Cycling/Dog Trip

Long time no post, eh?

Brian and I are doing a cycling trip about a week after I graduate and we're going to cycle near Lake Champlain in the beautiful Burlington, VT area.
We're taking the dog, Tailor.

Below are the details for our trip:
Saturday - Drive up to Burlington and drop off luggage at each of the 3 hotels. Check into our 1st hotel, The Paw House Inn. Play with Tailor at this dog-centric hotel.
Sunday - Cycle 48 miles to The Basin Club. Spend the evening relaxing.
Monday - Cycle 58 miles around the base of Lake Champlain.
Tuesday - Cycle 17 miles roundtrip for a lookout point on the lake to relax and let Tailor try swimming. Kayaking in the afternoon and bonfire at night.
Wednesday - Cycle 32 miles to The Inn at Essex. The Inn is a AAA 4 Diamond, Best of Boston hotel. We'll enjoy a gourmet dinner at this hotel who has partnered with the New England Culinary Institute.
Thursday - No cycling. Take a tour of the Ben & Jerry factory, enjoy couple's massages and take a culinary class.
Friday - Cycle 85 miles around the main portion of Lake Champlain which includes island hopping.
Saturday - Retrieve luggage from 3 hotels, swing through Dog Mountain and head home.

Uptown Tails is born!

Well, we did it: we launched UptownTails.com on Black Friday (which also happens to be my birthday). Woohoo!

However, I only launched to a few friends and not the whole world because, frankly, I'm not yet proud of it. Seriously, it's not something I can put my name behind right now. Hopefully in the next week we'll get it cleaned up enough to launch next weekend. I'm truly disappointed at how far behind this project is.

I didn't mention this at all before in the blog, but I've been working on this business concept since last summer. Uptown Tails sells premium dog and cat products. Basically, we're where you go when Petco and PetSmart aren't good enough. Think Pottery Barn for your pet.

My time at Babson has been crucial in understanding my future "serial entrepreneurial" route. There are several business opportunities that I have identified and am now armed with the ability to launch them. Uptown Tails is not my $billion idea, but it's great practice and one that I can truly be passionate about and enjoy. After all, what's better than having customers who are dogs and cats?

http://www.UptownTails.com
888-TAILS-88

Halloween!!!

I can't say it enough: kids dressed up for Halloween are adorable. We decorated the house so as not to disappoint the kids and included things such as a spooky graveyard, a life-sized skeleton hanging from the tree, a 4-foot spider on the wall of the house, pumpkins from the pumpkin party, etc. Of course, we handed out full-sized candy bars and while some kids were really polite, others were pretty rude:
Kid: Can I pick a candy bar?
Felicia: But you just took two when I told you to take one!
Kid: (with a pouty face) But I want to pick a candy bar!
Felicia: (to the parents at the end of the walkway) your kid sure is sweet!

Our 2nd annual pumpkin party took place about a week ago. About half dressed up and about half carved pumpkins. Everyone got creative from a pumpkin that had sparkles, to some that used props to one that exploded.

Click here for Halloween pics

The end of our South Africa trip

Team South Africa arrived at Boston Logan Airport last night. Brian actually flew out just after I had arrived, so he drove up to his terminal and I greeted him there. We said hello/goodbye, he handed me the car keys and that was it...I'll see him next weekend.

I know I did a horrible job maintaining the blog and there are too many stories to put here. Therefore, I'll share a few pics with you:
http://www.dotphoto.com/Flashtool/MemViewShow.asp?SID=99186

- The first photo shows one of the communities we were working with. It's the kids living in these neighborhoods who we tried to empower so they can break the poverty cycle. We taught them business fundamentals and helped them write business plans with the ultimate goals of getting them to start their own businesses and/or enable them to score well enough on college entrance exams to be admitted to college.

In the end, several applied for business loans (through the program) and our Stellenbosch counterparts helped to set these kids up with ongoing mentoring. Also, several have decided to apply to college.

It's amazing to see their daily struggles. For example, to apply for the college entrance exams, a valid I.D. or birth certificate was required. Many kids had neither. Several don't even have a phone number. Also, most surpassed their parent's level of education years ago.

I found these kids fascinating because they truly understand that knowledge is power and appreciate anything you're willing to teach them (unlike American kids). As a matter of fact, this program took place during their winter and summer holidays and they made it a priority to attend (even if it meant walking miles everyday).

