So lately I have been given a bit of a hard time when I am traveling somewhere.  I don't mean the people where I'm going, I mean the people here at home.  I seem to get things like, "Oh, you're out of town again? BIG shocker" or "Where are you going over spring break? I know it must be somewhere".  Stuff like that.  It's no big deal, I do love to travel and I do it pretty much as much as I can.  And it's not the same places, really.  I mean, sure, Chicago is a prime destination because it is the closest "big city" to where I live now.  So I do make it up there pretty often.  But other than that, it's usually always somewhere different.  Like this past weekend I was in Louisville, Kentucky.  Louisville really isn't that far, only a couple hours away, but I hadn't really been there in recent years.  So when I started thinking about possible weekend roadtrips recently and remembered what I had heard about Thunder Over Louisville, it popped up on my radar and I planned a visit there to see some awesome fireworks.  But my weekend really isn't what I want to talk about right now.  It's this whole idea of traveling and why I love it so much. One place that we visited this weekend in Louisville basically proved one of my reasons for enjoying to travel - the interesting people you meet.  Let me present you with some examples. Louisville, KY - Matt Landan - owner of Derby City Espresso Ricky and I had tickets to the Louisville Bats vs the Indianapolis Indians game at Slugger Stadium this past Saturday and had planned to watch the game and then hang out downtown until time for the fireworks.  Well, it was cold and rainy and sitting around watching the game wasn't too pleasant, so we left after about two innings and headed to Browning's Brewery which is actually inside the stadium as well.  We were on our iPhones checking out places in the area to possibly visit to kill some time, and I discovered Derby City Espresso.  I checked out their website and thought it sounded like a pretty interesting place, so we stopped by.  Turns out this little storefront coffee shop is actually one of the coolest places in Louisville.  You walk in and are surrounded by pop culture stuff all over the wall - giant beer caps, a Boba Fett helmet, tons of stuff that will occupy your time just sitting there and looking around at it all in fascination.  But the coolest thing about Derby City Espresso is actually its owner, Matt.  Matt is in his 30's and has traveled the world and lived in a few other countries.  But somehow he wound up back in Louisville and after getting tired of the corporate world, decided to open a coffee shop/bar downtown.  Matt is the only employee, so if there is someone behind the counter when you walk in, you know it's probably him.  He also lives in the same building as the coffee shop.  He's a nice guy, but don't give him any crap.  Just definitely visit Derby City Espresso if you are in Louisville and go chat with him for a bit.  He seems like someone worth getting to know, and I'm sure he has plenty of stories he could tell you. St. Petersburg, Russia - Sophia, the girl I met on the street On our very first night in Russia, we went out to eat in St. Petersburg.  We had been dropped off at the restaurant we ate at, and there had been some confusion about whether or not to take a taxi back to the hotel or walk.  So the guys ended up getting a head start on us and were way ahead of myself, our professor, and the only other girl on the trip.  The guys actually ended up having their own adventure, which I'm sure any of them would be happy to offer you some (but not all) details about if you asked.  But while the three of us are walking back to the hotel along Nevsky Prospekt, the main street in St. Petersburg, a girl, probably in her 20's, came up and asked me (in English) if we were Americans.  She'd heard some of our conversation and could obviously tell.  I carried on a conversation with her for several blocks, until we got to the subway station she needed and she had to go.  She was very nice, told me she'd lived in American for a while when she was a kid and had learned English there.  I found it funny that she asked me how her English was.  She actually seemed to have pretty fluent English, and we had a really good conversation.  It was nice to have that happen on the streets of a country I'd never been to before and didn't speak the language of at all, really.  So don't believe it if you read anything about how Russians hate Americans, because it's simply not true at all. Pensacola, Florida - the lady I met at Peg Leg Pete's After finding what seemed like a good deal on Living Social and some discounted airfare via AirTran, Ricky and I booked a weekend trip to Pensacola, Florida in February.  We mistakenly thought it would be warm and the hotel would be nice.  And while we were wrong on both counts, it still turned out to be a really great weekend.  We heard loud music coming from the bar next door to our hotel as we pulled into the parking lot and thought it seemed like a fun place that we might look up and check out later.  Well, after looking up the Sandshaker online, we weren't too sure we wanted to visit it after all.  Turns out the bar had been the center of a huge drug bust a few years ago, and there were some kind of scary reviews of it online now.  However, it was the original home of the Bushwhacker, a yummy-sounding frozen drink that is now sold all around the area.  So despite the scary things we heard, we were told the place was actually pretty safe and decided to venture there and at least grab a Bushwhacker.  What we found was pretty interesting.  First of all, there were cops there arresting someone outside as we arrived.  Inside (and out, they had a heated patio) were a ton of people, each seemingly wearing something completely different.  There were people wildly dressed in Mardi Gras garb as well as people dressed in pajamas and slippers.  We ordered a couple of Bushwhackers from the bartender and grabbed a spot just to people watch for a while.  After finishing our drinks, we decided to head to Peg Leg Pete’s, a seafood restaurant and bar just down the street on Pensacola Beach. We grabbed a spot at the bar at Peg Leg’s and sat down to order some appetizers and drinks.  Ricky ended up sitting next to a couple that he got to talking to and on my other side was an older lady, probably in her sixties, that was wearing casual clothes and tons of Mardi Gras beads.  While Ricky got to know the couple next to him, I started having a conversation with her.  I remember she had ordered a bowl of the clam chowder, which she said was really good there.  Turns out that she had just come from the Sandshaker as well.  And she had been there since 10:30 that morning!  It was a Saturday, so I guess she’d gone over there for their special Mardi Gras event, which is why everyone there had been dressed the way they were, in pajamas and Mardi Gras garb.  As it turns out, people in the South actually celebrate Mardi Gras as an entire SEASON, not just one day!  How cool is that?  Turns out most people there are very friendly and willing to chat with you, so if you’re ever in Pensacola (or probably anywhere in the South), turn to the person next to you at the bar and find out how they’re doing.  You’ll probably end up with some interesting stories. And that brings me to my point here.  One reason I travel is because I meet so many interesting people and come across so many interesting stories.  These three people and their stories are really just scratching the surface of all the people I’ve met and fascinating tales I can tell of my travels.  And I love it!  There is always something new out there, and there are people and places and cultures in different parts of the country and different countries that are so completely different from Indiana.  I find it a shame that anyone wouldn’t want to go out and experience as much of our rich, culturally wonderful planet as they can.  I certainly plan to!

