Long overdue update

I haven't posted here in a while because many of the major things in my life aren't really blog appropriate. And because i have been really busy. But as school is winding down it is time for an update.
The past few months have been really busy but good too. I had a bachelorette party in Evanston that my sister threw me, it was a lot of fun. I got to spend the weekend with some old and new friends. My high school friends and i hung out on Friday night. Then on Saturday we went for manicures and pedicures and then out downtown. We got to our hotel, played a fun game, then went to an awesome place for dinner, Quartinos. It was great! We then went to Martini Park and McFaddens, both awesome places to be. It was a great time overall, and so awesome to see so many people i knew!
The next weekend was the triathlon, I've already posted on that.
After that was Memorial Day. Dave and I threw a party and I had a blast! The weekend was a really great weekend and i was so happy to be in Minnesota.
The next weekend we went to Michigan for a friend's wedding. It was a friend of mine from high school who was marrying a friend who works at General Mills now and went to college with us. I saw a lot of high school friends i hadn't hung out with in a while and i had a great time on the dance floor, it was awesome!
The weekend after i went to Minnesota for another bachelorette party. It was really a great time. We went to Albertville before, then to Katie's to hang out, then to dinner at Bella's, then to bars after. It was perfect and I really loved having all my friends around! I had so much fun, and I can't wait to go back to Minnesota to do it again!
I got back to Evanston and the past week was crazy. Tuesday was the last Tuesday night in Evanston so i went to the bars with friends and had a great time. Wednesday was our MMM final social. We had a barbecue and then went out on a trolley. The trolley took us downtown and we stopped at bars along the way. There was also large amounts of drinking on the trolley. It was probably the best time i have had in Evanston/ Chicago so far, and it really makes me sad to leave. Thursday was my friend Kyles bachelor party in Milwaukee, so I went to that.
This weekend I was in Michigan for another wedding, and now my wedding planning has hit a fast note. I graduate this Saturday and I can't believe I am forever done with classes. Part of me is happy, because I was ready to be done, but a large part of me is also sad to be leaving behind all the great people I have met here and the college student lifestyle. This week is grad week, our final chance to say goodbye to everything that is Kelloggg. I will miss it all but I am also excited to move back with everyone in Minnesota. It will definitely be a bittersweet moment.

The Shampoo Effect

For all you disbelievers, here is the definition on the urban dictionary, I didn't make it up!

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=shampoo+effect

Almost doesn't count... or does it?

I posted a while ago about how i was going to do the triathlon this weekend. Well things unfortunately didn't go as planned for me. I tried my hardest but couldn't do it. I'm not going to make excuses here (while there are plenty that could be made) - I will just have to try harder next year. I told Dave that I am definitely going back to Galena next year and that I will probably try another triathlon later this year after I have more time to practice. Dave did finish even with his hurting knee so that is awesome for him! I will probably post a more detailed blog later about the weekend but I am going to wait for the disappointment to die down first.

First Day of Class

This is my last first day of class ever. Kind of sad but happy at the same time. I had an awesome break, although I didn't get half of what i needed to get done.

And I got a new bike so i can ride the triathlon better. I'm really excited about it! Here it is:

Random thought

So after being stuck up late at night working on a project i began to read blogs. And I read a friend's blog about someone who passed away who they knew who was on drugs. It made me think that life is really funny (probably not the right word) in some ways. We never know what someone is hiding. No matter how well we think I know someone, I'm always amazed by the new things i learn about them. It is so interesting how you can never really know someone. These are the things I think about when I have spent all day working on homework...

A request

So I have a ton of work to do on my DECS and Integration project. Of course that means that everything else is getting done instead. I updated the wedding webpage, and worked on other random things today. And then of course I am updating my blog right now. I went to Barnes and Nobles and got some new books to read over break. I decided i needed classics so I got A Prayer for Owen Meany, Count of Monte Cristo, and Les Miserables. I also looked at my music collection and realized I am getting sick of my songs. So I have two requests:
1) Let me know what songs/albums you think (old or new) my music collection must have.
2) Let me know if you think of any great books I should read over break.

