I'm on a boat...in Italy!!!

One of the best things about being in business school is getting e-mails with subjects like "do you want to go race a sail boat in Italy for the weekend?" and being able to respond with an emphatic "yes!!"

Sloan is full of opportunities and you never know what may come up next.  It turns out when you surround yourself with 406 globe-trotting students with adventurous tendencies, there are really no limits!  So it was that I found myself sitting at Logan Airport last Wednesday waiting to board a flight to Paris on the first leg of a journey that would take me to Santa Margherita, Italy to participate in the Rolex MBA Regatta.

It turns out that Rolex hosts a 3-day regatta every year off the coast of Italy between MBA students from around the world.  MIT has fielded a team for the last several years, but the first that I had heard about it was about 4 weeks before I boarded the plane.  Once I learned that sailing experience wasn't a prerequisite for the team (my sailing resume up to that point included a total of 4 outings on the 2-person MIT tech dinghy in the Charles), I jumped at the opportunity.

The journey from Boston to Santa Margherita included 2 planes, 3 trains, and 2 buses over the course of 18 hours with brief stops in Paris and Milan, but everything went smoothly along the way.  I arrived to the race site at about 3:00 on Thursday and met up with the rest of the MIT team (15 in total split between 2 boats).  The agenda was to race on Friday and Saturday with parties hosted by Rolex every evening.

Milan Central Train Station

Downtown Santa Margherita

Santa Margherita Harbor (Photo credit: Andrew Tran)

On the Docks

It felt wonderful to be back in Italy, and of course one of the first things we did was sit down to a wonderful meal on the harbor. 

On Thursday night we all attended a kick-off reception at a villa overlooking the town and had more Italian food, wine, and lots of fun.  It was also a great chance to meet team from the other schools, including Wharton, Tuck, Kellogg, Booth, Harvard, Columbia, and many more from throughout Europe, Hong Kong, and Brazil.  

After not much sleep, we woke up on Friday and were the first boat to head out of the harbor towards the race course.  It turns out that there were several of us on the boat with little or no sailing experience, but we were in luck in that we had an amazing skipper in Adam Traina (another LGO 15!).  He gave us all jobs (I was on the jib), and we set to work learning what the heck we were supposed to do.  We were so focused that we completely missed the start of the first race (whoops!).  By the time we got to the line, we were dead last.  But it turns out that we had a great boat and a crew with a steep learning curve, so we were able to catch a few teams and finish the race in 7th place.  Then we kept improving and placed 5th in the second race.  After we decided to call it a day, the race officials decided to do the same and we all headed back into port.

Hard at work (Photo Credit: Andrew Tran)

Friday night we all boarded a ferry to Portofino for some exploring before heading back to Santa Margherita for dinner and a party in the Rolex tent.  More eating, more drinking, more dancing, and not much sleep.  Fun times in Italy!

Portofino (Credit: Andrew Tran)

Fun times in the Rolex tent (Credit: Andrew Tran)

The next thing I knew, it was Saturday morning and we were heading out on the water for another day of racing.  This time though there was no wind and we had to wait for a couple hours before the racing could start.  So what did we do?  Rig up a rope swing from the mast of course!  Oh, and skipper Adam donned his full pirate suit!

Once the wind did pick up (barely), we set off racing.  We had a great start to the first race but quickly lost our wind and watched helplessly as other boats cut in front of us.  Then it was time for the last race of the day (and the regatta).  We started aggressively and kept a great line for the entire race.  We were first of the line and managed to hold our position for the entire time.  That's right, WE WON THE RACE!!!  We may have only been going 2 knots as we cruised across the finish line under light winds, but when the signaling cannon went off we were definitely the first ones to cross.  It was a fantastic way to finish the weekend of racing and the victory was promptly celebrated with a bottle of prosecco!  That finish was enough to launch us into 4th place overall for the best showing that MIT has ever had at the race.

Finishing the last race in 1st place!

Celebrating the finish

With the racing over, we were free to completely cut loose at the final and most over-the-top party of the whole trip.  We were all shuttled up to a castle high on the cliff and overlooking the Mediterranean to attend a conference and black-tie party that was personally hosted by the CEO of Rolex.  Words just can't describe what an epic time was had by the whole team!

