TheDudeAbides

Home Stretch

So we are in the final week of classes. Wild. One week away from being completely finished with my finals, and completely finished with my 1st semester of graduate school. Unfortunately, the reality is that this was probably my easiest workload, and from now until when I graduate I will be working harder, doing more assignments, and taking tougher exams. The coursework certainly will not get easier, and I am glad I will have nearly a month to relax until the spring semester starts.

So what am I going to do until then?

-spend time with my family during the holiday season, particularly with our new dog (does she still qualify as new if we got her in August?).

-see my lovely girlfriend when she is home for Christmas break. And I will also be cheering her on when she takes the GRE later this month. It seems like everyone around me is thinking about going back to school sometime soon, and I could not be any more supportive of those people. What a great decision it is!

-read books that make no mention of taxes or accounting. I love reading, and I cannot remember the last time I had the chance to read a book for pleasure. It was probably some time in August.

-change my pattern of sleep so I wake up at 6:30 or 7 every morning. It is not that I sleep late (I wake up at 8am), but I just want to be an early riser. I feel like I would get so much more done if I was up earlier.

-have fun. I am not saying that I could not have any fun this semester, but there were many weekends that I had to stay in because I needed to get work done. It obviously comes with the territory of being in school, and I think letting loose and enjoying yourself also comes with the territory. It is a nice give-and-take

The month long break will be a nice way to "recharge" the battery. I will admit that I have kind of hit a wall, and I am somewhat sick of all the work right now. I will actually miss the classes during the break, and I will miss learning, but I will certainly not miss the work involved.

I started off this semester's blog with a Ferris Bueller quote...something along the lines of life moving very fast; if you don't stop and look around, you just might miss it (you can check back to see the actual quote). Well that perfectly sums up this semester. It has flown by, and these may have been three of the quickest months I have every experienced. Luckily TheDude will be able to stop and take a look around for the next month or so and really appreciate and enjoy it all.

-TheDude

Swamp Thing

The reason for the title of this post = I am absolutely swamped with end of the semester work. I have a to-do list that 13 items long, and although that may not seem long, I assure you that normally I have 4 or 5 things.

I am done with classes for this week. That means I have only one week left of classes, and then a week of finals. Where in the world has the time gone? I still remember my first blog post about how nervous I was. I remember buying my textbooks like it was yesterday. 3 months really is not that long anymore. It is weird: I wish the semester was longer so I could learn more and fill my head up with more knowledge, but at the same time I want to move on to the next semester to different classes with different professors.

When I started my the taxation program I knew that I would have a lifetime of learning about taxation...the learning would never stop because tax laws are always changing and evolving. But I never anticipated just how complex the tax world is, and how much I enjoy learning about it. I have even voluntarily signed up for an IRS sponsored tax preparation class this Saturday so I can become certified in preparing tax returns. It sounds weird, but I truly enjoy knowing and learning about taxation.

But like I said before, the work is nonstop right now. It was great to enjoy the Thanksgiving break and to refrain from even picking up a text book, but now everything is in warp speed. At this time two weeks from today I will be on my winter break, and I will have no school work for a month. Unbelievable! Then I will actually have a chance to relax and read some normal books that will make me laugh instead of think. And I will be able to visit my lovely girlfriend who has put up with all of my stories about classes and taxes and all of my complaining about the hours spent studying this semester.

Over the weekend I ran into a former co-worker. We were worked together for 2+ yeas up until I left my job to attend grad school full-time. In the midst of catching up, we obviously got talking about work and he was telling me about all sorts of things that have happened since my leaving. And not once in the conversation did I regret leaving my job for grad school. If anything, it really reminded me of what a great decision I made. I love school. I would be a student for the rest of my life if it did not leave me penniless. This first semester has been beyond amazing, and I know that things will get better (and much more difficult).

TheDude is tired, but TheDude is forging ahead and will be ready to ace my finals. And then TheDude will take the time to properly relax and look back at these past 3 months and appreciate the things I have learned and done. Yes, TheDude most certainly abides.

Thanksgiving!

TheDude loves Thanksgiving. This little break will be a nice relief and respite before the craziness of finals start in a couple weeks. I get to spend time with my family, with my friends, and I will get leftovers that will last me weeks. How exciting.

So I will take these 5 days to relax and have fun...to eat delicious turkey and stuffing, to drink delicious cocktails, and to forget all about taxation and accounting and exams and reading for a couple days. And then when Monday rolls around, I will be in the midst of the final two weeks of the fall semester. I guess this is the calm before the proverbial storm.

So Happy Thanksgiving to all

Some Random Quick Thoughts

1. Make sure you put the time and effort into your classes if you want to do well. This is honestly the first semester of my life that I have done all of the assigned reading and work, and attended all of the classes and I have done better than I imagined so far. The professors tell you exactly what they expect of you, and if you do it then you will succeed.

