Presenting at Career Day

Housman Career Day

I spent the morning speaking at the annual career day at the school where my wife teaches. To our knowledge, this is the only elementary school in the area that has a career day and I think it is great that they do so. There were about 20 or 30 presenters including the district superintendent and a Houston city council member. The children - third, fourth, and fifth graders - got to choose three presentations to attend, and each speaker was given 20 minutes per group. Combined, about 30 kids attended my presentation and, for the most part, they seemed interested. (I admit that I did stoop to bribery to help keep them happy.)

Early in my childhood I was indoctrinated into the fact that I would inevitably attend college. So were almost all of the kids in the area where I grew up. (In point of fact, probably only 1/2 did, though.) The school where I spoke this morning would be traditionally considered high risk, except that I can't call it high risk since the principal believes that term to be a cop out. Approximately 85% of the children at the school are on a free or reduced lunch program, and I expect that far less than half of the kids I spoke to today will receive any sort of post-high school education. I'm proud of what my wife does there and I think that the principal is doing a phenomenal job of preparing the students for their future.

The underlying message of my presentation centered on how important education is. I hope some of it sunk in to these kids. I'm very thankful of what my parents did in urging me to go to college, and I hope enough people tell these kids the same thing.

Tuition

I received my official financial aid award letter in the mail yesterday. There was good news and bad news.

The good:

- I'm getting a scholarship.

The bad:

- Said scholarship will be part of my grant money rather than part of my loan money. Translation: the amount of "free" money that I'm getting won't change.

- Tuition for 2005-2006 is going to be nearly $40,000.

Now I've got to figure out what the differences are between an unsubsidized Stafford Loan, a subsidized Stafford Loan, and a Northwestern need based loan. The only part of which I'm 100% sure is that we'll be needy.

I've always been committed to going to business school and accepting of the financial consequences of such a decision, but when it is time to literally put my money where my mouth is...WOW. Eighty thousand dollars (plus living expenses and all the other expenses associated with school) is a LOT of money. When my wife went to school to get her graduate degree I complained about her tuition and it was $2500 per semester. I'm looking at just a little bit more than that at Kellogg.

I plan to keep complaining about this for a long time. I figure that I'm paying for the right to do so. However, I also realize that in the long run the rewards will more than outweigh this upfront cost. At least I hope they do.

The Kitten Part 2

What I had hoped would turn into a story with a happy ending, did the opposite. Last night, within minutes of being exactly one week since we found him, our kitten died. We had named him Asher late last week.

Asher had his ups and downs, but never could quite get going again. He ate a lot at first, then slowed down, but even at the end he was eating some. He seemed to get over his intestinal bug, too. However, I don’t think his liver ever started functioning properly. His yellow skin color remained and even darkened throughout the week. Various veterinarians told us there wasn’t anything to do except hope and pray that his liver would start working again.

Thankfully he didn’t seem to be in pain ever, as he spent most of Sunday on one of our laps purring. In fact, he was purring yesterday evening when I picked him up so that I could move around. When I put him down, he wasn’t able to stand up. He stayed in our laps the rest of the evening and seemed happy up to the end.

Asher was a tough little bugger but I think we found him a little too late.

The Quick Trip

Our 24 hour trip to Evanston went quite well. We met our new landlords and we liked them. We saw the place we have rented and we liked it. It is older but in good condition. The neighborhood is very residential and very nice. Although it is three miles from Kellogg, our landlords don't think walking/cycling to campus every day will be unreasonable.

We were able to come reach an agreement about the lease, so we are the legal renters now. The plan is for us to move up in mid-June and to then start our vacation.

The worst part about our trip: it was snowing.

A Kitten

Our family has expanded…temporarily. Sunday night my wife was walking outside our apartment when she saw a sickly looking stray kitten. She came and got me and I tried to pick it up. When I was ten feet away, the kitten bolted for a nearby bush. Based on this initial impression, I figured it was a feral cat and that there was no way we were going to catch it so we went back inside and tried to forget about it.