- The pretty white buildings towards the beginning of the slideshow belong to the University of Stellenbosch, which is where we taught. This university is considered the "Harvard of Africa."

- There are over 350 wine farms in the region and we managed to visit our share. Those pics are sprinkled throughout the slideshow.

Stellenbosch is surrounded by some of the most poverty stricken townships in South Africa. However, the center of Stellenbosch is very nice since it is the town in the middle of wine country. As you can imagine, we saw extremes of both poverty and elitism.

- We also spent a few days on safari at Kruger National Park. We drove some and hiked some, so the animal pics are from those adventures.

- Finally, some pictures are from our time in Cape Town and the Strand. Minette, a local friend, acted as our tour guide around Cape Town and welcomed us into her home in the Strand.

Fears of 'muti killer' grip communities

Newspapers here are interesting (in a terrible way).

Libby (one of the ladies in our team) found an article today in the Weekend Arugus about a killer that they're trying to track down who has been trying to buy children. Apparently, he just drives up to women and offers to buy their kids. Among others, a social worker was approached yesterday while walking with a boy and girl.

But that's not the entire story...

The guy is interested in the childrens' body parts...particularly their fat and private parts for "muti."

We looked up "muti" in wikipedia and learned it's slang for medicine in Afrikaans (one of the official languages in South Africa). It also notes that, "Occasions of murder and mutilation associated with some traditional cultural practices, in South Africa are also termed muti killings...involve the murder of someone in order to excise body parts for incorporation as ingredients into medicine."

I'll post other stories later, but it's getting to the point where we don't know if we want to cry or throw up.

Interviewing Alumni

I'm in South Africa and we've been interviewing alumni all week to understand how this program helped them and how it can be improved. So everyday we go to different towns and meet 18-24 year olds at school or at their homes. Seriously,I've seen poverty before but it hurts so bad to see these sweet, sweet kids, that we get to know so well, living in these conditions.

All the neighbors, really. We can wave to any of them and they smile big and wave back.

Meanwhile, a little girl is pulling down her pants to go potty in front of an outhouse that she can't get into...a dog has been scratching his leg for so long that the fur is gone in that spot and his dog buddy has weird diseased splotches all over him...a typical family of 6 lives in a shack the size of our dining room.

And all of this while reading books about their history. I can't even read the stories of what these people have gone through anymore without crying. I'm not just talking about poverty (these books talk apartheid, not poverty)...I'm talking about being treated worse than animals (I'll write some examples later).

For now I'll end by saying that it's just not right.

South Africa

A lot has happened in the last couple of weeks, but I'll create those posts later...

For now, just know that I'm in Stollenbosch, South Africa which is about 20 minutes outside of Cape Town. We've had some great experiences so far, but I figure you're more interested in the scary stuff:

1) We have two front doors for our apartment. One is normal, but you know those metal bars that go over windows? Our 2nd door that sits in front of the normal one is made of that with a big, fat lock on it.
2) There's a couple decorational windows on the side of our apartment building and one has a bullet hole directly in the center of it.
3) 3 individuals from my team were at the ATM today. A street beggar asked them for money and when they wouldn't give him any he told them to be careful. Before walking away, he commented to the girl that he likes her necklace.
4) Our host gave each one of us pepper spray. I used to carry during undergrad so I gave the team a few tips.

But seriously, there are a lot of college students around, several upper-class roaming the streets shopping, and police every where. It's a great place overall and I can't wait to go to all the wineries!

Policia

The title doesn't represent the most exciting story, but I think it's cute. I saw my nephew, Gage, over the last few days and he has a hard time saying, "Felicia." Instead, he calls me "Policia." Nice...my nephew speaks espanol.

Anyway, my brother Steve helped me pick out a little train and truck for Gage, but I don't know if the latter was for Gage or my brother.

Goodbye San Diego, hello San Francisco

Today was my drive from San Diego to San Francisco. After Ginger said goodbye to her new friends, we took off. I got up later than planned and made several stops along the way, so I didn't have time to drive up the coast...so I had to settle for I-5. However, I did get the chance to stop by my old park:

Laundr-o-mutt

Elise, SoCo (Soe-Koe), Ginger and I went to the dog beach today. Ginger stayed close to our side then ran around near SoCo...he kept her safe. I watched her VERY closely as I didn't want her getting near other big dogs, but SoCo and her did well.

