Getting Called Out in Class

So I'm a teacher's assistant for one of my marketing professors. I'm going on my second semester grading papers and teaching test reviews now, and I love the job. At the same time, I'm also taking my marketing capstone class from this professor, and this is the second class I'm taking from him. We've known each other for over a year now and have had some good times.

So the other day we were going to take the midterm for this capstone class, and I realized something about the testing style my professor uses that made me a little excited. My professor uses a lot of story problems in his tests, and he always uses the names of his students in his stories.

And so I thought, "hey, he's never used my name before. I've been a good TA for a while now and I think it's time that my professor pays homage to me by putting my name in the test."

Anyway, I got to class and we all started taking the test. I went through all the multiple questions looking for my name. Instead, I kept reading test questions like this:

"Stacy is working at Big Corporation X when her manager comes to her with a problem..."

"Mark just got promoted to be a brand manager for Product X. Which of the following..."

"Jim just started his own business. Which promotion tactic should he use?"

I'm reading the test and am all like "Yeah, yeah, good for Jim, but where am I on this test?"

Then I got to the final multiple choice question:

"Jacob has been having problems with falling asleep in Professor _____'s class. He needs to change his ways. He remembers hearing (or maybe dreaming) about the SMART goal setting framework. Which of the following would be part of that framework?"

BTW, I missed that question on the test.

The Story of My Forever Alone Life, Part 2

I finally adding a new cartoon to my blog, but I'm trying something new.

I'll write about it later, but I just recently started an internship that has let me keep and iPad for the entire summer!  So I'm going to be using an app I downloaded called Tinker Paint. The drawings won't look as neat as they were, but they'll be more "freehand."

Anywho, on to my story.

So I signed up for a 2D-Design class last semester for my art minor. I was hopeful that the guy to girl ratio would be similar to what it was in my last art class - that is, about 17 girls to 3 guys, and two of those guys would be unavailable. I was also hoping that I would have better luck than I did last time (part one).

So on the first day of class, my wishes came true. The entire class was almost entirely girls. I decided to pic a seat in the middle of the room, in between two girls.

We introduced ourselves to each other and were getting along just merrily. Then I realized I had forgotten to check something.

(like how I'm too lazy to draw this picture twice and just reversed the last image?)

Indeed. Somehow, I had forgotten about the very first rule of BYU dating - check the freaking ring finger. 

Oh well, with one minute before class started, a girl was approaching the empty seat to the right, and I could see that she didn't have a ring. So that was okay.

But then:

"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm saving this seat for my husband."

Eff, I thought. Not only am I surrounded by married girls, I will now be subject to gross PDA to my right hand side. 

Two days later.

It was time for class again. This time I decided to sit as far away as possible from the side of the room that had been claimed by the married people, and meet new people.

No rings. . . Sorry, nothing against you married people, but you're just not as fun. And if I'm going to be in a class filled with girls, I don't see any reason why I should hang out with the unavailable ones. Sheesh.

Anyway, I sat down, introduced myself, and started chatting with my neighbors. We joked, we had some witty banter and comedic timing, we played the whole 20 questions game getting to know each other. And then class ended and we all stood up to leave.

Curses.

There's always next semester, right?

P.S. As I'm finishing up this post, I've decided that the best way to describe this art is "Draw Something-esque." By the way, if you want to play me, just let me know! I tend go all out.

I Just Finished Finals

My last month's schedule went something like this:

• Wake up
• Go to class
• TA someone (there's a great post about this that I'll write someday)
• Eat 1,600 calories at Wendy's (for only $5! Dollar Menu rocks!)
• Another class
• Finish procrastinated homework
• Study
• Meet with marketing group
• Study
• Apply for internships
• Moar Classes!
• Eat dinner
• Browse internets
• Go to bed

I'd love to illustrate just how nuts my life has been lately, so I did a Google Image search for "the most crazy thing ever," and this is what I got

Anyway, I finished my last final today at 11:30 and this is how the rest of my day went.

And it was everything I could have hoped for.

I'll try to get a more substantial post up on here soon. Thanks for your patience and comments!

