Hotelie-On-the-Go

All of my years at Cornell have led up to this moment:  I am officially a Cornell alumnus! Now that I’m past graduation weekend, I cannot really accurately describe the feeling — sort of a mixture of pride, anticipation, sadness, and excitement rolled up into one frazzled little ball of emotion.  Coming out of senior week and graduation, I can honestly say that the end of this semester was one of the craziest yet — and for good reason.

As many of you know, graduation was this past Sunday — May 29th — and we started off on the Arts Quad, gathered by schools, to march as one big moving Class of 2011 mosh pit to Schoellkopf Stadium to start at 11am.  Aside from just killing time with Hotelies (which you can see in pictures below), the heat was unrelenting.  It had to have been around 90 degrees for the majority of the day, and with that black graduation robe and fancy dress-up clothes under it, I was sweating like I was a literally being cooked alive.  Yay Ithaca (again!)!

Heading over to the stadium — in our graduation attire, marching as almost-alums — was a surreal experience unlike any other, which I honestly wasn’t expecting.  Along the entire way, there were professors, staff, students, families, etc., all clapping for us, and that was the first time I think it really sunk in — like, “wow, I’m really ending this thing soon, aren’t I?”  And just realizing all of the people I’d met over the years — the hundreds of close friends, familiar faces, and relived experiences, all passing by in a matter of minutes on that simple stroll to Schoellkopf.  Amazing.

After Skorton gave us the nice “go-ahead” for our diplomas — which, by the way, the Hotelies were by far the loudest at, of course — we headed straight over to Barton for the Hotelie-only ceremony where we walked to get our diplomas.  This was probably my favorite part of the day because let’s face it:  I spent the entirety of my four years here with Hotelies, and I thought it was very fitting to go out that way as well.  Meeting my family after hearing Dean Carvell say “Evan Carr, with distinction!” as I walked across to shake Dean Johnson’s hand was a fulfilling, yet oddly sinking few seconds; you realize that you have finally defeated Cornell, but when you walk past that last handshake, you’re into “adulthood” (whatever that means), and you’re losing that warm-and-fuzzy Big Red security blanket.

So that’s the bulk of it — after that, my brother, mother, and father joined me for an afternoon graduation reception at Llenroc for the seniors, which was a great way to unwind before dinner at Rulloff’s.  And that’s that.  That’s that.

You know, the aura around Cornell is something that is truly unique and unbelievable.   After graduating high school, I never thought that I would meet such a fascinating compilation of individuals, an incessantly brilliant faculty (across many different schools, not just the Hotel School), and a culture that mixes fun and eccentric better than any other college campus in America.  With life on the hill, you can always write about what’s happening — but you will never encapsulate the full experience unless you are here.  Connections — with the people, with the campus, and with the history — are what make Cornell so tremendously rewarding and satisfying.

With this being my final post, I feel it is necessary and appropriate to thank those people that made my Cornell experience one that is so difficult for me to walk away from.  First and foremost, my family:  My brother, Ryan, for adding levity to any situation and being the seed of competition and support that pushed me far past any boundary that I thought contained me.  My mother, JoAnna, for being the unrelenting optimist that saw the positive in anything.  And my father, Jeffery, for giving me stability and practical advice whenever I sought it.  Also, I have to thank all of my brothers in the Delta Phi (Llenroc) fraternity for an incredible past few years:  The Llenroc experiences that I will remember — far past my graduation on Sunday — are some of the fondest that I’m sure I will ever have.  You are all great friends and great people, and I’m already looking forward to returning to the house to have a casual conversation and a cold beer with all of you on the roof of Llenroc.

Moreover, how can I forget Hotelies!  Now that I’m pursuing an Experimental Psych PhD at UC San Diego, I often get questions like, “why were you a Hotelie?” and “didn’t you wish you switched?”  I’d be lying if I said that I was certain that I was in the right place throughout my whole time here.  In fact, at certain points, I was one signature away from leaving my Hotelie status for something else.  But looking back on it, the Hotel School is what exposed me to psychology through business, what motivated me to pursue how my business interests related to other fields, and what allowed me access to so many great friends and faculty.  So in short, I couldn’t be happier with how things worked out, and I wouldn’t change a thing.  Just goes to show that the Cornell doors really can fly open anywhere — you just have to be the one to turn the knob.

