summer will look like so I can book some plane tickets. Many classmates are doing the same and, as can be expected, I've heard of many exciting plans for the next few months.

Happy Steak

2011-04-04T21:46:00.004-06:00

If you've ever read Omnivore's Dilemma or seen Food Inc., you've heard of Polyface Farm. Without getting into all of the details, Polyface is essentially a farm that seeks to produce food in a sustainable way that heals the land, and just generally produces healthier food. As a quick example, most of the beef produced in the US comes from large "concentrated animal feeding organizations" (CAFOs) which feed cows corn and, well, other cows. Corn-fed beef is less healthy for a variety of reasons, the most important being that cows are supposed to digest grass... and all of the complications that come from attempting to feed cows corn produce less than healthy beef. Basically, the idyllic picture of cows standing in the grass is really just an old image in the US. Unless, that is, you go to a farm like Polyface, which seeks to raise animals the way they were meant to be raised.

Anyway... Saturday was a crazy busy day, but when the opportunity to visit Polyface Farm came up, I knew that I had to take it before heading away from Charlottesville. While there, I got to see where they have the chickens and the pigs and the cows... and spent a bunch of money on delicious grass-fed beef and piggy bacon. I've included some pictures for your viewing pleasure. Most of them are self-explanatory (chicken, pig, cow), but the last is part of the "Egg-mobile," which is part of the plan to move chickens around behind the cows so they can eat up the insects that come from having cows in the area and start to churn up the grass so it can re-grow.

Jet Lag Rant

2011-03-29T06:58:00.003-06:00

China is exactly 12 hours ahead of the Eastern Time Zone.

So when I woke up at 5 a.m. this morning, it was 5 p.m. in China.

How does that make sense as a time to wake up? I mean, I understand going to and from Europe, where 3 a.m. = 9 a.m. and that would be a normal time for the body to wake up. But 5 p.m.? And why does this start four days AFTER I get home?

The good news is that by the time my alarm was set to go off, I'd already gotten in a good workout. (Yeah... I don't recommend scheduling your first 5k the week after you finish a break where you don't run for two weeks...) The bad news is that I'll be about ready to crash by the time my first class starts.

*end rant*

Also, *end China posts*

Longest Day of My Life

2011-03-28T15:43:00.003-06:00

Thursday, March 24 will go on record as the longest day of my life. It started for me around 8 a.m. in Beijing and ended as my head hit the pillow 28 hours later at midnight in the Eastern time zone. In the days since then, I've fended off a cold and jet lag, but am glad to finally have the opportunity to blog about my experiences in China.

China has long been one of those places which I've simultaneously wanted to visit and been afraid to visit. Since coming back, I've told people that I was glad to go, but am glad to be home. Part of my anticipation of the entire China experience hinged on China being a significant (and growing) part of the world economy. It's impossible to ignore an economy that both accounts for a significant number of sales worldwide and is growing at a faster rate than most other countries. To not have any clue about China is akin to an ostrich burying its head in the sand.

At the same time, I had been told to prepare to be shocked. All sorts of stories and tales prefaced my China visit, and the scariest fear of all was that I didn't speak a lick of Mandarin - nor could I piece together meaning from root words and recognition of letter combinations.

As it turns out, China was as shocking as it was familiar. People were manually digging holes as we walked out of the very modern subway. Everywhere there are signs of growth and a modern economy amongst remnants of an agrarian society. I got the impression from "talking" with a gentleman on the train that most Chinese people work in factories. (I use "talking" because I didn't speak Mandarin and he didn't speak much English, but through a combination of charades and the phrase book in my Lonely Planet guide and his limited English, we managed to communicate. Also, it seems obvious that everyone works in factories, given that pretty much everything is made in China these days, but it's not something that you see if you don't visit a factory.) At the same time, the Chinese people that we really hung out with were those we'd come to know through various MBA programs and exchanges, so they all had corporate marketing jobs.

What surprised me is that it wasn't the language barrier or cultural barrier that made me eager to leave China. As is the case when I visit countries where I sort of know the language, my Mandarin improved over my time in China, and I'm sure that with more time, that frustration would have gone away. Even though there were many subtle cultural differences (well, and obvious ones!), we grew accustomed to the way things were done and adapted accordingly. It's these subtleties that make travel fun and add a rich texture to visiting new places. If all you are seeking is to see the Great Wall or Forbidden City, there are certainly museums that will accomplish this... travel is about finding a way to be immersed in the culture.

In fact, what made me eager to leave China was the pollution and the cigarette smoke everywhere. The other thing that became wearisome was that even though I love Chinese food, I got tired of ordering primarily off of pictures on a menu. While I am sure that I will eat Chinese food again soon, I was definitely excited about ordering a sandwich after landing in JFK.

All in all, I'm glad that I went to China. I'm glad that a friend had already booked the flight and I wasn't tempted to head off on a tropical vacation or yet another trip to Europe. I'm glad that I went when I did - when there were classmates to meet up with and exchange students to show us around. Most importantly, even as I was there, I saw tremendous signs of growth and worry that the China of today may not be there in the next few years. I remember talking to a lady who moved from China six years ago... when I asked her if she missed it, she said that the China that is now is not the same China she left.

Guest Blog!

2011-03-23T06:42:00.001-06:00

Classy Career Girl runs a great blog on everything career related, and she recently asked me to write a guest blog on my Darden experience. I highly recommend checking out her blog, and while you're there, you may as well read my post: Advice from a Current MBA Student.

Hard Sleepers

2011-03-20T17:33:00.001-06:00

Adventures.

Some adventures are amazing while you're in the midst of them. Others... Well, you do them because they make for a great story after the fact.

I'm in the midst of one of the latter kinds of adventures.

I could have taken a plane from Xi'an to Shanghai yesterday and be spending this moment curled up in a soft bed at the Shangri-La, awaiting a steaming fresh shower and opulent breakfast.

Instead, I left my cheap hotel by bus (not taxi) yesterday afternoon, waited in a crowded train station where my friend and I were the only white people in sight and just woke up from a fitful sleep in the middle bunk of a train's hard sleeper car. Rather than anticipating a hot shower, I am trying to figure out how to angle my blanket so I can carve out some private space to apply deodorant. I've avoided drinking water on the ride because while I can deal with squatter toilets on solid ground, I'm somewhat of a prima donna about using one on a moving train. And instead of an opulent breakfast, I've got some hard-boiled eggs that I picked up from a street vendor yesterday.

The friend I am traveling with says he likes traveling this way because it's more adventurous, it keeps him grounded, he sees the real China and... Let's be serious, we are saving a ton of money!

While I am currently longing for a shower and toilet, I think this really is a better way to travel. Even more, the way we are traveling is even opulent by Chinese standards, and while I didn't see the hard seat section of the train on my way to my relatively posh sleeper cabin (though not the nicest - the last train ride we took, I lucked out because only soft sleepers were left and that was much more pleasant!), I heard that they were crowded, with people lying on the floor.

I may not be traveling in style, but as I travel this way, I realize that I am immensely blessed to have choices and as I see people sleeping on the streets throughout China, suddenly a less-than-cozy night crammed in a somewhat noisy train may not actually be so bad.

Sent from my iPhone

Walking the Wall

2011-03-16T08:30:00.004-06:00

Today was a big day.

Today I got to check something off my bucket list: walking along the Great Wall of China.

After a few iterations of our original wall plan (hike from Jinshanling to Simatai... both of which are currently closed), we settled on hiring a taxi to take us out to Mitianyu.

I'm not sure what I was expecting, but you can see from the picture above that this section of the wall is long, steep, and definitely a little restored.

Interesting tidbit about the Great Wall: the steps are designed to be uneven as a way of making it more difficult for enemies to traverse. Unfortunately, in this case, us tourists are lumped in with the enemies and it definitely makes for some interesting walking.

Another interesting tidbit: several weeks of incline training on the treadmill should have been swapped for the stairmaster. We climbed this set of stairs and another long set afterwards. It was the good workout I was hoping for, but boy was it exhausting! I'm pleased to report that I beat everyone to the top who started up the stairs at the same time as me, except for my travel buddy.

The scenery is rugged and beautiful. It's hard to believe that a wall was even necessary for guarding China (or whatever subset of unified states were in existence), given the rugged terrain. As it turns out, the wall never actually served the purpose of keeping the enemies out, since sentries could be bribed, but the lighting signals in the towers let the country know when to mobilize for war and also served as an "elevated highway." (This fact courtesy of my Lonely Planet guide; the previous one courtesy of my travel buddy.)

Anyway... the Great Wall was absolutely amazing and the drive through rural China was very interesting. I saw a lot of things I'd never seen before: people working the fields manually and making bricks in the sun. Jet lag is currently winning as I fight to keep my eyes open long enough so I don't wake up too early tomorrow morning.

There's Something to be Said for Low Expectations

2011-03-15T08:43:00.002-06:00

When I was about to book my flight to Beijing with Air China, my friend who lived in China for three years said that it was a terrible idea... of course, because it was the cheapest and the friend I was travelling with had already booked a flight with Air China, I went ahead and did it anyway.

Over the next few months, I heard many, many warnings about Air China. They included things like: children will be peeing in the aisles, there is no in-flight entertainment, they wake you up when it's time to eat, and a whole host of negative reviews on the Internet. Even as I sat getting a manicure in JFK (those massage chairs they put you in are AWESOME between flights; I'm not high maintenance, I promise!), my manicurist added two additional warnings: there isn't enough food (so buy a sandwich) and they stop serving beverages a few hours into the flight, so you should go help yourself.

Anyway, given all the warnings, I made sure to prepare for the flight, dutifully buying a sandwich at the airport and stocking up with movies on every portable electronic device I have with me, buying a book at Borders, leaving my guide book reading and even going so far as to purchase a portable game of Settlers of Catan.

When I started boarding the plane, I got the impression that the warnings may have been a little extreme, as the plane was nice and new and there was even a decent amount of leg room. While, as promised, there was no personal in-flight entertainment, the movies shown on the common screen alternated between Chinese and English, so I could have gotten a good six hours of entertainment from that. The food was actually the best airplane food I'd eaten (though the novelty of Chinese food on a plane may wear thin by the trip home...), and while the flight attendants did stop serving a few hours in, you were welcome to walk to the back of the plane and help yourself. (This turned out to be mostly a good thing --- you could drink lots of water and the aisles were clear to stand and stretch your legs; on the downside, one of our fellow passengers took it upon himself to down an entire bottle of wine and got belligerent... but hey... free entertainment?)

Anyway, all in all, it was either my low expectations that made for a good flight, or the fact that maybe Air China is not that bad?

In other news... I landed in Beijing tonight and while I am crazy jetlagged (yet writing this blog despite a need for sleep), it's been good thus far. Despite having complete and total language barriers, we were able to get to our hotel (I had printed off the address in Chinese!) and order dinner (yay for pictures on the menu). Tomorrow we are off to the Great Wall and I'll probably post some pics!

Switching Gears

2011-03-11T14:17:00.002-07:00

It's Spring Break.

I probably shouldn't say that, since there are probably still people out there plugging away at exams and papers, but having just completed my last deliverable for the quarter, I'm in celebratory mode!

The only thing on the agenda for the next two days is having fun and packing. On Monday afternoon, I fly from Dulles (airport at Washington DC) to Beijing. With "walking along the Great Wall" on my bucket list, I figure there's no better time than right now to head over there and check it out. What makes NOW such a great time is that a) I have someone to travel with, b) there will be a group of Darden students also in China, along with a Chinese-speaking professor who has given us his phone number in case of emergency and, most importantly, c) exchange students from China have volunteered to either hook us up with friends over there or drive us around. So with all of that, what better time to travel to a country that is wholly foreign? It will definitely be an adventure since all my travel to date has been to countries where I have at least a small amount of knowledge of the language.

As you can well imagine, I am not the only one headed off. As I mentioned earlier, there will be a group of students in China for the GBE (Global Business Experience), and similar groups will be in Barcelona, Brazil, Mexico, Sweden, Argentina and Dubai*.

Beyond that, I know of people headed to Turkey, Colombia, Greece, Cold Lake (in Alberta! Yay homeland!), New Orleans, Zurich, Costa Rica, Vietnam and many other corners of the globe. The break is so long that I know of many people heading to two completely opposite locations over the two-week period.

Anyway, I will strive to keep my blog updated throughout my time in China... While I am fairly certain Blogger and Facebook are both blocked, I think there may be ways to get around that... If that doesn't work, I'll try to post some photos and stories when I return in two weeks.

*There were GBEs scheduled for Egypt and Bahrain, but given the recent turmoil, Egypt was cancelled and Bahrain rerouted to Dubai.

Dinner With the Profs

2011-03-06T12:51:00.002-07:00

Darden has the best professors of any B-school.

Now, I know that technically, since I haven't attended every B-school, I can't say that conclusively. However, after I tell you about my evening yesterday, I'm fairly certain that you will come to see that I have good reasons to make that claim.

So every year in April, Darden participates in a charity program design to fix up houses for those in need in the Charlottesville community. It's called, appropriately, Building Goodness in April. In order to raise the much needed funds for all these projects, the auction teams run a series of auctions throughout November and December, and this year I was lucky enough to win a bid for a Danish dinner with my finance and decision analysis profs.

The dinner was last night and it was amazing. Our finance professor and his wife hosted the dinner. I would say that it was amazing to see all the artwork and the non-finance side of our professor, but the truth is that I already knew a lot about the non-finance side as we discussed architecture in Barcelona and I went to see him play bass in his Charlottesville band. The thing is that it's not at all unusual at Darden to be exposed to the non-academic facets of our professor's lives. Our section had even met his daughter previously when she came to play soccer with us for Darden Cup last year. So it was just a warm, welcoming evening.

