Our Big Drive

Just as wheat harvest in my area of Kansas is finishing and I was expecting to have more time to blog and otherwise peruse the internet...we decided to go on our vacation. Our past plan of going to Big Bend, Carlsbad, and some other southwestern US destinations has been scrapped (or at least postponed). We're tired of the heat. Instead, we are heading to the mountains of Colorado for a (hopefully) relaxing ten days. It isn't quite the backpacking across Europe excursion that many soon to be b-schoolers are taking, but it'll do for us.

As such, I plan to be out of commission, at least electronically, for the next couple of weeks. I promise that as soon as we get back - and as soon as I get a faster-than-21.6 Kbps internet connection - I'll write all about the trip and talk more about Kellogg, KAOS, and all other sorts of fun MBA stuff that is happening.

KAOS

I received my KAOS trip notification yesterday...I'm going to Switzerland! We (not just me, since I'll be travelling with 20+ of my new best friends) are going to spend about a week there and we'll be pretty active. There is a lot of hiking involved, although it doesn't look like we'll be camping at night. The hikes conveniently end near lodges where we can sleep. I'm actually happy about that since that means we don't have to lug backpacks, tents, etc.

Ah, what a way to start an MBA program: a week long Swiss vacation.

A Job Near Evanston

The weight of worry is off our back, Mrs. Majalo officially has a job near Evanston! In fact, she'll be closer to the school where she will be teaching than I will be to Kellogg.

Update

Well it has certainly been a busy couple of weeks. I’m officially a member of the unemployed employed. I don’t know that the group is a big one (in fact I’ve never met another member) but I’m happy to be part of it. I now make $0 per year, but still have benefits and am eligible for bonuses. I can’t complain.

I must say that whatever remorse that I had thought might materialize over my last couple days of work never manifested. I will miss a lot of the people that I became friends with over the past three years, but as I got closer and closer to the end of having a 9-5 (for two years at least) I got more and more excited. I walked out Tuesday, June 7, happier than I have been in a long time. I’m excited about having the summer off and I’m even more excited about Kellogg in the fall. We’ve already had the chance to see both of our families, lots of our friends, and I even spent last weekend in New York.

The bad news about the summer is that I’ll be connecting to the internet via a connection that is frequently only 14.4 Kbps and only 26.4 Kbps at maximum. This means that my internet surfing is going to be severely limited. Since I will have plenty of time, though, I’ll be updating my blog more frequently, I just won’t be able so upload pictures, etc. I’ll also drop from checking my email every hour to two or three times per week. Ah, the pleasures of living on a farm.

Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!

My lifelong dream* of being on a game show was realized last Thursday. After an uneventful week as an alternate contestant, I was called to play an on-air game for this week's edition of Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! Hopefully I didn't make too much of a fool of myself. I played the second version of Who's Carl** This Time (direct link to the audio of the segment can be found here) and got all three questions correct.

I haven't listened to it, yet, so I don't know how it comes off, but I did run into a little bit of trouble with one of the panelists. When I went on the air, I didn't yet know who the panelists were (they rotate), and turned out that Kyrie O'Connor was one of them. She works for the Houston Chronicle and took good natured offense at my less than stellar review of my three years living here. Luckily the show was live from Chicago and I had the audience on my side. :) Who knows, none of this may have made the air. I had a great time doing it, though, and I must thank Emily from NPR who helped facilitate my being a contestant and who is just such a wonderful person.

*Okay so it hasn't really been a lifelong dream, but this was fun.

**The Carl in question is Carl Kasell (the newscaster who reads the top of the hour news every day for NPR's Morning Edition. My prize for winning is Carl's voice on our home answering machine. Hey, I knew going in that this wasn't Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.