Fast forward one hour. My wife and I are walking to get our laundry. We see the kitten again. We assume we’re going to get another vanishing act, especially since we now have our overly friendly 40-pound dog with us. Amazingly, this time the kitten doesn’t run. In fact, he seems excited to be picked up. (I also wonder if the aforementioned bolt exhausted his last energy reserves.)

My initial impression of his condition, based on sight alone, was bad. The truth was much, much worse. He was literally skin and bones. I’ve never seen a living animal this emaciated. We converted our dog’s crate into a makeshift triage unit for the kitten. Our dog, Mia, wasn’t bothered at all. Our permanent cat, Cayenne, made a bit of a fuss at first but soon moved into the “I’m better than you and shall thusly not acknowledge your existence” phase. She hasn’t bothered the kitten since the first day.

Monday morning, I was again impressed by the recovery ability of animals. He could stand without falling over and he could walk some. My wife took him to the veterinarian Monday evening and the prognosis was not good.

• He weighed four pounds. I had initially estimated him to be 3 months old based on his size. Turns out he already has his 6-month teeth and has been using them for awhile. The vet thinks he may be 8 months old: the same age as Cayenne who weighs 12 pounds (and is skinny and still growing).
• He was dangerously dehydrated and starved, almost to the point of death.
• His liver was shutting down due to the above. Indicative of this was his yellow skin.
• Otherwise, he was relatively healthy. He had an intestinal bug, but no mites, diseases, or other communicable ailments.

The vet sent him home with us with medicine, special food, and the warning that his survival chances were pretty low. We have fed him the high calorie food (even to the point of putting it on his feet so that he would lick it off) to get more nutrients in his body. Apparently overfeeding an animal with a failing liver may help to get the liver functioning again. He has been drinking lots of water. We’ve also been giving him medicine for the intestinal bug every evening.

Tuesday night I gave him a bath and left him somewhat wet afterward thinking that he would lick it off since cats are such freaks about being clean. He didn’t even attempt to clean himself. His condition Tuesday night was the low point and I wasn’t sure he would make it to morning.

He did. And he looked a lot better. Eating 2 ½ cans of high calorie cat food in 48 hours will do that to you I guess. In fact, he got around 25X the calories that a normal cat should have gotten. Last night (Wednesday) he walked from his cage to the kitchen while resting only one time and without falling. This morning he made it without stopping.The kitten is remarkably friendly. In stark contrast to Cayenne, he loves to sit on laps. The vet’s analysis is that he was a household pet at one point a long, long time ago and that he was put out or lost. We’re going to put up signs once he has recovered a bit more, but I don’t expect to hear from anyone. In order to have his growth stunted so much, he has had to have been starved for several months and even if he is an unintentional stray, I don’t think we’ll be able to find his owner.

So we’re left with finding a home for him. We’ve got a couple of leads, but we haven’t found anyone 100% ready to take him. Nor would we be able to give him up yet. He is doing remarkably better, but he still has a long road of recovery ahead of him. I’m hoping that by the time we are ready to move to Evanston we have found a home for him and that he is healthy. Worst case scenario, we will take him to my parents’ farm and he can live out his days basking in the sun and being overfed.

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In other news, I gave my official notice at work today. My last day is June 7 and it is finally set in stone.

Work

The fanfare of leaving my job has been somewhat dissipated by two other recent, surprising changes. There are about 15 people in the company that do what I do. Two weeks ago, one changed jobs internally. Last week, one left the company. In two months, my name will be added to the casualty list.

Getting my MBA is a good excuse for me to leave, but truth be told, I would have been changing jobs internally or externally no matter what this summer. The group in which I work is becoming very dysfunctional and I would have definitely looked to ply my trade elsewhere. The opportunity to go to Kellogg just happens to be perfect timing.

