Please vote....but leave me alone!

I love voting.  Sending in my voter registration was the most exciting part of my 18th birthday (I also had two papers due the next day, so that may shed some light on the day...).  I vote whenever I have the chance.  I think it's an important part of being a citizen in a representative democracy. 

However, I hate election season.  Hate, hate, HATE.  The last time I thought an election season was fun was when I was 17 years old and got to go to one of then-Senator Biden's victory speeches at an election party in 2002 because I was "interning" for Senator Carper and was somehow apparently "well-connected."  Since then, I've been consistently irritated by the election season process.  Sure, there are candidates that I've supported and for whom I've handed out stickers at small town parades.  I've even "staffed" out-of-state fundraisers.  I've also dressed up as a certain former candidate for Halloween (hey, the costume was basically a business suit and a bump-it, and I'm a Halloween cheap-skate).  Like I said, I like voting, and I think civic engagement is important.   But I HATE election season.

In case you haven't watched the national news any time in the last few weeks, I currently live in one of the most hotly contested congressional districts in the country.  Basically, that means that for the last several months, I've been bombarded with huge yard signs, nasty commercials, and dozens of robo-calls.  Every single time I've left my apartment in the last four days, I've come home to a Tom Perriello hang tag on my front door.  Every single time the phone rings in my apartment, it's a robo-call (Dear Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, and Rush Limbaugh....I didn't give you or the organization on behalf of whom you are allegedly calling my number, so that means I really don't want to talk to you.  I hate phone calls so much that I am on the Do Not Call Registry.  Trust me, I will go vote.  But please stop calling.  I don't have an executive assistant to screen my calls.  And you call at ungodly hours of weekend mornings.  Don't take this the wrong way, though.  I wouldn't want to talk to a recording of Bill Clinton at that hour either.).  Every single time I forget that I have a DVR and actually watch part of a commercial break, there's a horrible campaign ad or PAC message that makes me dislike every candidate.  Seriously.  Every time.  There is not ounce of exaggeration in this paragraph. 

I guess propagating nastiness and annoying the voting populace have been key parts of the election process for decades, if not centuries.  And I understand that it's important to educate voters and motivate them to get out to the polls.  But even I - who LOVE voting - am tempted to put my foot down and/or throw my hands up and say, "Why bother?!?!  Just leave me alone already!!!"  [Note: I am still planning to go vote in the morning.  I'm just saying that it's tempting to put on the blinders and say "screw it" instead.] 

I would say that there is a fine line between educating voters and harassing them, between pointing out your opposing candidate's weaknesses and exploiting sentiments and fear....but there isn't really a fine line.  There's a huge freakin' chasm. 

I know I'm not the only person who feels this way.  In fact, I've spoken to numerous folks at both ends of the political spectrum who HATE election season as much as I do, for exactly the same reason.  Maybe someone's done studies that have shown that you really do get more people out to the polls with smear campaigns than with anything positive.  Maybe a big part of the problem is all the non-campaign-funded (i.e., "independent"....hahahahaha) publicity.  I don't really know.  But here's something for the political campaign gurus out there to consider:  I think there are plenty of people out there who, like me, are more likely to vote for your candidate if you actually tell us something about his/her platform and what he/she actually will do if we help elect him/her rather than just slamming your opponent.  If you don't, I think we're all going to be tempted either to stay home on election day or to to walk into a voting booth and vote for whichever third-party candidate hasn't shown up on our TV screens attacking another candidate. 

Just some food for thought.

And, to all my readers: make sure you DO vote tomorrow, no matter your party affiliation!

The power of the interwebs

Like most bloggers with a little bit of free time and some curiousity on their hands, I occasionally take a few minutes to check and see if people have been visiting my little corner of the internet world.  I think it's neat to see where my readers live, and as Darden has publicized my blog, other sites have referred readers to it, too.  I've also done some shameless self-promotion by tying a blog feed into my Facebook status updates and adding my site to Hella's List and the Clear Admit business and law blog lists (and thanks for the two shout-outs in Fridays from the Frontlines a couple weeks ago, folks!).  After all, my reasons for starting this blog were three-fold: first, I wanted to keep family and friends "in the loop" while I vanished into the deep, dark depths of Charlottesville; second, I wanted to provide a perspective on student life as a JD/MBA student at UVa for those who are also considering UVa and/or a dual degree; and third, I needed a forum to vent periodically.  So, with the exception of the third reason (which is mostly for my mental health and frankly cheaper than paying for therapy would be), promoting my blog and linking it to Facebook helps me achieve my goals for Legal MBAyhem. 

Today, as I was perusing "Recent Visitor 'Came From' Activity" and "Keyword Search" information in StatCounter,  I realized that it is almost creepy how quickly even a relatively small and largely inconsequential blog can spread through the "interwebs."  (Thank you, Al Gore.  Just kidding!)  That realization led me to do some Google searching of my own - for my name (including nicknames, since I use my full name and shortened name pretty much interchangeably now), my blog's name, and various combinations of "Virginia Law," my name, "Legal MBAyhem," and "Darden."  Obviously, I expected my posts to show up at some point when I searched for Virginia Law and Darden, and I know that Darden posts my name in connection with this blog.  When I last Google-searched my name during the recruiting season, the only forum in which my name and my blog were publicly associated was through Darden.  However, when I searched for my name today, I got all sorts of links to this blog.   While I don't have a big problem with that (hey, I chose to post in a public forum, anyone who knows me knows that my online persona is a direct reflection of my real-life persona, and if a business or law firm chooses not to hire me because of something I posted here, that is their perogative), I did notice that 1.) the number of websites that aggregate all sorts of information and then try to link it to keyword searches for goodness knows what junk is OUT OF CONTROL; and 2.) a lot of people and sites seem simply to have done away with good blog etiquette (by which I mean referring to someone who runs a fairly anonymous blog by the name of their blog/online persona (e.g., referring to me as "Legal MBAyhem" or "UVAJDMBA2013"), not by whatever name you were able to uncover for them somewhere else).

