Waco Farmer’s Market

I started the second half of BUS 5602 recently, and I just want to say that I am very grateful for three-day weekends. It’s strange to get used to two professors, and then change both topic and instructor after about a month! However, I’m excited to learn about Econ and especially Finance. Finance, because practicality is something I value greatly; it comes as no surprise that I really want to learn about investments, how firms fund projects, and how to follow cash flows and such.

I’m particularly interested in investments, because I have always wanted to start a Vanguard account and get into that myself, but I don’t think this class really will focus too much on personal investment accounts. There is something alluring about the concept of stocks. It’s strange to think that an entire market exists, trading these imaginary representations of a company’s ownership for one another, hoping that they will someday offer some type of return. Then you have the whole idea of making money off of money, which is equally strange. I have been told that there is a professor in the department who is an expert on maximum withdrawal amounts; I’d love to sit down with him for a while and hear his thoughts on financial independence/early retirement through investments.

So far the classes aren’t too bad. The teaching style of Finance is radically different than it felt in accounting. To be fair, these are like rival courses. Both are necessary for a complete view of operations and reporting, yet they each throw shade at each other from time to time about why their particular method is better than the other. Betsy really drilled in the old saying, “practice makes perfect,” whereas I think that Dr. Fletcher in Finance takes a more conceptual and preparation-based approach. I enjoy hearing about his real world experiences in finance as well as his particular views on legal vs. ethical.

Also…
IMG_20160716_131316I went to the Waco Farmer’s Market with Samantha, Hafsa, and Garrett this weekend 🙂 It was great. I think that with the right incentives, Waco could become a mini-Austin. We already have a lot of great unique restaurants and coffee shops like Twisted Root and Common Grounds, and downtown is finally starting to liven up some more.

There was a lot there. I had some fresh-made spicy chicken tamales (I’m a sucker for Tex Mex), saw some delicious honey, bought some tomatoes, and split a strawberry cheesecake waffle with Sammy. But before I did most of that, I decided to buy a delicious and heavy watermelon that I carried with me for the next hour or so. Next time I will buy the melon at the end of the trip. Honestly, the prices were pretty good at most of the stands compared to other small festivals and farmer’s markets that I have been to.

 

 

Nerd Culture in a Professional World

These are student blogs, so I feel that I’ll take some time to discuss my personal life when I’m not in school and how that relates to my career and school life.

I am pleased that I can say that most people that I interact with in professional settings tell me that I come across as polite or mature. However, there are times that I feel reluctant to share information about the hobbies I enjoy or ways that I spend my leisure. I imagine that this is in part a problem for anyone in the business sphere, as we are all a little weird in our own ways, but there are definitely more acceptable engagements to discuss with peers and colleagues in the field.

For example, I am a fit guy. I enjoy running and hiking, and while I do not have the huge arms that you will see on some of the guys in the program (cough* cough* John Hazel), I do enjoy weightlifting and setting personal goals for my health and strength. This is appropriate to put on my resume in my interests category. It shows drive, dedication, and planning. However, I also like upgrading my PC so that I can relax and play video games with my friends in UT and TN all the way out here at Baylor. PC building is exhaustive. You need to learn a lot about how processors and motherboards work, as well as the proper way to cool them and what graphics cards will work for your specific goals. However, when I start to meet CEOs, I will probably tell them about fitness or my work on political campaigns rather than PC building; this is a more acceptable hobby in a conservative field.

<-This is me at a Halloween Festival at church. 

As the younger brother to a slightly competitive football player, there was a desire for me to branch out and try something different. While I do enjoy playing some lighthearted team-based sports with friends nowadays, I was a bit more eccentric in high school and undergrad. I was in musicals for about 4 years until I learned to play the guitar. I had always enjoyed art and cartooning- I even wrote and illustrated a cowboy comic this past year that I’m about to have printed. In recent years, thanks to movies like The Avengers and The Dark Knight, culture that was previously known as “nerdy” has rose in popularity. Sure, when I was in high school people could probably name Batman, the Joker, and Spiderman, but it really picked up when guys like Robert Downey Jr. and Christian Bale made it look cool and modern.

