While I Should Be Writing A Paper...

I am pretty sure my Marketing Research (M303) final went well today. I love when I come out of a test feeling more confident than I thought I would.

Now I'm sitting in the Union computer lab about to start typing my final paper due tomorrow for my sales class. I have outlined the entire paper, and I feel that I know what I am going to say. It actually seems like it will be interesting to write. For one of the three sections, I will be creating a dialogue between a sorority member and a potential new member, where the sorority member uses the SPIN Selling model to persuade the potential new member to join her chapter. My professor wanted us to write about a real-life situation where the SPIN model could be applied, and he seemed enthusiastic when I told him my idea to write about rushing a Greek house. Within the final paper I also was asked to write a book review of a sales book we did not read in class, so I read You Can't Teach A Kid To Ride A Bike At A Seminar by David H. Sandler. Hopefully I have a little fun while writing tonight.

As of right now, I am feeling that I am ending my semester very well, and I will be getting a relatively high GPA. Going into my Database Marketing Final on Thursday, I have a 97.5% in the class. I assume the final will be very challenging, but it is nice to have a pretty big cushion. On the same note, I have a 97.7% in my Creativity & Communications class, but I am still waiting for three more projects to determine my final grade (that class does not have a written final exam). As long as I manage to do well on the final exams in Marketing Research and International Business, it is possible for me to have all A's and A-'s this semester. I hope I'm not going to jinx anything by writing about it!

The first snow calls for a new update

This is my first time trying to update my blog from my blackberry. I'm sorry if there are any blatant typos!

So big news- this morning I woke up to the first snow of the year. All five of my roommates were excited except for me. Since I'm from Chicago, I'm kinda over snowfall. I like having a white christmas, but not a white walk to class. On top of that, as I was walking to yoga just now, the shortcut I usually take through Woodlawn Field across from my house was closed for the rest of the semester. So now my walks to class will be longer I suppose.

This past weekend was 19 party, which went very well. I met girls from all over, and
enjoyed talking with and getting to know all of them. I hope they had fun and weren't too cold standing outside 19 separate houses! I remember loving 19 party because I was able to see all of the houses and get to know the personalities at each.

This week is my finals week. I'm done with the semester a week from today! How scary and weird to think about.

The End-of-Semester Scurry

I am sitting in the Union computer lab right now, trying to work up the courage to complete my research paper for my International Business class. I find the topic incredibly interesting, yet it is getting late and my attention span has reduced significantly from a non-stop day.

For this paper, my team and I are analyzing a documentary created about Wal-Mart and its effects as a multinational. Specifically, our Professor is asking us to focus on cultural comparisons between China and the US.

While I was abroad, I took a class called International Human Resources Management, where I learned about several cultural philosophers. The most famous, Geert Hofstede, uses five dimensions for cultural comparisons. These five dimensions are widely analyzed internationally when a multinational corporation is considering opening an operation (subsidiary/joint venture) in a foreign country. Because I enjoy learning about culture and psychology, I think these cultural comparison theories are fascinating. I only wish I was not so sleepy!

When I drove back to Bloomington from Chicago on Sunday, it took nearly eight hours to complete the journey instead of the usual four. I feel that every year on the Sunday after Thanksgiving it inevitably rains, which causes long backups on a road that has more cars on it than usual anyway. Since I-65 has students travelling from/through Chicago on their way to Purdue, Ball State, IU, Miami of Ohio, and Butler all on the same stretch of road, the Sunday after Thanksgiving I easily consider the busiest travelling day of my year. It's almost comical how slow it takes to get from point A to point B on that day.

A happy thing that happened to me today was that my friend Heather and I went to dinner at Cracker Barrel off of highway 37. She is in my last class of the day on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and neither of us had plans for dinner so we decided to accompany each other and catch up. She and I were on the same Honors I-Core team last fall, and we talked about how busy the Honors I-Core students are right now as they finish up their last 36 hours before their final business plan reports and presentations are due. I hope it is going well for all of them! I know one of my sorority sisters has already asked me several questions about how my team completed certain tasks last year. I am glad I have been able to help.