And last but certainly not least, thank you to Lisa for letting me have this blog for my years here at Cornell.  Having a voice on campus has been incredibly valuable for me, and I’m so happy that I have a chronicle that I can look back on now that I’m leaving — the ups and the downs.  You were an amazing mentor and an overall fun person to be around.  Please keep in touch.

With that, I leave you with one final piece of advice:  Cherish the friends and the social experiences that you will have at Cornell.  The academic pedigree of Cornell is what you come for at the start, but I guarantee that you will leave here with much more than a diploma.  You will have friends that make you laugh, pictures that make you cry, and thoughts that fill your heart  with joy.  So if you’re depressed about all of the studying or get a bad grade on a prelim, realize it’s not a big deal in the overall picture of your college experience.  Realize, instead, that even though your time on the hill may be limited, the positive memories that you will build and carry with you can (and should) be timeless.

Goodbye and good luck, Cornell.  I loved every second of it.

~ Evan

Well, here it is:  Hauled up in Olin Library since 7:30pm tonight — and goin’ to be ’til they kick me out at 2am — studying for the last final exam of my Cornell undergrad career (tomorrow).  I’ve had a hellish finals schedule (4 finals and 3 papers), so having the end in sight is still bittersweet, but maybe a little more on the sweet side.

Between Slope Day, my last Llenroc formal, Hotelie Prom, etc., I’ve been reminded over and over again about why I love this place — and how it’s going to be so bizarre when I don’t have to return in the fall and head off to UC San Diego instead.  I started out on the hill like so many other Cornell freshmen — bright-eyed, jittery, dorky to the nth degree, while treating the difference between an “A-” and an “A” as if it was going to determine every other subsequent success or failure in my life.  With all of my senior reflections, it’s difficult to say that my grades mattered that much; aside from getting me into a PhD program (which I’m no doubt extremely thankful for, of course), I’m not going to remember the Cornell academics.  Not going to remember my psychopathology prelim, my GPA from spring of sophomore year, my stress over all of my TA’ing, or my group paper for marketing that wasn’t quite as good as it could’ve been.  No, I’ll remember my senior speech on the stairs of Llenroc — saying my parting words to the best friends I’ve made here.  I’ll remember spring of my sophomore year for pledging and all of the inherently crazy stories that go along with it.  I’ll remember the open parties, the concerts in Barton, the conversations with Hotelies at Mac’s, the drunken stumbles to Ruloff’s on the weekend, my 4 Slope Days (that which I can piece together, I mean), late night trips to Nasties, and sitting on the roof of Llenroc with a beer.  I’ll remember the laughs and the cries — many of which have been this past semester.

Cornell has a wealth of opportunity that is unparalleled — both intellectually and interpersonally.  And I will debate anyone that those that don’t take advantage of the latter are missing out on way more than those that skip over the former.

I will, most certainly, have one more post — post-graduation and Senior Week — but as a seed of advice before I give my parting words, underclassmen should take these words and hang onto them:  The memories you have will not be for academics when you leave here — they will be for the friends and the good times you had.  So have as many as possible.  You will more than a few chances.

One more update to come.  Stay tuned, people.

-Ec

Good Riddance (Time of My Life) by Green Day …

Another turning point;
a fork stuck in the road.

Time grabs you by the wrist;
directs you where to go.

So make the best of this test
and don’t ask why.

It’s not a question
but a lesson learned in time.

It’s something unpredictable
but in the end it’s right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

So take the photographs
and still frames in your mind.

Hang it on a shelf
In good health and good time.

Tattoos of memories
and dead skin on trial.

For what it’s worth,
it was worth all the while.

It’s something unpredictable
but in the end it’s right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

(music break)

It’s something unpredictable
but in the end it’s right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

It’s something unpredictable
but in the end it’s right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

So this is a little overdue (and I do realize that I should be doing a nostalgic, poignant, “I can’t believe I just finished my last final of the semester”-type post) but I needed to write something about the Cornell Hotel School’s most recent foray into the mainstream media.

