There's Something to be Said for Low Expectations

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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...

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

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!

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

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

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

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.