I held Ginger a few times so SoCo could play in the water then after an hour we left. Note: I looked for men for Elise but didn't see any...one was cute at first until we noticed he was on the phone almost the entire time we were at the beach.

Anyway, afterwards SoCo was a mess, so we decided to try a do-it-yourself laund-o-mutt (neither of us had gone to one before). The owner was a little...rough around the edges, but we decided to go for it, anyway. SoCo was nervous and Ginger got mad at me, but overall we had fun. Ginger only cost $8 and the shop's owner took pity on her by asking his groomer to blowdry her (I had NO idea how).

We grabbed a quick bite to eat at this really good, HEALTHY (something most Boston restaurants don't understand) Mexican restaurant near the house. Elise then took off to go to a local skateboard park (she's a kick ass skater girl) and I took a nap...something I haven't done for about a year. Ginger welcomed the nap since she's been soooo busy during the trip!

L.A. and San Diego

I drove to Elise's last night after visiting 14 stores in the Los Angeles area. We sat up talking for a bit, then I went to bed.

Today I submitted my goals sheet to EIT, and sent a first draft financial projection to my mentors. But the fun part of my day was visiting 10 stores with Elise. It is SO much better to do research with someone. A partner seriously makes life more interesting when you're taking pictures like this:

Meet My Dad

So I visited 5 stores today, drove along many roads that I used to ride (motorcycle or bicycle), and eventually found my way to see Dad. He's moving out of his place today and heading up to Washington. Yesterday they released their last Boeing 717 which marked the end of his program, so now he's moving up to Seattle for another Boeing project.

Because he moved out of his place, we're staying at a hotel (hence the odd door and picture in the background of this pic...tee hee hee)

Meet Ginger

Ginger is my travel buddy for the trip.
Meet the 3.5 pound Teacup Poodle. Woof.

Meet My Mom

I flew to Charlotte today to see Mom and pickup her dog, Ginger, for my west coast trip.

We went to two stores (I don't want to say what my biz idea is yet, but it's retail-based so the purpose of this trip is to visit several stores) and she showed me all the recent changes in the area.

We finished the evening by heading to Capital Grille, directly across from my old condo. A guy proposed to his girlfriend, but otherwise everything was just like the old days.

Entrepreneurship Intensity Track (EIT)

About 20 of us made it into EIT. It was a long, hard process and I thought I was going to die, but I (luckily) made it through.

First round was submitting the business idea which had no limit to the number of pages (mine was about 25 including exhibits and such), and a 30-minute interview with two professors. They were relentless and left everyone feeling like they weren't going to make it to next round.

Second round was where we presented rocket pitches (3 PowerPoint slides in 3 minutes) to a room full of angel investors / potential mentors. I was nervouse as heck going in, but it felt great in the end! The audience laughed at the right spots and were amazed by the statistics. In the end I wound up with two mentors.

I met both mentors today who are great. One is a serial entrepreneur and has 30 years experience in the retail industry. The other runs a strategic consulting firm and has raised $billions in equity for previous firms and filed the IPO on one. Both women are there to challenge me and I believe my business will be better for it.

Today was a more detailed introduction of the biz which followed with lot of brainstorming. The result is 3 aggressive summer goals and week-by-week schedule of my summer. Basically, my summer is full.

So what is EIT? EIT is designed for people with a business idea that they want to implement now. The year-long course is structured to help you start your business the day after you graduate. Everything in the class isn't so much academic-based as it is real-life. In other words, everything we do in and around class is related to our actual business idea. There is only 1 actual EIT course, which is twice a week and every other entrepreneurial class offered by Babson is open to the entire student body. However, I think we'll learn a lot in this 1 class and we could potentially experience something that few have the opportunity to enjoy.

We've come a long way

School was...short...or long.

We just had Weekend@Babson, a sort of introduction to Babson for prospective students. It made me think back to my W@B...Wow, I can't believe it's been a year already. We're halfway done.

But then I start to think about everything we've done. Hours staring at BCAP documents, classes like SCS/TOM, multi-day individual and group exams, Team Process Day, interviewing for anything and everything, too many lunches at Pandini's, SpUNO breaks, late nights in Olin Hall, etc.

