Brand New Day

Music: Brand New Day- Joshua Radin
Mood: Peaceful

I had a GREAT day today! I'm so in love this song right now. Whenever I'm having a bad day or just feeling stressed, I listen to this song.

It's a brand new day
The sun is shining
it's a brand new day
For the first time in
such a long long time
I know, I'll be ok

This week has, in general, been pretty low key. We got our physics test back on Tuesday, and I did all right. I got a couple points above the class avg, which puts me at a high B. It's just still a bit disappointing that all that work only leads to a B, but I'm optimistic.

On Wednesday, I have an interview with a computer company based out of Austin for a corporate finance role. That went well and I hope to hear about 2nd rounds for that soon. Later that night, I had a night prior for a large US bank based out of San Francisco. Also, on Wed, I arranged a phone interview with a private equity firm in New York in their restructuring group. Wednesday's are always long for me because I had to do physics homework.

Today, I woke up at 7:45am to get ready for my 8:30am phone interview with the firm in New York. It was supposed to be 2 thirty-minute interviews with two people at the firm. I figured one would be behavioural and the other would be technical. So at 8:30am, I received a call from the VP of the group, and we chatted briefly about the company, my past experiences, and the usual behavioural stuff. That ended early (we chatted for about 20 minutes). Then he hung up and the other guy was supposed to call me. A call never came and the recruiting coordinator called me and said the other guy was in an urget meeting and thus, I wouldn't have the 2nd interview and that they had gathered enough information that they needed for the recruiting process. So I never did the technical interview with the other person. I'm kinda bumbed about this because I was ready for the technical stuff. I hope it's not a bad thingthat they're going to decide whether they want to advance me up to 2nd rounds based on a conversation I had with one of them for 20 minutes, but we'll see.

So after all the calls in the morning, I went back to bed for about 45 minutes and then got up to finish my my physics homework. I got that done, suited up (HIMYM reference), and went off to my physics class at 2pm. That got out at 3:15 and then I headed over to the b-school for last minute preparations for my interview with the bank. With my interveiw at 4pm, I think I and the interviewer was ready to be done. Anyways, it turns out that the person went to my high school and graduated in 2000. What a small world. This is the 2nd person I've interviewed with who went to my high school. CRAZY! It'll be interesting when I come back to UT as an alumni to interview students and I'll stumble across people who went to my high school. So with that instant connection, the interview went really well. It really was more of a conversation than an interview. We chatted about my experience and then about the company. Then we moved into the "technical" interview where he asked me what the best financial statement is to use to determine whether to give out loans or not and then asked the different methods to value a company. Easy stuff which I aced. Those questions were followed up by who the CEO of the company is, which supprisingly, I was 1 of only 3 who got the question right of all the people he talked to. Yikes! and at the night prior, they told us they'd ask us a bit about the company... WOW. You'd think that in this economy, people would prepare like crazy, but I guess not. Hopefully that works to my advantage. One issue is that 2nd rounds for this company will be when I'm already gone on spring break, so we'll have to work that out if i get a 2nd round.

So I ended the day with a group cycling class called Endurance Ride, which is an hour straight of hill climbs, speed training, and intervals. It was very intense but I enjoyed the crazy cardio. I know. I'm crazy but the instructor was even more crazy. Haha.

Well, this weekend, I need to prepare for several exams next week as well as get work done for the professor I'm researching with. Unfortunately, this Sunday, we're loosing 1 an hour because we're "springing forward." UGH! And on saturday, I'm volunteering at Explore UT with BHP to help with admissions questions and then the students who studied abroad in HKG and the current exchange students are going to go to Rudy's BBQ to get some great tx bbq! Super excited about that! =)

Well, spring break for me is less than 5 days away! I'm flying out to seattle on Wednesday afternoon to visit my brother. We're going to explore seattle and then go to vancouver to go skiing in Whistler! I'm pumped and ready for break!

Ok, long post. Kudos if you've made it this far. Have a great weekend! =)