Abra Cadabra!

Wow, the weekend is over yet again! But one thing that I can say about this weekend is that it hasn't been like many others that I've had. After a hell of a week, this weekend had an interesting twist.

After my bacon-grease painstaking Monday, the remainder of the week as all a blur. Work, class, sleep, work, class, sleep, work, class, EXAM, sleep, work, sleep... you get my drift! I don't know if it's because Friday was pay day that my weekend took a 180 degree turn for the better, or the fact that I chose to make better decisions this weekend.

If you didn't know, which I'm sure of because I didn't tell, I've been on an anti-nap trip! Seriously, the amount of time I spend napping far exceeds what should be considered normal. I believe I inherited that trait from my mother who can literally sleep the day away. I'm sorry, but I realized that napping was a problem for me. Not saying that people shouldn't take naps, but the time spent napping should be minimal. I was out of control, sleeping anywhere between 2-4 hours. Obviously, this wasn't healthy. I usually woke up with headaches from oversleeping (yes, it's possible) and by the end of my workday I would be extremely exhausted to the point where I needed to take a nap! Sadly to say, my napping binge has been cut short. I managed to limit my naps to 1 hour if and when I do take them, and my boyfriend has been a huge help. So let me tell you all that I've been able to accomplish this weekend from not napping so much........

I had a nice dinner with my boyfriend Friday night at Red Lobster. We usually go out to eat a few times a month, but Friday was extremely nice because my sleep pattern has been normalized (for lack of a better word).

Saturday, I woke up early and began studying. This carried on until the later part of today. I was able to do a little shopping at Walmart and Ikea, and finish my laundry... which included hanging up and folding all of my clothes. I even curled my moms hair earlier tonight. I finished up some homework, and caught up on my reading. I did some research for a scholarship, and applied to participate in graduation (exciting)!!

Altogether, unlike last week, I am oh-so-ready to start this week. It feels wonderful knowing that since I've cut out my nap time, that I've been able to accomplish so much more than before! That idea was magical, needless to say!

What are some things that you've had to cut out in order to live a more wholesome life?

Not the Way to Start My Day

For the past few months, I haven't really had a 'case of the Mondays'. You know, the day that your car won't start, you're late for work, you can't find your keys or your purse, etc. But today, some bad occurrences snuck up on me. Needless to say, I'm peeved off!

I set my alarm to wake up at 7am, being mindful of the fact that this is what I need to do in order to stay on top of my readings for class. I totally slept until 8am, at which time my boyfriend was supposed to wake up to make breakfast. Simple eggs and bacon. Of all the days that his alarm goes off at 8am, he decides to not hear it this morning and sleep until 930am. Obviously this left me with the daunting tasks of getting ready for work, making breakfast and attempting to read a little before I left for work. While in the bathroom, I'm washing my face and brushing my teeth and noticed that the water was not going down the drain. Instead, nasty particles were fizzing back up! So, I spent a few minutes trying to resolve the problem with absolutely no luck. I proceed to get dressed for the day: beigish/brown pencil skirt that I just purchased from H&M yesterday, brown tights and brown shoes, with a chocolate brown sweater over a crispy white collared button-up. I looked marvelous, with a tidy bun adorning the top of my head.

Found this online, thought it was funny, wanted to share!

Heading to the kitchen, I see that the clock is nearing 9am and I have 1 hour to make breakfast, eat and get to my desk at work. One pack of bacon, 2 tablespoons of butter and 9 eggs later, I'm done. My beautiful brand new skirt is now flecked with disgusting bacon grease to an unimaginable degree. Me, being brilliant at times/having brain farts at times, attempts to get the stains out with a soapy washcloth only to realize that while driving to work, the soapy water is drying and leaving rings on my skirt. Very noticeable rings might I add. I pull up to the gate at work, and my entrance badge is nowhere to be found! I then call my coworker to bring her badge outside for me, making myself 5 minutes late for work.

Notice that my only goal was to wake up and read. How did I manage to not read???