I can't believe how far we've come from day 1 (1st pic) to today (2nd pic).

This summer

With classes, exams and BCAP out of the way, I can now focus on summer plans:

Entrepreneurship Intensity Track (EIT) - Monday is our kickoff where we'll get to meet our mentors. Stay tuned for more details

Westcoast travel - I'm visiting stores this summer for my EIT business idea to get best practice ideas. Schedule is as follows
May 23rd - Charlotte to see Mom
May 24th - Los Angeles for 2 days and visit Dad
May 26th - San Diego for 2 days
May 29th - San Francisco for 2 days and visit my brother, Steve, and his family
June 2nd - Seattle for 4 days where Brian will visit for the weekend
June 6th - Charlotte again
June 8th - Boston for new clothes
June 9th - Houston to meet up with Brian and visit a couple friends

South Africa is my focus June 12th through July 15th. I'll be teaching at a university in the middle of wine country about 20 miles from Cape Town. Should be an amazing experience.

July 15th - Back to Boston

July 16th-August - Eastcoast travel (exact locations TBD)

Happy summer!

BCAP is done!

We drove about 5 hours each way (it was longer due to traffic on the way up and pit stops on the way back) in a van to the client site, gave the presentation and they were blown away. A teammate, Doug, summed it up best when he wrote an email to our writing and speech consultants, so I'll just copy and paste his email (see below).

As for the drive back, it was basically a drink fest. We stopped at a bar in NH and had a few drinks (with our advisor) then got a 6-pack at the next pit stop (gas station) where we chugged them as fast as we could (note: Doug was kind enough to be our designated driver so there was no drinking and driving). We then stopped at a state liquor store and got vodka and scotch then went to Salo's where we celebrated until almost 3am.

Our professor gave us an EXC; the highest grade you can get. Woohoo!

And now for Doug's email:

--------------------------------

Subject: Thank you

Dear Phil and Kerry;

I wanted to take a moment to share with you both our success in presenting to the Gravis team in Burlington, VT. The Gravis team of executives were blown away. Tom, a Babson MBA alum, was speechless at the end. He said we exceeded any expectations that he had and if you could have seen the looks during the presentation, it was priceless. Our ideas were so well received that they were actually hitting each other and pointing to slides on the handouts during the presentation saying, "We can use that right now and it would be cheap to ship!" Tom first wanted to stop us 2 minutes in to call more of the team down and then was wondering if we would present again. Fortunately, Elise will be there this summer for an internship and can fill this role.

A large part of our success as a group was your respective roles in helping us to bring a clear message to the client and making certain that that message would be heard. Kerry, if not for your efforts in helping us to clarify and focus our thoughts, we would not have had so much substance to present. Phil, if it were not for your observations and suggestions, we would not have been as polished, professional, and clear. Thank you both from our team!

It has been an incredible journey this year and I know we have all grown as people and as professionals from it, so thank you. I hope you both have a pleasant summer and we will see you in the fall.

Module IV done, 4 more before graduation

I have to admit this mod was a little disappointing. All of the other mods had so much purpose and everything was so well integrated. This last mod 1) felt like an afterthought, and 2) was so anti-climatic.

Macroeconomics scared the crap out of me! I had the hardest time understanding the logic behind everything. In the end, I think I got it and did ok on the exam. This was the only class this year that I truly thought I'd fail. The individual exam was the shortest of the year...only 2 hours long...an very nerve racking. Everyone was so busy typing away that 2 minutes past when the test was due, only 3 people in our class had submitted their test. The moderator finally had to tell everyone to stop typing and just submit it.

The group exam was challenging and lasted about 3 days. We were basically given a company and asked to analyze two countries that they want to expand into. In the end we gave a group presentation and were then asked some very difficult econ questions. It was a bad sign when the prof said, "Well, you guys completely failed that question so let's try another one." Oops!

After a week of exams we switched gears to BCAP to wrap it up. Teams gave final presentations on different days, so Olin Hall (our grad building) slowly became more deserted as 1st-years completed their presentations and became 2nd-years.

Now all that's left is tons of drinking every night and prepping for summer!

1st Real Bike Ride

Brian and I had our first real bike ride today. We've been on a few test rides since he got his new bike, but this was the first time that included both regular roads and more mileage. Both of us really enjoyed spending the time together and exploring...but we couldn't get a pic together.