Mark Talbert is a professor in the IT/IS Department at the Hotel School, and he is the one that teaches the famed Friday lectures for HADM 1174 — Business Computing (basically another freshmen core course at the Hotel School that makes you want to cry in misery almost weekly).  If you haven’t been privy to this story already, during one of these lectures, Talbert apparently heard one of the students in an “overly loud yawn” that just sent him into one of the most famous tizzies that Cornell has ever seen.  And just in case you haven’t come across the now-famous YouTube video, here you go:  Cornell Professor Outbursts at a Student’s ‘Overly Loud’ Yawn.

Long story short, this thing spread like gangbusters.  First, it was around the Hotel School, then YouTube, then local news, and then, SOMEHOW, this ridiculous thing hit national news because we apparently don’t have anything more important to report on the U.S. national news than professors’ in-class tantrums (if you don’t believe me, here you go … again:  Professor Goes Nuts After Student Yawns).  My god, there’s even T-SHIRTS now!  Seriously?

And if you couldn’t tell from my subtleties already, I think this is pretty funny.  I mean, how does a friggin’ YAWN cause this much national commotion?  Sure:  He lost his mind in class.  And yeah, it was about a yawn.  Kinda funny.  But holy crap, is this really national news worthy?  I would even throw my support behind Talbert because let’s be honest:  We’re all tired in lectures.  I don’t think that I would be exaggerating to say that upwards of 95% of Cornell kids are extremely sleep-deprived — just a couple days ago, I walked right into a light-post on College Ave. while drinking my 24oz. CTB coffee because my eyelids felt like led blankets.  So making a theatrical event out of your yawn in the middle of lecture is unnecessary.  And rude.  Yawning isn’t like sneezing; it’s not like you have no control and just have to let loose that second on everyone around you.  Do one of those covert “silent” yawns like everyone else does, and shut up.

Cornell seems to be supporting Talbert as well, which I think is encouraging at least.  I think this has been dying down, but the whole trajectory of it was just insane to watch.

Anyways:  One of those end-of-semester posts to come.   Stay tuned

Holy crap this semester is going by fast! I can’t believe I’m over halfway done with it already; I ain’t quite out of the woods yet for now though. I still got a lot on my plate: just finished a finance prelim last night (let’s not discuss that anymore :/ …), have some RA programs coming up, Cornell Daily Sun articles as always, events for the frat, and my last 2 prelims of the semester ’til finals (!!!) in a week or so. I see the light at the end of the fall 2009 tunnel, and it’s becoming more and more enticing everyday.

Aside from that, a couple personal updates: I finally found a couple classes that I liked this past semester — Business Law and Marketing Research. My interest in law has been a long time coming — between almost transferring to ILR, thinking about marketing for a while, procrastinating about life, etc. — and the law material just gels with my other  interests. I’m still interested in marketing, but I’m taking the required Hotel School law course right now (HADM 3387), and it’s the first core course I think I’ve taken in the school where I actually look forward to the material. What I’ll end up doing with it is a very good question (but law school may be a very viable option at this point).

And, with that, I think I’ll be taking some more law (and marketing) courses  since I seem to be pretty good at it.  Yup, it should be a very interesting spring, as I will probably only be taking one required course in the Hotel School — which will be Restaurant Management (HADM 3305. I’ve heard mixed reviews.). But I’m in my CourseEnroll mindset right now, and for any faithful Cornellians that are reading, take a gander at my spring 2010 schedule as it stands right now: maybe I’ll see you in class!

• HADM 3305: Restaurant Management
• HADM 3385: Business Law I
• HADM 3386: Insurance and Risk Management
• HADM 4417: Hospitality Leadership
• HADM 4481: Labor Relations in the Hospitality Industry

Looking over my previous posts, I can’t believe that I haven’t talked more about being a Resident Advisor on North Campus; it takes up so much time and is such a big part of my Cornell life here in the Ithaca tundra, that I think it would be somewhat of a travesty if I didn’t talk about my floor a little.

With classes winding down, nostalgia is already starting to creep up on me as I see the freshmen packing up their things with their last finals of the year lurking around the corner.  I’ve been privileged to lord over the kingdom of 4th floor in Court Hall — lovingly called Balls Hall since the floor is the only all-dude floor on campus (Balch Hall is all girls … so Balls Hall — get it?).  Definitely been some crazy times on my floor, and I actually pledged Delta Phi with one of my own residents on 4-Court, along with 4 others that live in other parts of Court-Kay-Bauer.  Talk about reliving the freshmen experience (probably a little more than I wanted =D).

