Monday, October 31, 2005

Very Striking Coal Miners

SEPTA, the most expensive public transit system in the country, aka how I get to school the four mornings a week I actually go to school, has gone on strike. This means instead of a 10 minute bus ride, I now have a thirty minute walk. Fortunately, Philadelphia decided to be 70 degrees today. However, given the rampant mismanagement at the municipal level here, it is unlikely the nice weather will outlast the strike.


Halloween recap and naughty nurse photos are coming later. I'm still trying to piece together some details. Mom and Dad, you may not want to read that one.

Baby Ethan-- so cute!

Friday, October 28, 2005

What $35 Gets You

I spent today at the Marketing Conference (trying to get a job). This means I've been on my feet all day and have been up since about 6am. I got to be a 'Breakfast Chat Director,' which also means I got to be busy and event-marketing queen-like for about an hour. Good times.

More exciting than that was the gift bag (free with your $35 registration fee). If I could find my camera charger, I would photograph its contents. Instead, I'll try to inventory them here:

Bottle of tylenol
Box of tylenol cold
Box of Pepcid
Two Johnson and Johnson first aid kits
Merck first aid kit (Johnson wins in a quantity battle)
Biotherm travel make-up brush set
Bag of Hershey's "Kissables"
Bag of Swedish Fish
York Peppermint Patty Cookies
Bag of Sour Patch Kids
Redken for Men Haircare samples
Garnier haircare samples
Southewst Airline Peanuts
Dentyne Ice
Dentyne Fire (trying to keep these separate for melting prevention)
Box of Lipton Iced Tea to Go packets
Axe Body Spray
Dove moistuirzer
Skippy Peanut Butter Bar
And at a retail value of $52, a 1.5 ounce jar of Peter Thomas Roth Cellular Repair Anti-Age Lotion

I also picked up a Hershey Gift bag which is ridiculous, and the Kraft people were going crazy unloading stuff so I have a box of Tazo Tea and a bag of Wheat Thin Chips

I think I like CPG recruiting.

Thursday, October 27, 2005

I Love Scotch. Scotch, scotch, scotch.

Last night I went to a Johnnie Walker scotch tasting. This was not a Scotch Club activity (I have been lax about joining), but because my social co-chair used to work in the liquor industry so she hooked us up to invites to this event. As it turns out, I don't need to join the Scotch Club just to be close to Big Ed-- I actually like scotch! I know Johnnie Walker is blended and not single malt, which is heresy for many aficionados, but I enjoyed both the black and blue labels quite a bit. We also learned different methods of drinking them, including first getting your tongue cold and clean via a swig of ice water, and then sipping the blue. It gets sweeter with every sip.

I lost my camera charger, so no photos of Baby Ethan today. But he's a cutie.

Second quarter classes started today. My Tuesday Thursday classes are officially the fuzziest ones of the MBA program. In one, we get to do skits. I'm kvelling.

Finally, it turns out I passed the stat final, which I was fairly sure I failed. So I'm quite excited about that. They haven't officially released my grade yet, but they posted the answer key and they let us take home a copy of the test and it appears my ability to guess has saved me yet again. It was multiple choice, but I figured this being statistics and the fact that I had guessed my way to high scores on all of the quizzes and practice finals that it was statistically improbable that I could guess my way to a pass in this class. I was wrong!

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Finals are done!

I am feeling much better.

 

I finished finals.

 

I think I even passed two of them.

 

Now it’s celebration time.

 

Pics of the cutest baby on the eastern seaboard+a recap of whatever interesting I can fabricate will be coming tomorrow.

 

 

Monday, October 24, 2005

Testing this out

This would be my first ever post published via email, if this works.

 

I went to NYC on Friday and ended up getting really sick.  I came home early and literally slept all day Saturday.  Which means I am WAY behind in my studying.  Stat final is tomorrow night, MGEC on Tuesday night.

 

This week will get more exciting, I hope.

 

That’s all!

 

Thursday, October 20, 2005

The Suspense...

I can tell by the many votes that the suspense is killing y'all:

1. I went nurse, as did my friend Denise. We went tastefully tarty over overtly slutty, and with the Penn Nursing twist, we are really netting out on the side of clever.
2. My first final went OK.

I'm off to NYC for a day and night, and then back to studying.

Funny, tonight I'm trying to stay in (I made a cameo at pub and then headed home) and as I've been writing this, my phone has gone off three times with a text of voicemail asking why I'm not going out. And keep in mind that (1) I went home with a group of people equally committed to not going out, which knocks out one set of people and (2) a second large portion of my class has another final tomorrow, so they're not going out. So who are these people?

My liver wants out of this place.

