MBA Cutie...

Life on the road to Ross School of Business at U of M... GO BLUE!

Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Online Dating, Part 1 (Date-Ditching, Part 1)

Date Ditching, Part 1...

In this series, we'll explore various stories from Cutie's repitoire of Online Dating experiences...

I have never been an advocate of online dating, although I may have to change my mind. Lately it seems like a lot of my girlfriends are meeting their beaus on sites like Match.com or even the infamous Friendster. Not every one of these experiences can be a complete walk in the park, however. My girlfriend, let's call her Friendster Addict (FA), decided to respond to one of those well scripted messages that seemed to find its way to her mailbox. The sender of the message, let's call him Friendster Guy (FG), seduced FA with the mindblowing line of "You're pretty." So FA checked out his bio and picture and decided to write back, "Thanks."

At that point, a new Friendster frienship blossomed, and the two wrote back and forth for about two weeks. However, FG was in medical school in Los Angeles, and my girlfriend was working San Francisco, so the two were having difficulty arranging a meeting. Finally, FA decided to head down to Los Angeles and visit a few friends and have dinner wtih FG.

Now, one of the unspoken rules of pictures on Friendster is that in real life, no one ever looks as good. Well, in the case of FG, he certainly took a lot of liberty with his photograph on Friendster. My friend met him in westwood and didnt' even recognize who he was. She was expecting something completely different than what she got. Also, he was the same height as her. (Did I mention that FA is 5'2''?). She did not know what to do. Should she yell at the guy for blatantly lying on friendster? Should she at least give him a chance considering she was already there and it would be really mean to completely dismiss him based on looks?

What did FA do? Check back tomorrow to find out.... in Date-Ditching, Part 2.

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Of Vice and Men

Memorial Day brought the chance to embark upon Las Vegas, the city where all vice is not only acceptable, but actually mandated. As I had mentioned before, this Vegas trip was attributable to my girlfriend's bachelorette party. All six of the girls in the party were split between rooms at Ballys and Paris. I arrived a bit earlier than everyone else, so checked and rushed over to the Wynn, where a friend of mine was staying, for a quick lunch and some craps. The Wynn is amazing, and the craps were even better... in a matter of 5 minutes I had managed to make $200 after just putting down $100. In true Vegas fashion, easy come, easy go… and I forced myself to walk away from the table up $85. (Hey, I had to stay... I couldn't desert my friend during his roll, and then it was my roll, so I couldn't not bet on myself!)

I came back to Ballys/ Paris and met up with the other girls. We got ready to head out to dinner at Firefly. The food was good... really to my liking, but if you really like authentic Spanish tapas, it's a great place to go. After that, we met our limo and arrived at Pure. Now, I have never, ever used a club VIP service to go to a club before, but http://www.clubvivalasvegas.com/, was 100% worth it. The queue at Pure was absolutely ridiculous and we were inside in about 5 minutes -- just the time it took to get through the monstrous sea of people tugging at the velvet ropes. Once inside, we heard rumors that Jessica Simpson was there (we didn't see her). The club was nice, especially the terrace upstairs, but it was just too crowded for my taste. After having about 20 drinks spilled on me, and getting my feet trampled on twice, we retreated to a quieter corner of the club to talk and hang out for a while before we went back to our hotel.

By far, the most interesting thing about Vegas, is that it's club scene has extremely interesting attributes. We regularly had a hard time telling apart normal girls that chose to dress scandalously from prostitutes. Even in the middle of the day, it seems like some sort of scary competition, who can wear the least amount of clothing and still walk through the streets without looking like they are for sale? Unlike most cities, which have similarly priced drinks, men seem to embrace table service over anything else. We had a hard time even getting guys at Pure to buy drinks for our main bachelorette girl! Often times, any guy you met wanted to buy a drink for just you and not the whole group, if they wanted to buy a drink at all! The only way to secure drinks for all was to cozy up to guys with tables, and not all of them were the types you want to cozy up against.

The second night we went to the Thunder Down Under show at Excaliber, which was interesting, as I had never been to a male strip show before. We got our main girl to go on stage. She seemed to have a good time. After that, one of the girls had a hook up for all of us to go to Tao at the Venetian for the Madonna after party. We arrived to great another massive sea of people. Luckily, the girl with the contact at Tao pushed her way to the front and got us all in. Inside was another crazy mass of people. We didn't even get to see Madonna, she must have been off in a VIP room by the time we got there.

In hindsight, I still know that I love Vegas, the rush it has, and what it means, but I don't think I will go there again for another holiday weekend. The prices are ridiculous, the crowds are insane, and the taxi lines are long. It's also hard to coordinate when you have six girls that all want to do different things. On my way back home, my flight was overbooked, so I agreed to give up my seat and take the free voucher from United. I visited the airport book store where the author of STRIPPED (http://www.strippedbook.com/) was autographing copies of his book for purchasers. Fairly interesting and a good read... especially when waiting in the airport. And now, it's back to work.

Friday, May 26, 2006

Viva Las Vegas!

In Vegas for the long weekend.. Serial will have to start next week.

Happy Memorial Day!

Time for a new Serial

With the end of "In Search of Sugar Daddy" came a reduction in readership! I think it's time I bring out a new Serial for you all to enjoy. This Saturday's post will mark the first installment of "Date-Ditching", a great story told to me by my friend about her experience with online dating. Hope you all love it!