If you are a fan of Groupon, maybe you know about Living Social as well. It's virtually the same thing as Groupon, really, having deals every day or few days that you can purchase to get a discount on products or services. But Living Social has started having these "weekend getaway" deals as well. They are things like a couple of days in a hotel or bed and breakfast, etc. Well, I found one one day for a good deal on a hotel on the beach in Pensacola, Florida. I thought it looked like a pretty great deal, as hotels right on the beach are not cheap. So I bought it and found a good deal on airfare as well, if we went at the right time. So that is how Ricky and I found ourselves on the way to Pensacola for a road (air?) trip last weekend. The Living Social deal was only for two days, so that's why we only went for the weekend. We figured that a trip to the beach at the beginning of February would be a nice break from the Indiana weather. And, well, we were right. The weather wasn't as good as we expected, but hey - it was warmer than Indy, so we weren't complaining. Well, not much. We got into Pensacola and headed to the beach to check out our hotel. Pensacola is actually a different location than Pensacola Beach and requires you to drive about five miles outside of Pensacola over a bridge that goes over the water to a long "island" that is considered Pensacola Beach. As you get to the beach, there's a sign near the road that you turn on that is iconic to Pensacola Beach. It's neon and 60s-looking, so of course we tried to catch a good picture of it. Check out my Flickr photos if you want to see it. Bad news - the hotel turned out to not be that great of a deal. Sure, it was on the beach, but it was honestly kind of a crappy hotel. I do NOT recommend the Cabana Inn if you ever visit Pensacola. It used to be a Comfort Inn and is not just not really well taken care of. It was relatively clean, but also had a lot of rusty metal as well as a stain on the comforter on the bed. Just not the greatest, and we usually stay in slightly better hotels than this. But oh well - we weren't going to spend that much time in the hotel anyway, right? As we pulled into the hotel, we heard loud music coming from the bar next door. We thought it sounded like a pretty happening place, so we checked it out online. Turns out that this bar, the Sandshaker Lounge, was actually the center of a cocaine ring that got busted in 2003. There's even a Wikipedia entry on the subject. After finding this out as well as seeing some almost scary reviews for the Sandshaker, we weren't sure we wanted to go there after all. Later we talked to some locals that said that it really wasn't that scary of a place and that they had a signature drink that we needed to check out, we decided to visit it Saturday night after all. So on Saturday we at least decided to go there and grab a Bushwacker, a local drink that was actually invented at the Sandshaker and is now served at lots of local Pensacola bars. I do have to say, the Bushwacker was pretty darn good. Imagine an alcoholic milkshake with Bacardi 151 at the bottom of it. Yummy! And after all our worries about the Sandshaker, we made it out of there safely, although we did spot a girl getting arrested when we got there (at about 7pm) as well as an ambulance pulling in as we were leaving. Um, yeah. On Saturday during the day, we decided to try out some local places as well as some places we don't have here in Indy. We tried to make a visit to Bad Ass Coffee, but apparently they are not open on weekends, which made us very sad. So instead we found a place called Bagelheads and got ourselves some snickerdoodle bagels, which were very yummy and pretty much as big as our heads. Not a bad breakfast at all. After breakfast, we decided it was time to start drinking. (We don't get up very early, suffice it to say.) So we headed to the Pensacola Bay Brewery, a local brewery in downtown Pensacola. We had a good time there checking out a sampler of their beers, my favorite of which was the Lighthouse Porter. As a marketing MBA major, I have to say I also highly approved of their branding. They were very consistent in their logo and all their branding for each of the beers, which resulted in a very snazzy looking tap room. We also appreciated the friendly bartender and locals who were hanging out there. Pensacola is a very friendly place. We loved it. After talking to the guys at Pensacola Bay Brewery, we discovered that there was one other brewery in town, McGuire's Irish Pub. We'd already heard a bit about this place and it sounded cool, so we headed there to check it out. Their beers weren't too bad, the bartender was friendly, and the decor and atmosphere beat a lot of the places we've visited in Indy, so we loved it. Definitely a place to check out if you are ever in Pensacola. This place seemed like it would definitely be a fun place to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. They even had a giant moose head in the gift shop! We made a trip to a couple of other places in downtown Pensacola before heading back to the beach and our hotel for the night. One of them was Play, a unique kind of bar on the second floor of a building downtown. Play had fun decor too... decorating the walls with characters and scenery from video games. They even had a Mario Bros. pipe on the wall! Gaming is kind of the theme at Play, as they have a bunch of old video games sitting around as well as some pool tables. Also a very cool place to hang out. After hitting up the Sandshaker on Saturday night, we were hungry, so we decided to check out Peg Leg Pete's, a restaurant on Pensacola Beach that we had heard had probably the best seafood around. It was definitely a fun place to spend an evening at the bar grabbing dinner. We chose some cajun shrimp and Ricky also had some oyster shooters, which I had no idea what they were. When they brought out these three cups full of liquid, I was a little confused - here were the shots, where were the oysters? IN the shots? What the heck. I couldn't bring myself to try one, but Ricky seemed to enjoy them. We also had a good time there talking to some other locals that just happened to be hanging out. Pensacola people are fun! Sunday morning we got up and decided to make the most of our last day there by visiting two more places that we had heard about. One of them