Me for president!

It's been a whirlwind of a week. Addressing one of the questions I was wondering about a few weeks ago, I decided to run for MBAA President. Conversations with the current MBAA executive team have inspired me to take this step. I don't have a traditional business background, by any means, but I'm increasingly realizing that this is an asset, not a liability. (I can talk business!) I do think I've got a lot to offer in this position.

So I gave a candidacy speech last night. It went well, because I (miraculously) had two free hours before the speech, and I used this time to find a secluded spot on campus and practice. There were still people walking by, a little ways away, so I held my cellphone to my ear to make it look like I was talking to someone. I ran through the speech about ten times, until I felt comfortable with it. Afterwards, as I walked away, I noticed a fellow camped out with a sleeping bag in the bushes, right by where I had been speechifying. The poor guy probably got very tired of hearing me talk about my qualifications and what an exciting time this is in the UW MBA program.

Voting happens tomorrow and the election results will be announced at a mixer (known in UW MBA parlance as a TG) on Friday evening. Whether I win or not, it will be a fun evening; my Korean classmates will be serving up Korean food. Like me, my sister and brother-in-law are huge fans of Korean food, so I've invited them to come and share in the yumminess. And, if win, well...they'll be there to congratulate me!

In other news, it has really been an intense week. I had three hours of sleep the other night, which took its toll the next afternoon during macroeconomics. But I didn't feel so bad after talking with one of my classmates today who didn't sleep at all last night. I was astonished that she was able to stand there and lucidly converse with me.

What else was I wondering about a few weeks ago?

• The internship search. So far I've applied to IBM and Microsoft; I'll be interviewing with Microsoft next week.
• Business consulting project. Things have changed a bit, but our project fortunately didn't get nixed. Our task -- an online marketing campaign for a small local software firm -- is interesting, but our client is incredibly busy and we're basically doing a lot of it on our own. I'm leading this team and it's been presenting some interesting challenges.
• Business plan competition. Plugging right along. Second Life presents an unending number of fascinating business questions right now, and it's fascinating to explore them.

And now ... I've got some reading to do for strategy class. It's my favorite class thus far; a lot of my classmates feel the same way. And it's very challenging, replete with frequent cold-calls, as my classmate Sarah describes.

Tags: MBA University of Washington UW speechifying election internship