Life After Connecticut College

What up, y'all!

The weekend is right around the corner, and I could not be more excited! Tonight, I'll be playing a Welcome to Florida show here in New London at the Oasis; if you're in town definitely come check us out at 11:00! Tomorrow, I'm heading up to Boston to staff the Head of the Charles on behalf of Conn. Despite my ignorance of crew culture, I'm pretty excited about the event because there's always a great turnout by alumni (plus I relish any opportunity to litter on Harvard's campus). I'll be there all day, so stop by tent #11 and say hi (be sure to get there early before the SWAG-hungry clamoring throng makes it impossible to score a free pen). On Sunday, I'll be at my parents' house in leaf-laden New Hampshire attending a going away party for my brother, who is moving to Oregon in a few weeks (astute blog readers may recall that Tim is a video game programmer, but unfortunately he is not moving out there to work on the Playstation 3 edition of Oregon Trail).

This past Saturday, the WTF boys and I raged a show up at Johnny D's in Somerville, MA, where the other three members of the band reside together (I still don't understand how they can live on Summer Street in Somerville but still be in Spring Hill). There was very robust attendance from the greatest class ever (2007, duh), including Keith Anthony-Brown, Kerri Casey, Zach Smith (I think), Lindsey Allison, and Matt Magida; thanks for coming everybody! Since there was a Red Sox game going on during the show, most of the male attendees hung out in the back of the venue to watch the TVs while the women occupied the dance floor (there was kind of a middle school dance vibe going on). During one of Wes's guitar solos, the crowd erupted in cheers and applause, spurring Wes on to play even more enthusiastically. After the solo, Wes looked up to face his adoring fans, only to realize that the Sox had just hit a game-tying home run and that the audience was actually cheering at the television. I was cheering for you, Wes!

On Wednesday, I played a show (I guess) with Above Below, the 10-piece hip-hop/R&B (I guess) band that I'm in here in New London. It was part of the annual New London Food Stroll, where patrons purchase buttons for about $30 and then get to sample food and beverages from dozens of participating restaurants while strolling through the downtown area and listening to live music (true story: since I played the entire time, the only food I got to sample was a miniature turkey sandwich). There was a very nice turnout and perfect strollin' weather, so everyone definitely had a blast. The only constructive criticism that I have is that next year, button-wearers should stay stationary in front of the bandstand the entire evening while restaurateurs stroll through the crowd handing out their creations, being sure to offer the first samples of each dish to the musicians (did that come off as selfish?).

That'll about do it for me. Have a fun weekend everybody!

Posted by Chris Reilly at 9:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, it's been a loooong time since I've been on the blog, and a lot has transpired! First and foremost, the biggest thing is that I have departed from Christie's to pursue something new - being a financial advisor. It seems that I have picked a rather tumultuous period to begin this job, but it is something that I have become very passionate about and have loved learning about my whole life. Seems to be the perfect fit for me, given the fact that I have always been interested in and goes hand in hand with my interests in politics, investments and assets. Anywho, it has involved quite the grunt-work and time...

I left Christie's in the middle of August after over a year of going through the ups and downs of the work force. Finding out what someone really wants in their job has been quite the journey, and I felt that looking for something new required my full attention, so I was unemployed for several weeks. I spent a couple weeks looking into new jobs and eventually landed a position at Axa. To get to the point, I have found something that has engaged me as much as school, with learning, studying and having meaningful interactions. While Christie's was in itself a great opportunity and learning experience, it did not engage me as I have been used to for college and high school.

The first step of starting this new job has been exam taking and studying. I have many licenses to take exams for, the first being my insurance for the state of New York. Eventually I will be moving on to the Series 7 finance/broker’s license and the Series 66/67, and then continuing while working with my studies in gaining more licenses involving money managing to create well rounded knowledge and eventually specialization in a particular field (i.e. retirement, markets, etc.). As of this moment I have almost finished the insurance portion, and have my state exam coming up in the next week.

Additionally, in the interim I got my business license in New York and started my own web based business selling vintage and modern watches as well as Pre-Columbian antiquities (interesting combo). I had a self designed major at Conn (Indigenous cultures of the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand) so I have been able to study and collect artifacts, particularly of the Moche culture from Peru and central America. Drop a line and let me know what you think! Anyways, have to get back to the studying but I’ll be back on soon. Go EAGLES! (Yeah, they aren’t doing so hot, but there are 10 games left in the season)

Posted by Nate Borgelt at 12:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hey Gang!