was on the beach right across from our hotel - perfect for our last lunch there. So we checked out Flounders, a seafood restaurant. They too, had a great decor as well as a very yummy seafood platter that we filled ourselves up on. We both love seafood, so these restaurants by the beach were perfect for us. Before we headed back to the airport, we had some time to kill. We decided to have a few last beers in Pensacola, as we knew this part of the country had beers we couldn't get as easily at home. We weren't disappointed. We visited Hopjacks, which had 65 beers on tap, and on Sunday they were all half price. Score! I found my second favorite beer there, I think - one made in Georgia from Terrapin Beer Company called the Wake 'N' Bake. SO yummy. After we decided we had had our fill, we sadly headed home. Although our hotel was less than what we expected, we thoroughly enjoyed our weekend in Pensacola. The people were friendly, the beer was tasty, and there was a beach! We couldn't ask for much more and would highly recommend Pensacola as a fun place to visit. Hope you check it out sometime too!

Well, I was planning on updating my blog design, and I started working on it and decided that 1) I actually kind of like this design and really didn't find one I like much better at the moment and 2) I don't really have time to work on a new design for it anyway, at least not the time I'd like to put into it. The holidays continue to be relatively busy, and school will be starting up again in a little over a week. Oh, and just in case you missed it and were wondering (I'm sure you were), I got an A- in Marketing and a B in Operations Management, my two classes last semester. Next semester I am taking three classes: Leadership & Ethics in the Business Environment, Applied Marketing Research, and Emerging Economies. The Leadership class is my last core class, I believe. There was another one, an international studies one, but I believe since I am taking the Emerging Economies course and it includes international studies, that I don't have to take that one. The Applied Marketing Research class is online, one reason I picked it up since I already am taking two other classes and this one brings me up to 9 credit hours for the semester - yikes! And then, the Emerging Economies class, of course, as I have already talked about on Twitter and Facebook, will take me to... Russia! It is basically a study of the Russian economy and includes a trip to St. Petersburg and Moscow over spring break. So I get to visit this beautiful place, among others: I'm VERY excited, as this will be my first trip overseas. Considering how little travel I really did growing up, I found it funny that when my professor was asking us if we would need our passports any time in the next few months (she was going to collect them to send to an agency to submit to get our visas), I actually had to say YES, I would need it - for the trip to Aruba I took earlier this month. It seems to becoming obvious to myself as well as everyone that I LOVE to travel as often as possible. I'm starting to get teased about how often I do, actually, by jealou--I mean, by friends and co-workers. ;) Ricky and I are constantly looking for an opportunity to get out of town. I already have three sets of airline tickets purchased for trips in 2011! On that note, I'd like to make my readers aware of a couple of things. Number one, I think I'm going to ditch the "travelatte" blog. It's just not really getting a following, and as this blog (my normal one) already HAS a following, I'm just going to post any travel stuff on here since I don't really have the time to keep up with two anyway. So if you get tired of it, well too bad, I guess. You'll know where I'm going whether you like it or not. :) Also, I'm taking down the Photos page, which most of you probably didn't even realize existed. All it really is is a feed of my Picasa photos, and I don't use Picasa anymore, so it wouldn't be getting updated anyway. But I'll probably incorporate a link to my Flickr page in here somewhere soon. And one more thing - I'm closing my public Twitter account. I don't want/need two accounts, and as I rarely use the @sherylh96 one, I'm just going to "shut it down". I may keep the account technically there as I've used that username for so long, I'd like to make sure it's mine on Twitter, but I will not likely be using it anymore. I will, however, continue to use my private Twitter account, @sherylhugill. And I will accept your follow request... if I like you. So that's that. Now, here is the latest scoop. My update, year in review, year-end blog post, whatever you would like to call it. I'm not really one to sit looking back too much, so I'm not sure how much I can reminisce about 2010, really. It had plenty of great travel, not surprisingly, and may possibly be considered my "coming out" as a self-confessed travel geek. I mean, Chicago, San Francisco, and New York in 3 weekends? I also got my tropical islands in, visiting both Hawaii and Aruba this year. I broke my own record for number of times I've flown in a year, topping out at 5, I believe. (Hawaii, San Francisco, New York, Phoenix, and Aruba, in case you were wondering.) Aside from travel, I also completed my first full year in grad school. I am now halfway through my MBA program - scheduled graduation is in May 2012, so I still have some time to go. Ricky and I have no been together for 2 years. Our "anniversary" is pretty easy to remember, as our first date was sometime between Christmas and New Year's 2008 - on the 29th, I believe. Our second date (and first kiss at midnight!) was New Year's Eve, so we tend to celebrate it then. Moving in together has gone relatively well, most of the time. I blame him for my recently developed initiation this year into the cult of Apple. I can claim I had an iPhone before meeting him, but who knew I would also end up using a MacBook Pro, iPad, and Apple TV? Yeah, we are an Apple couple for sure. I'm looking forward to 2011 and seeing what it holds. 2010 has required some adjustments, and some are still being made. But life is good. I hope yours is too. I'm excited for the plans I am already making for 2011, whether it's classes, new opportunities, or travel plans. I'm sure it will be a journey worth taking. Happy New Year as you ring in yours, and may 2011 be your best year yet!