Either way, my kind and loving boyfriend brought my brown backup pants along with some body spray to rid my desk area and clothing of the pig aroma. Gross! Bless his heart :-)

So how has your Monday been so far?

The "Know-It-All" that Doesn't Know Much

Working and learning are two things that everyone does everyday, whether we know it or not. Whether we want to or not. But this post stems from an irking feeling that I get from working with our new intern. Granted I'm still an itnern myself, I guess I have a little more say in this matter opposed to when I first started 5 months ago.

Now, I've worked with people who believe that they know everything and hate to be corrected when they're wrong, but this guy is by far the worst. His work ethic is horrible, and his main concern is getting students out of his face rather than helping them with their issues.

I sit back on a daily basis listening to our new intern yell at students, tell them that they're understanding wrong and that he knows how things work around here. Buddy, I don't even know everything or claim to and I've been here a lot longer than 2 weeks! I never really understood what chemical reaction people have in their brains that make them believe that they're superior, and our work can be performed by monkeys. If it is so easy, the way he claims that it is, then why does he ask a billion repetitive questions day-in and day-out?

Outside of work, he is the same way. Unfortunately I had to sit in front of this guy during the first lecture of our Equity Accounting class (which he dropped soon after), and listen to him answer ALL of the professors open-ended questions as well as rhetorical ones... you know, the questions that shouldn't really be answered, but they're asked anyway. Needless to say, the entire class was ecstatic when there were questions that he couldn't answer! No one likes a Know-It-All.

What really sent me over the edge yesterday was a comment that he made about his attendance at a mandatory tax training session that needs to be completed for our volunteer work with the Accounting Aid Society. Instead of saying that he learned alot during the session, he complained that "it was 8 hours long and my body was there but not my brain because I know everything". FINALLY, HE ADMITTED TO THE TITLE! He tends to brag about the work that he did before coming to CC, yet he fails to realize that no two companies are the same. What you did one place, 9 times out of 10 won't apply here!

Does anyone else have to deal with coworkers like these, be it interns, subs, or full-time workers? Honestly, it's one of the most frustrating things that I have had to cope with.

GAB Rant: Queen of Procrastination

GAB Rant is where I'll rant and rave about minor and/or major occurrences that I experience around the office- or near the office, on a somewhat day-to-day basis! Enjoy :-)

Ever caught yourself on the back-end of a long weekend (3-4 days), and realize that you've accomplished absolutely NOTHING! Remember on the last day of work, Friday for most this time around, you told yourself that you'd get so much done? Well my list included reading for both Biology and Equity Accounting, and completing some homework. I guess I got sidetracked once I realized that all of that stuff that I learned in 2004 (11th grade) was coming back to hunt me!

Yes, bonds, covalent bonds, conversion, chemical reactions and the like are all topics that I have to cover in chapter 2!!!!! of my Biology book... Come on now, couldn't there be some sort of tutorial for people like me. So, as usual when I'm feeling stumped or defeated, I went and purchased a Biology for Dummies book. Let's see how this turns out for me. On top of all of this reading and understanding, I have to attend my lab which has its own homework assignments and quizzes pretty much each week. There are also science learning modules that need to be completed; all of which you must view material online and then go and take more TESTS!

On the flip side, I'm apartment hunting with my boyfriend today (yesterday too!). I must say, the first place that we visited was PUUURRRRRRRRFECT :-) I'm also purchasing a new digital camera really soon, so I'll be posting more pictures! Oh, and pics of some of the apartments that we see today.

To say the least, I'm ready for this semester to be over. And it just started!

Busy Week in Review

It's been a few weeks since my last post, but I'm sure you'll understand why from my week in review. Boy have I been a busy bee!

Monday: During the early morning I was barely able to sleep, maybe 1.5 hrs at most; therefore, I didn't make it to the lovely first day of school (well, work for me)... I spent the day wallowing in the bed :-(

Tuesday: Still not much sleep, but it was a full force day anyway. Everything moved so fast. Work from 8-11a. Left work at EXACTLY 11a to make it next door to Biology 240 by 11:30a. Class over at 12:45p. Back at my desk by 1p. Left work again for Equity Accounting starting at 6:10p. Somewhere inbetween chatted it up with my bff and had a quick snack (which constituted breakfast, lunch and dinner). Crashed as soon as I made it home.

