I'll start out by saying that my all-time record for most movies seen in a theatre in a week is 12 (actually seen in the span of 4 days). This occurred while I was visiting my parents in Houston over Christmas right after I graduated in 2000. This is not something I recommend. The movies I saw, in no particular order, were: Proof of Life, Cast Away, Vertical Limit, Dungeons and Dragons, What Women Want, Dude, Where's My Car?, Miss Congeniality, Quills, The Family Man, The Grinch, Dracula 2000, and Little Nicky. I don't honestly remember any of them, unless I have seen them again since that time. They all just pretty much run together, and all I have is a vague sense of whether or not I liked them at the time. I bring this up because, although it is nowhere near my record, I have gone to the theatre 3 times in the past 5 days and I don't remember the last time I did that. So I figured I might as well post a review of them all, especially since 2 of them were advance previews (Live Free or Die Hard and Transformers) and the other (1408) is still less than a week old. So without further ado . . .
1408
It might not be saying much, but this is without a doubt the scariest PG-13 movie I've ever seen. It just goes to show you the oddities of the MPAA ratings criteria. They are always looking for the things you can quantify (i.e. how many uses of profanity, how many total seconds of nudity, and how much blood is shown) that when you get to some ambiguous things like tone and tension they have no idea what to do. So you end up with a film like this, which is far scarier than any Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th, going out the door with a PG-13 because there's almost no swearing and not a whole lot of blood. All I know is that had I gone to the theatre to see this as a 13-year old I probably would have run out crying and slept with the covers over my head for a month. In any case, on the whole I thought this was a real solid movie; definitely in the upper tier of the Stephen King adaptations. If any of you don't know, it's about an author (Mike Enslin played by John Cusack) who makes his living staying overnight at supposedly haunted places and then writing about them. He doesn't actually believe in the supernatural and so, when one day he gets a postcard from The Dolphin Hotel in New York that says simply "Don't Go Into 1408", of course he boards the next flight there. Samuel L. Jackson does a great job in a very small part as hotel manager who tries in vain to keep Mike from going into the room. He delivers the single best line in the movie, which I won't ruin here in case anyone plans to see it. Well of course it goes without saying that once Mike gets in the room it doesn't take too long for him to change his mind about the supernatural.
The movie is divided into three distinct acts. The first part introduces us to Mike, gives us a small bit of background on him, and then gets him into the room. The second act takes place in the room, and the third act wraps things up. The first and third acts are both solid, particularly when Jackson is on the screen, but it's the second act that really sets this movie apart. I have to give the director (Mikael Hafstrom) a lot of credit for knowing just how to create an extremely intense 35 minutes of cinema. He knows exactly how far to take you before giving you the "jump scare" or letting the air out and then building it up again. This is not an easy thing to achieve, especially when you are trying to keep things PG-13 (sorry to keep harping on that). He keeps reaching the point where it's about to go over the top and become absolutely terrifying, but he always manages to recede right before the brink in a way that feels like a real relief rather than a copout to the audience. Cusack is good here, too, although this will most likely not go down as one of the roles he's widely remembered for 10 years from now. The key with him is that while his character certainly has problems, he's largely a likeable guy who is given a solid backstory that unfolds slowly throughout the movie. It makes you actually invested in his character and that's what makes it all the worse to see him endure what he goes through.
Anyway, I know I haven't given a lot of specifics, but I think it's better that way. This movie is all about tone and suspense and it does a great job with each. Easily the best horrorish movie of 2007, although considering the competition that's not saying all that much.
Live Free or Die Hard
A very popular discussion to have while tipping back a few pints is "which is the 2nd best Die Hard movie?" Everybody is unanimous that the first one is superior, but opinions are very much divided after that. I am firmly in the Die Hard: With a Vengeance camp. I thought Samuel L. Jackson brought a lot to the movie and I also thought that Jeremy Irons made a great villain. Die Hard 2, on the other hand, I just thought was pretty much the same movie as the first Die Hard, and thus seemed pretty repetitive and unnecessary. That's not to say I won't sit and watch it when I come across it while flipping channels, though. In any case, the real question is will this new Die Hard enter into the discussion as the 2nd or, dare we dream, best Die Hard movie? Um, no. At least not for me. While I still put this one above Die Hard 2, to me it is quite a bit behind Die Hard and With a Vengeance.