My Super Sweet Sixteen

I never bothered to watch this show on MTV until this past weekend. I was relaxing at my friend's apartment in Boston, looking for something to do to temporarily occupy my time, and came across it and decided to watch. I have never seen such ridiculousness in my life! (And this is ME, of all people, saying this.) Maybe because I grew up thinking that Macy's was an "expensive" store, the thought of a fifteen year old boy celebrating his birthday by flying to Florida to bring a baby tiger cub back to New Jersey to help him make a grand entrance to his party is just silly. So is the thought of a fifteen year old girl hiring professional models to escort them while passing out invitiations to their party?

Where are these people's parents? And even more so, why are these parents not intervening and knocking some sense into their children? It's almost as if these kids don't even know what it means to be a kid: to ride your bike down the street as fast as you can, to eat cherry snow cones on a hot day and have red lips for the rest of the afternoon, to give your friends makeovers at slumber parties. Don't get me wrong, I think there is a time and a place in everyone's life to worry about their appearance, to throw a ridiculously exciting party, and to purchase a $100k car. I just personally don't feel that the ripe old age of fifteen is really that time.

Thursday, May 25, 2006

On the Road with MBA Cutie

The official travel blog, On the Road with MBA Cutie, is now available to the public. I hope you find this as a valueable resource.

I plan to drive cross country for a week in the middle of July. Any tips or suggestions that you have for me would be greatly appreciated.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Seducing the Ad-Com, Part Two: Get into B-School the Jenna Jameson Way

With B-school so close on the hozion, career planning is in full force. Ross has already had enrolled student career planning workshops, Lehman Brothers has started it's diversity recruiting efforts, and Eli Lilly wants to offer future MBA students summer internship positions even before they set foot into a classroom. This sudden surge of recruitment activity has done nothing but add to my confusion. As you all know, I'm interested in taking a "non-traditional" route post business school. I'm just not sure what that is. There are no workshops available for those of us that might want to start our own intimate apparrel companies, or guiltypleasures.com start-ups. I can just imagine the interview process to B-school, explaining to the Ad-Com the true goals behind my MBA.

Interviewer: So, MBA Cutie, why MBA? Why now?

MBA Cutie: Well, I just feel at this point, I've gone as far as I can in my industry. I've starred in movies and videos that bring people pleasure all over the world. I've received countless awards for my daring performances. I regularly try to mentor the new up and coming recruits that Ricardo (you know, my "producer") brings in. But I feel I have talent beyond all that. My production company has taken my brand equity and is profiting off of it in ways I'll never see. With an MBA, I can separate from them, produce, direct, and recruit, but also create a line of merchandise to add to my bottom. Oh sorry, I mean my bottom line.

Interviewer: Uh, um, well yes, I see. So what steps have you taken so far in achieving your goal of entrepreneurship?

MBA Cutie: I was an entrepreneur from the start. I started working when I was eighteen. I have killer instincts and I knew exactly what guys to brush up against in order to get what I want. I built up my name based on hard work and repeated high performance levels. I've already started wearing some of my own designs in movies set to be released this year, and I've helped with lighting and direction of other films from my company. Making sure the camera angles are getting the best possible shot, if you know what I mean. I'm a natural marketer, my customers are just drawn to me. In fact, they are so drawn to me that Ricardo has hired Jimmy, over there, to make sure no one gets too close to me.

Interviewer: Well, MBA Cutie, what do you feel you can bring to this school that is unique?

MBA Cutie: Instant fame. Everyone in the industry will know that I chose to go here. Money. If some of the people in the class are willing, we can start up some sort of "recruitment" program and maybe partner with the film school to push a few movies of our own while on campus. Relaxation techniques. I'm really good at administering and teaching those. The possibilities are really endless.

Interviewer: Cutie, you've definitely sold me. How active do you plan to be with the alumni groups in the area? I mean, I certainly know of a few people that would love to network with you.

*sigh* What a shame my real interview didn't go like this. But then again, I wasn't trying to seduce back then. I was just trying to get in.

DISCLAIMER: MBA Cutie is NOT an adult film star. This post is simply a dramatization of a hypothetical situation.

For those with interest in this topic, check out Jenna Fatigue.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

"Someone who makes your heart ache in a good way... "

I can't wait of this Friday... I am going to Vegas for Memorial Day Weekend! One of my really good girlfriends from high school is getting married, and we are taking her to Las Vegas for the first time for her bachelorette party! Ever since I left LA, I have really missed the thrill of going to Vegas, so I'm happy about the trip.

It is so weird to think that someone my age is getting married. One of my own friends is really getting married and pledging herself to one person for the rest of her life. I had the chance to look at her website today and her and her future husband are so obviously happy together. Love, it's such a weird emotion. How do you know when you are really in it? I wonder if I really ever have been been in it. Someone once told me that if you have to ask, you probably haven't. There are time whens in my past when I really thought I was, but now, when I think about it, I was never in love enough to fight for it. Not for long anyways. Anyway, I'm so happy for my friend that she did find "someone who makes her heart ache in a good way." I wish the pain lasts forever.

Monday, May 22, 2006

Chinatown to Chinatown and back again.

I raced out of work on Friday to head to Chinatown in NYC. I was catching the Fung - Wah bus to head to Boston. As you all know, I used to be a frequent visitor to Boston before the "row" with my friend in London. In some ways, it was really hard to go back, because I have so many memories of Boston that are specifically associated with my old best friend. I'm still very hurt by what happened, especially as there are new details that unsurfaced regarding our discord. But that all can wait for another blog.

