And we're off

So real classes started last Thursday, and they have been interesting so far. I also had the pleasure of taking my first ever buisiness school exam... it sucked. Classes are good. I have now joined my MMM section and there are some really cool people in there. I will get to know them better this week as there is an all day event we are get to go to for some great bonding time... more forced socialization. This is club week so every club has their kickoff meeting where we get to learn about why that club is the best ever... i know, so exciting!

On the upside its been a great sports week. michigan beat Wisconsin (GO Blue!) and the Tigers are in the playoffs!

I have also joined the Evanston Athletic Club, so I get to go to fun workout classes.
This weekend I will be back in Minnesota, I can't wait!

Overall things have gone well. For those of you that heard about the bus stories in Greece from Dave I have posted pictures so you can get a true idea of how tight the fit was in some of the smaller villages :-)

Some Greece Pictures

Not the best ones, but the only ones I have so far... I will most more when we get the better ones...




This is Dave and I in the first village we went to, it was so pretty!



On our second day we hiked up to the top of the mountain beind us to see the castle. It was quite the walk but a great view!





A Santorini sunset





The volcano at Santorini



The Pathenon in Athens.

Go Blue! Go Turkeys!

So you are probably wondering... what does she mean, go Turkeys! Well, Saturday was a great sports day for me. Not only did Michigan cream Notre Dame to quiet all those naysayers, my CIM team, the Jive Turkeys had the greatest comeback victory in CIM history. As I think I mentioned earlier, at Kellogg we have this wonderful thing called CIM week, which is a series of team bonding events culminating in CIM "Olympics".

Well, as I think I mentioned before, the Jive Turkeys did not have the best start ever, coming in dead last (8th place) in the cheering competition. However, we had an amazing comeback. Apparently we are all great as such wonderful and athletic activities as dizzybat, spiderweb, tug of war and other humiliating team bonding activities. We took first place in the Olympics and ended up winning first place overall in the CIM competition. There are some great pictures that I will eventually get to show you (I am waiting for my fellow classmates to load them online). What all this winning means is that, after paying $40,000 this year in tuition my section of 70 people will have an extra $300 in our social budget to spend on beer. Yay us. All kidding aside, it was nice to win something, I realized I am more competitive than I thought.

Dave came to Evanston this weekend and we were pretty antisocial towards the other MBAs, although we did have good intentions. We meant to go out on Saturday night but we ended up falling asleep. We did see Dave's cousin, which was pretty cool. It was so great having Dave here and I can't wait until I get to see everyone in a few weeks!

I am now busy studying for my first business school final on Wednesday for my Leadership and Organizations class. It is an interesting class, so different from anything I have taken. If all my classes are half as interesting as this one, it will be a good 2 years. Dave sat through one of my classes this weekend and I think he actually enjoyed it. It was good for sure.

I can't wait until this class is over on Wednesday and the real term finally starts. It will be good to get into a schedule.

The next few weeks should be good college football weekends, I will get to see Michigan avenge their losses against both Wisconsin and Minnesota. Go Blue!

And the grind continues...

It has been an interesting week. Last Tuesday, we started of on CIM, which stands for Complete Immersion in Management. Basically it is a two week long orientation filled with lots of drinking. The incoming class of over 550 people is divided into 8 groups of 70-80 people. My section name is the Jive Turkeys, as I mentioned in an earlier post.

The sections compete against each other in various competitions. The first competition was a cheering competition and my section finished in last place, which meant we had to redeem ourselves. We then participated in a scavenger hunt, and we came back in 3rd place.

Then on Saturday, we had a talent show. Each group was given 7 minutes to showcase its best "talents". At some point and time I will post picture of that event. It was definitely interesting to say the least. Every group pretty much has one skit with guys dressed in drag. We had guy cheerleaders. I did a short dance with three other girls. We ended up taking 2nd place in the talent show so that was pretty awesome!

Kellogg is definitely all about team bonding. We have to know the name of all 75 people in our section. We were tested on that today and we came in second place (which means overall we are now third place in the CIM competition). There are also activities that are planned every night (they are not above forced socialization). Most of the activities involve large quantities of alcohol.

