Hilarious new blog about life with an MBA student

There's really not that many resources out there for the significant other of an MBA student, which is one of the reasons I started this blog -- to share with others some of my experiences as someone who is married into the MBA world and starting a new life in L.A. I figured if I've already lost a bit of my soul looking into things like health insurance and drivers licenses, I might as well spare somebody else the time & suffering in doing the exact same thing as me. (Mind you I haven't really kept up with the blogging as well as I would've liked to, but slowly but surely I will publish the 38 posts currently saved in my drafts folder).

Now for pure commiserating pleasure, one of the other wives has found the link to a blog called Living with a Business School Student and it is fantastic. The premise of the blog is clever one-liners paired with 2-second video clips and there's some really funny stuff on it I'm sure many B-School significant others can identify with. Here are my favourites:

When I got to the first partner´s club meeting I was like:

When I do all the laundry and he comes home and complains 
that I put his shirts in the wrong drawer:

 When my husband puts on a suit for his recruiting events, I'm like:

When a student tells me they are switching from banking to finance, I'm like:

When someone asks when I think my boyfriend will "pop the question", I'm like:

When my husband tells me he's accepted a rotational program 
in Kalamazoo "just for a year", I'm like:

When I'm actually able to help my husband fix an 
Excel formula, I'm like:

Dry cleaners

I rarely take things to the dry cleaner because it's expensive and to be honest, we don't have that many super nice things that are "dry clean only" (I mean, surely not everyone follows those care tags to the T) so I was happy to not have to look around for a good dry cleaner (I probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference and just looked for the cheapest one around anyway) and instead just took someone's word for it: R&B Dry Cleaners at the bottom of the Oppenheimer Building at Wilshire & Westwood is the best and cheapest cleaner in the neighbourhood.

I took Mike's suit in to get dry cleaned before Thanksgiving and met the owner Igor (old-school Russian/East European man who gives you change from his wallet) and got the low down on prices:

Suit $9
Pants $3.50
Jacket $5.50
Blouse $3 
Dress $9+ 
Skirt $3.50
Sweater $3.50
Dress shirt $1.75

 
It's usually a two-day turnaround (meaning you drop off on Monday, pick up on Wednesday), but he'll let you know. Hours are Mondays through Fridays, 9:30am-5pm.

Westwood Library Book Sale

Tomorrow, Saturday December 1st (**GASP** Is it really December already??), Westwood Public Library is holding their quarterly used book sale from 10:30am-3:30pm. The sale is outside the library at 1246 Glendon Avenue at Wilshire (just east of Westwood Blvd.). I went to the one back in September and paid $15 for a box of hard cover cook books, novels, travel guides, and coffee table books. From what I can tell it was mostly community donations mixed with library inventory, but lots of new books in very good condition. They also had DVD's/CD's but nothing good by the time I got over to that section and it was really busy so go early for the best stuff! While you're there, you might as well get yourself a library card, see this old post for more details.

Oh, and right around the corner from the library hiding behind office buildings and parking garages, is a quiet little cemetery called Westwood Memorial Park, the final resting place for some pretty big names including Marilyn Monroe, Dean Martin, Roy Orbison, and both Grumpy Old Men, so go have a little stroll around there too!

Free coffee on a sunny terrace on campus

The Dashew Center hosts these FREE "World Café" days regularly on their 2nd floor terrace at Bradley Hall (on the west side of campus off Charles E. Young Dr. by the tennis courts). They use high-quality, brand name coffees/teas from around the world and there's one this coming Thursday, November 29th, from 1-3pm. You just have to register online so that they know how many people are going.

$15 haircuts at Aveda

I worked as a spa receptionist one summer and was surprised at all the "regulars" who came in for their haircut every 6 weeks. Depending on where you go, a simple haircut can be anywhere between $30-$60 a pop and when we were living in England, they were closer to $80 which was incomprehensible to me. So when money is tight, I tend to just let my hair grow out and ignore the split ends until I find a good deal...

In Oxford there was this fancy salon called Mahogany that would offer free haircuts by their apprentice stylists and I've seen similar ads not only for cheap haircuts but for facials/mani-pedis/massages/etc. by students at the esthetics schools in other cities, so if you don't mind being a guinea pig and have the time & patience (they're in training so they take extra long) to give it a try, this could be a good option. In some sense I think you end up getting better service and (sometimes) a better a haircut because they're putting in extra effort to get it right. Besides, there's always a senior stylist/teacher who supervises and gives instructions and they use high-quality products.