As I was grilled by my DA prof's husband on how I would actually use the class she teaches and went into details on the value of an MBA (really, I told him he should just read my blog!), we warmed up with a traditional Danish appetizer - buttered bread, covered with all sorts of delicious toppings: shrimp and lemon, liver pate, grapes and bleu cheese. Following the first course of appetizers, we learned the traditional Danish method for drinking schnapps. (You look someone in the eye, say "skoal", do the shot and regain eye contact.) By then, the conversation had evolved away from justifying my education to urban sprawl and the issues with the American health care system. (My DA prof's husband is British.) The next appetizer was Danish dumplings... Not only are they delicious, they come with a game; whoever finds the "dough ball" (no meat) gets a prize! My DA prof was excited to win only to discover the prize was another shot.

From there we moved on to the dinner table and enjoyed a rich variety of discussion topics along with the fish course and an amazingly tender roast beef for the main course. The food was delicious, the company was amazing, and I enjoyed connecting with some of the first years and with my profs and their spouses. I truly think that Darden is hands-down the best school in this regard... which is probably why we were recently ranked #1 for professors!

Leadership Transitions

2011-03-02T17:02:00.002-07:00

It seems like just yesterday that I was meeting with the DCF President from the Class of 2010, learning as much as I could about the club and eager to take over the reins. Today, we had that very same transition meeting, but rather than taking the reins, I was handing them over to a new president.

Last year, around this time, I remember remarking to then-second years at how quickly first year had passed. They told me that second year would go by even more quickly and as I have a week plus a quarter left in my MBA education, I understand just how true that statement would come to be.

The biggest shock to the system is this whole leadership transition. I'm really happy with the leadership team we have going forward, and also feel happy that we did make some improvements this year that they can build on, much like the team before us was able to make.

Over the past few years, I've had rapid role successions. In 2008 to 2009 as I was applying to schools, I remember reaching out to current students to learn more about the programs. When I became a student, I started reaching out to second years and alum, while entertaining calls from prospectives telling them about my experiences. Once second year hit, my calendar filled up with meeting requests from first years wanting to learn about my internship experience as I scheduled more calls with alum to hear about their company experiences. The reality of this current leadership transition is that I will soon transition into the role of "alum" and field calls from new students eager to get into the world of consulting.

It's funny. I remember very distinctly a video from Follies that came out as I was preparing to move to Darden. It was called "Don't Make Me Leave Darden" and I remember thinking that the time to leave would likely come sooner than I expected. Now here I am, with that reality not too far away.

Oh... Hey There, Bandwagon!

2011-02-17T09:55:00.004-07:00

The theme of the first semester in the first year of Darden seems to go as follows: no time for gym, eat way too much pizza and other unhealthy food at company briefings, gain weight.

After reading two of my fellow student bloggers' posts in the last two days ("I hate your workout program" and Crossfit), it seems that the final semester of second year brings with it a new trend: work out lots and lots to lose all the weight gained over the previous year and a half.

Seeing as how I'm now halfway through February, I think it's safe to say my own fitness exploits are now a true semester-long effort and not a doomed attempt at a New Year's Resolution. While my roommate drags herself out of bed every morning for a 7:30 a.m. P90X workout session, I've taken a different route: personal trainer. My goal is to work with my trainer to develop a plan for staying fit within what will become a very busy work schedule come August. Although I am currently working through the machines, we will eventually move to free weights which should be feasible to do in my apartment if there isn't a gym nearby.

Other than the personal trainer, I'm also proud to say that I'm well on-target to beating the total distance that I've run in a week and in a month since landing in Charlottesville (already beat the per day record!), though I'm ashamed to admit publicly how many miles per month it works out to... ;-)

And I have to say, given all this recent workout activity, that it's far easier to simply not eat calories than it is to burn them off! (Case in point: 1/2 cup of Ben & Jerry's ice cream - 220 calories + time required to eat - 10 minutes; time required to burn off 220 calories on the elliptical - 20 minutes... so you can save yourself 30 minutes in the day by simply choosing to eat healthier!)

Rankings

2011-01-31T15:41:00.003-07:00

With another email coming out to the student body regarding Darden's latest position in whichever ranking was most recently released, I feel the need to go off on a slight, (tame) rant about B-school rankings.

I almost wish that all the magazines and websites didn't even bother to produce rankings, since they are actually not useful for anything more than students being able to say, "I attend a top X school." (X being one lower than whatever the highest ranking achieved by the school happens to be) People comparing Wharton to Yale, for example, are bound to be disappointed. Yes, it would be easy to say "well, Wharton is ranked #3 and Yale is ranked #15, therefore I should attend Wharton." However, if the potential applicant preferred something like non-profit management, then Wharton might not actually be the better choice.

So there's really no substitute for actually visiting schools, finding out how the courses are structured, getting a feel for the student body and making sure that the firms/companies you want to work for recruit from that school. If you do this, you may actually discover that the comparison of the Top 20 B-schools is more of a comparison of apples to oranges to pomegranates, rather than apples-to-apples.

Lunch with the Dean

2011-01-27T18:02:00.002-07:00

So, first of all, I've been asked to set the record straight. The students who showed up, respectively, at 7:31 a.m. and 7:39 a.m. on seating chart day were actually there as a joke. My fellow b-school-mates are not quite as dorky as I may have led you to believe in my previous blog post. (Though it is true that a substantial number of the good seats were taken by the time I arrived at 9 a.m.)

Moving along.

Today I was lucky enough to have lunch with the dean after he spoke in our class. Besides being a great opportunity to talk about Darden with the dean, there were two things that really stood out to me. First of all, he knew the lady serving us by name, but even more importantly, he told our entire table about the four ladies (all of whom he named) who stayed over night to ensure that the snowstorm would not keep them from serving breakfast to all of the executive education students. I found it incredible that the leader of the school would take the time to honour this woman whose role is so often taken for granted. Of course, Darden does have the most amazing serving staff I've ever met.*

Secondly, and more selfishly, I was impressed that the dean knew MY name. After lunch, he came over to shake my hand and wish me best wishes as I move to Boston.

Anyway, I could go on about the merits of the Darden dean, but I'm running late for dinner. All I want to finish with is a link to his new year's blog post on integrity, which I strongly encourage you to check out!

*Anyone who goes to Darden knows Theresa, the cashier/server who is always, always smiling. Today, when I saw her at lunch, I told her how much I appreciate how much she smiles, and she told me that one of her supervisors once told her that her uniform wasn't complete until she smiled. It's amazing what a difference it makes! She won the Friend of the Students Award this year.

Seating Chart Day

2011-01-26T07:44:00.002-07:00

Today is the day we set the seating chart for the rest of the semester for one of my classes.

I felt really silly showing up at 9 a.m. for a class that doesn't start until 10 a.m., but I really wanted to claim my ideal seat: sky deck, slightly off center.

I felt silly, that is, until I realized that a good portion of the sky deck and all of the center aisle seats were already taken. One of my classmates was complaining that another classmate had showed up at 7:31 a.m. to steal HIS seat.

By 9:45, all that was left was the front row.

So I guess seating charts remain important even after high school.

The Value of an MBA

2011-01-18T20:18:00.007-07:00

Naturally, being the nerdy business student that I am, I calculated the risks and NPV (net present value - essentially the values of future cash payments minus the current amount which must be shelled out) of an MBA before I took the plunge to head down to Virginia. It was a very important calculation for me, given that student loans for international students had outrageous interest rates, the job climate was inhospitable, and the risks of investing in an education without getting a payback were very real.

As I was chatting with a friend from undergrad over break who is thinking about doing an MBA in a few years, also wondering whether going down to the US for an MBA is worthwhile, I told her about all my analysis, and she suggested writing a blog post about it. So here it is... a few different ways to look at the value of an MBA.

First... calculate the NPV of the increase in salary garnered by an MBA. Take the following assumptions:

If you consider that the average salary of a student pre-Darden is $50,000 (pulled from this oh-so-reliable source), and
the average salary coming out of Darden is $102,000 (pulled from the 2009-2010 employment report), and
the average age at graduation is 30 years old,
you can calculate the difference each year between a salary that starts at $50,000 (no MBA) and a salary that starts at $102,000 (MBA), each growing at 2% (in this case, the difference in the first year would be $72,000; in the second year the difference would be $53,040).*
Over 25 years (assuming early retirement at 55), at a 10% discount rate, this value comes out to over $550,000.
For an international student, the cost and fees comes out to ~$100,000, plus $100,000 in lost salary.
The NPV of an average MBA comes out to over $350,000.**
Technically, this is a really conservative estimate, since most people who do MBAs tend to get salary increases higher than the rate of inflation. Also, if you consider that at 25 years out, the no-MBA salary is $80k and the post-MBA salary is only $165k, the differences in salary likely increase more with an MBA.

Another way to look at it would be to look at the payback period (for loans or "opportunity cost").

If you take the above assumed costs as the loans required for an MBA ($200,000... though this would be on the high side!)
Pay them out over the remaining life of the career (25 years)
And assume an interest rate of 8%
You are looking at paying back around $20,000 annually in loan payments. Thus you could land a job at only $70,000 to "break even" with an MBA and essentially live the same lifestyle you had before doing an MBA.
Note: To pay back the loans in only five years, you would need the average MBA salary of just over $100k.

Anyway, the math is crude, but I know when I did the calculations, it made sense for me to take the risk. Without divulging any personal details, I figured that at the very least, my old company would likely take me back at a rate that would sustain my loan payments.

And of course, the other drawback of trying to quantify the value of an MBA is that it doesn't take into account the intangibles: the opportunity to meet international students, go on courses that are taught internationally, get exposure to companies who never would have looked at me before. Plus there is the value of the Network... which in some ways is as intangible as the great friends I have, but in others could be very quantifiable - support in launching new ventures, access to jobs or people to hire, contacts for expertise.

Everyone has their own way of looking at the decision to get an MBA, and I'll admit that it's definitely not for everyone, but for me it was a no-brainer.

*Yes, technically, you would have to grow the pre-MBA salary for two years before comparing it, but since this difference is immaterial, I ignored it.

**Any astute fellow students who have learned about the "flaw of averages" will tell me this is inapplicable, but I figure it represents a fairly conservative estimate of the value.

Christmas Break in Pictures

2011-01-11T06:25:00.003-07:00

Well, I'm back in Charlottesville and back in class, but I've finally pulled all the pictures from my camera and taken time to remember a fun and varied Christmas break. Here are some of the highlights.

Above: rock formations in the DeSoto Caverns about an hour outside of Birmingham, Alabama

Above: the beach at Pensacola

Above: fireworks at the Magic Kingdom in Disney World

Above: people playing hockey on Lake Louise in Banff National Park

Above: Rock formations at the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs

A Fond Farewell to 2010

2011-01-01T11:31:00.003-07:00

It's that time of the year. Time for reflection on a year gone by and anticipation of a year to come.

In many ways, 2010 was a culmination of almost two years of a lot of hard work. It was in 2008 that I began the long b-school journey with all the studying for the GMAT, followed by endless hours poring over different b-school offerings, visits to schools and essay after essay for applications. The beginning of 2009 brought good news of acceptance to Darden, then all the issues that come with a cross-border move: visas, international student loans, apartment/roommate hunting, etc. Then when I started at Darden, life and school were very, very busy. The first year at Darden was a LOT of work, especially as I was balancing the academic stresses with preparation for the job search.

Given all of this pre-amble, the focus in 2010 was really on the job search. Recruiting definitely had its highs and lows this year, but as I look at the end of 2010, I am very relieved and blessed to have an amazing job lined up. For the first time in nearly two years, 2011 will bring some "down time" of sorts as I get to relax and focus solely on learning for my last semester of b-school. (Haha, oh yeah, and finding a new place to live in Boston...)

Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't talk about some of the other adventures that came in 2010. As I've done over the past few years, I hit my three new places: Barcelona, Cape Cod and a whole host of places in the South (Nashville, Alabama, Florida). Travel has been an important theme in my life since I started at school and I look forward to doing a lot more of it in 2011!

Blogging Hiatus

2010-12-28T22:00:00.002-07:00

Alas, I realize that I've been a delinquent blogger.

Darden gives us a generous four weeks of vacation. This is the official time off, anyway. There are four weeks between the official exam deadline and the start of J-week classes, so if you finish exams early and don't take a J-week class, you could potentially stretch it out by an additional two weeks.

While I wasn't lucky enough to avoid J-week classes, I did finish my exams early and have been on vacation now for nearly three weeks. In the past three weeks, I have visited the Opryland Hotel in Nashville, visited the DeSoto Caverns in Alabama (see previous blog post!), sunk my feet into the sand in the beach at Pensacola, visited every Disney World park and saw the Harry Potter world at Universal Studios. Just three days after walking around Universal Studios drenched from the water rides, I was back in freezing cold Edmonton, Alberta, Canada for Christmas.

Last week was a total blur of friends and family, but the highlight was my surgery... I can SEE now. Without glasses or contacts. If anyone is considering lasik, I highly recommend! I think my vision is now better than 20/20, something that contacts and glasses haven't been able to achieve in over 20 years. I take great delight now in both the crispness of everything I see and the fact that I don't need to put in contacts every morning.

Christmas came and went, and I now find myself back in my dearly beloved Canadian Rockies. My parents rented some amazing suites at the Grand Rockies Resort in Canmore as a base for our annual ski vacation. It's been absolutely luxurious and I've thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to ski, play board games and just get in some relaxed me-time.

Anyway, not that prospective Darden students really need to hear what I've been up to on vacation... I just want to encourage the first years who are undoubtedly using every spare minute to work on cover letters and practice interviews that second year really is awesome.

Sweet (Someone Else's) Home Alabama

2010-12-10T21:09:00.005-07:00

Alabama.

When I crossed the border into Alabama and entered the visitor information center, I knew that I was going to love Alabama. The people were so delightfully friendly that we decided we'd better make Alabama an actual stop on our road trip.