So this past Sunday, October 17, was my 31^st birthday.  Unlike some women, I€™m not afraid to admit my age.  Why should anyone be, really?  The years that you€™ve spent on this earth are something to be proud of€”not ashamed of€”in my opinion.  Anyway, originally I had planned to do just what I did last year and take a trip to Kings Island on Sunday with a few of my closest friends.  But Ricky had other plans for me; he told me I should cancel the Kings Island trip, but wouldn€™t tell me why. So I did, and on Friday evening, we headed out in a rental car to a destination that I was still unaware of.  I soon determined that we were headed north to what appeared to be Chicago.  Ricky had told me earlier that we weren€™t going to Chicago, though.  But then again, he had told me that we weren€™t doing anything that I had previously guessed, and it turns out I had actually guessed exactly what we were doing.  So he wasn€™t really to be trusted on any of that.  Once we reached the Chicago area, it became obvious that it wasn€™t Chicago we were heading to, as we went past there, utilizing several toll roads along the way.  Luckily Ricky had plenty of change.  He did instruct me, however, that on the way back, after I became aware of our destination, I should use my magic to find a way home WITHOUT toll roads. Outside of Chicago, I asked how much further we had to go.  €œOh, a couple of hours or so,€ I was told.  Ugh.  So I decided to take a nap.  Not 20 minutes later I awoke to Ricky saying he had passed our destination (we had gotten off at an exit while I€™d been taking my very brief nap), and he was turning around.  We soon pulled up to a Red Roof Inn and checked in.  In the lobby, there were some brochures for attractions near our location (which at this point having been asleep I was unsure of).  Ricky grabbed one and handed it to me.  €œGet familiar with this place,€ he said.  I looked at the brochure€”it was for Medieval Times! I€™m sure most of you have heard of Medieval Times before, and if not, you are missing out.  It€™s a restaurant€¦ kind of.  It€™s a chain of 9 restaurants €œplus show€.  The show is actually a jousting event, horse show, dinner theater€”all put together.  All of the Medieval Times locations are actually castles, as the show is set back in€¦ you guessed it€”medieval times.  You pay for a package, and we actually upgraded our package while we were there, to a €œSweetest Day€ package, including a nicely done photo of the two of us along with glasses of champagne and more. We got there, stood in line inside the castle for a bit, and then were escorted into the lobby, of sorts.  The lobby area contained several places to buy souvenirs along with a bar, a €œdungeon€ museum of various medieval torture devices (not kidding), and even a mini stable where you could meet some of the horses participating in the show later.  Plenty of stuff to entertain while you kill time before the show and dinner. Once you check in, you are assigned a section that is designated with a color or colors.  We were in the red and yellow section.  Each colored section actually corresponds to one of the knights that will be €œcompeting€ in the show later.  So at promptly 8:00, we were all led into our section of the main arena.  All the seats face the arena, and it€™s basically like theater seats.  Honestly, the seats were a little uncomfortably far from the table for my liking, but I made due.  The show soon began with the king and queen announcing what was going on.  It was kind of hard to follow, but I€™m sure most people (like us) were really just interested in seeing the horses, jousting, and sword play among the knights. Dinner was great, although it was lacking one thing€”utensils.  We had plates, cups, napkins (which got VERY dirty VERY fast)€¦ but no fork, knife, or spoon.  Why?  Well, duh.  They didn€™t have those in medieval times, now, did they?  So neither did we.  We started off with tomato bisque soup and garlic bread, followed by baked chicken and some ribs accompanied by a potato.  The food was good, made even better by the entertainment, of course.  All in all, it was a great evening, and one I will remember for quite a while. The Medieval Times that we went to was in Schaumburg, Illinois, which is also home to America€™s second largest shopping mall.  And before you ask, no, I don€™t know the largest€¦ Mall of America, I€™m guessing?  So of course we had to visit the mall as well.  I was somewhat disappointed€¦ sure, it was big, but really it carried the same stores any mall does, the same stores I can find here in Indy.  But it was fun, nonetheless. Our trip also consisted of some reminiscing of our trip to Hawaii.  Yeah, Hawaii was such an epic trip that we simply can€™t stop reliving it!  One place we had frequented there was Yard House, a restaurant whose claim to fame is the number of beers that they have on tap€¦ there are a LOT.  The taps go all the way around the bar!  When we discovered that there was one not too far from Schaumburg, we figured we€™d be missing out if we didn€™t visit.  Another place that we had discovered in Hawaii was Todai, a Japanese sushi and seafood buffet that had been right down the street from our hotel.  We were excited to find out that Todai was actually a chain and that there was one in Schaumburg at the mall!  So we made a visit there on Sunday for lunch.  We do love our sushi and seafood. All in all it was a wonderful weekend.  Medieval Times was a blast, and it was nice to get away from Indy for my birthday weekend.  If you haven€™t been to Medieval Times, I highly recommend it.  It€™s a unique experience that you won€™t get anywhere else.  So thank you so much to my sweetie for a very fun surprise and a great birthday!  It was one that I won€™t soon forget.