Again here I have to bring up the rating. This is the first Die Hard to not be released with an R. I presume that when the studio took a look at the script's action sequence requirements and corresponding budget they wanted to make sure they hit as large an audience as possible. Overall, the movie is just as violent as its predecessors, and the only real difference is that John McClane must have gotten himself a swear jar sometime during the last 12 years and learned to say things like "jerkwad" a lot more. While that doesn't necessarily take away from the movie, there are times when he's speaking to the villains and it just doesn't seem like he's saying what John McClane would really say. I guess that's probably the most general problem with this movie; somehow it just doesn't "feel" like a Die Hard movie. In fact, change the character's name and remove about 3 different lines of dialogue, and this would just be a generic Bruce Willis action movie.
OK, so that's what's "generally" wrong with it. Specifically, there is one glaring problem with this movie and that is with the villain. I won't blame the actor (Timothy Olyphant), but this character is just one of the most bland, boring bad guys to ever appear in a big budget action film. While action movies certainly aren't known for developing 3-dimensional villains too often, this is Die Hard and the ghost of Hans Gruber really bites them here. Alan Rickman gave us one of, if not THE best, action villains of all time and to see such a cookie cutter replacement just shows us how far the series has fallen. The fact that the plot centers around high tech thievery and data manipulation doesn't help matters either. There was a time when the evil villain had a brainy henchman that did the geek-speek so that the main baddy could concentrate on being cool and evil and it just doesn't have the same affect when McClane is essentially hunting down a tech support guy. One of the head henchman (actually a woman) is pretty interesting, but as soon as she gets dispatched of (about halfway through the movie) there's really no one left worth caring about and McClane might as well be shooting at stormtroopers for the rest of the film.
You know, I realize that I am really sounding overly negative about this film and I'm really not intending to. I absolutely enjoyed it and think it's a real fun film. The action sequences are way over the top, but that's a really good thing in a Die Hard film and they are done very well. Also, some kudos to the director (Len Wiseman) for opting to not use CGI; the difference really shows. He also uses some really cool tracking shots during a car chase that some other action movie directors should take notice of. So, overall, a solid although admittedly flawed film that most fans of the series will have fun with but probably not rave about. Had this actually been a generic Bruce Willis movie I probably would have been more forgiving, but that's the double edged sword for the studio. You can't have the hype around a new Die Hard film without raising the expectations.
Transformers
Last night I had the opportunity to see an advanced screening of Transformers. Not only was it free, but it was at the theatre which is only a mile away from our apartment and the theatre was only about half full so we got some great seats. With all that going for me, I should have known my luck would not hold up.
I'm searching for the right words to use here. How about this? This. Movie. Sucks. Yep, I think that about covers it. To any of you out there that are excited to see this movie, all I can say is that the other 5 people who saw it with me all enjoyed it, so I appear to be in the minority here. 20th Century Fox and Michael Bay better hope that I am. For me, the only thing this film successfully transformed was my large Cherry Coke into a gallon of piss.
I'll take the opposite approach of my last review and talk about the good things first. By and large, the transformers look good. Going live action means you are pretty much forced to use CGI, and kudos to the special FX guys for a job well done here. Also, most of the action scenes, especially the one at the end, are pretty cool. And Megan Fox is absolutely smoking hot. Every scene she's in is good just because she's in it; usually with not a lot of clothes on.