So the whole searching process got me to thinking about blogs and the internet and anonymity and whatnot.  I don't slap my name all over this blog primarily because I don't want to deal with total creeps and obnoxious people using that information for some nefarious purpose.  After I go (back) into business or become an attorney, I also don't necessarily need potential clients and co-counsel or coworkers reading all of my blog posts when they Google search my name.  I also generally try to keep my blog free of specific, attributable references to otherwise innocent people or companies who may not be thrilled about the fact that I am blogging about them.  For instance, I refer to my last major employer as "The Consulting Firm That Shall Not Be Named,"  I refer to most friends (except those who also blog and use their first names to do so) by their initials or some other moniker, and there are some subjects and people I just don't blog about (yes, I have an  "I need to have a ring on my hand to blog about a man" policy). 

But of course there is a tension between keeping part of my life shrouded in mystery and anonymity and being open and honest about my experiences, thoughts, and feelings as I work through Darden and UVa Law.  Anyone who knows me (including many of my classmates) will be able to "undisguise" my disguising and concealing efforts.  In my mind, that's fine - if you actually know me AND you read my blog, you will obviously know more about the topics about which I post than the average person who stumbles across this blog inadvertently.  If you actually know me, I've probably told you a good bit more about me than I post here.  Naturally, you should "know" someone you've actually met better than someone you've only "met" online. 

On the other hand, some people have periodically accused the Darden Student Bloggers of offering a biased or censured perspective of Darden and the student experience here.  For the record, Darden has absolutely zero authority to tell me about what I should blog or not blog; we bloggers make all those decisions on our own (I have no idea if the law school knows that I blog or if they particularly care).  Sure, if I started posting daily Darden-bashing entries, they might stop linking to my blog off of their Admissions page...but the ocassional Darden-critical post certainly makes it through, with a direct link from darden.virginia.edu.   I can't speak for the other bloggers, but for me, my decision not to post some more critical things about Darden, certain people, life, etc. stems more from a personal desire not to air all of my own dirty laundry and to avoid preserving in perpetuity on the internet my fleeting displeasures with some experiences or individuals.  Everyone has bad days or makes mistakes; I don't feel the need to immortalize all of those - either mine or others' -  here.   I do periodically rant, and those of you who read my Cannes post will see that sometimes, I certainly do articulate my "beefs" with others.  I try to only do so when I am a.) attempting to keep my head from exploding or b.) after I've thought long and hard about it and think that someone else reading this blog may actually benefit in some teeny tiny way from my 100% honest perspective about some particularly unpleasant experience or encounter. 

Anyway....I think I started writing this post with a totally different idea of where it would go, but here's where it's ended up.  Just my random musings, I guess.  I might as well post it, since I've spent the time typing it, right?

Cannes GBE, or what should have been the greatest-ever course credit coup

View of Cannes from the fort at the top of the hill

At the beginning of May, two days after exams ended and one day after I jaunted up to Hartford for my cousin's wedding (lovely, lovely but completely gratuitous-to-this-post pic below - it was a beautiful and very fun wedding!), I hopped on a plane to Nice, France to attend the 63rd Festival de Cannes (i.e., the Cannes Film Festival).  For two weeks, I was supposed to hob-nob with entertainment insiders and walk the red carpet...all while earning the equivalent credit for a one-quarter Darden class.  This sounds like the best plan ever (a veritable academic coup, if you will), right?

Um...wrong!  While there were certainly parts of the trip that I enjoyed, I spent much of the two week period completely frustrated and counting the days until I got to fly home.  Now, before you stop reading here and write this off as a crazy rant by a grumpy person, let me say this: what follows below is a fairly "fair and balanced" (no, not in the Fox News kind of way....in a truly "fair and balanced" kind of way) summary of the trip.  I'll cover the good, the bad, and the ugly in the spirit of being entirely honest.  What follows is my opinion, yes, so you can feel free to wholly disregard it, but there's also a lot that I'll say below that I really, really wish someone had told me before I signed up for this trip.  Some of my Cannes-mates may have different views (Sierra's more up-beat accounts are here and here and here), but the following is mine (and you'll note that I've taken six weeks to write this post, in part because I was so irritated before that I didn't think I could provide any sort of objective report on the whole thing until now.  I've mellowed with time.  Honest.). 

So...in the style of my Barcelona GBE post, here goes...

