Manic Monday

...aaaaaaand we enter the final two days of classes. Term papers and projects abound, and I have until Wednesday to finish it all. It's gonna be a late couple of nights.

In happier news, one of my professors told our class this morning that we were his favorite class this semester. It's always nice to get feedback like that as a class from a professor you all respect and admire.

For fun, here are the belated pics of the housing they're putting us interns up in this summer:

Summer Housing

So big news. Last night I got an email from the company with my summer housing assignment, and I still haven't quite picked my jaw up off the floor.

They're putting us (7 of us interns) in corporate housing in downtown Seattle. This facility is nothing short of incredible. It looks like a five-star hotel - and I'm not exaggerating. It is fully furnished, and they are putting us all in 2-bedroom 2-bath apartments that include - and it's really kind of sad that I'm this excited about this - washers and dryers in the unit. Each room has a queen-size bed that looks like something out of the Marriott. The building also has a 20,000 square foot health club/gym, a swimming pool, a lap pool, and even a tanning salon. And it's one block from the Space Needle, Key Arena, and the center of downtown. Seroiusly, Westlake center is less than a mile from our apartment. We're right in the midst of a bunch of great restaurants and bars and theaters and such.

I really didn't know what to expect since I've never lived in corporate housing before, but this place has exceeded my wildest expectations. I am so excited for this summer. It's going to be awesome living downtown and working at this company!

The End is Near

Sorry for the lack of updates, everyone. The next five days are going to be fairly busy and basically represent the home stretch before finals. I've got a whole slew of group projects and presentations next week, and those are being finished up this weekend - along with my honors paper. Our last day of class is May 1, and then we have reading day, and then it's right into finals.

Honestly, it will be a whole lot less stressful for me once classes are over and all projects and papers are handed in. Studying for finals is totally doable - it's just getting all this other stuff done in time that's going to be difficult. The blessing in all of this is that having a lot to do makes the time almost literally fly by - I can't believe tomorrow is Thursday already.

All I can think about right now is how awesome it's going to feel to pick up the rental car, pack all my stuff into it, and head for the horizon. The 21st-century equivalent of riding off into the sunset. The drive back to Seattle is going to be a much-needed break, a time to relax, reflect, unwind, and watch the scenery go by. I am very much looking forward to two days with nothing but me, the road, and a CD player.

For Lori ;-)

Schweet.

I get to drive back up to Seattle in a couple weeks instead of flying. This is awesome beyond words because it lets me move a great deal of my stuff back home and not leave it in storage over the summer. Even better, I can leave a bunch of that same stuff - the things I don't absolutely, positively NEED for that last semester - in Seattle when I come back to ASU and then it will be 10x easier to move back home for real in December when I actually graduate.

I have never done the northbound drive before. Should be fun. It will definitely be a race against the clock, as I only have the car rented for 2 days. It's looking like day one will be ten hours of driving (Phoenix to Stockton, CA) and day two will be 12 hours (Stockton to Seattle). Bring it on.

I Hate The End of the Semester

It is now a daily necessity for me - as I drown in projects, deadlines, term papers, group presentations, group term papers, group case studies, and executive summaries - to simply stop for a moment, take a deep breath, and say out loud to myself:

"Don't panic. Just. Don't. Panic."

Awesomeness Abounds

On Sunday we had a delegation from the German Bundestag come and visit our honors college here as part of a trip to discover how the American university sytem works. Germany is currently reforming its own education system and is looking to us as a model for suggestions. This means - yes, for serious - members of the German parliament were sitting with us in the same conference room. And I got to meet them!

So how was YOUR Sunday?

Anyway, they also wanted to share with us some oportunities they have for American students to learn more about Germany. One such program is designed for post-undergrad students who have finished their Bachelor's degrees. 100 students worldwide get selected each year (on average 10 from the USA) and are flown over to Germany to work as staff for members of the German parliament. You are essentially a legislative aide for a member of the Bundestag!! You work for them for 3 months, and after that you do a semester at one of the 3 prestigious universities in Berlin. All of this is paid for by the program. ALL of it. Including your flight to/from Germany. Which means that if I apply and get accepted to this program, I could live in Berlin for FIVE MONTHS right after I graduate, work in the Bundestag, meet a whole bunch of members of parliament, and, and and and and and....AAAAAH!

