I originally posted this blog on my Kelley blog, but I thought it was worth sharing here as well. Enjoy! I could use this blog entry to write about all of the sights we saw in Russia, or about the business meetings that we attended, and I might do that soon too. But honestly, the entire experience of the trip had such an impact on me as a person that I'd like to talk about that first. It had an effect on me emotionally, personally, and professionally, and there are quite a few thoughts swirling around in my head about that now upon returning. One big reason I took the Emerging Economies: Russia class is because I love traveling and learning about and experiencing other cultures, and I saw this as one of the few opportunities I might have to learn about and visit Russia in this capacity. And now, especially after taking the trip and having that experience, I find it disappointing that more MBA students in our program weren't willing to do the same. Yes, it's a lot of money. But the trip and class as a whole really costs no more than a normal part-time MBA semester of credit hours here at Kelley. So, even if you have to take only this class one semester in order to pay for it, do it! It is well worth the expense many times over. And plus, there are also other ways to pay for it. Kelley offered a partial scholarship for it. I know that one of the other students that went used his work bonus to help pay for it, and I did that as well. But even if you think it's not affordable, there is always a way and I guarantee that if you make the effort to find it, it will be worth it in the end. The eight weeks in this class leading up to the trip were quite valuable. I really enjoyed taking the time to learn all about Russia - its culture, politics, food, history, etc - before visiting there. It made the actual trip and being there so much more valuable and meaningful. When we were ready to leave, we already had an idea of what Russia was like in our heads - now it was just time to experience it for ourselves. What I got out of the trip exceeded my highest expectations. I didn't really have too many expectations going in, honestly - I just tried to be open and take in whatever happened, which I think is the best way to go about it. Maybe it was just that attitude that caused me to feel differently than I might have thought that I would. One of the first things I felt the first few days of the trip was a sense of awe. I never traveled very much or very far in my childhood and even though I have been to a few different countries now as an adult, it was still kind of huge to me that I was in Russia. And on top of that, I was traveling with a group of successful adults and meeting with executives at huge multinational companies. It made my head spin just a bit. Once I adjusted to that feeling and accepted that yes, I was really there, I got quite a bit out of both the business meetings as well as the time spent out with people, both my fellow travelers as well as people we were meeting in Russia. The business meetings were very valuable and rewarding because we were getting to see the reality of doing business in Russia, what we had been researching for weeks. We saw both the perspectives of U.S. firms, some of which had been in Russia for quite a long time, as well as from Russian companies, both large ones and start-ups. It gave us a much more real sense of how things are accomplished there. It was also a really nice experience to meet the people that we had put ourselves in touch with in order to set up our meetings. That had been part of our challenges and preparation in the class leading up to the trip, to set up business meetings on our own in Russia to get information for our team projects. Spending time with those in our group and meeting new people in Russia was every bit as rewarding as well. Because the MBA program is part-time and most of the students either work full-time already or are full-time students in another program along with the MBA (we had both an MD/MBA and a JD/MBA along with us), sometimes that can make it hard to really spend time connecting with your fellow students. But there is no better way to connect than to go off to a foreign country with some of them for a few days! We all truly got to know each other very well and honestly, we really got along famously. I hope to continue to stay in touch with each and every one of the people on this trip and count them as friends for a very long time. I think that all of my fellow students that went on this trip would agree that we owe a huge debt of gratitude to both our professor, Marjorie Lyles, as well as our executive-in-residence for the class, Nate Feltman. You can tell that Prof. Lyles loves both doing work internationally as well as sharing her love of that with students. She truly has a passion for that which becomes very clear when you are on the trip experiencing it with her. Her fondness for her students and her pride in their dedication to the class becomes very evident and was a huge encouragement and support to us. And Nate brought exactly what we needed to our time in Russia. He has spent a few years over there as legal counsel and was just the link we needed to Russia. His love for the country is very evident as well and added so much to our trip. He was our translator and guide at times as well as friend. You tend to have professors and executives or professionals that are involved throughout every step of earning an MBA, but there are only usually a select few that end up being sought out as true mentors. I think Prof. Lyles and Nate should be warned that they have the potential to become that for any one of the eight of us students that visited Russia with them. I think that I could potentially say that all of us fell in love with Russia on this trip. The sights, meetings, people, experiences... all of it was enough to make all of us want to return at some point. A phrase that one of the executives in one of our meetings used that keeps coming back to me is "international American". I believe that is what is true about each of us on the trip that sparked us to go - a passion for learning more about other cultures and nations and wanting to make the world seem a bit smaller. I really hope that in our experience and in our sharing of it with others that we can prompt them to do the same and be international Americans as well.

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!

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.

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!

