The school year is nearly over, already!, and I think I might, just might, be zeroing in on what I want to do with the MBA. Thanks to a couple of AMAZING company presentations, (an investment fund that seems amazing, and a sustainable eco-tourism start-up that is totally inspirational), PLUS doing a 2 day coaching seminar, I think I might be coming back to center with my sense of purpose, and vision of what, exactly, I want to be when I grow up. I think that what is really really important to me, and where I need to direct my job search, is social enterprise — which is to say, finding a way to use business as a vehicle for social change/positive impace, whatever that means. I’ve had a couple of promising leads come up in the last few days for summer employment, both here and in Portland, which is exciting, and makes me feel like I’m directing my search appropriately. We shall see…
Getting hoodwinked by a gypsy, and other recent tales May 15, 2008
Once again, I have fallen off the wagon with the blogging. Seriously, people, this work/life balance thing is freaking tricky!
To start: yup, I got tricked by a gypsy in Sevilla — into giving up 20 euros! Ah, what a naive sucker I am when taken out of the big city! (This would NEVER have happened in BCN!!) It was no big deal, really, she just basically did a walk-by palm-reading and then demanded that I pay her for it — freaking sneaky, right?? I tried to give her 2 euros, but NO!, that wasn’t enough for our supposedly-pregnant gypsy-thief sneaky-lady! She said she could make change, so I thought, okay, sure, I’ll give her 5. But I only had a 20. Which I trustingly gave her, thinking she would make change. But NO! As soon as she had the 20 in her hand, she got all “it’s 10 euros per palm, everybody knows that!” and the sneaky gypsy lady took my freaking money! And wouldn’t give it back! Gah!! I was so irritated, but what are you gonna do? Punch a sneaky pregnant gypsy lady in broad daylight? Obviously not. So, yeah, I had to walk away and think, somehow, this is going to be good karma — right? And maybe the sneaky pregnant gypsy lady needed that 20 euros more than I did. Right? Right???
So that’s how I got robbed by a gypsy. Sucker.
That said, Sevilla was beautiful! What a fabulous little city! And man, what a difference from Barcelona. It felt like, I don’t know, REAL Spain, or something — flamenco (oh! the flamenco! I never knew how damn sexy it was!!), tapas f’real, plazas, sunshine, nice people, TONS of sangria… It was delightful. Except for the getting robbed by a sneaky gypsy lady part, it totally rocked. I went with Matt, Blanca and Ben, and we commented repeatedly just how much we liked the city. The only truly odd thing about it (other than sneaky pregnant gypsy lady) was that everything seemed to shut down by midnight. Having been thoroughly spoiled by a city that never really shuts down, it was shocking to realize that after dinner, when we wanted to go to a bar… yeah, there really weren’t any. Odd.
And then came Becky and her Beau (named Ben)! I met them at the airport on Sunday morning, and we spent the day wandering around by the beach, and then going out for delicious paella that evening. Monday I had a group meeting, so met them in the evening to cook dinner at my house, and we had SUCH a good time, just sitting around the kitchen, listening to music, drinking cava, eating awesome homemade real food (hurray Becky!), and laughing our faces off. Needless to say, I approve of Beck’s new dude, and it’s crazy delightful to see her so very happy.
Obviously, it was quite a weekend, and now I’m back to reality, and picking up where I left off with my various existential crises. The good news is that I seem to be making progress in that department. I discovered a PERFECT internship in Portland, for which I am currently procrastinating writing my cover letter, but am super excited about. It’s green, it’s cutting edge, it’s Portland — what more could a girl ask for?? Also, I just had my (admittedly, very odd) interview with GS in NYC, and yeah, that could also be cool, in a very different way. I mean, of course, it would be incredibly sexy to put them on my resume, and might well be an ideal strategic maneuver for the ol’ CV, and would be great to live with Mary and Doug and the kiddos, but my interviewer (who essentially let me interview him) made me think that any monkey off the street could do the job, and it might not be the best use of my shiny new MBA skill-set. Hm. But like I said, GS would be wicked sexy on my CV, so we shall see.
