Update: How'd I do on my to-do list?

I did everything but 9. Not bad.

To-do list: 1. Make to-do list

I encourage jpmatsom readers, both of them, to visit garfieldminusgarfield.net.

Since I'm making a to-do list anyway, I figured I might as well share it, because some people may care about a typical Sunday in the life of an SOM student, or this student at least.

1. Make a healthy breakfast. Done. I do this every day because when I do not do it, my mind turns to do-do, even more so than when I do do it.

2. Get my resume in shape. Check. I have my first appointment in the Career Development Office (CDO) this week. When you make an appointment online, they request that you send your resume. One of the challenges of having been a journalist is that it's hard to quantify my brilliant accomplishments; it's not like I can say I brought in new clients, or had a direct impact on revenue, or contributed to human life on this planet in some meaningful way. But thanks to the Internet and the way it enables the measuring of audience, I can at least note the swells in viewership on sites I worked on.

3. Submit Spreadsheet Modeling homework. I'm finished with it, but I'd like to call up a classmate or two and just run through what I did to make sure I'm not completely on Mars.

4. Find out if there's still vomit in the elevator. If not, I will consider hauling my clothes down to the basement and doing laundry. If the vomit remains, I'll procrastinate that chore until somebody does something. (Initiative schminitiative.)

5. Catch up on economics. The homework's not due till Friday, but in the last couple classes I've been a wee bit lost, so this is a good day to block aside four hours and read/re-read some material so that when I do begin the problem set, I might have some idea of what's happening.

6. Play the piano. This is a nice 30-minute break from business school stuff; I do it most days when I come home for lunch. It's relaxing without being mind-numbing. And it contributes to my immense popularity* in my building.

7. Continue my Reflected Best Self paper. For our Careers class, we're doing a project called Reflected Best Self. For it, I was to solicit feedback from friends and former colleagues to get their opinions about times I was at my best. My contributors include my first boss, my oldest friend, my mom, my old high school debate coach and a couple co-workers. Now that I've read the feedback, I am supposed to identify trends that run through the comments and see if I can use them to create a profile of a well-suited work environment for me. So far I've concluded that people seem to think I am creative and social, which runs counter to my dream of doing mathematical analysis in isolation. Whoops.

8. Eat a cookie. My roommate threw a party Friday night, and thus we have cookies. I can't let them go to waste.

9. Do the Accounting reading and homework. It's not due till Tuesday, but I'm feeling frisky!

10. Start the Statistics homework. We have problem sets in Statistics due every Wednesday evening. It doesn't look very hard, which is to say it doesn't look different from what I did over the summer, except that we're supposed to use data analysis software that I ain't understand.

That's probably an ambitious Sunday. Fortunately, because Spreadsheet Modeling is over, I have but one class on Mondays, from 8:15-9:35. So when I end up only doing 60% of what's on this list, I can have some spillover room.

*I may not be particularly popular in my building, but at least I don't vomit in the elevator much.

So that's what a clambake is

There's a place in Guilford, Connecticut, where happiness happens. It's called the Place, and it's a real clambake. You bring your own booze, and whatever else you might want, and sit on some stumps with your business-school classmates*. Then you order things like shrimp, clams, bluefish and corn, and these items get thrown onto a grill. Then it comes out piping hot, you eat it up, and you are incredibly happy. And even though it's still technically summer, you can see your breath.

Before that, you go to an LGBT reception, and afterward, you go to the graduate school bar, where you're starting to realize and appreciate just how many people you've met. That's one super awesome thing about GPSCY (that bar, pronounced gypsy); in normal working life, you go out to a bar with your friends, and you sit at a table with those friends, and talk to those friends, and leave with those friends. That's fun, but it's also kind of nifty to be able to go to a place like GPSCY on a Thusrday night and know you're going to encounter a sea of friendly familiar faces, and that you'll have plenty to talk about with the people attached to these faces, since you all do the same things all day. I'd say that, overall, despite the occasional worry or confusion or frustration, life here has been awfully wonderful.