So what's wrong with the movie? Everything else. With a run-time of 2 hrs. and 20 minutes, the transformers have maybe 40 minutes of screen time. That means we get 100 minutes of not very interesting story all about the human characters. In the Transformers cartoon, humans were very minor characters. It was all about the war between the machines. Here, it is the other way around. We are forced to follow the humans, and pretty much only see the transformers when they are around the humans. What has Optimus Prime been up to before he appears more than an hour into the movie? We don't know and don't get to find out, but I bet it was a hell of a lot more interesting than the B-movie plot we're forced to sit through. I don't know whether it was a budget constraint or a creative decision to not show more of the Transformers, but the end result is some not very entertaining cinema. The other glaring problem is that (mild spolier alert) Megatron only appears for the last 25 minutes. Why they decided to have the main villain pull a disappearing act for 75% of the film is beyond me, but they did. The other problem is that even though individually the transformers look good, in a battle it's really difficult to tell them apart (with the exception of Optimus Prime). You just see a mess of metal colliding and rolling around and have no idea who you're supposed to root for, so it quickly becomes pretty boring. Finally, again with the exception of Optimus Prime, most of the transformers speak maybe 3 lines in the whole movie. Once more, the transformers are relegated to the background while the humans take front and center. Finally, and most obnoxiously, there is an approximately 25 minute subplot concerning Rachael Taylor and Anthony Anderson's characters that goes absolutely nowhere. And I'm serious; you could completely cut them out of the movie and lose nothing (other than the gratuitous minutes). In a movie that is already pushing the boundaries with its running time this is just completely unacceptable. Even the other people I saw it with that enjoyed it couldn't tell me what the point of this subplot was.
Overall I can't say I was disappointed with this movie, only because from the moment I heard Michale Bay would be directing I instantly had zero expectations of it being good. As Trey Parker and Matt Parker said in Team America "why does Michael Bay get to keep on making movies?" With the exception of The Rock, this guy has had the reverse Midas Touch on everything he has been involved with. And given that somehow his movies continue to make money despite him, I don't see things changing anytime soon.
I'm quite certain that most of you will see Transformers at some point, and some of you will probably even like it and try to convince me that it's good. I'm always open for discussion, but I will only sit down and talk to you about it if you can answer me this: why do the Transformers growl?
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Monday, June 25, 2007
I Think I'm Now Officially Old
No, not because I just turned 28 or graduated or had any other life-changing event. I believe I am now officially old because of this past Friday night. This was the first weekend in a while that Christy and I had nothing really planned and so we were just going to chill out all weekend long. We ended up deciding that on Friday night we would go out for dinner and then go to Barnes and Noble because we both wanted to pick up some books to read on our Hawaii trip. Now, it's not the act of going to dinner and a bookstore on a Friday night that I think makes me old. It's the fact that I was absolutely, genuinely excited to be doing that rather than anything else. So now I am officially old.
Anyway, as tends to be the case everytime I go to a bookstore I ended up buying way more than I planned. I decided that my summer project is going to be War and Peace, so I bought that. At 1424 pages, if I finish it will become the longest book I've ever read, topping The Stand (1138 pages) and Atlas Shrugged (1096 pages). By all accounts it is a classic and I bought a newer translation that should make it easier to read, but of course anytime you are reading a book that is over 50 years old there is going to be an adjustment period while you find the author's pulse. I also decided that I wanted to get a couple more, shorter, classics to add to my library. I bought Of Mice and Men, Animal Farm, and Lord of the Flies (which I was supposed to have, but never did, read in high school). I've already finished Of Mice and Men (seeing as it's only 107 pages) and I don't have a whole lot to say about it. On one hand, I can see why it's a classic, but on the other hand there's nothing in it that absolutely blew me away. Plus it's Steinbeck, so you know it's going to be depressing as hell going in. I also picked up American Gods, by Neil Gaiman. I'm not sure how exactly it caught my eye but I just picked it up and started reading it in the cafe area and couldn't put it down. I'm now on page 102 and it keeps getting better. I had intended to go back to the Einstein bio after this weekend but I guess that'll just have to wait. Finally, I picked up two non-fiction books. One is called The Philosopher's Handbook and is just a collection of western philosophy writings pretty much from Socrates through Nietzche. I've always enjoyed philosophy but don't have the time to read 50 different books to get a well-rounded education in the subject, so it's nice to have them all compiled in one place so I can at least get a taste of them. The other book I bought is a zen book called Not Always So. It is a collection of speeches given by Zen master Suzuki (who died in the 70s). I have his other book (Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind) and really enjoyed that, so thought I'd pick this one up since I have been looking to get back into Zen and Buddhism. On a related note, I decided to take an introductory meditation course at the Buddhist temple up in Lakeview. It's 5 Tuesdays for an hour and a half each week and starts July 17th, right after we get back from Hawaii. I'm excited to do it; it's something I've been meaning to do for a long time.