That brings us to now. I got my ass kicked by a presentation in Finance yesterday, but actually, I think it went really well, and at least it’s over. I will now proceed to have my ass kicked by 2 more weeks of school, and then on to exams and muchísimos invitados, and then, yeah, either NY or Portland, I hope. Man, it’s been a fast year! I can’t believe the first year of my MBA is almost over!!! That’s CRAZY! (I’m Brian Fellows?)
Apologies that I don’t have any Sevilla pics yet, by the way. Ben and Matt took SO MANY effing photos this weekend, that I felt it would be redundant to take any more (plus, who would Blanca hang out with if I joined in the photo-fest the boys were having??), but I haven’t yet had a chance to steal any. I’ll get on it though, promise.
In the meantime, a word to the wise: don’t let yourself be hoodwinked by a sneaky pregnant gypsy thief lady in Sevilla! Watch out! They’ll getcha!!
The latest obsession May 6, 2008
It will come as no shock to anyone that knows me that I have a new obsession. (Nope, not a boy, for once! Which, as an aside, is freaking GREAT — can’t remember the last time there was no one in orbit. But I digress…) I tend to get really really into things, and then, for a brief period, it’s all I’m thinking or talking about. Past obsessions have been working out/counting calories, BOYS, business school research (before I got here), The Gilmore Girls, Harry Potter, business school being hard (since I’ve been here) and back to, you guessed it, BOYS. (And while I’m currently recovering from a two week affair with “Dexter,” the television show that’s like freaking CRACK, that is not the obsession to which I refer. Plus, I’ve now seen every episode, and it doesn’t start back up again until I’m in Cape Town, so I’ve got time to recover.) This one, though, is killing me. I am a CHAMPION sleeper, and it’s even been affecting my sleep — keeping me up, waking me up, infecting my dreams…
Obviously, of course, you’ve probably already detected in recent posts that my current obsession is part of the theme of the year: what the crap do I want to be when I grow up??? And, more urgently: what the HELL am I going to do this summer? My mom reminded me on Sunday that, SHIT!, I only have 6 weeks to figure this out. (More like 3 if I’m buying a ticket back to the States…) And man, this year has been The Year of the Identity Crisis for me, pendulum swinging from one extreme idea of Who I Am to the next. I thought I wanted to do the spa thing in a few years. Then I thought, in the meantime, maybe I’ll just do sustainability (um, yeah, could that be ANY more vague, folks?), then no, not that, maybe consulting, then perhaps even HR consulting, then simply HR and maybe some coaching, reject all that, go back to NGOs or social entrepreneurship, and now it looks like, thanks to a contact of Mary’s, I’ll be interviewing for a temp job at one of the world’s most prestigious banks (er, totally terrified about that — I’m not even clear on what securities ARE, let alone how I could work with them for the summer, and I’m pretty sure that, while it would be INCREDIBLE to put that name on my resume, it’s not going to help me feel like I’m saving the world, which, actually, is probably okay for the summer). And I’ve more or less given up the spa idea for frivolous, and not profitable in an ever more saturated market place.
Whew!! Good LORD, I never knew the MBA was going to be so personally challenging; don’t get me wrong, I knew it would be a good ol’, healthy academic stretch; one that I hoped would ultimately be satisfying (think sudoku or crossword puzzle). But this? I never guessed it would plague me so heartily with self doubt and confusion. So it’s been more like, ooooh, 9 months stretched out on a rack — not like a sudoku at ALL, and not very satisfying or terribly healthy, mostly excruciatingly painful, and since I’m talking in metaphor, here, I don’t even get the added bonus of getting off the damn thing and gaining a couple of much-appreciated vertical inches.