*Small world, but one of the fellow SOM-ers with whom I clambaked, it turns out, lived about a mile from me in the Oak Lawn area of Dallas. Ain't that something?

Annie Le thoughts

A few people have asked what it's like on campus in light of the Annie Le homicide. Well, not great, although SOM (the School of Management, where I go) and the School of Medicine (SOM2?) are on opposite ends of the campus. So everything I've learned I've learned from my roommate, who says it's distracting and chaotic over there. But it's looking more and more like this wasn't a random crime, and of course that's a relief ... although the question still remains: How, with all the security, could someone be killed inside a Yale building without any cameras or security catching it?

But as for me and the people I see on a daily basis, I wouldn't say there's been all that much visible impact. A couple women have told me they aren't comfortable working in the building late at night, and to that I say they should never have been comfortable doing that. Go home!

Six things I've learned

I'm paying tens of thousands of dollars for an education but am so generous I will share one free fact I've picked up from each of my classes.

1. Problem Framing: A load-bearing assumption is one whose failure would require a company to make significant changes. For example, a newspaper makes several load-bearing assumptions, such as that people can read.

2. Economics: The supply curve in the short run for a particular factory looks like a stair that goes up, right, up. That's because up to the price at which it should produce anything, it will produce nothing; once it reaches that price, it will produce at full capacity; and once it hits that capacity, it can't produce anymore, no matter how much the price goes up.

3. Accounting: The difference between a gain and a revenue is that a gain doesn't come from core operations. So if a baker sells a cake, he earns revenue, and if he sells one of his trucks, he makes a gain.

4. Probability/Statistics: For any normally distributed random variable, 68% of values fall within one standard deviation of the mean.

5. Spreadsheet Modeling: Calculating the expected value of perfect information is relevant not because information is ever perfect but because that value is an upper bound for what one should be willing to spend on any information.

6. Careers: On a resume and in job interviews, one should have a compelling story about one's career that contains the elements of any good story: a protagonist, a catalyst compelling the protagonist to take action, trials and tribulations, a turning point and a resolution.

Latest on Annie Le

My roommate, who has been more of a news consumer than her roommate, says the New Haven Register is doing the finest job of covering the Annie Le story:

NEW HAVEN -- A body believed to be that of missing Yale graduate student Annie Le was found Sunday hidden inside a wall at 10 Amistad St., the building where she was last seen alive.

It was supposed to be the day she would marry her college sweetheart and celebrate at a reception in a tony section of Long Island. ...

Read more here.

Being a massive, hulking, intimidating man, I am not the least bit afraid for my safety. I hope they catch the culprit and learn he had a connection to the victim.

Pennsylvania adventure

It sure is a small world. This weekend, I went to Pennsylvania with my friend Mike. We first visited some of his family, including his 7-week old niece, then headed to Easton to attend his friend Ken's 30th birthday party -- a surprise party. Quite swanky. Shoulda taken pictures, as always.

I'd never met Ken before. Oddly, we knew some of the same people, including someone I went to high school with named Emily. Perhaps odder is that I could relate to Ken's surprise-party elation because I was lucky enough to have had a surprise birthday party thrown for me once, by Emily.

A super weekend in all. Mike's great, and his friends and family are also great. And perhaps even greater was that there really wasn't much to do in the way of homework this weekend ... unless I'm totally forgetting about some massive assignment I should have been working on, which is kind of the little spider that's always dangling into my mental circumference.

Got a 98 on my probability exam. Yahoo! Bombed the first econ problem set. Not yahoo. Don't tell my brother and sister-in-law.

It's raining, so here's a poem, an update, and a quiz

The paradisical atmosphere I've come to adore about New Haven has taken the day off. The rain and chill have inspired me to write the following poem:

~

Woe are we /

who want /

to sit /

beneath a tree.

~

There are a couple more lines, but I'm a very private person.