The Sloan Crew (Credit: Andrew Tran)

Courtyard of the Castle (Credit: Andrew Tran)

Fun times with great friends (Credit: Andrew Tran)

Sadly, all great things must come to an end and so it was that I found myself retracing my route back to Boston on Sunday morning.  This time I had a couple extra hours in Milan so I took the chance to get downtown and see some of the sights.  After another hop across the Atlantic, I was back in Boston and ready to start another week of classes.  Looking back, this is probably the craziest weekend adventures that I have ever done but it was an absolutely incredible experience with great friends and lots of stories!  We're already plotting to recruit a team for the regatta next year :-)

Il Duomo in Milan

Reach the Beach!

LGO is all about teamwork and how to create, develop, and lead high-performing teams.  What better way to test this skill than to run a 205-mile overnight relay race with 9 of your classmates?  Well, that's exactly what we did this weekend!

It all started a few months ago when I got the crazy idea to to a Ragnar Relay in upstate New York.  I figured that this would be a great chance to find a team of 11 other co-conspirators who would join me.  Unfortunately, after assembling most of the team we discovered that there were some logistical issues with getting to the Adirondacks without missing some serious class time.  Luckily for us, there was a much-closer but equally-challenging relay: Reach the Beach.

Reach the Beach Course Map: Cannon Mountain to Hampton Beach

Here's how it works:

1. Assemble a team of 12 runners and come up with a team name
2. Rent 2 vans and pack them full of people, running gear, and lots of food
3. Run 205 miles by alternating runners through 36 legs (3 each) over the course of about 30 hours

In practice, it turned out to be a little more complicated than that.

1. One of the scarcest resources during LGO is time, so it's always a challenge to find people willing to sacrifice two days to do anything and even harder when that anything involves running double-digit distances in the middle of the night and sitting in a van for about 24 hours in a 34-hour period.  But then again, this is also an amazing group of students who are always willing to try something new.  So after a bit of recruiting, we were able to assemble a team of 12 to tackle the race.  Our team name started as the "LGO Bandits" aiming for a cops-and-robbers theme, but it morphed into the "Beaver Bandits" in honor of our MIT Mascot.  Unfortunately, some unforeseen circumstances came up last week and took our roster down to 9.  With some last-minute recruiting we got the count up to 10, but ended up having to head to the race down 2 runners.  Oh, and Weng Hong ended up crashing his bike 5 days before the race and may have bruised/broken a rib.  That man is an beast!  
2. The van logistics turned out to be fairly simple (other than the fact that one of the runners we lost at the last minute was renting one of the vans).  After some last-minute shuffling we ended up with 2 stylish Dodge Caravans for our journey.
3. Then it was time to run.  We headed up to Cannon Mountain early on Friday morning, arriving with plenty of time to check-in before our 12:00 noon start.  It had rained hard the night before, but as we approached Cannon the clouds began to part to sunny skies.  That was short-lived though, and soon we were all soaked to the bone while waiting for the race to start.

The runners were divided into the two vans, with the first 5 in one van and the remaining 5 in the other.  That meant that each van had a 3 - 4 hour break between each running set.  So after the first van started, those of us in the second van headed to the town of Lincoln to have some lunch (questionable Chinese food) and do what any 5 guys stuck in a minivan would do: go shopping!  It turns out that there's a Bass shoe outlet in Lincoln and what better way to replace soaked shoes than to get some stylish boat shoes for less than $20!
After our break, it was our turn to run at about 4:00pm.  The first van had a series of awesome runs and by the time it got to us our team was 30 minutes ahead of what we had predicted.  We kept the trend going with great first legs of everyone.  It took us a little time to figure out the logistics of transitions but before long we were transition masters.  Once I started running, I discovered that one of the key motivations was to pass other teams (called a "kill" in relay-speak).  Catching up to and passing people became my focus, and I ended up covering the 7.2 miles at a 7:20 pace with 12 kills.  We handed off to the first van again just before 9:00pm and had a little time to eat and nap.

The second leg for us was the night shift; starting at 12:30am and going till 5:30am, covering 35 miles between the 5 of us.  My leg started at 1:30am and covered 9 miles of rolling hills.  I was actually pleasantly surprised that I didn't feel sore from the first run and was able to push the pace and get more kills.  It didn't take long before I remembered how much I like running hills (something that Boston is missing for the most part), and before long I was racking up the kills.  Final stats were 8.98 miles, 7:34 pace, and 18 kills.  After everyone in our van had finished, we attempted to get some sleep but it was hard to come by.

Our third leg picked up at 10:00am and went through 2:00pm, covering 28 miles.  I was again surprised that my legs weren't feeling the previous runs but I was starting to run out of energy.  I was somehow able to rack up a record number of kills with 24 over the course of 8.6 miles at a 7:35 pace, but by the time I crossed the transition line I was completely spent.

