Welcome New Bloggers! Plus, a Rant.

I have been trying to catch up on reading my blogs now that I have a little downtime. I realized there's a good crop of new applicant blogs popping up and I didn't even know about it! Welcome Happy Bunny (well, you I knew about), MBA Veggie, Soni, V2B-School, Samantha, and Veni Vidi Vici. I'm sure there are more of you out there. I'm gonna try to get better with keeping up. It'll be easier when I'm done working because Hella's page is blocked at work like everything else!

I was reading Samantha's blog and she was discussing women in business. She touched on something that is also my pet peeve and I've been wanting to discuss:

I also want fellow women to get their acts together. Maybe it's me being
too critical, but I do it out of love! I want women to succeed. The 50s-ish
woman with the wardrobe left over from the 80s with bad, unconfident posture,
the women my age who say "like" waaayy too much ... sexy wrap dresses, nails
painted red, skirts with high slits, twirling hair, chewing gum, tucking your
shirt in and not checking your backside at home so I can see your thong through
your pants, being overly demure and quiet in meetings, overusing !!!, the list
goes on and on. Of course I'm not perfect, but women need to realize how much
work we have to put into our professional appearance/demeanor in order to be
taken seriously and sometimes I just want to smack some sense into people.

I couldn't agree more! My company has a business casual dress code that is actually on the rather formal side. But I see so many women, young and old, that act like it doesn't exist. I work with a woman my age who wears sundresses to work that I'd wear to a brunch. Women wear flip flops and open-toed shoes all the time in summer. They wear capri pants and skirts way above the knee. We all want to look good, but I wish women would think like men for five minutes when they get dressed in the morning and realize that dressing sexy or casual creates distraction and takes attention away from the work you are doing. It's the same as that one guy that wears golf shirts when all the other men are wearing dress shirts. People think that guy doesn't get it. My company has a few fundraising events during the year where you can wear jeans to work if you donate $5 to the cause. I did it once or twice until I realized that I never saw a man doing it. I bet the men probably didn't even know there was a reason we were all wearing jeans and who knows what they were thinking of us. Please understand, I'm not saying that women need to emulate men because they are men. I just think men are better at obeying the dress code and making it work for them. (Granted, it is easier. All you need is a closet full of white and blue shirts). We women need to get better at projecting competence and separating how we dress for business from how we dress socially. This goes for communications too. Please stop firing off emails full of !!!! and misspelled words and lack of punctuation. Again, this does not project competence. It doesn't take that long to write out complete, grammatically correct sentences and it makes you look SO much better. And finally, I know this sounds funny coming from a paragraph full of complaining, but women need to stop complaining so much. I know there are men that do this too, but at least where I work, I notice so many more women always complaining about their job, their boss, the company, etc. No one likes a whiner! And when was the last time the whiner was chosen for that high profile position? Women have come a long way in business so far, but we still have a long way to go. We need to help the rest of the business world see us as the professionals we are!

Lovely Long Weekend

We got a lot done yesterday! We unpacked a bit, but more importantly, we installed some great shelving in our kitchen which frees up some cabinet space so that we can store food (and it's no longer in boxes on the floor in the living room). They look really cool too. Thanks Ikea!

Today we're at my parents' Jersey Shore house, enjoying some lovely weather, a Phillies win, and we're heading out to see Indiana Jones shortly. I hope all of you are enjoying your weekend too!

I've added a Twitter application to the page so that I can add short thoughts without writing a full post. That way I can still add some content to the site even if I'm busy or unable to get on Blogger.

My Rational and Irrational Fears about B-School

A while back I asked you guys what I should blog about. Linda asked

are you having any uncertainties? what will you fear/dread/not like very much
about bschooL?

Ooooh yes. I have many fears and uncertainties about B-School. Some rational, some not.
First, while I am definitely certain that my matriculation at Wharton is the right decision for me, at times I realize the enormity of the decision to leave my job and spend lots of money for this degree and it hits me like a ton of bricks. Not only that, it's just going to be such a huge lifestyle change for me. I haven't been in school since 2001. I think I forgot how to do it. It feels a little like standing on the edge of a cliff getting ready to jump.
Speaking of money, I'm definitely worrying about my budget. With the additional temptations of living in the city - endless restaurants, drinking establishments, awesome shops, etc - downgrading from the professional lifestyle to a student lifestyle is going to be really hard. I'm worried about finding a balance between putting myself in massive debt and missing out on the social life of school and living in Philadelphia.
Another subject I have been discussing a lot with my husband is the pressure I feel to make the most of this opportunity. I am so excited about everything I'm going to learn and the networks I'm going to build. But two years feels terribly short. And actually, considering the recruiting schedule in the second year, I have far less than 2 years to figure out what my post graduation job will be. I have an idea of what I want to do, but I want to keep my options open as much as I can. But how to fit open options into the recruiting schedule?
Welcome Weekend was great, and I met so many great people that I can't wait to call my classmates. But one thing I've been thinking about is the size of Wharton's class. At 800 people, it's just too big to be able to know everyone. I know that I will make plenty of friends, but I wonder if the size of the class will make close friendships difficult to find? Also, as silly as it is, I am really hoping that the friends I've already made will be in my cohort. But I'm sure most of them won't be - the chances are too small. This makes me sad.
Finally, probably my biggest concern is how I'm going to fit in all the activities I want to do and still get decent grades. There are so many clubs and activities that I want to be involved in that I am overextending myself before I even start! Prioritization will be key, but I've never really been very good at that ...
I think those are the biggies. There's definitely not anything I'm dreading (well, maybe exams?)or thinking I won't like. I'm sure some dislikes will come up once I start, but for the most part I'm really looking forward to getting started. Pretty much can't wait, actually!

