May The 4th Be With You

First of all, happy Stars Wars Day (see title). Today, the academic year is officially over! Commencement has begun and Bozeman traffic is subsequently bananas. Although Montanans don’t seem anxious to get out on the water in these temperatures, it is also the opening day of boating season. The point is there is a lot to celebrate. This is the time of transition.

For some students, that transition is graduation. They leave the safety of the university bubble and step out to face the grown up world armed with mortarboard and diploma. Congratulations to my lovely roommate, Emmy, who graduates this afternoon in Economics, and has successfully secured a banking job in town.

For some students, the transition is to a new home. Many leases end May 1st, and Bozeman is full of cars with mattresses haphazardly strapped to the roof, corners adorned with microwaves, and futons, couches, and armchairs arranged artfully in driveways. The indirect street corner/sidewalk barter system is well underway.

For others, the transition is going back to an old home. This weekend, Bozeman is full of cars packed full to  bursting with clothes, shoes, skis, mini fridges, boots, backpacks, and books. The start of the summer months means a return to a hometown, an old job, and old friends for many, including myself. You CAN go home again, and as much as I love Bozeman, I am so excited to be heading back to the west coast.

For others still, the transition is an internship. My other roommate, Alissa, was awarded a prestigious research internship at the University of Washington this summer. She will live and work in a new city, with new people, and learn a new skill. Her work experience and resume will expand, and she gets to hang out in my fair city during the most beautiful time of year.

Some transitions are not as obvious. We make small transitions everyday. Being an upperclassman is a transition. Ending a year in the dorms is a transition. Deciding you are going to eat healthy this summer is a transition, and some transitions are even smaller than this. However, this time of the year is special for students, because the advent of so many changes for ourselves and those around us gives us an excuse to reflect on the ways our lives have changed over the last year, and how we plan to better and change ourselves in the months to come.

Happy summer to all, and I’ll see you next year!

 

Week in Review

Thursday: Anxiously print poster for Undergraduate Scholars Program Research Celebration at 8am in the morning. Thank you to CopyCats  for running out a ink the night before and postponing the printing of my poster until a half hour before presentation setup. Buy groceries; I have been eating too many carrots sticks, lemonade, and kidney beans as of late.

Friday: Finish/Start for real my Peachtree Accounting Information Systems project. Bike to Wells Fargo and transfer security deposit to new landlord’s account. Get harassed by Wells Fargo staff to open a Wells Fargo checking account. Politely deny offer. Schedule end of semester massage!

Saturday: Go downtown and look for awesome deals on winter weather accessories, specifically cute hats and gloves. Go to the computer lab in Reid Hall only to find that it is not open on Saturdays. Run into Lainey on the way out of Reid who has just finished taking the GRE subject test in psychology. Decide my problem is trivial. Get a coffee in the library and run into fellow accounting students. Proceed to gossip for an hour.

Sunday:  Half work on homework during the day and listen to the TBA A Capella group in the SUB. Chelsea’s 21st birthday dinner! Sweet Chili all the way, I’ve been missing Thai cuisine. Go to bed early and mentally prepare for Dead Week.

Monday: Study for last quiz in Business Law. Finish and print all reports for Peachtree project due tomorrow. Work on expense reports for Peter so I can get some money before the semester is over. Review RSO funding applications for meeting tomorrow. Go to Leadership Institute event featuring testimony from a family who escaped from North Korea enduring incredible hardships.

Tuesday: Run out of classes as soon as they are over to puppy-sit Emery’s new puppy! Play tug of war with the puppy will eating string cheese and watching Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Go home, shower. Dress up. Head to campus for Funding Board at 5pm and then head to the College of Business Scholarship Awards Dinner. Hooray for scholarships!

Wednesday: Take Operations Management Exam at 10am. Rock it. Write a thank you letter of appreciation to my scholarship donor, Jake Jabs. Do re-writes on two law case briefs to get some points back. Prep for presentation/meeting with President Cruzado concerning funding of Sustained Dialogue for the coming year.