Overview
1.) Course name: The Business of Film at the Cannes Film Festival
2.) Professor: Yael Grushka-Cockayne, a member of the Decision Analysis faculty (she did not attend the Festival with us but will be reading our papers, viewing our presentations, and giving us grades)
3.) Credits: 1.5 credits that count toward the Second Year elective requirement (or equal to a one-quarter long regular class)
4.) Academic requirements/work load: Working a 6+ hour daily internship shift with a company doing business at the Festival for about 10 days; attending screenings at the Festival (mostly for fun); writing a 5-6 page marketing and distribution plan for a film screened at the Festival (either in competition, out of competition, or screened to buyers) (70% of grade, due July 1); putting together and delivering a 10-15 minute presentation about one of the films and our marketing/distribution plan in a group of 3-4 students (30% of grade, will be done in September when school resumes).
5.) Done in affiliation with: The American Pavilion, a communications and hospitality center at the festival, which matches students with companies for internships and ostensibly provides a variety of other services and perks to student participants (more on this below)
6.) Cost: Around $5000, including the program fee ($3000), airfare ($800-900), and food/beverage/sundry purchases for the two weeks. Darden approved loans for up to $4500, which was not really quite enough to cover everything (food is ridiculously expensive during the Festival....I think they just prey on tourists, which is probably a genius business strategy). 

Travel:
The plan was for everyone to depart on May 8 and arrive in Cannes on May 9.  I was planning to go late (arrive very early on the morning of May 10) due to the aforementioned wedding.  However, thanks to the Icelandic ash cloud, I ended up arriving about 10 hours after I was supposed to and before about 30% of the program participants (and before about 50% of people's luggage). 

Days 1-2:
May 9 was supposed to be a "get over your jet lag" kind of day for everyone in the program.  For future reference, there were about 150 or so students participating in the American Pavilion's program, the vast majority of whom were undergrads.  There were 16 or so Darden students and one girl from NYU-Stern.  Since the ash cloud was wreaking havoc on travel plans, May 10, which was supposed to be a day for getting the lay of the land and attending panels, ended up being a "get over your jet lag and hunt down your luggage" kind of day for most people.  My classmates who attended the actual scheduled programming of the day unanimously said that I didn't miss anything by not being there.

Day 3:
This was the day when we got our internship assignments.  There were also several panel discussions and a tour of the Palais de Festivals, or the main building where the festival screenings and the Marche du Film (film market) are held.

Outside the Palais, with the official festival picture of Juliette Binoche

 
I was actually pretty excited about my internship assignment - 5 other Darden students, one NYU undergrad, and I were assigned to work for a pretty major American studio (in my ongoing spirit of protecting the innocent, let's just call it "The Studio That Shall Not Be Named").  What I wasn't excited about during this day was the constant "hurry up and wait" routine (we literally spent over an hour just sitting on the steps of the Palais waiting for someone to fetch our festival accreditation badges), the panelists who spoke interminably on random topics that had nothing to do with their advertised theme (we got some guy's random musings on life during the talk entitled "Navigating the Cannes Film Festival" and absolutely no useful information about the Festival), and the relatively patronizing tone of the American Pavilion staff members.  Yes, I know wrangling 150+ students is difficult.  Yes, I know students often act obnoxious and entitled.  But hello, you're maybe five years older than me (which makes you younger than many of my classmates), so please don't talk to me like I'm a child.  And definitely don't just yell at all of us.  Grrrrr.....

Days 4-12:
From May 12-20, we were basically on our own to do as we pleased, so long as we showed up to our assigned internship shifts.  I ended up on the afternoon shift, which meant that from about 2 pm -8 pm I occupied the penthouse offices of The Studio That Shall Not Be Named and made myself available for whatever they needed me to do.  This included straightening up the office, organizing RSVPs and guest lists for parties, and running errands. We had been told in advance that we would be doing menial things like running errands, so I really didn't have a problem with that, at least in theory. I was more than OK with fetching office supplies and snacks and whatnot....it was when I got sent out to buy (and then return) a French MacBook (european outlet plug, French keyboard) for somebody who spoke no French and lived in Hong Kong or to track down Tampax and Midol for the executive's personal assistant or to go get the heel fixed on the Studio's VP of Corporate Affairs' shoe that I got a little frustrated.  It was like living in "The Devil Wears Prada," but I didn't get to meet Meryl Streep.  I also wish that we had had a little more opportunity to actually learn  about the film business, but we were basically under orders to stay out of the way of the executive (who apparently doesn't love interns), and there frankly wasn't enough to keep us all busy, so we spent a lot of time watching trailers and reading scripts (there are some really cool films coming out towards the end of this year, just FYI).  Several of the more senior Studio employees did periodically take the time to talk to us and answer any questions we had about the business, but it would have been cool to see a distribution negotiation or something like that. Still, all that aside, the internship wasn't too bad.  I have some suggestions for how it could be improved, but we'll get to that later.

Literally rolling out the red carpet...

Days 13-15:
Here's a key festival secret: most of the actual "business" is done the first week during the major market session. Then all the important Hollywood-types fly home, leaving the minions....er, I mean interns....free to jaunt off on day trips (read all about those here).

Day 16:
Most of us flew home on May 24, though a couple of my very lucky classmates had planned other European excursions before their internships started.

So, that's the trip in a nut-shell.  As described above, it probably doesn't sound too shabby, right?  Well, here are my other thoughts on the trip that I really think anyone considering going should know (and don't worry, I have some constructive suggestions for improvement, too, not just complaints).  These probably don't sound like major issues, but they could get awfully, awfully annoying when they were all happening at once.

