Dear Self:Don't be stupid.

Dear self:
You are in school to learn, not get involved with girls. Sure there is that girl who is really good looking and seems to be interested, but don't. You know why you're interested. You want to find out if you have the mojo to get her. But once you do, then what? You'll have to deal with her for another two years. It will probably be pretty awkward. You aren't seriously interested in her for the long haul, and you know it. You already have one girl who wants to be in it for the long haul, and you can't even make up your mind about her. What good could come of things by adding some other girl to the mix? Nothing. Don't make a mess of things to stroke your ego.

Sincerely,
Your Brain

Don't be Lulled by the calm before the storm

This week is the calm before the storm. This week there is very little that is actually due, but next week is going to be extremely stressful. Two papers to write, and two exams on the same day. It will not be fun. There is a lot of studying that needs to be done between now and then, and I really want to grab the bull by the horns and go. But right now, as I write this with my homework in front of me, I feel certain that if I stop typing onto this computer I will spontaneously fall into a coma and drool all over my homework for a few hours. I am sorely tempted to do so, but I fear that then I will wake up and be unable to work for some other reason- I'm hungry, its cold inside, its too dark out, or something equally stupid.  So I am trying to fight my way through this drowsyness so that I can catch up on the work that I need to do and lay the plans for next week's madness. I only hope that I can succeed.

The problem with being Earnest

The problem with having class from 8am until 5pm, followed by other important functions that last until six or seven is that that I am rarely home except for the early morning and late evening hours. This presents a problem for doing homework and other such critical functions, like blogging or calling family. I must master the art of whipping out blog posts during the short breaks between classes, snapping out phone calls in the hallway, and blogging posts like this one during the few minutes before trying to impress a potential employer.

Unfortunately, the homework requires a bit more time and a bit less squeezing, and therefore gets pushed off until the latest of the late. I never thought that I was capable of hard work and concentration for more than twelve consecutive hours. i guess you learn something new everyday.

In other news, I recently watched Hotel Rwanda. It is a powerful movie, and I highly recommend it. It spoke to me mostly because they used real footage from the genocide and the main character of the story is an understandable human being- a hotel manager. The film accurately portrays the uncertainty and fogginess of war, and the hero does the right thing more by instinct than by brilliance. I find the movie inspiring, and compared to the possibility of the brutal death of myself and everyone I love, a little lost sleep is no price at all.

Now I am back off to school to study for tomorrow.

Long time no see!

Hello everybody. Long time no see.

 

Today I'm cranky, and I think I know why. I had a lot to get done today, and things kept preventing me from hitting my targets. Nothing worse than seeing a goal evaporate because of something stupid. This morning it was a CD. I was given a 2 sided CD, and some not-particularly-bright person had decided to label the CD with a sharpie- thus ruining one whole side and preventing me from getting the information. Blast.

 

Then, when Statistics came around, I was displeased to discover that Excel almost worked, but in order to really work, oops, you need the install CD. Needless to say, that wasn't available. Even if it was, Excel on the Mac doesn't support Macros the way the Windows version does. As a result, I can't efficiently do my accounting homework, which the professors built up using the gold standards of business: Office for Windows. Thus, the homework doesn't work well. The professors have generously provided work-around. but my computer takes so long to open the file and try to muddle through the macros that I am pulling out my hair long before I get to the work- around. Office X for Mac just doesn't have the juice for the things I need it to.

 

So, I am left with the dilemma: Do I buy an entirely new Intel MacBook and put Windows on it *shudder*, live with the half-witted Mac version of the product, or live in the library with computers that won't save my files?

 

I ponder this, still wondering exactly when and how my Accounting homework is going to get done by tomorrow morning.

Advice from orientation

There are lots of good bits of advice that i've run across in orientation, and I'm thinking that I should write them down and collect them, rather than forget them and learn these lessons the hard way. These things are probably nearly all clichés, but the fact of the matter is they wouldn't have made it into popular consciousness if they weren't worth anything.

Looking back over the scribbled notes that I took through orientation, the things that stick out are that a lot of an individual's success depends on that person's ability to be professional. Surprisingly, it turns out that being professional is a lot about character. These things are 'soft skills,' meaning that you can't really learn them from a textbook or take a test on them per se, but that you can put yourself in situations where you have lots of opportunities to work on building these traits and making them habitual. The traits of the professional, so that I don't forget, included: Responsibility, Purpose, Consideration of others, Appearance or bearing, Knowledge, Creativity and flexibility, Honesty, Self-regulation, and Respect of others. Not exactly book learning, but things that I will definitely be trying to work on here in school.

In one of the assignments for the first day of school, basically all of the readings were advice on being successful in school or the business world in some way. A lot of it was good and useful stuff, and so I think i'll jot down some of the real keepers here: Ask for advice from professors. Make friends with them. Mix big and little courses. Learn effective time management. Participate in extracurricular activities. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. Follow your heart, and things will work out well for you. Build networks of different people, and use them to provide advice and ideas. Interact with them outside of formal settings, be yourself.

And finally, some gems of wisdom from the business moguls of the world:
"You're right not because others agree with you, but because your facts are right." Warren Buffett
"Make a fool of yourself. Otherwise you won't survive" Richard Branson
"Recognize the skills and traits you don't possess, and hire people who have them." Howard Schultz
"Have the courage to stick with a tough job." A.G. Lafley
"Follow your own instincts, not those of people who see the world differently." Sumner Redstone
"Be nice, do your best- and most important, keep it in perspective." Meg Whitman
"Be yourself." Jack Welch
"Don't listen to naysayers." Sallie Krawcheck
"Don't limit yourself by past expectations." Vivek Paul
"When you negotiate, leave a little something on the table." Dick Parsons
"When 'everyone knows' something to be true, nobody knows nothin'." Andy Grove
"When everything gets real complicated and you feel overwhelmed, think about it this way: You gotta do three things. First, get the cow out of the ditch. Second, fin out how the cow got into the ditch. Third, make sure you do whatever it takes so the cow doesn't go into the ditch again." Anne Mulcahy
"All you really own are ideas and the confidence to write them down." Brian Grazer
"The real discipline comes in saying no to the wrong opportunities." Jim Collins
"Get good- or get out." Peter Drucker


Having said that, I think I'll put in a few more hours studying and then go enjoy my weekend.