So, I finally saw The Social Network.  (I was actually somewhat jealous of friends of mine that got to see it the weekend that it came out because I didn€™t make it that weekend.  I actually wanted to see it with Ricky, especially since he€™s been talking about how good he expects it to be for months now, but he backed out on me at the last minute.)  I went to see it with Seren on Monday, who initially had no interest in seeing it, but decided she would after hearing people talk about how good they thought it was. It really was a great story.  Now, who knows how accurate it really is, as I€™ve heard that Mark Zuckerberg actually opposes it, saying that it shows him in a pretty negative light and is actually much more dramatized than how it really happened.  But honestly, I never really saw his character in the movie being all that bad of a person until, well€¦ later on in the movie.  I don€™t want to spoil anything for those that haven€™t seen it yet. What I did pick up on about Zuckerberg€™s character is that he makes no apologies for who he is.  And that he has his own ideas and thoughts about things and will only go with what he really believes in.  And to a lot of people, that makes him a jerk.  His character actually reminded me of something that I heard a trainer for a workshop that I was in say one time.  The workshop I was a part of was pretty intense, and without giving too much of it away for anyone that might take it someday, I will say that it included giving the other people doing the workshop with you a lot of feedback about how you experience them.  One of the things our trainer expressed was that people in the Midwest are just too nice, or basically too polite.  We were afraid to really give each other our honest opinions for fear of hurting one another€™s feelings.  And he was right, we were. I€™ve realized that what my trainer had to say about people in the Midwest was actually pretty true.  And to me, this is a reason why people would think that Mark Zuckerberg€™s character in The Social Network was a jerk, too.  In general, he didn€™t really seem to care about what people thought of him (well, other than wanting to get even with/impress a girl or to get into the clubs).  He was€¦ well, weird.  He wore hoodies and Adidas sandals to business meetings.  And he didn€™t give in, even when his best friend had some pretty good ideas about what to do with his business.  Was he a jerk at times?  Yeah, maybe, especially in that later part of the movie that I don€™t want to give away.  But honestly, he was just real.  He said what he thought and was passionate about things he was into and made no apologies for his opinions. There€™s someone else that reminds me a bit of Mark Zuckerberg€™s character in the movie that€™s like this.  His name is Ricky, and I live with him.  He is probably the most opinionated person I know, and he makes no apologies for his opinions (even when they are wrong).  Can he be a jerk?  Sure.  But I€™ve learned to live with and love the realness about him, because yes, people in the Midwest are too polite sometimes.  Too often I see people be consistently €œnice€ to those around them, and then go off having a completely different opinion of those they were just nice to, having not shared how they really feel.  It€™s not that we hate each other and are just fake nice to each other€™s faces, it€™s that we have grown so used to the idea that what is always best is to be polite.  We use it as an excuse to not say what we really think for fear of hurting each other€™s feelings.  And maybe, we€™ve also let this make us thin-skinned€¦ when someone says something to us that€™s not so nice, we react.  We let it affect us, either doubting ourselves and/or just thinking that person is a total jerk.  When maybe, all they are really doing is being real with us. I know I€™m not always perfectly real, either.  Too often I keep my thoughts and opinions to myself because I don€™t want someone to think bad of me, or to think that I€™m not nice enough.  But am I really doing that person a disservice by not being real with them?  Here€™s the thing€¦ whether you are nice or a jerk to someone, you really can€™t control what they think of you anyway.  People€™s opinions or thoughts about you are always going to be based on their own filters, how they see things, their own experiences in life, and their own personality.  And while things you do or say may make them think differently, you really have no control over what they think of you, because it€™s always going to be based on just that€¦ what they think.  So why not risk letting them think what they think about you (since it€™s always a risk anyway), and just be real?  I keep going back to the book The Four Agreements.  I really like what the actual four agreements are, because I think they are great rules to generally live your life by.  And one of them is €œdon€™t take anything personally€.  I think that if everyone followed this rule, we might not worry so much about being polite or hurting each other€™s feelings.  Because what the agreement is about is what I just said above €“ that what people say about you is really just a reflection of what they have been through in their life.  It€™s just their interpretation of you, and it€™s always biased, because it can€™t not be.  So when someone says something about you, just remember that.  Not to say that you shouldn€™t listen or pay attention to what they say, because it is good feedback and you could learn from it.  But it€™s never the €œbe all, end all€. So, Midwesterners (or anyone out there reading!), maybe you could take a lesson from Mark Zuckerberg the jerk.  And that is that it€™s okay to be yourself without apology.  Not that it€™s okay to be mean to people just to be hurtful or a jerk, but it IS okay to be real.  And who knows, it might even make you a billionaire someday.

