Archive for September, 2004
Tuesday’s going-out-of-my-mind ramblings.
By Karen | Tuesday, September 28th, 2004 | No Comments »
Went to Accenture’s infosession last night; it was a very valuable experience. Learned a lot about what’s expected of you as an analyst and also got to re-connect with business students/alumni that I hadn’t seen in over 2 years. The application deadline is Oct 6th so I better start the process. Unfortunately, the deadline coincides with my Leaders of Tomorrow orientation next week. May have to take a couple days off from work to get all my school and career related tasks done.
Took the bus to SFU to get there for 8:30. Don’t think I’ve gone to campus that early since my first-year courses. Apparently, the bus ridership reflects that. Most people on the bus were young, innocent, and slightly nervous-looking students. How cute.
Why is it that CSIS provided a more compelling reason for an MIS wannabe-consultant to work for them than the reps for Deloitte and KPMG? The latter companies were so focussed on recruiting CA students that they had no idea what to tell me about their consulting arms. The average response I got from them and the other tech companies was, “check the website”. Yeah, okay buddy. The lack of info on the website was the very reason I visited them at Careers Days. Oh man, I hope I make it into Accenture!
Saturday’s late-night ramblings.
By Karen | Sunday, September 26th, 2004 | 2 Comments »
I got into the Leaders of Tomorrow program! Yippee! I can’t wait! I better prioritize my time real well, because now I have 3 days of school, 3 days of work, LOT stuff, potential CIPS networking events, and potential MISA involvement. Poor Kurt. We’ll only ever see each other enough to kiss each other good night… Oh well, only 2.5 months of this left!
Why are there so many articles with so little evidence to back up their claims? I’m doing a course about decision support systems, and one of the key ideas is that humans suck at decision making but fail to take advantage of technology to aid them. And I don’t just mean computers. I mean statistical theory, critical thinking philosophies, and sometimes even common sense is no where to be seen. My group is having a hard time finding articles on our topic that aren’t just speculation or hear-say. Which is why I’m still up at 1am. I’m never up this late anymore! (grumble)
Went to the Brewmaster’s Festival last night. Serey was one of the key event coordinators and Jay designed their website and printed media. It was fantastic! I was drunk after 3 samples. Ran into some familiar AIESEC / almost AIESEC faces, too: Riaz, Brad, Kat, Gurj, and April. I haven’t seen anyone from pre-Winnipeg except those I still run into at SFU, so it was real nice to catch up for a bit. Afterwards, me and Jay finally introduced Kurt to our fave Davie St. haunt: Random. A great dinner was had there. With the walk to Odyssey and the interesting chat at Starbucks, I must say I really enjoyed my Friday!
Also realized how so out of the loop I am now. Serey and Riaz’ status has changed as has Jemmy’s and Brad’s and … the list goes on. Some certain C.Republic guy also has a certain someone there… no wonder there’s reluctance to leave!! If I’m supremely behind on the times with anyone else, a) oops, sorry and b) drop me a line fill poor ol’ Karen in.
I remember now what childhood memory was triggered by my bus ride of a few weeks ago (re: “Smelly memories”). Plastic balloons! Know what those are? I’ll talk about it in another post, when I can take the time to fully describe the pleasure that is the plastic balloon experience.
Where can I find u-nails or cable-hiding nails? Radio Shack and Future Shop don’t have them. Pooh =(
Why am I still up and blogging at 1:30am? Good night!
Where the @#?! is Karen’s website?!
By Karen | Thursday, September 23rd, 2004 | No Comments »
If that’s what you’ve been wondering, then you’ve probably noticed that you can’t go to this blog unless you type http://www.sfu.ca/~kclement/blog.
Reason–I’ve transferred my blog back to my original web host and so www.karenclement.ca will be wonky until things settle down in oh…48-72 hours from now.
Thanks for your patience.
Did Accenture kill the competition?
By Karen | Tuesday, September 21st, 2004 | 1 Comment »
I’ve got this infosession on Accenture next Monday and have been doing my part to research the company and other alternatives. But I can’t find anything on their Canadian counterparts! Grrr. Deloitte has a technology consulting arm, but it seems small in comparison. I have heard that Crystal Decisions also does consulting and systems analysis. But if you Google around using “Accenture competitors”, you only see 3: IBM (no Vancouver opportunities), EDS (US-based for the most part) and Bearingpoint Inc (formerly the consulting arm for KPMG), which has no Vancouver office. If anyone knows of any local Vancouver firms providing tech consulting services to SME (small / medium enterprises), I’d appreciate a call or email. Muchas gracias!
