So I had class again this Saturday. It was my Authentic Leadership class, which as you could probably imagine sometimes feel like a lot of smoke is being blown. I was surprised this past Saturday because it really didn't feel like that much smoke was being blown. In fact, the only smoke that was being blown was courtesy of Ann Arbor's annual Hash Bash event, when I went outside during a break and a cloud of marijuana smoke smacked me in my face.
This Saturday actually had me thinking about certain career goals, the pursuit of happiness, and all kinds of stuff you just never really think of "on the reg". What seems to have resonated most with me was a quote that went a little something like this: "You do what you have to do to do what you want to do". Oddly enough this quote came from one Denzel Washington. This is how I feel a lot of us live, but believe it or not, there are people out there who ACTUALLY LOVE THEIR JOBS. I know, what a crazy concept, but it's true. All I know is that all these discussions in class brought up all these dark questions that have quietly been kind of rocking my world a little bit since yesterday. It wasn't all depressing "working for the man" stuff on Saturday. There were some fun moments as well. During one segment of class we were given construction paper and colored pencils and were asked to draw "where we are now" and "where we want to be". How much is tuition again? Since my class is mostly evening MBA students who have spouses, kids, mortgages, crappy jobs, etc you can imagine that some of these pictures were kind of depressing. You know, like a stick figure juggling a baby, a student loan, a bicycle, and a calculator. And then there was me. I drew what I see from my couch in my apartment. I had my thai food on my coffee table, basketball on the TV, and some golf clubs and a running sneakers leaning against the wall. I mean, these days it is almost ridiculous how much I'm enjoying myself. The only drawback is that the more fun I'm having now the worse sitting at a desk is going to feel come September. The juxtaposition is just going to be silly, but I'm not going to think about that until I really have to. Until then I'll just continue going to the bars and coming home with my clothes stinking of cigarettes and perfume, and I'll have it no other way.
Not this past February, but in February 2008 I was sitting at school with my friends talking about the garbage school newspaper. It really was pretty weak and the Opinions section had this writer called Anonymous Rosser who wrote what I believed to be a pretty lame gossipy/opinion piece each week. At this point I wasn't involved with a whole lot of extracurriculars. I ran for the VP of Corporate Communication of the Entertainment & Media Club, which I lost because I wasn't willling to whole-heartedly commit to an industry that paid like shit and wasn't hiring, and was still exploring other industries that didn't pay like shit and actually were hiring. How ridiculous of me, right? Losing left me with a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth and I just stopped going to the E&M Club meetings. After talking with my friends about how lame the newspaper was I decided I was going to try to change that. So from March 10th 2008 I penned an article entitled "Shout Outs" for the Monroe Street Journal under the name The Chef. It was tongue-in-cheek, it was mean, it was playful, it was true and half-true all at the same time, and it was fun to write.
The Chef commented on the ridiculousness that happened at business school, and The Chef called people out, and The Chef just generally said whatever the hell he wanted to say (although the editors used to edit the crap out of my submissions). A few weeks ago I killed the "Shout Outs", mostly because I was sick of writing it and partly because I think people might've been sick of reading it. I was wrong about people being sick of reading it. Apparently The Chef is what made a lot of people open that paper every week. Only one person knew I was The Chef and he was a friend who worked at the paper and the person who everyone thinks is The Chef. It was always funny when people would be like, "Yo Finger, did you see what The Chef said this week?", and I'd be like "No man, I don't read that shit". I also like watching people read it and watching them laugh or smile, as cheesy as that sounds. But the best was watching people read it and they would think that maybe, just maybe The Chef was talking about them. Of course I never called anyone out by name, but I insinuated the hell out of things, and sometimes I got just a little too specific. These b-school folks are an interesting breed, they really are. You get a more uncensored version on this blog, but in case you want to waste a few hours at work or just on your own time I'm going to link you to the Monroe Street Journal archives. You may have to subscribe, but I assure you a roughshod paper such as our costs nothing, just a few seconds signing up. I'm still not telling anyone I'm The Chef, but since I'm done writing it I thought I'd share it with you all. Like I said, "I don't read that shit", I just wrote it.
Monroe Street Journal Archives
I didn't contribute every single week, but from March 10 2008 to about a week ago I was pretty consistent. You won't understand a lot of these b-school jokes pertaining to school, but there's something there for everyone. Just to give you a taste, here's an excerpt from this past September...
"Michigan football was off this past Saturday, and what did you Gunners do with your spare time, you sat around sipping Zima, playing Magic: The Gathering with the rest of your Gunner friends, and practicing how to best utilize your buzzwords. Well done. I guess it's true that you can't spell The Ross School of Business without L, O, S, E, and R. As for me, let's just say my Saturday was more productive than yours. I hit the gym (Spring Break is only 22 weeks away after all), then took my signing bonus, converted it to singles and went to Deja Vu where I made it rain for a couple hours. Then it was time for lunch. After lunch I came back to the B-School to dispense some harsh truths to some wide-eyed MBA1s (Lehman wont be coming home for Christmas this year), caught a nap, actually watched some decent college football and then went to Skeeps. Come on people, you're back in school, live it up a little. As they say, get busy living or get busy dying, or was that get rich or die tryin? Onto the Shout Outs..."
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Week in Review
This is what happens at the end of college. You show up at a party at a friend's spot. A house you've been to many many times to eat, drink, and hang out. But all of a sudden, with 5 weeks left of school you show up to that same house to drink those same beers and to grill on that same grill and you, Don't, Know, Anyone.
What the hell is going on? What's going on is people are saying to themselves, "dang it, I haven't gone out at all in 2 years and now I need to make up for lost time so I'm going to show up at as many parties and take as many pictures for my facebook profile as possible before this school thing is over". What can you do? Nothing actually. I've actually met some new people these past weeks, which is always nice. But when they say "how come I've never seen you out?" I just don't know how to respond. I just smile and say "I don't know".
