One week down, Happy New Year

One week of b-school down, and it's not too bad. The classes are small and the professors seem relaxed and professional. My fellow students are friendlier than I expected, a much warmer attitude than the Canuckistanis. I ended up testing out of intro accounting by the grace of the MBA school manager and a last minute cram session, so I will start with financial accounting today and more or less resume where I left off in Toronto. I currently have a very "grad-school" schedule with 7 hours of class on Tuesdays, 3 on Wednesdays, and 2 on Fridays. I can now begin to apply for part-time jobs, yyaaaaaayyyyyy........

One possibly fortuitous event occurred on Friday, when I walked into class 25 minutes early and witnessed the school A/V/IT people troubleshooting a rack of electronics. Since I am Mr. Smarty, I immediately butted in and inquired as to what exactly they were doing with the equipment my former company BBI may or may not have installed. We discussed A/V geek stuff for a bit and they suggested that I send in a resume.

Why it's a Happy New Year: 2007 is a really mixed bag so far. One mysterious death in the family, one dear family pet euthanized, one motorcycle (symbol of freedom) relinquished and one tiny, cold apartment. On the other hand, new fun school and program, healthiness and daily yoga, possible job, new gas stove (replaced the rusty, leaking antique from Before My Time). I don't hold much with "deaths happening in threes" thing but the thought keeps popping up intermittently. Maybe I should look at it as "new stoves happen in threes". Yeah.

Fingernail

I passed not only the writing test but the math and statistics tests as well. Thus I am judged worthy to continue my edumacation in the art of bizness. I purchased school books today and wandered around the campus until I located the offices of my favorite college radio station KUSF 90.3. They were out to lunch.
I spent yesterday working on my jalopy of a bicycle. I think by virtue of its age and continuing useability it has earned both a gender and a name by this point, so I hereby christen "her" the "Grey Wind" (apologies to Anne C. for blatantly ripping off the name of her old car). I started to put new brake pads on the Grey Wind when I noticed that the front wheel rim was no longer straight, and after a few attempts at truing it with the spoke tool I recognized that the time had come to completely redo the spokes. Taking the wheel apart, inspecting the rim, spokes and threads and carefully reassembling it took the better part of the afternoon. The front rim has a significant dent in it that can't be removed while the rear rim trued rather nicely. The new pads went on without difficulty and all was well, that is until later when I decided to show Elise my clever new storage technique for the bike and somehow managed to PUNCTURE MY FINGERNAIL with the front gear. I would post a picture of the damage but it really doesn't look like much after cleaning it, certainly not enough to indicate how disturbing and painful it is to have a PUNCTURED FINGERNAIL. At least the throbbing has subsided.
Weird deja vu event of the day: while in the bookstore I spied a book which is required reading for one of my future classes, "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information" by Edward R. Tufte. The last time I saw this book was about five years ago when my roommate Bill Press lent it to me because he thought I would find it interesting, which I did.

Behold! It really was quite painful, I assure you.

The Writing Test

This evening my ability to write a "business memo" will be tested by the USF Masagung School of Business to determine if I need remedial communication studies prior to starting the core courses of the MBA program. I sincerely hope it is graded on normal readability rather than the obtuse standards used by the GMAT graders. A note of explanation: the GMAT is the standardized test required by most accredited MBA programs, and there is a portion of the test designed to test the applicants' writing abilities. The rest of the test seems logical and well thought out, however the "writing test" portion does not test for writing ability in any commonly accepted sense, what it does test for seems to be the applicant's ability to adhere to a rigid organizational structure. I hated taking it and got a mediocre grade. So tonight when they look at my "business memo" I hope they look at it as any normal reader would, i.e. in terms of concision, clarity and memorability (no pun intended).
Elise and I awoke to a cozy 48 degree apartment over the weekend. I mused about how we would one day look back fondly on this experience. Aghast, I realized that I have been adapting to living in a freezing cold house and no longer find it as uncomfortable as I had. While there was little we could do about the temperature, we decided to make the apartment more habitable by getting a hutch/desk for my computer and building a mini-loft for the bed. It's not quite a loft, but it's higher than a normal bedframe, and oh-so-useful for storage.
On a "Weird San Francisco" note: I saw a guy on BART who literally looked like he was in a "shadowy P.I." disguise, complete with bushy mustache, mirrored sunglasses, fedora, and beige trenchcoat with non-descript shoes. I resisted the urge to sidle up to him and whisper "the raven flies at midnight".

A quiet day

Today is a quiet day. I sent off two holiday thank you cards and one sympathy card for a death in the family. Listening to 90.3 KUSF, the college radio station at my soon-to-be grad school. The weather forecasters are claiming it may snow in the hills later this week. I wish to buy a functioning bicycle for commuting and weekend fun, but our place is so small there is nowhere to safely/conveniently store it. I'm trying to put off playing video games as long as I can so I don't get that "I wasted yet another day of my life playing video games when I could have been _______ing" feeling.
I recently realized (again) that I need to create. How the creation takes place is of lesser importance than I had thought previously, as I get the same fulfillment of the need from writing in a blog as I do from welding a sculpture or playing a new song on the guitar. Of course the actions are different and the "product" varies according to the assorted actions and randomness of the process but the basic itch is still scratched. Spending time not creating feels as exciting as watching grass grow. Travelling creates memories, and fulfills the need so long as the trip is engaging. I hear some psychologists say this need to "create" is a male response to being unable to bear children. Meh.

Today, the Intarweb trembles

Yes indeed it is a fine day to inflict yet more indignities on the Intarweb. Today I visited the campus of the University of San Francisco to get more info on my imminent matriculation and was reminded of how pleasant and relaxing it is to walk around this city on a brisk winter day. While wandering aimfully through the Panhandle it occurred to me that my erstwhile fiancee had suggested I write a blog. You see, I had been meaning to do it but had just been so darned busy for the last two years. You know how it is. I must say that my IBM T41 laptop is handling the job admirably, especially for an electronic device doused with water followed a few days later by sake. My fellow students, I swear that it is my Laptop that Reeks of the Japanese Booze, and not me.
For the time being walking will be my primary means of transport since my beloved 1996 BMW R1100R motorcycle had the temerity to go and strip its transmission shaft splines and render itself inoperable, and my bicycle is in enough of a state of disrepair that I no longer feel confident in its stopping ability. Now I must ponder some of the Big Questions: do I buy a new bicycle or old motorcycle? How about a fancy new camera that can use those Nikon lenses I've had forever, and then just walk everywhere taking artful and provocative photographs? Maybe some of those super-springy shoes, or rollerblades? Right now I'm leaning toward new bicycle. Then I could ride my new bicycle around and feel cool.