2. I find myself searching through newspapers and magazines for any and all tax news that is happening. I don't know if I have been brainwashed by my professors to care about all the happenings in the tax world, but I no longer immediately go to the sports section...straight to the business news for me!

3. Along the same lines as #2, there are many taxation classes that I am truly interested in. I was signing up for classes for the spring and summer semesters, and I had too many classes on my "wishlist". Never would I have thought that I would not have enough time to take all of the tax classes that I was interested in.

4. Thanksgiving is just around the corner and I could not be happier. What a wonderful holiday. I cannot wait to eat ridiculous amounts of food, leave my house with tons of leftovers, and spend the day with my wild family. Holidays with my family are like nothing I have seen before.

5. I am glad that I was lucky enough to get an assistantship for the year. I have truly enjoyed my time with my professor, and I look forward to the work that we will do next semester. We are embarking on a new project that, if successful, will have a huge impact on students in the Sawyer school (what a teaser!)

6. I need to spend more time in the library I think. In one of my earlier posts I commented on how nice it is and how there are always tons of students in there. I think I would waste less time if I was there doing my school work instead of in my apartment.

7. I think this is the first time in a while that I was not utterly amazed that a week had passed and it was time to write another blog entry. This is one of the few weeks that I was actually prepared. I guess TheDude is finally getting his act together

A Broken Record?

It seems like every blog post touches on the fact that time is flying by, and there never seems to be enough days in the week to get everything done. So, again, I write this blog entry thinking that I wrote one a couple days ago...when if fact, I wrote over a week ago! It is already the middle of November, and there is only about a month left of classes this semester. Wild!

Anyways, I survived the gauntlet that was midterms. And (surprisingly?) I did quite well on all of my exams. It is an incredibly nice feeling when all of your hard work and dedication truly pays off, which is what happened. I spent countless hours reading textbooks and doing practice problems and taking notes, and it is nice to know that I actually learned things and was able to apply to concepts my professors lectured about. So maybe all the studying and work did make TheDude a dull boy for a couple of weeks (month), but I was able to go to NYC last weekend to relax and let loose and enjoy myself. So it is reassuring to know that school does not completelyrule my life.

It is weird to think that finals are just around the corner, and that winter break will be here soon. I think I will be lost for that month when I do not have classes to go to or chapters to read. To be honest, I will miss not going to class. I have touched upon this in a lot of my posts already, but I really enjoy class. I do not know if it is the material that I like learning about, or the professors that I enjoy, or maybe I am just in the zone right now in terms of being a student. But I like class and I will miss it over winter break. But I guess I have a month or so until that happens, so who knows if my opinion will change by then? A pretty dry and boring post, but that is all I can scrape together this time. Fortunately Thanksgiving is right around the corner and I am not a shut-in studying for exams just yet, so I should have some fun things to talk about soon.

TheDude Abides

All Work and No Play Makes TheDude a Dull Boy

I was doing so well with my posting frequency, but now that mid-terms are here and the workload is getting more and more difficult, I just have not been able to find the time to write about my life. So, between studying for an exam on Wednesday and preparing lecture notes for a professor, I will bring you up to speed.

School is getting tougher and tougher. It isn't necessarily because the subject matter is difficult (although it most certainly is), but it is more because it seems like I have an exam or case study or tax return due every week. Luckily I haven't needed to "cram" for any of the exams because I do keep up with the readings and the homework, and I have not missed a class, so that has been very helpful in these busy times. But it still seems as though I spend all of my free time reading, or going over class notes, or doing practice problems. The positive of this is that I truly feel like I am learning things and gaining the ability to apply these concepts to real life...which is probably the most important part of studying taxation (what good is it to know it, but not be able to apply it to tax planning?)

But it is not an exaggeration when I say that my life is consumed with school work right now. I had 2 taxation mid-terms last week and an accounting quiz. This week I have an accounting exam, and next Monday I have another taxation mid-term. Yes, I do find the time to get myself to the gym and occasionally go out with friends, but I definitely have made my school work and education the number one priority right now. I don't know if that is a sign of maturity or a sign of me turning into a boring and lame person, but it probably is the best decision right now.

This busy time is to be expected though. I guess I cannot compare it to my undergrad experience because I did not care as much about my grades, and about actually learning the material as I do now; but I knew I would be super busy when I was applying to grad schools. It is just the nature of the beast I guess. In a weird way I am happy that I am this busy and that I school necessitates this much work...it feels like I am actually getting a good education, and it feels like earning a graduate degree is an actual accomplishment. I know I am not the only person feeling overburdened by work right now, so it is comforting to know that all of my classmates are in the same situation as I am. But I certainly will be happy when these midterms are over. I could use a morning when I wake up and do not immediate open an accounting book or a taxation book and start reading for 3 hours straight.