Today’s random thoughts.
By Karen | Monday, September 20th, 2004 | 1 Comment »
Spoke to my old boss and coworkers at Don’s Photo today. It was nice to catch up with each of them. It’s too bad that Josue works in the afternoon, because it would’ve been nice to talk to him, too. If you DP guys are reading this, post a comment and say hi. Would love to hear from you!
How come you get better customer service at Payless than at other, “higher-end” retail stores? You would think it would be the other way around. It’s not like I look like a bum with no money in my wallet. That’s why Payless got $70 of my money and Urban Behaviour got $0. And I’ll probably think twice about going to UB again. Too bad for them.
Today was my first day of yoga. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the classroom where it was held. Thought it was in the normal gym (MPX) for recreation classes. Can you imagine my surprise when the people around me said that they couldn’t wait for “boot camp” to start…apparently I had wandered into a high-impact, intensive traning session. Oops.
Went to see the Lions-Eskimos game on Saturday. It was great! Lots of drunk people in our section who were booing the 4 drunk Eskimo fans sitting a few rows behind us. I was actually hit by a peanut projectile intended for said Eskimo fans. Ouch.
Also, when I bought my pink cotton candy, there was a mini cheering war between the people who wanted me to buy blue and those who wanted me to buy pink. My section was awesome (or just drunk)!!
Who did we go to a BC Lions game with 2 years ago?? I thought it was Ching-Yin. Now I’m not so sure. Especially now that Ching-Yin can’t recall ever going to a game with us. Hmmm….
Took another quiz.
By Karen | Sunday, September 19th, 2004 | 1 Comment »
Category I – The Hub
You’re a ‘people person’. Networking runs in your blood. Consequently, you can move through most social circles with ease.
What Type of Social Entity are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
What a small country.
By Karen | Sunday, September 19th, 2004 | No Comments »
Guess who we ran into this weekend?
It was Friday night and after a long stressful day at work, Kurt and I went downtown to eat at Hon’s (on Robson). Something cheap, due to the extravagance of Kurt’s celebratory dinner on Thursday, at Paros. Anyhow, we were walking towards Hon’s and people watching, when I noticed a table in some random restaurant with 2 very familiar faces. My first thought was, no way, that can’t be Clint and Charlene…but yes, it was! We went in to say hi.
These two used to work for Don’s Photo (my company in Winnipeg) and now are with the London Drugs in St Vital Mall. They arrived in town early for some conference in Whistler. Charlene mentioned that Clint had earlier wondered if they’d run into us, which she thought was highly unlikely. I mean, there are a million people living in Vancouver. What were the odds?
So the first few minutes were mostly stunned laughter. Unfortunately, Kurt and I were absolutely starving, and had to run soon after we saw them. It was still nice to see both of them again. Hope they enjoy the rest of their time here!
Yay, Kurt!
By Karen | Thursday, September 16th, 2004 | 1 Comment »
As of Monday morning, Kurt will be doing his CA articling with his new firm, Nemeth Thody Anderson! Congratulations, honey! If you would like to send any congrats his way, he has a blog, and is hoping for some nice people to comment on. You could also call us, if long distance is not a problem (the number is under our photo).
He also mentioned that he won’t be working with any CA students his age. So if any CA students are reading this…say hi! 
Smelly memories.
By Karen | Saturday, September 11th, 2004 | No Comments »
I was on the bus along Canada Way this morning, when out of nowhere this scent from my childhood wafted in through the windows. I can’t even identify the smell. Could’ve been a freshly paved side street. Could’ve been someone’s (bad?) cooking experiment. Could’ve been a cross between Orange Tang (what other Tang is there?) and gravel. Whatever it was, it immediately sent me into a daydream of intangible eating experiences … the smell of the corner store near St. Joseph’s? Inhaling the Tang or Ovaltine powder as you make a glass to drink? The smell of Asian gelatin as it sets? (shrug)
Still haven’t figured it out. I’m sure I will at some random moment this week. And will shout it out to everyone else’s confusion. The point is, how funny is it that a little thing like that, that you haven’t experienced since childhood, can recall memories that you forgot existed in the cobwebs of your mind? Weird.