Accomodations

My issue: space concerns and roommate matching
The situation:  We were housed in "European efficiency apartments." This didn't sound too bad at the beginning. I have friends who have lived abroad for a protracted period of time in accomodations that are billed exactly the same way, and they were perfectly fine. However, when you cram four people into an apartment that is smaller than my master suite in Charlottesville (which, trust me, is not palatial), you will have problems.  There literally was nowhere to lay down our suitcases, and there was not a single drawer (and only limited closet space).  I was in a bunk bed with a mattress that was flimsier than my sofa cushions at home.  The bathtub had a flexible shower head but no curtain.  We didn't get keys to the apartments; instead, there was a lockbox with a combination hooked to the bars over the window outside, and you had to open the lock-box, get out the key, unlock the door, replace the key in the lockbox, enter the apartment, and use the second key inside to lock the door again each and every time anyone entered the apartment.  If you were unfortunate enough to be sleeping in the bunkbeds in the front alcove, this meant that any time anyone came or went, you knew about it.  However, this all would probably have been bearable if I hadn't had The Roommate From Hell.  There were four of us in this apartment - me, my friend Amy, a cool undergrad from Bentley, and The Roommate From Hell.  Our first day there, before Amy's luggage and the cool undergrad had even shown up, TRFH comes up to us and asks if she can have friends who are in town for the festival sleep on our floor.  Ummmm....hi, there isn't enough room for four people, let alone their luggage, in this apartment.  We certainly aren't adding any more. AND, we paid for this, your friends didn't, and the AmPav rules prohibit rommates.  Amy and I articulated our concerns to her pretty nicely, though, which earned us a grumpy "Fine, I was just asking your opinion."  We thought that issue was over.  Wrong.  Instead, we ended up with a "squatter" who TRFH periodically snuck into the apartment while Amy and I weren't looking.  Super, super annoying.  TRFH also regularly flooded the bathroom while showering, and she was also in the annoying habit of handwashing her stockings and undergarments and hanging them in the bathroom each day to dry.  Oh, yeah, and she CONSTANTLY turned on the heat to the maximum temperature.  It was 70+ degrees outside and there weren't any windows to open.  Now, I am not usually a passive agressive person; if you've really ticked me off, I will usually go straight to blatantly aggressive.  But something about this girl really drove me up the wall.  Maybe it was that she pretended to be unable to speak English and refused to communicate with me and Amy.  Maybe it was that she kept trying to stealthily sneak her friend into our apartment.  Maybe I just didn't like her.  Either way, I started passive aggressively turning off the heat every time I walked into the apartment.  I started ignoring her the same way she ignored me.  I avoided the apartment basically at all costs.  Childish, yes.  But I know I wasn't the only one annoyed by her (the remaining roommates really enjoyed commiserating).  Oh...and I should also mention that we paid $3000 for the privilege of coming to Cannes, and the weekly rate for each apartment was 400 euro.  So that means that per person housing costs were 200 euro for the week.  Just keep that in mind for later...
My proposed solution/recommendations for the future:  Don't cram four people into those apartments.  2 or 3 MAX would be much better and the cost really shouldn't be a huge issue.  Also, don't have undergrads rooming with grad students.  We are at different stages in our lives and have different priorities (in other words, I am a grandma and would like to go to bed before 3 am at least sometimes).  If I'm going to be crammed into a room with 3 other people, I'd be much happier if they were Darden people. 

OK, at least the view from our apartment wasn't too bad...

Tickets to screenings
My issue: handled inefficiently, inequitably, and unprofessionally by AmPav
The situation:  When we weren't at work, we were free to do whatever we wanted, including attend screenings.  Now, here is the secret to the Festival: if you have a festival badge and an inside ticket connection, you can go see some really cool stuff that is being screened as part of the film market (the Cannes market is one of the biggest film markets each year, which basically means that it is where studios and filmmakers and distributors all get together to buy and sell films and distribution rights, so there are tons and tons and tons of market screenings for buyers, to which you can frequently get invitations or tickets if you know or can figure out whom to ask).  Unfortunately, I think it took some of us a really long time to realize that you could go to tons of screenings for cool US films this way.  Nobody really told us, and unlike every other Festival-goer with a badge, the American Pavilion kids didn't each get our own book of market screenings.  I don't know why this is, but I really wish I'd had it.  That being said, the American Pavilion did *try* to get us red carpet tickets to the films in competition and to some of the market films (but again, you had to specifically know which films where showing and where and when in order to even ask them to try).  They kept a book where you could sign up for the films you were interested in seeing.  While I did get to see a good number of competition films, there were a variety of very frustrating things about this ticket system:
1.) You could sign up at breakfast each morning, and you had three "stars" that you could put down next to the screenings that you *really* wanted to see.    Doesn't sound bad, right?  Well, the problem with this was that you could theoretically sign up for everything, so there were some people who did this...and then went back through and changed their minds and hemmed and hawed every morning, so it was often a slow, tedious process to wait and sign up.  Also, some people had variable work schedules, so you weren't always sure whether or not you should sign up for something because you didn't know if your work schedule would conflict.  Aaaaannnnddd.... what we didn't realize at the time was that you were basically rewarded for signing up first, because there were a limited number of tickets for each screening (if the AmPav even got tickets), and while there was a "raffle," that basically meant that if there were five tickets available, the first five people who had written down their names got the tickets.  Also, if you "used" one of your stars for a screening for which the AmPav couldn't get tickets, you didn't get that star "back" to use again, you just lost it. 
2.) Halfway through the festival, when we'd all wised up about the stupidity of the system and realized that the key was to just sign up for everything really far in advance and then swap a work shift with someone if you had to, they....LOST THE BOOK.  And didn't tell anyone.  Um, yeah, that was really super and really professional.  We all started wondering why we weren't getting tickets to anything any more.  Yeah. 
3.) They did the daily "raffle" and ticket-awarding at 6 pm.  If you worked an evening shift, too bad for you.  The Darden crew tried to always have a representative who went and tried to pick up tickets for those people who "won" them, but the AmPav staff was sort of snooty about this whole thing.  You needed a signed note authorizing you to pick up someone else's ticket, and half the time, they didn't even do the drawing on time, so somebody had to be willing to go sit around, wait for the drawing, fight to collect tickets, and then hunt you down before the screening.  Again, "systems" like this are infuriating for an MBA student. 
My proposed solution/recommendations for the future: AmPav should really publish (or otherwise communicate) concrete, helpful information about the ticketing process.  They should also provide us all with the copy of the market screening guide that I believe we are entitled to as credentialed attendees.  The AmPav ticketing system should be electronic.  Run a Google spreadsheet or something so it can be accessed continually, can't get lost, and so that you can actually run a "drawing."  Hold the tickets at the actual American Pavilion for pick-up by the recipient (stick a post-it with the person's name on the thing and hold it at the front desk, for crying out loud).  Seriously, put an MBA student on your ticketing "operations" problem for 20 minutes and let them fix the thing for you.  Sheesh. 

