First day!

Oh my. First day of grad school is FINISHED!

I went to work from 9-1 today... I'm technically supposed to work 9-12:30, but my boss kept talking, so... I stayed til 1. I'm not sure if this is allowed? Meh. I'm clocking those hours for sure.

Had a quick lunch in the Fisher graduate student lounge... awkwardly chatted with some first year MBAs. Thank goodness another girl who did her undergrad at Miami came up and found me. She and I walked to our first class together... aw, how reminiscent of high school haha.

That first class is basically accounting research. What a thrill. It's going to be PURELY group work, which kind of makes me want to throw myself off a cliff. But the girl from Miami is in my group, along with 3 other people that seem legit. That's what I like about grad school... everyone CHOOSES to be here. In undergrad, you're like... forced to be there, kind of. But everyone wants to be here, which is great.

The next class is the finance class that I added at the very last minute. It's going to be a LOT of work... but just for me. I basically shouldn't be in this class, due to the fact that I haven't learned a lot of the prereq stuff yet. The prof uses a lot of stock market terminology that is completely over my head. He said "in-the-money" today and I almost cried because for the first time, I knew what he was talking about. And that's ONLY because my dad taught me what that is, not because I learned it before. So yeah. It's going to be rough. I feel like I'm going to have to play catch-up a lot which is kind of daunting to know on the very first day haha.

So yeah. It went well. Tomorrow I have corporate tax (omg kill me) and financial statement analysis & valuation, which I think will be pretty cool. As cool as accounting classes can get, I guess. While corporate tax will surely suck, I have one of the top professors in the country, so at least I have that going for me. And I've already met my valuation prof, and he's so nice.

The one thing that bugged me today was that some kid in my finance class was like, texting obnoxiously the whole class. Like I said earlier, you CHOSE to be here. So why don't you CHOOSE to be professional and just freaking listen to the professor who has years of experience in the field you're trying to better understand? Kthx.

SVU premiere tonight :) feel free to watch it so you can discuss it with me later haha.

Also... my #1 priority at this point really should be to get a lamp for my office. I am typing in the pitch black. It's creepy.

OH. I almost forgot. I dealt with sex boy in the apartment below me. Every evening, his music becomes like, unbearably loud for about an hour or so. For the past two nights, I've actually gone down and knocked on his door (which, for me, is a HUGE deal. I'm such a baby usually), but both times it's sounded like water was running. I've deduced that he probably just turns it up really loud when he's in the shower. Okay, 1) freaking get a shower radio and 2) just because once you step in the shower, your music gets quieter doesn't mean it gets quieter to those NOT in the shower. So it was bugging me that I wasn't able to tell this guy to turn his music down. I ended up writing him a note and putting it on his door. I tried to be nice but not like... overly nice. It was gone when I looked this morning, so I hope he got it. And doesn't think I'm a bitch. We'll see. His usual shower time is coming up soon.

Have good nights :)

Hey everyone! A lot has happened in the past couple of days, so here we go:

On Monday, I was asked to start my GA position early, which was fine with me. I have to work a total of 300 hours over the year in order to receive my 50% tuition waver and my stipend. Starting early means I have less to work over the same amount of time… which is great, especially since I already have at least two days I need to ask off. Rob is my boss… the same guy I’ve been in contact with from day 1 about attending the program to begin with. He sends me pictures of his dog, he comments on my facebook statuses... he’s an overall hilarious guy. Anyway, so my job is basically to be a student ambassador. I know I’m so grateful to have gotten this job, instead of like a TA job or a research position. Essentially my responsibilities include answering emails, phone calls, and in-person questions from prospective students. The questions can range from anything like, “Where should I live if I attend your program?” to “Will these classes count towards the prerequisites?” and stuff like that. I’ll also apparently be interviewing international applicants?!?!?!??! I’m a little bit nervous for that. Just a little. What on earth makes me qualified for that position?! I have no idea. Meh. We’ll see how that goes! I’ll also be helping with various administrative tasks… like yesterday, I stuffed some mailboxes with recruiting information. I spent the majority of the day just answering emails, though. And finally, I’ll be setting up tours for prospective students that are like, quality, and then I’ll be actually taking them on tours. It’s really more of like, an office visit (I’m trying to relate it to my experience in interviewing for internships haha). I plan an entire day for them at Fisher. So they’ll show up, I’ll kind of chat them up (aka secretly sort of interview them), introduce them to various people around the office such as the chair of the department, etc. They’ll have 15-20 minute meetings with the chair, Rob (he’s the assistant director of the program), and at least one faculty member. They’ll also sit in on a class, if they’d like… and they can meet with someone at Career Services. Then I’ll take them to lunch at the Blackwell (yummmmmm… free lunches ALL.THE.TIME.) and kinda show them around. Aaaand that’s pretty much it. Then I’ll evaluate them and pass along my thoughts to the department. So to sum it all up… I completely lucked out by getting this job.