I was really happy to be in Boston and to see my darling friend, who lives right next to the Prudential Center. It was the most perfect location ever. We could walk to essentially everything... and we did! South End, Newberry, the City Park, Downtown Crossing, Faneiul Hall, and North End --- all of which I will give a more detailed description of in my travel blog, On the Road with MBA Cutie, once it launches in a few weeks. On Friday night, we met up with two of her friends and headed over to the 33 Lounge (www.33restaurant.com) to do some dancing and have a few drinks. Tired from my 7 hour journey on the bus (yes, a WHOLE SEVEN HOURS. Parts of the Mass Turnpike were closed and the traffic was horrendous.), a zoned out MBA Cutie manages to forget her purse, complete with friend's camera, in the restroom. When I discovered I didn't have it, I rushed back to the bathroom, but the purse was gone. My friend tells me to start looking at every single girl trying to leave the place. I completely freaked out thinking that I had not only lost all my money, credit cards, debit cards, and ID, but also a digital camera. Suddenly, a girl comes up the stairs holding my purse in her hands! I run over to her and say, "That's my purse!!!! " She says, "Thank god ! I've lost mine before and when I saw it in the bathroom, I wanted to take it right up here to security." I am such a lucky girl. We had one last drink with my friend's friends, managed to refuse dancing offers from two guys that approached us (we were tired and just not that interested), and then walked a few blocks back home.

Saturday night was definitely the more interesting night. After a long day of shopping and sight seeing, we came back to my friend's place to get ready for that evening. The plan was to head out to Felt (www.feltboston.com) for another night of drinks and dancing. Once there, my friend hit it off with one of her friends and left me in a slightly awkward situation. I quickly remedied it by meeting a nice guy, Boston Boy, and dancing for a few hours. When everything ended at 2am, Boston Boy asked if he could hang out with me and my girlfriend and her friend for a while. We figured why not (and, luckily, he had a car so we wouldn't have to walk anymore that night!), and then went in search of an after hours place. We settled on grabbing some food at News (www.newsboston.com). When we got there the line was ridiculous! My girlfriend, the clever, sly girl that she is, just slips up to the front of the line, and slowly cuts in and tells the bouncer we are there and need a table for four. I slide in behind her, but we had the guys wait outside the line. Then, a couple walks up to the front of the line and announced that they are part of "Nick Lachey's" party. What??!! Nick Lachey was at News in Boston the same night we were there?

We were never able to confirm whether or not Nick was there. We were let in before that couple. Our food was good (pizza and french fries), but my friend ordered pancakes which were mistakenly served with soy sauce! Her guy's face just scrunched up when he tried some! We complained to the waitress, who replaced the order and took them off our bill. I bonded a little with Boston Boy during the walk back to his car, and he may be in New York City next weekend, so it would be fun to see him again. When we got home, my girlfriend and I discussed the events of the night and decided where we thought things were going with the new guys we had met. (No where for me, Boston Boy is a nice guy, but I could just tell it really didn't have that potential. Maybe somewhere for her. She's not quite sure how it will play out.)

And that was the last of the east coast Boston trips for me. Considering that this was the first time that I had the chance to see Boston from a non-student, non-Cambridge perspective, I think it was phenomenal. I like the city even more now that I know that there really is an active scene of young professionals and individuals that live in Boston and aren't necessarily there for a collegiate experience. Plus, life across the river is so different. I love the charm of Cambridge, but I think I like the reality of the main parts of Boston more. I promise to include Boston as an entry on my bluelist once my travel blog is up and running.

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Saturday, May 20, 2006

Texting -- the wave of a new generation

Now that I have one, I could never give up my cell phone. There have been times that I ventured out of my apartment without it, and actually turned around, from 15 miles away, to go back and get it. I have a pink razor which I got almost two months ago. I still get annoyed that it's not as small and convenient as my last phone, but it has great color features and it's the first time I've ever had a camera on my phone. The sales girl at the Verizon counter convinced me to purchase a "text message" package, in addition to my usual $39.95 per month service fee. I figured, what the hell, my last phone was awful with texting, so why not try this thing out.

All of a sudden, I have a new hobby. Why call someone when you can text? It's like instantaneous, straight to your palm, email. No lengthy phone conversation, no small talk. Just "are you here yet?", "where are you?", "you busy?", or "wear something hot and come over". The next discovery is, why drunk dial when you can drunk text? You can send a message to your entire contact list within a matter of seconds, so everyone out there knows about your inebriated state.

I admit, I'm guilty of using a text when I feel non-committal. It's so much easier to just text someone and say "running late" or "can't make it after all". One of my girlfriends was dating this guy who refused to ever call her. Everything with him was a about sending a text message. Even when she was lost trying to find his apartment, he refused to pick up the phone but text messaged her directions. Finally, she grew tired of it. She tried to call him to break up, but no avail. So, she sent him a text message that said "Baby, it's over." What's worse: A text message break-up or an AIM one? Or maybe Carrie's "post-it" from Berger trumps them all.

Friday, May 19, 2006

The Ross Experience

I have been trying to decide whether or not to continue blogging once I start school at Ross. I finally concluded that I will continue to blog, but on two separate blogs. MBA Cutie will officially become my "personal" blog, which will continue to contain my stories and thoughts that are largely not MBA related.

My new blog, The Ross Experience, will include information that is exclusively related to the MBA and my experiences in the Day MBA program at the Ross School of Business.

So, if you are looking to just find MBA related information, be sure to visit my other blog. Please be mindful that although my blog name is MBA Cutie, the MBA Cutie blog will not have just MBA content. Once school starts, I will try to post on at least one of my blogs every few days.