In other news, I was very happy to see a story on yahoo news this morning. A while ago, I posted about some insane judge that was suing a dry cleaners for $54 million for temporarily losing his pants. Well, the case was finally resolved today in favor of the dry cleaners (http://tinyurl.com/ywmc8v), so at least some form of common sense prevailed in the end. The judge has also been ordered to pay their court costs, although the matter of their legal fees is still being decided.
On the marathon front, I got off to a rough start at the beginning of last week. On Tuesday night at 9:40 I was all set to head out and do my 4 miles, when I suddenly remembered that the fitness center was now operating under summer hours and closed at 10. In theory I could have just done my running outside but, well, I didn't. I did end up rebounding nicely, though, by running 5 miles on Thursday (1 hour); 4 miles on Saturday (46:30), and 6 miles yesterday (71:57) for a total of 15 for the week. I realized after I ran yesterday that it was the first time in my life I have ever run 6 miles without stopping. I have actually run 10ks before, and run them faster than 72 minutes, but it was always a combo of running and walking. This week I have pretty much the same routine to look forward to, except I have a 7-miler on Sunday. It's starting to get serious now. If I can eventualy get up to doing 10 miles at a 12 minute mile pace without stopping, I'll be really happy.
Christy and I are going to Second City this Thursday night, and then the Cubs game on Friday afternoon. At present I'm excited about both of them, but of course my excitement for the Cubs always hinges on how they do the preceding day.
Anyway, as tends to be the case everytime I go to a bookstore I ended up buying way more than I planned. I decided that my summer project is going to be War and Peace, so I bought that. At 1424 pages, if I finish it will become the longest book I've ever read, topping The Stand (1138 pages) and Atlas Shrugged (1096 pages). By all accounts it is a classic and I bought a newer translation that should make it easier to read, but of course anytime you are reading a book that is over 50 years old there is going to be an adjustment period while you find the author's pulse. I also decided that I wanted to get a couple more, shorter, classics to add to my library. I bought Of Mice and Men, Animal Farm, and Lord of the Flies (which I was supposed to have, but never did, read in high school). I've already finished Of Mice and Men (seeing as it's only 107 pages) and I don't have a whole lot to say about it. On one hand, I can see why it's a classic, but on the other hand there's nothing in it that absolutely blew me away. Plus it's Steinbeck, so you know it's going to be depressing as hell going in. I also picked up American Gods, by Neil Gaiman. I'm not sure how exactly it caught my eye but I just picked it up and started reading it in the cafe area and couldn't put it down. I'm now on page 102 and it keeps getting better. I had intended to go back to the Einstein bio after this weekend but I guess that'll just have to wait. Finally, I picked up two non-fiction books. One is called The Philosopher's Handbook and is just a collection of western philosophy writings pretty much from Socrates through Nietzche. I've always enjoyed philosophy but don't have the time to read 50 different books to get a well-rounded education in the subject, so it's nice to have them all compiled in one place so I can at least get a taste of them. The other book I bought is a zen book called Not Always So. It is a collection of speeches given by Zen master Suzuki (who died in the 70s). I have his other book (Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind) and really enjoyed that, so thought I'd pick this one up since I have been looking to get back into Zen and Buddhism. On a related note, I decided to take an introductory meditation course at the Buddhist temple up in Lakeview. It's 5 Tuesdays for an hour and a half each week and starts July 17th, right after we get back from Hawaii. I'm excited to do it; it's something I've been meaning to do for a long time.
In other news, I was very happy to see a story on yahoo news this morning. A while ago, I posted about some insane judge that was suing a dry cleaners for $54 million for temporarily losing his pants. Well, the case was finally resolved today in favor of the dry cleaners (http://tinyurl.com/ywmc8v), so at least some form of common sense prevailed in the end. The judge has also been ordered to pay their court costs, although the matter of their legal fees is still being decided.
