how many polar bears will it take for me to write my thesis by Ivy

So I am sitting on my porch, in only a tank top and juicy sweats, writing my thesis, which ironically contemplates the consequences of global warming. Hmm, too bad individual narratives won't fly for an honors thesis. I could write an entire paper on the negative impacts of global warming on the fashion catwalk taking place on the sidewalk in front of my house: people with flip flops and North Face vests, t-shirts and uggs, almost as if their tops and bottoms are experiencing different seasons. Or, if you're an anxious, guilty liberal like myself, your head wishes it were colder, but your body is happy. So you try to fool your head by throwing on that extra layer becuase, well, it's March 2nd. But, really, you don't need it.

Another good thing about writing outside, besides observing the effects my subject has on my peers, is that it forces me to actaully write. (Notice how I don't specify what), but I can't partake in my usual procrastination ritual of eating my entire refridgerator content. I guess there's an upside to everything.

So I am sitting on my porch, in only a tank top and juicy sweats, writing my thesis, which ironically contemplates the consequences of global warming. Hmm, too bad individual narratives won't fly for an honors thesis. I could write an entire paper on the negative impacts on the fashion catwalk taking place on the sidewalk in front of my house: people with flip flops and North Face vests, t-shirts and uggs, almost as if their tops and bottoms are experiencing different seasons.

Another good thing about writing outside, besides observing the effects my subject has on my peers, is that it forces me to actaully write. (Notice how I don't specify what), but I can't partake in my usual procrastination ritual of eating my entire refridgerator content. I guess there's an upside to everything.

Ivy's non dilemma dilemma

Let's get our hands dirty, shall we?

I have been thinking a lot lately about Next Year. In my anxiousness, I have also been contacted/contacted many of my friends and peers who have already been there. Here's the dilemma: do I take the job with the big consulting firm or not? I know, boo hoo, but it's a pretty big life decision. Do I make money for two years, take all of my vacation, work until all hours of the night, learn BS 101 like the back of my hand? Or, do I hold out for something better? Can I find something better? This is two years of my twenties. When else will I be young and fresh? never!

I am truly torn. So torn, in fact, that I cannot even bring myself to look at the blank sheet of paper that I hope will magically turn into a 15-page reaseach proposal which will result in my final grade for a course. I find all of this is severely pressurized and depressing. I have decided that I should just move somewhere fabulous and work it out. Paris? London? I have a great school to back me up, a good GPA (before tomorrow), and some great experience. I try to tell myself that I can take the job or leave it, but I'm not so sure. It's difficult when everyone I know is off to New York to do ibanking or consulting and make $70,000 off the bat. The Ivy League makes us so confident and unsure at the same time. It's also hard when your parents are cutting you off next year, so I'll need that money to survive....

Anyway, I may as well go out with a bang. Having procrastinated the day away by shopping, the gym, painting my nails, going to dinner with my roommate, and you name it, it is time for me to write this paper. Maybe long nights at the office will not be a problem for me.

Just Because You're All in Your PJs Doesn't Mean This Is Your Bedroom. Gold Moans.

I am guilty: I've left my room in spandex and not headed straight for the gym. Nope, not at all: I went and got some tea, said hello to my boyfriend at work, and settled into a big, square desk I had all to myself at the library.

All to myself, that is, until another girl in spandex decided to spread herself and all her crap all over the table: notebooks, a huge crinkly bag of chocolates she reaches into every 5 seconds, a water bottle that makes strange sucking sounds when she drinks from it and snaps back loudly as soon as she is finished, large tomes I should have read for long-passed classes but never quite got around to... But this is college, and it is her prerogative to work, hydrate, and keep up her sugar levels while at the library.

What is not her prerogative, however, is to breathe like a drowning, anxious, asthmatic giraffe. Periodically-- and not quite regularly enough to ignore-- she sucks air in like she has just come across one of the last remaining vestigial pockets of the Earth's atmosphere, and her only chance at survival. How sad, poor thing, you think-- but no, I say, the rest of the time she breaths normally. Her respiratory system seems to be just fine. No reason for pity. I am here in the library on a FRIDAY (this has not happened for years) because I have so much work to do, and she is so distracting that she has DRIVEN ME TO BLOG. Oh, the unimaginable horrors.

