Ok, here's the deal. I am going to write again and I am going to do it whether I like it or not. I am going to do it because it takes discipline and it is good for me and I love to do it and I have just been lazy and chicken shit as of late.
Life as we know it is strange for an MBA student as I am finding out, both the easy and hard way. Our program is a little exercise in Change Management, something that as a student of Organizational Behaviour I should be perhaps more competent and open to dealing with. This is not always the case. I am a creature of habit, habits that can include adventure, but habits none the less. After a long summer of learning and adapting and trying many new things and learning to see silver linings and opportunities I was ecstatic, giddy even, to be thrust back into student life. I longed for days of jeans and flannel and TOMS. Of 4 hr class days and late starts. Of Thursday night pub nights and Friday morning group meetings and the people... oh the people. I am blessed, as always, to be surrounded by smart, funny, kind, generous and very good looking people in this program and it makes going to campus and holding up in our little building very very easy. The funny thing is, and this happens every 4 months or so for us, everything is subtly different. We are changing gears, slowing down ever so slightly academically and shifting up for getting jobs, moving forward, moving on. We are gearing up for our "real lives".
The funny thing is I have never had this exercise in growing up before. I have lived a life where money and status had always come second to pursuing something that I felt passionately about, that I loved, places with cultures I embraced wholeheartedly and was desperate to be a part of, even at the cost of drastically lower wages than my friends were making. I had worked training teenagers to be leaders, shaping a region's hiring and training practices, inspiring those around me and demanding the same inspiration from them. I lived life where all my worldly possession fit in the back of a navy blue volvo station wagon. I lived with little or no savings in the bank and with a firm belief in pronoia . Things had always worked out in the past and I have always had faith that they would continue to do just that.
With this in mind, a value firmly rooted in my belief system, life as we know it has already started to change. Some classmates have already moved on, flung far to other sides of the world for the last few months to pursue exchange programs. And we are left behind to finish off with a flourish. Talk has shifted from the spring. Our conversations are no longer so Vancouvercentric, so academically focused. "After Christmas" now drives our ambition.
For me it is a feeling of surrealism. Like almost everything is as it should be but there is something missing. I hear it in my voice, notice it in my subtle mannerisms. The honesty of it is evident. I am missing my best friend. It is hard to be in a place with out someone that carries so much weight of memory. As strange as it is the halls are fuller than they have been since we started. The class rooms packed with first years, our classes added to with faces we've only just met. It is strange and wonderful at the same time.
With all this in mind I am excited to pursue the next step. New classes, new friends, and life after school. I'll give you a little hint... I am heading to where I said I'd NEVER live. Truly a shift in life as we know it.
Maybe check this out too. It's pretty cool. If you like sweet tunes and maps and such.
Life as we know it is strange for an MBA student as I am finding out, both the easy and hard way. Our program is a little exercise in Change Management, something that as a student of Organizational Behaviour I should be perhaps more competent and open to dealing with. This is not always the case. I am a creature of habit, habits that can include adventure, but habits none the less. After a long summer of learning and adapting and trying many new things and learning to see silver linings and opportunities I was ecstatic, giddy even, to be thrust back into student life. I longed for days of jeans and flannel and TOMS. Of 4 hr class days and late starts. Of Thursday night pub nights and Friday morning group meetings and the people... oh the people. I am blessed, as always, to be surrounded by smart, funny, kind, generous and very good looking people in this program and it makes going to campus and holding up in our little building very very easy. The funny thing is, and this happens every 4 months or so for us, everything is subtly different. We are changing gears, slowing down ever so slightly academically and shifting up for getting jobs, moving forward, moving on. We are gearing up for our "real lives".
The funny thing is I have never had this exercise in growing up before. I have lived a life where money and status had always come second to pursuing something that I felt passionately about, that I loved, places with cultures I embraced wholeheartedly and was desperate to be a part of, even at the cost of drastically lower wages than my friends were making. I had worked training teenagers to be leaders, shaping a region's hiring and training practices, inspiring those around me and demanding the same inspiration from them. I lived life where all my worldly possession fit in the back of a navy blue volvo station wagon. I lived with little or no savings in the bank and with a firm belief in pronoia . Things had always worked out in the past and I have always had faith that they would continue to do just that.
With this in mind, a value firmly rooted in my belief system, life as we know it has already started to change. Some classmates have already moved on, flung far to other sides of the world for the last few months to pursue exchange programs. And we are left behind to finish off with a flourish. Talk has shifted from the spring. Our conversations are no longer so Vancouvercentric, so academically focused. "After Christmas" now drives our ambition.
For me it is a feeling of surrealism. Like almost everything is as it should be but there is something missing. I hear it in my voice, notice it in my subtle mannerisms. The honesty of it is evident. I am missing my best friend. It is hard to be in a place with out someone that carries so much weight of memory. As strange as it is the halls are fuller than they have been since we started. The class rooms packed with first years, our classes added to with faces we've only just met. It is strange and wonderful at the same time.
With all this in mind I am excited to pursue the next step. New classes, new friends, and life after school. I'll give you a little hint... I am heading to where I said I'd NEVER live. Truly a shift in life as we know it.
Maybe check this out too. It's pretty cool. If you like sweet tunes and maps and such.
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