A quick update. I am current in Geneva Switzerland working in the United Nations for the summer. I am project managing a field guide book to Afghanistan as well as putting together proposals for upcoming projects related to Afghanistan and humanitarian needs. It has been quite an amazing summer so far. I have met some of the top officials for many of the aid agencies here in the United Nations as well as people in the private sector. I attended a Yale Law School Alumni gathering held at Charles Adams spectacular home overlooking Lake Geneva where two prior Yale Law students tried to convince me to goto law school instead of business school.

So I have to admit I don't update this as much as I should. I guess I don't feel I have much to say about applying to business school right now because outside of working and school I'm not doing much that directly applies to this site or my pursuits. Undergrad when you're 32 is not exactly a "fun" time, it's really just more of a chore (yeh, it's interesting, but when you've been involved in producing multi-million dollar events, writing a four-page paper is just a chore).

But I have to admit, I am cracking up at all the negative and attacking comments people are leaving recently. I would say it amazes me that people can be so malicious, but then again, I am reminded that this is the internet world. Most of the people leaving such comments are probably really just individuals who are unhappy with their lives and need to put down others (via the anonymous privacy of their bedrooms) in order to feel better about themselves.

But, please continue to leave comments, negative or not, because at the end of the day, it only helps increase exposure for the site and I get a great laugh out of bitchy whinny ones.

So now that I am here writing, figure I might as well update my progress quickly.

Spring Semester started a couple weeks ago, I'm enrolled in:

• French 21
• Economic Game Theory
• History of Europe: Since 1940
• Political Economy of Migration

Classes are going well, I think Game Theory is going to turn out to be pretty hard, mostly because I have to brush up on a lot of Calculus from years ago.

Unfortunately, I recently lost a client of seven years. They have decided to finally hire someone in house to manage and develop their websites (close to 20 of them). They were a large part of my income while up here in Davis, so that sucks, but at the end of the day, I wanted to move away from this line of work, so this is just an early kick out of the nest.

For those interested in seeing the portfolio of my work please check out my company Nine Grounds:

http://www.ninegrounds.com

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Again, it's been a while since my last update. But honestly, who wants to hear about the boring life of a college student, especially one that is married, works alot, and has dogs that take up too much time. So to jump from the last post about three months ago, I am now half way through Winter term here at UC Davis. Classes this term are: French 3, Intermediate MacroEcon, Philosophy of Religion, and Politics and Resistance: the Creation of the Political (Anthro). Classes are progressing well, but not really anything excited to report. Surprisingly I am enjoying the Anthropology and French class the most out of all. Even though we are halfway into the term, economics is still working on pretty basic concepts. I expect it to intensify soon (and thus become more interesting).

I've noticed more SPAM comments on the site recently, I need to setup a CAPTCHA system to block them. However, that's good news, because atleast somebody out there thinks the site is worthy of SPAM! I'll take that as a win.

I still need to start studying for the GMAT.

I need to figure out what I am doing this summer. The option of working in France or London has presented itself and I need to decide what will be best.

I have been reading a book called "The Best Business Schools' Admissions Secrets". It is written by an ex-Harvard B.School admissions board member and discusses how to "brand" yourself when writing your admissions packets. It's pretty interesting and suggest you check it out.

I have been very lucky to maintain one large client while I am living up here in Davis. They have been keeping me very busy maintaining and updating their multiple web domains. It's funny because I was originally trying to run away from performing 'service' work in the web field, but now I am truly greatful to have it as an income source (and as something to distract me from the hum-drum-Davis lifestyle).

The sensation of time has been oddly warped since the beginning of the fall term. Part of me wants to say it's only felt like a few days and part of me feels like it's been years. I guess I'm just not used to be "doing something" practically everyday. Being self-employed, one tends to work when one wants to, which leaves alot of time for, well... not working. But being in school and still managing a few clients, I seem to always be on the go, with little time to myself. The truth of the matter is that it has been seven weeks since my last posting (and the beginning of the fall quarter) and I can't quite figure out if that feels like a long time ago or if it feels just like yesterday. Things seem to be a bit of a blur.

There really hasn't been much to post in terms of progress towards a HBS admission in the last few months. I have just been focusing on classes and getting ready for finals which are coming in a few weeks.

One thing I do need to research is the GMAT test and possible GMAT review courses. I know that the two big ones are The Princeton Review and Kaplan, though I need to figure out which one will be better for me. Anyone who has taken any of these classes please leave a comment with your thoughts.

I have been thinking recently about leadership and what makes a leader. I know this is a major component to the HBS admission process and I want to look into exactly what we look for and expect in leaders, both natural and learned traits.

I am going to start putting together the traits that I notice in leaders around me in order to see if those traits can be emulated and subsequently learned. It will be an interesting character study.

So today was the first day of school... sorta. If anyone has been following the California budget crisis you will know it extends to the public school system. The current problem is that without money, the UC system is being forced to cut programs, staff and teacher hours as well as to increase student rates. The teachers and students are not very happy about this and subsequently organized a strike on the first day of classes. I had heard a few rumblings about a proposed strike, but honestly didn't know that it was actually going to happen until I received a group email from the French department last night informing us that there would be no French class on the first day of school. Um, okay, I get to sleep in an extra hour. However, I still had two other classes that day that were supposedly being held.