I do know that I went to a sorority formal this past week and yeah, I was probably the oldest dude in the room. I had this weird dream where I'd get there and they'd check my ID and be like, "sorry sir, you are too old for this club" kind of like this clip from Knocked Up which is seriously one of my favorites. Man I do love this clip, which is not safe for work by the way...
"I can't let you in because you old as fuck...for this club...not you know, for the earth". Anyway, I had this other dream (lots of dreaming these days) where they'd be like sorry sir, you aren't 27, you are older, much older and then they'd rip my shirt off and I'd have one of those polio vaccine scars on my shoulder, and I'd be like "no, but I never had a polio vaccine!", and then I woke up and had to go to the bathroom. But that didn't happen and I had a lot of fun. I think the "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore" moment occurred when I rolled into the pre-game with a bottle of wine, and everyone was congregated in the kitchen pounding shots of vodka and tequila. I might as well have been wearing a huge label that said "A 1981 Vintage MBA from Greenwich, CT". Good lord, can you imagine if I showed up with flowers which is how we used to sometimes do it back in my undergrad days. I'm dying a million deaths inside just thinking about how mortifying that would've been. But I wasn't embarrassed with my wine. You don't get invited to something like that and show up empty-handed. Mama, you raised yourself a mensch. Anyway, fun evening, and again, and I say this time and again, may I never have daughters.
It's going to be tough to top last week. My bowling league finished up last Wednesday, that formal was Thursday, I got in 18 holes with some friends on Friday, and was back out at the bars on Saturday, and today I ate a triple chili cheeseburger with onion rings and passed out on my couch and then watched the games all day. If loving the MBA life is wrong, then I don't want to be right.
What the hell is going on? What's going on is people are saying to themselves, "dang it, I haven't gone out at all in 2 years and now I need to make up for lost time so I'm going to show up at as many parties and take as many pictures for my facebook profile as possible before this school thing is over". What can you do? Nothing actually. I've actually met some new people these past weeks, which is always nice. But when they say "how come I've never seen you out?" I just don't know how to respond. I just smile and say "I don't know".
I do know that I went to a sorority formal this past week and yeah, I was probably the oldest dude in the room. I had this weird dream where I'd get there and they'd check my ID and be like, "sorry sir, you are too old for this club" kind of like this clip from Knocked Up which is seriously one of my favorites. Man I do love this clip, which is not safe for work by the way...
"I can't let you in because you old as fuck...for this club...not you know, for the earth". Anyway, I had this other dream (lots of dreaming these days) where they'd be like sorry sir, you aren't 27, you are older, much older and then they'd rip my shirt off and I'd have one of those polio vaccine scars on my shoulder, and I'd be like "no, but I never had a polio vaccine!", and then I woke up and had to go to the bathroom. But that didn't happen and I had a lot of fun. I think the "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore" moment occurred when I rolled into the pre-game with a bottle of wine, and everyone was congregated in the kitchen pounding shots of vodka and tequila. I might as well have been wearing a huge label that said "A 1981 Vintage MBA from Greenwich, CT". Good lord, can you imagine if I showed up with flowers which is how we used to sometimes do it back in my undergrad days. I'm dying a million deaths inside just thinking about how mortifying that would've been. But I wasn't embarrassed with my wine. You don't get invited to something like that and show up empty-handed. Mama, you raised yourself a mensch. Anyway, fun evening, and again, and I say this time and again, may I never have daughters.
It's going to be tough to top last week. My bowling league finished up last Wednesday, that formal was Thursday, I got in 18 holes with some friends on Friday, and was back out at the bars on Saturday, and today I ate a triple chili cheeseburger with onion rings and passed out on my couch and then watched the games all day. If loving the MBA life is wrong, then I don't want to be right.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Evening
Thursday through Sunday are de facto, every college basketball fans dream. Being in school has allowed me to appreciate this four-day festival in front of the TV, watching every dime and every dagger. I am taking a class this quarter that meets three times. One of those times happened to be during the Michigan game last night, which made me simultaneously mad, sad, and depressed. Michigan's first time in the tournament in 11 years and I was going to miss it...or was I.
As soon as we got into class I went to channelsurfing.net and started to watch the live stream of the game on my laptop, and just so I wasn't being inconsiderate I sat in the back row so nobody would be bothered by the game. About an hour into class we start talking about what our "class norms" should be. Unfortunately one of them was "closed laptops", so I did what any other basketball fan would do, I put my computer on the empty chair next to me and watched the game under the desk. It was weird watching a game that came down to the final shot and not being able to make a single peep. We won, and now we go on to play big bad Oklahoma tomorrow. Tomorrow happens to be the 2nd of three total sessions for this class, but by some scheduling miracle I will be done at 5pm and the game starts at 5:30pm. If that wasn't the case I just don't know what I would've done.
I want to talk a little bit about this class though. It's called Authentic Leadership. I thought it would be more interesting than it was. I just hope it gets better, but there's something significant that's going to prevent it from getting better and this significant thing is the presence of Evening MBA students. I feel like Evening MBAs have made it relatively unscathed by this blog, but that's about to end in 5...4...3...2...1.
It's not easy to work all day and go to class. I tried it once in New York and I briefly debated starting my coffee-drinking career. I could barely make it because I was so exhausted. I do give these Evening MBAs credit but that's where this group hug ends. So who are these people you ask? They work at Carhartt, Cargill, and shitty car companies. If you company doesn't have "car" in it, or is related to cars I think you can't be an Evening MBA student at Michigan. In my Corporate Financial Strategy class I was impressed by the ability of the Evening MBA students. This is not finance though, this is Management and Organizations, this is the fuzzy stuff, this is the "tell me how you feel" stuff, and these people drive me absolutely nuts.