Thursday (Today): Meeting with President Cruzado, come out feeling encouraged. Decide to get up early tomorrow morning to sell back some textbooks. Submit final report/exit survey for the Undergraduate Scholars Program so my final stipend payment will be released to me on time. Trim some hangnails that have been bugging me all day. Work on Chaco tan. Bake scones. Prepare presentation handout for last Honors seminar tomorrow. Omar is taking us to Colombos for lunch in celebration of the last day of seminar!

Whew! Finals week still to come!

100% Chance of Shitstorm

MSU’s student newspaper, The Exponent, has added a two page section at the end of each edition labeled “The Sugarbeet” this year, a parody piece in the style of The Onion. Anyway, at the top of the last page in this week’s Exponent was a weekend weather prediction, “100% Chance of Shitstorm.” A little background on this week: it was sunny and beautiful and warm. It actually got up to 70 degrees at one point. (After only 4 days of sun, my Chaco tan is the best of anyone I’ve seen this year. Be jealous.) Because of this, I put little stock in the Exponent’s weather prediction. What this prediction a joke in and of itself because of the awesome weather in recent days? Was the fact that a weather prediction was just being described as ‘shitstorm’ the funny part? In any case, I read the Sugarbeet, laughed, and started doing the crossword.

On Saturday morning, I hauled my cookies to school in my sweatshirt and Chacos. The morning was lovely, it wasn’t warm yet, but for 8:30am it was wonderful, the kind of morning you could tell was going to turn into a gorgeous spring specimen. Meet my meeting ended at 10:45, I walked through the SUB and turned the corner to head down the stairs. Shitstorm indeed. Not only was it snowing, it was accumulating. Big sloppy wet flakes 2 inches deep.

Today is Sunday. It is still snowing and has been pretty much since it started Saturday morning.

Bozeman Weather, you are drunk, go home.

Other stories from this week:

Last school year, I had a little bit outdated but otherwise awesome phone. It was a smart phone by design, but I absolutely will never pay for a data plan until my employer makes me. Then over the summer, my charger broke. Now you may think I could just dig around in my house for another phone charger that fits mine. Normally that would be an option, but this phone is from Spain and the chargers in America are not friends with European sockets. The only other charger I had for the phone was a car charger, but because I don’t have a car this didn’t do me any good. So I switched to the only other spare phone in my house, my dad’s very first smart phone, probably circa 2000.

This old phone is so embarrassing that I don’t even like to take it out in class to text for fear that my classmates will judge me. This fear makes me a very focused student.

I could not stand to carry around that horrible old phone in public any longer. So this week I ventured out into Bozeman and looked for an adapter that would convert a car charger into a wall charger. Such a thing exists! I bought one at Walmart for $10 and now I have an awesome phone again. Touch screen and everything. The only thing that tells you it’s a little old and not from this continent is the fact that it comes with a stylus. Which is kind of badass.

Thoughts

These last couple of days have been very busy. This blog has turned into a stream of consciousness document as a result.

Finding a place to live next year that I’m jazzed about has been hard. I have come to realize that all but one of close friends have plans that diverge from mine next year. The one whose plans are not certainly divergent is a little flaky. So that’s a little frustrating. I’ve come to the conclusion that living with people I don’t know is not getting be excited. In fact, it kind of makes me sad. Obviously I could end up being great friends with my future roommates, right now it kind of feels like I’m cutting myself off from my social world. Currently I spend a lot of time with my roommates, and love their company. Not having them right there at my fingertips whenever I want to chat or share news of my day will certainly be a big change. At the same time, the time is ticking and I need to secure a place. In all honesty, I’ve done a good job putting the feelers out there, and really have about four different places I could live. I’m just not inclined to pick one because I don’t feel excited about them. This inaction is totally unsustainable obviously, so I will have to make a decision soon. Sigh.