Anyways, my floor is ….. um ….. unique in every sense of the word.  Not overly involved or adventurous or suave in any shape or form, but most certainly one of the most loyal and united group of kids I’ve ever seen.  The culture of Balls Hall (aside from the smell of nasty feet and chicken wings — I guess that’s a bonus =/ ) is something all it’s own, and I will miss it next year.

So here’s to the guys on Balls Hall.  Thanks for the great times — you always could make me laugh.

(And thank you again Rishi for that horrible attempt at a finger mustache in the picture =P)

This semester — even though it’s a little bit more rare for a sophomore — I decided to start pledging a fraternity on campus.  Delta Phi (commonly called Llenroc around Cornell) is a great organization with some really great guys.  The one thing that amazed me about the frat was how involved all of the brothers seem to be in different parts of the Cornell campus:  Student Assembly, Cornell Daily Sun, theatre performance, sports, business clubs, etc. etc.  With a pledge class of 22 guys, it should be a lotta fun as I (hopefully) hit the home-stretch of pledging in a few weeks.

On that note, I’ve definitely learned a couple things about what to do and what not to do with pledging; soooooooo, for all the people that are thinking about pledging, here are some tidbits of advice:

• Be okay with not knowing where your life is going:  This was probably one of the most difficult aspects of it for me; a lot of times, things come up at the last minute, schedules change, responsibilities shift, etc.  You need to be fine with (or at least learn how to become fine with) not having every part of every day planned out.

• Front-load your work:  Kind of an offshoot of the first one, but you need to get your work done whenever you have time.  Like I said, your schedule might (and often will) change without you foreseeing it, so make sure you leave time to get your life sorted out academically first.

• Don’t take yourself too seriously:  Pledging is supposed to be fun believe it or not, despite all the nasty stigmas that it holds.  Pledging is stressful — definitely stressful — but it’ll go much smoother if you learn to laugh about things.  Treat pledging as almost like a 4-credit class that you should carve out time for, and hopefully, that will help you enjoy the process more.

• Don’t put on a show:  As cliche as it may sound, pledging almost forces you to be yourself.  You spend a lot of time with the members of the fraternity and your pledge class, so you might as well just be yourself and make friends that way.  If you made the right choice as far as what frat to pledge, you’ll mesh with the crowd just fine.

So I’ve had quite a while now to lounge and relax in recovery from this past semester; the rest was very necessary, and I still can’t get off the shnide of sleeping for a modest 11 hours a day.  Motivation and productivity definitely take a back seat over my winter breaks.

Reflecting back, I think that this past semester was one of the most important of my college career thus far.  Like 99% of kids that come to college, my interests are slowly (but surely) shifting and changing as I take more and more classes in the Hotel School.  Hospitality has always been interesting to me — especially health-related aspects of it — and this semester really tested what I was willing to go through to continue with the coveted “Hotelie” title.

Basically, what I thought I would find interesting, I didn’t.  Thought I would love Culinary — nope.  Was sure I would enjoy Development and Planning — worst class ever.  Managerial Accounting — ick … and so on.  None of my classes were interesting this semester, and I thought the teaching, class structure, etc. paled in comparison to other Hotel classes I’ve already taken.  Things seemed to be going downhill quickly.
The negative feelings I had for almost all of my classes were so strong that I thought seriously about pursuing other interests I have in government and law by transferring to a different school within Cornell — specifically, the School of Industrial and Labor Relations (usually called ILR around campus).  The price tag would’ve been half what I’m paying now for the Hotel School, since ILR is a contract college, and I’m a New York state resident.  Good reputation, good price, interesting ILR classes — what could go wrong?

Well, ILR didn’t feel right.  Once you get indoctrinated into the “Hotelie” way of life, you get to know the people.  You get to know the culture.  You get to know the professors.  And it’s hard to leave somewhere that feels like home.

The Hotel School is smaller than my high school was.  There are only about 200 kids in my class at the Hotel School, and I like to think that I’m good friends with a large portion of them.  People often get caught up in what direction they should be taking, which is exactly what I was doing with my thoughts of going to ILR;  I became too worried with a few boring classes and lost sight of why I came to the Hotel School in the first place.

A couple weeks ago, a friend of mine left me a FaceBook comment after I made my decision to stay in the Hotel School, saying, “So you chose passion over practicality, huh?”

