It's been a while since my last post, since a lot has been going on. I went to Austin two weeks ago to compete in MootCorp, an international business plan competition at the University of Texas at Austin. I expected Texas to suck, but it was really, really fun! Everyone in Austin was super friendly and the food was insanely good!
We were competing against teams from 32 other Universities. On our first day, we presented our business plan and got some really positive feedback. The second day, most of the judged just didn't seem to get our product. We didn't come in first or second, so we were out of the running for the grand prize. However, we did great on the third day. The judges loved us, and we beat out four other universities to win the NASDAQ Stock Market Challenge and a $1,000 prize. This is the best that an Oxford team has done at MootCorp in the six years we've been competing!
Far more interesting than the competition was the time we got to explore the town and relax. Every other team seemed really uptight and serious, but the Oxford team just had a great time!
We went to countless restaurants and hit almost every bar on sixth street (including the Coyote Ugly). The best place was Pete's Dueling Piano Bar. There's two pianos on a small stage, and local musicians just come up, play for a while, then hand off to the next guy. What's really impressive though is how smoothly the players incorporate rock, country, rap, and improvised lyrics to create a non-stop happy drunk dancing vibe. Needless to say, Austin was a blast!
I was pretty dead after getting back to Oxford, so most of the past two weeks has been spent trying to catch up in my classes and get a million little errands done. My summer internship is all set to go now. I booked a room at Extended Stay America, bought my plane tickets, and arranged to buy a 2007 Scion tC on the day I land. This'll be my first new car, so I can't wait. Dania's birthday was last week, so I ordered her something nice. Right now she's scouting around for an apartment in LA, were I'll join her after I graduate. I think she's settled on a place in Burbank, so we'll see how it all comes together.
These next few weeks will be totally crazy as well. I'm going to Iceland next weekend, then come back to four assignments and two presentations. Normally we'll have one or two assignments due per week, so this will really, really suck. It's 2AM now, so I suppose I should get some sleep. Busy busy busy.