Vacation Itinerary

I'm such a ridiculous, type A planner, I had to get this all sorted out.

If any of the bloggers are down to have a meet up in Bangalore or Coimbatore any of the days I'm there, that would be great, but I have a feeling most of them would have left for school by then...

July 24th: Day in Singapore
July 25th: Arrive in Chennai @ 10:05pm (Singapore Airlines)
July 26th: Shopping in Chennai
July 27th: Mahabalipuram
July 28th: Train to Bangalore, relax in Bangalore
July 29 - July 31st: Shopping and visiting relatives. Hanging out.
Overnight train to Coimbatore on July 31st night.

Aug 1 - 7th: Time in Coimbatore
Kerala Trip (Palghat, Thathamangalam, Trichur, Guruvayur, Alwaye,
Perumbavur, Munnar, Tekkadi, Ooty, Kovalam -- time permitting)
Night train back to Bangalore.
Aug 8 - 9th: More shopping & hanging out in Bangalore.
Aug 10th: My grandfather's death anniversary.
Aug 11th: Last day in Bangalore
Aug 12th: Leave India (via Hong Kong & Seoul)

Thursday, May 18, 2006

Vacation Plans

I'm planning on coming to Chennai, Bangalore and Cochin for a few days in July and August. Bangalore, I think I have under control, but would love some tips for night life and shopping in Chennai?

I also plan to spend some time at a few hill stations (Ooty and Munnar), and then a few days in Thekkady.

Thanks for your help!

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Who IS MBA Cutie? -- FAQ

Today I write to you not as Cutie, but as the creator of Cutie. I started this blog last November, mostly out of frustration with the MBA Application process and to improve my writing skills. Over time, MBA Cutie has developed and taken on a personality of her own, not entirely MBA related. Over the past few months, friends of mine and my blog readers have asked me various questions about me and MBA Cutie. I plan to answer the most common questions here.

Who is MBA Cutie? Is she really you?

Well... she is loosely based around me and my life, but some of the things that happen to MBA Cutie are fictionalized or dramatized. MBA Cutie has grown and changed during her time as a blogger. When she started out, she was a little stiff. One of the coolest things about MBA Cutie is that she openly says things that many people are thinking, but are afraid to say themselves. To a one extent, she is me, but she's only one dimension of me. She's the dimension I choose to show on this blog. To another extent, she isn't me, because I create her, I decide what happens to her, I modify events in my life and in the lives of people I know to make them "blog-worthy". She's more my creation than anything else.

Well then, who IS MBA Cutie?

She's not afraid to speak her mind, even if it makes other people cringe. She's exciting, and she lives for the moment. She is happy with herself. But to develop a relatable and likeable characteristic to her, I have tried to make her real. She is trying to figure out who she is, she questions the way she acts and the way others act towards her, she wonders why things are the way they are, and she does get hurt. As MBA Jackass said, there are haters. But then, there will always be haters. No one likes everyone all the time. I'm working on a fiction novel outside of this blog, and I regularly reread entries to draw ideas to develop my characters in that novel.

Will you continue to write as MBA Cutie once you are at Ross?

Honestly, I'm not sure. I would like to, and I think the Cutie character can take on an interesting perspective while at Ross. On the downside, however, since I'm not exactly anonymous, it may be more difficult to protect the anonymity of people I know there as opposed to now, where my social contacts are not all in one community.

Hey Cutie, I think you wrote about me! But I told you that stuff months ago, not yesterday! What's the deal? Where do you get ideas on what to write about?

Haha, you have discovered the key to chronological disorder! I may or may not have been influenced by you. In fact, I may have been influenced by more than just you, but it took me a little while to form an opinion and then to be able to write. I write about a lot of things out of order to protect the anonymity of people who I may be referring to in my blog. Also, in real life, some life events just happen at times that aren't opportune. The benefit of creating a character like MBA Cutie is that I can have things happen to her when I want them to happen to her. Most of my writing topics come from life. My friends will talk to me about something, I will hear something on the radio, or something will happen to me ... and then I write about it.

So what's up with Cutie and the youngin'? Was he real?

I knew this question was coming! He's relatively real, he is based on someone I met. However, Cutie's timeline with him did not follow the same order of events that happened in real life (whether that's shorter or longer or just in disorder, I cannot reveal). Some events and emotions with the youngin' were fabricated. Also, I started feeling that the Cutie & the Youngin' story line needed to be phased out. Cutie is about to embark on a very exciting few months: confusion, moving, new environments, and new people. It's time to pick up some new story lines.

Do you care if people know who you are as the writer of this blog?

Not really, but I think that by knowing who I am, it could ruin the experience of reading this blog. Part of the allure of the MBA Cutie is that you don't really know who she is, and so she becomes what you want her to be.

Why did you pick the blogging name MBA Cutie?

I was applying to B-school at the time and wanted to pick a name that was fun and flirty.

What advice do you have for people (especially women) who want to pursue their MBA?

GO FOR IT! And don't be afraid to be different. The business world may have promoted conformity for years, but the best and brightest ideas come from people who can see the world differently than anyone else. I especially encourage people who would not conventionally consider an MBA to look into it. An MBA can give you the skills to make visions into reality, successfully, skillfully, and with credibility.

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Cutie and the Married Guys

My recent adventures in NYC make me feel like all morals have gone out the window. A few months back, I wrote about my "date" with the guy who neglected to mention he was married until we were at dinner. I don't know what it is about me that attracts married men, but lightning has managed to strike the same spot twice.