Today I spent 8 1/2 hours in a meeting. This is a Saturday. This is Mass Funding season, the time when all Registered Student Organizations at MSU can submit budget proposals for the coming fiscal year. These budgets can be lengthy, as the only hard and fast requirement is that the total requested amount be greater than $1000. A total of 59 applications were submitted. For each one, the board deliberates, amends each request as deemed appropriate, and votes. We vote on amendment as they come up and then on the entire thing. When a single budget has six individual event requests included, this can be a long process. And that is only the first round through. Because the student body has passed an activity fee increase (the amount that each student contributes to the pool of money that these clubs can request), that has not yet been approved by the Board of Regents, we are essentially evaluating budgets based on two different scenarios. Everyone knows that the Board of Regents will approve the activity fee increase, but we as a board cannot operate under this assumption as it currently stands. So we have to make allocations based on the current activities fee revenue pool as well as allocations based on the future change. Policy dictates that we make a allocations according to the current state of the revenue, even though we know we will have double that amount to work with. Because the Board of Regents won’t meet until the end of May, we have double the work to do. Awesome, I love spending my weekends at school.

Tonight, the Final Four showdown was played. I’ve been watching all the tournament games that I can, so this night was pretty awesome. Also, I learned about a month ago that my step-grandmother, who everyone can agree is no sports fan, got to go to Atlanta and watch the Final Four games because a friend of her’s had extra tickets. What are the odds?

Thesis stress. Enough said.

I’ve kind of come to the realization that I probably won’t have any fun on the weekends between now and when school ends. I have almost accepted this. Almost. On the upside though, I’m very excited to plan and go on a fun after-finals trip to someplace awesome. After that I’m excited to go home to Seattle and see my sister graduate high school.

Being an Adult

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be an adult. I feel like lots of individuals come to college thinking they have crossed into the dimension that is adulthood. I suppose I have felt this way from time to time, but something happens almost every week that reminds me that I am still very much a dependent. A very wise camp counselor once told me that you don’t officially become an adult until you buy a couch that has never been in someone else’s living room. While this measure of adulthood is certainly meant to be somewhat humorous, it uncovers a little secret about a fundamental characteristic of adulthood: being financially independent is not a characteristic of a child. Today, I felt like an adult because I set up and arrived on time to an apartment showing and went home with a rental application. I went to the grocery store, remembered my own shopping bags, and used self control when Oreos were on sale. I went to the Financial Aid Office, the Registrar, the Graduate School, and my advisor and tried to get a question answered. I did not throw a temper tantrum when no one could give me a definitive advice. So grown up.

Does living consistently within your budget give you adult points? Even when that budget is your parents’ money? Maybe it makes you a quasi-adult. Not a self sufficient powerhouse, but certainly more than helpless high schooler. Maybe for those of us who are lucky enough to be supported by our parents during college so we can focus our attention on our studies are in training. There is nothing wrong with being in training. You’re not an expert yet, but you aren’t far from it. College is a time to prepare for the real world when the cord will be cut completely. There’s nothing wrong with that. So my advice to current and aspiring college students: get as much practice as you can being an adult in college and enjoy your safely net while you have it. Earn as many quasi-adult points as you can. The transition into adulthood will be a smoother one. It’s okay to feel like you are growing up as you go away to college. But don’t be too anxious to do so. Use college as a test run; no one gets it perfect the first time, so getting a mulligan is always nice.

Enjoy your quasi-adulthood! It’s the best of both worlds!

Picking Up Speed

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you may have the impression that this academic year has not been very stressful for me. And you would be correct. This week that all changed. I like to think of myself as a low stress individual, a happy marriage of my solid work ethic and ability to let the little things go. The current change in my stress trend occurred this last Thursday, days after returning from Spring Break. 

Spring Break is an interesting time. Mentally, I put it in the middle of the semester, when it really falls right of center, marking the approximately 5 week countdown until finals week. This sudden realization coupled with a day full of new assignments has succeeded in turning my usually laid back psyche on its head.This post is as much a look into the busy life of an almost 4th year Accounting student for you, as it is an exercise in planning for me. The following is an account of the work that must be completed within the next 5 weeks.

Accounting exam over pensions, error analysis, and statement of cash flows

2 Operations Management exams, over material of which none has currently been presented

Accounting Info Systems exam over internal controls and computer fraud

Accounting project using Peachtree

Accounting research paper

Moot Court brief and presentation

2 Business Law quizzes

Honors seminar position paper and presentation

Undergraduate Thesis paper

Celebration of Research presentation

Mass Funding application for Sustained Dialogue

Registration for Fall semster

Find place to live for Fall semester

Eat

Sleep

Spring Break (NW style)

Woohoo! Spring Break!

