End of 2009

In 2008, I got married and in 2009 I quit my job and went back to school. It's been a crazy couple years, and 2010 looks to be no different. This year, I will graduate from the Walton MBA program, and hopefully begin an exciting and successful career.

Exciting, successful careers never seem quite as far away as when looking for a job. I have spent this week looking for work. Not my favorite thing. I plan on spending a lot of time next week and the first couple weeks of school looking very diligently for work.

The break has been good, but I am beginning to welcome its end. Steph and I spent some time with her family over the break, and that was a really good time. This break has been really relaxing and has given me a lot of time to do some recreational reading and to catch up on some things here and there, but I am ready to get this last semester over and start working. I am ready to start solving some real world problems again.

Free Time

Currently, I have more free time on my hands than any other time of my life. It is nice, but kind of weird. I have made good use of the time though. Christmas shopping, job hunting, a couple interviews, sleeping, and catching up on some movie watching. Actually, I have been almost averaging one movie a day. Here's what I have watched thus far....

• Kill Bill 2- My favorite QT film. Well, maybe I should say the Kill Bill as a whole are my favorite QT film, because Vol 2 is only as good as it is set up to be from Vol 1. Anyway, it doesn't get much better than the fight between B and Ellle in Bud's trailer. Gives me chills.
• Every F***ing Day of My Life (Documentary)- This is an HBO film about a women who had been the victim of domestic abuse for 20 years before killing her husband, the film is based on the 4 days of her life leading up to going to prison. Extremely sad, but very good.
• Taken- When this movie was first coming out earlier this year, it looked pretty good, but then it got really bad reviews, so I decided I didn't want to see it. But, it has been on HBO a bunch this month so I decided to watch it. The movie is not technically good or anything, but I enjoyed it.
• Drug Store Cowboy- A movie about drug addicts that rob pharmacies. I originally wanted to watch it because it was directed by Gus Van Sant. It was a pretty interesting movie, but I probably won't watch it again. It is one of those.
• The Departed- When I first saw this movie, I didn't get why people were so excited about it. Since then, I have seen it a handful of times. This movie is really subtle in its awesomeness.
• Tom Petty: Runnin Down a Dream (Documentary)- Want to watch a four hour documentary about Tom Petty? If so, then this documentary is for you. It's really good.

I think that is about it. It's been a nice break.

Fall Semester, the retrospective

Done. The fall semester has finally come to a close, thank goodness. Coming into this semester I felt like it would go way smoother than the previous, but it didn't. It was just as, if not more, challenging than the spring of 2009. But it is all in the past now, only one more semester to go before this whole saga comes to a close. Until then, here were my personal highlights from the past semester...

Investments- This was a really good class. The content was really interesting and it was taught by an interesting and extremely knowledgeable professor. Not much more you can ask for out of a class. We spent a lot of time talking about market efficiency, CAPM, stock markets and the dreaded bonds (bonds are so freaking confusing).

Management- I really got a lot out of this class. Before entering the MBA program I had a couple jobs in a management role, but I never quite got the hang of managing others. Looking back at that time, I could have really benefited from taking this course. Going forward, the ideas and techniques I picked up in this class will help me alot.

And now, for the lowlights....

November- Not the whole month of November, but there was one particular week in November where everything, everything hit all at once. I think there were two tests, a couple assignments and a job interview that required me making a presentation on very short notice. Not fun.

The week leading up to my brother's wedding- My brother got married in early October, in Oakland, on a Thursday. Not the most opportune time to be traveling. In order to make it out west I had to reschedule exams and do a bunch of work early. This stressful time was only exacerbated by a huge assignment being given to me on really short notice in our Shollmier project class. Again, not fun.

Arkansas losing to Florida- I am so glad that Tebow is out of the SEC for good. That loss to Florida was really tough to take considering the refs pretty much had it out for us. I am not a big fan of blaming refs for losses, but that seemed pretty blatant.

The first half of my birthday- This year my birthday was during finals week, which meant I spent a good deal of it studying. But hey, that's grad school for you.