These folks are ALL older, some in their 40s, and some look like they are in their 50s, but are probably in their 30s. These classes that are highly dependent upon group discussion become these Evening MBAs personal Amateur Night at the Apollo...and NONE of them are funny. Just because they are in some crap job and get yelled at all day at work and probably can't get in a word edge-wise at home because their wives are all naggy bitches they are not entitled to speaking like a bunch of jagasses during class. I cannot believe how annoying and borderline disrespectful these people are. Hey folks, you missed the boat on this whole "career" thing. You're not going to joke your way into a new job, in fact I wouldn't be surprised if you joked your way out of a job.
I have to sit from 8-5 tomorrow and listen to these Evening MBAs grandstand about cost centers and ineffective managers and the birth of their children blah blah. If they want to bitch they should do what I do and start a blog.
Anyway...Go Blue and go home evening MBA students.
As soon as we got into class I went to channelsurfing.net and started to watch the live stream of the game on my laptop, and just so I wasn't being inconsiderate I sat in the back row so nobody would be bothered by the game. About an hour into class we start talking about what our "class norms" should be. Unfortunately one of them was "closed laptops", so I did what any other basketball fan would do, I put my computer on the empty chair next to me and watched the game under the desk. It was weird watching a game that came down to the final shot and not being able to make a single peep. We won, and now we go on to play big bad Oklahoma tomorrow. Tomorrow happens to be the 2nd of three total sessions for this class, but by some scheduling miracle I will be done at 5pm and the game starts at 5:30pm. If that wasn't the case I just don't know what I would've done.
I want to talk a little bit about this class though. It's called Authentic Leadership. I thought it would be more interesting than it was. I just hope it gets better, but there's something significant that's going to prevent it from getting better and this significant thing is the presence of Evening MBA students. I feel like Evening MBAs have made it relatively unscathed by this blog, but that's about to end in 5...4...3...2...1.
It's not easy to work all day and go to class. I tried it once in New York and I briefly debated starting my coffee-drinking career. I could barely make it because I was so exhausted. I do give these Evening MBAs credit but that's where this group hug ends. So who are these people you ask? They work at Carhartt, Cargill, and shitty car companies. If you company doesn't have "car" in it, or is related to cars I think you can't be an Evening MBA student at Michigan. In my Corporate Financial Strategy class I was impressed by the ability of the Evening MBA students. This is not finance though, this is Management and Organizations, this is the fuzzy stuff, this is the "tell me how you feel" stuff, and these people drive me absolutely nuts.
These folks are ALL older, some in their 40s, and some look like they are in their 50s, but are probably in their 30s. These classes that are highly dependent upon group discussion become these Evening MBAs personal Amateur Night at the Apollo...and NONE of them are funny. Just because they are in some crap job and get yelled at all day at work and probably can't get in a word edge-wise at home because their wives are all naggy bitches they are not entitled to speaking like a bunch of jagasses during class. I cannot believe how annoying and borderline disrespectful these people are. Hey folks, you missed the boat on this whole "career" thing. You're not going to joke your way into a new job, in fact I wouldn't be surprised if you joked your way out of a job.
I have to sit from 8-5 tomorrow and listen to these Evening MBAs grandstand about cost centers and ineffective managers and the birth of their children blah blah. If they want to bitch they should do what I do and start a blog.
Anyway...Go Blue and go home evening MBA students.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Australia
I was going to blog this past weekend about my Australia trip but I thought what better way than to continue punishing my body than to go to Chicago for St Patty's Day. As for St Patty's Day, as the kids say "you can't drink all day unless you start in the morning"...
Morning.
So now that I have changed timezones in the past month more times than I'd like to count, have slept less in a one month period than I think I've ever slept, and am bordering on exhaustion, (I'm back to taking daily naps to try to catch up) I just think it would be wise to blog before I go into unplanned hibernation.
And when you talk about unplanned hibernation it probably makes sense to talk about planned hibernation. I don't like taking medicine, advil, tylenol, whatever. So taking an Ambien for the first time was kind of a necessary evil, since the total flight time from Detroit to Sydney was a total of 22 hours. I don't know why but I thought I'd never wake up after taking the Ambien, either that or I'd pee my pants while sleeping, so just to be safe I didn't drink any water for the first couple hours of my flight. I woke up and all said, the flight over wasn't too bad.
SYDNEY
Here is the question, why don't I live in Sydney? Why don't we all live in Sydney? Seriously, what's our collective problem? Do we just not like cool places, with beautiful people, beautiful beaches, and an amazing nightlife? Do we hate ridiculously awesome weather? I don't know. I just don't know. Explain yourself. Two of my friends arrived two days before the rest of our crew and spent the days at Bondi Beach and out at clubs at night. Jetlag certainly slapped me silly the first couple of days but we plowed through...just barely. You really can't talk about Sydney without talking about Bondi Beach.
View of Bondi from Icebergs
Bondi
And that my friends is one of Sydney's famed saltwater swimming pools. The best thing about these saltwater pools is that in these saltwater pools there are not saltwater sharks. The prospect of getting eaten by sharks kind of stinks and while we were at Bondi there were shark attacks, but I was able to keep my limbs thankfully. If you're swimming at breakfast time or dinnertime there's a chance you will end up breakfast or dinner, but as long as you avoid dawn and dusk you really should be fine. Should be. Aside from Jaws and his buddies coming to hang out from time to time Bondi is arguably the best beach I've ever been to. The water is warm and clear, the waves are perfect, and gorgeous woman of all nationalities sit on the beach and go untethered into the throes. Combine that with a beach wide enough to have a serious catch with a football, body surf, and surf surf, surrounded by bars and restaurants and really I'm not sure what else you could possibly need. Of course there was that one day where the wind picked up and about 200 people got stung by jellyfish, but still, Bondi rocks. And while I'm talking Bondi here I just should give a quick thank you to my buddy Dan who not only made the wise choice of moving to Sydney and literally living across the street from the beach, but was an excellent host, and Sydney guru.