I was at a bar in the flat-iron a few weeks ago, waiting to meet my friend. She was running late, so I decided to order a glass of wine and relax a little while I was waiting for her. A fellow decides to slide into the seat next to me at the bar and asks my name. I really wasn't attracted to him, but it's not like I had anything better to do so I told him. We made small talk for a while, and then he asks me for my number. I wasn't at all interested so I tell him I have a boyfriend, thinking that would scare him away. No dice. Now he's asking me for my email address. Great! Why doesn't he get it? I see my friend at the door, so I get up, and he follows me. Finally, to get rid of him, I gave in and scribbled my email on the back of his business card and then told my friend that I wanted to go to a different bar. We left, and thankfully, he didn't follow.

A few days later, I get an email from him (Crap, I should have given him a fake email!). "MBA Cutie, It was so great to meet you a few days ago. It's good that you are so up front about having a boyfriend, it really shows what a great personality you have. I can't wait to meet you again. Just to get it out in the open, I am married and I wanted to let you know that. When would you like to meet?" WTF!!!???!!! WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE??? If you are married, why are you so persistantly going after girls' numbers and then emailing them?

Cutie's response, "Please never email me again. Thank you."

Monday, May 15, 2006

Hard to do...

I remember reading an article about breaking up where a therapist described the process as more difficult than morning the death of a loved one. With death, there is finality and the inability to contact the person that was lost. With the end of a relationship, most of the time, it is not due to the death of one of the parties involved, so the finality of the situation is more difficult to come to terms with.

To keep my mind off the youngin', I let my girlfriend take me out on the town on Friday night in NYC. We headed over to Earth NYC (www.earth-nyc.com) to have a few drinks in their "free vodka drinks" happy hour from 9 to 11pm. The crowd wasn't that great... very mixed and a little fobby, so we headed over to the old, reliable, Park (10th and 17th) next door. Probably not the best choice, as a tipsy me became a bit reminiscent of the day I met the youngin' there on the third floor, however The Park is easy to get into, my car was parked just around the corner, and we were inside in about two minutes, and had drinks in our hands in about 5 minutes. It was a pretty fun night, and my girlfriend seemed like she was having a fabulous time. We met quite a few boys and even let a few of them get us drinks or chat with us for a while before we continued wandering around, up and down the stairs. I had sobered up by 3am, so kissed my friend goodbye and headed home.

Cindy Chupak wrote in her book, Between Boyfriends, a short piece about a girl who was mourning the loss of her last relationship, and felt that if she went on a certain number of dates, she would be over her last relationship. In the end, it proved to not be true. Perhaps there is some truth in the "20 dates" theory, as post break-up I find myself in a well defined routine: going out with girlfriends to meet as many guys as possible, anxiously booking up my weekends with activities to keep me distracted, hitting the gym more than normal, writing more, reading more, cleaning more... and after a few weeks of that, things go back to the way they were before, just with no regular guy in the picture. I can't say that I wouldn't still miss them, but your heart comes to terms with the idea that if it was meant to be, it will be, and if it's not, there will be someone else. But of course, you just can't expect to meet the "someone else" tomorrow.

Friday, May 12, 2006

NONONONO!!!!

Crap, I'm actually letting myself sit here and feel sad. I need to go out tonight and not be sappy.

All Good Things Must Come to an End

All good things must come to an end, but all we can hope is that the new things coming our way will be just as good if not better. This last week has been one of deliberation, questioning, and contemplation: is going to school the right choice for me? do I really want to put my work life on hold for two years? how do I want to spend this summer? The questions just keep coming, and I wish I had a magic looking glass that would tell me what my life would be like in twenty years depending on what choice I make.

Other things end, too. With finalized plans to go to India at the end of July, I know that I'll be packing up and leaving New Jersey for good. Life with the youngin' is all but non-existant. It had to end, not so much for him as much as for me. I know I like him too much and it would never work since I'm leaving, and that's the end of that. I can't let myself think about it or I'll turn into a total sap.

I can't wait for school to start and for all the new good things to come.

Thursday, May 11, 2006

In Search of a Sugar Daddy, Epilogue: Lessons from the Mouth of a Crack Whore

My experiences with CW, while both off the wall and fantastic, did lend a few valuable lessons that I still carry with me to this day.

(1) Even more important than trying to correct your weaknesses, know your true strengths. CW clearly had weaknesses: An over inflated ego, a poor sense of judgment, a very unattractive face, and the facade of chemical dependency. But, CW also knew what she was good at. She had a vivacious personality and a great body, and she used both to her benefit every time. She did her best to cover her weaknesses through make-up, plastic surgery, or befriending girls with better decision making skills than she had, but her focus was never on her weaknesses. She emphasized and capitalized on her strengths to get what she wanted. I remember once discussing with a career coach/ mentor about how I was really trying hard to address my weaknesses in performance. He just smiled and said, "MBA Cutie, it's great that you want to improve, and knowing your weaknesses is half the battle, but just imagine if you took the energy you put into correcting your weaknesses and channeled it into capitalizing on your strengths. What do you think would happen?"

