Work and school have been killing me

Honestly, unless you want to see pictures of a messy workspace everyday, not much has been going on that is interesting. I've been busy at work making GIS maps, and my group project at school isn't really a group project anymore. It's the Sarah show. I have a good recap of the rest of March coming in short order, I promise.

Day 77: I'm still on break, right?

It's been a weird day. I wasn't ready to go back to work, especially after the cool thing that happened last week. I never dread work as much as I have recently, even after a long weekend. That's never a good sign.

I need to keep this short and sweet tonight. I have a midterm on Thursday that the sangria is helping me to studying for.

Spring Break! Days 70-76

Let's be honest for a second. I have no idea what happened when last week, so I'm shoving all of last week into one (somewhat coherent) post.

Johnny and I decided to be adventurous and make tandoori chicken on Monday. It was absolutely amazing!

On Monday and Tuesday, the internet at work was down, which led to a lot of waiting around. Eventually I just decided to work from home.

Campus is extremely beautiful when no one is around.

On Wednesday, I insisted that we go out to celebrate the beginning of spring break (for me, at least). I love to celebrate with Mexican food! Johnny got the nice looking meal; I got the one that looks like Mexican food vomited all over the plate.

The restaurant also had 2-for-1 margaritas and 32 ounce beers. This is where the night both got fun and went downhill. It was no big deal though, because I had a four day weekend. This is also where I run out of pictures...

I spent Thursday working on homework at the library like a true nerd.
On Friday, I went into work to try to win free beer in a contest we were having. I came in second-to-last. I also had lunch with my dad. It's always nice to catch up with family.
Saturday was a low-key day spent in pajamas with coffee and Mad Men. Eventually I got dressed to enjoy corned beef and cabbage with Johnny's family.
Sunday saw a trip south to celebrate the wedding of a good friend from work.

61/365: What do you want to be when you grow up?

I have been asked thsi question my whole life, and until now I never really knew how to truthfully answer it. I know I want a steady job with steady income that gives me some degree of freedom. However, I have never really known what would lead to that. Right now I can describe myself as a research analyst for an economic development organization. While it is nice, I'm not entirely sure it's what I want to do.

At work this week I told someone that I really want to be an academic the rest of my life. I have always felt the most secure and productive when doing stuff for school. The more I think about it, the more I want to give myself the Ph.D. option. I think the university will be the best place for me in the future. I was talking with Jenny about this last night and she warned me of all of the strange research assignments and weird hours. I'm the queen of strange research assignments, both in school and work, and I really love having the freedom to work at 4am if that is when I'm feeling the most productive.

Anyways, today's picture represents me giving more thought to the Ph.D. option. To get in at USF, I need to seriously increase my GMAT score. Right now, I am not Ph.D. material with my GRE score, which equates to a 500 GMAT. I need at least a 600 GMAT just to be considered, and much higher to have an actual chance of acceptance. I might as well start now instead of waiting until the last minute again.

56/365: Finally taking a breath

Courtesy of my CEO, a picture from the bridal shower we threw for our investor relations manager today during lunch. It was nice to relax a little.

This weekend has been a whirlwind. Johnny got extremely sick, water had to be boiled to do almost anything, and there was the concert to balance with an intense weekend of reading and paper writing. This was a nice break.

49/365: 10 Thoughts on a Quiet Monday

1. Johnny bought me new TOMS for Valentine's Day. My old pair had a hole in the toe. It's so nice to finally have a new pair. It's also perfect timing with how much the temperature dropped this weekend.

2. Florida kids are such wimps with the cold. I mean, 31 degrees this morning was cold, but all it takes is a jacket and a scarf until you can get back indoors. I love the few days a year where I get to wear hoodies and thick scarves without overheating. It doesn't happen very often, but it happened this weekend. I love it.

3. I think if it stayed 31 degrees any longer I would die though. It's almost 10:30 and it's warmed up to 55 already. I do have Florida kid syndrome sometimes.

4. Federal holidays are amazing. I've set up shop at Starbucks and I'm working through some finance review while laughing at everyone in work clothes. There is no guilt either, because I didn't take a sick day to do this.

5. The kid across from me is reading Relativity by Einstein. I really hope he has to do that for class, otherwise he may be a bigger nerd than the girl doing finance review for fun. He's taking notes, so I'm thinking it's for class. But this begs the question...what crazy professor would make someone read that?