Spending the night in Birmingham, we found an amazing restaurant downtown called Twenty Six. For some reason, I was really hungry by the time we rolled in and the food was splendidly delicious.

This morning, we headed to our tourist destination of choice: DeSoto Caverns Family Fun Park. Everything about this visit screamed "Alabama" to me. From the y'alls in the gift shop to the ghetto fabulous "rides" (see below) to the evangelistic light show.

The cavern tour, which was really quite neat, featured a Christmas themed water and light show.

Not only did the Caverns feature pedal go-karts, a bouldering wall, a bunch of cool rock formations, and the fudge from the "100 things to eat in Alabama before you die", but the lady in the gift shop was insanely friendly and offered to email me the photo they had taken of me and AB in the cave.

She recommended a BBQ restaurant on the way back to the highway, so we set off for Sylacauga for lunch. We were greeted by the friendliest people I've ever met... but the highlight was the waitress, who I'm fairly certain must have been close to nine months pregnant. Not only was the pork BBQ I had DELICIOUS, but I also got to try the southern treats my friends have raved about: fried green tomatoes, fried okra, and hush puppies. Needless to say, I've had enough deep fried whatever to last quite a while, but I'm glad I tried it!

The rest of the drive was beautiful, and all the ranch country reminded me of home. There was something so charming about the accents, the friendliness and the scenery. I love Alabama!

Snow-Covered Appalachians and Tennessee Sunsets

2010-12-08T21:19:00.004-07:00

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

That is the sound of all the stress being let out of me.

The last few months have been filled with stressors, challenges and unknowns. I don't think I realized quite how tightly wound I was until I found myself VERY anxious to leave Charlottesville this morning.

But I got away safely and am now in Nashville, TN, staying at a hotel which my road trip companion, AB, describes as "the type of place people come after committing a crime." I guess it really isn't that bad, but after staying in hotels that companies have paid for every weekend for the past two months, it definitely seems ghetto!

It's been a really, really great day. I haven't been on a road trip in a year and a half, so this was well overdue. The first stop of the day brought us to the Pink Cadillac Diner, a restaurant suggested by AB who was there on a road trip over Thanksgiving. It was not to be missed - just picture a completely pink building in the middle of nowhere with a large statue of King Kong out front. The inside was equally entertaining.

During the afternoon, we drove through snow-covered Appalachian mountains. The scenery was amazing, and seeing all the cows on the hills actually reminded me of home. I have to admit that as much as I'll regret saying this in two weeks (when I'm home with snow and -30C), I do miss the snow.

We finished off the day with this:

Need I say more?

Signed, Sealed and Plunked in the Mail...

2010-12-06T17:42:00.001-07:00

It's official.

After over 30 interviews, 7,993 airline miles, and countless recitations of my "tell me about yourself", I'm done. I signed my offer letter, placed it in the mail, and sent a PDF copy to HR.

I'll be heading to Boston in August to work for a consulting firm.

It's been quite the year. I've gone through all possible highs and lows with the recruiting process. I've stressed out to my wit's end and celebrated the milestones that kept me going along the way.

Now it's time for my final celebration in the process... Heading off to Disney World!

30,000 Feet in the Air

2010-12-02T19:12:00.003-07:00

Okay, so I know in-flight wifi is totally old news, but it's my first time using it.

I'll be honest - even if I have nothing of importance to communicate with anyone, it drives me crazy being on an airplane knowing that I don't have the option of communicating with the outside world. In fact, since getting a smart phone, I've started to pull my phone out the minute the plane touches ground (if I'm not already sneakily using it to read), and turning off airplane mode the minute the stewardess begins the announcement that ends with "it is now safe to turn on cellular phones" so my phone has reception as soon as possible. It's not that I'm particularly important or have anyone in particular to communicate with; I just like knowing that I can.

Anyway, in-flight wifi has solved the twitching that accompanies a long flight and the shut down of communication. While I can't talk on the phone or send text messages, I can use email, Office Communicator and the WhatsApp app on my iPhone. I can also send this - my very first post from the air.

This is kind of a monumental trip, as it is my very last final round interview trip. The past quarter has been filled with travel. With the exception of Thanksgiving weekend and the weekend my parents came to visit, I've been out of town every week. While I've enjoyed racking up my United Mileage Plus points and enjoying staying in hotels (I sleep better; the people living above me like to walk around at 1 a.m. and the ceiling creaks), it'll be nice to be finished with interviews.

Of course, I'm not finished with travel... in the last week, I've booked trips to Disney World, home, Colorado and China. I guess I can't get too excited that the end of living-out-of-a-suitcase is in sight.

Second year at Darden is awesome.

Oh the Places You'll Go!

2010-11-24T14:03:00.004-07:00

Several years ago, a book I read suggested that I needed to visit three new places a year. While I'm sure there were many other good suggestions in the book, that was the one that I took to heart.

Three years ago, it was becoming a stretch to get to three new places a year. I only had two weeks of vacation, and I'd already been every interesting place within a weekend's drive of good, old Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Since moving down to Charlottesville for B-school, all of that has changed. In the past month, I've been to three new places... Though, granted, they've all been for interviews, and the extent of the sights I've seen have been the insides of my hotel rooms. I would probably not count any of them as my three new places for the year, but that doesn't matter, since this year, I've already been to Barcelona, Detroit and Cape Cod/Martha's Vineyard to check off my list. And if I can't technically use Detroit as a new place since I accidentally drove through several years ago on a road trip when my sister and I missed a turnoff as we were caught up in our driving game, I'm headed off on a road trip to Florida after exams are finished in December.

It's funny how much my life has changed. I remember sitting in a cubicle in an office building in Edmonton, feeling like life was passing by, feeling as though my social life was slowly disappearing as my friends all got married and then started having babies. Now I've been able to travel to more places than I've ever been, being driven around in limos and put up in fancy hotels. Last weekend, I walked down the street and got last minute tickets to a Dave Matthews concert. I've made friends with people from all across the globe. My life has come a long way since I made the big decision to uproot my life and pursue my MBA, and there's no looking back.

Life is Good

2010-11-08T09:38:00.002-07:00

The sun is warm.

The fall foliage is gorgeous.

I walked through the grass today just to hear the leaves crunch under my feet.

My new pink scarf is pretty.

And I got a job offer.

Another Reason to Love Darden

2010-11-02T08:23:00.003-06:00

If you've been following my blog, it's not much of a secret that the current recruiting phase that I am in is super stressful. (Yes, three blog posts in a row about recruiting - I do apologize.)

Sadly, while I've somehow managed to be getting through classes with positive results, I can't say that I've been my normal, peppy self. This quarter, which will (hopefully) be the most stressful quarter of the year, I made the mistake of taking classes with all professors that I already have good relationships with. The downside of that is that while I may have managed to fool last quarter's professors into thinking I was putting the most possible effort into their classes, this quarter's professors know better.

As I was walking to school today, having not-the-best-morning-ever (a cold and some bad news yesterday), I heard my name yelled from across the parking lot. I turned around, and there was my PE prof. She asked how things were going and I was perfectly honest with her: I was stressing about the job search. She said that I didn't seem to be my normal self, but told me to focus on getting a job first and then stress about her class after I had a job and it came close to finals time.

It's just nice to have profs who A) understand where your priorities are and B) notice when you're stressing out and care enough to ask about it.

I love Darden profs... this is probably one of the reasons the Princeton Review recently ranked Darden professors #1.

Halloween, Darden-Style

2010-11-01T12:48:00.003-06:00

One of the things that I love about Darden is that everyone gets really engaged with everything. When we had the 80s-themed 100 Case Party last year, everyone was there with blue eyeshadow, neon sunglasses and tapered acid-washed jeans. Halloween is no exception to the "everyone dresses up" mentality. After being one of three people who wore a costume to our company costume contest the year before Darden (and, to be fair, I didn't show up in the costume, I brought it and put it on because one of the newer employees had gone all-out and I didn't want her to feel awkward!), it's refreshing to attend a costume party where everyone is, indeed, in costume.

Even more exciting, no one goes halfway with their costumes. I remember when I was in Grade 7 and dressed up as "modern-day Goldilocks." The only difference between my standard every-day dress and this particular "costume" was that I wore my (blonde, naturally curly) hair down, rather than pulled up in the usual ponytail. That was a big step for me. Anyway, at Darden, anyone in costume (which was, actually, everyone) went all out - wigs, face paint, accessories, shoes, everything. There was a Shrek with a completely green face, trolls with neon wigs and glittery eyelashes, Three's Company, and a couple dressed as lawn ornaments.

Ironically, after the excitement of attending Halloween parties on Friday and Saturday, I completely forgot that Sunday was actually Halloween. I haven't lived in a neighbourhood with any kids for quite some time, and consequently haven't handed out candy to kids in quite a few years.

Anyway, November is here, and with November comes a chill in the air. Yesterday, I was sitting on a sunny patio, comfortable in a t-shirt. Today, I am pulling my sweater and scarf around me for extra warmth.

Interviews

2010-10-23T10:35:00.002-06:00

Yes, it's true... another post about recruiting. I would write about something else, but the truth is... well, it is somewhat all-consuming in my life right now.

I flew out to Atlanta for my first final-round interview yesterday. It was the first time I've flown somewhere for an interview, and I must admit that I learned a few things:

If you're going for a day, where your itinerary consists of: fly to destination city, eat lunch at airport, take cab to interview, quick post-interview cocktails with fellow interviewees, cab back to airport for dinner and fly home... well, there is no need for a laptop. You're better served saving the room in your bag for a change of clothes. Or, just bringing a smaller bag so your shoulder doesn't kill you at the end.
Making #1 a mute point, I actually recommend flying out the night before. We had to drive through Richmond during rush hour to get to the airport, and I had a near panic attack when we were stopped on the interstate with an hour and 5 minutes until our plane left. Fortunately, the traffic dissipated and we had already checked in for our flight and there was virtually no line-up to get through security.
RELAX. I don't normally get overly stressed about interviews, but perhaps all the travelling added to my anxiety levels. There were a few points during the interview that I was really not my normal relaxed self.

Anyway, I'm hoping recruiting season will be done in four weeks - potentially even earlier!

Fall is Here

2010-10-13T14:48:00.002-06:00

In my last blog post, I bemoaned the passing of fall without my mindful watch. Well, yesterday was a very rare weekday off school, and having prepped all I possibly could for the upcoming stretch of interviews, I played hooky from life, drove an hour and a half up Skyline Drive, and went for a hike.

While I will always be partial to my Canadian Rockies, and frequently refer to Shenandoah as "mountains", I will admit that fall in Shenandoah National Park is breathtakingly beautiful. Growing up in a climate where fall lasted two weeks, and the only colour the leaves ever turned was yellow, it is an absolute treat to watch the autumn season unfold slowly, with it's wide array of fall hues. That the mountains in Shenandoah don't go higher than the tree line means that the valleys are filled with rolling hills covered in trees, sporting colours of every kind this time of year.

My friend and I made our way up to White Oak Canyon, with the main attraction being the first set of waterfalls. After a week of rain a while back, the waterfall was gorgeous and full. We reached the main lookout on the waterfall, a nice rock outcropping, and sat to eat some freshly picked apples and simply enjoy the warm sun and breathtaking views. It was the perfect day. Driving home, we decided instead of cutting over to the faster Route 29, we would just take Skyline Drive as far as we could. All in all, it was definitely the best way to prep for upcoming interviews.

Of course, most things in life are too good to be true, and my otherwise perfect day was no exception. About thirty minutes into the hike, my fast downhill pace got the better of me and I fell and twisted my ankle. Being the stubborn trooper that I am, I wasn't about to allow a twisted ankle to spoil my day, especially since I seemed to be able to still turn it and walk on it just fine. So I hiked another three hours or so. Unfortunately, after sitting in the car for half an hour after finishing the hike, I realized that was not the smartest of decisions and have since been resting, icing, compressing and elevating my ankle. (RICE) Needless to say, I sported flat shoes to my interview this morning. (And, since all my pant suits are tailored to be worn with heels, I had to wear a skirt and show off my awesome war wound. Sigh.)

Job Job Job Job Job Job Job

2010-10-05T20:30:00.002-06:00

It's THAT time of year.

Unfortunately, I'm not referring to the time of year where the temperature reaches tolerable levels, the leaves take on gorgeous autumn hues, and the sun hits the earth at just the right angle to create a warm, cozy fall glow. While yes, it is that time as well, that is not what occupies the thoughts of my every waking moment.

It's recruiting season. While the first years are busy throwing on khaki pants, blue dress shirts, and name tags, the second years are practicing interviews and awaiting the arrival of "closed lists." Essentially, with on-grounds recruiting at Darden, companies will post a job opportunity and specify a number of interview slots that will be offered. These slots are divided into invite slots and bid slots. The closed list is a list of people who are invited to interview with a company. The bid slots work a little bit differently - effectively an auction to give the people who are really passionate about a job an opportunity to interview.

Whew. So that's the system.

I wish that I were blogging about something other than recruiting. But, let's be honest, I wish I were THINKING about something other than recruiting. It occupies all my time (five mock interviews tomorrow). It occupies my head making me unable to communicate in social circles.

BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT... I'm off to a good start. I keep telling myself that if I work hard now, and line up a job before Christmas, the rest of the year will be smooth sailing.

So, that's life. And hopefully, just hopefully, I'll find some time to get out and enjoy my favorite season before it fades away into the dead of winter.

I Thought First Year Was Over!

2010-09-29T16:52:00.002-06:00

When I decided to limit myself to four classes this quarter, I thought that recruiting would essentially amount to another class.

This has not been the case.

The last few weeks (and the foreseeable future) have been filled with resume drops, cover letter writing, and practice interviews.

Classes? Right... yes, I do attend those. And prep for them somewhere between all the recruiting.

Anyway, hopefully all this preparation will be well worth it when I land my dream job before Christmas. That is the light at the end of this long tunnel. And, at least I enjoy doing case interviews... guess it could be worse!