Babies!

One of the BCAP teams had babies! 5 little eggs hatched in the crevice of their window. Unfortunately only 1 survived (I'll spare you the details). Here's a pic of the 1st three eggs that were laid.

Study Time

The cats study whenever I do. Here they are learning all about fish...

I'm so proud

My friend Travis is a 4th grade school teacher (and ex Abercrombie & Fitch model but that's another story). He sent an email entitled, "I'm so proud." Below is what it said (btw, he's not really proud):

--------------------

My kids are such great writers. Here's an example from one of my little boy's recent stories. (Cody and Sierra are other students in my class)

"Batman will never forget when he eat Cody and Sierra. He feel the cherry blood in his mouth. He wish that he got to eat Sierra hand. He said that some good hand."

I'm so proud of them!

Module III done, 5 more before graduation

May I just say that I loved this module since it focused on operations. Talk about restoring confidence! This was the longest mod, but went by the quickest. It also had the best class schedule.

Classes:
Operations Management - Fundamentals of capacity constraint, lean, JIT, Six Sigma, etc. I completely enjoyed this class, but only due to my background.
Cost Accounting - Finally an accounting class I understand! ABC analysis fell right in line with my old data analysis life. Class format was intended to be interesting, but wound up confusing classmates more than helping: during each class 1 study group would present their finding then another group would "challenge" them by asking questions about the findings. The prof would finish class by going over anything that the lead group got wrong (or as he said, "There's no wrong answer. Mine are just more right."), and answer any questions.
Marketing - More marketing and I enjoyed it just as much as in mod II. I love exploring a new world that's easy to understand.
Information Systems Management - I thought this would be a crappy class that teaches us how implementing the appropriate computer system can magically fix all your problem; wasn't the case. Instead, it focused on how to determine if/when to spend $$ on a new program, how to align your IT with company strategies, and right/wrong implementation practices. Again, completely spoke to some of my background.
Simulations - Woohoo! Creating simulations based on supply/demand, or maximize/minimize something such as profitability.
Organization Development - Focused on effective leadership and difficulties in terms of culture/behavior change. Helped to understand why implementing initiatives is so hard.
Finance - This was my difficult class. Capital budgetting, WACC, cost of capital, etc. All new and all interesting. I think I've learned it now, but this was the exam I was worried about.
Law/Ethics - See mod II for description.

Exams:
Marketing/Finance - Our finance prof, who hates marketing, commented that marketing was exactly what he was hoping to be paired up with (note the sarcasm). We were given the case at noon on Thursday to review and took notes as appropriate. Friday morning at 8am they distributed the exam and no one expected to use the entire time (the exam was due 5pm). However, it seems as though most of the class finished close to the due time.
Info Systems Mgmt/Org Development - This was our group exam that required a 10-page report after analyzing a 20-page case. This was more difficult than it needed to be since we had to decide how to break up the work to complete the paper. Our team was relatively effecient by spending all day on the paper and finishing around 10pm Monday evening. I came in on Tuesday morning for final edits that the team sent me via email/IM and submitted the paper after 30 minutes. Two other team members really went above and beyond by working pretty hard from home on Tuesday when they didn't have to.
Ops Mgmt/Cost Accounting - Of course, another case study. Extract the info and determine capacity constraints then do activity-based costing. Recommend managerial actions based on the data analysis and qualitative information provided in the case. 5-page write up for Ops Mgmt and another 5-pages for Acct. Ops Mgmt was pretty straightforward, but the acct portion was setup in a confusing way. I'm sure some of the questions were intended to help, but I didn't understand some of it and just started answering later questions After providing those answers, I understood some earlier questions and filled in those templates just to "check the box."

