Jump First, Fear Later

(From 3/19/2010)
Jump First, Fear Later

Hi, My name is Sabrina and I'm here to share with you my experiences at McDonough related to running the Strategy World Cup.

I'll start with how I landed this role and then move to some back posts and then to current happenings.

So here we go...

This past summer I made two distinct and deliberate decisions about my MBA experience. These are both very relevant to what I'm doing now and all the posts that you're going to read.

If you're on your own personal journey of applying for or getting your MBA, these may be liberating thoughts to keep in mind.

1. Grades are just letters.

They are not reflective of all of the knowledge you learn and the insights you gain in business school. Learn what you can in all the ways that you can and be happy with your experiences and education.

2. Jump first, Fear later.

To borrow a line from one of my favorite charities, Invisible Children. Be bold, be brave, connect to the world around and beyond you, be a member of humanity.

So armed with these mottos, I dove into two things this fall that I didn't try in my former life (pre MBA).

I went to the University of Florida. In a school of that size, most of our classes were taught by graduate students. I had little interaction with my professors until I TAed my junior and senior years for Business Law. It wasn't until then that I realized that professors are great resources. They usually are perceived as vessels of dispensing information and listening to complaints, but they too are professional with experiences and interests. I wanted to change that perception so I applied to be the VP of Curriculum through Student Government.

Around the same time, our International Business Diplomacy Certificate applications were also due. I love the idea of doing international business. With family in the import/ export business it seems like a natural inclination for me, and I was excited to learn about it.

Did I get the positions?

You'll have to wait to the next post to find out!

School posts

Over the last 10 months or so, I was blogging for school for the Admissions office. Since they want to make room for the M12s to blog, my blog was taken down. So I'm moving over my posts here and will continue to blog that way. SO the next several posts are back dated from my school blog! Cheers

Bombs Away: SWC 2010

There's a lot to fill in over the last semester, but I'll get around to that at a later time.

All today I had the most overwhelming feeling about not having enough time to do what I needed too. KK put it pretty well. Right now, we seem to be able to only juggle two things out of the three things that we should be juggling, school, internships, club/ leadership. For me, its been internship and club stuff. I caught myself on the verge of tears a few times during the day and feeling totally inadequate.

But all of that was in anticipation of the release of our official Strategy World Cup invitations. It's hard to believe that this idea was hatched a year ago. I'm really excited to be a part of something so big and beyond me. JC and MW have been a great team to work with and I'm certain that we could do some serious professional damage together. I jokingly said that I was going to start blogging to track this event and the things that we were doing/ going through to develop a process for next year. So here's to the 2010 Strategy World Cups and the laughter and tears that will come along with it.

www.strategyworldcup.com

On my to dos:
Reach out to the joint degree students
Press release
2 phone calls

Georgetown in the Business of Giving Back

This summer Time magazine featured an article about the First Lady, Michelle Obama. One of the most resounding quotes from the article was that she had found “her space” in this life and knew that it was her duty to operate within that space to make an impact with her life. Georgetown was never my first choice school. My first impressions of it were of a sloppy and unorganized admissions office. Thankfully, a few of the rising second year students have changed my mind about it. When I started this endeavor of applying to business schools, my daily prayer was for peace with my destination and the journey. Those prayers were answered as I went through this nerve wrecking process. Now that I’ve arrived at school, I reflect back and see how amazingly blessed I am, I can’t help but truly believe that someone above is looking out for me and guiding me.

Today was our community service day of orientation. Georgetown means Business and “…is in the business of giving back.” This morning we had Father O’Brien come and speak to us about working for the greater common good of mankind and addressing the in equalities of the world. I had always had a hesitation about going to a Catholic university, afraid that the “catholic” brand would be pushy and impose beliefs or routines that I did not believe in. However, this hasn’t been the case. After meeting my classmates, the good, bad, ugly and annoying, I’ve come to realize that this was the place for me to be all along. It’s totally refreshing to be at an institution that is founded on values and life principals that I believe in and that shape my day to day decisions. This morning provided validation that I had finally found my space. As much as I’ve complained about moving and the shitty way my resignation went, its all really just small peanuts in the greater scheme.

As for my service project today, I and a bunch of classmates went to the local USO. We spent about 3 hours working through palettes of boxes containing items that were going to be assembled into a care package for our service men and women abroad. In a few weeks, the Wives of NASCAR is sponsoring a care package stuffing party in Bristol, TN. There they will have the care package boxes (yes! Care packages are boxes!) that they will put together. We went through enough snacks and toiletries for over 10,000 care packages. Snacks ranged from beef jerky, peanuts and Tang drink mix. Today, we took the items that are going into the care packages out of boxes that they came in from the manufacturer or opened up the boxes to allow them a more efficient use of their packing time. For example, all the flaps on the peanut boxes were removed to save time to not have to open the boxes containing peanuts.

It was a nice break from sitting in the auditorium from the 3 previous days of orientation and a good chance to bond with some classmates and cohort-mates. Go Gray!

Apple Chiffon Review and Dreams

The cake turned out quite wonderful. My family and I quickly devoured half of it in a day's time and the rest of it got put into the freezer. Mom said that we were all going to become fatties if we didn't pace ourselves. She's right. I'm sure I've easily put on a few pounds here.