Last night's probability/statistics exam was so easy that I only spent half the allotted two hours in a total panic. There were three questions, the first of which had something like eight parts. When I got to the third or fourth part, I got a little confused, and as I tried to find solutions to no avail, and time ticked by, I began to wonder if I would be hauled off by Yale's Stupid People Police, with no tuition refund given. So I put that question aside and moved on to the second and third questions, both of which were pretty straightforward and uncomplicated. With regained confidence, I returned to the first question and, in the end, think I arrived at a reasonable set of answers. The important thing is that it's over, and I'll never be under any pressure to perform academically again, except constantly for two more years.

On the missing-student front, you may have read that a medical grad student here went missing this week. She was supposed to be married Sunday, and she was last seen outside the Yale School of Medicine. That's where Susan, my roommate, goes to school every day of her life. The missing person's name is Annie Le.

Meanwhile, I took a picture in a classroom, for the sake of those who care. This was during a meeting about some of the clubs students can join. Observe. At the bottom of the photo, near the left, you see a black doohickey. It's actually a microphone; so if you're a student and want to say something, you push a little button, and your personal mic comes on. What I've noticed, though, is that the professor has to continuously remind students to use it, because most of us don't necessarily want our silly questions or half-baked answers to boom thunderously throughout the room.

As an upcoming tour guide -- my first tour will be Thursday -- I am to become familiar with a packet of materials about the school. I have learned, or been reminded of, many facts that I will now share, but because I am wild and fun, I will turn it into a true/false quiz. Answers at the end.

1. True or False: Yale Univeresity was founded in 1701 and is the third-oldest university in the United States, but the School of Management was founded in 1976, making it the youngest graduate or professional school at Yale.

2. True or False: New Haven is the first planned city in the United States and is credited as the birthplace of the hamburger, the lollipop and the Erector set.

3. True or False: Yale SOM is the first school to have a loan-forgiveness program for graduates who go into nonprofit work, and it remains among the most generous of any school.

4. True or False: John Metz hates cheese and crackers.

5. True or False: Noted SOM graduates include Indra Nooyi, the president and CEO of PepsiCo, Sandy Urie, president and CEO of Cambridge Associates LLC, and Austin Ligon, first president and CEO of CarMax Inc.

Click here for answers.

Will I nail today's exam, or will it nail me?

Now that almost three long weeks have passed since school began, it's clearly time for an exam.

My Probability & Statistics class is divided into two parts, and the former, probability, is drawing to a close. Hence this evening we will have a midterm. Although in our four classes we've had several assignments, this is everybody's first test. I'm glad it's in my favorite subject.

Meanwhile, tragedy is unfolding, in that tonight will be the second consecutive Thursday I am unable to view Project Runway (because the exam is in the evening). That raises the question: Are these painful, nearly unimaginable, sacrifices really worth it?

I'm going to be a tour guide

Last week I "auditioned" to be a campus tour guide for groups of prospective SOM students. I put that in quotes because the audition didn't entail giving a tour or anything; instead, we each introduced ourselves and shared two fun facts, then, if we were serious about doing this, submitted a few essays. I found out today that I was chosen to be one of, I think, 16-18 or so tour guides. I'm really looking forward to doing this; I think it'll be great fun. And I remember when I visited, much of the impression I took away about SOM came from my tour guide (who also has lunch with the group afterward).

Those who know me well enough to know I have the worst sense of direction ever might wonder why I would want to do this, considering I will inevitably cause the disappearance of several small groups of innocent, motivated people. One reason is that I thought it would be a good way to learn my way around. Soon, I hope to be so familiar with SOM that I can dazzle family and friends with a bounty of fascinating facts. Another reason is that since I'm leaning toward not doing Toastmasters for the time being, I wanted some regular way to keep up with my public speaking.

The training is Thursday, and then there's no time to waste -- tours start next week. Yikes!