My second class was Introduction to Wine Making. This should actually turn out to be a really interesting class. It covers everything from vines to crushing to bottling and even includes a section on tasting, though it all has to be hypothetical testing because of age restrictions. None-the-less, this should turn out to be an interesting class.

After wine class it was off to the "Silo" to grab lunch. While I was eating my sandwich a group of coeds started up a random bikini water balloon fight. I think it was to promote the Outdoor Adventures club, but honestly who was paying attention. Only in college....

My last class of the day was Advanced Writing, Business/Legal. The class started normally, but the professor immediately launched into the strike and who in class was going to go and support the rally on the quad that was just about to start. Turns out he has a no strike clause in his contract and would be docked pay if he participated but he was adamant that we skip class that day and go and join our fell teachers and students on the quad. I assume most people just went home, but I went and listened to what the union leaders had to say.



The turn out was really not all that great considering a school of 30,000 people. The speeches were rather repetitive with most anger being directed at the president and his high salary. I didn't hear much of a solution. But I suppose the point was to rally the people behind a cause, hopefully the solutions will come later. I stuck around for about 45 minutes until the heat (it was close to 100 again) was too much to bear and so I headed home.

All in all an interesting first day. Where else do you find a water balloon fight and a campus strike in one day? Only in university...

The official summer session grades were posted online and I took home A's in both. This leaves me seven more classes to complete for my major and five for my minor in Economics.

That's twelve class plus five for French, plus two electives I'm taking this term. Add that all together and you get 19 classes spread of hopefully six terms equals just 3.2 classes a term. Not too bad (only 3.8 a term if I try to get it done in five terms).

Classes start this Thursday, September 24th!

Last week I attended TechCrunch50 in San Francisco, CA. It was a two day conference that gave the top 50 emerging internet companies a chance to pitch their concepts to a panel of experts in order to get feedback and a chance to win $50,000. Overall, it was interesting, but honestly, I didn't really see anything that really made me say "wow". Now, that doesn't mean those companies won't necessarily be highly successful, I just didn't connect to anything they were pitching. It was an interesting couple days, and considering my $195 student ticket price (versus the $2,995 regular price), it was a good investment.

However, one thing that I wasn't ready for was the similarities of this event and that of all Hollywood events I've been too. I was expecting business leaders and tech geeks who were there (like me) to learn about the up and coming businesses and technologies. Instead it was just a bunch of guys (yes, 99.9% guys) all vying for attention from some celebrity status VCs or tech bloggers. It was difficult to have a conversation with anyone without their eyes quickly darting back and forth to see who else might be within a handshakes shot distance.

It was funny how little respect my badge that instead of saying my company said "UC Davis". The badges were basically great ways to segregate people. Different colors indicated if you were Press, VIP, Exhibitor, Attendee etc. So the first thing people did was to scan your badge and see what organization you were with. I was the lowest of the low with my school name on my badge. So low in fact that on multiple occasions when someone would come up to speak to us they would scan my badge, see UC Davis, and not even bother to address me. It was very funny and became a running joke to see who would acknowledge me and who wouldn't.

The crowning moment of "Hollywoodism" was at the very end of the conference where Michael Arrington (the guy who runs Tech Crunch and is the face of the blog and the event) snubbed the conference winners by walking off stage and  boycotting the award ceremony. Apparently he didn't like the winner selected and went off and had a little cry backstage. I would call that pretty darn Hollywood entitlement.

Anyway, I can't say if I will go back next year. It was an interesting experience but not something I really need to do again.

Next week I am heading over the San Francisco for a couple nights to attend the TechCrunch 50 conference. It should be a good opportunity for me to get a first hand look at what's happening in the Silicon Valley world of tech. I am trying to shift my focus more into the field of entrepreneurial business and figure this is a good way to get some first hand knowledge of who is doing what. I have to admit I don't really know what to expect but you've got to start somewhere.

I have finished my first semester at UC Davis. It was a fast paced breeze through a terms worth of work in only five weeks but it was worth knocking out two required classes. I now have two weeks vacation before I start the fall term.

I am half way finished with the Summer Session II at UC Davis. It is a quick six week sprint through classes that are generally done in twelve weeks. This summer I am enrolled in two classes (Women and Development & History of France since 1815) and I am currently getting A's in both. I have two term papers to write this week and one final to study for next week.

I have also solidified my schedule of classes for the Fall 2009 term, they are as follows:

• University Writing Program, Focus on Legal Writing - UC Davis requires each student to take a Upper Division writing class for graduation
• Elementary French - It's sad, but I did not score very well on the French placement exam so I have to start French over from the beginning as International Relations requires students to have completed a series of five language classes by graduation.
• Intermediate Microeconomics - Technically, this class is not required for my major focus, however, I need to complete 20 additional upper division units outside my major concentration for graduation, so I thought I would get a Economics Minor.
• Intro to Wine Making - Exactly what it sounds like. I'm in wine country. There is no way I'm leaving without learning all there is to know about wine. Total elective, but I've heard it is actually a hard class.

So there it is. My fall lineup. I was advised to only take three classes my first term to adjust to the system, but I think I will be okay with four.

Fall term starts September 28th.