One of the billboards for Robin Hood, which most of my Darden classmates got to see.  Why didn't I?  They ran out of tickets and handed out the last one right under my nose. :-(

Technology
My issue: We were told not to bring computers but they clearly would have been useful.  We should have been told to get ourselves French phones/phone numbers prior to our arrival in Cannes, because our employers certainly expected us to have them.
The situation: AmPav told us not to bring computers, so I didn't (one less thing to tote through airports...).  However, we needed them at work (thank goodness some of my classmates had brought theirs), they were the best way to get information on the films that were screening (again, because AmPav withheld the standard festival attendee information from us), and I think online ticketing (see above) would solve a lot of problems.  Our employers, who were sending us jaunting around town on copious errands, also expected us to have French phones/phone numbers, or at least some way for them to reach us.  I signed up for a temporary international plan on my blackberry (Yes, I am addicted, but at least that way I could stay in touch with family/friends while I was gone), but I didn't want to pay 99 cents a minute for somebody from my unpaid internship to call me.  Also, without phones, you had no way to track down your Darden classmates to figure out who was going to which screening, where everyone was grabbing drinks, etc. 
My proposed solutions/recommendations for the future: Bring a computer.  A bunch of us also ended up buying rechargeable prepaid French phones.  It would have been much cheaper to do this in the States in advance, and I also learned that I could have signed up for a French number that could have rung on my blackberry.  C'est la vie.  Now I know.  And I have an old-school flip phone with a French number.  Aren't I cool. 

Money
My issue: We paid a crap-ton of money to AmPav and did not receive anything approximating the value of that money in return
The situation:  As I mentioned, we paid a $3000 fee to the AmPav program to participate.  In return, they gave us crappy housing (200 euro), shuttles to and from the Nice airport to our crappy housing in Cannes la Bocca (approximately 50 euro value per person), festival badges (rumor is the full festival badges through a company costs around $300; we had apparently watered down versions that didn't come with the free swag or informational materials), access to the American Pavilion tent (whoop-dee-doo!), [semi-stale] breakfast each day (I'll be generous and say they spent $5 per person per day, or about $70 for the whole trip), limited access to tickets [which we could have acquired ourselves if we'd been given the right information], and access to organized panels and speakers that many of us couldn't attend because they conflicted with our work shifts.  So, they spent MAYBE $800 on each of us.  Even throwing in a generous administrative fee, I still don't understand where at least $1000 of my money paid to AmPav actually went.  Plus, I paid for a French phone, bus passes, lunch and dinner, my plane tickets, etc. on top of that.  Now, I know all GBEs are expensive.  Barcelona wasn't cheap.  But at least in Barcelona, I could see where my money was going (very nice hotel, tour guides, admissions fees to museums, etc.)  Maybe if I had been planning that trip myself, I wouldn't have spent the moeny the same way, but at least I know where it went.  Not so with Cannes....and that is INFURIATING to someone who is living on loans.  I feel totally ripped off.
My suggestions/recommendations for the future:  I think going to Cannes and working at the festival is cool and a valuable experience, but I think Darden could organize a better program itself without AmPav for much less money.  Rent a villa, use the connections we've established with US companies to set up real internships where we actually do useful things, and use those internships to get festival badges.  Done and done. 

Lest you all think that this is just me going on a tirade again without doing anything productive about it, be aware that AmPav did give us review forms to fill out after the trip...and I said on that form much of what I've said here.  Oh, and I warned them that I would be blogging about it....

I hereby declare Winter to be over

I'm playing mind games with Winter. Yes, it did snow today in Charlottesville.  Yes, I know that Spring doesn't officially start for almost three more weeks.  But I have decided to throw my parka in the wash, pack up my hats and scarves, stow the big bad snow shovel, and remove all of my winter pictures from my camera and post some of them here.  Therefore, I announce that Winter is over.  Do you hear that, weather gods?  YOU ARE DONE!!!  Mwhahaha!

When I started planning to move to Virginia after 7 years in Providence, RI and Boston, MA (including above-average snow fall each of the last two years...and the average is ~45 inches), everyone said, "Oh, Virginia.  It only snows once or twice a year, and it snows MAYBE five or six inches, MAX.  Plus, it melts right away."  I should have known they were all lying to me when it actually snowed on the day that I came to interview.  But anyway...I was expecting snowfall like this, which we got during the first weekend of exams in December:

See, it was kinda rainy and gross, barely sticking to the roads.