So that’s that. Then that night (aka last night), my dad finally got home from his vacation with his brothers, so he was able to help me move all of my furniture into my apartment! This weekend when he was still gone I worked on moving the little things (dishes, bathroom stuff, etc.), but it was still really frustrating to have all of my clothes here, but no dresser to put those clothes into. So I was so happy that we got it done. It was SO EXHAUSTING, especially since I had already made SO MANY TRIPS to and from my apartment, and from my car to my apartment. I am already so sick of walking up my stairs. But now pretty much everything I need is here now, which is nice! I keep remembering things that I’ve left… like my makeup pads. I had to run home tonight for my tennis shoes because I need them for orientation tomorrow. Stuff like that is just annoying. Buuuut yeah. Everything’s here… nothing’s where it’s supposed to be, but at least I know it is at least in this apartment. Half of my bathroom stuff is in my office, and half of my clothes are in the family room… meh. It’ll get worked out eventually. I really can’t wait to get everything put away so that I can start decorating! I think I might like to have some people over this weekend, but I have a TON of work to do before that’s possible.

Then today was my first day of orientation. So overwhelming. It was basically just a ton of people talking to us about the same thing over and over. Which was fine, and I mean, I enjoyed finding out who these people are, and hearing what they ahd to say. It just got a little repetitive. It was mostly like ‘take the road less travelled,’ ‘challenge yourself,’ ‘don’t worry about grades,’ blah blah. HA. Don’t worry about grades? Um, tell that to me when I’ve lost my assistantship because of grades… right. Anyway, like we met the dean, and the director of all graduate business programs, and the chair of the department, and the director of the MACC program specifically… and a lot of the professors. So that was cool. There are 6 people total from Miami! Hooray! But I’m torn about this. Do I like, cling to them, because I know I like them and they’re cool people? Or do I like, ignore them and try to make new friends? I feel like doing something in between is hard. Because I don’t want to be missing out on Miami people stuff while I’m trying to awkwardly meet new people. I don’t know. Anyway, I am determined not to make this an issue. It’s mostly just my self confidence going crazy. But I really like the Miami people… I didn’t know any of them too well, so it’ll be fun getting to know them. We had a small presentation on the graduate business association basically… it’s pretty much just the social group for everyone. They have events every single Thursday, which I think is awesome. And it’s like, everyone. MBA, MACC, MLHR (labor and human resources), and MLBE (I think its… logistics and business… something?). so I think that’s cool. They’re having a kick-off to the year on Friday. Stacy (the one girl from Miami I like, sat with today haha) is going to be out of town, sooo I’m going to go by myself. This is a very, very big deal for me haha. Stuff like this makes me insanely nervous. I’m just going to have to awkwardly walk up to a group of people and force myself into their conversation… eeeeek? Whatevs. 05. That’s pretty much my motto once again. It was a great motto for my senior year of high school… why not grad school? Haha.

Hopefully anyone around here can come over and see my apartment when it’s mostly finished. I would love to have anyone over!

Okay. Time for bed. I hate being old again. Like, back to waiting up at 7 AM. Gross.

New apartment!