I€™m not sure exactly when I decided that I liked electronic music.  When Ricky and I started dating, I quickly found out that he had a love for the genre.  I remember listening to it at his place and thinking what I€™d always thought, that it was just repetitive beats that got old quickly. At some point, I found out that some other friends of mine were also pretty into electronic music and were planning on going to see a DJ that I€™d never heard of, Paul van Dyk, at a local club, Talbott Street.  When Ricky found out, he decided to see if he could get tickets.  He writes for IndyConcerts.com and is often given press passes to concerts and show so that he can write about them for the website.  He got passes, and I went with him.  We got there pretty early and laid claim to spots right up in front of the stage.  I remember that once the music started and everyone around me started dancing, I started thinking that maybe I understood now why people liked electronic music.  And maybe, just maybe, I could get into it after all. Once Ricky discovered that I had somewhat of an interest in electronic music, we started making plans to see more DJs.  At first, I hadn€™t heard of many of them, but quickly became familiar with the bigger names such as Armin van Buuren, David Guetta, and Paul Oakenfold.  Now I€™ve seen each of them live and even had the opportunity to randomly meet Armin.  I loved his show in Chicago that we went to.  It was a great venue, at the Aragon, and the crowd really got into it.  I can€™t help but think that everyone felt a sense of community dancing together to the beats. When I think back to how I really got to loving this genre of music, several times come to mind.  The Paul van Dyk show at Talbott Street, of course, and the Armin van Buuren show in Chicago.  When we went to Las Vegas last year (my first time there), Ricky had gotten tickets to some clubs.  We didn€™t realize until we were there that Paul Oakenfold was actually going to be at one of them, Rain, while we were there.  We jumped on the opportunity to see him mix beats live.  That ended up topping my list of experiences as well. One show I will never forget is seeing David Guetta at BoMA in Columbus, Ohio.  When Ricky introduced me to David Guetta, I almost immediately fell in love with his music.  Honestly, I think that the best word I can use to describe it is €œfun€.  Guetta isn€™t for everyone, but if you like to dance, and you just like music that is easy to get into €“ he€™s great.  I have all of his albums on my iPod, and I think I know the words to almost all the songs.  He has become one of my favorite ways to get my day going or as a pick-me-up when I€™m in a bad mood. Armin was probably my first venture into the world of trance.  I remember being at home and trying to focus on some reading I had to get done for school one day.  I had just downloaded one of Armin€™s albums, so I started listening to it while I was reading.  I loved it!  The music just put me into a, well, trance.  I can see why it€™s called that.  It just got me in the groove, made it easier to focus on the reading.  Great music to play in the background while you are working as well.  I have several fellow programmer friends that I know listen to electronic music while they are coding, and I can see why that is.  It gets you going without being distracting.  It€™s almost like a state of Zen sometimes. So now, I€™m hooked.  I listen to almost exclusively electronic music most of the time.  So when I heard that several of my favorite DJs as well as some recent discoveries I€™ve made were going to be at a music festival that went all day for two days in New York City, of COURSE I wanted to go.  And so did Ricky.  So we acquired passes, bought a plane ticket, booked a hotel, and later this afternoon will be on our way.  Friday evening is my one chance to see New York City (my first trip there as well), as I will be spending most of Saturday and Sunday dancing my face off to the beats of some of my favorite DJs. This is only the second year for Electric Zoo, but it has already established a following and appears to be very well organized.  It€™s held on Randall€™s Island, an island smack dab in the middle of New York, just a ferry ride away from Manhattan.  I can€™t wait to enjoy the music with the epic skyline of the Big Apple in the background.  Last year€™s festival brought 15,000 people on Saturday and 11,000 on Sunday, with this year even more tickets already purchased! So I hear I go€¦ only a few more hours until I board a plane and head to the city to meet some DJs, make some new friends, and get my dance on.  Electric Zoo, here I come!

Last week was quite the week of surprises.  Well, I guess at this point it is now the week before last.  I kind of consider my weeks as starting on Monday, since Saturday and Sunday kind of go together as the €œweek end€.  So to me, even though it€™s 11:30pm on a Sunday night, I still consider what I am talking about to be €œlast week€.  Anyway, the week I am talking about is the week with July 22 in it.  July 22 is my sweetie€™s birthday. I started the week very excited, because I knew it was a big week with a lot of fun stuff about to happen.   It was also very much full of surprises.  Not so much surprises for me, but surprises for Ricky. The first surprise came on Wednesday, the day before his birthday.  He had told me about how on his birthday last year, nobody at his work said a word about it.  So I decided to send him balloons for his birthday, at his work.  I almost had a scare when I found out he was working from home on his birthday.  I had scheduled the balloons to be delivered to his office on his birthday, and that wouldn€™t work if he wasn€™t there.  So on Monday I called and rescheduled to have the balloons delivered on Wednesday instead.  The hardest part was keeping my mouth shut about it.  Ricky and I talk a lot via IM during the workday, so I knew that when he got them, I would know about it shortly after.  