Don’t get me wrong. I still feel incredibly positive about the summer coming. (Honestly! I do!) It’ll be great to be out of school, let my brain rest a bit, have weekends f’real, enjoy loads of sunshine in some part of the world, and look forward to Cape Town (which became more or less official today!). I’m just anxious as hell to know where I’ll be, and terrified that I haven’t left myself time to Make a Choice. We KNOW how crazy I am about feeling like I’m in control of my own fate, as it were, and I hate to think the decision will just make itself for me when June comes, I’m unemployed, and I’m on a flight to Portland to look for pub and volunteer work. Which could be fun, and maybe even a good way to spend the last WHOLE entire summer I’ll have off for a loooong while, but… I just like to be the one choosing. Which is what makes this obsession such a conundrum — which path do I choose??? What’s the right one? What DO I want to do with this freaking MBA??? ACK!!! See? It’s super confusing, and sure to keep me up, again, tonight. At least I have my very exciting, super terrifying interview to look forward to, for now…
And once again, folks, I’m open to suggestions.
“Just one more” May 3, 2008
I’m not one to wax super nostalgic, but there are things I’ve missed, REALLY missed, since I’ve been here. One of those things is the “just one more” phenomenon. (Also known as “famous last words.”) In Boston, I had a regular crew of folks with whom I could belly up to the bar and while away the hours talking about who-knows-what (probably just variations on the regular themes — boys, work, boys, the future, boys, politics if it was late in the night, back to boys… and so on), but having SUCH a good time that every time our pint glasses were empty, we’d look at each other and say, “aw, what the hell… just one more.” The point, of course, is NOT the beer — it is the good time being had shooting the breeze with a dear friend (I won’t name names, but YOU know who you are!!).
In Barcelona, the role of the “just one more” companion has been left woefully vacant. When that moment comes, the critical moment when we say “eh, eff it, we have responsibilities, but tomorrow is Saturday, so they can wait,” my companions invariably say something to the effect of “well, I have a group meeting tomorrow, so I should get going,” or “I’m exhausted, I’m gonna take off,” or simply “okay, this has been fun, but I’m done for the night.” And it’s not like it’s even late — usually it’s, like, 11pm, maybe midnight. By Boston standards, that’s freaking early, so don’t get me started on LOCAL standards! 11pm is the BEGINNING of a night out, not the end!!
Which brings me to last night. Last night, after Graci and I finished up a law case we were working on (dude, she’s totally the brains behind THAT operation, that’s for sure — mostly I just try to help by typing out the questions, or something) we headed out for a mojito at a local little bar that I just love. And guess what? After we finished our mojitos, we looked at each other and said, “aw, what the hell — bartender, dos más, por favor!” And THEN, we even stopped by BK for some fries and headed to Raul’s bar for “just one more” beer. Heaven! We were having so much fun that we wanted to keep hanging out! Hurray!!!
Of course, as we know, some of my all-time-favorite “just one more” companions will be appearing in my city directly, and I’m pretty damn excited about that, but in the meantime, it’s nice to know that Graci can hang as well.
Cape Town and internships, revisited April 27, 2008
As we know, I bombed my interview last week — which is to say, the interview for the internship that I was banking on having for the summer. The internship that would be the very good reason for me to turn down my awesome adventure at the end of the world. The internship that would nearly guarantee me a job in Barcelona at the end of the MBA. The internship that would re-shape my professional trajectory and send me spinning off into a new and exciting career. The only internship that has interested me this year, really. That interview.
After a week of drowning myself in despair and indulgent self-deprecation, I finally came up for air, only to find that I was… relieved, actually. And extremely confused. I started thinking about what I want, I mean REALLY want, to do after the MBA. This internship would have been great — really interesting, a LOT of work, and I’d probably learn A LOT. But as soon as it was off the table (and, to be fair, it’s not actually off the table yet — they haven’t told me no, but seriously, I’m pretty damn sure it’s a no) I started having this nag nag nagging in my gut about… yep, you guessed it: Cape Town. I started kicking myself, actually, for turning down Cape Town for an internship that I had ultimately made unattainable. (Uh, yeah, self sabotage, anyone??) And then I had Rupert, Carol and Cathal all collectively say “why wouldn’t you go to Cape Town?” (and the subtext would be: “what the hell is wrong with you??”). So of course, I started thinking, AUGH! What the hell IS wrong with me? I can’t believe I said NO, for an internship I’m not getting!
