life lately, according to my iPhone pictures

A lot has happened in 2 weeks...

I graduated from the University of Texas at Dallas with my MBA!

Some of my extended family came into town for the occasion

and my mom cooked an amazing meal.

A lovely co-worker treated me to lunch

at a precious teahouse called the Chocolate Angel.

These guys have been helping me plan my India trip for

Ashish's wedding - and I leave in less than a month!

Doesn't this look like a Norman Rockwell painting?

What a great Christmas.

And we had my aunt, uncle and cousins over to my parents'

house for Christmas dinner. I love my cousins - haha.

Oh, and I got a new car! Although I don't have a picture of it yet...

Country Music & Being Lazy

Now that we're about 2 wks into 2011... Happy New Year!

"What are my New Year's resolutions?" you ask? Well, this year I just have one: BE LAZY.

I have decided that I invest waaaay too much energy and effort in things - with little marginal results. It comes with the territory of being a partial perfectionist. Last semester I stressed out about school and then found out that I got all A's and aced my Finance mid-term (which I thought I had failed).

Haha, we'll see how long this lasts before I start color coding my closet again (I wish I were kidding).

I'm also turning over a new leaf this year - Country Music. I used to make fun of the "hicks" who listened to country music. But I now have 2 country radio stations programmed in my car and find myself singing the Zac Brown Band, Tim McGraw & Rascal Flatts. And I must say, I like the song "Good Directions and Turnip Greens" ; )

Anyway, here are some pictures from the past few weeks that make me happy!

Our pretty tree - complete with the 1980's,
wooden Mississippi state Christmas ornament : )

Me & my awesome (and highly energetic) 2nd cousins.
Don't know if you can tell, but Ethan had chocolate ALL over himself.

bahaha - Nancy w/Angel Tree gifts

My Cohort went ice skating after finals and we were
transfixed by the Zamboni...

...and I love that someone took not 1, but 2 pictures of us.

So, funny story - This pic is of the American Airlines Center before
the Trans Siberian Orchestra show. I walked in and started to
legitimately freak out. I normally do fine with heights,
and it doesn't look like it from the pic, but these seats were
high up there. Nancy tried to distract me with funny stories from
work while I tried to look at my shoes and not get dizzy.

I was glad when the show started.

Thanksgiving in Pictures

This post has been a few weeks delayed due to finals (which are now over!)

Some of my fellow cohorts came over for their
first American Thanksgiving.
Three guys from India and a girl from China.

Delicious food!

Homemade sweet potatoes = YUM

In keeping with the Christmas song,

my cousin's kids and I told "scary ghost stories."

As always, Callie assumed everyone
came over just to see her.

Marketing Case Competition

A few weeks ago, we heard about the Marketing Case Competition at Wake Forest University. Out 90 teams who applied last year, they only selected 8 to compete. We had 3 teams from the Cohort program apply & so we were scrambling to get the application videos done in time.

They are all really creative! Enjoy! (P.S. I'm in the first one)

The SWOT Team




Team Volcano




The Magnificent Seven

I'm a Card-Carrying Member of the NTER

I love waking up early to run.

And by "early" I mean 6:30 a.m. Hey, when you are a college student staying up till 1:30 in the morning to work on a statistics project, 6:30 is early.

Today I had a good run. I did 16 on the elliptical at 9:57 pace and did negative splits, meaning that I ran the second half faster than the first. Pretty respectable. Last week I did 12 miles at 9:53 pace.

Why did I do the elliptical machine, you ask? A few reasons:

1. Time. I still have to finish that Stats project, read a marketing case study, do my finance homework, study econ, and bake blueberry muffins for Bible Study tonight.
2. Entertainment. You get to see all sorts of crazy people at the gym on a Sunday morning, especially on Halloween. Of course there are those people going to classes who are wearing a crazy wig or witch's hat. But then there are the really scary people - the ones who aren't trying to be. One fairly buff guy in his mid 40's was on the elliptical in front of me. He was doing all sorts of twisting and what looked like tai chi. He set the machine to max incline and then tried to go really, really fast while maintaining an intense expression. I was amazed he didn't fall off. And the get-up he was wearing was pretty hilarious. I tried to take a picture, but it didn't do him justice. There was also another man who was in his 60's - he was wearing a white tank top, what looked like thin pajama shorts, and flip flops. Definitely didn't take a picture of him.
3. Pride. There's something so exhilarating about spending 3 hours on the elliptical. You're better than everyone there and you know it. Plus, you get the best parking spots when you show up before 7am.
4. Keeping my NTER membership current. What on earth is NTER? It stands for North Texas Elliptical Runners. In January, my dad will be doing a 100-mile ultra-marathon on the elliptical at 24 Hour Fitness. (The PR campaign starts soon, so be watching for updates!) Now, my dad and I are both members of North Texas Trail Runners (NTTR) and my dad, somewhat jokingly, decided to start his own club when he was forced to run indoors due to back problems. So, I'm just logging my miles to keep my membership current. ; )
   

I've got two weeks of tapering ahead of me. Going to shoot for less mileage and higher intensity.

