Prangster in Chicago

Countdown to Sydney

Right now, I am moments away from revealing just how lazy and boring I am by sharing with you the Top 5 things I'm looking forward to doing when I go back to Sydney in March.

1. Take my mum to a late birthday lunch at the best bloody sushi train in the southern hemisphere.
We're going to BYO a bottle of wine. I've never had wine with my mum at Makoto in Chatswood because I usually indulge in the Japanese soda called Lamune. But for her birthday lunch, we're going to drink the wine. And we're going to order the special sashimi set. And get the uni nigiri. And the oyster omelette hand rolls. And we're going to get the green tea creme caramel dessert. Dammit, we're getting the green tea creme caramels! I'm going to pay for it with pride because Mum turned 56 years old on Valentine's Day and I will be home just three weeks late to celebrate with her.

2. Take Janice to an early birthday meal.
Janice is turning 27 on March 19 and this deserves a meal. Wherever she likes. Whatever she wants to eat. I'll eat it too.

3. Eat an entire chestnut cream sponge cake from Savoy Bakery. By myself, if necessary.
After Mum and I finish her late birthday lunch at Makoto, we'll walk to Savoy to get a chestnut cream sponge cake. It's not far at all. I've had chestnut cream sponge cakes from Savoy Bakery for my birthday every year that I've spent it in Sydney. They are delicious and they taste like home. They make getting older feel okay. I'm going to diligently finish a chestnut cream sponge cake to make up for lost time. Don't worry, I'll probably go with the 6-inch.

4. Drive to the wails of Bono.
One of the most trivial things I miss about not living in Sydney for two years is driving by myself with the music on. I could be going to the supermarket to pick up milk, it really doesn't matter. If I'm by myself, driving and I haven't had a prang (that's where prangster comes from, folks) then it's a good time. And I'd like to share something big right here, right now: I like to drive to the voice of middle-aged men. My CDs of choice for drive-time are U2's All That You Can't Leave Behind and Elton John's Songs from the West Coast. If I was cool in any way, I would listen to something else. But I'm not. I'm a creature of habit, and those CDs take me back. What can I say? I like to go back.

5. Sit on the sofa and watch pay TV.
I'm going to do this every night before I go to bed. I'm going to watch British lifestyle programs and cooking shows. In the daytime, I'm going to leave the TV on in the background while I do other things. Like check my e-mail. Like read the Sunday papers. Like eat cake. Like take naps.

Only 11 days to go...

The internet almost exploded last night

I guess "list serv" is the nerd-word for the mailing lists that organizations use to keep people updated on their news and events. (Are you still reading? This is funny, I promise.)

I'm part of the Writers' Studio list serv. I can't even remember what it is and I never pay attention to their e-mails. They're boring. I care about them zero.

But last night, the Writers' Studio list serv got crazy.

When I checked my alternate e-mail address, there were 80+ e-mails from the Writers' Studio list serv. All within one hour. Every single one of them was from someone different asking to be taken off the list serv.

This means instead of simply unsubscribing to the list serv on their own, people were e-mailing the entire list serv. All 1,400 members. Imagine if you had a Blackberry and it buzzed every minute with an e-mail from someone you didn't know with the subject line "Unsubscribe." You'd want to chuck it against the bricks. And then set it on fire. So you can imagine that some people got a bit agitated.

I went through a dozen or so of the messages to figure out what was going on. The range of emotions is pretty amazing. Some people got really worked up over it. Below are some of my faves:

"Please stop this."

"I do not believe I belong in this group. I do not choose to participate."

"Remove me from this list serve immediately. It is unbearable."

"For the love of god, please take me off this list also. I don't know how I got on, but get me off of it. Thank you."

"I feel like I'm on a broken elevator hovering between the 99th and 100th with 50 complete fucking strangers."

"HELP! I have no idea how I got on this list. I am just a housewife in Milwaukee. Please take me off of this crazy shit!!!"

"PLEASE TAKE ME OFF OF THIS MORONIC LIST. I AM ONLY A HOUSEWIFE IN MILWAUKEE AND HAVE NO IDEA WHY I AM BEING BOMBARDED WITH THESE EMAILS, HOWEVER, I AM BEYOND ANGRY AT THIS POINT!!!" (Same lady)

"The eerie silence will be a mind-blowing experience."