How quickly time flies

I can't believe I haven't updated in a month! So crazy how quickly time flies. I haven't really been up to too much lately. It is now finals time, and so weird to think I am almost 85% done with my MBA. I think I will have mixed feelings when I leave. I will be excited to be done with school, the classes are beginning to wear me down. And it will be nice to be back in Minnesota with everyone. But I will also miss my friends here. In the past few months I have really began to learn who my friends are here and I feel like I am hitting my stride, of course right as I get ready to leave. But i can't lie, it will be nice to not do a long distance relationship anymore. So weird to think how many things will change in the next six months!
Right now I am trying hard to get things done before i go to Minneapolis. I am totally done with one class, taking a final in another tomorrow (I am a little apprehensive about it), and then i have a project due for a third one. But we also have our big integration project and I am trying to get it done before i leave Evanston on Tuesday for Michigan.
I'm excited to go to Michigan and do all the fun wedding planning stuff. I get to pick out the cake, flowers, and all the fun details. My mom also brought back the sari for me to wear at the rehearsal dinner and the invites from india, and I'm really excited to see them. I think we are going to send out our invites really early so that we can try to plan events and such for out of town guests. I'm also really excited for all my friends to meet each other!
On other exciting news, we booked our tickets for our honeymoon! We are going to Italy, and I really can't wait. I'm going to also plan the wedding over break. There are so many things going on for me to be excited about, especially my trip to MInneapolis where i get to make turkey dinner, hang out with everyone and maybe stop by the store where i bought my dress to see the sample again since i am beginning to forget what it looks like!

Counting Down...

Its funny. In some ways I feel like I am more at home in Evanston than ever before, and in others I find myself in the transitional phase. The past week was a fun week. On Monday night I played poker with my roommate and some friends. I ended up about even on that. On Tuesday I took a pasta making class which was awesome. I think I am going to find someone with a pasta maker that I can borrow so that I can make it. And I can definitely tell you that there will be a pasta maker on our registry.

Wednesday was a very boring night but a good one, I got a lot of homework done, especially since i had a quiz and an exam on Thursday. However, my Valentines day was a fun night. My friend Amit and I made dinner together for the MMMs. We made a pesto chicken in parchment, Amit made risotto, we served caprese salad with bread, and then I made a weight watchers dessert which was awesome. After hanging out at our place for a bit we hit the bars and had a fun night.

On Friday I went to a friend's house and played lots of games but suddenly it was 5 AM! I recovered on Saturday from my late night and tried to get over the cold I had. Athena came over on Saturday night and we went out to dinner and rented a movie. It was called "Dedication". I was looking for a movie that was totally upbeat and that was definitely not it. It was cute and definitely quirky, and upbeat at the end, but just not what I was looking for. I needed something to lift me out of my bad mood (more on that later).

Today I went grocery shopping, worked on the wedding website (it is now updated! http://www.smeetaanddavid.weddings.com ), did a lot of homework (I thought second year was supposed to be easy!). And now I just got done working out, I'm finally getting better at the treadmill and getting back into running shape!

So as you can see, I have been doing some things that should really make me happy, that would normally make me feel like I am having a great time. However, lately I have been down and I can't figure out why. I think part of it is homesickness. I miss Minnesota, I miss being with Dave, and I miss having a life that has a schedule to it. I also ironically think I am sad to leave Evanston and leave behind the friends and the easy life I have here (when will I ever get to pursue so many things at once!). But on the other hand I miss my Minnesota friends.

I also think that I finally see things coming together for me but I am afraid that something will get in the way and mess things up. I mean I have a great job lined up after all of the recruiting, I will be coming back to the place I love, with the friends I love, and I get the things I have wanted most for the past few years, to be married to Dave. It all seems too perfect and I think I am afraid that something will get messed up along the way.

So many conflicting thoughts. I just can't understand it. I find myself counting down the days until I graduate, and can be in Minnesota for good. I knew it would be hard when I decided to come to business school but I don't know that I grasped how difficult it would be, and I just can't understand why I have so many conflicting thoughts. Anyway, now that the cold I caught seems to be going away and I can work out again, the natural endorphins are helping me feel a lot better.

I am rereading this post and realizing that it probably makes very little sense to most people, but it is too late to fix it. That's why I probably shouldn't decide to work out right before midnight ;-)

Am I crazy?

So my roomate decided to sign up for a triathlon. Somehow I got convinced to sign up for it with her! So, on May 17 I will be doing the triathlon in Galena. Here is the website for it. http://www.galena.org/triathlon . Anyone want to join me?

An engagement party

I had a good week last week. First, I finally got my Save the Dates sent, which is such a relief. There are a few more I still have to send but I am almost done! I was really good all week and stayed in (although the weather played a big part in that). I went to dance on Monday and Tuesday night which was awesome! It was so much fun, and its funny how you learn to appreciate being able to do those things after not being able to do it because of mono.
On Friday night I went to a tennis lesson, which I loved. There were only 5 of us, so we got some good attention. We started off with some good warmup drills (and I thought I was back in shape but the drills showed me I have a ways to go) and then learned all about technique on ground strokes. I got some good pointers, hopefully I will be better by the time summer rolls around. After that I went to a potluck. I made an Indian chicken curry which was actually really good. I think I am going to make it part of the weekly rotation. Next time I am going to add my mom's dumplings, take out most of the the butter, and try it with my mom's spices. After the potluck we went to the Keg. It was actually fun because our group of 20 people were the only ones there besides a few random town people.
On Friday Athena and I went for some preliminary bridesmaid dress shopping. Then I had probably the highlight of my weekend. Some of the people here threw me an engagement party. It was very sweet. We went to dinner at my new favorite sushi place and then Leslie and Nate brought a cake along. It was really sweet of everyone and I had a wonderful time!
Today I didn't do much, lots of homework catchup and working out (since I didn't yesterday) and watching the superbowl, which I'm not going to talk about...