(2) Be honest with yourself. This lesson was, perhaps, the hardest one for me. We grow up in a society that forces everyone to be optimistic and say things to each other that make each other feel good. "If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all." But the truth of the matter is, all the not nice things still get said. Most of the time, they are just not said directly to you. CW knew what she was good at, but she also objectively knew what she wasn’t good at. She knew she had a great body, but she also knew that she wasn't the prettiest Persian girl out there, and she readily acknowledged that and became comfortable with it. To a certain extent, the fact that she knew what she had in most respects, and didn't try to pretend she had something she didn't, gave her a certain power -- over men, over her friends, and over authority figures. Once I was walking around campus with CW, and a girl came up to us, stared at CW and outright said "You know, you are wearing way too much make-up." CW just smiled and said (in a way that wasn't at all self degrading or even spiteful towards the other girl) "I know." Now what on earth can you say to that?

(3) "Don't be afraid to use whatever advantage you have to get what you want. No one else is." Another tough lesson. As women, it's looked down upon for us to use means other than intelligence to get what we what. "Oh that girl just got promoted because the boss likes her boobs. What a slut." Um well, sure, but hey, she's the one that got promoted, not you. IF that's really the reason that she got promoted, do you think she's sad she used that advantage? Now, I'm not advocating sexual activities in the workplace, and I doubt that CW is either, however, it's important to remember for every advantage you have over someone else, they most likely have some sort of advantage over you as well. Whatever your advantage... be it a sparking personality, a beautiful face, incredible intellectual horsepower, something else or maybe a combination, use it and be happy. Life is tough enough as it is. Use your advantages, everyone else does. I have to modify CW's advice a little bit: remember to be kind. You never know when you may want to use someone else's advantage.

Now everyone out there has the knowledge of CW and the summer of surprises was not completely in vain.

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

A Cutie Epithet: Point at the Chi-Chi, if you dare!!

When someone in the office comes back from their recent vacation to some exotic locale like Hawaii, or Fiji or Tahiti, everyone in the office crowds around and asks for the low-down on details from the trip. Well, once this girl I worked with went with a girlfriend to Hawaii for a week. She came back, complete with pictures and insisted that we all take a look. The pictures were beautiful. We got to one where she and her girlfriend were in the swimming pool with two colorful drinks. The first thing she says is, "See! You can see our 'chi-chis'!" We all look at the picture, a little unsure of what a "chi-chi" was. Those of us that found it funny just looked down and bit our lips to keep from laughing. But, of course, there is always one clueless fellow in the group, and he decided to point directly at our coworker's crotch in the photograph and say, "Oh yeah, I think I can see it right there." She gave him a really rude look, closed the picture book and said "I meant the drinks."

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

The "Down-Up" Look

Friday night, I rushed out of work, mostly because I wanted get the hell out of there after the horribly stressful week I had, and partly because it was Cinco de Mayo, and I was meeting my girlfriend in the city to go out. We had plans to meet around 10ish, and then head over to a bar, Taj (see hotspots for weblink), on 21st and 5th. I had been there before a couple years ago, back when it had first opened and it was still somewhat of a novelty. The novelty has pretty much worn off. The ambiance and decor drop away the minute the night time club takes over the restaurant. The crowd just felt young, almost juvenile: think "I just turned 21 last week so I decided to come here". I'm thinking if this was partially our bad for going to a bar that wasn't Mexican oriented on Cinco de Mayo, or if it was just an off night.

So my girlfriend, her friend, her boyfriend, and his friends all go inside. Immediately, due to the duration of pre-partying we engaged in back at her apartment, my girlfriend and I start hugging each other, dancing and acting silly. Her boyfriend had gone to the bathroom, and her other friends had already headed over to the bar. And then it started happening. I really would like to kick the person that taught guys to do this because it does not help anyone's cause at all. Within the first hour, about four or five different guys chose to walk by my friend and me, stop (or if not completely stop, slow down), and look us down- then up- and then down again. Blatantly. Out in the open. With no regard for being even slightly discrete. Even her boyfriend noticed it. He came over to us and said, you two are attracting an awful lot of attention, and then he imitated some of the guys that came by and gave us the look.

I shouldn't say that this look is limited to clubbing nights alone. Almost every guy I've ever dated, at some point or the other, decides to give the down-up or up-down look. Some try to do it covertly (like the youngin', the first few times we went out.), and some just don't care and do it openly (like many others who have retreated or been asked to retreat). For all I know, guys do it even after they have dated you for a while, except by then (1) it's either not so menacing that we don't take it as offensively or (2) they just become really good at doing it when we're not looking.

Why do guys think that the "look" is acceptable? Don't they realize that when you look at a girl like that, it makes her feel uncomfortable? The majority of us are not out on the town to be oogled like porn stars. And that sort of look cannot be erased no matter how much wit, charm, or finesse you have once you do muster up the guts to come talk to us. Nor do guys like it when you address their staring and ask "Do you have a question?" Uh yeah, of course they do. But they are sure as hell not going to like our answer.

Monday, May 08, 2006

Fire, Earth, Water

Since I'm lucky enough to live in an area with a high Indian population, I only had to travel about 7 miles down the main road to find a theater playing the latest release of Deepa Mehta's Trilogy of the Elements, Water. The movie was moving, but not as moving as I expected --- most likely due to the controversial nature of the film, my guess is that Mehta managed to elminate or mitigate certain scenes and episodes from the movie. Although, my tears did start early on (within the first 10 minutes of the film), I just felt that the third installment in her triloby just didn't carry the vibrancy, excitement, and high drama that Fire and particularly Earth did. But then, can a story with that subject matter (treatment of widows in India) Perhaps, by the time I saw the third film, the nature of her films was no longer a mystery to me: the sudden shake-up in surroundings, the quiet, yet powerful, victories of the soul, the false thought of a happy ending, and the bittersweet drop-off. Just as with Fire and Earth, the viewer leaves wondering, and hoping, that the real ending they never get to see is one of happiness.