Since we were covering the race with 10 runners instead of 12, 6 people had to run a 4th leg.  This drove the average distance to 20.5 miles but everyone did a spectacular job on their legs and we ended up heading into the finish almost two hours ahead of schedule.  Sunny took on the last leg and we all joined him for the final 100 yards of running on the sand.  In the end, we finished in 29 hours and 29 minutes, placing 200th out of 468 teams.  Not bad for a bunch of nerds from MIT :-).

But that's enough writing.  This race was all about the fun times that we had as a team, and the many adventures that we had along the way.  Thanks Cynthia, David, Adam, Sunny, Guadalupe, Ariel, Karl, Sean, and Weng Hong for an amazing experience!

Here are some shots that capture the fun...

Sean getting ready to start in the pouring rain

Eager Beavers getting ready to start the race

Boat Shoe Shopping Spree!

Studying the course - this was Leg #2 for me

For having ran 205 miles, I have very few shots of actually running.  Here's Cynthia coming into transition after her fourth and final leg!

We Reached the Beach!!!

Finish-line Celebration

Happy at the Beach :-)

Medals all around, well deserved by an amazing team.

Back to School...The Fall Lineup

We're back into the full swing of things here in Cambridge.  After a full week of Sloan Orientation (see Yalu's post here), we jumped right into the Fall selection of courses.  Steve also has a great post on the emotional impact of leaving the summer and jumping into the fall.

This is when the uniqueness of the LGO experience really come to light.  Although we are all getting MBA's and MS Engineering degrees, we seem to constantly find ourselves doing a delicate dance between the worlds of business and engineering.  Some general observations so far:

1. Sloan is incredibly diverse.  41% of the MBA class this year comes from outside the US and I'm really looking forward to hearing the unique perspectives from all over the world.  On my core team of 6 people, we cover the US, Russia, and Singapore.  In the larger cohort, there seems to be a lot of students from Latin America, Asia, and Eastern Europe.  We've already had some great discussions and cross-cultural talks and I look forward to many more throughout my time at Sloan.
2. Grocery Shopping is Overrated: If you get on enough club lists and cross-reference them with all the events in Sloan and the engineering colleges, there is essentially FREE FOOD available somewhere on campus at any given time, 7-days a week.  There is even technology available to point you towards the free food (i.e. the "vultures" e-mail list).  Out of the last two weeks, I think I've only cooked 2 or 3 dinners and packed 1 or 2 lunches.  Such is life as a graduate student!
3. I have no interest in being a straight-up MBA student.  We had our first "Career Core" session for the MBA program yesterday and there was absolutely no mention of manufacturing industries, which reflects the views of the class as a whole.  The top target industries were: 1) management consulting, 2) finance/banking, and 3) high-tech.  It was somewhat interesting to gain insight into those industries, but I maintain that my passion and career interest remains in actually building tangible things.
4. I have no interest in being a straight-up engineering student.  We've had several mixers with the various engineering departments in the last few weeks and I've gotten to know several of the MS and PhD graduate students.  The discussions always revolve around what research they are doing, how many years are left in their program (which is usually a lot), and how stressed they are about finding an adviser or prepping for the qualification exams.  This has made me realize that while I really do like engineering, I don't quite have the mindset to jump into a research-based graduate program for an unknown number of years.

The conclusion of all this is that LGO is definitely the program for me.  We are fortunate to experience the best of both worlds and  end up being able to carry on intelligent conversations with engineers and investment bankers alike.  This really is what sets the LGO program apart from any other program out there and I have absolutely no doubt that coming here was the right decision.  It's funny that the LGO lounge has become a clubhouse of sorts now, a place to reunite with our classmates from the summer and some of the 2014's who are back on campus.  It has definitely become a community.

With that said, my fall lineup of classes definitely shows the combination of management and engineering, with a few seminars thrown in for good measure:

• The MBA "Core Four":
• 15.010 (Economics): Case-based studies of econ, focused on management decision-making and general market understanding.  Having already taken econ, I'm looking forward to getting a different perspective in terms of how to use the data in business decisions.
• 15.515 (Financial Accounting): Focuses on the fundumentals of financial accounting, and spends time discussing cases and the trade-off between the many different options for accounting.
• 15.280 (Communication for Leaders): Although this is an independent class, it integrates heavily with 15.311 and the Sloan Career Development Office (CDO) to help us develop our communication skills.  From everything from impromptu Toastmaster-style presentations to formal project report-outs and self-reflection essays, it looks like this will definitely challenge us to work on our communication styles.
• 15.311 (Organizational Processes): An interesting course that dives into the dynamics of teams and organizations and looks at them through three distinct lenses (strategic, political, and cultural).  This class also involves our biggest project of the term, which entails finding a company in Boston undergoing a major change effort and analyzing their organizational dynamics.
• Engineering Electives:
• ESD.260 (Logistics Systems): All about supply chains, and the engineering and numerical work that goes into establishing and optimizing them.  This looks to be a high-paced and somewhat numerical class that covers a lot of topics that are familiar but I don't know much about (i.e. how does Starbucks get fresh bananas to every location in the world on a daily basis?).
• 16.71J (The Airline Industry): This is definitely my favorite class so far, and my first class from the Aero/Astro department.  I knew I had found the right place when I walked into the classroom and noticed a giant mural on one of the walls depicting a 767 in a high-rate climb out of some foreign airport.  The class is essentially a survey-level exploration of the airline industry, covering everything from route planning and revenue management to aviation safety and fleet selection (of course the answer to the last subject should always be: All Boeing!).  As our prof said on day 1, "This class won't teach you enough to run an airline, but you'll understand something about every aspect of the industry".  Sounds like fun!
• Seminars:
• 15.792 (Global Operations Seminar): This is the flagship LGO seminar in which a speaker comes in every week to discuss their business and a particular challenge that they have faced.  The lineup for the fall includes some great speakers from Nike, Apple, Amazon, and many more.  It is one of that many highlights of the LGO program and I'm definitely looking forward to some interesting presentations.
• 15.S25 (Leadership and Ethics Seminar): This is another mostly-LGO seminar, but focused specifically on issues around leadership and ethics in the industry.  Our instructor, LGO's own Vah Erdekian, is a veteran of the electronics industry and was most recently the senior VP of operations for Cisco.  He brings in some great speakers throughout the term, and supplements their presentations with additional wisdom from his own career.  This is another portion of the program that I am really looking forward to.

In case you're thinking "geez, that's a lot of classes", it is.  This is MIT, such is life!  It actually isn't too bad.  Essentially I have class/recitations on Monday - Thursday from 8:30 to 11:30 and  1:00 - 5:30, with any spare time filled in with group meetings or individual homework.  Then the evenings are filled with more reading and prep-work for the next day.  As I've said before, it's not that the work is hard; there's just a lot of it.  The key is to stay ahead of the curve but leave time for all the other adventures that Sloan and MIT offer.  More to come on that topic in a few weeks.

A departing pic...

Food!

Summer "Break"

Throughout the summer, I kept getting the same advice from the 2014's about what to do in the week between the Summer and Fall terms: RELAX.  Rent a house somewhere outside of Boston, catch up on sleep, and re-charge.  Well, this last week has proven once again that I am not very good at relaxing.  What started out with the best intentions of down-time ended up as a week packed full of activities and adventures spanning 4 states and 2 coasts.  It was a blast, but I think the 14s were on to something with the idea of making it into a true break.

It all started on Saturday morning, when I woke up early to meet up with the Cambridge Running Club for their weekly long-run.  I'm still getting used to being one of the shortest-distance and slowest-pace runners of the pack with a 12-mile loop at a "moderate" 7:50 pace, but it was fun as usual and very well supported.  After a quick shower, I linked up with Karl to head out to the airport to ride in the backseat of a Cessna 172 as he completed his check-ride for one of the local FBOs.  We flew a quick hop down to Rhode Island (State #2) before heading back to the airport for a couple touch-and-goes.  It was absolutely wonderful to get back in the air after a 3-year hiatus and I'm looking forward to more flying adventures in the Fall.

On Final Approach to the North Central State Airport in Rhode Island

Another quick turnaround at home found me heading to Logan Airport for the next adventure.  My "Mystery Trip" for Cynthia, which was a well-guarded secret until she guessed the destination a week before the trip, was to San Diego (State #3) to visit her good friends Shannon and Rebecca.  We took the new direct flight on Alaska from BOS to SAN and within 6 hours we were on the other side of the country.

The trip to San Diego was short (2.5 days), but packed with lots of fun times.  We spent a day at the beach, including my first experience surfing.  I got up long enough to get a picture but didn't last much longer than that.  Definitely something to work on next time I get a chance!  Then we had a great feast on the waterfront of Coronado Island looking towards downtown San Diego.  The next day we did a running tour of the city, including Little Italy, the various parks along the waterfront, and the gas lamp district.  Shannon works at the Museum of Natural History in Balboa Park, so we spent some time walking around the park and exploring all the neat things that there are to see.  Then we had a wonderful feast of Mexican food before crashing for the night and heading back to Boston in the morning.