Hearing about the program has definitely thrown a wrench into possible long-term plans. If I get into the program, do I decide to stay in Berlin for a while after the five months are up? Do I work in Germany for a couple years and get some experience, then go back over to the States and go for an MBA with some real-world and international expertise under my belt? Or just stay in Germany and do an MBA there? OR do I just scrap this change altogether and proceed with the plan as it stands now: stay in the States and move back to Seattle and work?

I used to have the end goal of becoming ambassador to Germany. If that's something I really want to pursue, this would be a great way to start. There are just so many options, it's hard to know what to do. There are long-term career decisions to be made here, and they have to be made soon, because the deadline for application is by the end of May.

Here it goes

Let the weekend of homework insanity begin. It's Friday night, and where am I? In my apartment. What am I doing? Homework.

Awesome.

Perfect. Just Perfect.

It's going to be a pretty crazy week. There are assignments and projects due left and right and in order to get it all accomplished I have to be really on-the-ball. There simply isn't a moment to waste.

So of course it makes perfect sense that last night, right after I'd laid down for a good night's rest, I would suddenly become nauseated and get sicker than a dog and spend two hours in the bathroom throwing up until I couldn't breathe anymore. Now, this morning (oh lovely Monday!) I feel like crap, my mouth tastes like vomit, and I'd swear I'd been run over by a train.

Figures.

Well then.

Apparently there IS regular readership here. Good to know, I'll keep going for now. Although I do think postings are going to become far less frequent. I intend, from here on out, to treat this ONLY as a "here's what's going on in life on a general level" type of blog. No more political commentary and very little current events, and especially nothing personal. It's too much of a liability career-wise to have this thing indexed so well that all you have to do is Google me to find it. Eventually (and by eventually I mean "in the fairly near future") this blog could be shut down altogether, assuming that the "I-don't-want-my-life-all-over-the-internet-anymore" phase I'm currently in continues. I'm connected enough as it is and Lord only knows what information the crazies out there can put together on you with just your name and a search engine.

My last post comes across as much more frustrated than I actually was and I apologize if anyone is offended. I'm not angry, but I'm definitely at the point where it's just not a good use of my time anymore to be giving everyone minute-by-minute updates on the world of Matt. Some people post on blogs because they want feedback on their thoughts. Others post just to get their thoughts out there and don't care if anyone reads or comments. I am in it for both, but more so for the feedback on my thoughts than just broadcasting my life. I like to discuss things. I like input. That's what my blog has always been for. Since it's not really serving that purpose, it's time to cut back a bit and dedicate more time to the far more pressing things going on in life, like actually finishing college on a high note. That would be nice. Hence the less frequent posts.

I do read each blog that is listed on this blogroll daily, although I do not comment on every entry. It's always been my impression that I'm more of a feedback/comment monger than everyone else, and hence I've assumed that most of my friends are on the "I-blog-to get-my-thoughts-out-there-and-not-for-the-feedback" end of the spectrum. But if you want me to be a little more active on your own blog, let me know. I want to keep in touch with everyone, but honestly right now email is far quicker and more efficient for me than leaving a comment trail on everyone's respective blogs. If you send me an email asking what's up, I WILL reply.

Thanks for reading everyone, and I'll try to keep it short and sweet for however much time is left.

Knock Knock

I'm getting tired of talking to myself on here. I put a lot of energy into this stupid thing and if no one is reading it then I'm going to rededicate this time to something that is actually WORTH time.

An Open Letter to My Econ Professor

Dear Professor,

It is now midnight and I am still up studying for your test tomorrow. I have some suggestions for improvement for you.

1. Do not give us practice problems from the book that contain tariff or quota scenarios you never once mentioned in class and for which the solutions are not given in the back of the book. While such brain-teasing exercises may present an amusing challenge for someone of your intellectual stature, we non-PhD-holding students simply want to stab our eyes out with a pencil.

2. Do not assign us practice problems for which you are not going to provide the solutions. I'm curious - just where, exactly, does the benefit lie in assigning us practice problems to "practice with" if we can't confirm that we've done them correctly? Maybe you see such uncertainty as a sort of cheap thrill - and I'll grant you it certainly makes taking your exams that much more "exciting" - but I can assure you that I and the other students do not get one ounce of pleasure out of spending hours on a problem, sitting back, and then wondering if we have only made ourselves dumber in the process. Unless, of course, the absence of a solution to the problem just means you're willing to accept any and all possible student answers. Which letter do I bubble in on my scantron sheet for "I don't know?"

Please take my suggestions into consideration.

Sincerely,
Matt