From a casting perspective, I agree with the reviews. Sarala's portrayal of Churiya was fantastic. The thought that a child younger than ten, could provide a performance like that, in a language with which she had no prior familiarity, is astounding. I know we will see more of her in upcoming films. And, as mentioned in the reviews, Lisa Ray was indeed the most beautiful widow ever seen. In fact, she was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen, and her epic story makes your heart crush to pieces as you watch it unfold. It makes you hold your breath during her scenes with the attractive John Abraham, as you know their chemistry can transcend their inability to make tactile contact of any sort. Every minute you watch her, Lisa's character becomes more beautiful.

I'm sure much will be written in the next few months tying together the themes and depictions in the three portions of Mehta's Trilogy. My clear favorite of the three is Earth, mostly due to the exquisite cinematography, the high profile cast (many of whom were oddly absent from Water), and the incredible musical elements. All of the films take the sacred Hindu elements of fire, earth, and water, and weave a story with their infusion, forcing the viewer to question the nature of their belief in faith. And most importantly, each film asks the viewer to decide if the pursuit of truth and the pursuit of faith can be one of the same.

The films of the trilogy do not have to be seen in any particular order, and I recommend those that haven't seen them, to see them all.

Friday, May 05, 2006

A "Me" Weekend

Ok, I love this blog thing and I love writing for all you guys, but I have decided that, going forward, my blog will only be updated daily on weekdays. I would rather offer you guys 5 quality blogs than 7 mediocre ones. Also, I need the upcoming weekends to get ready for school and work on my novel. Yes, even before Vatsa's suggestion, I had started work on my own fiction novel. For those of you itching to know, it's about a south asian girl and her experience with a reality television show. I'm sorry, but those are the only details I can reveal so far. The outlining is basically done, so for the next couple weeks I'll be hiding out at various Barnes & Nobles, Paneras, and libraries to work on getting out the prose. Oh and studying for that damn GRE.

There has been a slight change of plans for my travel adventures this summer. Looks like India can't happen becuase of family conflicts, so my sister and I are following in Marina's footsteps and hoping to make it out to Costa Rica for a week or two before school starts. Right now I'm int he process of getting all my course waivers completed and sent out to the academic department. I hope to get out of AC 502, AC 522, and BE 502, but we'll see.

Weekend plans include heading out tonight in NYC to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, lots of writing and shopping, and then... watching Deepa Mehta's film, WATER, which finally was released in a theater near me. I can't wait. Other than tonight, I look forward to a fun weekend spending time with myself. I've vetoed all interruptions for Saturday night with the exception of one person... but then again, maybe I'll feel like vetoing him too!

New blogs next week, I promise! CIAO!

Life is all about ASS

You know if I get my hands on something like this, I have to post it. Sorry... I promise to resume writing tomorrow. Work is kicking my ass!
Feliz Cinco de Mayo!

Thursday, May 04, 2006

How Opal Mehta Screwed Up

While I did think the premise behind Kaavya Viswanathan's book, "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wile, and Got a Life", was a bit trite, I did have to give the current Harvard undergraduate props. Not many people can say that they had a $500,000 book deal at the tender age of 17. However, as I'm sure many of you have heard, it recently surfaced Viswanathan plagiarized many, many portions of it. I do question her editors for not catching this sooner. What a disappointment! I think she was clearly in the wrong, but I sort of buy her story. Viswanathan claimed that she read a particular novel so many times when she was little, she didn’t realize the passages she wrote, in some cases, were nearly verbatim from the book. Naturally, I think she'd lose her $500,000 book deal. I wonder if Harvard will take any action against her.

I remember back to my Composition classes at UCLA, when our professor asked us to write a short blurb about how we felt about "writing". I wrote, "It is a difficult and tedious process, which with I am at constant odds." For some reason, the prof didn't seem to think my work in class agreed with that statement, so I told her, "Prof, it really IS tedious and difficult, especially non-fiction or research writing. I first have to take notes, then outline, then write, then edit, then revise, then re-write, then revise, and so on and so forth." Her response, "But Cutie, what you are describing is the process of writing. And if that is your struggle, even the best writers out there can say there are at constant odds with their craft."

Development of a personal style in writing is difficult. Even with the most established writers out there, you can see a definite change between their early and later works. As MBA Cutie, I regularly draw upon the styles of various journalists, playwrights, screenwriters, and novelists whom I read and admire to get my thoughts across. I know there are some days that I do sound very "Carrie Bradshaw", and other times I probably sound a bit different. More recently, I've taken towards personal memoir writing for one main reason: it's an easy way to tell a story that is completely yours, in your own words, even if you are trying to mimic the style of someone else. When I write, I want my words to be mine, and that means no matter how much I love the words and characters constructed by Lucy Maud Montgomery, or the style, ideas, and story-telling of Cindy Chupak, I know better than to have any form of their manuscripts any where near me when I'm writing. Even if you don't mean too, it's all to easy to make someone else's words yours. And I wouldn't want someoene to do that to me, no matter how much they want to emmulate this Cutie.

Happy Writings to all my fellow bloggers, and to anyone else with the creative itch.