I should get back to my report. Don't be too jealous, but I have a light at the end of my tunnel. Two weeks from tomorrow I will be in Tucson, Arizona escaping the cold!

Stella McCartney Knock-Offs

Having interned at Stella McCartney this past spring while I was in London, I became very familiar with her collection. For this reason, when I saw these shoes on Charlotte Russe's website just now, I recognized them immediately as Stella McCartney knock-offs. I even wrote about these shoes in one of my blog entries last spring.

The Stella McCartney pumps:


The Charlotte Russe pumps:

It's interesting the new information you are exposed to while working at various companies. While working at Earth Knowledge this past summer, I had the opportunity to post this article to the Earth Knowledge website. Not only do I think this tennis ball chair is incredibly creative, but it also is sustainable because it re-purposes dead tennis balls. I sincerely want to figure out how to construct one of these chairs myself, and I even presented about this chair in my Creativity and Communication class this semester.

My End-Of-The-Semester Schedule

It's finally Thanksgiving break! I drove home yesterday afternoon from Bloomington to Chicago, and managed to escape the rain. The weather in Chicago is pretty dreary, but it is still nice to be home.

With that said, I have a lot of homework to do over Thanksgiving break. Next Monday I have a paper due for my yoga class (try not to laugh). Next Tuesday I have a 15-page group paper and 15-minute group presentation for my Marketing Research class. Next Thursday I have a group paper and 15-minute group presentation for my Creativity & Communications class. Next Friday I have a group research paper due for my International Business class. It's going to be a very busy week.

The week after next I have two written finals on Tuesday and Thursday, and also a 15-page individual final paper due in class on Wednesday. I'm very nervous about how my performance on my finals will be, because I have "19 Party" for my sorority the weekend before. 19-Party is always fun, but also a lot of work. Spanning the entire weekend, there are 19 rounds of women coming to my chapter who want to rush a sorority, where each round I talk to at least three of the women individually.

Suffice it to say, I'm going to be pretty busy in the next few weeks! Wish me luck!

Like A Gypsy

Well, a lot has happened since my last entry.

Last week I flew to Chicago from the Indianapolis airport, and I was interviewed by Fox News Indianapolis. The cameraman was wearing a Purdue sweatshirt, so I had to tease him a little bit. Also, this week I was able to fly to Atlanta for two days. It was my first time to Georgia, and Atlanta was a very pretty city. I got back to my house very late Wednesday night.

Last night we had our senior bar crawl for my sorority, which was a lot of fun. Each team had two team captains, and the theme was high school cliques. I ended up going to eight different Bloomington bars, ending up at Kilroys. The bar crawl was like a scavenger hunt, where each team was competing based on a points system, such as getting a certain number of points for singing karaoke at Bears or taking a picture on the statue at People's Park on Kirkwood.

On Monday I had my second exam in my sales class, which I studied for all this past weekend. Now I am at the Union computer lab trying to get all of my homework done that is due next week so that I can go home for Thanksgiving....but not until after the IU/Purdue football game on Saturday!!! I am very excited, and I hope that IU wins with an upset. We will have to see!

Weather in Bloomington, IN

Being from Chicago, the weather in Bloomington shocks me sometimes.

Today the high is 70 degrees. It is November 9th.

I love warm weather, and I have no complaints about this temperature. I just find it funny that the weather in Bloomington is so unlike the weather in Chicago, where there are hardly ever such large temperature swings. In Chicago, I feel the high temperature just gradually trends downward as you approach wintertime. Here in Bloomington, these temperature swings are not only common, but expected. Two years ago on January 7th (bid night for my sorority where I met my little sis), the temperature was also approximately 70 degrees - and we all were able to stand outside at night wearing only sweatshirts as wraps. Don't get me wrong, it does snow in the winter in Bloomington, but the snow doesn't tend to stay on the ground until March like it does in Chicago. Because of this, my roommates and I regularly check the hour-by-hour forecast on weather.com to see what we are in store for each day.

Here's a picture of me and some of my sorority sisters outside of our house on January 7th, 2008: