It is getting harder and harder to do any work. I'm just entirely and utterly uninspired. Someone inspire me! Part of that is the fact that, as I think I'm mentioned before, I have two job offers. =) Part of it is that I've been disgustingly sick with that icky kind of cold where you don't even want to be around you. Just three more weeks of school; I just got to get through them. And I guess a semester after that but I'm not so worried about that. Too many things to look forward to before that even happens. Speaking of which, I've gotta call the travel doctor. I need my rabies shot.

I've decided to experiment on myself and keep track of how many colds I get, how long the last, and what kind of things makes them either not happen or go away faster. My mom and I both have terrible immune systems when it comes to annoying colds. I think every time a germ looks at either of us, our nose starts running. So maybe if I turn myself into a science experiment, I can prevent a lifetime of kleenexes.

Also, I was clicking through facebook and I was on Jess Silverman's pictures and there was a picture of Lauren Burchill only her last name wasn't the same. It was listed as Lauren Something funny that Starts with An L. She got married! Yeah I know I haven't talked to her in a million years, but its pretty bad when facebook is the one to tell you that one of your high school friends is married.

Weekend salvaged

Yeah last night sucked, but it got mostly redeemed when karen came over. After a bottle of wine, I was having a great time trying to figure out how many people from high school we actually cared about seeing. Going through the yearbook, we counted 35 out of 140.

Tonight almost was a reunion. My friends and I went out to a movie and then to a local bar and there were tons of medfield people there. But mostly it just reminded me of why I like Columbia. My close friends are great and these comments don't apply to them at all. BUT...(elitist alert)... I love how at Columbia I will never be the smartest, most talented, or most motivated person in a room. There were rooms in high school where I could be all three. At Columbia, I don't think about that at all; everyone is working hard and everyone is a huge nerd. But many medfield people seemed to have kept the anti-intellectual prejudice that I remember from high school. When a conversation goes something like this....

Them: So where are you living?
Me: I'm still in New York at school.
T: Oooo fancy, new york. What are you studying?
M: Mechanical engineering right now.
T: What a smarty! I mean I don't even know what that is! What is that? Do you know what that is? Man, I'm over at whereever state college and I don't even know if we have that.

Way to make me self conscious. I like having friends that I have no chance of impressing because they're equally impressive.

so pathetic

I am so pathetic right now. I'm sitting at my computer in medfield while my high school reunion is going on in boston. Right now. As I'm blogging. And I'm not going. This has been the worst evening I've had in a while.

It started ok. I drove in to Laura's at 5 and got a little lost. Not too bad. Lu helped me find her place in one piece. So it was nice. I got to catch up with em and katheryn o and esther and lu and plaudits. I didn't know a lot of what was going on with them.

Then at 6:30 I left to go to the airport. Karen's flight was delayed but Sarah was coming in around 7 so I was going to meet her and then go to the reunion. The first problem was with katheryn o's GPS. It seemed like a good idea at the time to let me borrow it but it wouldn't accept logan airport as a location. So we just put in the hamilton inn at logan figuring it would be close.

So off I went, following the GPS commands. It was only when i hit everett on the border of revere that I started to get worried. For non-Bostonians that meant I went from south of the city to north of the city with no clear way to the airport. Meanwhile, I am having a terrible time driving. Everytime I see anything move out of the corner of my eye, I picture that SUV hitting me. So I'm checking eight times before i change lanes, driving at around 40, avoiding left turns. Basically driving terrible and freaking out doing it. And it turns out that the Hamilton Inn at Logan is not at logan. Shit.

I finally made it to the airport and illegally parked. Karen is still in Philly so I try sarah a bunch of times. I finally get a hold of her and she's having as bad an evening as me; she was sick the whole ride back and for obvious reasons doesn't want to go to the reunion. Fine. I'll go by myself and meet up with lu and crew.

The mass pike, however, disagrees. It only wants to run east today. I can't get on 90 west. The GPS keeps yelling at me as I try to follow the damn detour though boston paranoid, jumpy, lost, and really freakin upset. I finally found it and only then realized that there is no exit for fenway going that direction. I can't get to the fucking bar where the reunion is. I'm freaked out, I'm crying, I can't even deal with the idea of finding parking near fenway. I wouldn't even be able to drink cause I still have my damn car. I just keep going west on the pike.

Which is how I ended up home at 9 pm feeling sorry for myself. Also my feet our cold cause i wanted to take a walk before i went inside but i had heels on so I took them off. Bad idea. They're still numb from cold. I'm entirly pathetic. Uncle Jerry just brought me some bailey's though. mmmm. I hate me sometimes. like now.

oops

I got in my first car accident today. I was pulling out of Nye Road to take a left and there was a long line of cars going right. I thought I checked and I was inching out slowly when an SUV totally nailed me from the side. The passenger side window shattered and my car got pushed into another car. I could see that I was going to be hit a split second before it got me, and it felt like such a long second. And then I could see that I was going to hit the other car and it felt like slow motion but I didn't have time to react. It was a very strange experience. So everyone was fine and my car wasn't totalled but it was pretty banged up. It just scared me.

I had been home for literally all of 10 minutes. My mom picked me up at the train station at 1:20, we had lunch then got home at 2:30 and at 2:40 I left to get to a doctor's appointment. Pulled out of my driveway and wham, by quarter to three I was brushing broken glass off my leg.

ok so I'm dumb

Thank you, Gabi, for explaining to me why I never had any comments on my blog ever. I guess I had some weird moderate comments setting on without knowing it and I never knew that there were comments for me to moderate. I turned that thing off so hopefully all will work well now and I just read though all the comments that people had already made. Thanks guys! All this time I just thought no one loved me =)

hehehehehe

I have two job offers!!! So I called the company in jersey city and told them i had an offer and could they tellme whether they wanted me or not and the woman said she couldn't tell me anything but then when i came back from chilling with leora, i had an e mail telling me congradulations and that the details would be in an e mail tomorrow. So i have two job offers!!! 0 to 2 in 6 hours. That's pretty good I would say.

wooohoooo!

I've been afraid to post about it for fear of jinxing myself but now I can. I have my first job offer!!!! They called like 15 minutes ago. I was freaking out all morning because I had the interview friday and I thought it went really well and I've always been able to tell so far, but I was still nervous so I was freaking out all morning until they finally called. The conversation started like alot of the rejections ones I've had "we enjoyed talking to you friday and we think you have a lot of good experiences..." but then instead of saying "...unfortunatly we will not be able to extend an offer to you" they said "...and that is why we would like to offer you a position for next year" !!!! The salary is competative but a little bit low so I'm hoping I get another job offer and then i can go back to the company i like and say "hey can you match this?" and then they will and it'll be awesome. God I'm so glad that interview went well; it had so much potential to go badly because a) I slept through my alarm, b) when i woke up it had suddenly turned into, ummm...a bad time of the month and c) a sea gull almost shit on me while i was waiting for the interview. like it landed 2 inches away from where i was sitting.

In other news.... well i have no other news. That is my big news. This weekend was a lot of fun especially the warrior-poet party where I did not eat 5 packages of pringles because after i ate one i couldn't look at them without wanting to puke. that party was so funny because people were acting ridiculously drunk but it was off of food and not alcohol. And then we took forever getting back to manhattan cause we went the wrong way on the A and tao had to go outside to pee at 14th st.

The theme of this week has been gluttony between the all you can eat sushi wednesday or thursday, the warrior poet party friday, the fake thanksgiving saturday and my suitemeates and i went out to symposium yesterday to mourn Drew's lost rhodes scholarship. I guess its ok cause i haven't gone grocery shopping in a very long time.

GPA

Alright. My GPA is entirely calculated now after an hour with a spreadsheet. And don't just tell me its one number. I have a Barnard one, a Columbia one, a cumulative one, and a Columbia one as it would be if the engineering classes i took while at Barnard were counted. And no I wouldn't actually fudge it in an interview. I would say "at barnard i had a 3.76, at columbia its a 3.5, cumulative at 3.7. BUT if they give me a hard time about why my SEAS one is so much lower, at least I'll be able to defend myself better. That crazy woman yesterday pissed me off so much. If a 3.7 isn't high enough, don't call me in for an interview.

In other news, I had a great time at the sushi thing last night and ate entirely too much. Also I am so looking forward to thanksgiving. We're going to have so many people over. Tammy, Adamn and their two, Ellen, Dale and their two, Aunt Nicki, Uncle Jerry, maybe Dale's parents, and of course my immeadiate family. Any my reunion is that weekend. That should be pretty funny/ awkward. I'm in touch with like 3 people.

more interviews

I am ridiculously tired cause my valve group made me stay up til 4 in the morning to work on a presentation that it turned out we didn't even do today (half the groups presented this morning at 9, half will go thursday; he picked out of a hat this morning). I like my group a lot but I hate group project. I don't stay up late to do work! I just don't. I need my sleep, I plan ahead, I do things in the morning, whatever it takes to have me tucked in by midnight or 1. So I was just getting bitchier and bitchier as the project dragged on and people got even more ADD and anal retentive. Just cause you're all night owls, why are you making me suffer? So now I'm tired as hell and therefore moody and depressed.

Mostly depressed about jobs. It seems so unlikely that I'll ever find anything and I have three interviews this week, one tomorrow morning at 9:45. I know I'm going to bomb it which is making me depressed. And the one I have Friday (8:30 AM on wall street, shoot me now) is basically my last chance. Its the only second round I have left and the only other two companies that haven't rejected me, one is human resources consulting which is basically just firing people and one is the company steve works for so even if i get the job i can't really take it. So I have to do well at my second round on Friday but i've been rejected so many times, I feel like there's no way they're going to make me an offer. I'm doing something wrong cause I'm getting tons of interviews and I'm blowing them and its so upsetting. Cause once you've had the interview, it's no longer "oh there were 150 resumes for 20 slots, its not personal". It's they met you, they talked to you, and they don't want you. So out of two first rounds this week and one second round, the second round is my last chance and its so scary and so depressing.

I spent linear algebra class trying to figure out whether i want to do peace corps. If i do, I'll be 27 when i get back. 27! And I'll have no job, no money, no relationship (most likely). I'll be just as poor and unattached as I am now. I mean, I know I'm going to be 27 anyway, but I can't commit 2 years to something that intense if its going to feel like losing time to me, like putting my life on hold. I'm already 2 years behind where I "should" be and most of the time I don't regret that. But to wait another 2 years before I settle down and get some stability in my life seems like way too much. 27 is old. By that time, I want to have money saved, i want to be with someone special, i want to be looking at real estate and giving back to the community locally. I don't want to get back and find that my friends have moved on, I'm coming up on my 10 year high school reunion, and I still have to find my first "real" job.

On the other hand, it's not like its a waste of time. It would be an incredible experience and more and more I'm interested in international development, non-profits, and socially concious business. It wouldn't be a waste. But 27. I just don't know.

blah

This isn't worth posting on the newsgroup but sometimes people make me so angry. Last year, all I heard from the guys team was "why don't the women post?" "why don't the women come out?" And no matter how many times I explained that the newsgroup was a pretty hostile environment and that none of the new women really wanted to meet the men, partly for that reason, people kept yelling at me everytime i went out: "where are the women? where are your rookies?"

This year, the newsgroup is totally new and therefore not hostile and look what happened? Women have been posting and women have been going out. Huh, I wonder how that happened. So why do some of the guys want to bring it back to last year's environment? I'm not that easy to offend and I don't really care what people say about me, but I don't understand why the guys can't see the connection between having a decent social life on the team and not being assholes on newsgroup. Look, this year the rookies want to be part of the team and meet the men. Last year they ran away from the men screaming and only socialized at women's only events. Maybe I will post this. But then Berger will just yell at me for not having a sense of humor.

