useful link of the day

How to unlock a Nokia phone

I will now be able to travel abroad and buy a SIM card and use it in my phone. Thanks, AT&T, for making this another hack that I have to do.

rlotd

Random link of the day

still up after two years

Don't know why I was looking at my old blog entries, but what's up with this?

finals are done! (-:

It's over. All three, done. And like Sharon loved to say, "Two out of three ain't bad."

What makes me think of this? Out of three exams, two went well, one went very poorly. Here are the fun (boring) details.

Exam #1: Economics
From my earlier post:

So in the interests of keeping my brain fresh and ready for finals this week, I decided to go on another bike excursion. This time, solo, to Sleeping Giant State Park.

So did it hurt me at all? I made an argument about the marginal utility of additional studying, arguing that it made no sense to do it, seeing that there is a very good chance that we'll get the same grade either way. In other words, lots of effort, no additional benefit. So I went on a bike ride the day before the exam. It was fun. I enjoyed it. Plus, I still managed to do well on the final. Bonus.

Exam 2: Accounting
This one was a bit crazy. We were initially told that we would be able to use all of our notes and also our laptops for the exam. We were also given the impression that we would be able to submit portions of the exam electronically. I thought this was great since I used Excel to do almost all the homeworks anyway. Easy, right?

Wrong. The morning of the exam we got an e-mail telling us that although we would be able to use our laptops, we wouldn't be able to use the printer or submit answers electronically. We would have to copy everything over by hand. Annoying, but OK, I figured.

Going through the exam, I had completed most of the content within the first hour and a half. I felt pretty good. I would have all day to complete the last part (indirect cash flow statement). At this point, I started copying my answers over. I took my time. After all, how long could it possibly take?

About an hour. This left the indirect cash flow. Not only that, but I also realized at this point that I would need to do it using the weird spreadsheet that Garstka likes to use, but that I never use. Hrm... For whatever reason, I decided to try it using the spreadsheet. Long story short, things didn't really work out. Oh well. As long as I pass the course...

Exam 3: Data and Decision Analysis
After my rant in my previous post about studying too much, I went ahead and worked through a whole stack of practice problems. Probably 20 or so in total. No bike ride. No solace for the brain.

I also decided the night before that since I've been having some problems sleeping recently that I'd just go to bed later. After all, I probably wasn't falling asleep till 2 or 3 in the morning anyway. So I start playing with my bike at around midnight, and stop at around 1:45 or so. I try falling asleep, and fail. I probably didn't sleep that night till 3:30 or so. End result - I slept through my alarm clock, but had enough sense to get up on time. Good thing I know myself well enough to try to wake up a full two hours before the exam starts.

The exam went well. Nothing too crazy, aside from insane rounding errors. With any luck, I'll do as well as I did on the econ exam (which we got back today). If not, then fine. I'll get a "proficient" and be on my way to our next set of classes. I think we already have several hundred pages of reading for the first week. Fun!

first exam done

Yep. First one done. And no, I don't regret going on the bike ride yesterday. If anything, it helped? The only extra prep that would have helped would have been to do some endurance training for my right hand. I haven't written that much with a pencil in years.

To be honest, I'm not really down with the whole super crazy studying thing that's going on here. I'm not saying that people shouldn't be studying, but the amount of studying that's going on just seems a bit excessive. Or maybe it's the review sessions. People attending two accounting review sessions in the same day? Plus doing practice exams? At some point people are going to burn out. My strategy is to review the material, but otherwise take it easy so I don't fizzle out before the exams begin. Seems to be working so far.

I know it may seem odd, but this week has been one of the easiest so far for me. No corporate presentations, no club activities, no assignments to turn in, and no class. That frees up a good bit of time for study. Compared to last week, I save 10 hours of club stuff, 3 hours of job stuff, 15 hours of class, 5 hours of misc SOM stuff (student gov't, admissions), and probably 10-20+ hours of homework. It feels like there's nothing to do. Maybe I'll finally get around to working on my Canada 2006 photos. Sweet. (-:

study study study

So in the interests of keeping my brain fresh and ready for finals this week, I decided to go on another bike excursion. This time, solo, to Sleeping Giant State Park.

Photos are being uploaded as I type:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulip88/

what am i thinking???