And if Bondi was the overall 1-seed in the tournament, then Manly Beach was also a 1-seed. At Manly, a soft crescent of sand that seemed to run for a mile or so, we surfed, and had another picture perfect day. The ferry to Manly also took us through the harbor which lent itself to some picturesque views of the city and sights...
Opera House
Manly Beach from up high
Manly might've been my favorite day. And another favorite aspect of Sydney has to be that you CANNOT walk two blocks without running into a thai restaurant. I was probably two more thai dishes of way from turning into a giant pad see ew. The bottom line here is that if I could bathe in coconut curry I would, and if there was ever a place to make this happen (aside from Thailand of course) I has to be Sydney. And with 66 US cents getting you 1 Australian dollar, well let's just say if you cut me open you would've found about 4,000 kaffir lime leaves.
So I'll spare you the day by day rundown of the next couple days, but after we exhausted ourselves in Sydney for five days it was time to go to Cairns (specifically Palm Cove) and check out the Great Barrier Reef.
CAIRNS
Let's just start by saying there is no ozone above Cairns, and I believe Cairns is one of the few places in the world where the ozone is depleted. I used no less than SPF 30 the entire trip. The sun was scary but not as scary as our rental house welcoming committee...
This spider was easily as big as my hand, and I say "was" because it shortly met an untimely death by running into the back of a telephone book at full speed (or something like that). As the locals say, there are all kinds of "nasties" in Australia...the black widow, the funnel spider...and since I was told to check under the toilet seat every time I went to the bathroom I did.
I spearheaded the effort to rent a house in Palm Cove and I did it all from Ann Arbor and there were 7 of us making the trip to Cairns and I was a little worried, but when we got to Palm Cove I was pleasantly surprised by the enormous house, the pool, and the one block walk to the beach. Unfortunately, from about October to May you can't really swim off the coast of Cairns. I mean, you can swim, but you risk getting stung by the killer box jellies. Again, just another local "nasty".
Our first full day we went to the Great Barrier Reef via catamaran, and we weren't just going, we were going to SCUBA. I don't know how to SCUBA and after our guide gave us a 30 minute brief on how to SCUBA I still didn't know how to SCUBA. It was a perfect day...
to get eaten by...
a God damn tiger shark (picture courtesy of our day at the Sydney Aquarium). Oh well. I put on my stinger suit (don't forget those killer box jellies) and posed for a final picture that would be sent to my family after I drowned/got eaten out there...
Dead Man...Scuba Diving.
The Great Barrier Reef, like few things do, actually lived up to the hype. And I got to pet a living giant clam that was like nothing I'd ever seen before. Now I know why people get addicted to scuba. I loved it, but I think I'll stick to basketball. Fewer sharks.
After kicking ass on sea we were ready to kick ass on land and the next couple days we ate great food and drank our favorite beer (Toohey's New) and acted like gluttonous Roman business school students. This was the lazy part of our trip and we spent healthy time chilling by the pool, got some hiking in, and fished the estuaries around Cairns (I caught a log, but the log had two crabs in it, so I technically caught two crabs, and also a little sea bream) , and just generally relaxed.
The Ugly Americans at The Woolshed
Me and my weak-ass moustache playing a game of "What Would Bear Grylls Do?"
One quick anecdote from Cairns. At the Woolshed (pictured above) we met these two German girls who were sheep shearers in New Zealand. Honest truth. They spoke some english, and we were talking about sheep shearing and such. They made $400 New Zealand bucks a month, which I imagine they spent beer and wool sweaters. They asked me if I worked, to which I replied that I am in school but I worked this past summer. One asked where I worked, and I said JPMorgan and she looked at me, scrunched her nose, shook her head, took a sip of my beer and said "JPMorgan? What is this place?". At that moment I wished I was a sheep shearer. Ignorance is bliss.
I was somewhat sad to leave Cairns because the weather was absolutely phenomenal and we had yet to die, and we were having a splendid time. Melbourne was calling though, and we hadn't seen any 'roos yet (although we'd eaten some....over-rated in my opinion), and we had our Great Ocean Road roadtrip ahead of us.
MELBOURNE AND THE GREAT OCEAN ROAD
Melbourne was a bit overcast when we got there, and we stayed local in St. Kilda, eating dinner down by the beach and grabbing a few drinks, but before we called it a night we had to take pictures (read: torment) of some wild, sleepy penguins. I just have to say that Happy Feet was more or less an inaccurate protrayal of how penguins are. Yeah, they chriped, but none sang, spoke like Chicanos, or danced. They kind of just looked at us as if to say "hey asshole, do I snap the flash when you are trying to sleep in your bed?"
The following morning we set out to drive the Great Ocean Road. The drive down the coast was the most scenic drive I've ever taken, and of course we stopped to take a million pictures. The only thing was that since the brushfires were still threatening, the ground was dry as a bone, and lightening was predicted, we couldn't stop too long because we could theoretically end up caught in deadly fires. So that puts us at Sharks, Jellies, spiders, and now brushfires. Continuing...we also saw wild koalas, porcupines, and yes mangy small kangaroos, which I'll have you all know do not wear boxing gloves. Some pics from the Great Ocean Road...
The night we stayed at Apollo Bay the entire strip lost power except for one spot, so we ended up living out our environmental protectionist fantasies by playing hours upon hours of Buck Hunter and shooting every creature in sight. It was lovely. We book-ended our roadie by a last night in Melbourne which was fun, but at this point I think we were all ready to head back to Sydney for more beach and nightlife.
