Duck Season! Wabbit Season! Hire!

Okay, so it's been a while. I'm ready to accept that I am not a frequent blogger, and I hope you can accept that too. So it's interview season and the recruiters are poking their cute little sleepy heads out of their holes. My classmates and I are in full on hunt mode, some of us armed better than others. As with any hunting expedition, one must come properly equipped:

• Appropriate camouflage to keep you from standing out in your surroundings. In this case, any dark business suit should do the trick. The important thing is that they never notice your clothes.
• The absolutely essential recruiter call. When used properly with the skills gained in first semester survey courses, it can make you sound exactly like a well-rounded, qualified professional who belongs in their company and who is absolutely dying to to work for them because their company is exactly what you have always been looking for in their life. It must be used with caution, however. If done wrong, you will sound like a Dilbert cartoon, immediately spooking away any and all game.
• A blind when set up properly can make any empty spots in your background look like a lushly grown thicket behind which you can hide any and all weaknesses. For example, when they ask why you weren't at work or school for 6 months after you graduated high school, instead of telling them you were at juvy, you can just say you were giving back by spending time with at-risk youth.
• And, of course, any hunter worth his salt will have plenty of decoys. Only in the job hunt, they are called "references." Make the recruiter believe that there are a bunch of former colleagues that think you are absolutely super. Hopefully, you will nail the job before he stops to wonder why none of them have hired you.
• Most important, of course, is the weapon of choice. Once the hunter is finally face-to-face with his prey, coming home with a trophy is now entirely dependent on the arsenal at his disposal. Unfortunately, I don't have a good job hunting metaphor for the weapon. Dang, that ruins this whole stupid post! Maybe I just forget it and delete the whole thing. It's not like anyone read this far into the post anyway!

So, yeah, you get it--it's like real hunting, until you get to the part where you kill the recruiter. I just can't think of any time that would be a good idea. Much less taking him home and putting his head on your wall, making stuff out of him or whatever. Okay, this is just getting gross. Stupid extended metaphors!

Reindeer Roasting On an Open Fire...

So, now that finals and IP are over I get 4 weeks off. I was hoping for some contract work, but that didn't work out, so now I get to spend the time with my family. Even better! We just got back from Tulsa a couple of days ago--we spent about a week there and had a great time despite every single one of us getting sick except Lexie. But isn't that what Christmas is all about!? Oh, wait, no, Christmas isn't about that at all....

It was great to see family and friends. Even though we have been in Texas for about 4 years now, we just don't have the same kind of relationships that we left back in Tulsa. People who know us well, have a history with us, recognize what makes us different & special and who are excited to see us. At least now, though, we have a date by which our transitory state will be over. When I graduate in May 2010, whether we stay in Fort Worth, go back to Tulsa or end up somewhere else in the world, we will at least put down some roots somewhere!

So, anyhow, we had a fantastic time. Special thanks to the Darcy family, who we did not see while we were in town but who were generous enough to let us use their house in their absence, hopefully with minimal physical damage to their house or psychological damage to their cats.

For those we did not catch when we were in town and those who live elsewhere, Merry Christmas. There is a reasonably good chance that we miss you very much and would love to hear from you!

It's Getting Closer To the Present!

Well, it's hard to believe another week has already gone by and Integrative Project (IP) is over (you don't have to imagine new squiggly lines--they are continued from last post--in case I forget though, plan to imagine squiggly lines at the end of this post to bring you back to the present again). Basically, IP is a 6-day intensive business simulation designed to force us to implement everything we have learned in our various classes in the first semester. The faculty makes us work from about 8am to 9pm every single day to simulate a real, stress-filled business environment. It began the day after finals mainly because they're sadistic.

The short story is that my team and I worked very hard, designed and stuck to a clear vision, executed as well as could possibly be expected and came in third out of five due to the unrealistic nature of the simulations and factors that were impossible to predict. Or maybe that's just sour grapes. We were graded on the simulation as well as two presentations, both of which were very strong, if I do say so myself and ended up with an A minus. I would complain a little more, but that would probably be unfair to those students who worked just as hard and ended up with a B. On the upside, we had the opportunity to present to a bunch of real live recruiters, so I had a chance to demonstration my skillicity as a presentator and the interesting word usements I structure. I'm sure they are all just waiting for the winter break to end before calling me with a job running their companies. I'm not technically holding my breath, but I am saving some of my CO2 in a jar, which is essentially the same thing.

So now the semester is officially over and I am breathing a big fat sigh of relief. Only 12 more shopping days until Christmas!! (cue the squiggly lines)

Life After Finals

Well, it's the week ending 12/05, and I just finished finals (imagine some squiggly lines like we're going back in to the past). Hoo boy was this a tough week. Spend all day every day studying as hard as possible. The accounting final was particularly tough. It was really hard to read the test questions because of the drops of blood dripping from my forehead. But I lived through it.

I'm going to go out on a limb and predict some minor disappointments plus one or two happy surprises and an overall acceptable GPA considering it's my first semester and I'm old and I haven't been to school in a long time and I promise to do better next time. Of course, I can't actually put my GPA right out here for you to see because, well, I don't know you all that well. Perhaps we can spend a little time swapping war stories, you let me in on a couple of your own confidences and we can start talking numbers. Suffice it to say, my scholarship is not in jeopardy!

Well, I better get some rest because integrative project starts tomorrow!! I can only just wonder how that will go.....

Welcome To the Past. In advance.

So a lot has happened since my last post. I'm going to pretend like it hasn't happened yet and unfold the recent events of my life serial-style over a few blogs. If I was a more careful writer, the posts would be fraught with foreshadowing, symbolism and universal significance. More likely, they will resemble a really dull soap opera with no plot twists.

AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!! Finals Stress

I will live through this week, I will live through this week, I will through this week, I will live through this week.............

Barack Where We Started

By the happenstance (my fake word of the day) of fate, I was about six blocks from Grant Park in Chicago on Tuesday night, when and where the whole city was happily celebrating the election of our next president. I was in town on a marketing trip and in the company of a diverse group of classmates: Republicans, Democrats and a couple of foreign students just to make it interesting. As a wholehearted conservative and less-than-halfhearted Republican, I hadn't been too thrilled about the election, but I must confess there was a tangible excitement in the air on Tuesday. Though I have significant concerns about the next four years (I would have had concerns under the old guy, too), it was fun to be on the streets that night.

A few of my classmates (particularly the foreign ones) decided to witness history and go join the madhouse in Grant Park. The rest of us jaded Americans sat it out where we were, fairly confident we wouldn't actually get to see Oprah or her appointee Barack anyway. A small part of me wishes I went. The rest of me says, "eh". I do think it is a fabulous thing that a black man was elected president. With any luck, it will have a profound impact on race relations in America and inspire more black youths to set their sights a little higher. However, if Obama is the idealist that his campaign made him out to be, I think he will be completely inequipped to accomplish anything in the White House. If not, then we have yet another principles poor predictable politicking president (how's that for alliteration!)

Either way, I think by the end of four years, this country will be as messy as ever, if not messier. How's that for a little slice of sunshine!!? On the upside, we got to see where Ronald McDonald lives while we were in Chicago, and he is alive and well. As are Coca Cola and Wal-Mart. Despite what our president says or does, the real symbols of America are moving forward with gusto. As long as that keeps up, I will stay confident that everything will be all right.