Home Alone - Day 2

Today is the second day that I'm alone in AZ.

Here's a rundown of some of the things I've been up to:

• I took the iMac in to a repair shop to see whether it's a $250 job or a $1150 job
• I went to the Business school to do some photocopying
• I went to Staples to get some envelopes
• I finished up my OPT application
• I decided to learn Don't Stop Believing on the piano
  (it's not as easy as it sounds)
• I made myself some food, but not as good as I have when I'm not home alone
• I turned down a pesticide salesman at the door who then called me an idiot :)
• I killed a cockroach with Raid in the living room
  (these last two points seem to be connected somehow...)
• I got out my guitars and realized that they all need new strings
  -and I need new callouses on my fingers
• I watched an episode of Surface, a little-known sci-fi series, on Netflix
• I continued to apply for jobs, which is not fun
• And I played 5 or so games of Scrabble

That's about it.

"Home Alone 5 - Unemployed MBA in AZ"

Some of you are probably wondering why I'm not in Canada at Tiffany and Jimmy's wedding. Without boring you with all the details, it's because I can't leave the country and then re-enter until a particular visa application is approved AND I have a job. Because both of these criteria are so-far unmet, I have to stay put for the time being. Chrissy, Laela, and Ivy all flew out this morning to Calgary, and it was sad for me to have to say goodbye to them at the airport.

But anyway, on a happier note, I am finished with my MBA. We had two graduation ceremonies last week. On Wednesday we had the President of the United States of America give us a little pep talk in Sun Devil Stadium about how to deal with the 'current economic climate' (which means good luck finding a job!). Then on Saturday we had the MBA graduation at Wells Fargo Arena. It's nice to be done, but I've become so accustomed to being a student, that I'm not yet sure what to do with myself.

So now I'm looking for a job. My MBA was in Marketing, and specifically focused on the marketing of services; so if any of you are executives at companies that are trying to figure out how to market services, please hire me.

It's only been about 9 hours that I've been home alone, but it feels like it has been a week. Other than trying to get a job, I don't really have anything else important to do. Today I bought a new 4pin/4pin IEEE 1394 cable so I can communicate via video with my family and others in Canada over the next several days. I'm reluctant to do any major home/yard improvements as we may not be living here for too much longer. Of course I will have plenty of time to play the piano, but two or three hours of that each day is about the most I can take.

Another thing I might do with all this time is catch up on some reading. I pretty much only been reading business cases and textbooks for the past 2 years, so I welcome the opportunity to dig in to a novel. Any suggestions? I like stories that are complicated, have lots of robots, and are grounded in fundamental philosophical problems. Ha ha ha. I added the robots so nobody would suggest any of the 'classics.'

Well, anyway, anyone please feel free to give me suggestions for either jobs, books to read, songs to learn on the piano, or just things to do for the next three weeks!

Laela may be insane

"Mommy, sometimes I feel like everyone I see is a reindeer in disguise!"

Random Update from the Last Week of Business School

Hi everyone out there in internet land. It's me JJ Olsen. You may remember me as the Friday morning DJ on WSFX radio in Nanticoke, PA in the fall of 1996, but that was a long time ago and not at all relevant to this post. Anyway, I have only a single week left until I have completed all the requirements for an MBA degree. I had been fairly certain until just a couple days ago that I would be staying in Mesa or Tempe and working at the company where I've been an intern for the past year. Well, they had a 'hiring freeze' recently instituted, and I wasn't entirely keen on remaining as an intern. So I find myself without a job and with more owing in student loans than I thought was possible.

This Thursday I'm heading with 3 MBA friends to Chicago to present the findings of a 4-month project we've been working on for the Diagnostic Division of Abbott Laboratories. The project is concerning the sale of Services to diagnostic laboratories in Turkey. It has been interesting and time consuming. Everybody at Abbott has been really cool, and it seems like it would be a great place to work (hint... Abbott HR people).

I am really going to miss being an MBA student. I have to admit most of the first year was torturous for me to varying degrees. Accounting and Statistics were especially difficult, which is ironic because I now consider myself to be very comfortable with statistics. It took some practical application to really make it sink in. As for Accounting... I'll leave that to others. Now that I'm at the end of the two years I feel like I'm just starting to figure out how to enjoy the experience, but I guess a lot of things in life are like that. I have really enjoyed hanging out with some of the other students in my program. It's funny how the stereotypes about MBAs hold true, and the most interesting classmates are of course the ones who don't always fit those stereotypes. I will miss being a student, and I would like to say that I'm going to pursue a PhD, but it's really too soon to say for sure.

Well, since I can't legally start working until July, I suppose my family is going to get re-acquainted with me in the next few weeks. I wish I knew where we were going to end up. It could be Arizona, it could be somewhere in Canada, or it could be pretty much anywhere else. If anyone has any really good ideas, by all means let me know!

One more thing. Yesterday Laela (age 5) said something out of the blue, and kind of funny:

"Snowmen are Just like insects. The bottom part is the abdomen, the middle part is the thorax, and the top part is the head. Just like an insect!"

I thought it was funny.