You could still see the grass peeking through in Flagler Courtyard!

There were still living plants!

...and Darden hadn't even removed the flower pots!

Yes, well, snow like that would have been all well and good.  Then we got 2 feet during the weekend before Christmas.  The city, county, and state shut down.  More than 48 hours after the storm ended, I left to drive home to Delaware, and I didn't see a completely clear lane of roadway until I got two counties north on Rt. 29.  I realized then that Virginians have no idea whatsoever how to deal with snow.  OK, maybe that isn't fair.  Virginians who have previously lived in New England have a vague idea of how one should properly deal with snow.  Most Virginians panic, in the "OH MY GOODNESS!!!  It is going to SNOW!!! I have to run to the grocery store immediately and stock up on bread, milk, cat food, snacks, beer, etc., BECAUSE I MAY NEVER BE ABLE TO LEAVE MY HOUSE AGAIN!!!!" sort of way.  Do Virginians do proactive things, like salt or sand roadways?  No.  They do not.  In fact, they wait to start plowing or shoveling or doing anything to deal with the snow until there is more than a foot on the ground.  I want to start some sort of educational program for the local municipalities.  Furthermore, I want to issue a public service announcement to Virginia drivers:

"Attention, Virginia drivers.  Please consider the following tips for traveling in snow.  First, if you do not have 4-wheel drive and there is more than a foot of snow on the road, DO NOT DRIVE.  Second, if you do not know how to drive in snow, DO NOT DRIVE.  Even if you do have 4-wheel drive, do not drive if you are going to go either 5 mph or 80 mph in the snow.  Neither option is particularly safe.  Third, if it snows, please clear the snow off of the top of your car before it hardens into a rock-solid chunk that will go flying off of the back of your vehicle once you start driving, causing considerable consternation to other drivers behind you.  Fourth, if you see that your female neighbor has spent an houring shoveling out her car, including hauling shovelsfull of snow to the opposite end of the parking lot so that it does not block anyone else in, DO NOT MOVE YOUR SNOW-COVERED CAR TO HER CLEAR SPOT, leaving your snow-covered spot to ice over; that's just rude.  Your adherence to these four tips will make snowy winters far more pleasant for all Virginia residents.  Thank you."

Clearly, as a snow-hardened, grizzled New Englander, I was frustrated by the local response.  But again, I thought, "Hey, this must be the odd one-off situation that happens once in a blue moon.  I've dealt with it, and now I should be able to get through the rest of the winter snow-free."  Right?  WRONG.

It seemed to snow every single weekend through late January and February (and only on weekends!).  I had to cancel numerous trips to DC to visit friends, which meant that I felt snowbound every single weekend, and the cabin fever became ridiculous.  My #1 way to spend free time was shoveling out/off my snow-covered car (yeah, with that much snow, those little snow brushes are worthless - see below). 

Grocery stores constantly had 30-40 minute check-out lines as every Charlottesvillian panicked, storm after storm.  (Seriously, if it snows on Tuesday and you go to the grocery store on Monday to prepare for Snowmageddon, do you really need more food on Thursday in preparation for the Friday storm?  How much do you eat?) As my friends and younger sister in DC got day after day off from work, I didn't even get a single stinkin' snow day (the University cancelled classes on one Friday because there was a state of emergency, but Darden had a Reading Day anyway, so there was no incremental benefit to me)!  The outrageousness of it all!

However, during the second 2-foot storm, I decided to take the camera out and get some nice pictures of Darden and the central UVa grounds, because I do actually like snow (but I like it more when there is public transportation, when people know how to deal with it, etc.).  I thought some of you might enjoy!

The Darden sign.

Saunders Hall.

Close-up of Saunders.

The tree-lined driveway to the faculty parking lot.

Kind of hard to sit on the benches, huh?

Our man, Thomas Jefferson. 

Flagler Courtyard and the fountain, looking towards Saunders.

A very, very snowy little courtyard alcove.

I love the contrast of green leaves and snow.

Anyone for lunch outside?

Treacherous stairs.

Abbott Center and Wilkinson Courtyard.

I LOVE snow-covered trees.

Central Grounds, view from Newcomb Hall.

Walking towards the Lawn.

The Rotunda, from the Lawn.

The Episcopal church near the Lawn (St. John's, maybe?).

View of the Rotunda from University Ave.  Clearly the undegrads had been sledding.  I miss "borrowing" dining hall trays to sled down College Hill in Providence.

The University chapel.

See, wasn't that pretty?  Unfortunately, now that I have decreed that winter is over, all we are left with is the big heap of parking lot snow we have dubbed Mt. Barracks:

The Barracks Road Shopping Center people covered it in sand so people would stop sledding.  Killjoys.  Darden students, ever-inventive and very good at monetizing anything they can, have a bet going as to the day that Mt. Barracks finally melts, and if you are actually still reading this blog post, you must have time to kill, and you should check out the Cold Call Chronicle article about climbing Mt. Barracks. 

Why do you build me up just to let me down and mess me around?

Apologies to The Foundations for borrowing their lyrics ("Build Me Up Buttercup") for the title of this blog post, but....

Dear Darden,

I have a question for you: seriously?  Now, I've heard all about "Black November" at Darden.  It's like one of those "the school, the myth, the legend" kind of things around here.  I know that I'm not supposed to have any free time at all, that I'm supposed to be getting 3.25 hours of sleep each night, that I should be making 5+ networking calls a day, that I should be calculating WACCs and de-levering betas in my dreams.  I get it.  Really, I do.  I was expecting it.  And frankly, my November didn't start out too terribly wonderfully.  I didn't understand anything in either Finance or Global Economies & Markets.  I hated my resume.  I was grumpy, for a variety of personal versions.  In other words, I was ready for Black November. 