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

In Search of a Sugar Daddy, Part 5: The Death of a Crack-Whore

With no where to go, and the big, scary girls in hot pursuit, we had to think fast. Of course, we couldn't depend on CW to make any decisions. At this point, we were lucky those girls hadn't pulled a gun on us! Then, thinking back to my "how to escape a kidnapping" informational session days in elementary school, I told the girls to run across the street. If the big girls were smart, they would ditch their car and try to pursue us on foot, instead of trying to U-turn their SUV on a crowded Sunset Blvd. Naturally, they weren't that smart, and we started running in the opposite direction.

Then, we run right into this monstrous line of scantily clad, kind of gothy, women. We were right in front of the Viper Room! I knew what we had to do. If we kept running the street, those girls would find us, and our car was so far on the other end of the strip, we'd never make it in time. So I mustered up all my courage and went straight up to the big, black bouncer standing next to the "ins-and-outs" smoking door. (Alright, come on Cutie! You can do it!) I started out by making small talk with him, and eventually asking him where else he worked, etc. Then, I casually mentioned that the line tonight to get in was awfully long. He wanted to know how many of us there were. (BINGO!) So I said, "Oh four of us girls are out on the town tonight. One of my girlfriends is visiting from Houston." I called them over. Finally, he said, "You know girls, why don't you head on in. I wanna keep talking to you, but I gotta job to do. Why don't you come out again in a little bit?" OH THANK GOD! All four of us bee-lined into the Viper Room, chilled out there for about an hour, until we knew the other chicks had probably given up on looking for us. Then we left through another exit, rushed to our car, and went home.

A few days later, CW announced to us that she needed to fly back to Houston to get her car. She wanted to drive it back to California. We made her write us a rent check for next month, and she left. Oddly enough, we never saw her again. She called us once to tell us that she decided to stay in Houston instead and she wanted to get her rent money back, but we refused to give it to her. Supposedly, her lawyer would contact us, but they never did.

And that is the story of MBA Cutie and the Crack Whore.

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Rooftop Ramblings

I went out in Philly on Saturday night for the second time in my life. The first time, I think I wrote about it, was last November when I went with a group of friends to Denim. This time, I went to see one of my friends whom I wanted to spend some time with before I head off to Michigan. The evening started out great. He has the cutest apartment and a fabulous new computer and tv. In spite of feeling a bit "settled", he is very happy with his new belongings and living quarters. We had a few drinks and then headed out to the Continental Rooftop bar, which was PACKED! I had never been there before, and it was fun. The drinks were ok, but the crowd was really nice... so different than the usual banker/consultant types that would have found their way to a place like that in NYC. Everything went well, and then one of my friend's friend's arrived, so we all hung out. His friend's friend is a CPA too, so we even got to talk shop for a while.


I think I'll be staying far, far away from the drink for the next few weeks -- this weekend was more than enough of it. The thought of it just makes me sick.

Monday, May 01, 2006

In Search of a Sugar Daddy, Part 4: Cruisin' Down Sunset

Well we promised her, and we all finally had a free Friday night, so why not? We'll go to Laugh Factory and then maybe have some dessert at Le Petit Four and then come back. CW had totally different plans. She quickly vetoed Laugh Factory in favor of walking the strip to "see where we get in." We decked out into our club gear, making sure to be a little bit more revealing than normal (it WAS Sunset!), but any efforts we made were quickly negated. We may as well have been dressed like Grandma's when we saw what CW decided to wear. She stepped out of her room dressed in her painted on jeans (again!), and this odd top, that was basically just a long piece of glittery fabric that tied at the neck and covered her boobs. She was totally backless and baremidrift. Wow.

We get to Sunset around 10:30 and figure out where to park the car. Then, per CW's instructions, we were supposed to walk up and down the strip and try to grab the attention of as many bouncers as we could. Bouncers did pay attention, especially to CW, but those bouncers still wanted to check our IDs. ID's that would have clearly indicated that we were not yet twenty one. So we just continued walking up and down the strip, trying to ignore guys that called over to us, pulling CW away from a group of guys that told her to get into their Hummer, and still sizing up what clubs or bars may be lenient to our cause. Then, a group of girls called out "Hey girls!" to us from their souped up SUV. CW, in her conceited state, decided to respond to them with "Hey bitches!" That was the WRONG thing to do.

Now, let me tell you a bit more about these girls. When I say they souped up their SUV, I should clarify. Basically, they removed the wheels to their vehicle and replaced them with those of a monster truck. They were big girls: stocky, not exactly fat, but certainly sturdy girls, with hair dyed so that if it naturally should have been blonde, it was brown, and vice versa. Not one of them was attractive to us in any way, yet they clearly were interested in us. Angered from CW's response, the girls decided to pull over their SUV in the middle of Sunset Boulevard, right in front of Whiskey A Go-Go (obviously not caring that they were blocking all traffic in one direction), jump out of their car, run up to CW, get in her face and say "What did you just say? What did you just call us?"

CW, in her new found courage, responds back "I said 'hey bitches', can't y'all hear?" Oh GOD! Then the leader (and most grotesque girl) of the pack pushes CW. CW, a bit stunned and at loss on what to do, decides to lift up her hand and using her five inch nails, scratches this chick across her face. At that moment, the rest of us knew we couldn't hang around there anymore. We took off running, heels and all, down Sunset Blvd. When CW saw that all her friends had taken off, she started running after us. The big girls jump back into their SUV and start following us down the street. There was no way we could out run them if they were in their car, and our car was on the opposite end of the strip. Four underage girls running down Sunset being chased by that scary group of girls in an SUV -- we had no where to go.

Tomorrow, I'll be recapping my weekend adventures in Philly. The conclusion of "In Search of a Sugar Daddy" will be posted on Wednesday.