Movie Stars Everywhere! Plus Sushi

Owen Wilson, Luke Wilson, Jennifer Aniston, Demi Moore & Ashton Kutcher & Family, and Parker Posey were all hanging out in Philly this week. No, I didn't run into any of them ... yet!

Tonight we went to the Viking Cooking School in Bryn Mawr for sushi class. It was so fun! My first roll fell apart, but after that I got the hang of it and did pretty well. It all tasted very good too :) Hopefully I'll be able to find a good store in Chinatown to procure sashimi grade fish and other supplies.

Long Time No Blog

So it has been many days since I was able to blog. We had about 5 days to pack our whole house and move to our comparatively tiny apartment. Then we had about 6 days to make repairs and get our house ready to be rented. I am happy to report that we are now officially finished moving and finally have working internet! The apartment is still a mess and is definitely a struggle to find places to put things. Our kitchen is very small, and even though we put a lot of our kitchen stuff in storage, we're still having trouble fitting everything into the cabinets. Also, my house had a huge walk in closet in the bedroom. This apartment, not so much. I've got to either seriously downsize my clothing collection or find very creative storage solutions. Sigh. But the apartment is cute and has a great view and a great looking kitchen (even if it is low on storage space). We're right in the heart of the action here in Center City. I'm really excited!

I've decided that my last day at work will be June 16 (a Monday - long story). Meanwhile, I found out that my company doesn't pay out remaining vacation days when you leave, so I have to either use them or lose them. Naturally, I'm trying to use them. It's actually harder than you'd think, because I have jury duty next week (fun) and various meetings that I can't miss in the next 4 weeks. I'm taking a lot of half days to fit them in. Oh yeah, and I have to figure out how to get all my work done too. With the economic situation, I'm not sure that they will replace me right away, so I feel obligated to make sure that my team is all set to cover my projects when I leave. It's not just that it's the right thing to do, but it's also a matter of pride. When I started, there hadn't been someone in my position in a few months, so I had to figure out how to do everything by myself. So I did, and over time I improved the processes significantly. I don't want all that progress to get ruined!

I hope I'll have time to blog more now that we're semi-settled. But I still have a LOT of unpacking to do so I can't get to distracted by the internet ;)

I Hate Moving!

I hate packing!

That's really all I have to say.

Top Ten Applicant Blog, Yard Sale, Moving Update

Two unrelated things to blog about today:

I was voted into the Top Ten Applicant Blogs in Clear Admit's Best of Blogging 2007-2008! I am really happy with this accomplishment, especially considering that I didn't start this blog until December. Thanks to my fellow bloggers and the celebrity judges for the honor! And thanks to my readers - this would be no fun without you! Congrats to Julydream and m@ and all the other winners!

Today we participated in a neighborhood yard sale at a local elementary school. It was cold and windy, so we had a disappointing turnout. Still, we were able to make about $150 and say goodbye to a good amount of clutter. It was strange, some things that I totally expected to sell were ignored (like picture frames and bestseller books) but other things I never expected to go sold for a decent amount of money (like my old karate pads and this awful computer desk I've had for 10 years that most recently held tools in our garage and is missing several parts).

Meanwhile, I have been thinking that I jinxed our house renting situation by blogging about it. After our prospective tenants' realtor told us they wanted it, a two weeks went by and we still haven't seen a signed lease or a check. This is quite vexing to say the least, since they want to move in May 17! We are putting ourselves out a lot to make this quick move happen, and they are either stalling or lazy or I don't know what! If we had another option I would tell them to forget it, but despite continuing traffic no one else has come forward with a check. FINALLY today we got a call that the lease is signed and we'll have it tomorrow. I'm not holding my breath but I hope we close the deal this weekend. At least then we'll know for sure when we are moving.

I hope to blog during the madness, but it may be impossible. If only I could blog at work!