Shallow Me to Chicago & South Bend

Another tornado warning! Crazy. I will still brave the elements to go to the gym but pray that I don't get blown off the Key Bridge. I'll be attending my best friend's wedding this weekend in South Bend, Indiana (grrrreat) but first, I'll be in Chicago for a day. Wish me luck.

I'm sitting here at work and I've done everything I absolutely needed to get done before I leave. Just killing time now. We had a luncheon with our team's Partner and Principal today. It's amazing how everyone becomes tools and monkeys around such a trivial event. We wear business casual every day but yesterday, everyone decided that we should all wear suits. We were all smiling and standing up straight like corporate dorks. I tried to fake it during lunch but after 2 minutes, I was done. The conversation went something like this...

Teammate: Oh, I'm from New Jersey too.
Principal: Oh really? Where from.
Teammate: Morristown (or whatever).
Principal: Oh really? I have a friend from blah blah.
Teammate: Oh yea, that's right by there.
Principal: Yeah, that's great.
Myself: zzzzzz

I am all about being myself nowadays. I understand that I will ultimately have to do the whole corporate idiot thing once I start recruiting at b-school but at least it'll be worth it then cuz it'll be for things I desire and have respect for. Here, everyone is really low-caliber and do no work and basically steal money from federal agencies in exchange for typing up useless documents and surfing youtube. I can't believe how seriously they take themselves sometimes. Shocking that nobody asked our Principal for a photo afterward.

My favorite teammate told me a juicy rumor today. Apparently our current Project Manager (the one who used to be Deputy Project Manager up until 2 weeks ago when the old Project Manager resigned) might be leaving for a competitor too! haha. Doesn't change much for me but I guess that means I wouldn't even bother asking him for a recommendation. I'll probably just wind up asking the old Project Manager who already said he'd do it. His intentions are great but I'd need to coach him a lot with the writing.

As for my essay, I've been finding it hard to motivate myself. Now I'm going to lose the next 4 days to wedding related stuff. I love weddings so I'm happy to go, especially for my good friend from high school. Let's hope South Bend is mildly entertaining. It'd be cool to check out University of Chicago while we're there and maybe even Northwestern which is a couple blocks from my hotel.

Oh, and recently I started thinking about i-banking. My mind flutters to the topic every now and then. It's a hellacious lifestyle but the work is interesting enough. The compensation seemingly makes up for it. Or does it? That's the debate I always have with myself. I learned from the Million Dollar Man, Ted DiBiase that "every man has his price." You'd probably work 18 hours in a day if you were paid $1 million. So what would your price be to work like that for a week? For a month? For a year? That's my problem... I actually care about prestige and wealth and pretty material things. I'm such a shallow fool.