The last three days we spent on Bondi and Coogee Beach. We actually ended up staying at the Coogee Bay Hotel, which really is a hotel/bar/OTB/nightclub/liquor distributor all in one. It was the closest to living in the fraternity house that I've done in years, and yes, it was a blast. Just a lot of beach, thai food, and gelato and just when we thought things were dying down it was Gay Mardi Gras in Sydney, and it just so happened that at my buddy's place we crashed at the last night (and also several nights on the front end...thank you Hedgybear) was right in the middle, smack dab, in the epicenter of the gay parade. There was a full on tranny party across the street, and we, along with a ton of the gay and straight Sydney community members, watched the parade which of course was led off by none other than the Dykes on Bikes. You really think I'm making this up? My buddy had people over, we bbq'd, hung out, and then went to Kings Cross where I believe had thirty more people shown up the entire continent would have caved in. Absolute madness. Not exactly the mellow, pre-flight evening we were looking for but oh well. We had our Toohey's New and we made the best of it.
The flight back was, let me put this nicely, fuck United Airlines. SYD to San Fran they lost my friend's bag. I of course packed two plus weeks into a backpack and gym bag. There would be no checking for me. And then upon arriving from our SFO to Denver leg, we found out that Denver to Detroit was cancelled due to weather. Weather my ass. We caught a late flight standby to Chicago, crashed at a friend's girlfriend's place for 4 hours, and then caught the Chi to Detroit the next morning at 6am. And a week later here I am. Australia was a great trip and I feel bad because I've only scratched the surface for you, but I have to go to class, and get on with my life. Six more weeks here, which is scary as hell. It's great to be back though. Enjoy St. Patty's.
Morning.So now that I have changed timezones in the past month more times than I'd like to count, have slept less in a one month period than I think I've ever slept, and am bordering on exhaustion, (I'm back to taking daily naps to try to catch up) I just think it would be wise to blog before I go into unplanned hibernation.
And when you talk about unplanned hibernation it probably makes sense to talk about planned hibernation. I don't like taking medicine, advil, tylenol, whatever. So taking an Ambien for the first time was kind of a necessary evil, since the total flight time from Detroit to Sydney was a total of 22 hours. I don't know why but I thought I'd never wake up after taking the Ambien, either that or I'd pee my pants while sleeping, so just to be safe I didn't drink any water for the first couple hours of my flight. I woke up and all said, the flight over wasn't too bad.
SYDNEY
Here is the question, why don't I live in Sydney? Why don't we all live in Sydney? Seriously, what's our collective problem? Do we just not like cool places, with beautiful people, beautiful beaches, and an amazing nightlife? Do we hate ridiculously awesome weather? I don't know. I just don't know. Explain yourself. Two of my friends arrived two days before the rest of our crew and spent the days at Bondi Beach and out at clubs at night. Jetlag certainly slapped me silly the first couple of days but we plowed through...just barely. You really can't talk about Sydney without talking about Bondi Beach.
View of Bondi from Icebergs
BondiAnd that my friends is one of Sydney's famed saltwater swimming pools. The best thing about these saltwater pools is that in these saltwater pools there are not saltwater sharks. The prospect of getting eaten by sharks kind of stinks and while we were at Bondi there were shark attacks, but I was able to keep my limbs thankfully. If you're swimming at breakfast time or dinnertime there's a chance you will end up breakfast or dinner, but as long as you avoid dawn and dusk you really should be fine. Should be. Aside from Jaws and his buddies coming to hang out from time to time Bondi is arguably the best beach I've ever been to. The water is warm and clear, the waves are perfect, and gorgeous woman of all nationalities sit on the beach and go untethered into the throes. Combine that with a beach wide enough to have a serious catch with a football, body surf, and surf surf, surrounded by bars and restaurants and really I'm not sure what else you could possibly need. Of course there was that one day where the wind picked up and about 200 people got stung by jellyfish, but still, Bondi rocks. And while I'm talking Bondi here I just should give a quick thank you to my buddy Dan who not only made the wise choice of moving to Sydney and literally living across the street from the beach, but was an excellent host, and Sydney guru.
And if Bondi was the overall 1-seed in the tournament, then Manly Beach was also a 1-seed. At Manly, a soft crescent of sand that seemed to run for a mile or so, we surfed, and had another picture perfect day. The ferry to Manly also took us through the harbor which lent itself to some picturesque views of the city and sights...
Opera House
Manly Beach from up highManly might've been my favorite day. And another favorite aspect of Sydney has to be that you CANNOT walk two blocks without running into a thai restaurant. I was probably two more thai dishes of way from turning into a giant pad see ew. The bottom line here is that if I could bathe in coconut curry I would, and if there was ever a place to make this happen (aside from Thailand of course) I has to be Sydney. And with 66 US cents getting you 1 Australian dollar, well let's just say if you cut me open you would've found about 4,000 kaffir lime leaves.
So I'll spare you the day by day rundown of the next couple days, but after we exhausted ourselves in Sydney for five days it was time to go to Cairns (specifically Palm Cove) and check out the Great Barrier Reef.
CAIRNS
Let's just start by saying there is no ozone above Cairns, and I believe Cairns is one of the few places in the world where the ozone is depleted. I used no less than SPF 30 the entire trip. The sun was scary but not as scary as our rental house welcoming committee...
This spider was easily as big as my hand, and I say "was" because it shortly met an untimely death by running into the back of a telephone book at full speed (or something like that). As the locals say, there are all kinds of "nasties" in Australia...the black widow, the funnel spider...and since I was told to check under the toilet seat every time I went to the bathroom I did.I spearheaded the effort to rent a house in Palm Cove and I did it all from Ann Arbor and there were 7 of us making the trip to Cairns and I was a little worried, but when we got to Palm Cove I was pleasantly surprised by the enormous house, the pool, and the one block walk to the beach. Unfortunately, from about October to May you can't really swim off the coast of Cairns. I mean, you can swim, but you risk getting stung by the killer box jellies. Again, just another local "nasty".