Then, Darden, you decided to lure me into a false sense of security and complacency.  You gave me a light caseload last week.  My learning team didn't have to meet after Tuesday.  We got to go on a field trip, fifth grade style, complete with busses and a lunch consisting of turkey sandwiches on white bread and chocolate chip cookies.  I can't remember the last time I had a sandwich on plain white bread.  It was nostalgic.   I had time to pay my bills, clear out my DVR, and watch a movie from NetFlix.  I went to TNDC for the first time since September, without feeling guilty, because I got to sleep in the next morning since class didn't start until 10:15 for a change.  I got to clean my apartment from top to bottom because I actually had time to do it, not because I was using domesticity as a procrastination excuse.  In my view, having time to scrub your floors on hands and knees, with Pinesol, at 3 pm on a Thursday afternoon when you don't have company coming is the height of self-indulgence, an activity typically reserved for the unemployed or ladies who lunch.  The rest of the world uses Swiffers.   This weekend, I had time to make coffee cakes to motivate my Section E-mates to get up and play Darden Cup soccer.  I baked bread.  I made chicken noodle soup, from an actual raw chicken and a big pot of water and some chopped up vegetables.   It felt like exam week, only so much better.

Then this week started.  Monday was Black Monday, in my view.  I don't know what happened to the stock market, but my levels of joy and satisfaction with life plummeted well below 10,000.  I had a paper due that should have taken me 2 hours to write.  It took me HOURS, and I finished it 20 minutes before the deadline.  It was a 4-page paper.  WTF, Darden?  You've robbed me of my ability to write papers, and I was a paper-writing fiend before you converted me to a spreadsheet junkie.  I realized this week that my resume still stinks.  I haven't written any cover letters, and I have three weeks until on-grounds job applications are due.  I'm behind on preparing for case interviews.  I have several networking calls set up for later this week, but I'm still behind the ball.  I REALLY have no idea what's going on in Finance.  My class participation has fallen off a cliff.  We have a marketing simulation (StratSim) from 1:30 pm-9:30 pm today and 9 am-9:30 pm tomorrow.  It's raining today, and it suddenly went from 70 degrees to winter.  I feel like I'm drowning.  I'd rather go back to working 90+ hour weeks at a law firm. 

Darden, I understand that this month is called "Black November" for a reason.  I just think it was really mean of you to make me think that everything was peaches and cream last week.  If you were a man, I would dump you, because I consider that false advertising, and it's a problem in any relationship.  Take that, Buttercup.

Love,
Me

Things I will NOT miss about Boston

First (and right now only) item on the list of things I'm excited to leave behind: The crappy, crappy weather we've had for the last month or so. Don't believe me? This is a reflection of the horrible month of June in Boston. Miserable graphic, but I think it says a lot.

I survived a year with something like 2 feet more snow than the average (which is already pretty close to 4 feet a year) in Boston, and other than the fact that all the shovelling made me slightly grumpy, it really wasn't THAT bad. Now, it's July, I haven't seen the sunlight in so long that I actually have a vitamin D deficiency (normal range is 30-100 ng/mL; my level is 25 ng/mL), and I'm pretty sure I'm on my way to a Seasonal Affective Disorder diagnosis.

Every time I log in to iGoogle and see the comparative weather between Boston and Charlottesville (e.g., 58 degrees and pouring vs. 80 degrees and sunny skies, respectively, for July 1, 2009), I can't wait until I move...

EDIT: Today (7/2) boston.com actually posted instructions on how to build an ark. You have got to be kidding

In which our heroine very nearly becomes overwhelmed by business school before she even gets to Charlottesville...

***Warning: the below is a rant. If that's going to bother you, stop reading now.***

As I mentioned yesterday, part of my blog delinquency has been due to the heinously ridiculous amount of stuff I need to do before I move to Charlottesville* on August 1. "What heinously ridiculous stuff?" you may ask. Well, aren't you going to be sorry you asked...

1.) Moving. Moving may be my single least favorite activity/event EVER. Do I hate moving more than I hate, say, eating brussels sprouts? YES. Do I hate it more than scrubbing bathroom toilets? YES. Go ahead and pick any other activity, and I promise you that I hate moving more. Now, why exactly do I hate moving so much? Well, for starters, I have a lot of crap, and moving it is a pain in the derriere. Secondly, moving offends my sense of order and reason. In the process of packing things up, you find yourself unable to find critical things that you need before you move, AND you can't walk around your apartment because of the bazillions of packing boxes in various states of being filled. When I was in college, I used to start packing for the end of the spring semester by Spring Break, and back then I had a lot less stuff. On the bright side, my friend Sam from work did just give me a whole bunch of boxes (Sam just moved) yesterday, so he has definitely saved me $$ and mucho time/effort. But back on the dark side, now I actually have to start packing, which is a process rendered far more frustrating by the fact that my sister is currently living with me (THAT is a story for another day and a less public forum), and my poor little one bedroom simply cannot hold, her, me, my stuff, her stuff AND boxes. Just ain't no way. Le sigh.