And sure enough, I did.  €œYou are awesome!€ is always good to hear.  Glad he enjoyed the balloons.  They are still sitting in our living room at home, now mostly shriveled up raisins, although the Mylar balloons are still floating around a little bit. Next surprise: my new MacBook Pro.  Now, you might not think of this much as a surprise for Ricky, but it really was.  I had talked about getting one before, and Ricky, of course, encouraged it since he loves his brand new one as well.  But when I was about to tell him that I was going to order one, I got €œI€™ll believe it when I see it.€  So€¦ I decided to not tell him when I did.  I was just going to keep it a secret until I got it.  But then I ended up being so excited about it and anxious to get it that that day before it was delivered, I decided I wanted to visit the Apple Store.  So Ricky tagged along, and while I was on one of the MacBooks there, I looked up my order just to see if he was paying attention.  So the truth came out then, and fortunately, my MacBook was delivered the next day. The big bang, end of the week, biggest day of surprises, was Sunday.  I had told Ricky that we had something going on that day at 1:00pm, but I wouldn€™t tell him what it was.  I love setting him up for surprises.  It always drives him crazy, but I€™m also pretty awesome at it and come up with pretty great surprises.  You€™d think he would just know and trust this by now, but he still went crazy trying to figure out what this one was.   I had taken advantage of a Groupon a few weeks before to order a brewing kit, ingredients kit, and beer home brewing class for us.  Once he finally figured out where it was that we€™d ended up, he was super excited.  The class was interesting, and we left with a kit and ingredients, ready to go home and get started brewing our own soon The final surprise was last Sunday evening.  I had told Ricky that I was going to spend some time with Seren, going out to see a movie.  I honestly made up all of the details as I went along, since I really had no plans with Seren, but that was my excuse so Ricky would think I was busy.  In reality, I had planned a surprise birthday party for him.  I was hoping that Johnny could get him to go out to dinner or something (since I was presumably out with Seren) and then people would show up to surprise him when he got back.  I didn€™t have to work too hard, as the same day he found out I was hanging out with Seren, he called Johnny to make plans for a guys€™ night.  So predictable.   So Johnny and Ricky went out for sushi, and several people showed up for the surprise while they were gone.  We scared him as he walked back up the stairs in his own apartment.  He seemed very surprised, enjoyed spending time with friends, and was surprised by both the party and the awesome golf course cake that Carrie made for him. So, all in all, it was a great week full of surprises.  Balloons, surprise birthday parties, beer making, and new Macs.  Can€™t get any better than that, right?  I was very pleased and fortunate and excited about surprising my guy, and it all turned out perfectly, making for a wonderful week even better than I expected, and a wonderful birthday for Ricky.  Hope your day was great €“ I love you, sweetie!

The world is changing.  This is officially the very first blog post that I have typed on a Mac.  I know€¦ crazy, isn€™t it?  Why am I doing that, you ask?  No, I didn€™t borrow Ricky€™s computer.  No, I didn€™t Hackintosh my netbook again.  I actually bought my very own, very first, Mac.  O. M. G. Yep, I did it.  I bit the bullet.  I have considered getting a Mac for a while, and I knew it would be a MacBook (aka laptop).  Ricky, of course, praises the whole Mac experience.  I have used Macs a bit, at work when I was at IUPUI as well as when I have borrowed Ricky€™s or €œHackintoshed€ my own Dell netbook for a while.  But I never really saw the need to spend so much extra money on a laptop when I could get one for 1/4^th the price of what a MacBook would cost me.  But then I started hearing from people about how long Macs last, and that the extra cost was worth the extra investment.  And I decided they were right.  These reasons, along with a couple more, prompted me to make the decision to finally purchase my own.  I got an education discount on it because I€™m a student at IU, and right now they are also offering a special where you can get a free iPod as well.  I didn€™t need an iPod touch, but I thought a new iPod Nano would be nice to use for exercising, since lately I€™ve been using my iPhone.  And it€™s kind of inconvenient (plus scary, if you think about the possibility of dropping it!) to have to carry my iPhone with me when I go jogging.  So I snagged a purple (of course) 16GB iPod Nano along with my new MacBook. After anxiously awaiting the shipping period of a week, my new MacBook Pro (along with the Nano) arrived today via FedEx.  I was VERY excited.  I€™d been tracking them both on FedEx every day since I ordered them.  And now, here they are!  It€™s really interesting, kind of a new feeling for me, or at least one that I haven€™t felt in a very long time€¦ using a computer that I don€™t know everything about.  I have been using a PC with Windows since 1995, and computers in general for even longer than that, since I was about 12 years old or younger.  I mean, I know my way around a Mac well enough €“ but it is still definitely an unfamiliar operating system and NOT one that I know everything about.  It€™s kind of cool, though€¦ it€™s rekindled my passion for learning about computers.  I€™m very excited to learn my way around Mac OS X, and hopefully even try my hand at programming iPhone apps at some point.  I know, I know€¦ those of you out there that have tried it say that the language sucks.  But I may give it a shot anyway, just to see for myself. So here I am, blogging on my brand new (and very first) MacBook.  I hope we have a lasting and wonderful relationship!