Art Wurk

Hey, it's time to update the blog again with some of my newest artworks. [Because I do like to remind people that I can do things outside of MS Paint sometimes]

Because I had so much fun repainting the Caravaggio, I decided to try to create another old-school style portrait. Here it is:

I'm trying to get away from simply copying famous artists' works and create original content from now on. This portrait is a composite of a profile portrait done by Botticelli, as well as a few other stock photos I found on the interwebs:

So my second work is from my computer graphic design class. The assignment was to make a concert poster for a band. I chose to create a poster for The Format. Because, let's be honest, we'd all like to see them go on a reunion tour. 

Even though it's a computer graphic design class, I'm allowed to use any medium I choose. Since I don't have Photoshop, or even know how to use it that well, I decided to just paint the whole poster the old fashioned way. I scanned it in at school and then did some quick touch-ups on the computer.

Sorry for the crappy image! I'll replace it when I get a better one.

I wanted this poster to have a childlike nostalgia quality to it. I noticed that all of The Format's music videos tend to involve something kind of playful (a school play, performing hands, moving paper cutouts), so I thought that maybe a puppet show would be a good subject for a poster. It was suggested that the poster told the abstract story of what happens in a typical song by The Format, so that's what's going on there.

The poster is currently on display in the Harris Fine Arts Center on BYU's campus (fourth floor). You should go check it out if you have the chance.

As you can see, the rest of the class used their awesome Adobe software skills.

It's a pretty cool exhibit, if I do say so myself.

Finally, I wanted to show off a piece I did recently as a commission for a friend. She really likes princesses, so she asked me to paint Belle from Beauty and the Beast. I was a little sketchy of doing the project at first, since Disney princesses aren't really my repertoire. But, the project turned out to be a lot funner than I thought it would, and I'm very pleased with the results:

On that note, I'd like to put in a plug for myself: I am always looking for extra money and I would love to paint something for YOU, as long as you're willing to pay me for it. I charge a relatively good rate and am willing to negotiate. Just let me know either through Facebook, Twitter, or the comments here on Shared Musings.

New Year, New Resolutions

Sorry I haven’t updated the blog for a while. I’m still trying to get the hang of my new schedule. And drawing pictures in MS Paint actually takes a lot longer than you’d think it would. It’s a shame too, since I have some great blog post ideas that I really want to share with y’all.

As far as my life goes right now, I have a lot of new classes that I’m really excited about, but they’re all on Tuesday and Thursday, so those days are pretty draining. I also have one religion class (Doctrine and Covenants) on Monday and Wednesday. I love all my classes, but I did something really stupid that I promised myself I would never do ever since I took Econ 110 freshmen year from Professor Read-the-Slides-in-Monotone—take an 8:00 AM class. I now have an 8:00 class every day, Monday through Wednesday. This has necessitated a need to change my lifestyle from internet surfing night-owl to something more responsible. I’m now in bed every night by midnight. This is weird because I don’t think I went to bed once before 1:25 AM for all of 2011.

Anyway, it’s a new year, which means it’s time to update my New Year’s Goals. I say goals because it’s something I’m really serious about and that I’m planning on working on. This isn’t something I’ll simply resolve to do and then forget about it in a month. But before I do that, I want to give a quick accounting of how I did with last year’s goals (which you can read about here).

#1 Work out for 30 minutes three days a week—C+

I did really good with this during the winter semester, ‘meh’ during the summer, and pretty spotty during the fall. I’m in pretty good shape, but I could have done better. Especially since my earliest class during the fall was 12:30. Now I’m kind of kicking myself for not working out more. 

As far as results go, I'm still keeping an extra-slender figure. So girls who like that sort of thing should probably try to figure out what I'm doing. Maybe this year the old metabolism will slow down (It's faster than a greased cheetah on Red Bull, strapped to a rocked and set on fire while being chased by ninjas, if you remember).

#2 Don’t get any grade lower than a B-Plus—B+

I give myself a B+ not because it’s ironic, but because I did average with this. No, I didn’t get any grade lower than a B+, but at the same time, I did get three B-pluses last semester, which is the Asian equivalent of a D.

Shout out to quickmeme.com for the image.

#3 Give five complements a day—B-

I think I did close to three-to-four complements a day. I didn’t count, which I think would have defeated the purpose of setting the goal, but at the same time made this goal impossible to measure and made this a poorly designed goal.

