Sunday, August 24, 2008

New York, Campus Visits, Beautification Day, Lax Apps Progress

I haven't been back to NY in about 10 weeks. Crazy. But mom is finally back from Beijing so next week I'm going home for the long weekend. I know my mom will want a lot of my attention but I'll have lots of other stuff to attend to too. Friends and personal business stuff. So much so that I don't think I'll be stalking Columbia's campus at all hehe.

As for my New England trip, it will definitely be Sept. 17-20. Wednesday is MIT, Thursday is Yale, and Friday is Harvard (Harvard and MIT may flip flop though). Then on Saturday we depart but not before checking out Boston a lil more. And it looks like HappyBunny will be joining us for the Yale trip... she actually offered to drive! That should be fun and you know I'll be blogging like crazy when I return. I've promised Samantha a detailed HBS report.

This past saturday was DC Public Schools Beautification Day. I led a group of 25 volunteers to landscape Eliot Junior High School (apparently middle school and junior high are synonymous these days). Waking up at 6:30 am was painful. But the day went really well. People really enjoyed themselves and the front of the school looks sooo pretty. It was literally dirt and dead grass when we got there. Afterwards, it was still kinda dirt and dead grass but there was also lots of pretty flowers and mulch. Not bad. More than half of the 25 volunteers were from the same Christian Bible group and they were radical. Super fun and super hard workers. When they found out we only had 4 flowers to plant (ridiculous budget), they went to Home Depot and purchased a bunch of flowers themselves! Insane. Plus, I think one of them took a liking to me but alas we will never know now. The project did reveal that I need help in refining my leadership skills. There was one volunteer who works for the DC Office of Accountability (or something like that) and she was a "strong personality" and tried to usurp the reins of the project a little. Plus the principal came out and tried directing us which sucked because I should've told him that I was the site manager. Ay carumba. I suck at being authoritative. I don't want to come off as a know-it-all dictator. It worked out in the end though.

Students just started returning to campus at Georgetown this weekend and it is cool. I like seeing a college campus full of life. I wish I was a student.

Would you believe that I haven't done anything app-related for almost 2 weeks? It's true, Lafou.

7 comments:

theincarnated said...

Hey Nomad!! I'd Love that HBS criticism too... :P

TienyChesney said...

TheIncarnated,

Sorry, first come first serve. I will have to dedicate my MIT Sloan post to you instead ;) And who said it would be HBS criticism? Maybe it will be all things glowing and fuzzy...

Dino said...

Good story man. With a little work, you might even be able to turn it into an essay.

btw, I've not been able to find your email to claim my McDonalds Milkshake.

Hmm... I should post my school visit reports actually.

TienyChesney said...

Hey D.G.,

Where did you get the McDonald's milkshake idea from? Did I mention it somewhere? If you said it randomly then that's the craziest coincidence becuz I love McD's shakes!! At my work, I'm responsible for compiling a tedious weekly status report from 25 people. They all ignore the mandatory submission so I once started offering a free McDonald's shake to the first submission each week!

Anyway, I just emailed you regarding your prize. Also, I definitely recommend posting your school visit experiences. I think when I started posting my CBS visits is when I first broke the 20 visitor threshold for a single day.

Dino said...

Hey T. Your love of McD shakes is given away on your profile ;-).

I already get more than 20 visitors a day! I'm trying to break the 100 barrier at the moment :-).

Samantha said...

I saw a girl in the locker room with a CBS bag and totally harassed her about the school. She said she loved it!
Have you noticed that the Columbia website is slow? It's annoying.

TienyChesney said...

Hi D.G.,
Don't worry, I wasn't insinuating that your blog doesn't get many readers. I was just enlightening you to my own humble blog's statistics. Man, if I could average 100 per day, I might actually make a cent or two off of Google Adsense. But then again, blogging isn't about the money right? That's what b-school's for!

Samantha,
Don't tantalize me with your newfound CBS enthusiasm! Ignore the slow website though and instead think about the positives (e.g. the new Whole Foods on 97th street hehe)