Well ….. yeah.  Restaurants, health resorts, business — I like that stuff.  That’s why I came here.  ILR may be a flexible, reputable, and an even equally interesting degree, but it won’t get me to where I want to go (and I still like Hotelies better than everyone else =D).

So, in short, passion won.  Passion should always win.

So, I made it through the last couple of weeks — they were pretty rough work-wise with group projects, readings, interviews, and such; but, now that I’m through it, I was able to actually go out and have some fun on a Friday night.  And this past Friday was Halloween!  How convenient =D

Since I got here as a freshman, I’ve noticed many mistakes that myself and others have made on the Cornell party scene — especially frat parties, because honestly, that is the Cornell party scene.  So I figured I’d put together a little list of  tidbits that you prospective students should definitely know about Cornell frat parties:

1.  Don’t argue with bouncers:  Let’s be honest — they have a terrible job; they have to corral drunk college kids late at night in the cold for hours on end.  Combine that with the fact that many of them are like 300 pounds with huge mustaches, and they are downright scary human beings.  Anyway, if they say the party is closed, don’t argue.  Pleeeeaaase don’t argue.  Your body will thank you.

2.  Don’t use the bathrooms:  Unless it’s an emergency, steer clear.  After a night of flashing lights, drinks everywhere, and the overall amalgamation of sweat, heat, etc., that bathroom is like a war-zone.  You will find some interesting things in there from time to time.  Definitely not good, sanitary, or pleasing in any way …. but definitely interesting.

3.  Don’t drink too much too quick:  Especially at frat parties.  You all know the spiel about responsible drinking, but going shot for shot with a frat brother always spells sickness/hangover (and hopefully not worse).

4.  Don’t stray from the pack:  Usually you go with friends.  Stay with those friends.  If you get separated from the pack, not only do you really not have anyone to tour around with, but you also just feel like an outsider lounging around by yourself.  In simple terms, stay with who you came with.

5.  Don’t wear something you really like:  Probably one people really don’t think about because, hey, I want to look good when I go out, right?  Well, yeah.  But just realize you have like a 99% chance of getting something spilled on you — aka. beer, wine (doesn’t come out … ever), etc. — and that new, pearly-white American Eagle shirt you just bought will look like it was at D-Day when you get out of there.

Many of you probably don’t know this, but newbies to the Hotel School are actually mailed a little sheet with survival tips for being at the Hotel School — “Tips for New Hotelies: Or, The Things We Wish We Knew Then.” Yes, not only have the jokes on campus led to some periodic frustration (and occasional therapy I’m sure), but we now have to have a tip sheet: a few of my favorites are …

–The jokes about Hotelies don’t go away, so develop a tolerance and learn to laugh. At the top of the list at number 1 and definitely deserves it’s place there; I know I have to be a little biased considering I’m a Hotelie, but I’m guilty of this more than anyone else — The jokes get old … quick. They always seem to come rapid-fire when you have 3 prelims that week, you’re stressed out about two group projects that are coming up, and you also have to handle job interviews in the midst of it all — a lot of times when Hotelies hear the popular (and unoriginal, so if you say this, try to at least be a little creative please) “All you Hotelies do is bake cookies!” we just want to throw our chef’s hat on the floor and tackle them like Urlacher in the 4th quarter.

The thing is that other students in other colleges hear about the two or three “strange” courses that we have like Culinary, Hotel Ops, and Food Ops to name a few — even though these courses aren’t easy, they have a reputation for being so. But, this is only 8 credits out of a total of minimum 81 hotel credits we have to take. Other courses (to name a few) include: Development and Planning, Microeconomics for Service Industry, Intro to IS Management, Finance, Microcomputing, Business Law, Marketing, and Strategic Management. Sound a little harder now?

All I can say, fellow Hotelies, is to follow this statement. Learning to realize that your major is uncommon — not easy, but uncommon — will help you see why others try to make fun of it; believe me, they don’t know how stressful it is. And anyways, we do get to bake cookies in one culinary lab, so why should we have to be ashamed of that … they’re delicious.