Our first full day we went to the Great Barrier Reef via catamaran, and we weren't just going, we were going to SCUBA. I don't know how to SCUBA and after our guide gave us a 30 minute brief on how to SCUBA I still didn't know how to SCUBA. It was a perfect day...
to get eaten by...
a God damn tiger shark (picture courtesy of our day at the Sydney Aquarium). Oh well. I put on my stinger suit (don't forget those killer box jellies) and posed for a final picture that would be sent to my family after I drowned/got eaten out there...
Dead Man...Scuba Diving.The Great Barrier Reef, like few things do, actually lived up to the hype. And I got to pet a living giant clam that was like nothing I'd ever seen before. Now I know why people get addicted to scuba. I loved it, but I think I'll stick to basketball. Fewer sharks.
After kicking ass on sea we were ready to kick ass on land and the next couple days we ate great food and drank our favorite beer (Toohey's New) and acted like gluttonous Roman business school students. This was the lazy part of our trip and we spent healthy time chilling by the pool, got some hiking in, and fished the estuaries around Cairns (I caught a log, but the log had two crabs in it, so I technically caught two crabs, and also a little sea bream) , and just generally relaxed.
The Ugly Americans at The Woolshed
Me and my weak-ass moustache playing a game of "What Would Bear Grylls Do?"One quick anecdote from Cairns. At the Woolshed (pictured above) we met these two German girls who were sheep shearers in New Zealand. Honest truth. They spoke some english, and we were talking about sheep shearing and such. They made $400 New Zealand bucks a month, which I imagine they spent beer and wool sweaters. They asked me if I worked, to which I replied that I am in school but I worked this past summer. One asked where I worked, and I said JPMorgan and she looked at me, scrunched her nose, shook her head, took a sip of my beer and said "JPMorgan? What is this place?". At that moment I wished I was a sheep shearer. Ignorance is bliss.
I was somewhat sad to leave Cairns because the weather was absolutely phenomenal and we had yet to die, and we were having a splendid time. Melbourne was calling though, and we hadn't seen any 'roos yet (although we'd eaten some....over-rated in my opinion), and we had our Great Ocean Road roadtrip ahead of us.
MELBOURNE AND THE GREAT OCEAN ROAD
Melbourne was a bit overcast when we got there, and we stayed local in St. Kilda, eating dinner down by the beach and grabbing a few drinks, but before we called it a night we had to take pictures (read: torment) of some wild, sleepy penguins. I just have to say that Happy Feet was more or less an inaccurate protrayal of how penguins are. Yeah, they chriped, but none sang, spoke like Chicanos, or danced. They kind of just looked at us as if to say "hey asshole, do I snap the flash when you are trying to sleep in your bed?"
The following morning we set out to drive the Great Ocean Road. The drive down the coast was the most scenic drive I've ever taken, and of course we stopped to take a million pictures. The only thing was that since the brushfires were still threatening, the ground was dry as a bone, and lightening was predicted, we couldn't stop too long because we could theoretically end up caught in deadly fires. So that puts us at Sharks, Jellies, spiders, and now brushfires. Continuing...we also saw wild koalas, porcupines, and yes mangy small kangaroos, which I'll have you all know do not wear boxing gloves. Some pics from the Great Ocean Road...
The night we stayed at Apollo Bay the entire strip lost power except for one spot, so we ended up living out our environmental protectionist fantasies by playing hours upon hours of Buck Hunter and shooting every creature in sight. It was lovely. We book-ended our roadie by a last night in Melbourne which was fun, but at this point I think we were all ready to head back to Sydney for more beach and nightlife.
The last three days we spent on Bondi and Coogee Beach. We actually ended up staying at the Coogee Bay Hotel, which really is a hotel/bar/OTB/nightclub/liquor distributor all in one. It was the closest to living in the fraternity house that I've done in years, and yes, it was a blast. Just a lot of beach, thai food, and gelato and just when we thought things were dying down it was Gay Mardi Gras in Sydney, and it just so happened that at my buddy's place we crashed at the last night (and also several nights on the front end...thank you Hedgybear) was right in the middle, smack dab, in the epicenter of the gay parade. There was a full on tranny party across the street, and we, along with a ton of the gay and straight Sydney community members, watched the parade which of course was led off by none other than the Dykes on Bikes. You really think I'm making this up? My buddy had people over, we bbq'd, hung out, and then went to Kings Cross where I believe had thirty more people shown up the entire continent would have caved in. Absolute madness. Not exactly the mellow, pre-flight evening we were looking for but oh well. We had our Toohey's New and we made the best of it.
The flight back was, let me put this nicely, fuck United Airlines. SYD to San Fran they lost my friend's bag. I of course packed two plus weeks into a backpack and gym bag. There would be no checking for me. And then upon arriving from our SFO to Denver leg, we found out that Denver to Detroit was cancelled due to weather. Weather my ass. We caught a late flight standby to Chicago, crashed at a friend's girlfriend's place for 4 hours, and then caught the Chi to Detroit the next morning at 6am. And a week later here I am. Australia was a great trip and I feel bad because I've only scratched the surface for you, but I have to go to class, and get on with my life. Six more weeks here, which is scary as hell. It's great to be back though. Enjoy St. Patty's.
Monday, February 16, 2009
If I Get Eaten by a Shark
If I get eaten by a shark while in Australia I didn't want that last post to be my, well, last post. As such, I had to just get another one in. I was feeling kind of out of it and I believe I had some sort of dizziness resulting from the cheesesteak I made myself for dinner last night. I tend to get tired earlier these days, and I don't know why, but I don't think it is because of inactivity. I just think I need to "have a sleep" aka have a nap, as Bret and Jemaine from Flight of the Conchords say.
Bret? Present. Jemaine? Present.
