Work and Exam Results

I started my Summer Internship a week ago Monday. Overall I like it. It's a long way from our apartment, so that's not ideal. But it's in the same direction as Justin's work, so we've been carpooling. I really like this. Even though we don't get home until 6 pm, I feel like I'm home at 5:25 when I meet Justin because that's when I get to chat and relax. But it would be nice if work wasn't as far.

The company I'm working for does price consulting. Even though I've had some boring moments of staring at screens full of data, at least the data is meaningful. For example, I've been looking at a table of dates, prices, quantity sold, and promotional info, trying to determine how much a certain promotion (price reduction, newspaper flyer, grocery store display, etc.) affected sales of an item such as chewing gum. After studying economic theory for a year, it's neat to be able to sit down in front of a bunch of real world data and see how it works.

Speaking of studying for a year... Friday before last, June 4, I took my last qualifying exam. We were told to expect results in 1-2 weeks. I'd heard that last year results were out 10 days after the exams, so on Monday (June 14, 10 days after my last exam) I was anxiously checking my school email all day. Nothing. Same thing yesterday. Still nothing. Again today I was disappointed time and time again as I looked at my email account. As I was getting ready to leave work today I gave it one last check... RESULTS!!!!! I had hoped to be able to tell how I did based on the subject of the email, but the subject was ambiguous: "Results of the Qualifying Exams." Nervously I opened the email. The text read, "Please click the attachment to view the results of your qualifying exams." I clicked the attachment, heart pounding. It opened up a zip file with 2 word documents. I clicked the first one. After about 30 seconds of nervous waiting, my computer spit out a message the this document wasn't compatible with my version of Microsoft Word (I've been using the boss's old computer). I tried the second document... [drumroll]... I PASSED! ALL 3 QUALIFIERS!!! NO RETAKES!!! I'm so relieved.

On the way home, Justin proposed that we go out to eat to celebrate. We went to Two Rows, which is pretty much across the street from our apt. They have $1 beers on Wednesdays! We enjoyed a relaxing meal of burgers, fries and beer, and Justin ordered me a surprise ice cream sundae cake. YUM!