What other names did your parents consider for you?
If I was a boy, I believe I would have been named Mark Ulrich.
Not sure what other girl names they were thinking of.
Update: I learned from my mom that she wanted to name me Julie or Julia because I was born in July. My dad really liked the name Stephanie.
I know they really liked Melanie, which is my middle name. Had my father known that "Heike" is so damn hard to pronounce in America, I'm sure he would have insisted on naming me something else. Heike is actually the name of my dad's first girlfriend, which is a little weird. My mom loved the name, and having grown up around a bunch of German-American's it never really occurred to her that others might have trouble pronouncing my name. They gave up with using ethnic names the second time around (we had already moved to the States) and named my sister Nicole, which is practically impossible to butcher.
Prononciation is a funny thing - When I meet people for the first time, and I'm worried that they are going to forget my name 5 seconds after I say it, I over-pronounce an "A" at the end, out of fear that they will forget my name and call me Heiki - UGH, it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up!
I give Adam crap when he misprounces it, because I feel that at the very least my husband and family should be able to say it correctly!!! I remember it being a hard thing to bring up with my in-laws. They have already forgotten in, and I've resigned myself to them never saying it correctly - which makes me a little sad.
I'm always torn over who I should correct and at what point its appropriate to say, "By the way, you pronounce my name wrong". When I was younger, I tended to do it pretty quickly with people I was dating, because I thought it would make things easier around my parents if my boyfriend was at least pronouncing my name correctly. I didn't start correcting friends until recently - I don't think I ever did it in high school and rarely in college. It's probably the hardest to tell friends, because no matter when you do it, they always feel like you waited to long and they feel bad for having inadvertently mispronounced my name all this time....
OK - I went off on a tangent that was completely off point fropm the QotD - Time to get some work done.
After all the recent season and series finales, what are you watching on TV these days?
SUCH AN EASY QUESTION!!! The 4400 just came back on. Yeah! And Biggest Loser is about to start again too!
I'm attending a wedding this weekend as "& Guest" of an old highschool friend. The wedding is on Saturday in north Philly... that's all the info I had to go off of since I was invited about a month ago. I assumed that it was an evening wedding and I could recycle one of the dresses I have worn to another wedding, since none of these people would have seen me in it.
I learned this morning that the wedding starts at 1PM AND its BLACK TIE - so much for attending that "exam" class in KOP from 1-4pm, and so much for wearing one of my summery print dresses. Who the heck has a Black Tie wedding in the afternoon??? I'm a little frustrated that I learned all of this last minute, but can't say that I'm very surprised. MEN!
Regardless, it will be fun to attend this wedding as merely a guest, with no responsibilities to anyone... and I'll get to see some people from highschool that I was loosely friends with... Hey, open bar - always a good time!
I feel like a YO-YO when it comes to figuring out when the best time to have kids is - this Cathy cartoon goes a long way in expressing my back & forth. I want Adam to be on board when I feel like I am ready, but can't seem to figure out when that is. We just hired a new Associate at work to join our industry team. It suddenly dawned on me that having a junior underneath me (finally) would make it a whole lot easier for me to take maternity leave, from a workflow perspective, and maybe now is a good time to start thinking of that.
But then we have a weekend like we just had - out with friends till all hours of the night, and I think, "I'm not ready!" Although, there isn't really anything from stopping us from dropping the kids off to stay with grandparents to enjoy some fun, once we do take the plunge.... back and forth I go... we want to travel, we want to buy a house first, I need to take that damn "exam" - when do we have time to raise kids? we aren't ready for the committment a pet entails... BUT, I don't want to wait too long either.... and Adam's brother is expecting now, and it makes us stop and assess where we are.
Anyway... that's my random thought of that day!
What is the most interesting class you have ever taken?
Submitted by Melissa.
There was an Economics professor at Dickinson that students either LOVED or HATED, there was no in between. I was a big fan. Adam managed to get an Econ major without every having his as a professor. The thing was, he was very tough in the 100-level classes to weed out the weak students and much more pleasant and interesting in the upper-level classes. I took a 300-level class with him called Industrial Organization, which I found to be phenomenal. Sounds boring - I know. The class talked about the different factors that impacted different industries. For example, R&D costs are a big barrier to entry for the pharmaceutical industry, but not really an impact for other sectors. Wow, I sound like a finance-dork.
I credit this class with opening my eyes to the area of Equity Research and attribute this class/professor to me having selected this career (wow, grammar is off, but I couldn't get it right).
Sidebar: I interview Dickinson students for interviews here at my firm. I LOVE asking the Econ students what they think of this professor and watching them squirm. Hey, I'm allowed to have some fun!
Adam and I saw a house last Wednesday and had been on the fence how we should proceed. The house was about 100K over what we had agreed to buy the Kimball house for. Big increase, I know. And this house had already come down about 50K from its original listing price. I have been continually pushing our upper range up to see just how much it would cost for us to find a house that we LOVE. And, my mom had said he could have a loan, which would have made this feasible. This house was new construction 2 years ago - it was part of 16 units known as Quincy Court and this was the first resale. Based on the price the current owner had gotten it at, he must have been one of the first to sell. His initial listing price, which was $175,000 over what he had paid for it, was much too high. Even at the adjusted listing price, he was going to net about $120,000 - not too shabby for a two year investment.
Pros: 3,000 square feet, with garage and a logical layout. Nice kitchen. Tons and tons of storage. Gated backyard (very safe). Two large guest bedrooms. Taxes of $129/annually -- can you believe that?!?
Cons: Walk-in Master Closet could barely be considered a Walk-in. Master bathroom was tiny and only had one sink. Carpeting on the second & third floor. No recessed lighting. Walls were very banged up and would all need to be repainted. Odd/illogical lightswitch situation.
So, we couldn't decide if our expectations were unreasonable or what. Lots of cons were things that the Kimball house had, for 100K less.... granted, that house was only 2,000 square feet. We were debating have my mom come down and look at it.
Well, I spoke to our realtor today, who I get the feeling is getting frustrated by how picky we are, and we learned that the house sold. So, that's that.... I guess we don't have to worry about if we want to buy it or not.
I had been looking forward to this weekend for a long time and it definitely lived up to its expectations. Many Dickinson friends descended on Philly this weekend to see friends that had been living abroad for three years. We were lucky enough to visit them in Japan. We had a blast! Check out all of the Dickinson Alums in attendance!
We are still recovering from the weekend....
Best of all - those friends that stayed at our apartment are the people that will also be attending a wedding in November - so pretty much the same group of us will be partying again in a few short months. Can't wait!
I have been looking forward to this weekend since February. The friends that we visited in Japan are relocating to the States and before they settle down in Savannah, they are are stopping off in Philly for a visit. We put the word out to all of our Dickinson friends months ago and tons of people are descending on the city for the occasion. People are coming from Boston, Richmond, DC, and Tampa!
Back when these plans were hatched, we had thought that we would have moved into our new house by now (GRRRR!!!) and told quite a few people that they could crash with us - 3Br and a basement, plenty of room! Well, since we're still in our apartment, its going to be a little cramped. We have 5 people staying with us! We had to borrow areobeds and blankets from friends & family to accomodate everyone!
In honor of our weekend, here's a photo from our Spring Break 00 trip to Key West, where I learned that I don't have sea legs, not even a little bit. 4 out of the 8 of us will be hanging out this weekend!!!