So I was happy to see this ad in The Daily Bruin from the Aveda Institute last week:

If you click onto their website you'll see that the prices listed here are from the "Aveda for Less" promotion which offers $15 haircuts, $15 hightlights, $10 brow/lip waxes, and $35 mani/pedis (including a free bottle of OPI polish which alone retails for about $10). It runs through December 31st for bookings Monday-Friday before 3pm (regular price list here). Also if you just want to use the 20% off any service promo, you can call and say you saw the ad in The Daily Bruin but didn't clip out the coupon, and ask whether they'll still give it to you and if not, then get the equivalent holiday promo.

Otherwise I've seen signs in the windows of so-so salons for haircuts between $18-30 for women (as low as $10 for men at the barber shop beside Stan's Donuts in Westwood), so you could always check those out. Oh and there are often vouchers on all those Groupon-esque sites but I'm kind of taking a break from that whole "daily deals" thing at the moment and chances of one coming up in Westwood are slim.

[2012/12/03 Update]

Sadly I've now heard from three people who have been to Aveda and had a bad experience. Apparently the stylists just chat and complain with each other the entire time, the back room where the services are done is kind of crummy, and the actual outcome less than satisfactory. I've sent Aveda this feedback and hopefully they will address these items, but most likely not...

2-for-1 Tacos in Westwood

A few weeks ago a new restaurant called TLT Food opened up in Westwood Village where The Stand used to be. I guess the acronym came from its origins as "The Lime Truck" in Orange County, winner of The Great Food Truck Race on the Food Network. I haven't been yet but it's on my agenda for next week before their 2-for-1 tacos offer expires on Nov 30th (show your BruinCard and get two tacos for the price of one after 8pm in November). Here's an article about it from Grub Street and the ad I cut out of the Daily Bruin:

Westwood Public Library

I love libraries: quiet reading rooms and shelves and shelves of beautiful books, all properly categorized and alphabetized, free WiFi, free movies, what's not to love? Wherever we move to, we always somehow end up living within a 10-minute walk to the local library; the Toronto Public Library, for example, was hands-down the best public library I've ever seen (with 98 branches it's apparently also the busiest urban library system in the world).

One of the other MBA wives (at Anderson they call us "Sig-O's" which is short for significant others) had the great idea to start a book club in our little circle. This will be my first time joining a book club so I'm rather looking forward to it (gosh this blog makes me sound terribly geeky). I'm hoping it will be a nice mix between the read-serious-stuff-and-have-philosophical-discussions kind of book club and the read-fluffy-novels-and-drink-wine-and-complain-about-your-husbands kind. :o)

So on Friday I finally stopped in at the Westwood Public Library, one of 72 branches of the Los Angeles Public Library system (also up there in the list of largest public library systems in the world). The library's address is 1246 Glendon Avenue, just south of Wilshire Blvd. and a block east of Westwood Blvd. 

Library cards are free to residents of California and valid for 3 years. For proof of residency, you'll either need a photo ID with your current address, or a photo ID plus a personal check or utilities bill or credit card statement or something of that nature with your current address. You fill out an application form and get your card right away and can start checking out materials same day.

Here are some highlights:

• you can borrow most items for 3 weeks and renew twice (35 cents/day fine if late); CD's & Documentary DVD's are loaned out for a week and entertainment DVD's for 2 days ($1/day fine);
• you can return to any of the library's 72 branches;
• you can place a hold online for an item that is in the library catalogue and they will transfer the item to your branch and email you when it's ready for pick up (this was my favourite feature of the Toronto library, so glad they have the same system here!);
• they have a huge collection of eMedia (eBooks, audio books, music, videos, etc.) so you can download things onto your computer/iPad/Kindle/whatever without even leaving your house;
• they also organize events like workshops, author talks, Spanish/French conversation groups, and a quarterly book sale (the next one is Saturday, December 1st, 10:30am-3:30pm);
• when you borrow 5 books from the library, you can ask for a free ticket to the Hammer Museum which is just up the street; and
• with your library card you get $2 admission (instead of $2.50) into public swimming pools all over the city including the half-Olympic size Westwood Pool.

The Westwood Library's hours are Mon/Wed 10am-8pm, Tue/Thu 12:30-8pm, Fri/Sat 10am-5:30pm (closed Sundays), and I hope you'll go check it out and maybe pick up a book or a movie or two! :o)

[2012/11/26 Update]

Here's a little tip: Items are supposed to be due back in the drop box by midnight on the due date, but they're actually not scanned in until the library opens the next business day. This means if you borrow a few movies Thursday night, the due date on your slip will be Saturday, but since they're closed on Sunday, you technically don't have to return them until half an hour or so before they open on Monday morning (as they clear out the drop box before they open).