Yet Another Decision

Much like the decision as to what school to attend, my wife and I have now been faced with another tough choice. She has a potential job for this summer in Evanston. She hasn't been offered the job yet, but with her qualifications, I don't foresee a situation where she won't be. The good news is that it may lead to a full time position in the full. It would also be some extra money (although if we were that concerned about money, I wouldn't be leaving my job so soon). The bad news is that we would probably have to forego our planned vacationing. I think we are both leaning toward her not taking the job, but I have some definite qualms about turning it down. She shouldn't have trouble getting a different job...but nothing is ever certain. If we turn this down and she can't find a job in Evanston in the fall, we'll be in a tough financial situation. I would hate to put her in that situation. However, this summer may be the last chance we have at an extended vacation until we retire. We've got until Friday to decide.

Another Trip to Evanston

We've decided to go to Chicago in two weeks to look at our new coach house. Our plan was to save money by not going up there again, but we wanted to get an idea of what we've got ourselves into. We're only going to stay for one night and we're going to be there for less than 24 hours, so it won't disrupt our packing and moving arrangements too much. It will really be nice to be able to preplan our decor, though.

Student Finances

As I start to budget for the upcoming two years, I'm starting to wonder just how crazy I really am. One of the good things about being married is that we'll still have one income while I'm in school. Unfortunately, that one income won't cover tuition + living expenses + insurance + etc. while I'm out of the workforce. We were almost to the point of being 100% debt free (just a bit left on both of our student loans) and now we're jumping headfirst into a $70,000 commitment.

I keep going back to what one of the speakers at Day At Kellogg said. It wasn't in response to any question that I recall, but was just a statement in general to all admitted students and it centered on the notion that going to a top business school is the most selfish thing a non-single student can do. I agree and I'm amazed my wife has agreed to sacrifice in order for me to get my MBA.

Back to the finances issue, after subtracting our living expenses for the upcoming summer o' fun whilst neither of us is working but are still spending, we're left with precious little savings. I guess I should get back in the student mindset of not spending money because it doesn't look like we're going to have much for awhile.

2006 USNews Top Business Schools Ranking

The latest USNews ranking of America's Best Graduate Schools (which includes a section ranking business schools) has been released. To access the detailed list you have to pay, but you can see all of the school names and their respective rank. Now that I have a vested interest in these rankings, I was disappointed to see Kellogg anywhere but at number one, but I was happy to see that they moved up a spot from last year and are tied with MIT at number four.

The top five:

1) Harvard
2T) Stanford
2T) Wharton
4T) MIT
4T) Kellogg

A Place to Stay

We found our home in Evanston! The lease is en route as we speak. It is a 1000 square foot two bedroom coach house about three miles from campus. It has a dishwasher, air conditioning, an in-unit washer and dryer, and hardwood floors. The owners are going to allow both of our pets as well as our satellite TV. We even get a garage.

The best part is that it is only just over twice what we are currently paying in Houston. The worst part is that next winter I'll have a three mile open-air commute. However, we decided that would be worth it to get everything else we want.

Amazingly, we took the place sight unseen. I've lived in a lot of apartments, houses, duplexes, etc. in the past eight years and I have never agreed to live somewhere without having personally visited at least one time. However, we were being pushed by a number of other people wanting to rent the coach house. In fact, we were originally the second people to agree to rent it, but the first person(s) backed out.

Interestingly, after I spent several weeks conversing with numerous rental agencies near Kellogg and perusing the Evanston Review, we had our best luck using the Kellogg Admitted Students Site.

Kellogg Financial Aid

I finally received some information from Kellogg about the financial aid that I can expect to receive. I’m not sure whether I should be excited or worried. The total expected cost (tuition and living expenses) of the 2004-2005 school year is around $60,000. Kellogg will loan/give me around $36,000 for the year. This means (for all those liberal arts majors out there J) that I’ll have to contribute $24,000. I had hoped for more, but the $36,000 will cover almost 100% of tuition so I can’t complain too much. I’m still waiting to hear about Kellogg specific scholarships, but I’m not counting on that as a source of funding. One nice part is that some of the $24,000 was listed as a grant. There wasn’t much more information in the email, so I’m not sure what kind of a grant it is, but it is still nice to get some free money. Especially since I’ve been so lazy about applying for scholarships.

A caveat at the bottom of the email stated that all of the numbers are based on this year’s tuition, rather than next year’s tuition. As soon as next year’s numbers are set the tuition will go up several percent.