So, here’s the deal: I have been actively searching for a job since October. And when I say searching, I mean checking MediaBistro every single day, sending my resume to everyone and anyone that I might even consider working for, and networking like crazy. I haven’t really dropped the ball or stopped looking at any point, and I’ve put a lot of my focus and energy into making sure my clips, resumes and cover letters are the best they could have been.

But now it’s April and I literally have zero offers. At this point, I am officially the only one of my hotelie friends who has no idea where she will be living or what she will be doing six weeks from now. As my classmates sign leases and start checking out IKEA furniture for their new urban apartments, I’ve found myself staring out onto what is nothing more than just a big, black space that lies beyond May 25th. As one might imagine, it is probably — likely — one of the scariest things I’ve ever been faced with (hey, come on, I’m only 21). And yo, incoming freshmen: the prospect of moving far from home to come to college is nothing; just wait ’til you’re a Cornell senior!

It’s been no secret that the job market is especially tough for this year’s grads, the state of the economy is terrifying and media — a fairly unpredictable industry to begin with — is changing rapidly. People are getting slashed from newsrooms all over the country and, this summer, staffers at my favorite magazine (Jane) walked into work one day to find that they no longer had jobs — the publication had just folded. It happens.

I have been lucky enough to find something I’m passionate about (and trust me, I know that apathy is probably far worse than uncertainty or unemployment) and even more fortunate to have parents that support their children who have both decided to ditch their respective educational tracks to be Alaskan Mountain Guides (my brother) or writers (me). I consider myself fairly savvy when it comes to new media (and therefore employable), but — let’s get real, there’s a whole city full of equally-savvy, comparably-educated media types who can interview for, get hired into and start working at the job I’d want in the time it takes for me to even get down to New York and interview for the open position (let alone the time that would pass between my landing the job, finishing up my degree and moving out there).

I never thought it was going to be a piece of cake to use my Hotel School degree to pursue something outside the scope of a traditional hospitality or financial job, but JC — I would have never imagined it would be this difficult or emotional. I think I did a really, really crappy job of managing my expectations throughout this process (let’s just say sista got a little full of herself) . . . but, then again, when you’re at the most prestigious hospitality school in the world, you watch employers banging down your classmates’ doors, and so some part of you expects them to do the same to you. Also, more often than not, I found myself having to defend my decision to major in Hotel Administration in all my media and publishing interviews — and I wasn’t prepared for that, either.

Anyway, since I need to graduate, I have to pour my energy into my massive courseload and just stop searching now. I still have a couple of balls in the air, but, at this point, I can’t reach out to anyone new because, hey — if I do get a job and then have to stick around Ithaca for an extra semester just to finish my degree anyway, that job won’t do me too much good, will it? =) Today was the deadline that I’d set for myself; I promised myself that if I didn’t have a job offer by now, I would turn my full attention back to my schoolwork.

Right now, the plan is to move back to Dallas and look for jobs from Bromberg HQ. Word on the street is that the computers, printers and broadband connections are much faster there than they are in my yucky college apartment, anyway. If anything happens between now and then, you, my dear fabulous readers, will be the first to know.

Well, it’s a chilly Sunday night here in bummer central, USA and I’m tired and relatively uninspired. It’s certainly coming through in my poetry assignment for creative writing class, which so far consists of the following:

I hate poetry and I am thirsty
I wonder if the next Gossip Girl is going
to be as good as the first one and
Oh my goodness I need to get my eyebrows
waxed and get started on my Wines reading,
I wish I could hire someone to clean my room.
Omg, is that me I am smelling?
No, my roommate is cooking something
with onions, thank God.

That’s right. Move over, Donald Hall.

Anyway, speaking of food, the binge eating experience of the century happened tonight in Taverna Banfi. I mentioned last week that my group in Restaurant Management Class has been charged with revamping the Banfi dessert menu (which is to be created and implemented in the next 4 weeks– good one), and, naturally, the first order of business was for the 8 of us to sit down and order three of everything on the dessert menu while the Hotel School picked up the tab.