P.S. Here is my new favorite video - Things We Say Wrong. It just confirms the fact that I'm also a secret member of the Grammar Police - much to the chagrin of my roommate (who happens to be an English teacher).

Running Changes Everything

Running has been interesting lately.

I am slated to run Rockledge three weeks from Saturday. Am I ready? Good question. School has taken it out of me - so many tests, projects, papers, meetings...

Two weeks ago, I had a near meltdown: "I'm failing at life!" "But Katie," my parents asked, "Haven't you made A's on just about everything so far?" "Well, yeah. But I haven't run in a week!" I wailed.

Doing a solid 12-miler last Saturday sure brightened my spirits. I haven't logged anything so far this week, but maybe today. Here's the schedule:

• 15-16 miles this Sat (weekly mileage: 22)
  
• Start to taper next week - increase speed work (weekly mileage: 10-12)
• Taper more - do more speed work (weekly mileage: 6)
• Rockledge 30K!

And if school takes over and my world implodes, I can always drop down to the 15K - that's only 9.3 miles. ; )

Guitars

It has been so long since I played my guitar! Going to the Guitar Center for our marketing project today made me think of it. I love music and playing guitar, but after several years and even leading worship for a small youth group, it's embarrassing how poorly I play! Haha - it brings back of Hannah's and my Youth Alive "worship band" - Holy Flame. Oh dear. It was a good day when Hannah didn't fling her pick inside her acoustic guitar and bust up laughing in the middle of worship.

GOOD TIMES!

Life Lately

Things have been so busy and I probably should be doing homework or reading instead of blogging. Such is life.

Last night I went to my first Gateway Pink event (their women's ministry). It was a night of worship w/Kari Jobe and it was absolutely amazing. I went with some ladies and had a wonderful time worshiping the Lord. He is so good!

On Wed, we did a scavenger hunt for OB. My team went to the mall. The highlights:

• Find 2 ppl in conflict & guess the reason why: We chose what looked like a rich Plano mom and her spoiled daughter arguing outside a Bath & Body Works. The reason for the conflict? It was, in our opinion, bad parenting.
• Do something creative: Matt did an indoor wake boarding thing for 30 min! A good b-day present.
  
• Eat the weirdest food we could find: pickles with salt, chile and lime...nobody wanted a second bite.

In school, I finished midterms and I'm now working on projects. The highlights:

• Turned in a 67-page Stats project - got an A
• Submitted a group ratio analysis project on Fluor Corp - got an A!
  
• Took the accounting final (8-week course) - grade TBD
  
• Took tests in OB (Organizational Behavior), econ and marketing
• In Prog: Marketing project - Dallas Guitar Lessons. Going to the Guitar Center on Sun to pass out surveys. Oh joy.
• Start Finance next week - kinda nervous, heard it was challenging. My college finance prof was a new teacher and in his class, a 65 was curved to a B...

There's a lot more, but that's all for now, folks!

Are the voices in my head bothering you?

Dear friends,

I apologize if I am not coherent these days, stop mid-sentence and stare into space, or forget your name. This condition is commonly caused by the 'graduate school' phenomenon and is exacerbated by tests, projects, emails, PPT presentations, career fairs, and meetings. Symptoms tend to dissipate with sleep and reduced stress.

...Looks like I won't be remembering your name for a while.

Sincerely,
Katie
(at least I haven't forgotten my own name - yet)

P.S. Did anyone catch the movie reference in the title?

Death by PowerPoint

Being in a masters business program, we see (and give) a LOT of PowerPoint presentations. Now this is just awesome:

http://www.slideshare.net/thecroaker/death-by-powerpoint

Hiking, Kayaking & First Day of School

Though I grew up in Grapevine, I never knew you could rent kayaks on the lake. In July, my friends and I spent the day at Grapevine Lake. We kayaked in the morning, had an old-fashioned picnic lunch and hiked all the way to China (well, at least it looks that way from the pictures).


My next big thing: grad school. This week I started the Full-Time Cohort MBA Program at UTDallas and it has been great so far. My roommate Diana took a picture of me on my first day of school...just like in kindergarten.