Video games have gotten a lot more popular too. When I’m not studying or hanging out with Samantha or at the gym, etc. I have been playing Dark Souls III. If you don’t know what it is, I highly recommend you look it up. Essentially it is a game where you create a knight that fights frustratingly difficult enemies with an incredibly high learning curve. There is a real sense of accomplishment when you finally beat an enemy that has killed you 40 times.

Pokemon Go has become insanely popular in just a few days. People of all ages are walking around outside getting great exercise looking for Pokemon with this GPS game.. My wife absolutely loves the game, and frequently asks me if I want to go out and catch some (she is off for the summer). We have met a ton of cool people this way, although I am slightly afraid I will be stabbed while trying to catch one in a dangerous neighborhood.

I hope that in future years, this type of culture becomes more mainstream in the professional realm, at least for hobbies. Justin Trudeau, the current Prime Minister of Canada pictured below, enjoys video games while also boxing boxing on the side, and I know that Elon Musk (Tesla’s CEO) has praised for his weirdness a few times.

While I enjoy discussing fitness, language learning, and playing instruments, hate playing golf. I do not look forward to playing a round of golf with clients at all. I will be bad at it, I will not enjoy it, but I will do it. I hope that “nerd culture” continues to trend upwards in conservative industries. The world is changing, and hopefully there is room for new traditions with new technology. Then one day when I am a CEO inviting people to my hospital, they can sit on bean bag chairs in a conference room and play Mario Kart while we talk business.

4th on the Brazos (and other things)

This weekend I had some friends from Houston come up and stay with Sammy and me. It was a lot of fun, since we got to show them some of our favorite places around Waco.

First we took them to Common Grounds for a Caramel Coffee Crunch and to sit out back in what we call “the trash.” I love Common Grounds, and while their coffee is seriously the best that I have ever had, the back part where they hold their concerts looks kind of like the scrap yard you see in old movies where the neighborhood kids get chased by a diseased junkyard dog.

0703161451We went to a few other places, like the Cameron Park Zoo, where my wife and I are now SEASON PASS HOLDERS, BABY. I am a huge fan of turtles, so it’s always cool to see the animals up close. This time I saw an alligator snapping turtle pretty close up (I took this picture). The zoo is really great here. I’m super impressed that they have packed so many animals into a relatively small area; they also have a crazy amount of snakes. I think snakes are absolutely disgusting, but if they are on the other side of the glass I cannot help but stare at them. Did you know that the Taipan has enough venom in its bite to kill 100 adults? Now you know. Don’t mess with Taipans.

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We also went to Homestead, and I swear their Ruebens are amazing. I also had some of their potato salad and their tomato basil soup. I was pleasantly surprised by their portions being healthy and well-presented. Their menu is small, but that’s a good thing. Gordon Ramsay always tells me that a big menu for a small kitchen means that the dishes (unless it is something like Mexican food with a lot of common ingredients) cannot all be fresh. The store is quaint with some impressive homemade soaps and such, although I am poor and cannot afford a 1500$ quilt at this point in time, but Sam really likes them so one day I will haggle with homestead and buy one for her. You should know they only serve breakfast from 7a-11a on Saturdays only. We were a little sad about that, but we will be back 🙂

I bought some fireworks, and quickly found out that I cannot shoot them within city limits. I’m a big fan of July 4th, but it seems to have snuck up on me. I usually go out and look at them a week or so before, and have a little pile in my house to shoot on the 4th; however, grad school has kept me busier than usual, and priorities have to be shifted around. I figure now is a good time to tell you that I didn’t get to go to the 4th on the Brazos.

IMG_20160704_144936This is my dog Willow. She is sweet, quiet, and well-behaved. We adopted her a few weeks ago, and she has been adapting nicely. We figured out last night that dogs are terrified of fireworks; so much so that she didn’t even want to go outside for her nighttime potty break. Wanting to avoid another accident inside (I promise she has only peed in the house twice), we opted to stay home and play classical music to calm her. I hear that they make basically doggy zanex for events like these, so next year we will probably just drug her.