In other news, I have resolved to:
a) stop talking about the country of Uganda or any resident therein so I don't bore my friends to tears.
b) start looking for other jobs not in consulting cause I've pretty much given up. All the rejection is really starting to wear on me. The first couple I didn't mind but gradually, one "fuck you" at a time, its starting to get to me. Bridgespan especially was a harsh rejection.

boooo

My favorite company in the whole world didn't even call me to tell me whether I was rejected or not. They were supposed to contact all canidates between Nov 1st and 3rd. It's now the 10th and I haven't heard anything. I called yesterday and someone took my name, but I haven't heard back. I really want to call again today but I don't want to be pushy. On the other hand, they clearly have no intention of hiring me right now so I have nothing to lose.

home

I voted today. Did you?

I'm home for another half hour or so and then I'll head back to new york and face the two midterms and one interview that I've got coming. Hopefully I'll be able to study on the bus.

I'm glad I came home for break. I needed the rest and it was nice to see Karen and Sarah at least even if I didn't get to see everyone I wanted to. And my parents. It was nice to see my parents. It's so weird how big and empty our house is now with all of us off to school.

They reacted to my travel news better than I expected considering I promised my mom I would never go. Well actually their first comment was "Bring a lot of condoms." Exact quote. My parents are weird. Today, my dad talked me through a selection of the things that could go wrong, which isn't such a bad thing. I do need to consider all the possibilities.

Besides thinking about that, I've spent the rest of the break either playing ultimate or thinking about ultimate. I really enjoyed the tournament a lot. The first day I was getting really frustrated cause sometimes when we're losing, I try to play for the whole team. Not for real, but on every point I'm concentrating on what everyone on the field should be doing which makes me play worse and makes me yell more. Not good things. We shouldn't have lost a couple of those. But there were so many people and we haven't played that much together. I had a lot more fun Sunday when we played all our rookies. They're so good and they were having so much fun. And our sophomores really stepped it up too which is awesome. Spring's going to be amazing.

I have a computer now, on loan from my parents. That's going to be nice to have. Of course now I'm never going to be able to do work in my room again. But I won't have to live in the lab either. I'll take that trade off.

AHHH!

HOLY SHIT I JUST BOUGHT A TICKET TO UGANDA!!!!

Oh my god I can't beleive I just actually pressed the finalize button and spent $1400 on a ticket to uganda in january. What the hell am I thinking? How did this happen? I know I was planning on it, but I actually have a ticket.

I'M GOING TO UGANDA!

There are so many reasons why its a terrible idea and none of them even matter anymore because I already bought a ticket. AHHHH! I'm totally freaking out right now. Who does that? Who buys a ticket to Africa? I'll be there for 12 days. I'm missing the first 2 days of class but I'm ok with that. I'm going to Uganda.

I can't decide....

I've been obsessing about this for the last two weeks and I'm no closer to an answer. Do I go to Uganda in January or May? I don't fucking know. January is sooner, cheaper, involves shorter flights, and I know that Stoops and Brett will be free. But I could stay for longer in May and I would be able to relax on my winter break. If I go in January, I would probably leave the 3rd and come back around the 13th. So my break would be:

Dec 22: finish finals/ go home
Dec 26/27- Jan 1st: in Pittsburg
Jan 3-13: Uganda
Jan 16th: classes start again

That's cutting it really close. I had this same problem when I was thinking about road tripping last summer; I need a certain amount of time to chill with my family and do nothing or I get stressed out. But I don't think I need that much time. Last break I had visitors nearly the whole time. And I really want to go soon and sometime when I know that the timing will work out for them.

BUT
If I go in May, I could give myself even more time and maybe do some siteseeing in Europe as well. The plane ticket is the only expensive part so it seems a shame to be over there for only a week.

BUT
Stoops might not be free in May. And may is really far away (in time).

I DON"T KNOW!!!! And I have no way to decide; no tie breakers or criteria that's helping me out.