Ok, so maybe there was some relaxation to be had this last week!

Freeze-frame that looks like I'm actually surfing!

Balboa Park in San Diego

We got back to Boston in time to meet up with my mom, who had flown up in the middle of a visit to my brother in Maryland to explore Boston for a few days.  Over the course of two days, we managed to cover the entire Freedom Trail, including a tour of Paul Reveere's House, the USS Constitution, and climbing the Bunker Hill monument.  There was also time for exploring the MIT campus and eating some wonderful food around town.

We finally got the "Classic MIT Shot" in front of the dome

USS Constitution ("Old Iron-side")

Faneuil Hall (Along the Freedom Trail)

Friday was spent getting organized for the fall semester, including ordering course packs and looking at textbooks (though I'm waiting to buy those until the first week of class when I can figure out which one's are actually necessary).  I also may have purchased a new toy in the form of a Samsung Galaxy Note tablet.  After the massive paper pile-up last semester, my goal is to use the tablet for case study readings this Fall instead.  I'm still figuring out how to use the tablet, but it looks promising.

To round off the break, we filled the last weekend with a 10-mile hike in the White Mountains of New Hampshire (State #4) to cover our 4th and 5th of the 48 4,000ft+ peaks (Flume and Liberty).  Then yesterday we headed to Salisbury Beach in northern MA for some more surfing and exploring.

On top of Mt. Liberty, NH

It's been a busy week for sure, but it definitely fit my mantra of "Work Hard, Play Hard".  Perhaps the 14s were on to something when they recommended a week of relaxation, but I've had a blast and wouldn't really change anything if I could do it over again.  Next up is the Sloan MBA orientation this week followed by Fall classes starting after Labor Day.  Back to work!

That's a Wrap!

With an unceremonious click of a mouse, our summer term of LGO has come to an end.  That click was the last step in submitting the last of 6 papers that were due this week and it was somewhat anti-climactic considering everything that we have done over the last 11 weeks.  The truth is, we've been celebrating the term for a couple days now, but this paper was the last hurdle before the true break could begin.

The entirety of our LGO learning can be summed up by the 13" tall stack of papers sitting on my coffee table at home.  That is all the readings, case studies, P-sets, and papers that we've reviewed / created over the last 11 weeks that I haven't had any time to sort or make any semblance of order.  It's truly hard to believe that we covered all of that information since the beginning of June, but that's exactly what we did.  Yes, it was  lot of work and yes, there were a few times during the summer where sleep was sacrificed to get assignments done and some of us wondered if we'd make it to the end, but the truth is that it was an incredible experience and I wouldn't trade it for the world.  We now have a week off to reset (we're heading to an as-yet undisclosed mystery trip!), and then it will be time to jump into the Sloan orientation and the Fall courses of MBA core.

Of course, just because we've been working like crazy at school doesn't mean we haven't had a lot of fun times.  Here are some highlights:

Perfect weather to walk along the Charles, on our way to dinner in Back Bay.

Final Statistics project: dropping paper helicopters from the 3rd-floor stairwell.

LGO end-of-summer celebration BBQ

The emptiest that I've ever seen the LGO lounge (5:30pm on the last day of classes)

What do we do after the last day of class?  Mini golf and drinks in the Sloan lobby of course!  Here's the Boeing contingent up to no good.

Like kids in a candy store: LGOs visit the Verizon Wireless Innovation Center in Waltham, where they develop all the latest gadgets utilizing 4G LTE technology. 

After a 3-year hiatus, I finally made it back into the air thanks to my classmate Karl Kulling.  He was getting a check-ride to stay current, so I hopped into the back of this beautiful 2006 Skyhawk (complete with a G1000 flat-panel cockpit!).  More pictures to come soon.

Fun Summer Diversions

It's been another series of busy weeks!  As I look back at my previous posts, there seems to be an ominous pattern of decreasing frequency.  Once a week, then once every-other week, now a span of three weeks.  I can only attribute this to having such an amazing time in the LGO program and packing my hours with so many fun things that I haven't had much time to post here.  A quick catch-up...