All in all it was a great weekend 🙂

Finishing up BUS 5601/Torchy’s Tacos

The first half of Business Foundations ends this week. It’s a little strange to consider that one month earlier I was beginning my first week of grad school. The classes have moved fast, but the material held my attention well. Just this week in accounting, we talked about bonds (as in stocks and bonds), which have always been ambiguously explained to me. Accounting is cumulative in nature; having a full picture of the process for reporting loans and such made bonds a crystal clear picture.

The first two classes of Business Foundations have been great. I’m grateful for the opportunity to transition into the MBA curriculum with only 2 classes to start. The second half will have 3 classes, we will have 4 at the start of fall, and 5 in the thick of October. Jeremy McElroy teaches stats with practicality and some hilarious dry humor, and Betsy Willis has an infectious sense of cheer every morning in accounting(; however if I had a dollar for every time that her accounting homework says “Hint: Use a T-account,” I would probably be audited by the IRS).

Summer has been awesome so far. My wife has time off since she is a teacher, and she is getting really good at cooking as we are moving through a new cookbook. The students in the program are a lot of fun, and have been very welcoming to Samantha in our hangouts. There’s a real sense of camaraderie in the program, and I’m excited to get to know everyone even further as I progress towards graduation.

Also I went to Torchy’s this week. I figured I’d give it a mini-review here. There’s been a lot of speculation at Baylor over which is better: Torchy’s or Fuego.

Torchy’s has some pretty good chicken. It tastes of ancho chile, salt, black pepper, and paprika. It’s nice and juicy, and they use it in some really great combinations. Right now there is a taco that I tend to feel a little insecure ordering, because what guy doesn’t feel a little awkward walking up and asking to order a “tipsy chick.”

Anyway. Torchy’s makes great chicken, and they have really good tortillas, but Fuego’s beef game is too strong for them. When you compare fuego’s juicy steak taco to Torchy’s pitiful crunchy skirt steak taco there’s no contest. But you don’t have to tip at either, and they both have some really awesome combinations that the other can’t offer.

All in all I’d say Torchy’s is a bit better when you consider price and overall menue options. I give them and their tipsy chick 4/5 stars.

I’ll post this weeks art up above in a little while.

Cinco Cosas

For my Spanglish speakers thinking that I might have misspelled “Five Houses,” that’s no typo in my header. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of typos in my other posts, but “cosa” means “thing” in Spanish. What are these five mysterious things, you ask?

Here is a glance at my weekly art during down time and sometimes in class. In today’s scene, Sir Longbottom confronts one of the Horsemen, Trojan, with his fierce Dragon’s Bone Battleaxe.

HorsmenTrojan
Essentially, I feel like every person has a certain limit on what we can commit our time and effort to before we begin to fail or lose grasp on one or more of said commitments. For me, that number is about 5. Now, these categories can be pretty broad, or even pretty difficult. That’s part of the reason that you might be able to tackle more cosas than I can.

For a small example of how big these commitments can be, I’ll outline my commitments here.

  1. Spanish: I’m currently trying to be fluent in a new language. I’m only 23, but I find language interesting, and it opens up many opportunities and cultural windows that I had not previously experienced. It is difficult, however, and I do not expect to have full fluency for some time. My wife shares this commitment with me (even though I have a few months head start) and we will begin speaking almost totally in Spanish soon.
    The physical requirement for this commitment- compromiso in Spanish- takes up a good chunk of my day. It includes listening to ranchera music in my car, speaking occasional Spanish, online courses, listening to a podcast a few times a week, and translating articles.
  2. Grad School: This one’s pretty obvious. This is more than a fifth of my day, but still one commitment. Walking to school, attending class, homework, studying.
  3. Career Building: This is my weekly GA work, this blog, meeting with my professors, etc. It also includes anything I get paid for as well as anything resume related like graphic design.
  4. Health: tracking calories and food intake, running, lifting, and planning meals. I am currently aiming to be around 155 lbs with a fair bit of musculature. I’m currently sitting at 157-158 lbs, and about 7.5/10 on where I want to be muscle-wise.
  5. WifeShoutout to Samantha 🙂 Spending time with my wife, doing chores, taking her on dates, and helping her cook. Things of that sort.

You’ll notice that there is a lot missing. I technically run with about 6 commitments, because our new dog Willow, daily budgeting, occasional guitar playing, and sleep all fall into another list of things I need to get done. However these are more of daily grinds than a full category I am looking to improve myself in, so I do not count them.