Does TheDude abide to the amount of work right now? Yes. Is TheDude turning into a dull boy? Perhaps. Will TheDude collapse under the pressure of the work and exams? Most certainly not!

Wowza!

Wowza! I have never actually said "wowza" or typed the word before, but I think it is very fitting for so many different reasons:

1). Time is flying by, and that is an understatement. It is already mid-October. It has been nearly two weeks since my last post, and it feels like I posted yesterday. Where did September go? Where did the summer go for that matter? Entire weeks are starting to feel like days, and it boggle my mind. I have to submit a time sheet for my graduate fellowship every two weeks, and I never remember to do it because it never feels like two weeks go by! As weird as it sounds, even my classes. Most people would think that sitting in a classroom for 2.5 hours would be agonizing and would feel as though the minutes slowly passed, but even the time I spend in the classroom learning is not enough. It is over before I know it, and I am always wanting more time to sit and listen and learn. Thank god I do not wear a watch because I think it would depress me.

2). It is getting cold. I hate the cold. I hate winter. It is ironic that I truly dislike the cold weather so much, yet I have been in the Northeast my entire life. But I guess I just have to deal with it. I am just not looking forward to going to class when it is snowing out or all slushy and gross outside. What a bummer. Since time is flying by, hopefully winter will be over before I know it...but I guess we have to get through fall first (which I do not mind at all)

3). I had my first graduate school midterm last night (Acct 801). Thankfully, the amount of time I have put into the work outside the classroom paid off and I did quite well. It just goes to show that you really need to make the effort to learn this stuff and to do well and succeed. I know for a fact that if I fell behind in the readings or in the practice problems I would not have been able to confidently take the exam. I think professors say that you should be able to spend 4-6 hours a week on the material outside of class...I totally agree. Maybe that is where time is going; inside the pages of my taxation and accounting books.

4). Spring/Summer registration is just around the corner, and I already have to start thinking about what classes to take. Here comes gripe #1 about the taxation program: they only offer 3 taxation classes for the spring semester. The reasoning for it is sound: it is tax season and most people doing to MST program part-time cannot attend class. But I am doing this full-time, and am pretty much being penalized for that fact. I will not even be able to take enough credits to qualify as a full-time student (and keep my scholarship), so I will be forced to take a class that has nothing to do with my degree requirements...basically I have to take a class just so I can get the 3 credits and qualify as a full-time student. Aside from that, though, the MST program is heart and stars.

5). I went to Amherst for Columbus Day weekend with my girlfriend who loves all things fall and "harvest". She had never been there, and I really have not been since I graduated in May 2006. What a wonderful place. I forgot how nice the town is and how beautiful it is in the fall. We hiked up a mountain and looked out over the entire Berkshire Valley and packed a picnic, complete with a bottle of wine. It is really a nice place to go and see and experience...totally unlike any other town I have been in. It was probably the only weekend since I have been in school where I did not open a book or lift a pen...it was a really nice getaway for the both of us. And it definitely made me appreciate my undergrad experience of being in a wonderful college town. I cannot imagine having gone to Suffolk (or anywhere else in a big city) for undergrad and having so much going on around me 24/7.

So that explains the Wowza in my life right now. To be quite honest, it is a good feeling.

What is Considered Old?

Another week has flown by, and another post comes your way!

The big news of the week: I turned 26 this past Wednesday 9/30/09. It is weird to think that I am now closer to being 30 than I am to being 20, but I guess that's the way life works. Do I feel any older? No. But that obviously says more about my state of mind than anything else. I am truly believe that I am "young at heart", so I guess that is saving me from actually feeling old and being depressed that I turned 26. The way I look at it, though, is that the year that I was 25 was unbelievable and great, so maybe 26 will be even better. Taking a positive stance on the situation really helps dealing with it.

So I was supposed to have my first quiz of graduate school Wednesday night. Unfortunately, my professor came down with something and had to cancel class. I was studying big time because I really wanted to have some positive momentum for the rest of the semester. Even though we are nearly a month in, I do not have a single grade in any of my classes and I just wanted to start things off right. What a buzzkill. At least it made me study for something and prepare myself for a graded quiz for the first time this year. And since the class was cancelled, I went to the Red Sox game instead.

Other than the quiz, it is more of the same with classes. The studying/reading/homework is now routine and much more manageable than it initially seemed. Classes are still enlightening and my professors still impress me with their grasp of the material and their teaching styles. I am excited to learn more every single day, which is something I have never experienced before. It amazes me how differently I am approaching graduate school compared to undergrad. I wish I busted my butt in undergrad like I am doing now, but you live and learn. It is not that I didnt try at UMASS, I just didnt try hard enough and I didnt push myself to be great...a mistake that I will never duplicate again.