I've known for a while that I'm an introvert.  I've taken the Myers-Briggs test more than once, and even though I love people and I appreciate spending time with my friends, it's obvious that I am, without question, an introvert.  So what's that mean?  A lot of people think of introverts as quiet, shy individuals that just keep to themselves.  Well, I'm not quite that.  And that's not really what it means.  Someone with an introvert temperament gains energy from time spent alone.  There's quite a bit more to it than that, I'm finding out, but that is the jist of it. For one of my classes last fall, I had to take the Myers-Briggs again.  I came out as an INFP, which makes sense.  I'm pretty much a strong I (introvert) and F (feeling), with borderline N and P, apparently.  Before announcing who in our class came out as what temperament, our instructor gave us the breakdown of what everyone in the class was.  Each Myers-Briggs personality type works out to be a certain temperament.  Not surprisingly, there were a lot of Rationals in our group, and some Guardians.  But only one Idealist.  Yeah, guess who... I didn't really give a whole lot of thought to this, since I already knew I was an introvert.  And some people might not even think it matters a whole lot, but I honestly had never really thought about this before.  Until I realized I was dating a textbook extrovert.  Ricky, my boyfriend, is pretty much the polar opposite of me on this temperament scale.  He doesn't understand my need to be home and spend time alone, or why "going out" wears me out sometimes.  To him, being with people is a total energy generator, not drainer.  One of the things I love about him is that I never have to guess what he's thinking, because I always know.  He is quick to tell what is on his mind.  Of course he is, as an extrovert, he processes things outwardly.  He is stimulated by what goes on around him.  Being around a bunch of people gives him energy.  I, on the other hand, am the exact opposite.  I like people, don't get me wrong, but eventually I reach my fill of them and need time to process thoughts on my own.  That's the real difference between us.  Ricky, an extrovert, processes things by saying what's on his mind.  He reacts to outer stimuli.  I, a typical introvert, react to and process everything on the inside.  Only if you're an introvert can you truly know what this means.  I see so many of my friends that just have this need to hang out with people.  I on the other hand, can go days without doing that.  I have enough of my inner thoughts to keep me company. I started reading this book, The Introvert Advantage, to gain a bit more insight into some of these things that confound me about how I process things.  It's been kind of enlightening.  Like, for example, it talks about how introverts can easily be overstimulated by the external world, creating a feeling of "too much".  I so know exactly what this means.  I turn down lunches with people just to be able to get away to spend an hour by myself.  Extroverts, on the other hand, gain energy by that external stimuli.  They need people, activities, places to go, to generate energy. Their focus is on the outside world.  To me, though, the thought of going out or being somewhere every night just exhausts me and makes me irritable.  I need my time to recharge.  Extroverts get lonely if they are not in contact with people.  Not me, not for quite a while anyway.  I can go for days in my own little "cave".  In fact, doing so energizes me.  It takes me time to recharge and to process all the thoughts and goings-on inside my head.  Not getting the time or ability to do so can make me totally stressed out. If you are an extrovert, wow, let me tell you... you will probably never completely understand what goes on inside our heads.  There are so many thoughts and stimuli and things to process that it makes me tired just thinking about it.  Oh yeah, that's another thing... sleep recharges introverts.  Quiet time, down time... yeah, that's what helps me.  Ricky is just the opposite.  He is always going, going, going.  That just makes me tired. I wish I could explain everything in this book.  It's honestly just a continuous learning experience.  The more I read, though, the more sense it makes.  I get worn out easily with all of the stimuli in my life.  On the days that I have an eight-hour day at work and then a three-hour class afterwards, I generally just want to go home and relax.  And I *hate* having weeks where I have a lot of stuff going on on weeknights.  It makes me just want to go home and curl up with a book. So here's the lesson I've learned: that what I am is okay.  I'm not weird because I don't like to go out every night.  The fact that a lot of times I just like going to lunch by myself to read is perfectly fine.  And the fact that I have a lot going on inside my head that never really makes it out, that's okay too.  These are all perfectly normal, and they're really just me being me. If you suspect that you might be an introvert, I highly advise you to read this book.  It's been helpful, and even given me some ideas to best utilize my introvertedness.  And it might just give you some new insight into yourself.

So since seeing that Isha posted an update and list of summer plans, I thought I would do the same. Right now, I am currently smack dab in the middle of finals week of my second semester in the Kelley MBA program. I have heard from a lot of people (the program chair included) that this is quite possibly the hardest semester of the program. I've taken a total of 4 classes, 7.5 credit hours. And keep in mind that 8 credit hours is considered full-time if you're in grad school, so I've basically been working full-time while also going to school almost full-time. This is also one big part of the reason I am not on Twitter or Facebook right now. They both just became a big distraction while trying to make it through these last few weeks. I'll likely be back this weekend, once finals are over. I am SO looking forward to this summer. I made it through my biggest final yesterday (Finance) and am hoping I managed to do better on it than I did on the midterm. I have one more final left to take online tomorrow and then I am home free! ...for a week. Summer classes start next Thursday. However, I'm looking forward to starting fresh and being basically done with finance/accounting/money/math classes. They have been killer, and I even came close to quitting earlier this semester, but I managed to stick it out. My summer classes are Business Law, which meets on Thursdays, and IT for Managers, which is online and only 1.5 credit hours. And I will be done with the IT class on June 23, and then done with the Law class on July 8 - which means over a month of no classes! Definitely excited about that. So - that being said, summer should be pretty good. Here's what I've got going on this summer so far... May 6th - Macroecon final (last one!) 9th - Mother's Day - special lunch with my mom 13th - Summer classes start 14th - Swing dancing double date with Ricky, Ian, and Heather (Ricky's first swing dancing experience!) 15th - Special surprise planned for my sweetie - we get to dress up! 22nd - Nickelback concert at Verizon 23rd - LOST finale party at our new apt June 23rd - End of IT class July 4th - Spending the weekend with Ricky at Forest Dunes 8th - End of Business Law class 19th - Sophie's "birthday" (2nd anniversary of the day I got her) 22nd - Ricky's birthday August 14th - Mom's birthday 24th - Fall classes start - Marketing, Operations Mgmt