Thumbing Through Chaos

Crunch Time

I take another section of the CPA exam (i.e., forced state manipulation on accountants for extra revenue) on the 30th of Nov. Hence, my engagement in various social frequencies will decrease rapidly during the next couple of weeks, but will resume in time for the PwC christmas party (oh yeah, and I already have a dress. Dress = chocolate halter worn at Megan's wedding. Reduction in "cost per wear" is my objective here. Less shopping makes me happy. Although shopping with other people's money and for shoes certainly makes me happy, thus the statement before that is not an absolute statement.) Oh damn the mindless banter! Anyway, the temporary plug is all encompassing except the social functions below, of course. Now that I think of it, I do think the months of Oct, Nov, and Dec, would be better off blurring into one ginormous month of holiday festivities and strange traditions that bring people together. Can we have an "Octovember" once a year or something? Gosh, it's hard to find time to study without saying "no" to various activities and friends a seeming thousand times and feeling like a jerk for saying so.


Hold Me, Texas

I will play in the annual PCS PwC Texas Hold 'em Tournament this Tuesday. Can I bring home the cash and prizes? It's almost an $800 dollar pot. Let's hope so. Shhh...I've been practicing my bluff in my room at night. I won't lie, this is my game of choice. However, I will have to watch the increased expressiveness that comes with beer though, as that could certainly mark the beginning of my demise. Keep all fingers crossed.


May You Give Me Cincinnati

It's winter, meaning excellent training time. I've got the hotel, time off work, and I'm already registered for the Flying Pig Half-Marathon in May. My hair diva and friend Kate pulled off the Full for this same race last year, while I was still recovering from running the Spirit of St. Louis Half two weeks earlier. What a role model for me, she is. I'm also ditching Club Fitness since it doesn't do a great job keeping its stuff up-to-date at its north county location. Instead I'm joining the huge Gold's Gym which just opened up next to our house last month, complete with extra cross-training must haves Club Fitness did not have, like a lap pool, yoga ambience room, and hot tub. Not to mention the membership includes access to a real-sized theater room with tons of workout machinery, and the theater room shows continuous new-releases throughout the day (and it's 24 hrs M-F). Enough said for Gold's.

I'm also getting accustomed to ripping through old town florissant again regularly with my fresh New Balances. Also, been trying out and enjoying my "Nike Plus" shoe microchip which syncs excellently with my Ipod Nano. I've gotta admit, running regularly again feels pretty good. I need to keep my rambunctious body in check, or I know it will control me. Summer busy season kinda killed that. Oh, but to start from ground zero once again. Gotta make it through the pain to the other side. Will not give up.


Going International

As a newbie at PwC, they place us in starting "classes" and we do rotations into different specialty departments. This is much like getting to try out a field of knowledge before choosing a major in college. Many of the "rotaters" get vitriolic in discussions over the pros and cons of this rotation program. Most are against it, and, like all big corporate programs, negative feedback might cause it to fade away rather quickly. However, I am an advocate of this program mainly on grounds that short term cuts to efficiency will pan out in the long-term through the increased adeptness of its employees. In any case, I find myself a part of this program for the time-being. Given that, I am currently in the process of transitioning into another department, specifically from Private Company Services (PCS) into International Tax Services (ITS). I'm very excited about this transition, as I know the assignment I have coming up will be challenging. It's with a fortune 500 company which includes dealing with very current research and reporting issues in international law and taxation, namely the Foreign Tax Credit, subpart f, controlled foreign corporations, and disregarded entities. I will post more on these subjects once I delve more in depth with them. In the meantime, my excitement hardly suffices to contain me.


Nicholas' Birthday

I can't believe my husband just turned 26. Yeah he's now got more Bastiat, Rand and Mises. For sure, good times went down at the Cloud house with our buddies this weekend. In fact, I think its been at least a good year since we've thrown a kick-ass party at our house. Go figure, I always said I was going to be cool when I grew up. How lame is that? Too much work and study I suppose. Which is not so bad, actually. It's weird too when you're laughing with beer in hand, just having a good time and you think "Wow, I'm tired, it must be getting late" and you look at your watch to realize it's only 10pm. That kind of goes along with how I randomly found myself cursing out loud at a Cosmo magazine recently. After saying to myself "gosh if only these girls would just put on some clothes" I immediately lashed out at myself for sounding like my grandma when I was nine years old. That line of thinking seriously freaks me out. I imagine that's why people get married. Yeah. Since it's not only me that's getting old, too. And fat with wrinkles. Yuck. We can do it together. Yay.

Disclaimer: I did not just say you were old and fat, honey. It's nothing on you.