Long story short (I know, too late): I’m going to Cape Town. I think. I mean, I’ve officially told my school that I want to go, and the woman in charge is just checking to make sure they still have a spot for me, but: if all goes well, I’ll be in Cape Town on October 1, or thereabouts. Whew! And I am SO excited about it! I had SO much remorse about saying no, but, so far, I’m not having any remorse about saying yes, which is great. (An aside: I stole these photos from my buddy Langdon, who went there over Semana Santa. Yeah, um, looks pretty nice, right??) It is, as Laurent put it, an OIALO, or, Once In A Lifetime Opportunity. Literally. Feels much better to say YES to an OIALO than NO, believe me.
Now: on to this summer. What the shit am I going to do this summer?! I honestly never considered the possibility that this internship wasn’t going to work out, so I didn’t look for anything else, which means I have to now confront just how very directionless I am. Or do I? What if I just go to Boston for the summer, move back in with Laura, and beg Lauren for some part time work? (Ahem, Lauren? Need any teachers? Or Becca? C’mon, I’m pretty good!!) Or I live with my grandmother in Portland and work part time somewhere and hang out with all the Portland folks? (And by work part time, I mean, seriously, like pulling beers at a local brewery or making coffee somewhere.) Or head to NY and crash with Mary and Doug and, yeah, wait tables or something? Obviously, I’ve got some thinking to do, and some job searching to do, because I clearly can’t just NOT work this summer (LOTS of plane tickets to buy in the very near future, and they ain’t cheap!), but I have NO idea what kind of (real) work I want to do. I’m starting to lean more toward NGO/non-profit/development type work, but who knows.
So if you know anyone looking for an MBA intern this summer, let me know! Otherwise, I might just end up chilling by the pool at my parents’ house and slinging sushi with my bro. Which wouldn’t be so bad, if it were anywhere in the world other than Stockton, CA. However, at least I know that, come October, I’ll be crash landing at the end of the world, and on to a pretty excellent adventure. An adventure that, I’m convinced, will have some answers to my many questions about which direction to take, which is pretty awesome. (Thanks, Laurent, for kicking my ass on this one. You were so right…) And as far as the summer goes, I am definitely taking suggestions.
Family, hurray!!! April 22, 2008
This last weekend not only lived up to expectations. It crushed the living daylights out of them. Holy crap. I don’t know when I’ve ever had a better weekend. (And man, am I in a better mood now. Whew! Can you tell??)
Mary and Doug got here on Thursday, Rupert and Carol came in on Friday evening, Cathal showed up on Saturday afternoon, and yeah, it was pretty much nonstop eating, drinking, eating, drinking, taking in some sights (but not really) and then back to eating and drinking. I must say that I had a stroke of absolute inspiration and took Mary and Dough to a bar IN La Boqueria for lunch the day they got here, right after we threw back a quick pint of Guinness at Flaherty’s. (The only drag about that, and then subsequently the whole weekend, was that they learned that my 7-year-old cousin was in the hospital after having the first asthma attack of his life so far. How’s that for timing? Poor little dude! But no worries! He’s fine now!!) Anyway, trauma aside, they were sufficiently pleased with the Boqueria, and the meal was, in Doug’s terms, just ridiculous (fried artichoke hearts, jamon, chipirones, sardinas a la plancha, asparagus, grilled wild mushrooms, gambas al ajillo, etc — get excited, Becky, Ben, Sean, Laura, Kim and Martijn, because we’re SO going back when you come here!!). It was the beginning of a series of absolutely INSANE meals that we had, including the major highlight of the weekend, dinner at Commerc 24. The chef there apparently trained with el Bulli himself, and yeah, it was pretty much the tastiest meal I’ve ever had. (FOUR hours of nonstop eating waves of delicious tapas and drinking crazy-good wine and conversing, during which the bulk of the conversation went something like “oh my GOD that’s good…” “I know, have you tried the other one yet? just wait!”)