On an at best minimally related note, I am currently mired in a great philosophical quandary: does the legging trend make it OK to go through life in spandex, or make it worse? You see, before the trend, it was athletic wear worn outside of its intended context: not the best choice, but at least referential to some fabulously active life you might have outside of the brick walls of the library; however, now, is it assumed to be an attempt at a fashion statement? A misinterpretation-- or worse, bastardisation-- of a rampant trend?

Fashion pariah or so-athletic-I've-forgotten-non-stretching-clothes-exist, I'm comfortable. If only she'd stop with the breathing...

Autobiography of an Ex-Andersen Cog by Ivy

Walking through the campus bookstore today, I passed by Denzel Washington’s new autobiography and it occurred to me that everyone who has amassed any sort of fame has convinced themselves that the world would like to know some more about them. I think anyone else's life would make a much more fascinating read. We all know how glamorous, dark, and exciting being a movie star is. Denzel happened to get lucky. I personally would rather hear about the more odd choices in career and lifestyle. ". . .when I was 16, I discovered an undying love for accounting. I was watching my mother calculate her budget (and make sure her new shoes weren't put through until next week) for the week and the numbers just seemed so exciting. From that moment on, I took every single math class I could in high school, eager to learn how to catergorize numbers and rename transactions. This lead me to apply to business school. Since my entire family went to Penn, and I had been an avid math student, I was able to attend Wharton and concentrate in Accounting and Management. My biggest break, however, came when I landed the ultra-competitive internship with KPMG between my junior and senior year. I think it was due mainly to my suave suit I bought while studying abroad in Paris. I noticed the attractive young interviewer eyeing my cleavage across the desk and had my future not been on the line, I would have made a bold move and jumped him. . ." The stories people would tell. I guess that's what blogging is for.

Anyway, it's almost Thanksgiving break and I am sitting in the library not wanting to research my research paper. Most people have gone home for the week and those who haven't are already deep into the second margharita of happy hour. It's funny how much I drag my feet about schoolwork but how much I know I'll miss it Next Year.

day of the dead

so, today is officially halloween. and, in the library today, when i saw an ex flame who is possibly the hunkiest man on campus, i officially looked like a waking dead. oh, how my life follows murphey's law impeccably.

anyway, unlike gold, i was unable to make it out this weekend, due to an unfortunate case of jet lag and dry skin from several planes in three days, too much sun in miami over fall break, and the bomb of schoolwork which has just shattered my life. But, hey, tuesday night is as good as any to make it up. besides, tuesday (if you are a senior or in the know) is the new saturday here.

meanwhile, i desperately need to find a sexy costume. unfortunately for everyone else who must see me in said costume (as the bare minimum of clothing is the cardinal rule for halloween costumes), the past month has brought on several bouts of binge-eating everything in sight in order to put off...well, let's be honest, life. i havent been this fat in ages. sometimes it actually feels good. so this is what the worst case scenerio feels like. it's pretty bad, don't get me wrong, but it's not life-shattering. I mean, hey, I still have the confidence to dress my excess 15 lbs up and strutt my stuff tonight. maybe that's more an avoidance mechanism then anything else, but at least it's something.

Gold's musings

This weekend was holloween. Or, to be more exact, the weekend that those of us for whom it is innappropriate to go trick-or-treating door to door celebrate as such (think about it: it's an important distinction. When exactly did holloween become about wearing as little as possible and drinking enough to maintain an acceptable body temperature?). The number of girls who wore underwear and animal ears was absolutely amazing, as was the fact that every single conceivable uniform now has some sexy, booby-bearing incarnation. Nurse and doctor, sure, but also firefighter, cable repairman, cop, pilot, mortuary worker...