Now I am focusing on finding some sort of tax internship for the summer. Thankfully Suffolk has a nice job-search site that I have been using the past couple weeks to seach for summer 2010 openings, and I have already put an application into a bunch of different jobs. Oh, how sad it is to think about the summer when it is starting to get colder and colder here. One thing I do not like is the snow and winter, and I am dreading the fridig Boston air that is just around the corner.

That is pretty much it for now.

-The Dude Abides

A Week is Shorter Than I Remember

I have to post here at least once a week. I didnt think that would be a problem when I started doing this. Before school work truly started, I had plenty of time to write down what was going on. But now it seems like seven days comes and goes in the blink of an eye. Where is the time going? I can remember sitting down and writing the post from last week, and it seems like I did it just yesterday. Maybe that is something that comes along with being in college and going to classes. Maybe weeks speed up beyond complete comprehension..who knows? The point being, it is time for another post and I am surprised how quickly the week has come and gone.

Adjustments to school work is going smoothly. The daily planner is helpful, and on top of that, my life is being run by folders. I do not think I have ever been more organized with my school life, and it is a good thing because I think I would feel swamped with work if I wasnt this way. So my daily planner tells me everything I should do each day, and I know that each class' folder has the work that needs to be done. This certainly does not mean that the work is easy. Maybe it is the nature of the courses I am taking and Taxation in general, but this stuff is difficult. One page of the reading I will understand completely, and the next page of reading will be completely over my head. I guess that is why I am taking these classes and getting my master's in taxation...I want to know taxes and I want to learn about how to plan around taxes and make a living with taxes. Thankfully my instructors are brilliant and enlightening, and going to class really cements the concepts in my head. Never in my undergraduate career did I feel like going to class was as useful as it is now. But at least I find everything interesting and kind of fun. Does any of this make sense? Summary: 1). daily planner and folders are good 2). school work is immense and difficult 3). professors are great and worth sitting in class for 3 hours 4). I want to be in taxation for numerous reasons

Earlier this week, I met with the professor I will be working with for my graduate assistantship. I think it will be fun and worthwhile. The professor is very nice, down-to-earth, friendly, and fun. My first impression is that him and I have very similar personalities, and we will get along very well. Although it will certainly add to my workload on a weekly basis, it isnt anything that will induce insanity or stress. And it certainly will not hurt earning a paycheck every couple of weeks since I am slowly going broke going to grad school full-time and not working. And, on the major plus side, the professor has some very deep connections with the IRS, which is a place I would like to work some day. So I have that going for me...which is nice.

This passed weekend was the Lebowski Fest that I linked to in an earlier post. It was fun, but it was not up to par with the stories I heard from Lebowski Fests in NYC and LA. What a shame. It still was a fun night with some friends, and watching the movie on a huge screen with hundreds of other enthusiasts, but the drinks were too expensive and the venue screwed the whole thing up. It was unfortunate. On another note, my birthday is next week and I hit the big 26. How exciting. The only reason I bring this up is to note that my lovely girlfriend will be visiting me from NYC, and she has wanted me to give her a shout-out in the blog. So there it is.

The Dude Abides.

Life in Sawyer Business School

So two weeks of classes have come and gone, and graduate school is going well. It definitely takes some time to get used to the concepts of going to class and doing homework and studying for exams/writing papers, but it definitely becomes routine and normal in no time. But I feel like I have written a lot about classes and workload and everything, so I think I will just give some thoughts about the things outside of the classroom that I have experienced so far.

1. I had a meeting for my assistantship earlier this week. I am excited to be working closely with a professor, and I am genuinely excited to start working next week. I really do not have any idea what I will be doing for him, but it will be nice to see a professor in a different way than just a teacher.

2. After my meeting, I ventured into the Sawyer Library for the first time ever. The library at my undergrad school was old and it had a very industrial feel. The Sawyer Library in 73 Tremont is just the opposite. It is beautiful and very student-friendly. The main thing I noticed is that it was filled with students. I had to legitimately search for a place to sit and read because there were so many other people there doing the exact same thing. But it is no wonder they were there. I certainly see myself spending a lot of time there, and it is such an inviting atmosphere there that I can see myself actually getting things done.

3. My first experience with the Sawyer Cafe/Lounge was much like my initial trip to the library. The Cafe/Lounge is comfortable and useful, and it really is a hang out for students who are waiting for class or who have just finished class. Again, it is a place that I envision myself spending time in, and I highly recommend students to check it out if they can. It has a ton of different things to offer.