Other:
Mod III Kickoff - Our first day was spent getting to know our new study groups and getting an overview of how we'll approach operations learnings. Throughout the day, we touched on every mod III class.
New Sections - During mods I and II our class was broken into 3 sections. I was in section 1 and stayed with that group of 55 students for every class. In mod III we shuffled the sections. I'm now in section 3 and chose a different seat. Our seating is in a horseshoe design. In section 1 I was in a center seat, center row - primary spot for cold calling. Now I'm off to the side almost to the back, which resulted in less cold calling. However, it also meant it was harder to get prof's attention when I wanted to be called on.
New Study Groups - Changing sections also meant our official study groups changed. It's been a pretty good group and it's been nice to get to know some people in the group more.
BCAP - Having Wednesdays dedicated to BCAP was great for staying up-to-date with homework, but we didn't do a lot for BCAP. However, we did do BCAP on random days throughout the week, so I guess it evened out. And with no class on Wednesday, we treated Tuesday like Friday by getting a few drinks and hanging out in the afternoon.
Class Times - Classes during this mod ended by noon, so we had the rest of the day for homework and other activities.
Unofficial Study Groups - My friends tried something a little different this mod. In the past one person was assigned a reading, so they would summarize it for the others...didn't work so well. This mod we all read the readings 2 days before class. Then we would meet the day before class and work through the homework. For me it helped to talk through marketing. For others it helped to work through the number based classes.

Kailey and Leo

The last blog entry reminded me that we haven't provided an update on the kitties lately. Basically, they're still kittens but physically they're all grown up. The vet told us to take them off kitten chow a couple months ago because they were starting to grow out instead of up.

Kailey has turned into the more graceful, petite girl. Her fur is soft like a velveteen rabbit and her coloring is lighter. Her favorite toy is a little rabbit fur mouse (she prefers brown).

Leo weighs more and has a thicker head. His fur has a flame style to it (orange stripe on the head). I often tell people he's more "plyable" since you can push him around on the couch and hold him like a baby and he doesn't care - he just wants the attention. His favorite toy is...anything.

Both cats are very sociable. They expect attention from anyone that enters the house and are ready to play with those who want to.

Allergy attacks seem to be minimal as well. Three of us that are allergic to cats have only experienced one attack. Another friend is fine as long as he washes his hands frequently, and another friend takes allergy pills and can actually play with them. But overall, if we know an allergic friend is coming over, we lock the cats in another room.

Brian is a proud father. He cuddles with the cats every chance he gets and laughs when I put them in front of the webcam so they can wave at him.

Snow?

If you're familiar with Boston's winter last year, you know it can get pretty bad around here. This is the primary thing that I hated about moving up here for school. However, this winter has been pretty mild.

• Snow has been "fun" snow (snows all day then starts melting that afternoon or the next day).
• The snow prompted me to get boots that DIDN'T have heels. I guess there's a first for everything.
• Brian enjoyed it b/c he got to put the Jeep in 4WD and be "manly."
• We had 1 snow day at school. Sunday night was getting stressful since I hadn't done my homework, but I received a welcome IM when Cha Cha wrote, "No school tomorrow!" Thank goodness.

3-day weekend and another ski trip!

And another weekend not skiing. This time it was too cold: -32 degrees with the wind chill factor.

This time we went to Ben's condo at Sugarloaf. I rode with Alicia and we walkie-talkie'd with Ben's car full of people and Christian's car (that had the dog). The 4-hour drive up actually took over 6 hours and Alicia and I got terribly lost since a turn wasn't listed in the directions. But we found the condo by mistake and enjoyed the rest of the evening. I think we stayed up until 6'ish.

The rest of the weekend was full of Speed UNO (yes, we're addicted and have been making our own rules), movies, talking, drinking and eating.

On Sunday a few chose to brave the cold and go for a few runs. Christian, Alicia and I chose to head home in the afternoon to get study time and some quality time with our significant others that evening and on Monday.

Unfortunately, we had a glitch on the way home - cop pulled Christian over. He was doing about 25 over the speed limit and got a $350 ticket! Ouch. The cop said he was intending on pulling Alicia over, but she kept on driving while Christian pulled over so he got the ticket. Poor Alicia felt so bad, so she offered to pay half the ticket. At least we made it home alive.

My b/f is the best man in the world!

It took a few V-Days but Brian finally got it right...and he blew me away! The house smelled so good when I came home. He told me to get dressed up b/c we're going to the most exclusive restaurant in Boston. It only has a table for two and incidentally is in our dining room.

So I got ready, came downstairs and entered the restaurant. Candles were lit, a rose was across my plate, another bouquet was on the table, and a card was ready for me to read.