Changes

2010-09-22T13:31:00.003-06:00

It had been over eight months since I'd been home. But this weekend, I drove two hours to Dulles airport, and two long plane rides later, I found myself at the Edmonton International Airport, sans luggage.

Things have changed since I left. Although I only got to hold one of them, there have been at least three new babies born among friends. A whole bunch of my friends have up and left the city. And my parents' new house is completely framed and well on its way to being completed. I thought it would be weird to be back... but I guess when you've lived in a city for 18 years (and driven in it for 14), you naturally remember how the roads work together and manage to get easily from place to place. (Edmonton also has a handy numbered-street system which makes it quite easy to navigate!)

I've changed. I don't know that I can say entirely HOW I've changed, but at the very least, my sister pointed out that I now say "about" like an American. (You know, with three syllables instead of two!) As people asked whether I was planning on coming home after finishing, I replied that I was looking at cities like Atlanta, Chicago and New York,* places I never really would have dreamed of living before. There's a certain sense of accomplishment that I've gained from conquering my first year at Darden and working at a tremendously successful start-up that seems to trump all my previous accomplishments. In many ways, heading back to Edmonton felt like heading back to a much smaller world... an ironic comparison because Edmonton is a city of a million, and Charlottesville-Albemarle county has only around 100,000.

Over the last few weeks, I've realized that as we move forward and move on in life, we never have the option of going back. If I were to move back to Edmonton now, it would never be the same as it was because I am not the same as I was. Our experiences in life are entirely dependent on our own outlooks and the perspectives and make-up of the people we are with. It's impossible to live in the past... something that we could be sad about if we weren't committed to building an exciting future.

Before leaving for Charlottesville last year, I got quite nostalgic, feeling that the things I was leaving behind would never quite be the same. As it turns out, I was right.

*Not an exhaustive list of possibilities.

Cold Call

2010-09-02T18:51:00.004-06:00

Though I could make an entire blog post related to Darden terms, since someone posted a comment asking what a "cold call" is, I figured I would quickly answer it, urban-dictionary style...

COLD CALL:

1) The opening question of the case discussion, directed at a non-volunteering student. Can also be used in the middle of class.

Professor Landel cold called me during my 8 a.m. OPS class and I was still hung over from TNDC.*

Today I got cold called in strategy because Professor Fairchild knew I was a chef and also took cooking classes in Paris.

2) An almost-weekly gathering of the Darden community, named for the afore-mentioned class cold call.

You have to show up at the Cold Call at least ten minutes early, otherwise they will run out of food.

Alternative Uses:

Cold Call Chronicle: The Darden student newspaper (which also happens to be run by one of my best friends here!)

Did you see what they wrote about you in the Cold Call Chronicle?

Cold Call Chorus: an a capella group

The Cold Call Chorus performed for the Class of 2009 graduation.

*TNDC = Thursday Night Drinking Club

Second Year

2010-09-01T09:16:00.002-06:00

When you're running around like a chicken with your head cut off, forgetting to eat dinner and staying up to all hours of the night in hopes of dodging cold calls, second year seems like a distant Mecca. No one who researches Darden really worries about second year; all the focus is on whether or not you can handle first year.

Being the over-prepper, psyched-for-Darden, type that I was, I knew exactly what to expect for first year. I knew November would be black; I knew I'd have to bust out the 80s gear for the 100 Case Party; I knew about Cold Calls.

Somehow I managed to work my way through the maze of first year and now find myself solidly on the ground in second year, and I'm not really sure WHAT I expected, but it wasn't this.

Yes, I have more time. No, I do not have enough time.

It would be a stretch to say that I miss the comfort of the rigid first year schedule. After a time, I made peace knowing I wasn't going to accomplish everything I wanted to accomplish, and did the best I could. Now, I am back to thinking I'm super woman and can be a master case interviewer, savvy networker and charismatic club president while maintaining a straight "DP"* average.

Anyway, I could do all those things and be burned out by the end of the month. Instead, I'm learning to delegate club responsibilities to my more-than-capable VPs, spacing out the case interview prep, and staying on top of the course work. I am still only human, with 168 hours in the week, and life's too short to obsess over all these things. The biggest lesson I learned in first year was that you can do more with less, and taking breaks and maintaining relationships are the best thing you can do for your career.

*"DP" is the Darden code word for "A" and stands for "distinguished performance". Apparently "A" is a designation which produces too much competition and self-loathing, thus they changed it to "DP" so we would have to translate it for everyone and perhaps in the translation would lose the self-loathing? I never really understood why they changed it. Especially since we still have to submit our 4.0 scale GPAs to certain recruiters.

Tourist-ed Out

2010-08-24T08:35:00.002-06:00

On my last trip to NYC, I reveled in the joys of not being a tourist. Being anti-tourist on that trip was somewhat bittersweet, though, as I had still never seen the Brooklyn Bridge or the Statue of Liberty.

That has all changed, and I'm proud to announce that I have officially completed all touristy activities that I ever want to do in Manhattan.

And I'm tired.

My best friend from home flew in to meet me, and in just four short days, we visited the Met and MOMA, Central Park, shopped on Fifth Ave, rode the Staten Island Ferry to see the Statue of Liberty, walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, attempted to take a picture of the bull on Wall Street, saw two Broadway shows, bought cheap t-shirts in Chinatown and visited the Meatpacking District.

Whew.

From there, we visited DC and covered parts of two of the Smithsonians, the Capital, the Washington Monument, the White House, the WW2 memorial, Lincoln Memorial and the Arlington Cemetery. In three hours.

I'm now back in C'ville and welcoming the opportunity that being in class means I can just SIT for a while. I learned a lot about myself and how I see the world this past week. I don't like traveling. Not the type of traveling that involves rushing from site to site trying to cram as much in as possible. I love experiencing things. My favourite night in New York was the night we sat in Union Square and watched one skateboard try again and again to land a kick-flip. (He almost succeeded once before hurting his ankle.)

In other news, second year at Darden has started and it is officially awesome. More on that later...

Smooth Sail to the Finish

2010-08-12T20:56:00.002-06:00

My boss sent me home at 3 p.m. today.

My final presentation for the summer was this morning, and with a long week behind me (some days up until 2 a.m.), he figured I'd put in enough hours.

All that's left to do is make sure everything is organized and wrapped up for the summer. After months of crunching data and running analyses, it's weird to be doing nothing more than changing the names of a few PowerPoint files and entering some final data into a spreadsheet.

I had a great summer! I'm overwhelmingly glad at how well everything turned out and optimistic about what my efforts this summer will mean for full-time recruiting. I'm also looking forward to working more with Relay through a Darden Business Project sometime over the year.

Lobster Weekend

2010-08-11T20:10:00.002-06:00

In the latest installment of visit-friends-where-they-are-interning this summer, I hopped on a flight to Boston this past weekend. It was my first JetBlue flight, and I must admit that other than issues with the online check-in and confusion about seat availability, it was a great experience! The TV screens were not new to me, but really nice on a short-haul flight and the legroom was also quite comfortable. The best part, for my nerdy operations-minded brain, was that they actually board the plane from the back, so it happens in a fraction of the time. Take note, United, take note.

Rather than spending the weekend touring Boston, we took advantage of a house in Cape Cod that was available to us. It was my first time in Cape Cod and I felt spoiled having my own room and a queen-sized bed for the weekend. A friend of mine had recommended checking out Martha's Vineyard, so we took the ferry over there on Sunday, rented bikes, and cycled along the shore. I can think of few better ways to spend a Saturday!

I titled this post "lobster weekend" not only because I ate a lot of lobster, but because I finished Saturday looking like one. After spending so much time in the sun in Virginia, I figured I had enough of a base tan that I didn't really need to worry about sunblock. I was wrong. Yet, despite the fact that I am trying to figure out how to make my tan lines disappear so I can wear tank tops again, the sunburn was well worth the day of seeing the ocean and beautiful Cape Cod houses, realizing that the expression "it's just like riding a bike" is true, and eating all sorts of delicious, fresh seafood.

The best surprise of the weekend was seeing my aunt's post on Facebook the night before I left and realizing she was going to be in Boston at the same time as me! We got in touch and I had a great dinner with family before flying back to Richmond.

Anyway... I have two days left of my internship (plus some work yet to do tonight) and then I'm off for my final adventure of the summer: meeting my best friend from home in NYC.

Nostalgia, Part 2

2010-08-01T20:53:00.003-06:00

It was a year ago today that I left my home of 18 years for the Great Adventure that has been Darden. Last year, I celebrated my birthday with the crowd of friends and supporters I'd been collecting for 18 years - co-workers, friends from high school and undergrad, church, and people who somehow made it into my life over the years. Yesterday, I celebrated my birthday with a small group of amazing girlfriends I only had the privilege of getting to know this May, and spent a good five hours on the phone with people living elsewhere.

In some ways it's hard to believe it's only been a year, and in others, it's hard to believe it's been a full year. And, to continue on the poetic paradoxes, it's been everything I expected and nothing at all what I expected. Going into Darden, I was well-educated on what to expect: hard work, great times, great people, come out a stronger and better person on the other side. I knew all about Section Norms and the 100 Case Party and Learning Teams. What I didn't know was all the details: the people who would make my life richer, the details that would come every day, how my specific academic and recruiting story would look.

And maybe this post is a year premature, but with a birthday yesterday and a coffee visit with an incoming first year this evening, all these thoughts are circulating in my mind. The biggest question as many of the first years stare down the barrel of the gun that is first year, is "is it worth it?"

And the answer, of course, is yes.

First year at Darden was not easy for me. It wasn't the stresses of the academic rigor, but the piling of everything: struggling with the job search for the first time in my life, being far away from everyone familiar and discovering new things about myself, over-committing to volunteer positions that had my Outlook calendar crazy full, and trying to participate in an environment where there are a LOT of really smart people.

But when I look back and see how well everything turned out, and realize what I've learned about business and about myself, I can't imagine doing it any other way. Even my internship search, which was by far the most stressful part of first year for me, turned out better than I could have possibly planned and has opened doors for full-time recruiting that I never would have imagined. Most importantly, I've spent time taking trips this summer to visit people who have become an integral part of my life who I didn't even know existed at this time last year.

I can only hope that Second Year - only three weeks away - will be just as awesome. But maybe without the stress.

A Year Ago...

2010-07-29T10:44:00.004-06:00

As I see posts on Facebook about people moving down to Charlottesville and see the evidence of moving trucks in Ivy Gardens, I can't help but remember the intense stress I put myself under this week a year ago.

I know that I really shouldn't admit things like what I'm about to admit in any sort of public forum, but in the hopes that it could help someone else, I'm just going to be honest and vulnerable. Anyway, the worst moment of my pre-move week was the emotional breakdown I had in the Alberta Registries office (Canadian equivalent of the DMV) when I discovered that the new-to-me car I was registering was still listed as leased... Not a big deal in ordinary circumstances, but a big deal when you are trying to drive it across the border in a cross-border move.

Among the other "adventures" that I went through at this time last year were having to get a new I-20 issued two weeks before my move (something I discovered while I was in Iowa for a friend's wedding), realizing that there was no way I'd be able to fit everything into my car and ultimately vacuum sealing anything that could possibly be shrunk and a very intense border crossing in which I had to tell my sister that playing the Arrogant Worms song with the chorus "burn, burn, burn the White House" would not be appropriate border-crossing music. (Referring to the War of 1812, not any sort of Canadian terrorist plans!)

Before I get to a suggested survival plan, I'm going to let you in on the punchline - everything was just fine. I got the right papers to take "leased" off my car registration. My sister turned off the stereo. Although I had to go in to get "processed," the merciful border guard did not attempt to open my vacuum-sealed trunk. And everything was A-OK.

Anyway, the best thing I did in my pre-move week was turn off my cell phone, leave my laptop at home, and head to the Canadian Rockies for a few days of camping, hiking and relaxing with my best friend. So, while most of you (and yes, this blog post is targeted at the Darden Class of 2012 - both of you who are still reading my posts!) may be tempted to check and re-check those lists of things to do, do yourself a favour and get away to RELAX! I'm not going to remind you of what's in store over the next few months... but trust me, relax while you can. :-)

Motor City

2010-07-22T08:12:00.004-06:00

Detroit doesn't have the best reputation.

When I told one of my friends I was headed to Detroit for the weekend, she referred to it as the "crotch of America."

My first impressions of Detroit were less than stellar. Although the airport was cool (I walked through a large tunnel with changing coloured lights and sound effects), the fact that domestic Delta flights came through the international terminal resulted in me waiting for an hour until my friend (who was new to the city) and I figured out we weren't in separate wormholes - he just needed to come to the other terminal.

After that, Detroit just started to pop up with sweet surprises. For starters, we drove down Michigan Ave. - a long street filled with abandoned buildings on either side. But our drive took us to this fun, cool, delicious and BUSY BBQ restaurant, where the wait to get in was over an hour. It just seemed such irony to wait so long for a table when the abandoned store just two doors over had a sign filled with bullet holes.

Over the weekend, I found all sorts of pleasant surprises in Detroit - the gorgeous DTE Energy concert venue where I lay on the grass watching the Goo Goo Dolls perform with the sunset in the background, Greenfield Village with its Model Ts and a tavern right out of the 1830s, Belle Island Park surrounded by beautiful blue water and a quaint neighbourhood in Dearborn with ivy-covered parking garages and brick houses.

So, as it turns out, Detroit isn't so bad after all. My main impression of the city was that it just felt empty - like it used to house many more people who all left after the crash of the American auto industry. But shoots of life are springing up all over the place. As my friend liked to point out, Ford is now at the same quality ratings as Honda (and even better in some cases, though I am loathe to admit it as an avid Honda lover). And with real estate prices at rock bottom (we saw a house listed for $300. Not $300k, but $300), it could be a good place to be if you have a reason (read: job) to be there.