6. My tax return is hitting my bank account this week. Of the $3100, $2800 has already been earmarked for one summer class and student loan interest. Being a responsible adult sucks sometimes. But I do have $300 for some fun. I've already decided that the majority of it will go towards some new work clothes (for example, pants. I wear black jeans that are two sizes too big to work). I might use a little upgrade my PS Elements. I'm running version 8, and I've heard great things about version 11. Does anyone have a review on V11?

7. Doing my finance reviews have reminded me that I did really enjoy the subject. I had a terrible professor who ruined the class for me, which drove me away from the track. Finance was my highest grade during the semester where I did all of my quantitative classes at one time. It makes more sense mathematically for me than accounting did. I was a math major during my first year of undergrad, and I still gravitate towards the quantitative sides of business. I think finance will be a good decision for my MS minor.

8. I want to check out the new Wawa by campus today, but I don't want to drive that far for lunch when I have pizza waiting for me back at home.

9. I'm so glad Adam was finally in an episode of Girls again. The Ray-Adam scenes were amazing, especially after how strange this season has been thus far.

10. I wish today didn't have to end. I love studying and being out and having strange hours. I'm destined for a career in academia, I swear.

11. I'm sitting in a Starbucks blogging on my Macbook. Sometimes I hate myself.

43/365: My building has food trucks!

The building I work in has been renovating the cafe we had, so instead of leaving the tenants high and dry they have been bringing out food trucks for the last two weeks. I finally decided to get close enough to check one out, but a 40 minute wait for a cheesesteak wasn't in the cards today.

39/365: This made my day at work

I get random requests for information at work relatively frequently, but the requests tend to come from inappropriate email addresses with horrendous grammar. This was my first postcard request. If you notice, descriptive is misspelled. This made up for a long and exhausting week, and it is now in a picture frame on my desk. Best. Request. Ever.

I'm easily amused.

32/365: Another road trip for work

I had a luncheon in Dade City, which involved driving an hour out into the boonies and finding a master-planned community. Ah, Florida development at its finest.

I live in the city, so being this far out on the interstate is really weird the few times I go north.

31/365: Sunshine and downtown

Ugh, Tampa traffic. At least the downtown skyline is kind of pretty.

30/365: And today I became a smart person

I took SIX hours of excel classes today, and all I got were two certificates. On the bright side, I'm on time for class for the second time all semester. That's always exciting. And I had time to eat a real dinner instead of relying on the vending machine special: pretzels and diet coke.

Only three more hours before I feel comfortable taking the Excel Certification Exam...

29/365: What's in the Bag? Edition

Standard school/work bag contents:
1. Book for Brand Management, which starts next week. I keep meaning to read the first two chapters.
2. Spring semester notebook. It's made from banana paper, which is some of the best recycled paper I've found yet.
3. My wallet. It's too big.
4. My planner/random note-taking book. It's a scary thing to look at.
5. An issue of the Economist from a couple of weeks ago. I try to be educated.
6. Randoms: Sharpie pen, highlighters, name badge, lip balms, USB, and the ever ubiquitous hair tie. I actually found two others while doing this. I was wondering where they went.

24/365: Adventure Thursday! Lots of pictures!

I'm going to switch things up on you guys and do an Adventure Thursday today. I had a breakfast meeting in Bradenton, south of Tampa Bay, this morning and had some extra time left on the meter. I decided to browse some of downtown Bradenton and their new River Walk with that time. One of the perks of my job is being able to do stuff like this, even if it does involve driving 45 miles away for a 7:30am meeting.

I started my adventure here, where the Downtown Auditorium is located. Right behind the Auditorium and City Hall is the pier.

A little further down, past the bridge in the background of the picture above...

 I found a skate park!

This is a map of Downtown Bradenton.

I loved the banners hanging around the area.

I saw this property on my way out of Bradenton. It's the perfect little place to house my own marketing firm one day. Also, you can see my car in the window.

On the way home I decided to pull over around the Skyway Bridge for a few more pictures. I really wanted one of the bridge itself, but timing just wasn't right today. It's the most iconic bridge of Tampa Bay though, and pretty easy to find on Google.

The scenery made up for the ungodly early wake-up time.