Thank God: My chem lab partner is within driving distance

My best friend from high school, Shiri, and her husband and son just moved a couple days ago from Brooklyn to this beautiful house in a town called Scarsdale (photo not by me ... I'm having a hard time remembering to bring my camera when it actually matters).

The move is fantastic for them, and for yours truly. Now, instead of having to spend two hours on the Metro North and then taking various subways and trekking lots-o-blocks, I can just hop on I-95 south, and I'm there in just a little over an hour. Such was the case on Labor Day, when I drove out to Scarsdale for delicious grilled meats and good times.

I've said a version of this before, but it's so wonderful, and still a little strange, to be within a quick drive of people I used to see maybe once a year, like Shiri and my brother. My feelings can best be expressed in this fashion:



I worked pretty hard this weekend, although I ended up not exactly employing my original studying strategy of revisiting every single class. Instead I focused assignments for the upcoming week so that I could get ahead. We'll see if that was the right strategy. Even though I think I did plenty of work, I do have a slight Monday morning nervousness that I'm in for four consecutive days of madness that perhaps could have been prevented. But I did what I did.

Weather update

Every day here is so beautiful I cannot stand it.

Northeastern food and drink

I think it's important to discuss that outsiders who come to the Northeast and order a hot dog might be surprised. But pleasantly so, I think.

A recent, wonderful trip to Glenwood Drive-In brought much happiness to me, and my dinner companions, Susan and Dave. I devoured two freakin' huge hot dogs, perfect as any hot dog could be, made all the better thanks to a fantastically fresh array of available toppings.

But hot dogs around here aren't served on the buns to which you might be used. They're wacky, rounded pieces of chewy, thick grilled toast -- sort of like Texas toast, but designed to cradle a hot dog. How I love them.

Glenwood is adjacent to an ice cream place called Kelly's Kone Konnection, the second place (after Ashley's) where I've been impressed by the quality of the homemade ice cream. At least they say it was homemade.

But not everything is as good as it is in, say, Texas. Example: Margaritas. No contest there.

Back to homework.

My favorite tree, for you and me (and ants)

A creepy emo kid in an Oscar-winning movie once said, "There's so much beauty in the world, I feel like I can't take it, and my heart is just going to cave in." I, on the other hand, just want to sit under a tree, and that is precisely what I have become accustomed to doing. Everybody should plant a tree. Cuz I love me some sittin' under 'em.

And that is my attitude after another action-packed week. Much transpired. I found out I'm going to Australia and met my trip group (all great folks, it seems). I had a very nice dinner with some of Susan's friends, lazing on a porch enjoying grilled chicken and quinoa and wine. I "auditioned" to give tours to prospective students (they didn't call it an audition, but they did say our responses to their questions would determine whether we get selected). Yale SOM had a club fair, and I joined four: Public Speaking, Marketing, Media & Entertainment, and the cumbersomely monikered Q+ Gay/Straight Alliance. Oh, and there was work.

What I learned: I should consider, in the future, doing assignments in order of importance, not chronology.

Although we all had several assignments this week, the one that got the most buzz was the first of three economics problem sets. (Wonder if the dean being our professor had any influence ...) All week, I moved forward diligently with assignments, in order, treating each equally, even if it was just a reading for a "soft" class like Careers. As each day passed, more and more people were discussing the hellish, confusing econ homework. But there never seemed to be time for me to start. Lo and behold it became Thursday evening, and I still hadn't started.

I began with problem #2, since I hadn't heard anyone complaining about it. No sweat. Then I made a pot of coffee and braced myself for the dreaded problem #1. Some sweat ... but a healthy kind of sweat.

But here's my feeling about econ problem sets in an MBA program: Why do we have them? That's not rhetorical. We have them because students learn subjects by being challenged and doing work. Hence, challenging work is assigned. It's not as if they're trying to humiliate us, upset us or kick us out. There aren't even grades here, for Pete's sake. (Pete is kinda the class dolt.) So with that in mind, I just gotta ask, "Why flip your lid about a homework assignment that counts for 10% of a "grade" that isn't even a grade?" And I just gotta suggest, "Think about the questions, try your best to come up with something, type it up and move on. Your high-paying job will still be waiting for your regardless of whether you mastered the economic impacts of boycotts after your first five econ lectures."