But you know what? All that delicious food and partying isn’t really even the best part. (Although, seriously, it was all totally spectacular. Hyperbole aside, I swear!) The best part was how much I enjoyed having my family here, as well as some of their best friends. What an amazing group of people. I think not altogether infrequently about how lucky I am to have been born into such an excellent family (on both sides!), and also how I seem to have been happily condemned to a life full of scores of wonderful friends, but it’s not often that I think about how awesome the friends of my family are. (Because, honestly, how often does that come up?) And I was sitting with them all at dinner on Saturday — Mary and Doug, Rupert and Carol, Cathal (who couldn’t bring his wife and baby, unfortunately, but apparently his wife was a relatively well-known punk-rock screamer in Zurich in the 80s–um, how cool is that??) — and it occurred to me, holy shit, these people are who I HOPE to be in 20-odd years. They are successful. They are cool. They are smart and knowledgeable and interesting, and share their interests with their cool, smart, knowledgeable and interesting kids. They take cool vacations. They read good books and see good movies. They’re all still damn attractive. They have cool friends who they fly to Barcelona for the weekend to see. They, in short, are kicking ass at being grown-ups. So of course, at said dinner, I might have made something of a speech (when Mary asked us all to go around and say what we’re excited about in our lives right now) and said to them that, for the love of Buddha, I hope you guys know just how damn cool and inspirational you are! Because I doubt, in the course of their insanely busy everyday lives, they often zoom out and think, hell ya, this is the life I created, and shit, isn’t it f***ing cool? To me, that’s just damn exciting.
All this to say, the weekend was incredible and provided quite a bit of the perspective I’ve been so effing desperate for lately. (Holy crap, have I been “cambiante” lately. Ooof, it’s exhausting to be so freaking all over the place!) Mary is always such a calming, reassuring, relentlessly positive and infinitely loving presence, and Doug does a great job of reminding me that stuff just doesn’t have to be a big deal. Plus, everything in life looks better over a delicious bottle of cava. Also: somehow, over the course of the weekend, I was nearly totally talked out of my interest in HR (at least, working in an HR department at a company, ugh…) and my interest in Africa was sparked all over again (totally Rupert, Carol and Cathal’s fault — a collective “why the hell wouldn’t you go to Africa??” sentiment was pretty much all I needed to tip the scale back toward Cape Town…). So there may be developments on that front, still — I’ll keep y’all posted, promise.
Of course, in a lot of ways, I’m even more confused than ever (what DOES it all mean???), but at least I had a kickass weekend with some of the bestest folks on the planet, and for a minute, I got to stop feeling dumb and incompetent, which feels freaking great.
Writer’s Block… and an ode to Skype February 14, 2008
No no, not writer’s block for the blog. I can always write here. Especially when I’m putting off other things. Like right now. I’ve got writer’s block for the cover letter that I’ve been trying to write for the last four or more hours. Of course, when it comes to helping other people with their cover letters and their CVs and preparing for interviews, I’m kind of brilliant. But when I have to write my own cover letter? For a job I really really think could be great for me? And I could be great for it? Painful. I write, hate what I wrote, erase, pause… think… write something else, hate it again, erase again, and another pause… During which time I let myself get totally distracted by email or passersby or the interwebs or… SKYPE! So then I do that for, you know, a while, until finally my guilty and nagging conscience drags me back to the work at hand. And then I’m staring at the page again, and I have to go back and repeat this whole painful process all over.
So now I need to digress for a minute and just say how much I love Skype. Why? Probably because it’s my current favorite distraction, and we know how I get excited by my current favorite novelties. But also because it makes me feel like Becky and Laura and Pat and my parents and a variety of other friends are RIGHT THERE! Like when I see the green check mark I can just reach out and give them a little poke. A little “hey! how’s your day!” or “hey! corporate finance sucks!” or “hey! I miss you!” Pat tends to leave his Skype open, so I’ve taken to leaving little notes during the day–I think of it like leaving post-its for him, and he’ll see my note, you know, whenever he gets back to his computer. And THEN, when there’s time and space and all the stars align (as they tend to on Sunday nights, in my parents’ case) there’s the VIDEO call feature! I mean, I’m pretty happy with a bit of text chatting from time to time (or, erm, most days, whatever), but it’s soooo much cooler to have a virtual face-to-face. And it’s FREE!! Seriously, I love it. I mean, chatting with Laura and Becky when I’m spacing out during class is in NO way like meeting them at the JJ for a drink and a real conversation, but… it’s totally helping me to not miss them so very very terribly. Makes it seem like not such a big deal that we’re so freaking far away from each other. (Clearly I’m a latecomer to the wide world of chatting online, but I really really love it. Obviously.) All this to say, ye family and friends: jump on the bandwagon! C’mon! You, too, can contribute to my poor study habits!!
