Tag Archives: Nashville

Reporting Live From Somewhere

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It has been a week since I left LA for Nashville and I’m glad to report that I made it in one piece. The drive was not as bad as I thought. My initial estimate of being on the road for four days turned out to be one day too many. I averaged roughly ten hours of driving and 650 miles a day. There isn’t a lot on I-40 east that is worth stopping for unless you’re into the Grand Canyon, petroglyphs, and 72oz steaks.

Although I said the drive wasn’t too bad, it was still boring as hell. The drive gave me a chance to walk down memory lane as I listened to all the CDs that I haven’t listened to since freshman year in CD. Man was I such a faux-gangster back in the day. Somewhere in Texas, I think it was Amarillo, I broke down and pulled into a Barnes and Noble and bought an audio book, Malcom Gladwell’s What the Dog Saw. Nothing is more stimulating while driving through the open country of north Texas than listening to Gladwell wax on about the differences between ketchup and mustard.

Since my arrival in the Music City, I’ve been setting up my apartment so that it is somewhat comfortable. I was going to go for the cheap, agile, and mobile setup – buying camping chairs, tables, and aerobed from Bass Pro Shop or Wal-Mart – so that I can quickly pick up and move on from here after I graduate. I was quickly convinced that this solution was a bad idea, particularly after a classmate pointed out that a blow up sofa might not be the coolest thing to bring the ladies home to. Touche.

One thing I didn’t expect was how much money I would spend on furnishing the apartment. In my head, I had a general idea of what things would cost. What got me was how things added up so quickly. To Costco and Target: your weclome, you guys are now richer while I am much poorer.

When I’m not doing apartment stuff, I’m doing school stuff. Every other day, there is some kind of get together at a classmate’s place. There are so many people to meet that I’m on name overload right now. Owen, for whatever reason, doesn’t have a “math camp” that I know some other b-schools have so a classmate setup a series of ad-hoc quant review sessions this week. Each day is a different subject and the Owen professor that is teaching that subject comes in for an hour to answer our questions. I think we, the students and professors, are going above and beyond with the reviews, but then that is why we are “Team Awesome”.

So that’s the basic account of what has been going on for the past week. Things are going well and I’m well on my way to settling in. All this is a good way to slowly ramp up to orientation, which is a good ramp up to the madness that is going to be school.

I can’t end this post without commenting on the weather. A couple of weeks ago, I tweeted something about how it didn’t feel that hot or humid in Nashville. I’m eating that tweet this week because it’s been absolutely smoldering. The heat and humidity is worse than I experienced in Singapore or Taiwan. Not only will you sweat from just standing outside, but you’ll continue sweating once you go inside. I went running the other day and I couldn’t stop sweating even after an hour after I stopped running. I look outside and I start sweating. Supposedly, this is just a freakish week. I hope so.

Where Am I?

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For a limited time, or at least until I get to Nashville, I’ll be using Google Latitude to broadcast my location to the world . You can track my location here or by clicking the “Currently @” menu item above.

Hat tip to lamdar for pointing me to this wonderful big brother technology.

Apartment Hunting in Nashville

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The original plan for finding an apartment was to fly out to Nashville, find a place, come home, and haul my stuff to school. Then I changed the plan to driving out to Nashville with all my stuff and finding an apartment when I get there. I kept flip flopping between the two plans because I couldn’t reconcile which plan would better maximize my time and money. In the end, I decided to go with plan A because one, the listings on craiglist made me concerned that finding a place wouldn’t be that easy and two, Amex threw in some discounts for my travel arrangements.

As it turns out, finding an apartment in Nashville didn’t take too long. I would have signed a contract at the first place, The Grove, if only the apartment was being rented out for the special price that an Owen student I had met was renting it out for. I tried negotiating but it didn’t work out since I had no leverage. To my surprise, when I asked the property manager if there were any other apartment complexes in the area, she gave me a list of places to consider. At the very next place I visited, The Metropolitan, I placed a refundable security deposit. Done. Well, almost.

Although I liked the amenities and the newness (I can’t think of a better word) at the Metro, I wasn’t content with the price ($990) and size (~500^2 ft). The next morning, I drove and walked through different neighborhoods around school and looked for “For Rent” signs. In the end, I found a place that was bigger (700^2 ft) and cheaper ($869). It’s a little long in the tooth and not as pretty, but that’s just character. The apartment is even closer to school, though the distance is just a little too close for driving to make sense, yet a little too far for walking to be a comfortable option. Solution: bike!

Later that night, I went out to a meet and greet event at 12South Taproom and Grill with about a dozen of my classmates. It was a really laid back and enjoyable night where I got to better know a couple of my classmates. Hurray for more friends on facebook. Surprisingly, I remembered everyones name from that night,  but I can tell that in a couple of weeks, I’m going to go into meet and greet overload and everything is going to be a blur.

Overdue Owen Debrief

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A bit overdue is an understatement for my Welcome Weekend debrief . Hell, I don’t even remember when it happened. I do remember that it was a whirlwind, starting off with a red eye out of ONT to BNA and ending with an eye opening night out in downtown Nashville.

The two key takeaways from that weekend, and the factors that ultimately swayed me to choose Owen, were the general sense of enthusiasm from the prospective students about going to Owen and the number of alumni that I met that spoke passionately, as one would expect, about Owen. It was quality and quantity.

We know where I’m going now, but coming away from that event, I was still conflicted about which school to choose. It came down to Smith VS Owen and it took almost two months of debating, consulting with friends, deep introspection, and over analyzing the situation for me to finally decide which school to attend.

If I recall correctly, my mind was made up about which school I was going to attend somewhere in Bali. It took me about a week  to make it official vis a vis sending  the “rejection” letter to Smith. Ha, I remember sending the letter off while sitting at an internet cafe in KL, Malaysia. I didn’t think deciding on a school would be that difficult but it was.

So what now. Well, I have about four weeks of summer vacation left during which time I need to run down a bunch of pre-school assignments including: financial aid stuff, immunization, quant review homework, resume work, and career/leadership tests. There’s also a bunch of logistical things such as planning out my road trip to Nashville, finding a place to live, utilities, furniture etc. I’m sure I’m missing something in between, but what I’ve got listed has kept me busy since returning to the states.

Exciting times ahead. I can’t wait to get to Nashville!