Wednesday: Caught up on some much-needed rest. Work 10-6:30p. Home for reading and more sleep. At least that's what I thought. My boyfriend surprised me with flowers, and they add so much color to my dull room!

Thursday: Back to work at 8a. Same routine as Tuesday, except for the fact that my Biology Lab starts at 5:10p. Between 4:30p and 5:10p, boyfriend stopped by to bring me "bruncher", my new term for a combination of breakfast, lunch and dinner. Bio lab is scheduled to last 3 hours and 50 minutes. Good thing we were only examining cell structures, membranes, cytoplasm and bacteria until 6:45p. Left class, printed out homework and other course material, headed to Walmart for a digital camera (which I failed to purchase... being frivolous!) and home for bed.

My prettiful mug that I finally used from my friend's trip to Viva Las Vegas in '09

Friday: Just like every Friday of my life, wake at 6am. Drive grandma to work by 7:20a. Make it to my job by 8a. Inbetween, touch 4 cities (Detroit, Redford, Southfield, Dearborn) during my commute. Waste a few minutes before the windows open browsing the news online. Processed student account adjustments and removed some folks from collections... currently awaiting lunch :-)

Enough about my crazy life though! I spent about 30 minutes of my workday last week reconstructing a budget worksheet that I use myself. The concept behind this spreadsheet is that we must learn to allocate our money efficiently in order to budget correctly, something I learned from Manisha Thakor's book, On My Own Two Feet. The most interesting thing is that this system of budgeting is easily adaptable. To accurately use the spreadsheet, all it takes is you typing in the amount of your paycheck and/or miscellaneous cash received from things like babysitting, monetary gifts, etc.

Example: Last week you earned $545.00 from XYZ Bank. You would like to know how much of your check you should save, apply to bills, and use for having dinner with your friends. Based off of your income, the following amounts will be displayed on the chart.

• Foundation 45% = $245.25
• Future 25% = $136.25
• Fun 15% = $81.75
• Miscellaneous 15% = $81.75

Using this fool-proof system will keep you from carrying unnecessary cash with you, and will allow you to save a reasonable amount every time you receive money. Your bank account will thank me later...

Enjoy your 3-day weekend! Happy MLK Day- Volunteer in your community!

I Was Asked, "How did you end up here?"

Blogging, that is...

Well, it's a very interesting story if you ask me. But you didn't, and I'm going to tell it anyway. Ha!

As a 3rd grader at a local DPS, I was sitting in our portable class when our substitute with nothing else to talk about mentioned how journalism was a very good field to go into. At that time, the news and media industry were booming. The internet was just surfacing, and the job market looked great for someone who was just graduating high school or college at that time. But for me, I had to make sure that I'd have possibilities when I became older. I dreamt that day that I would be the next Carmen Harlan, or something like that.

Two summers later, I had a terrible bike accident which left me with a 2 inch scar on my chin, right below my lip. Oh how I wept on my dad's shoulder that year. There was no way in my mind that anyone would want to see my scarred face on television. I gave up my broadcast journalism dream about a year later. I was still very interested in writing though.

It wasn't until I got accepted to one of the top 3 high schools in Detroit that I began to realize my dream of writing. I signed up for the Communications curriculum which would gear me toward more english, communications, literature and art classes. Boy was I excited! Only to learn during my first semester as a 9th grader that there wasn't enough space for everyone who signed up, and I was placed into the Business curriculum. Ugh, memos and typing. Whatever!

I spent my first year learning to type and write business letters and memos. My 10th grade year, I had my first accounting course and I fell in love with the class and my teacher. She was so driven about her profession, and I desperately wanted to be like her. So I joined BPA (Business Professionals of America), competed in Banking, Finance and Accounting divisions, won at Regionals and came close to winning at the State level. Junior year, I took the ACT and SAT tests, scored well enough to get into all of the universities that I had in mind, applied to these schools, got accepted and headed into the business world.