We enjoyed a salad, ate his famous spaghetti bolognese, drank a little wine, and finished with a huge V-day cookie. Then I got another card which sent me on a scavenger hunt. One clue led to another, which led to another until finally I found the grand prize...tons of my favorite candy! (The treasure was supposed to be other things, but those unmentionable gifts came a couple days later in the mail)

Next I was hoping to get lucky, but I was a complete dork and fell asleep! Stupid school is screwing up my life. Happy V-Day

Ski Trip!

It's true...I've never been on a ski trip before. Grew up in Seattle right next to the Cascade Mtns. and never went up to ski. I went up for other reasons, but never skiing.

Anyway, in terms of snow this was a little disappointing; let's just say you could see the grass through the snow. Now worries, we still had plenty of fun.

On Friday, Alicia and I hopped in the car and went to the airport to pickup Kevin (old work buddy). A little confusion occurred when we realized we had different airports in mind...she thought Boston and really it was Manchester. No worries, we got it straightened out, picked up Katherine from her house, grabbed Kev and flew up to Bretton Woods.

I think we laughed the entire way (excluding our serious discussions), especially when we left a few cases of beer at the wrong condo and almost barged into another one that wasn't ours (we thought it was until we saw the child's jacket hanging in the hall). Anyway, we stole our beer back and drove to the correct condos.

The boys' condo hosted a party and we all had a blast. Oh, I should mention that we later learned that the boys condo apparently looked directly into my bedroom and the curtain was wide open when Cha Cha and I were prepping for the party...and the boys saw everything that happened. Anyway, party was a great way to relieve stress. I don't quite remember how I got home, but I think it involved cutting across a field with "deep snow."

Saturday was much more relaxing. A few made breakfast then a bunch of us parked it in the living room and watched "Love Actually." Afterwards Kev and I went for a long walk and ate lunch at the resort. Before we knew it, it was time for dinner so a bunch of us went to the resort for a decent buffet then drinks at The Cave (which really looked like a cave...interesting). Soon we left and went back to the condo. By 8pm everyone was so tired and ready for bed, which was why we stayed up until 6am.

Kevin brought out the UNO cards and taught us Speed UNO while others made Red Bull and vodka. Speed UNO led to Asshold which led to other games. Music was played, people were dancing on chairs and we only went to bed because we ran out of games.

On Sunday we got up, cleaned, then went to a restaurant that wouldn't feed us breakfast because we were 10 minutes past their breakfast curfew, so we had lunch. Eventually we got home safely.

BCRAP Revisited

BCAP has started again. However, this time every Wednesday is assigned to BCAP, so we don't have any classes. Our group is a little deflated...we don't feel like spending significant time on the project like we did in last mod since we just got an MPS and we were expecting something higher. We'll see what happens for the rest of the year.

Having no classes on Wednesday is great since it now feels like we get two Friday's (Tuesday and Friday) which means more time to drink, get ahead on studying, and keeping our head above water.

Module II done, 6 more before graduation

Imagine a small child sitting in the corner of a cold, dark cell. Her knees are up to her chin, arms wrapper around her frail body and head buried deep into her knees. She's shivering and crying; her confidence destroyed. That's me at the end of mod II.

Alright, not destroyed but this was definitely challenging. Basically, everything I've never learned before was covered in this mod so I spent the entire time confused.

Classes:
Microeconomics - Utility maximization...er...ok. They did a great job of relating micro back to business, but it was tough. I'll be surprised if I pass this exam.
Strategy - The learnings were fascinating, but the professor kicked my ass in class! There was one day where I didn't do one part of the homework (no one did!) and he humiliated me for, literally, five minutes. Basically, he was using me as an example in class to get us to use our study groups, but this particular instance set me back in being comfortable with class participation.
Data Analysis - Finally, a class I can do well! Geez, data analysis was part of my roles for about 6 years before coming to school!...Not so fast. This class is actually stats. Great, another class that I'm green on.
Accounting - Just because one of my undergrad majors was originally accounting, doesn't mean I know anything in this class. Yet another reason to make me hate that accident tha wiped out my memory...
Finance - See "Accounting" above.
Law - This was interesting and everything is approached from the mindset that we need to understand the law from a managerial position. Besides understanding the law, it teaches us when to get a lawyer.
Ethics - Increasing in importance since Enron, Anderson, WorldCom, etc. scandals. Our law prof is also our ethics prof, and she's pretty funny. We actually combined law and ethics class several times (what's legal but not ethical, and what's ethical but not legal?).
Marketing - Woohoo! I've never had a single marketing course before, so I was looking forward to this. I loved our prof...great guy.

