A fellow MBA classmate here at Chicago GSB recently started a blog - what's next? Knowing Ken, there will be very interesting economics posts and references to some of the great Chicago professors.
I finished last night. I think I need a tax accountant soon.
Anyone have a rule of thumb at which point you give up and pay someone to do it? Perhaps when your Federal is > 10 pages?
When I was growing up we used to jokingly call leftovers 'Mennonite Weekly review', in reference to a weekly publication of the same name. A few weeks ago they published a short article about web logs (shameless thanks for the link).
If you're curious they also have a lengthly list of Mennonite-related links.
Posting a picture of my irises (now a few weeks old) might be a bit off...but I find that hobbies are a healthy diversion from MBA life and they make the apartment a more lively!
Chicago sunset among the irises.
The tardiness in posting was due to a great trip out to DC for the last week. I was able to meet with a number of friends in the area - at least 8 or 9 discrete visits were achieved in the timeframe, and more importantly it was some wonderful quality time with friends from work, life, and church. It was special to be back at Washington Community Fellowship for Easter Sunday.
Quarter break is a great to time to get caught up on desired blog maintenance - including getting rid of the irritating pop-up links (I don't know why I did that in the first place). Hopefully I'll get some time to update some of the project pages too. And I really should post a picture of the growth of my irises!
Breaks are a fun phenomenon. Every day feels like a Saturday! Actually it takes a couple days to adjust to not having deadlines and thinking about what is due tomorrow or the next quiz or test, but it's a great time to get caught up on everything that got postponed - such as taxes. :(
Thanks to bbs3 for the comment and the link to Gavin Shearer's post regarding his summer internship at Microsoft this past summer. Good reading.
This week is finals week an interesting time at Chicago GSB when the amount of email falls by at least 75%. Even with Grade Non-Disclosure most people seem to take finals relatively seriously. From my conversations with people it appears there is a strong tension between our individual drive/achievement/excellence with the reality that no one will really know the performance. In some ways GND does reduce the amount of pressure and stress - in reality there would only be a quarter completed before internships and three quarters completed before full-time recruiting so not having GND would put immense pressure on the first quarter's finals. In other ways, GND doesn't allow people to give specific metrics to recruiters until 2nd years - Dean's List, etc.
Another upside is that GND enables us to see who among our fellow classmates take finals seriously *especially* when they don't have to. It's a simple litmus test for personal/internal motivation vs external motivation and perhaps even ethics.
Are litmus strips originally blue and then turn red/greenish? I can't remember that part. :)
Oh, and my finals are now over. Corp Fin yesterday at 11:30 AM and Investments at 6:30 PM. And I don't know about others, but I tend to remember the little mistakes I made - I'll never forget those...and perhaps it's the best way to learn.
It doesn't feel like spring quite yet, but I wanted to show off the first iris of the year. I finished my spring flower planting a week or so ago (one of many procrastination activities when trying to find reasons not to study for a test... ;) Hopefully we'll see excellent growth out of the other bulbs.
Interesting article on the front page of the FT this morning regarding some of GM's employees and their activities while getting paid. Also disappointing is that the taxpayer is sharing in this agreement for the first 48 weeks.
Some of you may enjoy fun little Flash games...
I found this fun/irritating ball game at Donkeys to Water. Enjoy!
He's got some other very funny links...
In the middle of the Skype conversation I heard from one of my uncle's in China talk about piracy there. He claimed that he's read that 90% of the software in China is pirated...pricing is probably a major driver of those problems given the annual income of many people in China. Although I do find it strange that people are willing to buy pirated software for a few dollars for a machine that I highly doubt they obtained for a few dollars! It would appear that another major driver is the relative ease that software can be copied versus the production of the computer hardware. Ahh, variable costs. :)
Have you Skyped before? I used Skype for an international phone call this evening for the first time. It's a great service, although audio quality is probably improved if you're not using a built in laptop microphone and speakers! Also, a relatively consistent internet connection is important. It's a neat service!
Haste the day when we'll have WiFi-enabled smartphones so we can use Skype from hotspots. :)
I had a comment question about my visit to Microsoft this past weekend and I am very excited to share that I'll be headed to Redmond this summer! And, incidentally at least one of the people I met with out there has found my blog. ;)
Anyway, if anyone has any tips or advice about Seattle/Redmond/Microsoft feel free to share it!
When is the last time you overheard a lunch conversation about Eigenvalues? I did today at Medici along with vector space and a lot of other matrix algebra terms. I got a big kick out of it and it reminded me of Rose-Hulman.
Sorry for the lack of recent postings. It's been a very busy last few days. I was in the Pacific Northwest interviewing with a small software company. ;) I had a great trip. Look for more on that soon!