At some point between high school and college, I realized that I still had a very strong passion for reading and writing. I spent many of my high school summers locked in my room reading heated romance novels, mysteries and books for young adults. I also wrote poetry and attempted a short story, but failed miserably.

My freshman year in college, I inquired about the school paper but realized that college was nothing like high school and opted out of burning myself out during my first year. All of a sudden, I spent less and less time reading and writing and more time studying that I forgot that I truly loved to write. Anywho, now that I'm into accounting and loving every aspect of it, I found a way to link my love for writing and accounting/business together. I inquired with the school paper again, as I'm already a senior and have a little more time on my hands. I wrote a few random columns about saving and holiday spending, and next thing you know I was offered a position as Student Perspectives Editor. This position requires me to work a full 8 hours on Mondays this semester, therefore I had to turn it down due to my internship. Oh, how I would have loved to work there!

Long story short, my idea of a financial advice column was widely accepted by the current editors and it should be rolling in the next few weeks! Excited! My blog is my creative outlet :-)

Women-Friendly Factoids

First things first, HAPPY 2010!

Second thing, if you don't read The Economist, YOU SHOULD!

Third thing, interesting article for you non-Economist readers (female-oriented)... titled Female Power. The article was all of 3 pages long, with 2 pictures and 3 graphs. Therefore, I'm going to sum up this article for all of my female readers who need a little empowerment! Female Power covered everything from women working in the 50s to women working who are actively pursuing childbirth. It hit me with some interesting and eye-opening statistics, as well as much needed knowledge about the world that I'm walking into as a working woman. Here are some of the tidbits and stats that I picked up:

• ... women now make up almost half of American workers (49.9% in October).
• ... women earn almost 60% of university degrees in America and Europe.
• ... in Italy and Japan employment rates for men are more than 20 percentage points higher than those for women.
• ... women earn substantially less than men on average and are severely under-represented at the top of organizations.
• ... today, women make up the majority of professional workers in many countries (51% in the United States).
• ... the feminisation of the workforce has been driven by the relentless rise of the service sector (where women can compete as wel as men) and the equally relentless decline of manufacturing (where they could not).
• ... improved technology reduced the amount of time needed for the traditional female work of cleaning and cooking.
• ... most interesting factoid: The most important innovation has been the contraceptive pill, which has not only allowed women to get married later but also increased their incentives to invest time and effort in acquiring skills.
• ... the expansion of higher education has also boosted job prospects for women, improving their value on the job market and shifting their role models from stay-at-home mothers to successful professional women.
• ... in 1963, 62% of college-educated women in the United States were in the labour force, compared with 46% of those with a high school diploma. Today 80% of American women with a college education are in the labour force compared with 67% of those with a high school diploman and 47% of those without one.
• ... only 2% of the bosses of Fortune 500 companies and five of those in the FTSE 100 stockmarket index are women.
• ... women make up less than 13% of board members in America. In American and Britain the typical full-time female worker earns only about 80% as much as the typical male.
• ... in the European Union women have filled 6 million of the 8 million new jobs created since 2000.
• ... in America, the female unemployment rate is 8.6%, compared to 11.2% for men.
• ... the Bureau of Labour Statistics calculates that women make up more than two-thirds of employees in ten of the 15 job categories likely to grow fastest in the next few years. By 2011 there will be 2.6 million more owmen than men studying in American universities.
• ... Goldman Sachs calculates that increasing women's participation in the labour market to male levels will boost GSP by 21% in Italy, 19% in Spain, 16% in Japan, 9% in America, France and Germany, and 8% in Britain.

I find these things interested because it is a huge shift in the economy, not only in America, but across the globe. It is now 'ok' for women to be the breadwinners in the family, and men are accepting that as they realize that women are just as capable to maintain as they are. I'm not a feminist or anything, but reading and learning about the wonderful strides of women around the world makes my day. I'm definitely proud to be a growing statistic, a WOMAN! More power to us :-)

**These statements have been taken directly from The Economist, January 2nd-8th, 2010 edition.