Always Be Ready

2010-07-12T10:41:00.004-06:00

My roommate got me hooked on Good Morning America, so now I watch it every morning as I eat breakfast as a more peppy alternative to the regular news. (As a bonus, they show local news and weather right around the time I tune in.)

This morning, there was a moment that had the potential to be awesome. Some of the cast of Project Runway, including Heidi Klum, were doing a Q&A for the audience. A 16-year-old girl, asking as an actress hopeful, stepped up to the microphone and asked Heidi Klum when she had gotten her first big break. Heidi told the story of her first modelling contest and then the hostess (Robin? I haven't been watching that long) invited the girl up, giving her the opportunity for her first big break.

The girl choked. She got on stage and messed up an opportunity to show the world what she was capable of... not by messing up a song/dance/joke, but by not offering one at all. To be fair to the girl, she wasn't expecting this opportunity. But, think of what could have happened had she been ready.

The moment reminded me of recruiting. Everyone dreams of having an audience with the HR director/high-up partner, but few are prepared when that moment comes. I wasn't always ready because I wasn't expecting that kind of moment. But seeing GMA this morning, I realized that we can't afford to let those moments go by without being prepared. Just like an aspiring Broadway star should be ready to bust out a song and dance at a moment's notice, I should always be ready to tell someone exactly why they want me on their team.

So... Although I know most of the prospective/incoming students have stopped reading my blog for the summer (at least that's what Google Analytics would suggest :) ), if you are reading, the biggest advice I have for you as you get ready to come to Darden is to get your story ready. Know why you are the best candidate for the jobs you are seeking and be prepared to tell that story given the proper audience.

Meanwhile, Back in Cville...

2010-07-05T19:50:00.004-06:00

Although I haven't blogged much about it in my last few posts, I have still been working at my internship and hanging out in Charlottesville. A while back, I thought I hit the halfway point of my internship, but my project manager and I mutually agreed to extend my internship so I could do some more analysis for the company and get some more experience, so I've lost track of my progress at this point.

So, what's summer like in Charlottesville? Well, it's HOT. I used to use "it's 100 degrees outside!" as a hyperbole. There have been a few days here where we've approached that temperature. Of course, when I used the expression previously referring to the temperature in Celcius, it has certainly been much hotter than my poor Canadian tundra conditioning can handle. My dad was telling me about his cold camping trip this past weekend, and I was envious.

I've been playing on a softball team with a bunch of people from Darden, Darden partners and some law students, and it's been fun. Today we had our most stellar victory... didn't even have to show up since the other team forfeit and we got an email informing us we'd won this afternoon.

Yesterday was my first Fourth of July in the US. I think one word pretty much sums it up: fireworks. Americans like fireworks! We were delayed going to the fireworks Charlottesville shot off because people were lighting sparklers in the middle of the street. I managed to get in a few quintessentially American activities yesterday: played softball, watched a hot dog eating contest on ESPN, ate a hot dog at a cook out and watched fireworks. I didn't light off any fireworks myself, but the adventure of the evening was when my friend who's an ER resident at the UVA hospital had to attend to a child who got second degree burns from some amateur fireworks shooting.

The internship continues to go well. I am a huge fan of the virtual office. The company's entire file system is done through cloud computing, so I can access files anywhere I get Internet. Even more importantly, the files are synched to my computer, so I can work offline and sync once I have Internet access again. This was really handy when I took the train to NYC a few weeks ago and could work on the trip up. From the sounds of it, this set-up is way better than what some of my classmates have in terms of technology.

Even better than the virtual office, I do feel like I'm both accomplishing something and learning at the same time. It's been great to see there is life in Charlottesville outside of Darden!

Powerless

2010-06-25T15:28:00.003-06:00

The power went down in my apartment, the rest of the complex, and pretty much all of C'ville just over 24 hours ago. Cell phone signals are spotty, the Darden email server is down and I am bringing this blog to you from my office - a generator-fueled oasis of power and AC.

I find it ironic that I grew up practically in the tundra, still making it to work when it was -40C with blowing winds and three feet of snow, but a 15-minute storm can send an entire city into a tizzy. As a result, there have been only a few times in my life when I have had to live without power, and most of those times have been on camping trips. ;-) Boy, I wish I had a cooler and a Coleman stove right now!

Over the last 24 hours, I've discovered just how inextricably my life is linked to technology. For example, what do you do when you are out of communication with friends (no phone signal or Internet access), have no power for your computer or TV, and can't go for a walk because the street lights aren't working (a bad combination when the sidewalks are littered with fallen trees)? Well, a lot of people may take that opportunity to read. So, I did that, but since I have my books on the Kindle app on my iPhone, it only lasted until the low battery warning came and alerted me I may want to save that power to serve as an alarm clock in the morning. (Still died, but managed to wake up on time without it... Julie: 1, Technology: 0)

Anyway, like a true junkie, I am at the office charging up the following items before returning home to sweat it out (AC not working) in my dark apartment: portable DVD player, iPhone and laptop. I did have plans for tonight, but with email and phone signals down, I have no idea where I'm supposed to go! Until the power returns, this is a great place to bunker down, since some of the restaurants on the Mall have power, and a restaurant is definitely more appealing than beef jerky and pita chips at home.

Happy Father's Day!

2010-06-20T11:54:00.005-06:00

It's the time of year where kids all over present their dads with school-crafted neckties and celebrate fatherhood with BBQs. Although I outgrew the construction paper tie phase of my life many years ago, and, being 2,300 miles away, am not able to prepare a BBQ dinner for my dad, I want to honour him through a special tribute post.

My dad is one of the most giving, selfless men that I know. I can't say for sure, but I would almost bet that he is spending this Father's Day with his "adopted family" - a group of Congolese refugees who he delivered winter jackets to at Christmas and has since invited into his life. My dad has spent his life seeking out people that he can love through various ways, whether by helping single moms with construction projects around their homes, being an adopted dad at father/son events for boys that have no fathers (which worked out well for him, seeing as how I have only sisters!) or just generally inviting his friends to truly be a part of his life. Ever since my family moved to Edmonton, my dad always sought to make sure we had as many people over for Christmas or Easter dinner as we could possibly find who didn't otherwise have family in town. My dad was a model of what it means to love others, unconditionally.

One of the things that always drove me crazy when I lived with my parents was that it seemed as though the house was always under construction. My dad loves to build and remodel and dream about what could be. While my parents' house (and the house they are building) definitely reaps the benefit of this, there are also houses and camps everywhere that have benefited from this passion. My dad gives his Saturdays (and often evenings) to drive out to camp and build cabins or do renovations. In addition to this, he started a ministry at church called "Tool Time" which provides home renovation help to people who might not otherwise have the talent or money to get projects done on their own.

Although my dad was quite disappointed that I never became an accountant, he's supported my career decisions. One of the best parts of our relationships now is that we've moved from a relationship where "father knows best" to a dialogue where I share what I'm learning and give him input into his own business based on what I am learning and experiencing through my own career and education. I think the best gift my dad could have given me, and both my sisters, is the confidence that we can do anything, and then backing that confidence up by listening to what we are learning and letting us make our own decisions in life.

All in all, I am very truly blessed with the family that I have. I can't even express in words how appreciative I am, and I know that others are not as fortunate. But my dad has not just been a blessing to us - he's given the same love and support to countless others.

Happy Father's Day!

Anti-Tourist

2010-06-13T21:34:00.005-06:00

For many years, New York City was at the top of my list of places I wanted to visit, but seemed far and inaccessible. It was on the other side of the continent, and extremely excited. Given that travel during my first 25 years of life consisted mainly of road trips, and New York was a four-day drive away (yes, I actually looked into it), it just didn’t seem practical.

As I write this blog entry, I am riding the train back from my third trip to Manhattan. (No wifi yet, but there are power outlets to plug in my laptop!) The first trip to New York came when I was on the East Coast visiting MBA schools and stopped there with my mom for the weekend. We saw all the tourist attractions – spending time at Times Square every night, walking through Central Park, seeing Mamma Mia on Broadway, watching the New York Philharmonic play at Lincoln Center, watching Brett Favre in action at a New York Jets game and playing “Heart and Soul” on the big piano at FAO Schwartz. Though it should have satisfied my NYC cravings, it only whet my appetite for more NYC.

Now that my experience in NYC has transitioned from staying in expensive hotel rooms to sleeping on couches in friends’ apartments, the things I see and do have changed. Yesterday, instead of riding the Staten Island ferry (and catching that long-awaited glimpse of the Statue of Liberty), my friend and I went to a BBQ festival and caught up with some of her old friends. In some ways, I miss the tourist parts of New York, but seeing it as an “insider” has its definite benefits.

For starters, transportation costs are cheaper because you spend less money on hailing cabs and instead take public transit. Public transit is probably one of the best advantages of having a friend in the city; I saved a fortune on cab fare by knowing exactly which train to take to and from the airport in Munich. While public transit is accessible to everyone, there are so many other options that I never would have discovered if not for my friends. (Like the PATH trains to New Jersey, which I just found out about this weekend.)

You also get to eat at the less-crowded, less-hyped, but amazingly good restaurants that aren’t “World Famous” or located in the touristy areas. Yesterday morning, I walked straight past the one-hour line-up to get into Carlos’ Bakery of Cake Boss fame. Instead, last night I ate the most delicious, moistest chocolate cake I’ve ever had in my life at this little bakery called Amy’s Bread. On Friday night, we had incredible Chinese food at the Peking Duck House in Chinatown. The wait was only 10 – 15 minutes, and my friend was surprised there even was a wait. If it hadn’t been for the engagement party in the back half of the restaurant, we would have sat right down. The food was also much more reasonably priced than Planet Hollywood or Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square.

There’s a line from a John Mayer song that goes “Didn’t have a camera by my side this time, hoping I could see the world with both my eyes.” That’s how I felt about this trip. My camera was in my purse, but it stayed there all weekend. Instead, I paid more attention to enjoying my surroundings and taking in the people watching. I’ll do the tourist stuff the next time I visit the city with someone from back home, but for now, I enjoy being almost a local.

Foodie?

2010-06-06T21:05:00.003-06:00

Before this summer, I never would have considered myself a "foodie." Though I did enjoy food that tasted good, I never thought too much about where it came from or imagined new ways I could put food together to make something delicious.

Hours staring at a spreadsheet with delicious, local ingredients and reading even the first few chapters of "Omnivore's Dilemma" changed that for me. Although I still haven't gotten very far in "Omnivore's Dilemma", it's been interesting to see the implications of the corn takeover and how it's affected what we consume. Did you know that North Americans (Mexicans excluded...) have more corn in their bodies than the rest of the world? It's because it's in everything we eat. Farmers grow corn and feed it to cows, chickens and pigs. Even if we aren't eating corn, we eat it every time we eat beef, eggs, bacon, milk or cheese. To take it a step further, consider that corn is used to make most soft drinks (corn syrup), anything processed (corn starch) and pretty much everything we eat.

What's the problem with corn? There are a few. It takes more energy to produce corn than it actually provides, due to the use of synthetic fertilizers. It destroys traditional farms. It used to be that farmers grew oats, vegetables and other grains so they could feed their cows, chickens and pigs. Those cows, chicken and pigs would leave behind the remnants of their dinner, and this would be used to fertilize the fields for the next batch of crops. It was a self-sustaining system. Corn, instead, takes over the whole field (along with soy) and farming becomes industrial.

Anyway, although I haven't gotten as far as I'd like with "Omnivore's Dilemma", that's been in the back of my mind as I spend my days analyzing customer purchase patterns at work. Part of that process has involved going over our product database many times, which has provided me an opportunity to view the plethora of local foods available that were produced without corn. It's also enabled me to be a little more creative in what I'm cooking, and though I still don't feel confident to stray from a recipe, I've been looking up new recipes to try.

And, as part of that whole process, I took the plunge and ordered some very expensive chicken from a place called Polyface Farms. Food at Polyface is produced using the good, old-fashioned farming models, and despite the fact that I slightly overcooked the apple-stuffed chicken I made with it, I could tell there was a definite improvement over the regular chicken I buy.

Is this just an intern-induced fad, or will it mean sustained changes in the way I view food and the food chain? Only time will tell.

Nearly 20% Complete!

2010-05-27T19:55:00.003-06:00

It's hard to believe that I've been at my internship for two weeks as of tomorrow, and 20% complete! It feels like just yesterday that I was busting open the bottle of champagne to celebrate my offer.

My internship has been the best of both worlds. I am getting the opportunity to make an impact because I'm at a smaller company and they have a lot of projects that have just been waiting to get tackled. At the same time, I am working with people with significant experience in operations, the grocery industry and marketing. In fact, in just a week and a half, I have a meeting with three Darden professors to discuss what I've learned so far and get some feedback on how to go forward. Seems too good to be true!

Life has pretty much revolved around work. Somehow I've managed to get out most evenings while still clocking in a lot of hours. With time passing so quickly, it seems the eight hours of being in the office are not nearly sufficient. Fortunately, most of the work in the evenings has been pretty mindless and been done on the couch while watching TV.

Charlottesville is getting hot. I don't know how I'm going to survive a summer of +33C/+93F, but somehow I think I'll make it through. It would sure be nice if I had working AC... :-)

Internship Bliss

2010-05-21T23:10:00.002-06:00

Internships probably have honeymoon periods just like everything else. If that is true, I am still in mine.

The internship search was filled with tears, stress and anxiety for me. I never started counting my rejections (or "dings"), but some of the highlights included a rejection mere hours after I submitted the application and a rejection from a company that I never actually even submitted an application for. All in all, there were many, many moments during which those who were close to me had to remind me that things WOULD work out, and I would find the right internship.