We also started our first class last week. It is a two and a half week preterm course (it also goes over the weekends). It is an interesting course. So far we have learned about group decision making, and influencing others. Sadly I think the part I have enjoyed most about school so far is the class, it has been so great. Right now I am procrastinating on writing a paper I have due tomorrow on persuasion.

I really should start my paper. I seem to have come down with the cold that is going around and so I need to make sure I get sleep. I am still missing my Minnesota friends. Dave is coming this weekend, I am so excited!

Update from Greece etc

Its been a busy few days and this week will be even busier. Greece was awesome, I will try to post pictures soon.

We left Chicago on Sunday at 5PM and we arrived in Athens on Monday afternoon. There were a total of 25 people in our group. They had rented a bus for us and we drove to a small village in the mountains. The bus driver got lost, so it took us a long time to get there. We didn't get there until about 10 PM so we had a late dinner, but it was great.

We woke up the next day and had some time to walk around the village which was really cute. Then we got back in the bus and drove to a river and went rafting, which was awesome. The couple who owned the rafting business made a homemade lunch for us which was delicious. We then drove the Monemvasia, which is a town right on the river that had a Byzantine Castle. We were running late though, and didn't have time to really hike to the top of the mountain on Tuesday. However, we did have dinner in a restaurant in the castle which was right on the water. Again, the food was great.

We woke up Wednesday to a great view of the mountain and the Agean Sea. Then we hiked up the castle and through some of the leftovers from the Byzantine era which was so awesome. We then got in the bus for a "short one hour" ride to a nearby fishing town. However, our group leaders didn't take into account the fact that the bus had to go through some really small villages. At one point the guys in our group had to actually move a car in order to make room for our bus. Our bus barely made it through some of the marrow passages and the drive took over three hours. We got there so late we only had 1 1/2 hour for lunch and the beach, but it was still great. We then got back into the bus and went back to Athens to take an overnight ferry to Santorini.

The ferry ride was lots of fun. I played poker with some of the guys and managed to come in 2nd place in one game and 1st in the second one. I should've won the first game but got majorly riverbitched (A 3 vs AK and he got a 3 on the river) to lose most of my money then lost it. We got very little sleep on the ferry but then on Thursday morning we arrived in Santorini.

We were all really tired when we got to Santorini and most of the group was also really hung over so we took a short nap. We then went swimming at the beach and to the village of Oia to watch a beautiful sunset. It was gorgeous. A lot of our group went to a night club in Santorini that night but Dave and I decided to stay back and get some much needed sleep.

We woke up on Friday and then took a boat to the volcanoes in Santorini. We hiked up to the top of the volcano and then went swimming in the hot springs which was really cool. All things I would highly recommend, I am definitely going back sometime. When we got back to the main island, we took donkeys to get back to the city, which was an interesting experience. We then sat at a cafe overlooking the water, it had a beautiful view. We flew back to Athens on Friday night and spent the night at a hotel.

We had a free day in Athens on Saturday. We went to the Acropolis and then walked around the city, did some shopping and sat at a cafe. We then had our going away dinner and spent the night dancing at an Athens nightclub. We then got on our 6AM flight back home, which was very sad. We were all so tired that none of us noticed our flight from Athens to Paris took off then had fly back tot he airport and land due to an engine leak. Luckily, we eventually got home safely.

Overall Greece was a great trip but I will definitely go back. I met lost of great B-school students and it was great having Dave there.

When we got back to Chicago my parents happened to be visiting so they drove Dave and I back to Evanston on Sunday. They came back on Monday and we had breakfast, which was fun. Dave left on Monday which was extremely sad, I miss him already!

Today was my first ay of orientation. It was definitely interesting. They divide us into groups, and mine is the Jive Turkeys. We had a cheering competition today and my group lost pretty badly but we still had fun. I am getting ready to go out to the bar pretty soon with my group, another mandatory orientation activity.

Sorry for the long update! I miss all my Minnesota friends so much, but I should be visiting eventually!