On the whole, my version of spring break is atypical. While lots of students dream of warm weather and sunshine, I dream of wet weather and sea breezes. I spent my break on the Washington coast, relaxing and giving my skin some much needed relief from the dry Bozeman air. I got to eat Thai food with my favorites friends at my favorite restaurant, watch my siblings play in their lacrosse games, have lunch with my grandparents, and forget to do any of my homework!

Being good spectators

 

MSU's Tunnel of Oppression

Reblogged from katiechamberlin:

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Last week, the Diversity Awareness Office at MSU put on the 2nd Annual Tunnel of Oppression exhibit. The Tunnel is an opportunity for individuals and groups to create exhibits highlighting a specific kind of oppression experienced in our world today. Most of the exhibits are put on by student groups, which included Students for Life, Students for Choice, Interhall RHA, Advanced Sculpture Classes, College Democrats, QSA, National Coalition for Men - MSU, Sustained Dialogue, The VOICE Center, The Women's Center, MSU Libraries, and The Diversity Awareness Office this year.

Read more… 52 more words

Oscar Night

All day, I was anxiously looking forward to watching the Oscars at 6:30pm. Not being in possession of a television, I usually rely on my good friend Chelsea and her double-as-a-single dorm room to indulge my award show vice. Unfortunately for me (and someone else), Chelsea informed me a half hour before the start of the show that she couldn’t let me into her room because she was in the ER with one of her residents (this is the someone else I mentioned before). While I am not so heartless as to dismiss the medical plight of that poor resident, I couldn’t help but be crushed that I wasn’t going to get to watch the Oscars.

I think we can all agree that this is a slightly skewed assessment of priorities on my part, but I think it underscores pretty well the mindset that sets in during the two weeks before Spring Break. Winter is getting long, midterms are in full swing, and the first and only week-long break of the academic year is fast approaching. At this point, spring break seems so far away and I using life’s little pleasures to help me count down the days. Oscar night was obviously one of them. At the same time, I find that I am having a love-hate relationship with counting down the days until break. The Wednesday before break, I have my second intermediate accounting exam of the semester, which includes two of the hardest chapters in the text, revenue recognition and deferred tax accounting. Lord save me. So I want break to come, but I don’t want the test. So even though I am dreading my exam, the fact that it scares me is at some extent making break come faster. See how hard this is?

Moral of the story: Spring Break is awesome, but waiting for it is hard. Good luck!

Skiiing Mill Creek

Sometimes you have awesome plans for the weekend but they just never seem to happen. Perhaps never is a strong word, but for two and a half weeks, my partner in outdoor crime, Emery, and I have been planning a cross country skiing trip to Paradise Valley. Today, this plan finally came to fruition. Here is a pictorial recreation of that adventure. FYI, we ended up going to Mill Creek. It’s pretty close to Bozeman which is nice. Take I-90 all the way to Livingston, get on highway 89 southbound for about 15 miles. Turn left on Mill Creek Road (between mile post 37 and 38). Go straight back into the canyon until you come to a gate and can’t go no further:) SKI!

Be prepared for random car maintenance. When your car has been yelling at you for weeks to top off your wiper fluid, now is a good a time as any to make that happen.

Journeying into Paradise Valley with the Absoroka Range to greet us. Such beautiful weather! We felt inadequate because we don’t know the names of the peaks. No map in the glove compartment.

Sled dog teams at the trail head! Super cute and yowly. It was then we realized that our method of transportation up the canyon was woefully lame sauce.

New cross country skis at ASMSU Outdoor Rec Center. I’m glad my student fees are going toward things that I actually use. P.S. $6 for boots, poles, and skis ain’t half bad.

Emery pretending to be an LL Bean catalog model

Katie pretending to be an LL Bean catalog model

Came across two eagles gnawing on this kill. Indistinguishable without its head.

Emery further examining the kill. Getting up toward lunch time dontcha know

We encounter more sled dog teams! Five altogether

On our way out. Looking grimy but thankful there was no wind, lots of sun, and a three day weekend!