Several of my classmates have posted fantastic articles about summer classes and recent activities, so I won't spend any time repeating it here.  We're two weeks away from the end of the summer term and I'm having mixed feelings: on one hand, very excited to have a week off before MBA orientation starts, but on the other hand sad to be closing out the summer here at LGO that has been so much fun.  Our class has grown into a strong community over the last two months and we have had some good times together.

At the beginning of the summer, my team set a goal of leaving weekends open for fun or individual coursework.  We've since discovered that that goal was a little ambitious, and have been getting together on Sundays to work on some group assignments and to get ready for the upcoming week.  That still leaves Saturdays open though, so we've been taking full advantage of the chance to get out and about.  Here are just a few highlights from the last few weeks...

Karaoke
I'm happy to report that the LGO tradition of Karaoke Thursdays at the Thirsty Ear pub is alive-and-well!  We've had a pretty consistent showing over the last several weeks and have had fun getting to see a different side of our classmates (and occasionally professors!). 

[SIDE NOTE: Just about a month ago Cynthia Lin and I became the first "LGO 2015 Couple" and since then have been having a wonderful time together.  The rest of this blog will make a lot more sense with knowledge of that fact :-)]

Rock Climbing
Cynthia is a big climber and has been itching to get to one of the climbing gyms in the area.  Last Friday we rented a car for the weekend and finally had a chance to make it to MetroRock.  It's been about 8 years since I climbed last and I was definitely rusty (and quite sore the next day), but it was a lot of fun to try something different.  There's also a new climbing gym in town, Brooklyn Boulders, that we've been trying fruitlessly to find time to visit.  Someday...

MetroRock Climbing Gym

Fishing / Lobstering in Maine
Last Saturday we headed to Maine with Cynthia's sister and parents (who were visiting from MD), with the intent of fishing on the Atlantic.  They had arranged for a charter boat to take us out from Wells, ME in search of striper fish.  But before we could fish for the stripers, we had to catch a bunch of mackerel for bait.  So we spent about an hour trolling around catching mackerel after mackerel (sometimes 3 on the same line!).  Feeling confident in our abilities, we headed out to seek the larger stripers.  What had started out as optimism soon faded as we managed a few bites and one broken line but couldn't manage to reel anything in.  As a consolation prize, our skipper offered to pull his lobster traps and split any of the catch up between us.  So we went out and pulled 6 traps and found 5 keepers.  Before heading home, we stopped at a local lobster shack to eat some of the local fare...complete with the outrageous lobster bib!

Cynthia and her Lobster (plus an awesome sister photo-bomb)

Tourist Shot

First Red Sox Game
The Sloan School organized an outing to a Red Sox game last week, so I finally had a chance to experience a game at Fenway Park.  Unfortunately,  they were playing the Mariners!  So yes, I was that annoying out-of-towner cheering for the visiting team amongst a throng of Red Sox fans.  What looked to be a cake-walk win by the Mariners (7-1 heading into the 8th inning) soon turned into one of the most exciting baseball games I've witnessed.  Through a combination of bullpen confusion by the Mariners and an incredible rally by the Sox, Boston ended up pulling off an improbable 8-7 victory.  Not the result that I wanted, but it was an fun game with a great group.

A Night at Fenway

LGOers celebrate an improbable Red Sox comeback
(while fellow Northwester Dan and I wonder what the heck happened)

Building a House
This weekend we chose something a little different for our off-day: building a house for Habitat for Humanity.  12 LGOers and SOs headed up to Danvers for a day of shoveling, flooring, painting, and drilling giant holes through concrete walls (Nicely done Ammar!).  More info here.

LGO at Habitat for Humanity (Photo Credit: Ammar Asfour)

Running
With the busy class schedule and so many diversions, it's been a little hard to get into a regular running routine, but I took a big step (or stride?) a few weeks ago by joining the Cambridge Running Club.  It's a great group of very good runners, and one of the first times I've been towards of the back of the pack while running 6-to-7-minute miles.  They push me every week, and their twice-weekly organized workouts have been keeping me motivated.  Every Saturday morning they host a long run from Cambridge, including fully stocked water stations and a post-run feast.  Now that's my kind of running!

CRC "Magnificent Seven" during a recent club relay race / BBQ

Cooking
As a nice diversion during the weekdays, we've been having fun cooking some wonderful meals (and making lots of left-overs).  It's a nice excuse to learn some new recipes and eat some great-tasting and (mostly) nutritious food...

From-scratch lasagna with stir-fried eggplant and roasted brussel sprouts

Chicken piccata with bell peppers and noodles

French Toast + Bacon = Happy Sunday Morning :-)