So the cause of all this was a 100% banal e-mail string between three or four people that accidentally got sent to the entire list serv. Which made people realize what a boring list serv it is. So a bunch of people decided to opt out. And the internet almost exploded.

It must have been way too much drama for the housewife in Milwaukee. She probably had to do four loads of laundry to unwind.

How I came to realize I could make a career out of this

Back in 2004, I went to New York to do a summer business program at NYU for non-business majors. It was six weeks of pretty fun times. Hanging out with Jess, shopping, eating and sweating it out. I may have developed a tan that summer, I can't be sure.

Our classes were about accounting, marketing, how the financial markets work and "strategy." I jotted down dozens of pages of notes into a notebook that I lost on the last day of the program. So awesome.

We had to break out into teams to research and present case studies on companies with unique business models. Man, I hate teams outside of real work situations. My team picked "Red Hat" because I pushed really hard for it. Who knows why. Oh right, because I grew up reading my dad's Fortune magazines and I'm a business nerd. And because the alternative was Hersheys. Psshttt. Hersheys tastes terrible.

So for six weeks, we discussed the amazing stories behind some of these cool companies. And one day towards the end of the course, a lecturer came in to talk to us about business communications. Specifically, how to write effectively in the business world. Get your point across, things like that.

Turned out I was actually okay at it. I was hurled a candy bar for condensing a ridiculously wordy paragraph into a single sentence. And shazaam -- that was the start of this whole business communications thing.

So now it's February 2009, which means I'm closing in on two years here in Chicago. Next month I'll be heading back to Sydney to renew my work visa, eat sushi train, cruise around in Mum's new car and go to Janice's sister's house for pavlova. I can't believe it's been almost two years since I've been back.

This milestone is making me think a little about the work I do and where I want to be. It might also be making me really cranky. I think maybe it is. No one likes to think about this kind of stuff.

Today I was working on the voiceovers for two videos that will be part of the GE annual report web site. One of the videos is set in Shanghai. The other in Greenville, South Carolina. I got to go on both those video shoots and do the interviews that I'm now editing.

For someone who came to Chicago with the dream of one day working on the IBM annual report (I'm not joking. I repeat, not joking), that's pretty cool. It's probably as good as it gets. But most days I forget that. This afternoon, on my way back to the office from the video production company, I remembered. And I felt surprised and lucky. And it was 16C degrees out. And the sky was blue, which helped. Nice job, Chicago.

It's a really strange thing to say, but I love that I work on GE. The five of you who read my blog probably just scrunched up your faces. But I mean it. It's part of being a business nerd.

(And if you think annual reports are a waste of paper, go here and download the 2000 IBM annual report -- editorial only. That AR blew my mind when I was 23.)

So why do I love working on GE? I love it because the things the company stands for are all good things. They are about profits, of course. But they're also about progress. And its businesses make products that actually matter to people. They make seawater drinkable. They turn the sun and wind into clean energy. They make new healthcare technologies available for more people. And they are responsible for 30 Rock and Hulu -- two of my favorite things.

The work I do doesn't really matter that much. All I do is write some of the stuff that helps people better understand what GE is about, and hopefully like the company even more. But what I really enjoy is playing a very tiny part in all this. If I want to get all romantic about it, I could say that's why I moved to Chicago in the first place.

So almost two years later, I have yet to work on IBM. But I'm really happy I get to work on GE.

This is what I've been thinking about lately.

Garfield Park Conservatory

Twas a glorious 11 degrees Celsius yesterday so I ventured out and hit the Garfield Park Conservatory with Ry.

Welcome back, Jess

Jess is finally back in NYC, and we have picked up our daily e-mail rallies again. Today she told me about an audition for a TV commercial about laxatives. Wow, that's the role of a lifetime for her. Back in 2003, her mum dropped off two huge containers of laxatives for me to bring her on my way to the summer business program at NYU. I didn't ask any questions. I just the cleared space in my suitcase. The weird thing is the audition specifically asked for Korean people. So weird. Or is it?