Midterms, already?

It's been a really fast week. And a really fast session - with only 4 weeks, midterms come fast. Of course, during the year, it'll be only 6 weeks a class, so I need to get used to this!

aside from class, 3 non-class activities from last week were photos, CMC session, & triangle training.

photos - basically, everyone was freaking out since it was "so permanent". Running around, bringing hair straighteners into the bathroom, grabbing suit tops from our newly-discovered/assigned lockers.... all for less than a minute of sitting in a small room (trying not to sweat!) and smiling. It was funny to see everyone walking around, kind of business on top, normal on bottom =) Even our GIE teacher asked in the morning "Oh, it must be picture day, huh?" since some guys wore the full on suits, or you could tell people just got haircuts. Rumor has it some people took up to 6 tries - I just did one and got it over with, didn't want to keep the line waiting!

CMC session - the Career Management Center had a basic overview in our big auditorium, and then sent us to smaller rooms. (Not, of course, without showing this gem that we've seen before:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNv2xIrfh88) . We had a facilitator who was in the class of 2004 and had a crazy story of being in Bio in undergrad, then consulting, then was convinced he'd like marketing, but hated and now loves what he does. (side coincidence - my roommie & I ended up getting our washer dryer from him, yay no more coins and no paying crazy rental prices!)....  we brought print outs of "career leader" but also did a sort of gut-instinct career selection exercise. A lot of what he said was he loves cut & dry answers, but these are never cut and dry. It told him to be a clergyman and he thought that was crazy - but now, what is he doing? Nothing religious, but it does involve helping people. Basically, take it with a grain of salt. If it's not what you'd expect, what is it that made you get that answer?.... for the official survey, I got Counseling & Mentoring, as well as Applications in Technology.  Not too surprising - I'm always the listener, and came from tech! on the random-gut exercise though, I got "artist" (in general, creativity)...so I guess that means I need to think about what I'm missing/not getting that I need to in order to match my needs? It's funny, on the one hand, it's all about knowing what you want and getting the right internship and securing the job, and on the other hand it's exploring all the opportunities you didn't know were out there and maybe getting an internship you hate but at least you learned you hated it. conflicting, I know. But we'll figure it out.


Triangle Training - what a day. hot, muggy (though mostly in the shade) and exhausting. Mush more extensive than the ropes course I'd done before/organized for RDP at Intuit since that was only three hours; this was all day! We started off with easy stuff that wasn't really physical, just talking... but then it got serious. We did the "Spider web" which involves getting people through without touching any cords (which meant lifting people). There was also a numbers game were we had to run around and try to get efficient and make our process better and then teach it to another team. The actual ropes part was interesting - I got abandoned by the person who was coming with me (she got freaked out and had to get down) so I had to hang out up there and wait, since there was no way to finish the end without a 2nd person. It's ok though - we were all proud that she even got up there because she didn't want to! We did an interesting story game where we had to put pictures into sequence by talking but couldn't see what each other had and once it was down we couldn't move it.... the final event was what is in all the Team Fuqua pix - the wall. it's 14'' high and there's nothing to hold on to - it's a matter of getting boosted from below and pulled from above. It was really intense; half of section 4 was there and we were told we had 15 min allocated to us, with the average being 12 minutes. so that's 36 to get up and over in that time. It was about strategy - we had to pick an order, since the first person would have no one to help them up, and the last person would have no one to boost them. And people could only help with each task for a limited number of times and had to rotate out. It was so intense I've forgotten most of it; more than one person told me good job for almost single-handedly pulling one of our bigger guys up, but I don't remember that! :o) I do have the bruises to prove it though... we did it in 8 something and felt really good. later we heard some groups did it in 5 something. but as we were told before we were given our time, that's is only one measure of success in the whole process...

for section 4, tomorrow is our LEO midterm, and GIE is bright and early on Tuesday. It's multiple choice, so I'm not freaking out, but some people locked themselves in the library all day, which makes me question my effort. I guess we'll see tomorrow.... it's only 10-20% of our grades. The finals will freak me out (50%)



ps - I'd really like to go to sleep before midnight. I really would. someday...