Anyway, it's Labor Day weekend, and I've got a few fun plans in the works but am mostly going to try to study. With all the assignments piling up, one thing that gets left behind is studying. You're always working on problems, but never really getting a chance to look back at notes, memorize terms, revisit some readings. So that's my plan this weekend ... starting tomorrow, at least.

Hilarious fun fact!

I just read this in my accounting book and couldn't wait to share it with y'all ...

"The direct material, direct labor and manufacturing overhead costs incurred to produce products for sale are product costs, which represent assets transformed from one form to another, as the manufacturing process converts these assets into finished goods. The cost of completed products remains on the balance sheet as Finished Goods assets until the firm sells the products; upon sale, the cost of the assets becomes a cost of goods sold expense."

ROFL! Really, all of Financial Accounting: An Introduction to Concepts, Methods, and Uses by Stickney, Weil, Schipper and Francis is a freakin' hoot.

I'm going to Australia!

Last week we ranked our preferences for the March 2010 international experience, which is required of all first-year SOM students. I just learned I got my No. 1 choice: Australia! I'm so excited!!

The cool chick

One signal I'm getting old is that strings of words come out of my mouth such as: "On Monday I had lunch with a college friend I hadn't seen in over 10 years."

Stephanie (aka Stuffs) and I lived in the same dorm freshman year at Duke and were BFF, then got an apartment together sophomore year, which, in the predictable tradition of naive teenagers who do such things, was a debacle. But we got back in touch a few years ago, and yesterday she was in Connecticut for work and swung by New Haven to take me out to lunch. She looked fantastic; she has two daughters and is married to the same man she was dating back in college. And she's still just about the funniest person alive.

One of the particularly great things about getting together is that she recently earned an MBA at MIT, and that gave us new things in common. She's doing a Leadership Development Program with Stop & Shop (a superior grocery store, from what I've seen around here). An LDP entails rotating through different departments and positions with the intention of going into some kind of management track. She says she loves it.

In other news, I realized I never really posted an "after" photo of my apartment, so enclosed is one here. Susan and I were concerned about space before we moved in, but it looks like we came out just fine, even with using only one of the two "horse stalls" in the basement. I'd thank God for the hall closet, but I think it was probably the architect who is responsible.

I recently learned that several second-year students had summer internships at news and media companies. One student seems to have done precisely what I think I want to do: she interned at Newsweek (whose CEO is an SOM grad) and helped develop their digital/print strategies, and helped conduct an operational review of the editorial production process. Another student did strategic planning and consulting for the Associated Press; other internship destinations included Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters, the Educational Broadcasting Corp. and the Corp. for Public Broadcasting. Point being: It's a great comfort to me to see that people in the second-year class are indeed doing the kind of work I've said I wanted to do if indeed such work existed.

Just a little play

I've mentioned previously that the Class of 2011 is divided into four cohorts, of which mine is Blue, and that those cohorts are further divided into seven or so study teams, of which mine is Team 2. There are eight people on my team. We're supposed to help one another with assignments and projects, and have already met a couple times to do that.

About a week ago, we decided to have dinner on Sunday (yesterday). Jeremy (sitting in the middle on the right side) and his wife, Tracy (to his right), agreed to host. (Only one member of our team couldn't attend.)

I'd spent Saturday at my brother's place, babysitting, because it was my sister-in-law's birthday. That was a fun trip -- Mike came along, and we did get a little accounting work done. The kids were somewhat well-behaved, although I'd actually never babysat in my life, so it was a challenge to do the whole bedtime routine. But Mike was a great help, and overall it was a fun time.

Naturally, though, hanging out Saturday meant needing to buckle down on Sunday, so as the time was approaching for this Team 2 dinner, I began to wonder whether I should bail, since I had so much work left to do.

