Application Avalanches and Carrot Cake Throwdowns!

The GSE Admissions office is rather a mad house right now! Ann and LaToya are processing applications like crazy people, and the work study students have been alphabetizing until their eyes go crazy from the strain. I've only been given the "alpha file" job a few times, but it's ever amusing to me that after not much time, I start forgetting whether "I" comes before or after "J" and "K"...oh goodness.

As the applications pile in, so do the campus visit requests! I had quite a time trying to secure tour guides for the 5 million people who decided that this Friday would be the perfect day to come and visit! This isn't to say that I'm not overjoyed about having so many lovely potential applicants to visit...it's just that next week is spring break and there aren't many current students around by late afternoon on the Friday before it begins!

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is this: GSE is increeeedibly busy!

Outside of work, there's the lovely matter of class, which tonight means Public Speaking! This evening's assignment is to give a 4-minute speech using a visual aid (a powerpoint presentation). As we're allowed to speak on whatever we want, I plan on advertising for a certain fabulous restaurant by the name of Francoluigi's High Note Cafe! I know you all wish you could come and watch this incredible presentation, but I'll just save you the trouble and tell you that you should come and eat at the restaurant...and request Sarah as your server! I'm interested to see how I do with a powerpoint presentation behind me...one of the tips we've been given is to use powerpoints to help our audience--not so much ourselves. What I take this to mean is more pictures and less uninteresting data (the interesting stuff can stay!). We'll see what happens!

Perhaps the most exciting event of today so far was the official designation of a date for the Carrot Cake Throwdown. What is this "Carrot Cake Throwdown," you ask? Well. My friend Tom K., who also works on the second floor of GSE, asserted recently that his wife makes the world's best carrot cake. Clearly, I had to retaliate and tell Tom about my carrot cake, which is supernaturally good. I really think people might eat it for dessert in heaven. Since neither Tom nor I was willing to claim inferiority, we decided that a Carrot Cake Throwdown was in order. Today, we decided on March 30th for someone's (my!) day of victory! We'll be hosting a number of celebrity judges (important GSE faculty, some admissions employees, members of the deans office staff and communications staff, and a few students) and the judging will be blind so that no one can claim favoritism. It will be a day to remember...
I will obviously post once the results have been counted. Watch out, world!



Stay tuned!