Five days in, I couldn't agree more. Besides the fact that it's very convenient to stay in Charlottesville for the summer, I am finding the more I discover, the more I like this great town. Even better, I am working out of the Charlottesville Technology Incubator this summer (no room to work in the warehouse!) and it's located right on the Downtown Mall, which is by far my favourite part of Charlottesville. I spend my lunch and coffee breaks people watching and sampling some of C'ville's great restaurants. Perfect!

But all of that is cosmetic.

When I started my internship search, I was very focussed on consulting. I wanted to do consulting because of the ability to gain experience over a variety of functions and take on new challenges every couple of months. Anyway, Relay Foods excited me because it would give me the opportunity to work across functions, make an impact, and be part of a growing company. As it turns out, my internship is being constructed like a consulting project. I am working with a project manager who is a Darden professor who was a partner at a consulting firm pre-Darden and has already taught me a LOT about strategy, operations and marketing. In addition to getting the consulting experience that I really wanted, I get to use a lot of the skills I learned in my favourite class - Decision Analysis and Optimization.

All that said, it's also going to be quite an intense summer. I can't believe a week has already flown by! Given how much I want to accomplish yet, I know there are going to be many long days in the future.

Step One: Watch and Listen

2010-05-17T20:58:00.003-06:00

After a ten-month hiatus from the work world, I set my alarm early this morning, donned a suit and heels, and showed up to fill out all sorts of paperwork and get oriented.

First lesson: suit not required. No, in a start-up, where there's a good chance that you may end up loading trucks or sorting groceries, it's less important to dress to impress than it is to be able to weather whatever tasks arise during the day. I still haven't figured out exactly WHAT the dress code is, but I DO know that I am in need of some new cute FLAT shoes and may have to hit up the Nine West outlet this weekend. ;-)

Second lesson: start-ups are awesome. Not only did I see everyone perform a huge variety of tasks today, but there is tons of enthusiasm and energy in the company. It was hard to find a place to sit without getting in anyone's way, but nobody minded having someone in their way, since it seems to be standard operating procedure. One of the reasons I chose this company was because of the breadth and depth of expertise, and today I was reminded just how prevalent that is. And I'm a little sad that I won't be spending every day at the warehouse, but at the same time, it will be good to have a working space so I can focus on all the fun analysis I will be doing. (No, that's not sarcastic... I'm a quant nerd.) And my working space is downtown, so I will definitely be hitting up all the great downtown eateries that are only open during the day. (There's a sandwich shop called Baggby's, or something, that I heard of before I moved here but have never actually tried!)

Third lesson: your first, well, at least a week on the job, the best thing you can do is use only your eyes and ears and keep your mouth shut. As much as I may feel I learned during my first year at Darden, I still need to learn as much as I can about the business before I can really start to analyze what is happening and start making recommendations. Today, there were times that I wondered if I could possibly add value considering the depth of knowledge and insight already at the company. Fortunately, I have one thing that all those other people don't have: time. And hopefully, I can start with that, pick off the "low-hanging fruit", and then add some value before my short internship time is up.

Building a House

2010-05-16T14:33:00.001-06:00

Not me... My parents. And they're blogging about it. It's the second house they've designed and built, and this time they are taking care of everything.

http://robandelenorehouse2.blogspot.com/

Change of Pace

2010-05-15T16:16:00.002-06:00

Many of my fellow bloggers are off on exciting adventures - at the Cannes film festival, off to India, roadtripping across the midwest, partying at beach week and getting settled into new locations for new adventures.

Me? Well, I've spent the last week recollecting myself. Life during my pre-B-school life was organized and tidy. I came down to C'ville, threw in several months of 16-hour days of work, and suddenly my ordered life became less ordered. After finishing all the "Yay! We survived first year!" celebrations and saying some tough goodbyes, the first thing I did was make a list of everything I needed to do to feel human again.

It's been a great week! I got a taste of what it's like to be a "lady who lunches" as I've tried out new restaurants (big thumbs up for Blue Moon Diner), mosied along the Downtown Mall, and spent time browsing fun stuff in the shops. My greatest triumph was having an apartment so clean that I could invite friends over for dinner at the last minute.

All of this leisure time ends Monday morning at 8:30 a.m. when I start my internship. It's probably for the best. Starting this early leaves room for exciting adventures at the end of the summer, or to stick around my internship longer and make a bigger impact. And though I haven't yet been bored, I suspect there is the possibility if I were to have yet another week of leisure.

Anyway, since this isn't particularly interesting, you can read about Brianne's road trip or Sierra's trip to Cannes.

And That Concludes Act 1

2010-05-09T15:21:00.002-06:00

My final assignment for Darden first year was turned in on Thursday evening around 6 p.m. Ever since then, I've been meaning to write a post about finishing, but I've been too busy celebrating! I think I've had three glasses of champagne since then, baked a pie, and spent time riding roller coasters at Kings Dominion. (Though I need to go back because the Intimidator305 wasn't running yesterday!)

My MBA degree is half finished. It's been quite the year. I have learned more in this past year than I have in probably any other year of my recent life. And I haven't just learned about operations and accounting and finance. I've learned about myself, about how to be a good friend (both by having them and being one! I feel so blessed in that area), about how to balance having WAY too much on my plate, about how to say NO (to volunteer commitments), about how to relax within time constraints and that I can be pushed to the brink of what I think I can handle and come out okay. On top of all that, I've learned that Americans say "dinner" instead of "supper," "grades" instead of "marks," "soda" instead of "pop," and that they give you a weird look every time you pronounce that last letter of the alphabet as "zed."

My internship starts a week from tomorrow. I am one of the lucky few who does not have to deal with moving and packing, so I'll be spending the next week getting my life organized once again, and being a tourist around Charlottesville. If anyone has suggestions on touristy things that I can do, please feel free to leave a comment! (I've been to Monticello three times already, so please not that!)

Exams, Take 4

2010-05-04T21:26:00.004-06:00

For three quarters, exams were a one-day, five-hour (plus printing time!) affair that came every day between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. Exam week was one of bliss, since you could only write one per day, and they were all open book.

This quarter, everything changed. We wrote our core exams (LO and Ethics) yesterday and today, but the elective exams are all "at your leisure." So instead of turning in my ethics exam yesterday and going for a nice, long stroll, I ate lunch and wrote Valuation.

Some people have already finished all their elective deliverables. I am still plugging away at a business plan and have another final to write. But I'm almost there!

As for the business plan, it's actually really exciting. A local Charlottesville entrepreneur wants to start a business that will help Haiti, and I am writing his business plan with a couple of other students from my Creative Capitalism class! It's exciting because the business is actually taking off, and because it caters to my passion of alleviating poverty.

Anyway, I know that I am long overdue for an interesting blog post, but given the time constraints that is finals week, this is all I've got for now. (Actually, I can't complain... I went for sushi and a pedicure tonight...)

Summer Internship Confirmed!

2010-04-26T15:30:00.002-06:00

The day that everyone promised me would come arrived on Saturday.

Well, technically, it came a week and a half ago, but as I was contemplating multiple choices, it didn't feel real until Saturday.

I've confirmed my internship for the summer! It's something that I really couldn't be more excited about. I'll be working with a local Charlottesville company - Relay. (They blog, too!) The basic premise of Relay Foods is that they take the hassle out of grocery shopping. Instead of driving around to multiple locations (Hot Cakes, Mona Lisa Pasta, Foods of All Nations, etc.), you submit an order one day, they pick up all your food the next day and take it to a convenient pick up location. I can put in my grocery order Tuesday night and pick it up on my way home from classes on Wednesday in the Darden faculty parking lot.

Best parts of my internship:

I will be doing operations, and have an opportunity to make a significant impact this summer. Time permitting, I may get to dabble in a few other fun areas like strategy and marketing.
I get to be a part of a company that is growing and generating huge momentum.
I don't have to move.
I get to spend the summer in Charlottesville.

Anyway, this internship search been quite the process. I've learned more about myself and how to market myself through the whole thing than I ever thought I would. But I've chugged along, built up the skills and just want to wish my encouragement to those who I know are still finalizing their summer plans. Hopefully the economy will be much improved for the Class of 2012 (I know it was much better for us than for the Class of 2010), but know that there are great opportunities that come to those who wait.

Follies and Foxfield

2010-04-24T16:13:00.004-06:00

Follies was last night at Darden. Rather than writing a lot about it, I thought I'd share my favourite video: Darden Dancing.

Going out for a friend's birthday last night was probably not the best idea, seeing as how I should have been on the bus for Foxfield at 9 a.m. Since I never really understood what the whole deal with Foxfield was, I opted for skipping the bus. With the temperature in the 50s, and ominous clouds looming over Charlottesville and surrounding area, I decided Foxfield was not for me. However, halfway through the morning, one of my friends texted to tell me all the fun I was missing, so I called a cab, threw on a sundress, and headed out to see what all the fuss was about.

Foxfield, as best as I can tell, is a very Virginia tradition. It reminds me of football and tailgating. Girls in sun dresses, pearls, hats (and galoshes) and guys with seer suckers or shorts and dress shirts. The Darden tent is located in the middle of the race track, and occasionally a few horses will run by as part of the Steeplechase. While the Darden tent definitely seemed classier than most of the undergrad area, I must admit that I left right as the keg stands started.

All in all, Foxfield is an essential part of the Charlottesville experience. If nothing else, you feel very much like you're in the American South.

Sprint to the Finish

2010-04-19T20:26:00.004-06:00

Life in the MBA world flies by way too quickly. It feels like just yesterday that I was contemplating my upcoming move to Virginia, and reading the blogs of then-first year students. Their lives seemed so distant from my own. They were sitting out on the grass of Flagler courtyard and I was still hoping that it would stop snowing in Edmonton. The end of my first year at Darden seemed ages away.

But here I am. Less than two weeks left of classes, then four exams, and then it's all done. And the way my Outlook calendar is looking, these next few weeks are going to FLY by. Darden Follies is on Friday, followed by the much-anticipated Foxfields. (If you don't know what Foxfields is, I'll have to explain it AFTER I attend. My understanding is that the whole event is centered around horse racing, but only in the sense that horses racing is the excuse that everyone uses to get dressed up in sundresses and seersuckers and spend the day drinking and not working on cases.)

And then it's one week of classes, a weekend in Winnipeg, finals and first year is over and out. At this point, I should be welcoming the soon-coming breath of fresh air, but it makes me sad more than anything. I've realized that all those blogs that I read last year were written by people who will soon be graduating. And I've realized that I will be graduating much, much too soon and leaving this adventure that is Darden.

While it is too soon for a full-blown reflect-on-the-first-year post (but, let's be serious, I'm procrastinating on calculating equity residuals!), I do cherish the lessons I've learned and the friends I've made. Nothing bonds people together like an intense pressure-cooker environment. I can't say that every experience has been sunshine and lollipops, but since I'm not dead, by definition, I must be stronger, right?

Anyway, I could continue to reflect, but those equity residuals are not going to calculate themselves. AND, I'm better off savouring the next two weeks (or maybe just surviving... there's a LOT on my plate!) rather than being sad about how quickly they will pass.

Too Much Choice...

2010-04-17T09:58:00.005-06:00

The first year at Darden is pretty much a boot camp. You show up to orientation, you get placed in a section, you are told which classes you are taking. It's like drinking from a firehose, but it's regimented and predictable.

Last Tuesday, we were given a brief orientation on how to choose ALL OUR ELECTIVES for second year. Suddenly, I'm longing for the days of "you will take Decision Analysis at 8 a.m., Accounting at 10 a.m. and Leading Organizations at 11:45 a.m." Instead, my world consists of trying to figure out which classes I want to take, when I want to take them, who I want to take them with... and once that is all over, how many bid points to allocate to each. I keep narrowing it down, making decisions, and going back.

In other news, though I'm not entirely sure yet WHICH company I will be interning at, I do know that I will be spending my summer in Charlottesville. I've got one opportunity that I'm VERY excited about, and another that I am also excited about, but on the waitlist. I'm very excited that I will no longer be doing practice interviews or stressing about which major city will net me the most profit through panhandling for the summer! Depending on how the company views the blogosphere, I hope to blog about my summer experiences.

My Favourite New Technology

2010-04-14T17:13:00.001-06:00

An episode of 30 Rock just finished playing on my TV. Now, this in itself would be uneventful, since 30 Rock frequently comes on TV, or you can watch it on DVD. What makes this particular viewing of 30 Rock cool is that it played on my Wii, through instant Netflix streaming.

When I found out I could download books straight to my iPhone a month or two ago, I thought that was pretty cool. I think this Wii/Netflix thing wins as my favourite new technology. Although the instant streaming library isn't as extensive as the DVD library, there are still plenty of options.

Action > Awareness

2010-04-13T19:46:00.004-06:00

Some classes at Darden are dangerous.

Some of my fellow students would argue that it's DAO (Data Analysis and Optimization) or Valuations that are the dangerous classes. I've found that another class is dangerous: Creative Capitalism.

When I left the not-for-profit world to go into business school some six years ago, I thought I had left the social space. The reality is that I never truly escaped it. Concern for others is in my blood. It was in my blood when I ran day camps for two summers between my years of undergraduate studies (and if you've ever spent a summer recruiting 150 volunteers and then indirectly managing a whole handful of kids, you probably know that it's a lot more work than interning in an office somewhere). It was in my blood when I was enlisted to run our workplace United Way campaign.

So I don't know why I thought I could escape it and dream of a career earning tonnes of money and purchasing my heart's content worth of Jimmy Choos and Cole Haans. (shoes, for the uninformed in women's fashion)

In reality, if I wanted to escape my social conscience, I should have avoided Creative Capitalism. I thought that I could satisfy my social conscience by making people "aware" of the problems in the world and then maybe throwing some of my 10% tithe at them. (the problems, not the people)

But I'm finding that awareness is relatively useless. Yay, so I'm aware that there is an insanely high rate of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. I can tell you, and you would be aware, too. Yippee. Now we both know and can tell other people who will also know. How does that help the orphaned child in Swaziland?