On the marathon front, I got off to a rough start at the beginning of last week. On Tuesday night at 9:40 I was all set to head out and do my 4 miles, when I suddenly remembered that the fitness center was now operating under summer hours and closed at 10. In theory I could have just done my running outside but, well, I didn't. I did end up rebounding nicely, though, by running 5 miles on Thursday (1 hour); 4 miles on Saturday (46:30), and 6 miles yesterday (71:57) for a total of 15 for the week. I realized after I ran yesterday that it was the first time in my life I have ever run 6 miles without stopping. I have actually run 10ks before, and run them faster than 72 minutes, but it was always a combo of running and walking. This week I have pretty much the same routine to look forward to, except I have a 7-miler on Sunday. It's starting to get serious now. If I can eventualy get up to doing 10 miles at a 12 minute mile pace without stopping, I'll be really happy.
Christy and I are going to Second City this Thursday night, and then the Cubs game on Friday afternoon. At present I'm excited about both of them, but of course my excitement for the Cubs always hinges on how they do the preceding day.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Quick Update
Not a lot to say today. Trying to run the clock out on my last few hours of work before I take off for a 4-day weekend. I'm definitely looking forward to it, but won't get much chance for relaxation, except for tonight. Christy and I are going to Smith and Wollensky for dinner tonight to celebrate her being done with teaching. I've never been there but I hear it's one of the best steakhouses around and it's right on the Chicago river. Of course, with this being sandwiched in between going out for my birthday last Sunday (at another great steakhouse, the Chicago Chophouse) and my graduation this Sunday we certainly are doing a lot of celebrating lately. Not that that's a bad thing (unless you're speaking in terms of a hit to our bank account). In any case, we're planning to see Ocean's 13 after that. I hated Ocean's 12 so I am not expecting all that much, but hopefully it is at least entertaining. The rest of the weekend is going to be tied up with family and graduation-related activities, so I'm sure it will pass by in a blur. I'm glad I have Monday off so I can just lay on the couch all day and recover.
On the marathon front, my "official" training schedule is about to begin next week. To kind of kickstart it, I actually decided that I would go ahead and do week 1 this week (and then repeat it next week) as sort of a practice week. Tuesday I ran 4 miles on the treadmill in 47 minutes, and then this morning (thanks to the aforementioned dinner plans) I got up at 6:00 and did an hour run on the treadmill (going about 5.1 miles). I can't even believe I have already been up for 11 hours. Hopefully I don't fall asleep during the movie, but a big meal is certainly not going to help me out in that capacity. I'm supposed to run 4 miles on Saturday and then 6 on Sunday. While I can probably make time on Saturday I see absolutely no chance that Sunday is going to happen. Good thing this is only practice!
I saw Pirates of the Caribbean and Knocked Up last week. Knocked Up was pretty good; nothing fantastic, but a solidly made romantic comedy. It's one of those rare movies you can go to on a date where one person isn't dreading the experience. Pirates was very mediocre. The name of the sequel is "At World's End" but I think a more appropriate title would have been "Let's Make a Deal." Pretty much the entirety of the first two hours has 2 of the 6 or 7 major characters (in seemingly random order) making deals with each other that everyone knows they're not going to keep, then predictably breaking the deal and making a new one with the next character while saying "I never break a deal." When it finally does get around to the action sequences, they are pretty good. Instead of the 3-way swordfight (does that sound gay?) on top of a rolling wheel (the single coolest part of the second one, IMO) we get a 30-minute duel between two ships as they are being sucked into a whirlpool (also called, as I learned from the film, a maelstrom). I heard some people didn't care for it, but it worked for me. It was the 2 hours I had to put up with en route to that which lowered my enjoyment. I mean, when did Hollywood decide that their "fun" summer movies all had to be over 2 and a half hours long. I understand wanting to give people their money's worth, but there is also such a thing as addition by subtraction. That's what you pay the gentleman at the studio with the scissors for.
I am excited to see 1408 next weekend. I love John Cusack, Samuel L Jackson, Stephen King, and horror/mysteries so it seems like it should be a can't miss. Of course, Stephen King adaptations always turn out be either excellent (The Green Mile, Shawshank Redemption, and The Shining for example) or abysmal (Dreamcatcher, The Dark Half, and Needful Things come to mind). Let's hope this one is closer to the former than the latter.
I am currently reading the new bio on Albert Einstein (Einstein: His Life and Universe) and so far it is very engaging. I'll probably end up posting a full review of it once I finish, as I can't imagine I'll have anything more interesting to talk about.
Still waiting for my "official" grades to come in on my last two classes. Hope I really am graduating this weekend.