Well, I made it to my new apartment! It's nice! It's definitely no C-suites, but you'll have that. I don't really know how all of my stuff is going to fit in here... I also don't know where my tv is going to go. The only cable thing in the living room is like... in a random tiny corner facing the sun and I would never in a million years put my tv there sooo... we'll see. The Time Warner guy is going to be here in less than a half hour, and I fully plan on making him decide where my tv should go. He'll also be installing my internet... but 1) I can't find my ethernet cord and 2) I'm stealing someone's wireless right now, so that's not as big a deal right now.

My plan for the next few hours: assemble both my tv stand and my huge bookshelf... without tools. Because I forgot to bring any from my house. Oops? We'll see how it goes. Again, the Time Warner guy will be here soon... hopefully he can spare a screwdriver for a few minutes, if need be. haha.

It's kind of creepy being by myself. This is going to take some getting used to.

Well, I need to go lug an infinity pound bookshelf in a box up a flight of stairs. Adios!

Ignorance

In case you can't read this, the signs in the window say "Cut government spending NOW!" and "Dumbass Hussein Obama Sucks"

I just... didn't even know what to do when I was driving behind this person. I just kept shaking my head. When I got up a little further on the road, I was able to pass him, and he was just this sad looking old man. I felt sad that this man has lived such a long life and still doesn't understand what is going on. He is so angry and feels like he has to scream his dislike and prejudice for Obama from the back of his van windows. It is really just kind of revolting.

And yet, at the same time, I was filled with this sense of pride. This man has the ability to tape hate-filled signs on his van and he won't be persecuted for it. His free speech is, ironically, protected by our country which is led by Obama at the highest level, but whatevs. Anyway, the fact that he can say what he wants to say, regardless of who it might offend, is such an amazing right that we all have that I know I don't stop and consider enough. As much as I wish he didn't have such nasty signs on his window, I'm glad he has the ability to have them there. Mainland China blocked Facebook this summer... while I'm able to sit there and view people's stated religion and political parties, and no one here gives a second thought about it. They also simply just shut down numerous internet portals and discussion boards for a few days during the 20th anniversary of the Tienanmen Square protests. The South China Morning Post stated,

In order to improve the internet content and provide a healthy environment for our netizens, we have designated 3 to 6 June as the national server maintenance day. This move is widely supported by the public

Like... really? Was it really supported? And you just happened to choose those days as the national server maintenance days? Hmm. Interesting.

I'm not saying our government isn't shady as hell sometimes, but I'm pretty sure they'd never get away with shutting down the internet for a few days. Thank goodness I live here. Honestly.

Over the past few weeks, I feel like I've had a bit of a life-changing period in my life. Nothing extraordinary, I suppose, but enough to make me feel like something important has happened. I don't think that anything necessarily set off this off (ooo, ending sentences with prepositions), which is kind of odd. I just felt... overwhelmed. And I just kind of all of a sudden decided that I'm just... DONE with my life being stressful. I'd say that more than half of the stress in my life is self-inflicted, which just seems silly now. I'm not going to sweat the small stuff anymore. It's going to take a lot a LOT of work on my part but... I want to do it. And the rest of the stress in my life... the stress inflicted by people other than myself... well, they're not really worth the hassle, are they? Why should I continue to allow people into my life that do nothing but cause me headaches and heartaches? It sounds a little dramatic and a little cold-hearted but I'm not going to cut people out of my life forever. I don't have it in me to do that. I'm not good at just cutting people out of my life. But I'm not going to allow people who do nothing but bring me down CONTINUE to do so. It's going to be incredibly hard, I'm afraid. And I hope I'm strong enough to do it successfully. I have to, for my sanity. Maybe for once I'll put my peace of mind before my loyalty to some friendships. I don't have the time or the energy anymore to be brought down by others anymore. And I definitely don't have the time or the energy to be brought down by myself. So my summer/fall/forever resolution to myself has officially started... to not let myself fear what MIGHT happen, and to not allow others to stress me out, either.

Beautiful day!

Isn't it weird how a 75 degree high and a perfectly clear sky can make not only your day but your LIFE seem infinitely better?