–HADM 1110, Distinguished Lectures in Hospitality Management, is a one credit course in which grading is based on attendance. The speakers are prominent industry leaders who are intriguing and insightful. Don’t be late, ask questions and dress for success. Your college wardrobe should include at least one business suit, some professional shirts, skirts and/or pants. Ahhhhh, Hotelie Fridays. I would recommend taking this class every fall semester if you can fit it into your schedule — which you should. Not only do you get to see some hospitality hot-shots, but many times, you might find that your interests in certain topics are waning because of the excessive work you have in courses; I bet this course can help light the fire under you again, and you’ll meet some cool people in the process.

And you get to gussy your self up all fancy-like on Fridays.

–Start searching for summer jobs as early as possible. Trust us; you will NOT want to wait to start the internship hunt until the spring semester. Must, must, must, must, must, must, must, must, must, must. If you’re a Hotelie, do not wait until Spring: you’ll end up sweeping the floors at some motel near your home. Getting with a representable company like Four Seasons, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, or the Ritz takes time: give yourself some.

–Sleep! You will have 8:40 a.m. classes sometimes! Not sometimes, all the time. Sorry to say, but this is my third semester at the Hotel School, and I’ve had 8:40am classes Monday through Thursday every time. Disgusting. It helps just to come to grips with the fact that until you have some more flexibility with the Hotel core courses in junior and senior year, you’ll be drinking quite a bit of coffee. Yum yum.

–Get your distributive electives over ASAP. It will save you a lot of stress in the long run. I’ve heard horror stories about some seniors not graduating because they forgot to take an elective or even a PE! Talk to your advisor — bother them, question them, become their best friend. They have connections and will help you on your way.

***

Anybody with any other questions, you can look at the rest of the tip sheet at http://www.hotelschool.cornell.edu/students/orientation/tipsforhotelies.html, or you can leave a comment, and I’ll do my best to answer them!

My summer internship search is now up and running — in the past week, I’ve submitted my resume to seven different companies like Union Square Hospitality Group, Hyatt Hotels, PM Hospitality Strategies, and Vail Resorts among others.  Most of the decisions still aren’t in yet (keepin’ the fingers crossed for good news) except for one interview acceptance from Levy Restaurants for a management internship; they’re established in Chicago with restaurants like Bistro 110 and Spaggia — exciting stuff for a Hotelie!

Still, it’s kind of strange looking for internships already, considering I’m still not sure what direction I’m going after the Hotel School; before, I mentioned that I was thinking about either law school, grad school in entertainment management, or getting a job in what I came here to do — restaurants.

Buttttttt, I’m doing my best to decide whether or not I want to put the whole law school idea out of the running.  The main reason I have plans in motion to graduate either a year or a semester early is to save on the gargantuan Cornell tuition costs that I keep piling up; going to law school and dropping another 150 grand just doesn’t seem to make that much sense.  Plus, I’ve been reading up on law school and being a lawyer in general — did you know that lawyers have one of the lowest job satisfaction rates among any profession?!  That really doesn’t seem up my alley at all…

We all know that lawyers are dramatized on TV (Law & Order, Boston Legal, The West Wing, etc.), but in reality, it would just be another boring job.  Even though my interests lie mainly in Entertainment Law, that field is unbelievably competitive and many times, law school grads have to work for free (!!!) just to get their foot in the door at entertainment law firms … and that doesn’t really sound that appealing when you’re $200,000 in debt.  Yuck.

Right now, I have plans in place to take HADM 3385 Business Law with Prof. Paul Wagner.  I hear the professor is really good — even though the class is Monday night, 7p-9:30p — and hopefully, it’ll give me some more insight into whether I should be thinking about law school or not.
So my thoughts might be getting narrowed down at least a little bit — graduate school for entertainment management or going into a job for restaurants, hotels, or the like just as planned before.  It’s going to be an interesting journey.

I actually had a guest speaker today — Ryan Pernice, an Account Manager for Avero (a hospitality technology company based out of New York City) who graduated from the Hotel School in 2007 — who was kind of in the same boat that I’m in now.  Apparently, he was really into restaurants (which I am) and didn’t think he wanted to be in operations — aka. managing a restaurant (like me); he coined the term restaurant-ies for foodies that don’t necessarily want to be in line-level ops.  He was promoted at Avero after 7 months and is on the fast-track to a really nice career.

By the way, he gets to eat at all of his clients’ restaurants … for free.  Mmhmm.

Hopefully, my summer internship will get me to that place eventually.