On the marathon front, my "official" training schedule is about to begin next week. To kind of kickstart it, I actually decided that I would go ahead and do week 1 this week (and then repeat it next week) as sort of a practice week. Tuesday I ran 4 miles on the treadmill in 47 minutes, and then this morning (thanks to the aforementioned dinner plans) I got up at 6:00 and did an hour run on the treadmill (going about 5.1 miles). I can't even believe I have already been up for 11 hours. Hopefully I don't fall asleep during the movie, but a big meal is certainly not going to help me out in that capacity. I'm supposed to run 4 miles on Saturday and then 6 on Sunday. While I can probably make time on Saturday I see absolutely no chance that Sunday is going to happen. Good thing this is only practice!
I saw Pirates of the Caribbean and Knocked Up last week. Knocked Up was pretty good; nothing fantastic, but a solidly made romantic comedy. It's one of those rare movies you can go to on a date where one person isn't dreading the experience. Pirates was very mediocre. The name of the sequel is "At World's End" but I think a more appropriate title would have been "Let's Make a Deal." Pretty much the entirety of the first two hours has 2 of the 6 or 7 major characters (in seemingly random order) making deals with each other that everyone knows they're not going to keep, then predictably breaking the deal and making a new one with the next character while saying "I never break a deal." When it finally does get around to the action sequences, they are pretty good. Instead of the 3-way swordfight (does that sound gay?) on top of a rolling wheel (the single coolest part of the second one, IMO) we get a 30-minute duel between two ships as they are being sucked into a whirlpool (also called, as I learned from the film, a maelstrom). I heard some people didn't care for it, but it worked for me. It was the 2 hours I had to put up with en route to that which lowered my enjoyment. I mean, when did Hollywood decide that their "fun" summer movies all had to be over 2 and a half hours long. I understand wanting to give people their money's worth, but there is also such a thing as addition by subtraction. That's what you pay the gentleman at the studio with the scissors for.
I am excited to see 1408 next weekend. I love John Cusack, Samuel L Jackson, Stephen King, and horror/mysteries so it seems like it should be a can't miss. Of course, Stephen King adaptations always turn out be either excellent (The Green Mile, Shawshank Redemption, and The Shining for example) or abysmal (Dreamcatcher, The Dark Half, and Needful Things come to mind). Let's hope this one is closer to the former than the latter.
I am currently reading the new bio on Albert Einstein (Einstein: His Life and Universe) and so far it is very engaging. I'll probably end up posting a full review of it once I finish, as I can't imagine I'll have anything more interesting to talk about.
Still waiting for my "official" grades to come in on my last two classes. Hope I really am graduating this weekend.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Done!
I’ll say right up front that this is an introspective post. That’s the more sophisticated way of saying “I’m about to embark on an ego trip and just talk about me.” You’ve been warned.
Some afternoon in early 2005 as we were in the midst of wedding planning madness, Christy and I found ourselves just generally discussing how we saw our future over the next couple years after the wedding. The subject of my MBA came up. “Let’s be honest,” she said, “you’ve pretty much given up on it, haven’t you?” I couldn’t disagree with her. It had been over a year since I’d taken a class towards my MBA, and I’d taken a whopping 2 in the year before that. An average of 1 class per year wasn’t gonna cut it, unless I was able to talk Depaul into putting me on the 15-year plan. I had registered for classes a couple times in the interim, but my travel schedule at work kept forcing me to drop. That situation didn’t seem likely to improve anytime soon either. Reluctantly, I conceded, “Yeah, I pretty much have.”
Now, a little over 2 years later, much has changed. Last night, barring some sort of catastrophic performance on my final, my just-shy-of-6-years' campaign to get a masters degree came to a successful conclusion.