Phew, things here at Conn have been insanely hectic, but at least it's a fun kind of hectic (I guarantee somebody will write a crappy country song called "It's a Fun Kinda Hectic" within 12 months). As you may recall from my previous post, two weekends ago was Camelympics here on campus, the annual event where dorms compete against each other in a variety of athletic and decidedly not athletic contests. Mitch and I were lucky enough to be adopted by Plant and Branford respectively as their official staff member competitors, and it was an honor that we did not take lightly. I'm happy to report that, as expected, we both dominated our events! Mitch continued his streak from the past two years by snatching up first place in the 1-mile race in a brisk 49 seconds (running a mile for Mitch takes about as much effort as lifting a butt cheek to fart), I grabbed gold for the fourth time in crossword puzzles, and we tied for the top spot in arm wrestling (we're exactly equally matched because we practice arm wrestling against each other 2-3 hours per day). We were so excited by our ever-expanding mountain of gold (okay, plastic) medals that we decided next year we're going to get official residence hall status for our apartment so that we can win Camelympics ourselves instead of just helping some dorm. I'll let everyone know how that goes...

....On Thursday I headed up to Boston to staff one of our annual Welcome to the City parties, where young Conn grads get together to meet other alumni in their area. There was nice turnout with strong representation from the greatest class ever, including but not limited to Megan Glendon, Sarah Felch, Matt Magida, Andrew Glenn, Adam Romanow, and fellow blogerator Marissa Velarde. Special thanks to our hostess Ianthe Hensman '06 as well as all the alumni who hosted in San Francisco, Chicago, DC, and New York!

After the event I headed over to Somerville, where the other three members of Welcome to Florida share a house with Nate Staub '05. I got there just in time to watch the second half of the Vice Presidential debate. I was pleasantly surprised both that Biden didn't come off as boring as I had predicted and that Palin did not come off as dumb as I predicted (clearly I had really high expectations). As with most public statements by politicians, however, no one said anything that actually deepened my understanding of the campaign, the government, or the world (although both candidates do have great smiles, so that was something).

On Friday I met with a few Conn alumni to discuss plans for their upcoming reunions, which will take place May 29-31, 2009 (in case you were wondering). After work, I returned to Somerville, where we all had a quiet night of playing Scrabble and talking about ways that we can help orphans and single mothers (there certainly was no drinking or staying up until 5am).

On Saturday, we headed to the Harpoon Oktoberfest, where we sampled beers, ciders, bratwurst, and German music (fortunately they went with oom-pah, not techno). The weather was absolutely perfect, and the crowd was huge, so we had a great time. I spied a number of CC alumni as well as pretty much everyone I had gone to high school with (while drinking with my high school friends I kept having to suppress my latent phobia of our study hall monitor coming around the corner and giving us detention). We decided to take off at around 5:30, when things started to get a little bit too crowded and the idea of waiting ten minutes in line for a beer ticket then another ten minutes in another line to trade that ticket for an actual beer started to lose its appeal. We regrouped and rehydrated back in Somerville, ate some Thai food, then broke out the ol' checkers board and a bottle of Sunny D and giggled 'til sunrise (go with it, my mom might be reading this).

On Sunday I head a delish brunch with a couple of friends, then buckled down for a long Welcome to Florida rehearsal (it was as long as it was mainly because Wes kept leaving the room to check on how his stock in Playskool and Mott's was doing with the economic crisis). Fortunately, we learned some great new tunes, so I'm very excited about our concert this Saturday night at Johnny D's in Boston. If you're in town, definitely check us out from 9:30-12:30, it will be a great show!

On Monday I finally received my New Hampshire (shout-out) absentee ballot, which I mailed in yesterday. Aside from being about three feet long because there were so many local elections to vote for, it was a pretty straightforward, chad-free form ("Chad: Freeform" sounds like a terrible new-age solo ballet by a confused prep school sophomore). Since I had already voted, I opted not to watch the debate last night (and by that I mean I completely forget that it was happening) and instead had a nice heart-to-heart with fellow '07er and New Londonite Laura Brown. I have to say, however, that voting really felt good, especially since New Hampshire is probably going to be a pretty close race. JZ is also voting by absentee ballot in Virginia, another tight state. I encourage everyone out there to vote next month! Find out more about registering to vote here.

Well, that's about it from my neck of the woods. Have a great fall, everybody!

Posted by Chris Reilly at 10:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)