Things to do over break

Since Brandeis is a school based on the Jewish tradition, all of our breaks are on Jewish holidays. This meant that from last Thursday (Passover started at sundown on Wednesday) until next Monday we have no class. For all of you who are members of the tribe I hope you holiday was a joyous family celebration. Many of your fellow Sons of Abraham such as myself celebrated Easter this past weekend as well.

I haven't done much the last few days. We went to Pam's parent's house for Easter dinner. I also was told I have a few birthday presents in the mail. One is a Jabra Bluetooth headset for my Treo and the other is a surprise. I can't wait to get them both!

Unfortunately I have plenty of schoolwork to do over the break. I'm making a list here of the schoolwork and other items that need doing to make sure I get to them all.

1. Do prep work for International Financial Management case. I have not spent as much time on this class as I should have and our group grades on some of these cases has not been up to snuff. Time for that to change. Professor Bulan is an excellent teacher and I feel like I'm underperforming in a class that I really enjoy.
   
2. Do LOTS of prep work for the semester-end Marketing project. Our team, like many others, has kind of let this slide. This week is makeup time. We need to do demographic research as well as figure out positioning, distribution, price points, etc.
   
3. Spend at least two hours a day working on finding my summer internship. I had a great interview last week that I think will lead to an offer, but I am not going to stop contacting people and applying for new positions until I land something that I will truly enjoy.
4. Spend at least an hour a day studying Japanese. I need to memorize the kana, as many words as possible and I need to seriously review sentence structures so that I'm up to speed for the Level II class I start on the 29th.
5. Work out. I had been going to the gym at least three times a week before last week. I just bought a set of cross trainers today and spend a few hours in the gym. I will be doing something athletic every day during break. I really need to get myself back in shape. I've decided I'm going to drastically change my diet by focusing on eating more protein and less carbs. I've had a lot of success with this in the past so I'm going to give it a go. It is not Atkins, I love bread, pasta and rice far too much to give them up, but they will be moderated a bit.
6. Work on Financial Modeling case. My team is very strong and we have a solid A in the course and we all want to keep this going. We work very well together. We all have slightly different strengths and are not afraid to challenge each other's ideas. This leads to all of us learning a lot more than we would alone.
7. Work on my accounting project. This is not mandatory but I believe that a few hours a day can result in a good paper that will help my final grade. We simply have to do a paper either on a firm or on an accounting issue. If I do an issue, it will be how corporations account for options. I haven't decided what firm I will do, though I have a few options in mind.
8. Get a haircut. This one should be easy :)
9. Get the TV room rearranged and the surround sound completely hooked up. We re-arrange our living room for winter because the best spot for the couch covers up the heater. Now that the cold weather is past, we've moved it back. This means that the TV is currently in a less than ideal position. FWIW our TV is an RCA Scenium DLP. Can't wait for the HD Box to arrive.
   
10. Call cable company and set up time to deliver HD box.
    
11. Work on my application to Waseda (the school I'm attending in Tokyo)
    
12. Finish up our thank you notes from the wedding. I know we have a year but we're cutting it too close.
    

In a complete fluke, several of us went to the Red Sox game Thursday night. Matt got the company seats, which are very nice indeed. He said we will probably get them quite often this summer but obviously not for top notch opponents. I have no problem with that.

Here are some pictures I took there. I'll be adding more when Yozo gets his pictures downloaded from his ultra top secret, credit card slim Sony 5.9 MP camera that is only available in Japan because they keep the best stuff for themselves.

Oh, have I mentioned I'm buying a new camera in Tokyo?