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

If you are friends with me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter, you've likely already grown tired of hearing about the trip to Hawaii that I'm taking next weekend.  If you're not, well, then maybe you'll actually be interested in this post.  I'm hoping to do sort of a travel blog about the trip while I'm there (including plenty of pictures), so I thought I would start with a post before I go about how this trip came about and what has been planned for it. Sometime shortly after I started this semester, I started already thinking about spring break.  I'm not sure how much time off I will get from school this year, so I thought maybe it might be a good idea to take advantage of time off while I get it.  I didn't think Ricky would be interested in going with me, since he pretty much already had his vacation planned out for the year, so I thought I would be going by myself, and among my destinations (all somewhere warmer than here) were San Francisco or San Diego.  I thought at first I would only be planning for a shorter trip of only a few days.  I got to thinking more about it, and decided... hmm... if I'm going as far as California, why not think a little bigger?  Hawaii has always seemed like a fun place, and somewhere I'd like to go someday - why not see how much it costs and go for it? And the planning began.  The more I researched Hawaii, the more I wanted to go there.  So I decided to go, whether it meant only a few days by myself there, or, as it turned out, a week there with Ricky.  I was able to talk him into using up some of his precious vacation time for a week with me in paradise.  (Wouldn't you go too??) We started out deciding to only go to Oahu, and to stay near Waikiki (our hotel is only a 5-minute walk from the beach) and rent a car to explore the rest of the island during our stay.  Since then, however, we've ended up splurging and paying for a flight to the "big island" (Hawaii) to see the volcanoes on one day of our trip.  Other plans include a luau on Wednesday night (what better way to spend St. Patrick's Day?) and a trip to Ocean's 808 on Friday night. I simply could not be more excited.  Hawaii has been a dream of mine since I was a kid.  I wrote a report about it for school in 5th grade, which my mom found the other day.  My family never traveled much or went on too many vacations, so to me, getting to explore as many places as I have the opportunity to now as an adult is simply a dream come true, something I never imagined I would be able to do. Another fun part of the trip that we are planning to do is visit some LOST filming locations.  Most of the TV show LOST is filmed on Oahu, and we plan on hunting down some of the locations they have filmed and seeing some of these places that we have only previous seen on screen.  Yes, I realize we are dorks.  But if you are a true LOST fan, is there really anything much cooler than getting your picture taken in Dharmaville?  (You can actually see "Dharmaville", or the Others camp, on Google Maps Street View here.  It's a YMCA camp on Honolulu, Camp Erdman.) So we are steadily counting down the days (as of today, only 6 left!) until we hop on that plane and take our three-leg, sixteen-hour journey to paradise.  Can I make it through this week without exploding with anticipation?  We'll see... but on Saturday morning, paradise here I come!

Recently, my trend for Memorial Day seems to be to do something, well... memorable. Last year I made a trip to Washington, D.C. to visit my friend Paul (my first ever trip to D.C.) and this year I ended up taking my boyfriend Ricky on a mystery trip. He had no idea where we were going until we reached our destination. He even blogged about his anticipation (and fear) about not knowing, which you can read here. Our trip turned out to be quite the wacky Memorial Day weekend. Yes, wacky... a pretty accurate word for it. It started out with our drive, obviously. Google Maps led us through quite the back roads of northern Ohio. Have you ever heard of the movie "Deliverance"? I have never actually seen it, but I've heard stories. Well, on our way there we passed through a town called Defiance. And it looked to me about like Deliverance sounds like it would be. After making the several hour trek through the Ohio countryside (and after Ricky finally guessed our plans for at least one day of the trip), we finally arrived at our hotel. I had booked a room online, and upon making it to the room that they put us in, we discovered that it had a jacuzzi. Sweet! We decided to make a trip across the street to the Speedway station for some beverages (it had a *beer cave*) and then try out our jacuzzi. Turns out, said jacuzzi did not work... and apparently neither did the hotel's wi-fi, at least not for my computer. After a phone call to the hotel's support line and talking with both level 1 and 2 tech support and getting the promise of a call from a network administrator (which I never did get), I still ended up not having wi-fi the entire weekend. So what do you do with a jacuzzi that doesn't work? After posing this question to the interwebz and getting no adequate responses, we came up with a solution on our own. After a trip to Walmart and now armed with a garden hose extension, a big bottle of bubble bath, and lots of patience, we ended up with a giant jacuzzi full of bubbles. And yes, it took forever to fill up using the hose and the bathroom sink. And yes, we only ended up using it for 4 minutes because the water was too hot. But did you really think we could sit there and stare at a broken jacuzzi all weekend long without coming up with something fun to try and a good story to go along with it? And so far, this is just the tale of our hotel stay - I haven't even gotten to the actual plans for the trip yet. Stay tuned!