Holy lord, I was eating chocolate like I’d just been dumped by a whole village of boyfriends. For real, any girl that gets her heart broken, let me tell you honey: march yourself into Taverna Banfi and tell them you’re working on a class project and just order everything on the dessert menu and stuff your little teary-eyed face. Nobody will judge you and the kitchen will probably do an extra-awesome job on all the desserts because they’ll think you’re critiquing the staff.

Not surprisingly, out of the eight group members, I am the least skilled in the kitchen. We haven’t spent much time cooking together yet, but I can tell you right now that the fact that I had to ask “wait, what’s that?” every time a less-than-everyday term was thrown around when we were discussing new dessert ideas… not a good sign.

I was really set on making cupcakes (what? Who doesn’t like cupcakes?), but the group nixed the idea and sort of looked at me like I was the dumbest girl ever. Right now, we’re focusing more on the season (the menu will be in place for the fall semester and until the next group turns it over in mid-Spring), so pear, pumpkin, apple are the flavor front-runners. We threw around some ideas tonight and all I can tell you is that it’s going to turn out to be an amazing menu. Amazing. Promise.

And some pictures from this evening’s Fat Kid Fest, complete with an annotated guide to the current dessert menu items that we porked out on tonight. (Click for larger versions)

The time has come to tackle HA 305: Restaurant Management.

The class involves two lectures per week and a Thursday lab from 2:55-10:00ish in Taverna Banfi. The first three weeks of lab have been a basic training of sorts: TIPS Alcohol Certification, an intro to how things are run at the Taverna in the front and back of the house, and some sampling of the surprisingly extensive TB wine list at the end of the evenings so we can leave the whole 7-8 hour thing with a smile. The next few weeks will be actual practicals (legitimate shifts in the restaurant), half in the front of house and half in the kitchen. Let’s pause for a moment and address this: I’m serving and preparing food for real people? God help them.

So last week was the back-of-house training lab. The TB Chef d’Cuisine, Anthony, set up a little “pretend” restaurant in Statler’s Terrace function space and then straight up started Top Cheffing the crap out of us. He asked us to change into kitchen whites, go up to the Taverna Banfi kitchen, grab a bunch of ingredients and make a menu out of it. Right.

Naturally, half of my classmates began spouting off ideas for, like, curried shrimp over grilled pineapple with jasmine rice, pan seared scallops with a raspberry demi-glace… the words, “oh, it’s my signature dish” were even uttered.

And me? I just sat there. I always wondered how the dudes on Top Chef could throw together a fabulous dish without recipes or catastrophic failures… turns out, not so uncommon. At one point during the intro to this whole mission, Chef Anthony even made eye contact with me and was like, “hey, you look terrified. Are you ok?”

Not surprisingly, I was put in charge of beverages. Some Sprite, grenadine, a little white grapefruit juice and a splash of OJ and I was in business. Around dinnertime, we were notified that some students were ready to eat in our little simulated restaurant, so we got ourselves into gear in the kitchen and made 30-ish portions of whatever dish or course we were in charge of. We practiced taking tickets and putting orders up– we even attempted the screamy kitchen lingo (which I’m actually quite fabulous at, thank you, because it’s essentially a bunch of purposeful yelling).

Normally I’d recount an embarrassing story here, but Chef Anthony was actually pretty cool to me through the whole kitchen training episode and prevented any earthshattering disasters from swallowing the Statler. To be fair, he probably just kept coming over to my station to make sure I wasn’t drowning myself in grenadine, but he was certainly helpful in explaining what was going on around me and ganked me from the bev station for a little while. I got a chance to swing by the grill, appetizer, entree and dessert areas so I could sorta learn the ropes and– dare I even say this– I had an awesome time and somehow managed to light nothing and nobody on fire.

