Winter B - Week 1

Winter B has been here for one week, and in standard b-school fashion, it has completely flown by!!! Here's a recap of my first week of "work" back from Spring Break.

• Monday - It started in Rackham Auditorium, bright and early at 8am. It was very reminiscent of RLI, except for the questions that were flying past. Back in August, all you could hear was: "Where are you from?," "What section are you in?, and "What field are you looking to get into?" This time around, the questions were along the following: "How was your Spring Break?," "Who's on your team?," and "When do you leave for MAP?" After our initial orientation, we met with our Team Process Coach, who's an MBA2. After lunch, we met with our Faculty Advisor, where I had the joy of learning that our weekly meetings with her are scheduled for Monday mornings at 8:30 am. Yay... It felt odd to be done early, like I was slacking off or something. That night we had Section Whirly Ball, the last section event we will have before the end of April on account of MAP.
• Tuesday - We met with our Communications Coach (a woman named, I kid you not, Cindy Crawford) at 10am to learn how to communicate effectively. I'm not sure a 50 minute presentation really covered much. Again, being done so early in the day was disconcerting. I wondered whether I should be taking another class this term, but I knew that once our project truly kicked in I would be busy, so I ultimately decided against it. That night, during another Ann Arbor snowstorm, I went to Gratzi, where we had our HLBSA transition dinner, followed by drinks at Connor O'Neil's.
• Wednesday - The day didn't start until 1pm, when I had a two-hour meeting with my MAP team. Afterwards, I met Nathalie and Fareshta at the mall, and came back to school at 5:30pm for a course bidding workshop. I was already in a bit of a cranky mood, and the fact that I was unable to find a seat at the workshop because for some reason they only scheduled 2 workshops for all the BBAs and MBAs didn't help. So I left in a bit of a huff, drove Nathalie home and came back to school to meet Michelle for dinner. After some sushi we went to Charley's for a fundraising event. I ordered a Diet Coke and the bartender refused to charge me, leading Michelle to spread the rumor that I had flashed him. Yeah, I think I would have asked for a little more than JUST a Diet Coke.
• Thursday - This MAP-free day was basically a total blur. I went from a Student Ambassadors feedback lunch, to a meeting with my Consumer Behavior professor, followed by an HLBSA meeting for the new leadership. After my full afternoon of meetings, Nathalie and I went scrapbook shopping, followed by dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings and Happy Hour at S'keepers.
• Friday - I started my day off at 10am in a meeting to discuss the finances for HLBSA (I don't think I had mentioned that I was elected both HLBSA Treasurer and Co-chair for UpClose, Michigan's diversity weekend event for prospective students). Afterwards, I picked up Lauren, we grabbed lunch and headed off to the Borders HQs. According to Google Maps, the offices are only 3.4 miles from my house. Not quite the exotic MAP locale that so many of my classmates are getting to experience. Being at Borders was a bit surreal... it had been so long since I had been sitting in a cubicle. Talk about flashbacks! After our meeting, I ran back home and changed, picked up Nathalie, went to Dance Fusion, had dinner at Marnee Thai and headed over to Goodnight Gracie's for Jessica Goldberg's birthday. After an hour, I finally called it quits and headed home.

I feel like we didn't get too much accomplished this week, mostly because we're not sitting down with our sponsor until tomorrow morning. But, I did set a personal going-out record, however. It was an exhausting week, as the people who were leaving for long MAPs were trying to pack in as much fun as they could. As it currently stands, Michelle, Marlene and Shari are in Prague, but they will get back in a week. Xavier left for South Africa today (for 4 weeks), Alex and Matt J are headed to San Francisco for 10 days tomorrow, Nathalie flies out for 4 weeks on Wednesday, and Meryl leaves for her 3 week trip on Sunday. It's crazy how everyone keeps heading in and out... it's tough to keep track of everyone's whereabouts. The good thing, I guess, is that they all know that when they get back, I'll be here... only 3.4 miles from my apartment.