Time management can do wonders, but... three leadership roles?

1. Marketing Club First-Year Leader - because I'm really interested in it and "I'd be doing that sort of thing anything even if I didn't have the title."

2. Student Government Rep - because I love the people at the school (well, with a few commonly recognized exceptions) and I like doing things to help people. Basically, "I'd be doing that sort of thing anything even if I didn't have the title."

3. Technology Club First-Year Leader - because I've already been spending a good bit of my time trying to find people who are interested in technology so that we can try to get more tech companies on campus. A true case where "I'd be doing that sort of thing anything even if I didn't have the title."

This doesn't even go into the stuff I do with Admissions, Yearbook, and potentially (hopefully) Global Social Enterprise and SOM IN-reach. Speaking of... when do I need to send in my info for that?

Oh... and did I mention that prior to coming here I've never had much in terms of formal leadership roles? The secret is out!

what is going on!?!?

No, I'm not freaking out. At least not yet. But what's up with this?

My schedule for Tuesday:
Before class / Read a chapter of accounting
10:00 - 11:20 / Data class
12:00 / Lunch with Nick to talk about working at Tech companies
1:00 - 2:20 / Accounting class
2:40 - 4:00 / Problem Framing class
4:15 - 5:00 / Club meeting
5:30 - 6:50 / Student Government meeting with the Dean (yes, I'm an elected rep!)
7:00 - 9:00 / Dinner with my mentor group at our faculty mentor's house
9:00-ish / Write the remaining 4 pages of my final paper for my Careers course

And to top it all off, I think I melted the rear brakes on my bike. Good work, Paul.

Time to get my 7 hours of sleep.

new ipod battery

New iPod mini battery installed in less than time than it takes to play the song "Freebird" or fill a bathtub with water.

At around $12, cheap!

go blue!

We all know that the Blue Cohort is the best. Yep. Apparently there's photos of us on the internet. I'll tell you where:

http://www.mba.yale.edu/news_events/CMS/Articles/5758.shtml

stuff

I write from my "secret lair" up here where I have a view of virtually the entire School of Management from above. Would be great if I were a sniper.

So a few things have gone on since last time... Let's see...

First, Marcia and I had "the talk." We're still talking, and we're getting together sometime this weekend, but I think we've found that this whole situation sucks from a relationship standpoint. I've got a ton of stuff going on here, and she's only here on weekends. There's a ton more to do, but I'm not going to go into it here. If you want to know, ask. This means in person or on the phone.

School is still going fine. I'm managing to keep up with my work despite being involved. I've been selected as a first-year leader of the Marketing Club here, which is great. I also applied for a post on the Honor Committee and I'll also be running for a seat in the Student Government here. What else... I'm also participating in a case competition this week and I'll be helping with the Innovation in Marketing Conference that will be held here later this month. There are some good speakers so if you're interested in marketing, or innovation, you should sign up! Cheap too!

My leg is still recovering. It feels OK. Doesn't hurt. However, it still definitely feels "funny" but I'm not laughing. I think I'll try jogging in a week or two to see how it feels. At least it's showing continued improvement and I can walk. Definitely a plus.

Oh. Almost forgot. Another thing that I may do is write in another blog for the Admissions Office here. Yes, I already have this one, and sometimes I don't write in it. BUT, I sure beat Greg in this. He gave up after about a year. I'm still going strong! If I do end up doing that, I'll still write here, although I may do some cross-posting. Probably depends on the topic.

I'm also taking part in a Club that Amitabh set up for community service. I have to admit I haven't been able to do as much as I would have liked. I did look into a few things, and (thankfully) came to the conclusion that these things weren't needed or were impractical. The first was to have a Web site created to share random acts of kindness. Such a site already exists, so there is no point. I also thought of using post-it notes to replace the cards for passing along random acts of kindness, but came to the conclusion that although Post-its would be better for the initial act (better portability, can stick to stuff), they are not durable enought to encourage the recipients to pass it on.

Anyway, that's all for now. Time to head down to the basement, hang out with my study group, do some accounting, and then over to Admissions to talk to some prospective students (and bring them to class). Fun. Follow that up with case competition stuff, and a night out at Richter's having half-yards (of beer) with my learning team. Mmm.... learning....