Home Stretch–oooooh, man… December 14, 2007

This week passed freakishly quickly. And when I say freakishly, I mean, I woke up confused this morning that it wasn’t Tuesday. Seriously. (Okay, not THAT seriously, but you get my point.) Our program director explained to us today that this is a totally normally part of the b-school process–you know, the ol’ “break them down to build them back up” gag. Which, intellectually, makes perfect sense. But I’d be a liar if I didn’t admit that I am, in fact, feeling a bit broken at the moment. I have slept precious little this week, I am in no way on top of anything, and it ain’t over yet. Tomorrow some friends and I have an all day study day planned, during which time we’ll be reviewing Quantitative Models (seriously, that class weekly brings me to the verge of of a nervous breakdown), Finances, and Accounting. Given that my last accounting quiz was a raging disaster (40%, ugh), I think it’s safe to say that I have a LOT of studying to do. And I KNOW I’ve said this a lot, but really, sometimes I feel like business school might just spin me into an identity crisis. We know that I’m not that logical or practical or blah blah blah, but the numbers classes are KILLING me, and making me feel downright SLOW on a regular basis. Like, I just can’t wrap my brain around concepts that should be fairly simple–you know, add, subtract, multiply, divide… (Except, as I have mentioned, Quantitative Models–we see symbols in that class that I’ve certainly never seen before.) But no, no, it’s ALL HARD. ALL of it. So I constantly have to ask myself if, well, I’m maybe just not that smart–or, like, not as smart as I like to think. And there’s just SO MUCH WORK!!! It’s incredible. I was supposed to have dinner with friends tonight, but, yeah, I just don’t think I have it in me. I’m thinking about a burger from the Irish Pub, take-out, and maybe some TV, and then bed by 10. But actually, I should finish (and start, ahem) my Geopolitics project tonight, because it’s due on Monday. Oh, AND–the organizational behavior project probably cost me a year off the end of my life, and I’m pretty sure my group thinks it totally sucks. Probably because they know that Valentin and I didn’t really start it until this week (HOW MANY times do I have to learn the “don’t leave things to the last minute!” lesson???), and it was certainly not my best effort (even if I did spend at least 25 hours on it this week, mostly in the middle of the night). I can’t help but feeling like I’m teetering on the brink of a VERY expensive disaster… Luckily, pretty much everyone seems to be feeling just as nuts and freaked out as I am, sooooo, ummmm, I guess this is just part of the process? Right? Um, right.

Soooooo, I can at least console myself that at this precise moment next week, I’ll be on a plane from Amsterdam to Minneapolis, and then on to Portland, pajamas, and hollandaise sauce.

But the next 7 days? I think it’s safe to say that they’re pretty much going to suck–but at least they’ll suck and be over quickly, given how this week went, and then I’ll have TWO WHOLE WEEKS to not do a single school related thing, and hopefully, at least for those two weeks, I won’t feel like an idiot. That’ll be nice.

9 days and counting… December 11, 2007

Ooooh, man, am I IN it now. Whew! After a freaking fantastic weekend in London (seriously, it was SO awesome–I’m actually feeling pretty sold on London as a possible post-MBA location–thanks, Patrick and Laleh!!!), I have come crashing back to reality, only to find myself in a sea of projects, deadlines, and, yep, a hell of a lot of stress. I think it’s safe to say that I’ve spent the last 2 days on the verge of absolute panic, complete with the uncomfortable sensation that I might just vomit, any time now. Tonight, I think I most likely don’t get to sleep, as I have a project draft due by noon tomorrow, and there is still a LOT to do. It doesn’t help that I might just be the most inefficient person ever created in the history of man, so things take me a million times more time than is absolutely necessary. (Yes, I am fully aware that I sound slightly hysterical. And hysteria only exacerbates my hyperbole problem, as we all know. Caffeine doesn’t help either, and, at this point, I’m a little bit surviving on crappy bocadillos and, you guessed it, coffee.)

How ’bout a quick summary of the causes of my hysteria? (Because I feel like sharing my pain, obvi.) So here goes: today I had my make-up law exam, for which I studied with Guille in the library until almost midnight last night (and, at the risk of jinxing it, I actually felt like it was pretty easy–whew!); tomorrow this project draft is due, to the tune of 25 pages in, of course, Spanish, and I’m having a hell of a time navigating databases to get the info I need, and the finished draft is due Friday; I also have an article summary that I agreed to do for my class tomorrow as well, also, clearly, in Spanish; we got our Geopolitics final today, which is a presentation and a 5-page paper, due Monday (group assignment, obviously); my quantitative models final is Monday as well, and I have yet to fully understand that class, which means I pretty much have to learn it, you know, this weekend; I have a case to read for tomorrow for Geopolitics (this might not happen, not gonna lie); etc etc etc. I could go into greater detail about how scary all of this is (SIX finals, THREE major presentations, etc), but then I might actually lose consciousness because of my panic, and frankly, I just don’t have time for a panic attack right now. (Yeah, and of course, it totally didn’t help my panic that I totally SLEPT OVER my marketing class this morning–didn’t I already learn the lesson about the alarm clock needing to be ACROSS the room???) And right now, instead of updating my blog, I should actually be working on my project for tomorrow. So I’m going to go and do that. Of course. I will say this, though: I sincerely wish that writing this paper was as easy as writing my blog. Sheesh.

So, um, wish me luck? It’s all over in 9 short days, and then, yeah dude, it’s time for pjs and hollandaise sauce. And hopefully I’ll be able to provide a real entry with some concrete details about just how much I loved London. Because I loved it, seriously, and that deserves a blog entry.

Ack! I’m distracting myself! Back to work back to work back to work!!!

I was “That Girl” in class today… December 4, 2007

No, not in a good way. Oh, man. I mean, it was pretty funny, but, well… A little bit of background: yesterday, I got a new phone. (Side note: I spent TWO HOURS at the Telefonica store yesterday, which is, as near as I can tell, a dressed up DMV. Seriously. WHY it took them TWO HOURS to be able to attend to me, and all I wanted to do was buy a phone–I mean, give them money and leave–is beyond me.) Anyway, right, I got a new phone. Which I have not yet had time to play with enough to learn its functions. It even occurred to me, on the way to school this morning, that I should probably figure out how to turn it to silent (rocket science, I know) but I pretty much ended up spacing out all the way to school (shocking, I know) and forgot all about it. Anyway, no one ever calls me, especially not during the school day, so who cares, right? WRONG! At approximately 10 this morning, my phone started to ring. And it’s one of those rings that gets louder and louder as you don’t answer it. Oh, and I always always always sit in the front row. So I frantically reach for my bag (that’s vibrating and humming a catchy little Chopin ditty ever more loudly), pull out my phone, and hit every button my clammy little fingers can touch. To no avail. The phone keeps humming and vibrating and getting louder. I’ve now caught my Marketing prof’s attention–awesome. He looks at me inquisitively and I apologize and say in rushed and red-faced spanish “lo siento, es nuevo!” So I finally hit a button that makes the ringing stop, and what is it? Speaker phone! (“Hola, buenos dias, estoy llamando para Crystal Combs.”) I’m horrified! And my professor, and now the whole class, is watching, and what does my prof do? He TAKES THE PHONE from me, and, in front of my entire class, TAKES A MESSAGE!!! The class was, needless to say, completely cracking up. Ummmm, so, yeah, it was pretty awesome. I think I was bright red for the entire rest of the class. And obviously, I’ve now figured out how to switch it to silent…