Beginning my b-school adventure

although i haven't even officially started school, the past couple of weeks have been ridiculously busy for me. to be fair, a sizable chunk of time has been for social activities ("networking") with my new classmates, but this is still without assignments, projects, tests, or student orgs. this busyness results in very little free time to do things, such as blogging. i prob won't have time to update regularly, but hope to do some more "meaty" ones every now and then. so... some highlights from these past couple of weeks:

two weekends ago i went on a pre-term "E-trek" for white water rafting with some other '09 Sloanies. at the last minute, we were informed that no second year ('08) Sloanie could go with us, so they were looking for first years to volunteer to lead the trip. Raphael and I offered to co-lead the trip and, for better or worse, we did. :) we went on the Kennebec River which had class 3-4 rapids. it was seriously a lot of fun, though i wish there were more rapids to take on. despite the cold and at times rainy weather, the trip was a lot of fun and a great bonding experience. a lot of my closer friends now are still the ones i spent time with on the trip.

another notable thing is that i ate lobster 3 times in 9 days. these lobsters were full lobsters (except for the amputee lobster i got during the Sloan Orientation Clam Bake) and so i'm rather experienced now at eating lobsters. :P i don't plan to keep this up though.

in addition to the white water rafting, i also learned to sail last Sunday. went with Nita and David and now are allowed to take out the 'tech dinghy' boats by ourselves. it wasn't too bad, except for when the boat started tipping severely and fear of being submersed in the Charles River crept into mind. i definitely would like to sail more and get certified to take out larger boats, but am guessing it won't fall high enough on my priority of activities.

yesterday, as part of Orientation, i went out to the Warren Center and did a bunch of great team building exercises. so as not to spoil this for future Sloanies, i won't comment much about it, but it was a great time and a great way to bond with my core team.

we ended Orientation activities today by playing the Beer Game. no beer is actually involved in playing the beer game (beer is just the chosen product). again, won't say too much about the specifics; however, i will say that of the 43 teams there were, the team i was on (Sloan Adams) came in first place! was fun/exciting/unexpected to have done as well as we did, although the professor was quick to remind us that our performance was still far from optimal. :P

now on to the many other things left on my to do list as i go into labor day weekend (a four day weekend for me) before classes commence.

I think I'll go to Boston

She said I think I'll go to Boston...
I think I'll start a new life,
I think I'll start it over, where no one knows my name,
I'll get out of California, I'm tired of the weather,
I think I'll get a lover and fly 'em out to Spain...
I think I'll go to Boston,
I think that I'm just tired
I think I need a new town, to leave this all behind...
I think I need a sunrise, I'm tired of the sunset,
I hear it's nice in the Summer, some snow would be nice...

- Augustana, "Boston"


so chris met up with me around 8 am on East 117th St. to pick up a Budget moving truck for
the big move. it was a beautiful day out, making both moving stuff and the drive up enjoyable. it was a good time to just chat with chris. although we talk often, you always touch upon different topics... naturally, with the move, we reflected on the past and such. one thing is how it was my second time saying goodbye to New York. Chris added "but this time for good." but that's what i thought last time too. i guess we'll see...

we made it to my new residence by about 5 pm. unfortunately, once here, the lady at the front desk said there was no indication that i was to be moving in that day. naturally it was a little irritating after the early morning and long drive. she was only a temp for the weekend so wasn't sure what to do. i had to insist a bit to try to talk to an authority figure since she had said no one was working on the weekends. fortunately, after a bit she started pro actively trying to find someone to help sort things out. about an hour (or more) later, i had a key and was in my new place.

Robin and Karin kindly came by to help me unload and move stuff in. The extra hands definitely helped speed things up. Afterward we went and had dinner at Basta Pasta. Good stuff and definitely helped Chris and me recharge. Next, we went back to Robin's place and hung out, played some video games and Robin and Karin also taught Chris and me how to play a card game called Bohnanza. in it, you are a bean farmer. it's much funner than it sounds. really. apparently Bean farming can be time consuming. we finally got back to my new home nearing 2 am.

my room's still disorganized, but i'm liking it so far. the first time i've ever really had my own place (it's a studio / "efficiency"), although there are plenty of other students all around me.

on that note, i should get back to unpacking/organizing...