2.) Logistics. This topic sort of falls under the "Moving" heading, but I really think that logistics are their own separate problem. By logistics I mean finding movers, renting a moving truck, figuring out how I'm going to park a 26-foot moving truck in front of my apartment in Brighton(read: I need to figure out a.) how to get Boston street permits without paying a fortune to bond myself/my mother/our rented Penske truck and b.) how to ensure that nobody actually parks in the spots for which I've obtained the aforementioned permits on the day that I have the permitted right to reserve them), getting out of my Boston lease early (my landlord actually rented the apartment out from under me yesterday - I can't tell you how many times I said, "I am moving out August 1; you can rent the apartment any time starting August 2," but apparently, he didn't catch the fact that I WILL BE LIVING IN MY CURRENT APARTMENT ON AUGUST 1 UNTIL I GET MY STUFF OUT OF IT), getting utilities set up in Charlottesville (um...is there a reason Charlottesville, VA has no cable competition and Comcast thinks it's OK to charge a 25% premium over their rates anywhere else in the country?), etc., etc., etc. Maybe what this has taught me is that I do not have a calling to work in Operations.

3.) Healthcare. By healthcare I mean getting required immunizations, seeing every doctor possible before I lose my sweet, sweet health insurance coverage through the consulting-firm-that-shall-not-be-named, and finding new health insurance that will not result in me paying a bloody fortune to see an endocrinologist and keep my insulin pump (but chronic diseases are also another story for another day). Right now, I can't lift my left arm (seriously, John McCain-style) thanks to the tetanus (TDaP, actually, because nobody wants diptheria or pertussis, either) shot I got yesterday, and apparently, a simple tuberculosis test (that's the one where they inject stuff that stings like hell into your forearm, and it sits there in this gross-looking blob under your skin for while, and than you have to go back in two days for them to confirm that no, you don't have tuberculosis) now requires no less than four - count 'em, FOUR - trips to the doctor's office, because the FDA or somebody decided that one test isn't good enough so you have to do the whole thing twice to confirm that you're healthy. Again, le sigh. I don't even have the energy to discuss the insurance issues in any further detail.

4.) Money. It is no surprise that business school (or any pre-professional school, really) is expensive. I think everyone is fairly cognizant going into it that business school=debt, unless you are independently wealthy, or you worked on Wall Street and horded your money, or you live in South Dakota and just won Powerball. I am not independently wealthy, I am a paralegal, and Massachusetts is the only state in the country that doesn't have Powerball. So, like most other people, I plan to take out a bazillion dollars in loans to pay for my JD/MBA. However, loan checks don't get disbursed out to students until mid-September or something like that, and before orientation even starts, I need to buy a car, car insurance, parking (these transportation-related things are things I've been saving for and which would not be covered by loan funds in any event, but I'm listing them here anyway), a new computer, health insurance, renter's insurance, books (Darden charges a fee for all of your cases for the whole year, but you have to pay by August 15 apparently), etc. Not quite sure where all the money for that stuff is going to come from. In case the powers that be missed this fact, students need LOANS to pay for school-related stuff, so it's a wee bit challenging to pay for this stuff BEFORE we get our LOAN MONEY. Grumble.

5.) Actual academic preparation for classes. In the form of pre-enrollment modules and recommended reading. Frankly, the thought of this just exhausts me so much that I'm going to have to talk about this topic on another day. Same goes for the topic of wrapping up my current job (and remind me also to discuss the ridiculous expectation that entering MBA students can just take the whole summer off to prepare for school....riiiight. Again, not independently wealthy here. And in need of health insurance. Thanks for the consideration.). And I also need to write a post in response to Julie's comment on my earlier post about acceptances as to why I chose Darden. I promise I'll do that eventually, too....

*Note: None of my aggravation here is really specifically connected to Darden; I know I'd be equally frustrated right about now if I were going to school anywhere else, too. Just a disclaimer.

Ta-da!! It's a blog!

Welcome to my blog! While it doesn't look like much yet, this blog will (I hope) ultimately serve several key functions:

• Enable me to update my friends/family/etc. regarding goings-on in my life as I go through grad school. I don't anticipate having a ton of free time over the next four years, and while I love all my friends dearly, I don't love phone tag. Really, I don't love the phone at all. Unless I can use it to email someone. But talking on the phone is over-rated. Plus, this way, you all have the option of hearing/reading about my life when it's convenient to you....or when you want to procrastinate at work....
• Provide some first-hand reports of life as a JD/MBA student at the University of Virginia School of Law and the Darden School of Business. When I was applying to school, I combed through the "interwebs" to see what information was available regarding the experience of obtaining both degrees, largely to no avail. It was wholly impossible to get the perspective of an early-career woman trying to do it at two top schools. If this blog can help one other person who is considering pursuing a JD/MBA but just wants more information, then I think it's worth my time.
• Provide an outlet for me to vent on occasion. While not everyone reading this blog will know me personally, those of you who do also know that sometimes, I just need to rant. And I can't always do so in the form of a nasty-gram to my landlord (I felt it my personal obligation to notify him of just how many provisions of the Rhode Island Landlord Tenant Act he was in violation), AAA (no, waiting for a tow truck for 4 hours is NOT acceptable) or the Danvers Sheraton (just FYI, Massachusetts law does not require that you be 21+ to rent a hotel room). Much as I love the intermittent nasty-gram, I think this may be a better forum. See also above re: my dislike of the telephone.

So, as I begin my JD/MBA journey and move to Charlottesville, VA, I'm planning to post relatively regularly here. Those of you who care to read and/or comment are welcome to do so...I guess we'll see how it goes...