Well, that was a fun little digression. But I really really should write that cover letter. More precisely, I have to write two for tomorrow, and there’s another half-written one hanging in the balance for next week. I just keep coming up with lame-o crap that basically sounds like “I’m good at stuff! And things! And things and stuff! And I’m REALLY excited about this opportunity! Really! Because stuff is good!” And then I wrinkle my nose, shake my head, frown at my poor computer as though it’s my computer’s fault that I can’t craft a compelling cover letter, and then I erase and go back to zero. Rinse and repeat. Ergh. The ridiculous thing is that I can pretty well articulate why this is a good job for me OUT LOUD, but when it comes to the cover letter? It’s a sad, scary blank page. That is currently mocking me with it’s half-blankness. (I have got a bit on the page that has not yet been axed. Yet.) Nothing worse than being taunted by a half-blank page. It’s just not very motivating…
Oh! Hey! One more digression: Happy Valentine’s Day, family and friends!! I’m actually pretty glad to be in a country that doesn’t really actually celebrate it, for what should be fairly obvious reasons. (Not a very good day for the chronically and relentlessly and seemingly eternally single, y’know?) Of course, there’s a school party to celebrate tomorrow night where I get to advertise my singleness by wearing a green (as in “GO FOR IT! I’m available! yay! …now buy me a drink!”) sticker. I mean, I could lie, and wear a red sticker, but I think all of my classmates are pretty clear that I’m not seeing anyone. So, yeah. Going to a party where I can tell everyone that no, indeed, I do NOT have a valentine this year. Or last year. Or the year before that. Or… well, you get it. Amazing that a basically made-up holiday can have such an impact on the psyche. So it was cool that today was, you know, basically a day like any other. But I hope all of YOU are enjoying it, anyway!
Gah! Okay! Enough procrastinating. I’ve gotta go and take care of that effing blank page now. Curses.
Back in the saddle again… January 8, 2008
I’ve had the Gene Autry song stuck in my head for a solid 24 hours–I guess my unconscious feels like I’m ready to get back in the saddle, eh? (Despite my feelings of apprehension and impending doom! For the whole of my last 24 hours in Portland, I could hardly say anything but “Don’t make me go back there! To the place where I feel fat and ugly and STUPID–NOOOOOOOO!!!” As we already know, I care a great deal for hyperbole, but you get my point.) Anyway, I’m back, and I’ve gotta say, so far, so good. Raul and Jorge were both excited to see me (and I them), it was super nice to sleep in my bed, we now have REAL internet in the apartment (not unpredictable stolen internet–which means, hurray!, free calls to the US! everybody Skype!), and it’s pretty great to see all of my peers again. I fear that this week is going to be intense (we have a one-week course on Strategy and Competition, and there’s even a final for it, on SATURDAY), but I’m excited to dig in with my new (awesome!) team, so at least there’s some fun to be had, right?
So, when I last wrote, I was in the middle of some serious terror. Finals were pretty freaking terrible, I have to say, and I’m pretty worried about how my accounting final went (that subject is the devil). By the time I got to the end of the week, I felt like I couldn’t possibly absorb any more information, any more Spanish, or any more school. So vacation arrived just in time. And it was AWESOME! We all know how much I LOVE Portland, and man, I’m more convinced than ever that that is a city where I want to live someday. (Maybe this summer? Let’s see what happens…)
Given that I got a camera for Christmas, how ’bout a (very incomplete) highlight reel, in pictures?