Bret? Present. Jemaine? Present.This past week's episode centered around Jemaine, a New Zealander, dating an Aussie, much to the disappointment of Bret and Murray, and basically if you don't watch the show you have no idea what the hell I am talking about. Anyway, I thought it was a good episode, especially because it reminded me of how different those Aussies talk. At one point Jemaine's Aussie girlfriend excuses herself because she has to "go to the dunny to murder a brownsnake". Dunny is toilet, and you can figure out the rest. Seriously, I can't wait to relax with my cobbers and have a coldie and a sanger on a sunny arvo while sitting in my togs watching the tanned Jillaroos. Which obviously means, I can't wait to relax with my friends and have a beer and a sandwich on a sunny afternoon while sitting in my swimsut watching the tanned female trainee station managers. Wait what? Female trainee station managers? I don't even know what that means. Is that like a female gas station attendant, because if it is that's kind of gross. I think I need to work on this a little bit before I go opening my mouth over there.
But before I get there I have to fly there and that means close to 22 hours on a plane...with snakes...and Samuel L. Jackson. Flying plus layovers will surely put me over the 24 hour mark.
Have you ever seen snakes on a plane?
And you know what they say, all flying and no showers makes Johnnie a smelly boy. I'm not looking forward to it at all. At all. At all. Luckily I am flying with a friend so we can commiserate. The only cool part is that basically I'll be time traveling since I leave on Wednesday and arrive on Friday in Australia. It's literally the closest I'll get to being on the TV show Lost where everyone is all kinds of screwed up about time and people are always asking "When are we?".
Kate: Finger, when are we?
Me: I just proposed to you and you said 'yes'.
Kate: What?
Me: What?
Kate: What?
Me: You don't remember? We crossed the international date line, champagne, the ring, tears, hugs, you said you'd convert to Judaism...
Kate: I really don't recall that.
Me: It's the island Kate. IT'S THIS DAMN ISLAND! It's playing tricks on you.
Kate: Well, I guess, I mean...
Me: Listen, you got a little schmutz on your shirt there. You want my Tide pen? My mom swears by this thing...
And basically that's what I expect to happen when I cross the international date line, or something very very similar to that. I'll be time traveling, bitches, so that's really all I can say about that. Sydney, Cairns, Melbourne here I come. I'll take pictures and make at least three memories. That's a promise.
So see you later all you yabbo sheepshaggers (uncouth New Zealanders) and stickybeaks (nosy people), I'm off to Oz on Wednesday and I'll see you on the flipside unless I of course become a shark biscuit (a shark biscuit).
But before I get there I have to fly there and that means close to 22 hours on a plane...with snakes...and Samuel L. Jackson. Flying plus layovers will surely put me over the 24 hour mark.
Have you ever seen snakes on a plane?And you know what they say, all flying and no showers makes Johnnie a smelly boy. I'm not looking forward to it at all. At all. At all. Luckily I am flying with a friend so we can commiserate. The only cool part is that basically I'll be time traveling since I leave on Wednesday and arrive on Friday in Australia. It's literally the closest I'll get to being on the TV show Lost where everyone is all kinds of screwed up about time and people are always asking "When are we?".
Kate: Finger, when are we?Me: I just proposed to you and you said 'yes'.
Kate: What?
Me: What?
Kate: What?
Me: You don't remember? We crossed the international date line, champagne, the ring, tears, hugs, you said you'd convert to Judaism...
Kate: I really don't recall that.
Me: It's the island Kate. IT'S THIS DAMN ISLAND! It's playing tricks on you.
Kate: Well, I guess, I mean...
Me: Listen, you got a little schmutz on your shirt there. You want my Tide pen? My mom swears by this thing...
And basically that's what I expect to happen when I cross the international date line, or something very very similar to that. I'll be time traveling, bitches, so that's really all I can say about that. Sydney, Cairns, Melbourne here I come. I'll take pictures and make at least three memories. That's a promise.
So see you later all you yabbo sheepshaggers (uncouth New Zealanders) and stickybeaks (nosy people), I'm off to Oz on Wednesday and I'll see you on the flipside unless I of course become a shark biscuit (a shark biscuit).
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Shmalentine's
Yesterday was Valentine's Day, which I celebrated by going to a college hockey game and and then I did what any single person on campus should do on Valentine's Day and that's go to Rick's. I could explain to you in words what happens to special young ladies who go to Rick's on Valentine's Day, but I feel like a graph will probably do the trick.
Although, I feel like that's how it is there most nights anyway, so perhaps it was nothing special. Also, under the category of things that are nothing special, those new Mission 'G' commercials for Gatorade. Gatorade keeps taking 30 seconds of my life that I'll never get back.
I was pretty productive this past week so I've done all my final projects/papers, and now only have one test standing between me and my Wednesday flight to Australia. I did my job stimulating the economy in the past week, buying a camera and accessories, and $1 travel-size toothpaste. Every dollar counts. I'm pretty excited, not so much about the flooding in the north or about the brush fires in the south, but I'm hoping it'll be a seriously awesome 16 days down under. Should be a good time, and I'll be radio silent while I'm there, but will surely have stories when I'm back. For the next three days I'm going to figure out how to get three weeks of clothing into a gym bag and a backpack. Oh, it's happening. You may remember (likely not though) my blog about the 80/20 Rule in which I said that 80% of the time you only wear 20% of the clothes you bring, so keeping that in mind I'm going to be a better packer or just make sure I steal some clothing when I'm there.
Any must do Aussie activities let me know.
Although, I feel like that's how it is there most nights anyway, so perhaps it was nothing special. Also, under the category of things that are nothing special, those new Mission 'G' commercials for Gatorade. Gatorade keeps taking 30 seconds of my life that I'll never get back.