As much as I resent holloween becoming an excuse to go through life as if it were soft-core porn, there's something nice about a holiday that grows up with you. We lose santa, the tooth fairy, the easter bunny... but now we get to wear teddies, stilettos, and bunny ears and call ourselves dressed. Hopefully you're slighly classier than that (perhaps some matte black stockings with that bustier, maybe a neglige that actually covers your ass, or -- imagine! -- a costume that actually looks like what it claims to be), but at least the option is out there and ostensibly socially acceptable. Live it up, because eventually we'll be donning the adult-sized version of the Friendly Witch costume and walking tinkerbell and superman around the neighborhood.

The Duo, by Gold

As has become painfully obvious in the handful of entries we have written thus far, Ivy and I are... shall we say... apprehensive about Next Year, when we are unleashed upon the real world, or perhaps more accurately, the real world is unleashed upon us. More poignant still is our fear of the cubicles and spreadsheets the real world may hold for us. This summer, while I was off in a far away land, doing research and holding on desperately to the last remaining shreds of my liberal arts education, Ivy was in a Big City, temporarily exploring the world of power suits and board rooms. I checked my e-mail in a little internet cafe next to the strip club below our apartment (class was temporarily put on hold at selected moments this summer, but let me explain- research grants only go so far, particularly if one's own funds are intended exclusively for the purchase of items fabulously on sale), and Ivy checked hers within the felt-padded walls of her cube. I received this e-mail from her just as a more structured life started to seem appealing. Evidently the grass is always greener, but this e-mail is a reminder that the greenish tones emitted by fluorescent lighting do NOT qualify, in fact, as actually better-kept grass. This is strictly an illusion.



Let me level with you. I have no passion for consulting. I think it’s a load of crap if you ask me. You have a bunch of undergraduate snobs from Ivy League universities telling large corporations what they know already. How often do they actually follow the advice you give? Umm, I’ll go with never. I want to go into consulting for the following reasons. 1. I have severe ADHD. I hate being on one project for an extended period of time. 2. I embarrass myself frequently. I like the idea of switching teams every few months or so. 3. I want to make money, expense everything, and travel. I believe I am better than this for my career. Ultimately, I want to end up teaching at a business school or owning my own business. Ultimately, I want to end up on the style pages. I am far too glamorous for an office job.

But for now, consulting will suffice. I have been educated at an elite university, and I have four years of education loans which need to be paid off. I have to help pay for my sister’s education. Oh, and I really, really like to shop. I am a full fledged addict. You can’t afford that on a publishing or a starting- your- own- business salary. I might as well apply. So you see, I don’t apply out of enthusiasm but out of necessity. But enough of that. Let me write what you are expecting to hear.

Dear whomever,

It is with utmost enthusiasm that I submit my resume for consideration for the “business analyst/eager learner/whatever bs name you give those at the bottom of the totem pole.” As I gained knowledge about [insert firm’s name here] through the information session on campus and by speaking with Sally Stodgy and Franky Fugly at [Firm’s Name’s] information session on campus, my interest in becoming a dreary suit-wearing, bs-ing, boring consultant was piqued. I will graduate in May from Big Shot U with a Bachelor of Arts in XXX.

You may be thinking that my major and concentration have nothing to do with consulting. Oh my goodness, you’re right! But let me just state that I never do work, so don’t worry. It’s not like I’ve been taught to think the wrong way. I haven’t been taught at all. All I’ve gotten is a sense of entitlement which comes from bumping elbows with people who think they are better looking, more glamorous, and more stylish than movie stars. News flash: we are. We’re too smart to ever go out for Hollywood. They’re all white trash there.

Anyway, back to the point. I do have internships which can be stretched to relate to whatever gauzy job description you have posted. But why bother? You can read my resume just fine. You can read English, can’t you? Oh wait, you’re probably one of those ambiguously illiterate yet brilliant at number crunching Asians. And basically, all anyone really does at an internship anyway is bitch work. And, oh yeah, write faux- enthusiastic cover letters about all the incredible stuff they should be accomplishing. I deserve this job because, well, I’m awesome. I’d probably be the most stylish person at your office. And your clients need some eye candy, don’t they? I’ll make you sad bunch look good.

I don’t think I’d really enjoy talking with you that much but if it will get me a job for two years, I will. I bet this cover letter was a million times better than all the ass-kissing ones you’ve got to read now.