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Finals Week

Hey guys, sorry I haven't posted much. It's finals week, with my first final taking place tomorrow. I am less than thrilled, but also having a hard time motivating. My first final is in a class in which we've had no tests to date and there are no sample tests so we have no clue how to prepare. It's also open book open note. My other two finals are next week, so the weekend will be a big fun fest for me. I'm actually going to go up to New York for a night and visit some friends, but will probably be hunkered down in the library a lot of the rest of the time.

But first things first, lest you think my priorities are totally out of wack, I am going Halloween costume shopping right now. Here are the costumes I'm currently considering. Care to vote, loyal readers?

1. Wonder Woman (a lifelong dream, but less appealing now that the rest of my girlfriends have opted out of a superhero group)
2. The Queen of Hearts (aforementioned girlfriends are trying to start a fairy tale group, I'm shopping now with my blonde friend who is considering Alice in Wonderland for hers so we'd match).
3. Nurse- a Penn Nurse, specifically. Supposedly the Wharton boys looooove Penn nurses. I thought it'd be funny.
4. Girl Scout- how fun!
5. Other ideas?

Monday, October 17, 2005

Not a Creature Was Stirring

It figures, I have a great night and it ends with some sort of rodent-related calamity. I actually had able bodied males over for dinner tonight, but either I am totally unobservant or the mice waited until after they had left to commit suicide in two of my traps. So I just disposed of Mickey and Minnie all by myself. My adrenaline is pumping. I doubt I'll be able to sleep. That was absolutely disgusting.

Ick.

PS Sasha was totally right. They went right for the snap traps. Consider that tip part of Juliedelphia's "The More You Know" series.

Sunday, October 16, 2005

Beef

I just hosted my first official Philadelphia dinner party. I have to say, I finally feel like this is home now that I've done that. Most of you already know that cooking is the ultimate stress reliever for me, so spending the day prepping for this (instead of doing my accounting homework) was a great feeling. And more importantly, this is a whole new group of victims so I can trot out my standards (goat cheese candied nut salad, the beef tenderloin, horseradish mashed potatoes, and molten chocolate cakes for instance) and they're impressed immediately. There's no need to innovate. They've been eating late night cheesesteaks and microwaved hot pockets for months, and they have no clue that everything I cooked tonight I could do in my sleep.

It was very nice is what I'm saying. It's not so nice that I've had a few glasses of wine and need to start my accounting homework.

Fun!

Saturday, October 15, 2005

Terrell Owens

Saw him out and about last night. He was wearing a black mesh shirt covered with swirls made of gold sequins. I didn't shake his hand (like I did with Sir Charles) but given the packed club, I pretty much had full body contact with him as he squeezed by me on the way out. I told him he was whiny and should just shut up and play. Kidding.

I liked the fact that NO ONE I was out with knew who he was.

Friday, October 14, 2005

The Rainbow Connection


Last night's pub was Rainbow Pub, in honor of National Coming Out Day. This means that a set of professors/administrators come in drag. For some reason, a high proportion of the faculty who chose to do this were from the stat department. This is a pic of me and my social co-chair Shirin with our beloved stat professor, at whom we may never look at quite the same again.

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

To Build a Better Mousetrap

I received a garbled voicemail from my parents (cell reception is poor in Yosemite, where they are celebrating my father's birthday), and I believe the gist of it was, "Please, deal with the mouse problem, they could have the hantavirus." You see, they don't have cell reception but the lodge does have internet, and they are loyal Juliedelphia readers.

Anyone who imagines after a night like that I wasn't on the phone immediately seeking a solution doesn't know how I feel about sleep. And rogue rodents. There are now three different types of mousetraps out-- the glue traps (put out by my landlord), old fashioned snap traps (put out by an exterminator), and what I'd describe as 'alligator traps' (put out by me). The exterminator has identified a couple of points of entry and the maintenance people will be coming by to fill them soon.

In the meantime, I haven't slept here since I left that night. I was planning to try it out tonight, but I heard one in the kitchen and was too scared to even round the corner to take a look, I called my brother. In Boston. It would probably take him a bit too long to get here to be of any service.
Since these creatures appear to be nocturnal, the prospect of staying here tonight either listening to them have another party or (hopefully) succumb one by one to the traps has lost all appeal. I'm packing up to yet another crash site I've identified. I've done the faux "walk of shame" way too often at this point, I'm going to start to get a reputation!

Question for my Jewish readers-- what's the rule on murdering rodents on the holiest day of the year? Does that totally fly in the face of the spirit of the thing?

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Sleepover

Any day that good had to have a bummer ending. I've basically had no sleep lately. In fact, I went to bed early on Sunday night to try to rouse myself out of my zombie state, and instead spent half the night awake as if my body has forgotten to sleep. Yesterday I finally hit the point where I knew I'd be able to sleep. I even napped through a few innings of the baseball game.