Classes and and a fun weekend

Well school has started in full force, fun times! I have been pretty busy between wedding planning and other things.
I went to Michigan two weekends ago. It was an okay time, got some bad family news. But I did have a great time dress shopping with my sister. We picked out my dress! If you want to know which one it is you will have to e-mail me, but I am really excited! We also looked at some bridesmaid dresses but we will have to go back to do that later, we did get some ideas though. I think I am going to do black dresses with a red sash. For those of you who have seen my dress do you think the black will look okay with it?

Classes are actually going pretty well. I have an integration project with Ford. That isn't really exciting but I do really like my group members so that makes it better. Basically we are consultants to Ford. We are trying to make a recommendation to them on what risks they face in the future with relation to their water usage. It is an okay project, not really interesting to me, but most of the projects we had to pick from weren't very interesting.

I am also taking a Derivatives class. It seems really interesting so far. To clarify, when I say Derivatives I mean Financial Derivatives. I'm learning a lot about options so far, and some really interesting way to invest. The professor is pretty dry, but the material is useful to know in general. This week we learned all about collars.

I'm also taking a class i have dreaded for a while, marketing research. It is required for our marketing major. The class is okay so far, not as bad as I expected. The professor is actually
not that bad, and has some good case examples.

My final class is a Decision Analysis class. I love that class, it is really great! The professor is
awesome! He is so dynamic and manages to make classes really apply to real life. Overall, the class is supposed to teach us about how to make the best decision in any situation. There have been some pretty though provoking lectures so far. The professor has asked us what our perfect life would be in relation to how long we would live and how much money we would want every year. Then he asked us, if today I gave you the choice of keeping the life you have or taking a chance between either having your perfect life (in terms of age lived and money received) or else instantaneous death with a certain probability of instantaneous death, what would the probability of death have to be for you to take that chance. He says depending on your day, the percentage you will take will be different (very true). Overall an interesting question...

This weekend was a lot of fun. Ed and Dave came to visit. Ed came early on Friday and we spent the morning at the Shed Aquarium. There are some pretty cool things there. Dave met us later along with my friend Athena and the four of us went to dinner for pizza at Gino's East in Chicago. It was okay, not the best deep dish I have had but okay. Afterwards we went back to Athena's for some Euchre. Dave and Athena ended up victorious for Friday night, but Ed and I came back on Saturday and managed to win.

Speaking of Saturday, on Saturday the four of us went to the Field museum in the morning. They have really changed it from the last time I was there, I was really impressed. We then came back to Evanston and made gumbo for dinner which was really good. We had a couple of friends over and played some boys against girls Catch Phrase. The girls realized that the boys would keep on playing until they won, so we let the boys win 6-5 (at least that's our story!). After our friends left we had a Euchre rematch and Ed and I won!

On Sunday we watched football most of the day. I was happy the Pats won (go Brady!), but sad to see the Packers lose, i think the Pats Packers would've been a great matchup! Also, Athena, Ed and I went to sushi after we dropped Dave off at the airport. The sushi place was really good, I would definitely go back. Ed and I then came back to my place and watched Reign Over me and then played some Cribbage. I managed to beat Ed in two games, although as he figures it out I think I may be losing soon!

Today Ed and I picked up Athena and went to Michigan Ave. We went to lunch at an Indian restaurant which was nice and then walked around a bit. Good times overall. Then I dropped Ed off at the airport and tried to stop off at the mall. I went to Victoria Secret and after waiting 40 minutes in the line to pay for my items, I gave up and left. Ridiculous, but it saved me money. I came back, took a long nap, which felt really good (but might explain why i can't go to sleep and am instead writing really detailed blog entries) and then went to dance which was awesome. Tomorrow morning I will go to dance, then I have meetings all day. Fun times overall.

More Details Finalized

I accepted the General's offer, so I will be there next year and I'm so excited!

Also, we got our church reserved, as well as the hall. We will be getting married on August 9. The church ceremony will start at 4 at the Cathedral downtown our reception will follow at 6 at Blossom Heath in St Clair Shores near where my parents live. I'm so relieved the plans are coming together.

Some updates

Just found out I got the offer from the General! I am so excited, but still not 100% sure where I will go, there are some loose ends i need to tie up first. Also, I'm 99% sure the wedding will be August 9,2008, so save the date!