Cold + School = Fun!
By Karen | Friday, September 10th, 2004 | No Comments »
That pretty much sums it up. My Monday-night cold had progressed to flu-like levels. Tuesday night was feverish; on Wednesday, I was so cold that I left work early and continued my shivering at home under my winter duvet. Thursday was temperature indifferent, but that’s when the sniffling really started. I went through 3 packages of travel Kleenex, the remnants of Tim’s donated facial tissues, and whatever countless 3-plys I managed to find at home. To be safe, I bought one more box at the Mac’s before trudging up the hill towards home.
My second day of school was Thursday. Six straight hours: a 2 hour lecture, 2 hour lab, then Spanish class until 6:30. Oh joy. By the middle of Hour 1, I already wanted to go home. But I couldn’t…we were forming groups for our first assignment that day, and our lab component would be tested in the subsequent lab next week. So quite unwillingly, and possibly to the digust of my newly met 462 classmates, I proceeded to sniff and achoo and hack my way through the 4 hours of class. I did put much effort into minimizing and transfer of possibly contagious me-germs.
By Hour 2, a few of the people I met in 462 were quite aware of my cold and didn’t look to happy about sitting near me. We had to discuss a case with 2 other people, so I tried to talk sideways instead of towards their healthy, cold-free faces. I could barely think straight about what we were talking about because I was so caught up with not spewing phelgm all over the desk. Ugh. Even that sentence looks disgusting! Well, I managed not to, despite running out of my first batch of Kleenex. On to the lab. Ooooh weee.
Tried to move away from the people I sat with to let them degerminate. The lab wasn’t too bad. Didn’t feel as self-conscious about the cold symptoms since there was more focus on stepping through the Excel demo. Thankfully, the features were nothing new. We already covered them in a bunch of other stats courses (at least we did at SFU). The lab ended early enough for people to figure out the groups for Assignment 1 and for me to make my can’t-help-it visit to the AIESEC office, where Tim graciously offers me a packet of tissues. Thanks, Tim!
Despite class ending early, I arrived late to Spanish class. While it is across campus from the Business wing and on the 5th floor, it definitely should not have taken more than 10 minutes to get there. Maybe my reflexes and agility had been affected. After all, when I got off the bus in the morning, it took me 3-5 seconds to realize that I had almost tripped into a bunch of other students. Maybe I shouldn’t have taken the Nyquil on an empty stomach.
[Did I tell you yet what happened at the Bookstore? On Thursday, I went to buy my Spanish textbook for class, but it was sold out. Harbour Centre should send some more to the Burnaby campus by next week. I called HC today and they're sold out. Told me to call the Burnaby campus 'cause they just sent a shipment over. Called Burnaby back to relay the message. Ohhh yeah....those books were the ones that came on Thursday, and were the ones that sold out. Try again next week. Argh.]
Spanish class went amazingly well, considering the amount of speaking you’re expected to do. Besides having to spell “receptionista” using the Spanish alphabet, I pretty much coasted through without having to say much or shake hands during a dialogue. Lucky classmates.
Got home around 7pm, after buying the Kleenex replenishment and listening to the Mac’s guy’s advice for ridding my cold (”A shot of rum should do it”). Called work to warn my boss that I’m very likely not coming in to work the next day. By 8pm, I was passed out in my bed and woke up this morning almost 12 hours later. Kurt tells me that at one point, I had stormed to the living room to sleep there because “he was moving too much”… but I woke up in the bedroom so either he’s imagining things or I was seriously doped up last night. All I can remember is having a terrible migraine and having to sleep with my mouth open. Don’t you hate not being able to breathe at night? It sucks.
It’s now Friday afternoon, and my sniffling has diminished since 2pm and my migraine has almost disappeared. I’ll probably be fine for work tomorrow and raring to go for Monday’s class. Why must people get colds? And why during the first week of school? Grrrr. I had planned to make a good impression this semester. Well, I certainly made an impression. We’ll see how it pans out.