But it’s not over yet. Up next, I have my shifts in Taverna Banfi: an assistant waiter shift, a backwaiter shift, a pantry-prep shift and– get ready– a GRILL STATION SHIFT. No, I know, I’m scared for you people. However, I’m told that the expediters won’t allow a product to leave the kitchen if it’s not up to TB standards, so at least we can all take comfort in knowing I’m not poisoning you.

And perhaps the most exciting part of HA305? The semester-long project that kicked off today. There’s an assortment of different Banfi-related team projects assigned to the class; everything ranging from revenue management to advertising campaigns to implementation of a mystery shopper program. My group project? Get ready…

Completely redesigning and implementing an new Taverna Banfi Dessert Menu with all new items.

I know.

My $4.00 engagement ring was my best friend this summer.

My $4.00 engagement ring was no-fail skeevey-dude repellent at bars. If a skeevey guy approached me and started talking, I held up the ring, said I had a fiancee, and the skeevey dude would walk away. If the dude wasn’t skeevey, I’d hold up the ring, explain it was only there to ward off the skeevey dudes and that I didn’t think he could be classified as such… and he’d think I was cute and quirky (I think) and take it as a compliment.

And then there was the fake wedding.

I was assigned to scope out the Plaza Hotel’s competition. It’s not like I could just call the Mandarin, the St. Regis, the Pierre, or the Waldorf=Astoria and ask them for their wedding pricing and request that they fax a copy of their wedding menu over to the Plaza Hotel offices (duh)– so I had to think creatively.

So, clearly, I lived out half of many little girls’ dreams: I planned a ridiculously lavish wedding with absolutely no budget limitations… and without the whole committing-to-some-loser-for-the-rest-of-my-life part. Oh yes.

I quite enjoyed the whole thing, but the fake engagement ring really left a fugly green mark on my finger. My fake fiancee kind of sucked too– whenever I went to a property walkthrough to check out the ballroom space, he was, of course, always at work and couldn’t be bothered– he was a banking mogul, after all.

The Pierre Hotel Ballroom (where I’d have my fake wedding for $450 per person)

Check out my experience at The Pierre, which I wrote up for HotelChatter. I probably blew my cover when I requested a mini-cheeseburger station during the cocktail reception, but whatever. I had an awesome time.

Also, later on in the summer, HotelChatter dispatched me to the greatest launch party of all time: The Bryant Park Hotel’s release of their in-room sex toy menu, in partnership with swanky adult toystore the Pleasure Chest. Check out my experience at the soiree here.

The Bryant Park Hotel’s Cellar Bar

First of all, you KNOW it’s a bad situation when you’re first reunited with your classmates in the walk-in freezer at school, the coolness-oasis you’ve all flocked to in an attempt to regulate your body temperatures after hiking up from Collegetown to class.

Seriously. It’s been so hot that none of us can sleep, so hot none of us can stand to blow-dry our hair after we shower, and so humid that it doesn’t matter anyway because a blowout wouldn’t last 30 seconds out the door. So what we’ve got here at Cornell University is a population full of sweaty, shiny, tired kids with really bad hair. Aside from those unpleasantries, it’s good to be back at school.

I suppose I should talk about the summer. I was in Manhattan and it was lovely… but I was so incredibly, fall-off-the-face-of-the-earth busy that I could have been in the worst place on earth (the inside of a Croc) and I wouldn’t have noticed. I was working a Monday-Thursday internship at Great Performances, a catering and event planning company, had a job at Hotelchatter.com writing hotel industry news stories daily (which was FABULOUS, hello career of choice), and was doing a consulting job on the side.

So Great Performances… eh. I don’t know– catering and event planning within a larger organization? Not for me. The company is wonderful; they even have a farm in upstate New York where they grow their own produce and have started a program with PS-180 where they teach grade school kids how to cook with fresh ingredients and things (I participated in one of the programs and it was one of the highlights of the summer; also, I was on a farm, alert the press).

