WAHOO!!! Richard the Rockstar

During our last weekend in London at the beginning of December, we decided to pull the trigger and have Richard spend one of the days we had previously slated for sightseeing (e.g., the British Museum) writing an essay to submit to an essay competition hosted by Accenture, the big consulting firm.

We figured it was tough competition, but there was a pretty sweet prize, and Richard had already put quite a bit of time into thinking and pondering about the concept throughout the term, and done a considerable bit of preliminary research. Unfortunately, amidst all the other homework assignments he hadn't had time to physically execute the 'writing' part of the essay. We were super close to giving up and finally getting to the British Museum. But, given that we had so much already invested, we decided it was worth skipping a morning of sightseeing. Which dragged on into an afternoon, and then an evening.  I believe I may have fallen asleep at some point while I was offering moral support. After some long, intense hours, we had an initial draft. I proofed, Richard revised, I proofed, etc etc. etc. However, when we didn't hear anything by the first of the year, (the time the rules said a winner would be announced), we figured it was a long shot anyway, and by the end of January had forgot about it. 

However, at an awards banquet held in London today the winners were announced! A few weeks ago the coordinators said there would be a luncheon for everyone that participated. Richard had RSVPd that he couldn’t attend, but then yesterday the coordinators requested that he have a deputy there to stand in for him. One of our friends, Elena, graciously agreed to attend. We got an excited email from her this afternoon that Richard had WON THE WHOLE SHEBANG! She said they had a lot of really nice things to say about his essay, but the gist of it was that it was “Your piece offered a particularly deep insight into the issue and that your ideas were presented in a very clear and easy-to-follow manner.”

That's my boy genius!

The prestige of winning the competition is pretty awesome, but I myself am a wee bit MORE excited about the PRIZE: an iPad and a SWEET cash prize! Which is pretty awesome considering that we have been trying to figure out how to replace Betsy once she dies, now that Dimples Jr. is gone. And, considering that part of the essay is about her, I think putting the cash towards a new car is especially fitting. 

Richard chose the following topic from the list of competition essay questions: "Does the financial services industry deserve its reputation and what does it need to do to rebuild it?" Anyone who wants to read Richard’s essay can follow this link.   And if you get a minute shoot him an email to tell him how awesome he is!
*Richard would like to add the disclaimer that he knows there are still some punctuation and grammar errors in the essay (but, hey, it was written in a day!)