So, those are my five things. What are yours? Do you have more, or less, cosas than me? Are they less-intensive or more intensive?

Starting Out

3 years ago, I was terrified.

At the start of 2013, I had transferred schools from my home town right outside Nashville, TN to attend a school 1700 miles away from all of my family and friends. In a later blog we might get to the why, but right it will just suffice to say that there was some great opportunities and I was looking for a change.

Here’s a picture of that school, Brigham Young University. It’s very pretty in the wintertime; I could always see those big, white mountains right outside my apartment window, framed perfectly underneath some hanging icicles.

Fast-forwarding a bit, we get to the end of summer semester. I had attended in order to snag some credits that didn’t quite transfer from Middle Tennessee State. It turns out another girl had attended summer semester at the same time as me. She and I spent a lot of time together, went on a lot of dates, and eventually decided to “become exclusive” (as the cool kids say nowadays). She had taken a summer semester at BYU for fun; she really attended Vanderbilt, which was about 30 minutes from my hometown in TN. At the end of that semester we decided to tough it out and go long distance, despite its low success rate. Turns out it was worth it, we got married 2 years later.

Anyway, where was I. Oh right. 3 years ago today I was terrified. Did I mention I was a premed major? Because that’s important. When you’re a premed, your junior year is packed. You’ve got to do physician shadowing, study for this horrendous standardized test known as the MCAT, keep volunteering, cook and eat food, work at hospitals, and a ton more all while taking your hardest coursework yet. I’m looking at you, Organic Chemistry.

So I wave goodbye to my future wife at the airport, and I go, “Well at least that’s the hardest thing I have to do for a while.”

Then my car stops working, and I sell it the next day to this man named Julio who works at a scrapyard outside Provo, UT.

So at this point I have all that premed stuff to do, while calling and maintaining a very important relationship long-distance, and now I have no car. So I am walking everywhere, and Utah looks at me and says, “You know? Justice likes snow. I think I’ve heard him say that before. He’s walking outside a lot lately, to hospitals, school, jobs. Why don’t I just make his day better by giving him all of it.

It was a record cold year. Little construction vehicles would come in early in the morning with snow pushers, and they make these big piles of grey and dirty snow because they are constantly pushing it off of the sidewalks to keep them safe. It’s pretty cool, actually.
Heh-heh….I’ll see myself out.

But for me, and a lot of premeds, junior year isn’t the worst part.

For me, the worst part was about a year and a half later.

My tests had been taken. My scores were good. I had some great interviews. But just like a lot of other premeds, I slowly realized that I didn’t want to be a doctor…and it felt like it was too late to be making this decision. Now, there are a lot of reasons that students come to this decision. It might be the hours, the pay, the fear of blood, the constant standardized testing, the stress, loss, the list goes on and on. It’s usually a combination of a few.

But I loved healthcare. I wanted to be a part of it. To impact my community and the world positively, definitively, and with a sense of progression as I did it. I also didn’t want to starve, and eventually I wanted to support Samantha and our children.

Somehow, I stumbled upon the perfect answer to my problems: Healthcare Administration. It had room for me to grow, good pay, was intimately tied with day-to-day hospital operations, and I got to wear a striking suit rather than those frumpy scrubs that always seem to ride up in all the wrong places.

There is a lot in between. But this is mostly to just point out how happy I am that I made the change and arrived at such a welcoming, awesome program.

  • The staff is incredible. The program just feels like a big support network of people who genuinely care about you.
  • They want you to succeed and feel like you are in the right place. This was a huge difference to the way medicine felt to me. I always felt expendable, like a series of numbers and accomplishments constantly being put on some big ranking list. Here, I feel like a person.
  • The perks, let me tell you folks, they are real. That Keurig in the healthcare lounge, the super secret extra exclusive graduate lounge only for us healthcare MBA kids, has become my best friend. Other then John Pham, he’s also my new best friend. His blog is here: https://blogs.baylor.edu/john_pham/

There is a ton more to say, but this post is already too long.

This program is awesome. It’s not easy, but nothing worth having ever was.

-Justice