But I learned very, VERY quickly that catering in NYC is pretty serious. I don’t really want to get into details about what I didn’t like about the whole thing, but I learned a lot about what I don’t want to do– which is why we do these internships, right?– and I did get to do some cool stuff in the meantime: GP had TONS of high-end clients and I got to attend some pretty ritzy and fabulous events.

I had an issue with the footwear policy and was scolded many a time for wearing open-toed shoes to work. I mean, there is a huge kitchen attached to the offices where GP does all of their prep and recipe testing, so open-toed shoes were a no-no. But come ON… I’m not cooking. I only went in there for Diet Coke. I tried to strike a deal where I would promise not to go into the kitchen if I could wear my summery strappy sandals, but no dice.
During the workday, I was primarily working on the Plaza Hotel project, as GP is going to be doing all the catering for the event space once it reopens. The property has been closed for a long time for renovations, but it’s slated to be up and running in October/November of this year (it had BETTER be up and running, because there are insanely lavish events booked). I WISH I could tell stories about the new Plaza clients– oh my goodness; if these sensible, close-toed shoes could talk…

Anyway, it was a good experience and will never, EVER make the mistake of telling a client who is ready to drop $500,000 on an event that we don’t do Kosher catering (we do), and I now know to do everything in my power to forever avoid a certain high-profile, overly-botoxed NYC independent event planner.
Whatever. I figure it’s all fodder for the tell-all I’m going to pen later on in my life a la Devil Wears Prada. Ok. Yes.

Dear RCCL,

We risked our lives for you and you screwed us. No, really, I mean that. Last Friday morning, Jason, Brett, and I, three Cornell Hotelies, embarked on a 4-turned-9-hour journey from Ithaca to Long Island in Arctic Blast Volume III: Have a Great Spring Break and Good Luck Getting Out of the Tri-State Area. The only thing keeping us going through such a treacherous drive was the thought of our next-day Miami departure on Royal Caribbean’s Navigator of the Seas. ROADS WERE CLOSING BEHIND US, yet we pressed on. We didn’t die.

So then we arrived in Long Island, spent the night at Jason’s parents’ home, and at 4:45 am Saturday when we arrived at La Guardia to catch our flight to Miami, what were we greeted with?

Yeah, canceled. Pretty much all of them. Add to that a mob of angry New Yorkers and you’ve pretty much put me straight into my personal heaven on earth. We’d even tried to skip the line by getting Jason to act all giddy and excited as he posed next to me for pictures with my sweatshirt hood up and my giant sunglasses on (I’m supposed to be a celebrity– get it?) By 8:30 (ALMOST FOUR HOURS LATER), we’d reached the front of the line expecting to be re-routed to Florida. How hard can it be to get from New York to Miami, honestly? According to US Airways, the carrier YOU booked us through, Royal Caribbean, such a journey can’t be made until Sunday evening. I was quickly stripped of my celebrity status and deemed the official suitcase supervisor since my friends were convinced that being physically surrounded by 50-pound barriers would keep me from punching the ticket agent in the face. According to said ticket agent, there was no way to get to the state of Florida through US Air or any other airline out of JFK, Islip, LGA, or even Syracuse for that matter. GOOD ONE. With our ship leaving at 5:00 that evening, we picked up the phone to call you, Royal Caribbean, because we knew that since we purchased the airfare-cruise package, you’d help us out as you promised.

But no. Because you’re you, and why would you help out a bunch of 20-21 year olds? After a total of roughly 3 hours on hold throughout the morning, we heard LUST FOR LIFE, your early-90′s-rock theme song, no less than 600 times and as a result we were entirely robbed of anything resembling a lust for life. Finally, after telling us to deal with US Airways ourselves, you came up with an awesome solution: “we’ll fly you to Jamaica, four days into your seven day cruise, and then you can drive two hours once you get there to meet the ship on the other side of Jamaica. Until then, enjoy the Miami Airport Marriott. If you ever get there. Oh, no meals for you. Or transportation. Or refund for the part of the cruise you missed. Oh, and the hotel is a bit loud and surrounded by construction.” YEAH, THANKS. We called back. And back. And again. Each time, we’d be redirected and subjected to 15 minutes of LUST FOR LIFE in our cute little dying-to-be-tanned ears. Why not just cancel the cruise and spend the week in NYC, you ask? Because you, RCCL, wouldn’t refund our money and assured us that the credit card company wouldn’t either.