But when it came time to finally go to bed, I discovered I have a new roommate (or potentially, roommates). Basically, the first stage of sleep was brutally interrupted by a strange sound. It sounded as if an opossum was gnawing on my furniture. I have since been assured by a former New Yorker that tiny mice do make sounds just like the ones I described and at a volume level quite unexpected for their size. However, I spent the next three and a half hours in a state of terror. Could this creature climb up on my bed? Would it be better to hunt it down for a glimpse so I knew what I was dealing with, or would that escalate the fear even more? I decided to flee my bedroom (and shut the door, for though I know a small rodent can fit under a door, this one was clearly the size of a badger) and sleep on the couch instead. Well either my little friend followed, or he had an accomplice in the living room. I could hear it quite clearly nibbling behind my big easy chair. Any time I would make a move (run to grab my phone-- who can I call? It's 3am? But I don't have to be up for four hours! And I haven't slept!) it would stop, sometimes followed by a little scampering, then resume the loud nibbling sound.

I finally decided I couldn't take it any more, and called my friend, who lives a block away, just after 3am. She didn't answer, I left a, "Hi, um, I know it's like 3am but if you get this before morning could you call me?" Five minutes later she called back, and insisted I sleep over there. I left the mice to their own devices. I tucked in around 3:30, her alarm went off around 6:30. I am in pain today.

Monday, October 10, 2005

Mean Hawk

I beat the mean in accounting! By a good bit! That means I'm passing all my classes... for now. Did I mention finals are coming up (for my quarter classes, I have four classes which are on the quarter system, and one which is semester-length this period).

To celebrate, I finally decided to explore a couple of the gourmet outposts other foodies have been raving about to me. And I found my beloved Red Hawk at kidney-selling prices! In celebration, I bought it. I will be poor, but I will have my favorite stinky washed-rind cow's milk cheese which I used to be able to get at half the price just 300 yards from my office.

I'm off to go celebrate by eating a half pound of cheese!

Sunday, October 09, 2005

Friend of the Devil?


Can someone explain why I have demon redeye in every picture I take lately? The one on the left is after doing both automatic and manual redeye reducer in my photo editor. Sigh.

It was first Thursday of the month again, which meant Karaoke at Bonners again. Rumor has it Ross may come visit me on November 3rd, which happens to be the first Thursday. Suggestions for his perfect karaoke song?

Friday, October 07, 2005

On the Market

Hey kids-- I think I'm starting to get the hang of this place. I've beat the mean on every assignment/test so far (accounting hasn't come back and will no doubt change that). I haven't missed a single class. I have a fantastic group of friends. I have found a couple of places which sell produce which is almost as good as the worst stuff at Safeway.

So now that I have the hang of it, recruiting began. Yes, less than three months after I walked away from a perfectly good job, I have to start looking again. We have "EIS's" (Employer Information Sessions) booked five deep during every free moment from now on. These are stressful. You sit and listen to a pitch and then claw your way up to talk to the host company representatives and try to ask insightful questions which highlight how spectacular you are.

I realized something at my first two EIS's. I don't really want a job. I love it here. It's fun going to class only four days a week. And this whole job search thing seems way too complicated to me.

Maybe I'll finally figure these things out, and then we'll start having to take classes blindfolded.

Monday, October 03, 2005

On Underwear Night




















Since I know y'all are dying of curiosity-- what's it like to go on a bar crawl in your underwear? Not that cool. The bars were all packed, and there were many townies about. They don't think we're quite as amusing as we do. And really, we're not that amusing.

But here's a photo for anyone who wanted to get an idea of what we looked like!

Happy new year.

Dancing with a Bear

One of three photos in which I appear in this week's Wharton Journal. How am I 'that girl'?

Today in statistics, in reference to a particularly hairy multiple regression, Big Ed said, "See, you might be tempted to give up here. But if you've decided to dance with the bear, you can't sit down just because you're tired."

I think that sums up how I'm feeling about things today. I've officially declared this the week where things don't go my way. I spent way too much time this weekend auditioning for our musical and didn't get cast. This made sense, given I can't actually dance or sing, but the time wasted is regretted (and I ditched the eighties party to 'rest my voice', not that it improves, and missed a night out with my beloved stat professor) given the workload this week. This morning was an accounting exam (incomprehensible), a stat quiz (my lowest score yet), and a marketing case (my first time making a completely baseless and easily dismissed comment in the class on which my major is based).

To make things even more amusing, I picked up this week's Wharton Journal, our school paper. There's a two page spread every week of photos of people out and about. I'm in three of them. Two are side by side. The one above is the only one in which I am wearing a normal smile.

Basically, I feel like I need to sit down. But since I'm the one who chose to dance with the bear, it's not really going to happen.

Tonight I get to go to the second 26th birthday party I've been to since I arrived. Man, I'm old.