#4 Read the Book of Mormon in 100 days—B

It took me closer to 115 days, but I did do a complicated highlighting system that took extra-long to do. Yes, I’m making excuses, but I’m counting that as extra credit.

#5 Cut back on the Mormon Swears—EEFfffffffff. . . . .

If anything, I’ve gotten more creative with the swear word substitutes , and I say them more frequently. The other day, I watched this video, and I realized that I say more of these words than don't.

Anyway, I'm going to list this year's goals now. I'm not going to detail them quite as much as I did last year, because I don't feel like it and I think people like scanning lists more than reading anyway.

• Write in my journal at least once a week.
• Get at least six hours of sleep a night.
• Get an internship over the summer.
• Go on a date at about once every other week.
• But don't force myself to go on dates just because someone said it's something I need to do.
• Go to the temple at least once a month.
• Keep obeying the Word of Wisdom like crazy. (haha)
• Host get-togethers at my apartment around once a month or so.
• Memorize and remember everyone's names in my congregation.
• Go for a run.
• Deep fry a pizza.
• Shoot my shotgun.
• Say something nice about three different people daily.
• Express gratitude to one person daily.
• Go skiing.
• Update the blog once a week, just to blow off steam [feel free to hold me accountable to this or any of the other goals].

EpicStudyTime

So this is how my finals week went, starting with the Saturday before finals:

I listened to the rest of the message, packed up my stuff, and left the building - feeling totally unprepared for the rest of the week.

The library was closed on Sunday, it being the Sabbath and all. But on Monday, the library started staying open until 2:00 AM. I knew that I would be spending quite a bit of time there on that day.

I got a lot done and was pleased with my efforts that night, but I still had four more tests to go, so I needed to study a lot more on Tuesday.

I wasn't as successful on Tuesday, and knew that I would have to be in the library late again on Wednesday.

At the end of this night, I had what has got to be one of the stupidest thoughts I've ever had, which I can only attribute to lack of sleep and a diet of Dr. Pepper and Gummi Bears:

"Hey, I've been in the library every night at closing time this week. Wouldn't it be cool to say I was here at closing every night of finals week? There's only one more night left."

Well, on Thursday, I still had only taken two of my five finals. I had several review sessions and group study periods scheduled, and some other errands that needed to run. By 9:00 PM, I had been on campus for ten hours and still had two more finals to go. 

I trudged up the steps to my usual spot on the fifth floor to start my final cramming session. My friend urged me to go home - I didn't look like I was up for another five-hour study session. I declined. I was one day away from meeting my goal of being in the library every day of finals week, and nothing - not friends, not girls, not offers of free tacos - were going to keep me from it. Gosh dangit.

Approximately four and a half hours later:

P.S. My final grades were A, A-minus, and three B-pluses - which is the Asian equivalent of a D, but still good enough for me to keep my GPA within scholarship range.

Don't Be Hatin' on My Wal-Mart Style, Wal-Mart

So something I learned about the Marriott School of Management this year is that the competitiveness never ends.  Think getting into the program is rough?  Just wait until you have to start looking for internships.

"And so, if you don't apply for at least 13 internships this weekend, you will end up like Steve the hobo; who, in spite of his 3.94 GPA, didn't apply himself outside of classwork."

So yeah, they put a lot of pressure on us.  Well we had the Career Fair today at the Wilk Student Center.  I dressed up in my best suit, did my hair all nice, and put on the good pair of Eccos.  I printed off ten copies of my resume and put them in a nice little folder along with a list of all the companies I wanted to intern for.

I was wearing a purple shirt.  That's how you know I wasn't effing around.

I went to McDonald's and ordered a Big Mac and a Spicy Chicken Sandwich.  You need your energy if you're going to be talking to those recruiters.

While walking to the Wilk I was practicing the elevator pitch that I would give to all the recruiters so they would be all like "Oh my gosh, you just convinced me to hire you in thirty seconds or less!"

I got to the career fair and it was packed.  All the guys were wearing suits.  I felt like I had a leg up, however, because half of guys were wearing white shirts, and I was clearly wearing a purple shirt.

I decided to go straight to the biggest, baddest company at the fair:  I went to the Walmart booth.  I was so pumped and ready to go.  Then the recruiter took one look at me and said:

Boom!  Roasted.