Taking a class on Creative Capitalism is offering opportunities for action. All entrepreneurship comes from the examination of "pains". Tonight I'm going to order my groceries online for pick-up tomorrow afternoon in my school parking lot. That effort was a result of someone getting frustrated about driving around picking up groceries.

In the same way, social entrepreneurship comes from social pains. I haven't figured it out yet, but there's a way to solve the AIDS problem if we think carefully. In fact, the inventors of the female condom have found one way to halt the spread of AIDS. Going beyond AIDS to poverty in general, I have a classmate who invests in farms in sub-Saharan Africa which create jobs and get the economy flowing.

I will never be content simply running discounted cash flows and nursing my designer shoe budget. The more I sit in Creative Capitalism, the more of an impetus I feel for leaving my mark on society. Jon Foreman "tweeted" this quote today: "Lives, like money, are spent. What are you buying with yours?" - Roy H. Williams

The Best Word You'll Use at Darden

2010-04-11T20:45:00.003-06:00

Tonight I have some advice for the incoming first years, the Class of 2012.

There are many different things you will learn at Darden. By the time you finish here, you will have acquired a strange new vocabulary with all sorts of crazy acronyms, like DA(1), TNDC(2), GEM(3), WACC(4) and LO(5).

But I'd like to suggest to you that there is one word that you need to learn before you come to Darden. As I sit here now contemplating the HUGE to-do list that comprises my week, I woefully regret that I did not make better use of the word last semester.

See, Darden is tricky. All these clubs and volunteer opportunities are presented to you as opportunities that will come at a later time; a time when you have your internship secured and have entered fourth quarter bliss. In some ways, these volunteer opportunities are akin to shopping in a store where the clerk whisks away each item you've decided to purchase until you are ready to pay for it. Then, when you get up to the front desk, you realize that you've committed to purchasing way too much stuff, but it's too late to put any of it back.

As you know by now, the word is "NO."

I came into Darden with a clear intent of getting involved in ONLY the things I was REALLY passionate about. As it turns out, I'm passionate about too many things. To make matters worse, I am still on the hunt for an internship. (Though that hunt will be over after Wednesday, since I'm going to run off to a tropical beach and find myself an internship as a cocktail creation consultant if none of my current opportunities pan out.)

Anyway, this warning is probably coming way too far in advance, but I hope you will heed it nonetheless! There are a lot of opportunities at Darden. None of us will want for things to do or opportunities to get involved and build our skills. The trick is figuring out where you can best add value.

(1) Decision Analysis

(2) Thursday Night Drinking Club

(3) Global Economies and Markets

(4) Weighted Average Cost of Capital

(5) Leading Organizations

Rethinking Aid in Africa - A Guest Post

2010-04-09T14:48:00.010-06:00

Few will deny that there is a clear moral imperative for humanitarian and charity-based aid to step in when a country or continent encounters a crisis, such as the recent earthquake in Haiti. Nevertheless, it's worth reminding ourselves what emergency and charity-based aid has its limits. Aid-supported scholarships have certainly helped send African students to school, and food aid has helped feed millions of people affected by persistent drought. This kind of aid can provide band-aid solutions to alleviate immediate suffering, but by its very nature cannot be the platform for long-term sustainable growth.

Over the past 60 years at least $1 trillion of development-related aid has been transferred from rich countries to Africa. Yet real per-capita income today is lower than it was in the 1970s, and more than 50% of the population -- over 350 million people -- live on less than a dollar a day, a figure that has nearly doubled in two decades.

Development related aid has also created aid dependency in many African governments in Burkina Faso, Rwanda, Somalia, Mali, Chad, Mauritania and Sierra Leone from 1970 to 2002, over 70% of total government spending came from foreign aid, according to figures from the World Bank this dependency makes this governments complacent in initiating any projects that may increase tax revenue since they are guaranteed “free money” every year.

On the surface development aid appears to be benign intervention, however unintended consequences can leave the recipients’ worse off say there is a tailor in small-town Africa who employs ten people and his company manufactures 500 clothes a week. Typically, these 10 employees support upward of 5 relatives each. An aid program generously supplies the affected region with tons of free clothes. This promptly puts the clothing manufacturer out of business, and now his 10 employees can no longer support their 50 dependents. In a couple of years, most of the donated clothes will be torn and useless, but now there is no tailor to go to. They'll have to get more aid. So long as there is a constant supply of free clothes local manufacturers cannot operate profitably.

If aid is not the solution, what is? The answer to this question is trade. Take the case of Botswana as an example, At the time Botswana became fully independent in 1966 it was a desperately poor country. Like most of the other countries in Africa, it had a per capita annual income of $100 by 2008 Botswana has a per capita annual income of $14,906, granted Botswana is blessed with huge diamond deposits but so is Congo, what has made Botswana a success is a policy of not depending on aid, investing in local industries and learning to live within its means.

Africa is a continent blessed with a large variety of natural resources, key among the resources is land. A recent study by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) indicated that less than half of Africa’s agricultural potential is in use. Given the projected rise in global food demand over the next 50 years Africa has the opportunity of using trade to build sustainable economies which depend on trade in agricultural resources, natural resources and other services and not on development aid.
- John Mwangi
John Mwangi is a fellow Section V'er and comes to Darden from the country of Kenya. He graciously sent his Management Communication (MC) paper from last quarter to me so I could share his thoughts with the blogosphere.

Day of Rest

2010-04-04T15:49:00.003-06:00

Over ten years ago, I decided that I needed to heed the third commandment and institute a day of rest into my week. Over ten years, I have stuck fairly rigorously to this commitment, and it's been a good decision.

Since coming to Darden, I knew it would be a challenge to maintain this day of rest. Sundays (for somewhat obvious reasons, namely, that I go to church anyway) were typically my day off, and with learning teams meeting on Sunday, I knew this wasn't an option. It's been challenging to keep up with my commitment, but I've made it through thus far, and I think that I can only keep a schedule as busy as mine BECAUSE I take a day off.

This past week was absolutely insane for me. In addition to having an assignment due tomorrow, I have two HUGE volunteer projects and another leadership responsibility creeping up. It would have been easy to throw in the towel and just save today for getting some work done.

But I didn't. I got home last night after working all day painting, running errands and pulling up carpet tacks and finished my assignment.

The reward? Today I've been able to set aside all my other stresses and enjoy the sun and the gorgeous spring here in C'ville. Never before have I seen quite so many flowering trees. Spring here is a months-long event, with each portion of nature patiently waiting for it's turn to unveil.

A lot of people think that they couldn't fit in their own day of rest in the week. I just want to encourage you that my day off keeps me sane and keeps me going the rest of the week. I don't think I'm particularly lazy or particularly brilliant (with an ability to do schoolwork in a shorter amount of time). Primarily, I'm just stubborn.

I encourage you to give it a shot. :-)

Darden Structure and International Experiences

2010-03-29T16:26:00.004-06:00

In the comments section of my previous blog post, I received some questions regarding how Darden could increase international exposure, as well as what the benefits are of how Darden structures the year. Rather than replying in the comment section, I figured I would write a blog.

First, Darden and international exposure...

There are a variety of ways through which Darden gives an international exposure through the curriculum. As you may be aware, there are GBEs (global business experiences) to a wide variety of places: Barcelona, Brazil, Stockholm, Mexico City, Argentina, Bahrain, and a bunch of other places that I cannot currently recall. Students have the opportunity to attend up to two of these through their time at Darden. Beyond this, partnerships with companies like Danaher offer students the opportunity to go and do projects in their overseas divisions (this past spring break, some of my classmates did a Kaizen event in India). So there are opportunities for short trips abroad to get a glimpse of culture and business in foreign countries. If you want something longer, Darden has exchange programs with a number of partner schools. Off the top of my head, I can think of students who have gone to Sweden, Barcelona, Italy and Japan. There are more, though!

Another international flavour that Darden brings is international cases. By no means are the cases we study centered on American companies. I can't estimate the portion of the breakdown, but there are a lot of international cases that we study.

And finally, of course, there are international students. These students (of which I am one, though culturally, there isn't a significant difference between Canadians and Americans) bring their cultural knowledge and experiences into both the classroom and the extracurricular time. Just this past Saturday, I enjoyed Indian dancing at the Bollywood night. The richness of the international experience depends on how immersed you are with international students. Because I had the opportunity to attend international student orientation (well, not opportunity so much as requirement), I got to know a bunch of international students.

Structure of Darden Curriculum

Since there are changes on the horizon, all I can say is that the benefit of the Darden structure is that it allows for modular learning. If we only took five courses in first semester, I don't know that we'd be as prepared as we needed to be for interviews. Using shorter chunks of time for courses allows us to integrate learning across subject areas because there is more variety.

**Note: Just wanted to clarify that the change is not with the curriculum, but the structure (i.e. when each module is delivered). I think the move is toward six terms rather than four quarters.

Anyway, I am happy to answer your questions, so feel free to leave some in the comments. I generally check them fairly regularly.

Congrats Round 2 Admits!

2010-03-27T13:50:00.002-06:00

The latest round of acceptances were released on Friday at midnight. Congrats to everyone who was admitted!

In honour of your admission, I would like to present Julie's Official Do-Before-Darden Starts guide.

Relax and enjoy life. Get in a trip you've been thinking about, enjoy a hobby, spend time with your friends, read all the books you've been thinking about reading.
If you're still working, DON'T throw in the towel and coast until your end date. I finished my job on July 17 and had a few weeks off and was immediately thrown into stressing about my internship when International Student Orientation started on August 10. What you want to do while you are still at work is find ways to create measurable improvements at your workplace. You'll want resume bullets that fit the STAR format (Situation/Task, Action, Results... with results quantified wherever possible), so make sure you view the rest of your time at work with a view of building up these resume bullets.
Follow all the stuff on the Darden checklist. I can't remember it, but all the logistical details are taken care of with that list. For things like housing, there is some incentive to take care of it sooner than later. My roommate and I got the sweetest building in the complex because we signed our lease as soon as we could.
Relax and enjoy life. I say it again because it's the most important. Darden first year, and especially first semester, has been described as drinking from a fire hose. They are changing up the program next year to make the structure a bit more manageable, but I went the first couple months without reading any non-Darden books, scrambling to find time to call my friends and family back home, and dreaming of time that I could go hiking. It's all worth it, but I just want to emphasize that now is better spent relaxing and enjoying life than attempting to learn everything you possibly can about accounting.

Hope that helps. Congrats again!

Creative Capitalism Live Blog

2010-03-23T13:15:00.003-06:00

"There isn't a person in this room who couldn't do what Mohammad Yunus did." - Ed Freeman, Darden Professor, March 23, 2010

Mohammad Yunus, in case you are not familiar with him, won the Nobel Peace Prize for pioneering Grameen Bank and the concept of micro-credit. Micro-credit is the concept of giving itty, bitty loans (like $25) to people who need them to get capital to start their businesses. If you are at all interested, I highly recommend Banker to the Poor.

Can I really change the world? According to my Creative Capitalism prof, yes.

The question is not if, but how.

Q4: Preview of GULP Second Year

2010-03-21T21:15:00.004-06:00

For the first three quarters of my time at Darden, I bought into a lie. I bought into the lie that Second Year was much easier than First Year. I also bought into the lie that Q4 would be much like Second Year.

I suppose, if you aren't volunteering as a House Captain for Building Goodness in April, a consultant for OCI (Opportunity Consultants, Inc.) and still looking for an internship, that this could be true. That said, I am doing all of the above things, and as a result, it seems that the free time formerly occupied by learning teams has been gobbled up by meetings and interview prep.

Anyway, Q4 brings with it a wealth of changes: electives and the end of learning teams. Since the only classes that are required are leading organizations and ethics, there is less need to meet to go over spreadsheets and calculations for classes. This means that learning teams are finished. Of course, as I struggle to value interest rate swaps for my valuations class tomorrow, I am wishing that I still had my learning team to meet with.

There is a whole range of electives. I am taking data analysis and optimization (DAO), valuations and creative capitalism. I can't decide which I am most excited about. DAO provides the opportunity to model business problems in Excel, something which may not excite the average person but gives me feelings of great control. On the other hand, I am doing a tangible project for my creative capitalism class. Plus, this whole business thing is supposed to end up with me doing something good for society at some point along the way, and creative capitalism gives me the opportunity to start exploring what options will allow me to do that.

So, that's Q4. I can't complain too much. After all, the weather is infinitely nicer than it is back home, and this weekend (despite interview practice, volunteer meetings and case prep) has included a hike, Arch's frozen yogurt on the patio, and dinner on the Downtown Mall (Charlottesville's most redeeming feature, in my opinion).

Oh yeah, and did I mention that this is also leadership transition time? I'm taking over as president of Darden Christian Fellowship (DCF) for next year. Super excited... especially since it's the only thing on my plate for next year. Hoping to make it awesome, and would love to get in touch with any incoming students to hear some of your thoughts on DCF. Shoot me an email at missjoolz@hotmail.com. (Or my Darden email address, which is LastNameFirstInitial11@darden.virginia.edu)

Oops! Guess I Use Kindle Now

2010-03-15T20:10:00.003-06:00

The concept of portable book readers has long appealed to me. Unfortunately, when I lived in Canada, the Kindle was not available outside the US. By the time I moved to the US to go to school, I was in school, and thus my leisure reading declined in favour of cases and textbooks. Sigh.

Over Thanksgiving, I rekindled my love of books, but having gotten used to the touch-screen convenience of my iPhone, the buttons on the Kindle kind of annoyed me. How can I get used to such an archaic device when I was so used to the function on my iPhone? (Yes, this sounds ridiculous, but if you've ever flipped through photos on an iPhone, you'll understand.)

Just before Christmas, Barnes and Noble put out a tempting offer for my eBook reader desires: the Nook. It had a touchscreen, and as far as I could tell, was otherwise competitive with the Kindle. Although I wasn't ready to make the purchase myself, I did think it might make a lovely Christmas present. They were, of course, sold out, but my Mom suggested I look into a book reader app for my iPhone.

