barbeque smoke...

...which I missed out on due to work! Blehhh! The Dean of the comm school had a cookout at his Pavilion today, which I unfortunately came late to because I had to work (I work at Banana Republic). In my defense, I only came 50 minutes late! ..but all the food was gone... Pigs! Pigs! All ob dem! *goes on raving* Haha, but I did manage to catch the tail end of the desserts. Picture this, a scoop of vanilla ice cream in between two chocolate chip cookies, spread out nicely on two tables with another drinks table. Blankets and mats were laid out on the garden, so people were eating and talking on the grass. Quite picturesque eh? Gosh I love being at UVA, probably the only place where professors and Deans will open their homes to students. In my three years here, I've been to the comm school Dean's cookout, an admissions dean's cookout, lunch at the President's (Casteen, not the White House haha) house, and inside another professor's Pavilion. It's truly an academical village here. =)

and the curve is...

widely skewed towards the top. I received my first midterm that I've taken as a comm student back today, and I think I over studied, and definitely know I over freaked out. (As I usually do, I hereby apologize to my sisters, my boyfriend, my stuffed animals, and my forehead. Ah yes, I'm one of those facepalm people.) Most people got above an 80 because this really was a review of what we had taken in prerequisite courses. Or as my professor said, "Alright, real accounting starts... now."

One notable thing today was Michelle Obama's visit to UVA. I walked by Newcomb Plaza when they were setting up the stage and media area, but was stuck in class when she was actually there. I haven't asked around to see what people thought of her, but will do so in chorus practice in an hour. I just thought it was pretty cool that we have so many notable people visiting UVA, in part because of our heritage, but also due to the famous faculty we have in residence here.

Before the Democrat primaries, we had Hillary Clinton (I think she came twice actually) come to one of our economics professor's class and talk to his class. In case you're wondering, this amazing professor is Kenneth Elzinga. Everyone's always trying to get into his classes, even when they're 200-300 people strong in order to accommodate high student demand.

I'm blanking on what other political figures have visited UVA in the past couple years -- I know a couple UVA students read my blog, so anything you guys can add?

With regards to the election in general, I think it's a tossup between the candidates. We have such a wide spectrum of people that no one group really is the majority. Well, maybe one group is. People who have been standing around Grounds asking students if they've registered to vote yet. I've been bombarded with these questions in the past two weeks to the point that I want to have a flaming red sticker to my forehead or something saying yes, I *AM* registered to vote. Yes, I *DO* care about our country. And yes, I *WILL* do my civic duty as an American citizen! *facepalm* But anyways, will you guys be voting?

career day.

So the big thing that happened over my weekend was the Commerce Career Day! These are quite important as they're well, where you get a job and meet employers. This year we had it in the John Paul Jones Arena, a change that I welcomed because there was just so much more space. In previous years we had it in the Newcomb Hall Ballroom with some spillage into the South Meeting Room. The small area quickly got stifling hot, and people kept bumping into each other in the walkways.

Being our basketball arena, JPJ was very spacious and had four aisles of employers. In the three hours I was there, I managed to visit 10 employers and not spend too much time in line. I also came away with quite an amount of free stuff, ie pens, cups, flash drives, bags, wireless mouse, highlighters etc., so that was a nice perk as well. A career fair is basically a time when lots of employers come, set up booths and have a continuous meet and greet where you can ask tons of questions, drop off your resume, and hopefully make a good enough impression on the employer to be called back for an interview.

With career fairs, on of the most important things is to have a nice spiel about yourself and be able to talk intelligently with the employers. You don't want to spend half an hour waiting in line, only to go up and say "Uh.. hi yeah so.. I'm... Matt. What's your company about?" ...reallll bad impression to make. I was comparing notes with some friends afterwards and they were laughing about how some first years had come (which is fine by the way) and basically walked around, grabbing free stuff and asking the most inane questions (um, not as fine. Definitely not.)

I'd been going to career fairs as a first year (haha yes, I was probably one of those clueless people that upperclassmen laughed about), so I was more or less ready for this one. I did my homework on companies I wanted to visit, printed out a list so I wouldn't forget, and had around 25 copies of my resume printed on nice cardstock. Although standing around and talking for three hours doesn't sound to hard, it was still reallllyyy tiring. I would continue rambling but I must go study for an accounting midterm tomorrow and assignment due on Tuesday. Wish me luck!

chorus practice.

Just came back from chorus practice, thus I'm in a really good mood. Even though I wake up at 7 am and don't get home until 9 pm on Mondays and Wednesdays, the last part of my day is always chorus practice. I love to sing, so this always puts me in a good mood. And what puts me in an even better mood is.. singing lots and lots of high notes. =P I'm first soprano in my choir, so nothing gives me more joy than blasting them high notes. Hehehe alright, I'm a bit odd.

But speaking of my music history, I also play the flute. I played in UVa's Baroque Orchestra as first flute my first semester first year (that's a lot of 'firsts'..), and what was amazing was that I had to play on the baroque version of the flute for the orchestra. The school lent me the baroque flute for the entire semester -- it was a really interesting experience! I didn't continue after my first year though because it actually hurt my hand to play the baroque version because the holes were spaced differently. It was a nice experience to have.

poobah.

I'm putting off studying yet more for my midterm next Monday... I think I'll go to bed at 11pm tonight, that sounds like a gloriously early time. Sorry for those of you looking for some deep, meaningful insights! Today was a day that I got done at 2pm and have been vegging out ever since. We all need one of these days.. ah. =D