So what changed between then and now? Well, a whole lot of things but it can probably best be summed up in one word: Hawaii. I’m sure most of you have been subjected to the ramblings from Christy and I that it is our dream to temporarily relocate to Hawaii for a few years. Whether or not that actually happens (and the odds seem to change from month to month and sometimes day to day) it is undoubtedly true that Hawaii has had a major impact on our lives. Not only did we get the vacation of a lifetime and the memories of that, but the idea of moving there led me to think seriously about what the best way to accomplish that would be. Since my work experience is in auditing, that seemed to be the only realistic way I could make enough money to support an existence in Hawaii. Getting an auditing job in Hawaii meant working for one of the Big Four accounting firms. Getting in there meant getting my CPA. Getting my CPA meant taking more accounting classes. Taking more accounting classes meant I might as well finish my MBA. But that’s just half the domino effect that occurred over the 6 months after our honeymoon. I quickly realized that taking classes was still not going to be feasible given the workload at my current job. So that led me to look elsewhere and eventually landed me at Blue Cross Blue Shield. And once I was working downtown, we figured that we might as well live there as well, so that led to us relocating from Palatine into the city. I sometimes think about all of this and wonder, “would any of this have happened if we had decided to take our honeymoon in the Caribbean instead?” Just goes to show you that you don’t always know when you are making a decision that will have a huge impact on your life.
I still remember walking from BCBS over to the Depaul loop campus on a Monday night last March. It was my first time attending class in almost 2 years. I had already done the math and knew I needed 8 classes to graduate. At 11 meetings per class, that meant 88 occasions that I would have to go directly from work over to class. At 3 hours per class, that meant 264 hours of trying to stay awake through lectures. I haven’t kept a running total throughout, but I have recalculated after pretty much every quarter. This last quarter I had a big red number written on every class day counting down to “1”. It felt awesome to cross that last one off when I walked into work this morning. I am happy to report that out of those 88 classes, I missed only 2. They were both for the same class too; once because it was the day after the Super Bowl, and once because we had just flown in from Phoenix 2 hours before class started. That means that I had perfect attendance in 7 of my last 8 classes. In the entirety of my undergrad, I had exactly 1 class with perfect attendance. While my grades this quarter are still pending, so far I have gotten all A’s in the first 6 classes and I’m hopeful that trend will continue with these last two. If it does, I will be graduating with a 3.79 GPA. Hey, I warned you that this was gonna be an ego trip didn’t I? As some comedy, I was looking through a grade report the other day. The worst grade I received in grad school was a B- in the one and only finance class I took. The humorous part is that my bachelor degree is in Finance. Whoops!
So how does it feel to be done? Well, since I spent pretty much all of my free time Monday, Tuesday, and early Wednesday studying and then stayed up till 2 last night celebrating, right now it just feels tired. As I have found to be the case with most long-term things, it takes a while to sink in once it's finally over so I know the full force hasn't really hit me yet. I do know that overall I am more proud of getting this degree than my undergrad. Not because I think it's more prestigious or anything, but because I feel like I worked harder, learned more, and really truly earned this one. Then there's also just the fact of how much longer it took me to complete this. All told, I was only at U of I for 3 years and 4 months while my time at Depaul stretched from 9/01 - 6/07. So, basically, it took me 2 and a half years longer. But probably the biggest part of it is this overriding feeling that this degree was all for me. Certainly, the undergrad was "for me" as well, but there was a certain element where it just felt like it was the next step after high school rather than a conscious decision I was making about my future. But deciding to go to grad school was completely my decision; there were no expectations for me to do it and no pressure to keep going once I started other than the pressure I put on myself. It feels really gratifying to have set a long-term goal for myself and achieved it on my own (with the exception of some monetary assistance from Kemper, HSBC, and BCBS).
So now I am done and left wondering, “OK, what next?” Well, I am looking no further than 29 days from now when Christy and I are heading back to Hawaii for 8 days. Beyond that, I’ll worry about the rest in September.
Here the ego trip ends.
Some afternoon in early 2005 as we were in the midst of wedding planning madness, Christy and I found ourselves just generally discussing how we saw our future over the next couple years after the wedding. The subject of my MBA came up. “Let’s be honest,” she said, “you’ve pretty much given up on it, haven’t you?” I couldn’t disagree with her. It had been over a year since I’d taken a class towards my MBA, and I’d taken a whopping 2 in the year before that. An average of 1 class per year wasn’t gonna cut it, unless I was able to talk Depaul into putting me on the 15-year plan. I had registered for classes a couple times in the interim, but my travel schedule at work kept forcing me to drop. That situation didn’t seem likely to improve anytime soon either. Reluctantly, I conceded, “Yeah, I pretty much have.”