It was now 11 am. We’d found out that a ship with the exact same itinerary AND a ship identical to ours with an itinerary in a different part of the Caribbean were both leaving Sunday from Miami. After talking to several different people and being spoken to like we were children who had never set foot outside of mommy and daddy’s house, we demanded to talk to a supervisor. An hour later we landed at Ellen, extension 4337.

Ellen said we could not get on any RCCL ships ever. Why? THE MANIFEST. A manifest does not interest me at all and from what I understand, it’s some list of names that needs to be submitted somewhere since we’d be in international waters, but whatever. Ellen got irritated with my constant “but why can’t you just move our reservations? We already paid for a cruise. A stateroom is a perishable good and if the ship is going to sail away with empty rooms, wouldn’t you rather have customers in those rooms buying cocktails and shore excursions?” Thank you Cornell Hotel School. What Ellen did not know was that one of the previous 15ish rude people we’d spoken to over at RCCL Corporate that day had slipped and told us that the MANIFEST was not closed until 2:00 pm the day prior to the cruise. It was now noon. While she did not seem to comprehend that I understood she was a dirty liar, Ellen finally brought me to tears with her firm “you CANNOT ARGUE WITH THE US GOVERNMENT, MA’AM. THE MANIFEST IS ALREADY IN AND TO PUT YOU ON THIS SHIP WOULD BE A VIOLATION OF FEDERAL LAW. There is nothing we can do for you here.” No compensation. Nothing.

Things you might wonder: did we buy cruise care insurance? No. We’re poor college students, but we thought we were all set because we’d bought the airfare through RCCL. Would it have mattered in our situation? Ellen, extension 4337, said that it did not. This insurance only covers a death in the immediate family or a serious injury prior to the cruise, she explained. Did we tell them we’re all Hotel School Students with ties to RCCL, all 3 repeat customers, and know we were being screwed? Yes. Believe me.

SUDDENLY, when we were speaking to yet ANOTHER person at corporate, we mentioned booking a WHOLE NEW CRUISE on a Sunday ship, dropping an extra $3000… “oh,” they said cheerfully, “we can book you on that ship, of course!” THE MANIFEST NO LONGER MATTERED! Imagine that.

And that’s what we did. We bought an ENTIRELY NEW cruise that was leaving Sunday, literally ran into the Islip airport in Long Island, dropped an extra several hundred dollars to book a ticket through Southwest Airlines, and took the last 3 seats on a plane from Islip to West Palm Beach that night while US Airways stood there with there thumbs up their you-know-whats. Before boarding the plane, we double, triple, quadruple checked that US Airways kept our reservations for our Sunday return from Miami to New York after we got off the ship and the agent even showed us where they’d put a “runk” in the system. You, RCCL, did NOTHING TO HELP US EVEN THOUGH YOU BOOKED THESE FLIGHTS FOR US AND ASSURED US YOU WOULD DO EVERYTHING YOU COULD TO GET US TO MIAMI. We stayed overnight in a Palm Beach Garden Inn, got a car service to drive us to Miami, neither of which was paid for by RCCL, and got on Explorer of the Seas on Sunday. We alerted you of our situation and you told us to enjoy our cruise, assuring us that all would be ok on our return flights.

And we had an INCREDIBLE, amazing time on the cruise and forgot alllll about it. The staff & crew on board RCCL ships are absolutely perfect; friendly, wonderful individuals who pay great attention to detail.

But why stop there, RCCL?