But I didn't, and I'm so glad I didn't, because this was a much-needed opportunity to socialize in a relaxed setting and have a good meal on top of it. (My typical dinner since arriving in New Haven has been Triscuits with Laughing Cow cheese, an apple and some celery with hummus. I've lost 10 pounds on the Too Busy To Cook Anything Diet.)

What I learned, or what I think I learned, is that my assignments will get done, perfect or not perfect, and although I want to do my best in my classes, it's not worth shutting out real life to meet that end. Finding that balance, as I've mentioned, will be, I think, the biggest challenge for me here.

Anyway, back to work ...

URGENT UPDATE!!!

Behold the elusive Fourth Hole, and yours truly in a golf tie. Photo by Mark Butterworth / Yale School of Management

5 Pub Golf Pictures

Last night I participated in more than half of what the kids these days call "pub golf," which entailed neither pubs nor golf. To play, one wolfs down predetermined libations in as few sips as possible over a series of nine holes (apartments, in this instance). By Hole Five, the environment had grown too cacophonous for this serious-minded business school student, and my dear friend Mike and I sauntered away to do our own thing.

Here are some of the pictures I took. I managed yet again to not end up in any. If I'm in any pictures that end up on Facebook, I will redirect them here, because I was kind of proud of my ensemble.

The rules are explained at Hole One. The drink: punch. My score: hole in one. The gentleman explaining the rules is a wonderful fellow named Ethan, a fellow Duke alumnus, and thus someone who understands how to drink.

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Hole Two. The drink: Jello shots. Another hole in one for ol' John, although I'm not sure how to consume a Jello shot any other way.

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Hole Three. The drink: Greyhounds (vodka w/ grapefruit juice). My score: 2. The grapefruit juice was simply too much ... I think the vodka actually made it easier to chug.

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Hole Five. I guess I forgot to take a picture of Four. And this is where I become grateful I did not volunteer my apartment for this ...

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The Nineteenth Hole. Back in my days growing up as a spoiled, pampered country club kid, we would eat in the Nineteenth Hole, which as the name implies is a dining room and bar for those who have finished 18 holes of golf. I never completed that prerequisite but nevertheless managed to have cheeseburgers there. In this case, Mike's and my "nineteenth hole" was J.P. Dempsey's, where we had nachos and beer.

All in all, a great evening, and one I think was well-deserved. I worked hard this week and stuff!

Just another dream

Last night I had a dream. I was at an airport/train station with a bunch of SOM people, all headed to various cities for the day -- Boston, Providence, New York, etc. My classmates had name tags and ribbons indicating where they were going and how they were getting there, but I didn't. I was too embarrassed to admit I didn't know what was going on, but eventually I got over it and asked an SOM staffer for help. She asked where I wanted to go, and I said Boston (since I've never been there), and she added me to some list. And off I went. I wonder what it could possibly mean ...

Meanwhile, it is gorgeous in New Haven -- crisp and cool, enough so that one can slide under one's comforter instead of sweating all night on top of it. And, yes, Rob Marciano of CNN is at this moment in Mystic, Connecticut, telling me about Tropical Storm Danny. I will pretend it's not true.

Speaking of jobs that depend on an understanding of probability, I really enjoyed doing my first probability assignment! I looove it. Here's an example of one of the questions:

A cancer screening procedure would result in detecting 75 percent of persons with cancer, but would falsely identify 1 percent of those without cancer. It is estimated that 1 in 300 persons examined has cancer. What is the probability that an individual does not have cancer if the test is negative? What is the probability that an individual has cancer if the test is positive? Do these results make sense? Explain in a few sentences.

So fun! Well, maybe not "time of my life" fun, but I love to sit down with a pen and paper and grapple.

Speaking of "time of my life" fun, if I have the stamina, I shall participate in a delightful evening of pub golf tonight. I think we all know where this is headed ...