Of course, there is an app: a Kindle app. And it's free to download. So I installed it on my phone, and now I buy most of my books that way. I actually bought my first book for school that way today.

When I got an email from Amazon today informing me there is now an application for my computer to read all my Kindle books, I realized that without even purchasing one, I've become loyal to the Kindle. My library is currently being built up with books, all of which need to be accessed on some sort of Kindle related app. If I ever buy a portable book reader (not sure if the iPhone battery cuts it for long plane trips and reading books), it will be a Kindle, not a Nook, after all.

It's funny, because the same thing happen with Apple to make me iPod dependent. Apple just put up this convenient, easy-to-use store and application that just made it SO, SO easy to download .99 songs and create CDs. When I made the leap to portable music player, it had to be an iPod.

So, what does this mean for business? Having just completed my strategy course over spring break, this seems like a great strategic option. It's not an accident on Amazon's part that I now use the Kindle. Their use of integration created barriers to entry for other potential eBook readers by raising the cost of switching for me. As I slowly build up my collection of eBooks, the cost to replace them with another devices format gets higher and higher.

Anyway, I won't continue to theorize on how this strategy is successful. Instead, I will just hope that Amazon can take a design cue from Apple and produce a Kindle with a convenient, easy-to-use, shiny touch screen by the time I'm in the market.

Barcelona GBE (Global Business Experience)

2010-03-15T13:43:00.002-06:00

How can you go wrong when you sign up for a course that a) means one less course next year, b) involves strategy, c) takes place in Barcelona and d) involves looking at all the popular tourist destinations?

Well, let me suggest two ways that this strategy might not pay off. First... if the week in Barcelona (which I was sure would be in the 60s, after all, they have palm trees down there!) contains the worst snowstorm since 1962. Second... if the last few days of your trip are spent in your hotel room as you battle a mysterious illness. (Okay, to be fair, I did not require a visit from a Spanish doctor as some of my fellow travellers did, but I still don't consider this the best way to spend Spring Break!)

Anyway, my impressions of Barcelona are suffering from recency. If I dig a little deeper into my memory, I remember that we had some really good times. So...

The course was on viewing strategy through the design lens. After a quarter of learning frameworks and discussing capabilities, the transition to a more metaphorical view of strategy was definitely interesting. We looked at how designers like Gaudi, Picasso and Dali created breakthrough innovations and then discussed how we can apply those to business strategy. This process involved looking at a whole lot of Gaudi architecture (Colonia Guell, Parc Guell, Sagrada Familia, Casa Mila, Casa Battlo), visiting the Picasso and Salvador Dali museums, and visiting a number of other really old cities and cathedrals. It was a good switch to go from the spreadsheet-focused analytical mindset to the art-viewing creative mindset. (Of course, that said, I do miss my spreadsheets after putting together a scrapbook-type journal as an assignment for the course!)

Throw in some Spanish nightlife, endless paella, tapas and sangria, thirty fun Darden students and some great shopping, and you've got yourself a great trip. I would definitely recommend the Barcelona GBE to anyone considering it, but would also recommend that you avoid getting sick and aim for beach weather instead of "oops, I should have brought my snow boots with me from Canada" weather!

For some more detailed recollections of the trip, check out http://www.legalmbayhem.com for some more posts. She live-blogged throughout the trip, and has even included a pic of the snow.

Small Town Movie Theatre

2010-03-01T14:26:00.002-07:00

With our first exam in the bag, LegalMBAyhem and I decided to see a long overdue movie at the local cinema.

When I made the decision to come to Charlottesville, I knew I was giving up many of my big city amenities. The frustrations in lack of good shopping have been apparent, but this afternoon, I have discovered a new one: movie theatres.

Now, I'm not talking about the lack of reclining seats, large screens and stadium style seating. I'm talking about a few of the following examples:

- Lighting: we walked into the theatre and there were NO LIGHTS. Good thing we have smart phones for illumination.

- Movies starting on schedule AND running all the way through: a few minutes after the movie was supposed to start, the first commercial came on. After that, the lights went back on, and the pre-movie radio station started up again.

- Not being accused of stealing pens: As we were sitting and waiting for the now-overdue movie to start, the man who sold my friend her ticket came into the theatre looking for the pen she used to sign her credit card slip. He then asked us when the movie was supposed to start, and we said "ten minutes ago."

- Movies that start on time: We eventually had to go and ask them to start the movie again.

Oh, Charlottesville.

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Last Patriotic Post, I Promise

2010-02-28T18:34:00.003-07:00

The Winter Olympic Closing Ceremonies are on TV, and I'm thus beginning the end of my extreme patriotism.

Canada beat the US in hockey this afternoon. It was sweet revenge after all the ribbing I took last week when we lost. Of course, staying true to my Canadian nature, I am avoiding the temptation to gloat to a few certain key people. I DID send an email back to the guy on my learning team who rubbed in the loss last week saying congratulations on the silver medal, though.

Speaking of which, if you are an American reading this, congrats on the silver!

Several other things are making me swelteringly proud of my country today.

1) We broke the record for most gold medals ever in the Winter Olympics. In 1976, USSR had 13. We finished with 14.

2) After the Olympic torch fiasco at the opening ceremonies, we chose to laugh it off and opened the closing ceremonies with a spoof.

3) While people DID watch the game down here in Charlottesville, most of my friends showed up minutes before it started. Back home, people were lining up outside the bars at 7:30 in the morning to get in and watch the game. Way to love hockey!

So, I'm not done with being patriotic, but I think that with the Olympics ending, I won't feel the same swell of pride and homesickness that have haunted me over the past two weeks. If you are up there in Canada, know that I wish I could be celebrating on the streets and spontaneously bursting into the anthem with you all!

Go Canada!!!

2010-02-25T09:57:00.001-07:00

So, there are many things I could blog about. It's the last day of Q3, and all that stands between me and Barcelona is four exams and one DA class. Yesterday, I came across a really cool opportunity to satisfy class credit, help out the Haitian economy, and work with a successful local businessman.

But all of those things can wait (Q3, Barcelona Global Business Experience (GBE), Creative Capitalism class) in favour of blogging about the fact that my country totally rocks.

After losing an inconsequential game to the Americans in men's hockey on Sunday, I took a lot of verbal beating. People that I didn't know were sending me messages via Office Communicator to rub in the loss. All of that made last night's 7-3 beating of Russia that much sweeter.

Just for the record, I've been trying to be as nice as possible to my Russian friends, all of whom trash-talked me before the game.

To further amplify my sense of national pride, we won gold and silver in bob-sledding and have a guaranteed medal today in women's hockey.

I'd write more about why Canada is awesome, but my final class of Q3 is about to start!

Homesick... Where's the Hoser Hut?

2010-02-15T18:31:00.002-07:00

In case you are living under a rock, you are probably aware that the Olympics are going on back in my home and native land.

Over the past few days, I've watched the opening ceremonies, watched Jennifer Heil lose the gold medal to an American in women's moguls, and celebrated Bilodeau's first gold on Canadian soil. I am currently sporting my official Olympic Hudson's Bay Company Canada hoodie.

This morning, I started planning a Canada vs. USA hockey game viewing which has morphed into a Canada-themed party. I've looked up Canada flags on Amazon and tried to figure out where I can buy cheese curds to make poutine.

If that wasn't enough to set me homesick, tonight's episode of How I Met Your Mother featured a trip to Toronto, complete with a visit to Tim Horton's and a view of the pretty Canadian five dollar bill.

I think it's official... I'm homesick!

In the spirit of the day, check out the Molson Canadian rant.

Happy Valentine's Day! (And why I'm happy to be alone for this one and next)

2010-02-14T13:26:00.003-07:00

One of my fellow bloggers posted a great piece about dating within the Darden bubble. As a balance to her piece, I wanted to write something for all those of you who find yourself putting your own flowers through the grocery check-out. (Oh, or am I the only one who buys myself flowers?)

Miss MBA did a great job of outlining some of the pitfalls of dating at Darden. I'll take some of hers and add a few of my own:

Lack of available men and women (though I disagree that most of the good girls are taken, since I've got some AMAZING single friends)
Hook-up culture (hint to the girls: hooking up with a guy most definitely does not mean he will pursue a relationship)
Lack of time
Darden Bubble Time Warp: you can know someone for a month, but due to the fact that you see them every single day and potentially spend hours and hours together, you feel like you've known them a year. This is great, but it can lead things to moving too fast and depriving you of the opportunity of seeing them over several seasons of life.
Incompatible life plans: It isn't always the case that you will meet someone who wants to end up in the same geographic location as you. Given this, a committed relationship is tough because it means that either someone will have to compromise, or you eventually break up. In fact, for many new Darden couples, the first big challenge is going to come over the summer when they are thrown into a mandatory long-distance relationship.

Given these challenges, I've heard that successful, long-term relationships are the exception rather than the rule at Darden (and B-school in general). Now, for a girl who was forced to buy her own flowers on Valentine's Day, this may be a depressing revelation. What do you mean, I'm going to be single for the next year and a half?

However, my strategy class has taught me well. When it comes to dating, I've done the environmental analysis. Given these facts, how can I best position myself for the future? Is it possible that this is not a challenge or something to be woeful about, but an opportunity?

Well, I'm glad you asked. Over the past little while (i.e. since my somewhat cynical blog post of a few days ago), I've learned to see this season of my life as an incredible opportunity. So here are the reasons why I'm glad that I will be single for the next little while.

When will I ever again be surrounded by so many amazing single women who are more focused on their careers than on dating and marriage? There are definitely relationships around here, but for the most part, there isn't pressure to find someone or have dating stories to bring to cocktail hour.
No pressure. I've accepted the fact that I'm going to be single, thus I do not have to worry about whether a guy seems interested or not. I don't need to feel like I need to go out and find a date for the upcoming SHE auction. I can go and look fabulous all on my own. (AND, most of my friends are also going stag, which builds on my previous point.)
This may come as a surprise, but I'm not perfect. I've realized that while I've got a strict list of qualities that any man I date must posess, I've given no thought to whether I'm good enough for that man. Having a distinct season of singleness will allow me to work through some of those things that will better prepare me to be a better girlfriend and wife.
Flexibility, flexibility, flexibility... Next year, when I start making decisions about where I'm going to live and what I'm going to do, all that will factor into those decisions is which companies will hire me and what I want to do. I won't be conflicted about how much to factor in my boyfriend, or feel upset that he isn't thinking about me.

Why I Love Darden

2010-02-12T22:05:00.002-07:00

In honour of the Day at Darden event today, I figured I would share some of the things I love about Darden that have really hit home today.

There has never been a more intense training for public speaking and being forced to back up your answers. This quarter especially, I really feel the pressure to speak confidently, without hesitation. I have always been used to trying to be somewhat tentative in order to build buy-in. This isn't always the best way to build communication. When I've stated an answer like a question in a few classes, I've had profs call me out on it. Now I'm learning to speak with certainty. I think it's a much needed skill. (And guess what, I can still use my old skills to build buy-in.)
Today was a fun moment where everything came together. We used Decision Analysis (DA) in our strategy class. I love it when we've been dancing around concepts, and then you pull them up in another class, only to discover that after a few days of sneaky case-based learning, you actually know something new.
Perhaps the most important part... And here's the honest, two-sided view of Darden... This week was horrible for me. Between a big group project paper due this afternoon, a full week of cases, several volunteer commitments, another paper coming up AND trying to get into the internship search, I had a brutal week. (Oh yeah, and my car is buried under three feet of snow. Yippee.) I was up until 1:30 several nights, despite usually being able to a strict bed-by-midnight policy. BUT, I have amazing friends down here. The community at Darden is so amazing.

So, those tips and tricks on transitioning to Darden are still coming. (Though I'm mostly planning on going back through my blog and borrowing old material, so if you can't wait, feel free to search my Darden posts!)

Julie's Trinity

2010-02-10T15:35:00.002-07:00

In honour of the upcoming Hallmark-created-hell-day that is approaching on Sunday, and a conversation during our blogger meeting about whether we, as bloggers, should be blogging about things such as dating at Darden, I would like to unveil my latest relationship theory: Julie's Trinity.

In our Global Economies and Markets (GEM) class, we learned about Mundell's Trinity, which is the economic law that a country can only achieve MAX two of the following objectives:

fixed exchange rate,
unlimited capital flows
independent monetary policy

Now, I would like to present to you... Julie's Trinity.

In interactions with guys, a girl can have MAX two of the following three things:

attention
physical intimacy
committed relationship

And, although one of my fellow bloggers did not want to put this in a blog post, I will warn all prospective female students that if the available dating pool is a consideration for you at any B-school, I would encourage you to instead check out the local scene or the affiliated law, medical or other graduate schools.

On a completely different note... I would like to wish a belated congratulations to all the first round admits to the Class of 2012! Stay tuned for a post on my tips for your transition to Darden.

Snowmageddon 2010

2010-02-07T12:06:00.003-07:00

As we came closer and closer to the weekend, the snow forecast grew from 6 inches to 40, and with each retelling, Snowmageddon became more and more epic.

The final snow accumulation, as per the National Weather Service, was 13 inches. Although I have no desire to brush off my car and drive anywhere, the roads have been kept clear, restaurants and grocery stores have been kept open, and yesterday's basketball game against Wake-Forest was played. (Although they gave all students free admission at the door, and discouraged people from driving in.)

The only thing I've missed out on this weekend due to cancellations was church this morning. I guess it's just as well, since my friend and I were debating yesterday about which of us would get stuck brushing the snow off our cars in the morning anyway.

Here are some pictures from the epic adventure that has been Snowmageddon 2010. The car in the last picture is not mine, but gives an idea of what the snow looks like. I think by that point, it was pretty much done falling. Today has dawned bright and sunny.