Now we’ve gotten off the ship in the Miami airport, 7 days later. What do you know? Even though we begged and PLEADED that US Airways and you, RCCL, double and triple checked that we had flights home booked for this day and time (which, again, we booked through YOU, Royal Caribbean), we showed up at the airport 6 hours early and alas the reservation was simply canceled. Gone. We didn’t show up for that first cruise, so you, RCCL and US Airways, went ahead and canceled our return flights. You just had to seal it with a kiss, didn’t you? Apparently our “runk” did not help us much. Apparently, as we found out that afternoon, “runk” is simply the magic code word that US Airways uses to get the stupid 20-year-olds away from the agents’ desks. What did US Airways say to us regarding this flub? “Sorry. There’s nothing we can do.” No explanation. Nothing. We were on our own for transportation and accomodations now, as US Airways would take no blame for the whole thing nor would Royal Caribbean.

And the absolute earliest they could get us to the New York area was Monday night (“hopefully,” they added), putting us into Ithaca on Tuesday afternoon after the whole driving back from Long Island thing.

Defeated and stranded in Miami after hanging out on the bottom of a standby list for 3 flights, we sat in the terminal when we ran into our guardian angel, a US Airways supervisor named Stash. We told him our story and he was the first person that gave it to us straight. He explained the incredible mess US Airways has been for the last few weeks because of the merger or whatever is going on with America West. He admitted that it was US Air’s fault, put us in hotel (I use the term “hotel” loosely here) on US Air’s dollar, and gave us some food vouchers for the airport. He booked us on some flights through Philly for the next day, guaranteed, double, triple, quadruple checked. On our way out the door, I asked for our luggage (which US Air had taken from us 8 hours ago since we were on standby for some flights that day) and I literally thought my heart shut down when he said “oh, um, we don’t know where your bags are. They were put on the first plane this morning. They could be in Philly, they could be in Islip… but they’re not here.” Oh, ok. No makeup, clothes, deoderant, ANYTHING.

That night, we went to South Beach and drowned our sorrows in $15 Long Island Iced Teas at The Delano.

As luck would have it, the next morning (Monday), we woke up and arrived at Miami airport to find.. get ready… WE HAD NO RESERVATION and all the flights were full. Hilarious. Finally, someone at US Airways realized what we’d been through and had enough sympathy to book us out of Ft. Lauderdale airport, put us in a cab, and thanked their lucky stars that we were only 20-year-old wide-eyed college students who would not threaten them with law suits or weapons or whatever. We spent the night in Long Island and drove back 5.5 hours to Ithaca this morning.

So, now it’s Tuesday and we’ve just arrived home.

Thank you, Royal Caribbean and US Airways. We are now out $3000 for a cruise we did not even go on and flights that never happened, several hundred for hotel and transportation when we were stranded, and our spirits and tans have faded considerably.

The first thing we learned in the Hotel School was that when guests have a good experience, they tell 1 or 2 people. When they have a bad one, they tell 20. In my case, I will make it my personal mission to tell 20,000. Starting now.

No matter how many phone calls and letters we have to send your way, I assure you, we will get that money back from you, Royal Caribbean. You picked the wrong group of college students to mess with.

Love always,

Jenna ’08, Brett ’08, and Jason ’07

I got my summer internship… and oh my god, is it fabulous. While banking internship interviews are causing most of Cornell to pee their pants or wake up in the middle of the night in cold sweats (ew and ew), I will be experiencing no such horrors. Great Performances, one of New York City’s most reputable and well-known catering and special events companies, extended me an offer last week. GP is the company that does Jazz at Lincoln Center and manages/caters a TON of high-profile social and corporate events, galas, weddings, movie premiers, and fine arts/entertainment events. My internship will be in different departments within the company and this, of course, includes attendance at many of the events.

Seriously, check out the website: www.greatperformances.com.

I know. The hotelie life is glamorous.

They’re everywhere.

Navy ones, black ones, charcoal ones. Some with fugly ties or with white socks. Some accompanied by shirts that seem to be brave choices, others with the classic light blue button downs marked by the sweetly obvious telltale “my mommy ironed this over winter break” creases in the sleeves.

The suits.