Yes, friends, that would be my beach house. Also know as My Very Favoritest Place Ever Created in the History of Man. 2008 is the Beach House’s 50th year in my family–whew!
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas… November 25, 2007
Well, even though Thanksgiving doesn’t exist here (sniff, sniff), it does seem that the third week of November is a universal benchmark for the beginning of the Christmas season–I mean, one month out, I guess that makes sense. This means that the city is completely decked out in lights, local businesses sport Christmas trees and red carpets, and yes, even here, there is already an abundance of cheesy Christmas programming on the tele. Today, I watched Elf in Spanish with Raul (turns out “ooooh, you’re an angry elf” is almost as funny in Spanish as it is in English!), and yesterday I watched some terrible, clearly made-for-TV movie about Santa being some kid’s neighbor. Awesome. D’you suppose I’ll be able to watch “A Christmas Story” here? And if so, can we assume that “You’ll shoot your eye out, kid” will have the same kind of resonance in Spanish that it does in English? Big life questions, I know.
Of course, now that it’s starting to feel like Christmas (not like in Boston, though–no snow here!), I’m discovering a whole new kind of homesickness. For instance, I just had my first Thanksgiving since 2001 without Mary and Doug and the kids, and man, there was a sort of dull ache in my chest ALL day. (That could also have been caused by the anxiety of trying to get my first summer internship application emailed off, though, and spending the majority of the day helping other people fix their cover letters rather than working on mine–good LORD am I an accomplished procrastinator…) And now I’m staring down the barrel of, arguably, the most challenging 3 weeks of my ENTIRE academic career, and what am I thinking about? Spritz cookies. And presents. And sleeping on the couch in the den while watching Discovery Channel with Maman. And the internships I hope to interview for in Portland. And being on the West Coast for the summer, if I can.
And all of this is making me wonder, really wonder, where I want to be after I finish grad school. I had sort of assumed (sorry, dad!) that I’d want to stay in Europe for a while after I finish my MBA. It’s actually sort of logical–most of the companies that come to recruit are looking for people for Europe, and the Euro is CRUSHING the dollar right now, and have I mentioned 24 paid vacation days off a year??? LOTS of advantages. And yet, and yet, aaaaaah, I find myself getting excited about the possibility of being on the West Coast for the summer, which makes me excited about maybe moving back after school, which makes me excited about being closer to my beloved family, which really, just makes me ready for CHRISTMAS!
Ooooh, man, but really really, I should be doing schoolwork. Big time. I’ve been engaged in a 2-day long battle with a case about the airplane manufacturing industry, and it seems to be winning. (Seriously, what is WRONG with me? All I had to do was read the damn thing, and write a summary for my group in Spanish. Two days later, I’m only 1/3 of the way through the freaking summary, have accomplished NONE of my other homework for the weekend, and it’s already about to be Monday again. Sheesh.)
But Christmas? 26 days, three major papers, three major presentations, two minor presentations, four final exams, at least 10 summer internship applications, and counting…
Nostalgia! November 4, 2007
I just stole this from Laurent’s Facebook page, and it pretty much encompasses everything that I miss about Boston. If Will and Becky were in the photo, it would pretty much be perfect. This picture is St. Paddy’s Day at the JJ last year–a particularly memorable evening for me, because I officially started my love affair with Guinness. But in this photo are some of my very favorite people in the whole entire universe–Sean and Laura, Jen and Laurent, and Alex (all of whom have blogs linked to this page), and, oh yeah, it was taken at the Jeannie (my bar in Boston, lovingly referred to as an extension of our living room!). Obviously, I’m living in Barcelona, one of the best cities on the planet, and I’m making an (incredibly expensive and hopefully worthwhile!) investment in my future, leaving me very little room to complain about my current situation (okay, I could complain about the work load–good LORD have I got a lot to do before I can go to bed tonight!!), but, man, sometimes I get homesick for Boston. And when I mean I get homesick, I mean I’d like to pretty much transport myself straight back to *this* picture. Okay, enough nostalgia!!!