I was pretty productive this past week so I've done all my final projects/papers, and now only have one test standing between me and my Wednesday flight to Australia. I did my job stimulating the economy in the past week, buying a camera and accessories, and $1 travel-size toothpaste. Every dollar counts. I'm pretty excited, not so much about the flooding in the north or about the brush fires in the south, but I'm hoping it'll be a seriously awesome 16 days down under. Should be a good time, and I'll be radio silent while I'm there, but will surely have stories when I'm back. For the next three days I'm going to figure out how to get three weeks of clothing into a gym bag and a backpack. Oh, it's happening. You may remember (likely not though) my blog about the 80/20 Rule in which I said that 80% of the time you only wear 20% of the clothes you bring, so keeping that in mind I'm going to be a better packer or just make sure I steal some clothing when I'm there.
Any must do Aussie activities let me know.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Hey Mr. Postman
I'm going to start off by saying never buy anything from Buy.com. This blog post will hopefully serve as that huge inflatable rat that you'll sometimes see in front of stores in NYC that violate union labor issue(s). So whatever you do, don't buy stuff from Buy.com, they've made my life miserable for the past week. And while I do exaggerate, they really have made purchasing a digital camera a royal pain. Bottom line, Buy.com's verification process makes buying a gun seem like a walk in the park, or so I've heard.
Rat.
Some of my friends are abroad right now. Study abroad in business school probably is as much of a joke as it sounds. Anyway, one friend is in Barcelona, so last night before we went to the hockey game a couple friends got together and did a skype video chat with him. I came in a little late, but they were doing a Power Hour (shot of beer every minute for an hour) via Skype. You gotta love technology. So every minute we'd stop our conversation say "drink" and take a shot of beer and then continue the conversation. It was like we were all right there looking at each other in the living room and drinking. I still think the whole video chat thing reminds me too much of Dateline: How to Catch a Predator, but it actually is a pretty awesome thing, especially when you are talking to a friend who is overseas. But then I got to thinking, and I guess this is how my mind works, but back in the 1800s how could they have pulled this off? This is how I envisioned it going down.
So it's 1866 and your sitting around your wood-burning stove and wifey is over by the mortal and pestle grinding some oats for tomorrow's breakfast and off in the distance you see a moving speck. As that speck gets closer you see it is the courier on horseback approaching your house. The courier comes in, and being the cordial folks that you are, you fix the man some toast and tea and talk about the weather. You say, "How long do you reckon this cold spell will last?" The courier sips his tea and says "About a fortnight". You look out at your crops and know that a fortnight's worth of frost will surely make it difficult to make ends meet, especially with your youngest entering kindergarten. That $15 prep school tuition won't pay for itself, and don't even try to suggest to the wife that maybe you should consider public school. The courier finishes his tea, mounts his steed and rides off to deliver his next letter two towns over. The envelope is from your friend living in the old country, England. The postmark indicates that this letter was sent about two months and three weeks ago, after all, overseas travel does take a long time. Your wife yells from the next room "who is it from?" and you say "jesus woman, I just walked in the door, can you give me 30 minutes to myself and stop breathing down my neck. Thirty minutes. That's all I ask". You grab your hunting knife off the mantle and cut open the envelope. In the envelope there's a small piece of paper. The paper is a fine paper, and you admire the density of this European papyrus. You turn over the note and this is what it says...
So you go over to the icebox, pour yourself a cold one, and take a sip.
I don't know how else this could've gone down. I guess they just do this and then after a few years they've taken 60 shots of beer. It's something to think about. Or not.
Two nights ago basketball game, last night hockey game, and tonight the Business School Follies show. I'm keeping busy, and I hope you all are too.
Rat.Some of my friends are abroad right now. Study abroad in business school probably is as much of a joke as it sounds. Anyway, one friend is in Barcelona, so last night before we went to the hockey game a couple friends got together and did a skype video chat with him. I came in a little late, but they were doing a Power Hour (shot of beer every minute for an hour) via Skype. You gotta love technology. So every minute we'd stop our conversation say "drink" and take a shot of beer and then continue the conversation. It was like we were all right there looking at each other in the living room and drinking. I still think the whole video chat thing reminds me too much of Dateline: How to Catch a Predator, but it actually is a pretty awesome thing, especially when you are talking to a friend who is overseas. But then I got to thinking, and I guess this is how my mind works, but back in the 1800s how could they have pulled this off? This is how I envisioned it going down.
So it's 1866 and your sitting around your wood-burning stove and wifey is over by the mortal and pestle grinding some oats for tomorrow's breakfast and off in the distance you see a moving speck. As that speck gets closer you see it is the courier on horseback approaching your house. The courier comes in, and being the cordial folks that you are, you fix the man some toast and tea and talk about the weather. You say, "How long do you reckon this cold spell will last?" The courier sips his tea and says "About a fortnight". You look out at your crops and know that a fortnight's worth of frost will surely make it difficult to make ends meet, especially with your youngest entering kindergarten. That $15 prep school tuition won't pay for itself, and don't even try to suggest to the wife that maybe you should consider public school. The courier finishes his tea, mounts his steed and rides off to deliver his next letter two towns over. The envelope is from your friend living in the old country, England. The postmark indicates that this letter was sent about two months and three weeks ago, after all, overseas travel does take a long time. Your wife yells from the next room "who is it from?" and you say "jesus woman, I just walked in the door, can you give me 30 minutes to myself and stop breathing down my neck. Thirty minutes. That's all I ask". You grab your hunting knife off the mantle and cut open the envelope. In the envelope there's a small piece of paper. The paper is a fine paper, and you admire the density of this European papyrus. You turn over the note and this is what it says...
So you go over to the icebox, pour yourself a cold one, and take a sip.
I don't know how else this could've gone down. I guess they just do this and then after a few years they've taken 60 shots of beer. It's something to think about. Or not.
Two nights ago basketball game, last night hockey game, and tonight the Business School Follies show. I'm keeping busy, and I hope you all are too.
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