Half of the students in this school are sporting business suits right now because it’s the time of year when all the banks come to campus and recruit for summer interns. The whole process involves multiple rounds of interviews, fancy pre-interview receptions, and white-faced students stumbling out of frosted glass interview rooms after being blindsided with a question like, “what is the size of the market for disposable diapers in China?” Suit season here is so intense that Hickey Freeman (the custom suit company) has actually set up shop in the Hotel School atrium. I’m quite serious– they’ll be there until 5:00 tonight.

Most of you know that I have fought a highly publicized 2.5-year battle with finance. Lord knows how, but I have managed to just barely pass all 4 numbers-based classes that the Hotel School has forced me to take. I am currently struggling through round 5: Hospitality Financial Management (which I’m told is different than the other 4, but it seems to be ruining my life just the same). When it comes to Jenna Bromberg and finance, D stands for Done. And also Don’t ever do this to me ever again. I guess you could say that the whole subject and I are in one of those toxic on-and-off relationships where he (finance) wins every single argument and each time I break up with him, I am forced to take him back and as much as I swear that things will be different each time around, he just ends up hurting me again. Um, anyway.

Personally, I’m not quite sure why an aspiring investment banker chooses to come to the best hotel school in the world to put themselves through culinary classes, required shifts in the housekeeping department, and courses like HA 355 (affectionately dubbed ‘Flush and Gush’… aka “What happens when all the toilets in your hotel overflow?”). But then again, maybe they’re like me and came here with every intention to open up a restaurant and by junior year changed their mind completely. Eh, I suppose an aspiring investment banker belongs at the Hotel School just as much as the future food and travel writer who sits in Flush and Gush class writing a blog entry while half-listening to a lecture on solid waste disposal. So I guess The Suits and I have something in common after all….

Oops. Secret’s out. I figured out what I want to do with my life and I just told the world.

They’re everywhere.

Navy ones, black ones, charcoal ones. Some with fugly ties or with white socks. Some accompanied by shirts that seem to be brave choices, others with the classic light blue button downs marked by the sweetly obvious telltale “my mommy ironed this over winter break” creases in the sleeves.

The suits.

Half of the students in this school are sporting business suits right now because it’s the time of year when all the banks come to campus and recruit for summer interns. The whole process involves multiple rounds of interviews, fancy pre-interview receptions, and white-faced students stumbling out of frosted glass interview rooms after being blindsided with a question like, “what is the size of the market for disposable diapers in China?” Suit season here is so intense that Hickey Freeman (the custom suit company) has actually set up shop in the Hotel School atrium. I’m quite serious– they’ll be there until 5:00 tonight.

Most of you know that I have fought a highly publicized 2.5-year battle with finance. Lord knows how, but I have managed to just barely pass all 4 numbers-based classes that the Hotel School has forced me to take. I am currently struggling through round 5: Hospitality Financial Management (which I’m told is different than the other 4, but it seems to be ruining my life just the same). When it comes to Jenna Bromberg and finance, D stands for Done. And also Don’t ever do this to me ever again. I guess you could say that the whole subject and I are in one of those toxic on-and-off relationships where he (finance) wins every single argument and each time I break up with him, I am forced to take him back and as much as I swear that things will be different each time around, he just ends up hurting me again. Um, anyway.

Personally, I’m not quite sure why an aspiring investment banker chooses to come to the best hotel school in the world to put themselves through culinary classes, required shifts in the housekeeping department, and courses like HA 355 (affectionately dubbed ‘Flush and Gush’… aka “What happens when all the toilets in your hotel overflow?”). But then again, maybe they’re like me and came here with every intention to open up a restaurant and by junior year changed their mind completely. Eh, I suppose an aspiring investment banker belongs at the Hotel School just as much as the future food and travel writer who sits in Flush and Gush class writing a blog entry while half-listening to a lecture on solid waste disposal. So I guess The Suits and I have something in common after all….

Oops. Secret’s out. I figured out what I want to do with my life and I just told the world.