Now, a little over 2 years later, much has changed. Last night, barring some sort of catastrophic performance on my final, my just-shy-of-6-years' campaign to get a masters degree came to a successful conclusion.
So what changed between then and now? Well, a whole lot of things but it can probably best be summed up in one word: Hawaii. I’m sure most of you have been subjected to the ramblings from Christy and I that it is our dream to temporarily relocate to Hawaii for a few years. Whether or not that actually happens (and the odds seem to change from month to month and sometimes day to day) it is undoubtedly true that Hawaii has had a major impact on our lives. Not only did we get the vacation of a lifetime and the memories of that, but the idea of moving there led me to think seriously about what the best way to accomplish that would be. Since my work experience is in auditing, that seemed to be the only realistic way I could make enough money to support an existence in Hawaii. Getting an auditing job in Hawaii meant working for one of the Big Four accounting firms. Getting in there meant getting my CPA. Getting my CPA meant taking more accounting classes. Taking more accounting classes meant I might as well finish my MBA. But that’s just half the domino effect that occurred over the 6 months after our honeymoon. I quickly realized that taking classes was still not going to be feasible given the workload at my current job. So that led me to look elsewhere and eventually landed me at Blue Cross Blue Shield. And once I was working downtown, we figured that we might as well live there as well, so that led to us relocating from Palatine into the city. I sometimes think about all of this and wonder, “would any of this have happened if we had decided to take our honeymoon in the Caribbean instead?” Just goes to show you that you don’t always know when you are making a decision that will have a huge impact on your life.
I still remember walking from BCBS over to the Depaul loop campus on a Monday night last March. It was my first time attending class in almost 2 years. I had already done the math and knew I needed 8 classes to graduate. At 11 meetings per class, that meant 88 occasions that I would have to go directly from work over to class. At 3 hours per class, that meant 264 hours of trying to stay awake through lectures. I haven’t kept a running total throughout, but I have recalculated after pretty much every quarter. This last quarter I had a big red number written on every class day counting down to “1”. It felt awesome to cross that last one off when I walked into work this morning. I am happy to report that out of those 88 classes, I missed only 2. They were both for the same class too; once because it was the day after the Super Bowl, and once because we had just flown in from Phoenix 2 hours before class started. That means that I had perfect attendance in 7 of my last 8 classes. In the entirety of my undergrad, I had exactly 1 class with perfect attendance. While my grades this quarter are still pending, so far I have gotten all A’s in the first 6 classes and I’m hopeful that trend will continue with these last two. If it does, I will be graduating with a 3.79 GPA. Hey, I warned you that this was gonna be an ego trip didn’t I? As some comedy, I was looking through a grade report the other day. The worst grade I received in grad school was a B- in the one and only finance class I took. The humorous part is that my bachelor degree is in Finance. Whoops!
So how does it feel to be done? Well, since I spent pretty much all of my free time Monday, Tuesday, and early Wednesday studying and then stayed up till 2 last night celebrating, right now it just feels tired. As I have found to be the case with most long-term things, it takes a while to sink in once it's finally over so I know the full force hasn't really hit me yet. I do know that overall I am more proud of getting this degree than my undergrad. Not because I think it's more prestigious or anything, but because I feel like I worked harder, learned more, and really truly earned this one. Then there's also just the fact of how much longer it took me to complete this. All told, I was only at U of I for 3 years and 4 months while my time at Depaul stretched from 9/01 - 6/07. So, basically, it took me 2 and a half years longer. But probably the biggest part of it is this overriding feeling that this degree was all for me. Certainly, the undergrad was "for me" as well, but there was a certain element where it just felt like it was the next step after high school rather than a conscious decision I was making about my future. But deciding to go to grad school was completely my decision; there were no expectations for me to do it and no pressure to keep going once I started other than the pressure I put on myself. It feels really gratifying to have set a long-term goal for myself and achieved it on my own (with the exception of some monetary assistance from Kemper, HSBC, and BCBS).
So now I am done and left wondering, “OK, what next?” Well, I am looking no further than 29 days from now when Christy and I are heading back to Hawaii for 8 days. Beyond that, I’ll worry about the rest in September.
Here the ego trip ends.
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