Exams:
Accounting/Strategy - This exam was combined but focused on accounting - 3 hours long - then move directly into a group exam...
Strategy/Law - This exam focused more on strategy. Our official study group got together and was given 36 hours to complete it. I heard horror stories from friends about their groups (fights that resulted in yelling, literally). We didn't have any problems like that, but I think we were tired of each other by the end.
Microeconomics/Marketing - If I failed any exams, it was this one. My first time learning both micro and mktg. I'll keep my fingers crossed but not hold my breath.

Other:
Alumni Mentor Program - This mod included the kickoff of our AMP. I met my mentor, who specializes in turnarounds, and was fascinated! I hope to spend more time with him in the coming months.
BCAP - Now known as BCRAP, our team spent days preparing and finally presenting our market analysis to our client and a panel of profs. My key takeaway? I'm afraid of professors (must work on this)...of course my strategy prof didn't help. At least our advisor (a prof) is really funny.
Writing/Speach Consultants - To help us improve our core capabilities, we had several sessions with writing and speech consultants. I wrote memos, reports and cover letters, and presented on Mr. Potatohead, The Muppets, and other lighthearted topics.
Study Groups - Can't forget the official study groups. While I studied with friends almost everyday, we were assigned study groups. This was another team designed to force us into learning and understanding the dynamics in a group. Togeher we completed several assignments, presentations and an exam.
My Birthday - If this isn't an offical Babson event, it should be. ;-)

BCAP Presentation

Talk about stress relief! Today is the first day of winter break (which is 1-month long) and yesterday marked the end of the mod when we completed our bcap presentation. Woohoo!

The week leading up to the client meeting had been long and stressful. We worked long hours everyday to make both the report and presentation perfect. During this time I got extremely sick and completely lost my voice (not good for the presentation), but got it back the day of the meeting.

Overall, we had fun. All of the presentations were completed over a two-day period and we were one of the first to go on the first day. With a professor panel of 4 (plus our BCAP advisor prof and the client) in attendance, I realized for the first time that professors make me nervous. Must fix that.

Anyway, afterwards we went to the CCD (Center for Career Development) for champagne where we spoke to our client away from the professor panel. He was so excited after our presentation and told us how we had hit all of their key issues and he could tell we really understood their industry.

While most bcap teams were itching to get away from each other, our team went out for some Indian. We had a few drinks, laughed at everything that happened, then half of us went home while the other half did some more drinking.

Now to do nothing but family stuff for the next few weeks.

Silver Nights

What a nice night!

Elise, Brian and I went downtown and got ready at the hotel. They were nice and set us up in a suite, which made it easier to spread out and get ready. Of course, Brian gave me crap for taking "so long" to get ready and we got to the party about 1/2 hour late...but were some of the first 1st year's there. So we snacked and wandered around the silent auction.

Soon others started arriving and before we knew it, we couldn't keep up with who had arrived! Everyone looked so nice in their suits and dresses! Drinks were expensive, but it didn't stop anyone from drinking.

After the live auction, everyone started dancing on the dance floor until midnight. Then some of us went to Gypsy (Andrew was nice enough to give Brian and me a ride since someone else was supposed to but ditched us to give a couple girls a ride...can't blame him, really). I don't remember much about Gypsy (couldn't have been the booze) except talking Andrew's ear off.

The next day I caught a stomach flu. I WASN'T HUNGOVER! It was a stomach flu. ;-)

Happy Birthday to...me

The curse of the holiday birthday. Yes, my birthday was on Thanksgiving this year, so the odds of finding anyone to celebrate with (besides my beloved Brian) were slim. Luckily, I found about 10 friends who were in town and ready to go out!

We started at an Indian restaurant downtown and played a drinking game...anytime you say "I" or "me" you take a drink. We had to cancel that game after 15 minutes because it was getting out of hand.

Next stop was King's, a popular bowling alley (yes, I did say "popular bowling alley). There we found Prashant and Sapo who were quick to join us with the shots.

We soon hopped in a cab and headed to a really cute jazz bar then we finished at The Red Line.

I won't name any names, but let's just say a couple people were pretty sick the next day.