I have to say that there wasn't much apple taste to the cake. The apple sauce didn't quite give it that much apple oomph. It was really light and fluffy, though, the 6 eggs don't exactly make it a light cake. I didn't use all the sugar as called for in the recipe about 3/4 of it instead of the full amount. But for someone who's not big on really sweet desserts and leans towards fruitier desserts, it was really tasty. I may try a lemon chiffon in the future, but I'd like to figure out if I can skip out on the egg yolks if the recipe calls for 4 or 5 eggs.

On a totally unrelated note, I've been having these CRAZY dreams. Like the one KDavis has. The ones where you SWEAR its real and you're exhausted when you wake up.

My brother, F, has been playing a lot of zombie shooting games- Dead or Alive and Gears of War. Since my earthly retarded and klunkiness translates to being inept and uncoordinated when having too many button choices on video game controllers, I've abstained from playing. Last week, I had a dream about hiding from zombies. I remember very vividly hiding under the sink in a bathroom with F. For some reason the cabinets had been divided and we were really concerned with making too much noise to attract zombies. This was important because we needed to lay flat under the sink and in order to do so, had to kick a hole in the divider. I think my mom was hiding in a hole in the floor under some floorboards. Unlike most of my dreams, this one was in shades of gray. I also distinctly remember trying to lay perfectly still so the zombies wouldn't find us. This was an interesting note since I was physically in a really awkward position and utterly unwilling to move.

The next night I had some dream about playing hockey with Pokemon looking characters. This dream was in color and everything seemed to be in anime. Weird. There were penguins and weird aardvark/ armadillo looking animals on little ice skates pushing a ball around. Actually it was probably more of a cross between curling and hockey. There weren't pucks, but def nets and face off circles. I played goalie for part of the dream and then it became this crazed free for all, when the net tenders were pulled and playing as another player and an extra player was on the ice. I think there was even a baby rhino in there somewhere.

I'm sure this has something to do with moving and uprooting my life. They are really entertaining to think back on, but they are SO exhausting! Wonder what I will dream about tonite....!

Grumpy makes Apple Chiffon Cake

I'm really bored tonite. Having wasted my day sitting on the phone, I've been in a grumpy mood this evening. I decided to bake a cake. Who does that?

Oh, I'm bored, let me bake a cake?!
I do and did.

Currently sitting in the oven for the next hour is an Apple Chiffon Cake. I wanted to make a lemon one, but we have no lemons and I figured it wasn't worth the gas money to go and get some. Gas in T-town is running about $2.40 right now. I think I'll get into some cleaning while it bakes.

Here's the recipe that I pulled from AllRecipes. Review to come later of course! Directions


Ingredients

• 6 egg whites
• 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1 3/4 cups cake flour
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 6 egg yolks
• 1 cup applesauce

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Beat the egg whites and the cream of tartar until soft moist peaks are formed. Gradually add the white sugar and beat until very stiff and shiny.
3. Sift the flour, baking powder, salt, and ground cinnamon together. Blend in the brown sugar.
4. Beat together until smooth the vegetable oil, egg yolks, and applesauce. Add to the flour mixture and beat until smooth. Fold batter into the beaten egg whites. Pour batter into one 10 inch ungreased tube pan.
5. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 55 to 65 minutes or until cake springs back when lightly touched. Invert and cool in pan. When cake is cool loosen edges and remove cake from pan.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Apple-Chiffon-Cake/Detail.aspx

Public Serviced Annoucement Part Two

My resignation email to the management group didn't turn out to be a lamer version of the original. I'm not sure how it was received because stupidly, I sent it right before I went to turn in my laptop and forgot to set the reply to address to a different email. But I doubt that people respond to these emails anyways. I also stupidly cc-ed everyone instead of bcc. I suppose that could be one that you could send a message to those who outed you or you just plain don't like. (Only two fit into that category- at least that I can think of at the moment)

One thing that I do wish that I had done, that I didn't consider, is sending a message to all those who I worked with outside of my office. There were a few of them. Oh well. I can get a hold of those folks another way.

I should post my KPMG email in here sometime. That was was pretty fun to write too. Who know that I was so good at writing these good bye emails- or so I've been told. Hopefully it won't be a skill that I will be using often.
-----------------------
Hi Friends at the Manager, Senior Manager, Partner and Scheduling positions:

As all of you already know, the current mass TSRS senior exodus ends today with my and Eric D___'s departures. I'm glad to hear that none of you have become so panicked to go and set overturned couches or cars ablaze. We are not in Columbus, Ohio, where that would have occurred.

Now that you all have had a few weeks to recover/ get used to the gapping holes created by of all the departures, some more, eloquent thoughts for you:

My deepest and sincerest thanks to each of you who have offered a listening ear, friendly smile, or whimsical emoticon through the long hours and seemingly never-ending test procedures. Your leadership and support has undoubtedly been treasured. Thank you for marking my time in Atlanta with your great friendships and great professional lessons. I wish you all the best- where ever your journeys in this life take you and end. I have learned a lot from all of you. I may have introvert tendencies but do know that I have watched, listened and learned.

Today is my last day here at E&Y and this weekend also marks my departure from Atlanta.

My next adventure takes me to Georgetown this fall, where I will be pursuing my MBA. If you should find yourself in the DC Metro area in the future, please don’t be a stranger! We can join the legions of others who have shared stories of battle and triumph in the haunts of DC.
Please stay in touch! I can be reached at ______.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you need to pick my brain about any of my clients. I’ll do my best to remember what I can to help the next senior/ staff if I have not yet replaced that client information with “What is a Hoya?” (Lamest joke ever- but I guess Georgetown isn't known for producing great comedians)

Cheers!
Sabrina