B minor

A friend of mine said today, “man, this week looks crazy.”

I replied, “you know, I find myself saying that EVERY Sunday lately.”

My schedule tomorrow:

0630 – gym (if I motivate)
0745 – learning team
0840 – FRC
1020 – TOM
1200 – section meeting
1310 – MKT
1500 – company presentation
1600 – company presentation
1800 – company presentation

Somewhere in there I’m meant to prep a case for Tuesday. (Oh and also study for the MKT midterm, which is Tuesday.)

I sometimes wonder what the MBA program was like 40 years ago. If the pressures of recruiting and extracurriculars and trying to maintain good friendships were as intense. Or if people actually spent the vast majority of their time on the academic learning.

People keep saying this is good training for when you get further along in your career and you have to balance a lot of demands for your time coming from multiple directions. But man… the gray hairs just keep spreading…

In other news, sprained my ankle playing squash yesterday. Jumped in the air and delivered an epic hit. In my excitement over the play, completley forgot that gravity would bring my back down. Oops. Also had several great nights out with the section this weekend. Last night culminated in a 2am run on my house for pancakes and bacon. Can’t really beat that.

Last weekend I had the opportunity to step out of the HBS bubble, substantively, for the first time since I arrived in Cambridge on August 8. While it was certainly disappointing to have missed what I understand was an epic weekend with Section C on the retreat in Vermont, I had a really awesome time back in Chicago attending the wedding of two of my great friends from high school.

One of the first pieces of advice I got upon arriving at HBS was not to forget those people who had helped you get here in the first place, because they would surely be the ones to catch you on the other side of this merry-go-round. I think that’s a pretty important point. Especially when you realize how easy it is for you to let days become weeks before you’ve spoken to the people who are supposed to be your closest friends.

So this was a bit of an opportunity to reconnect with friends, get home, relax (albeit briefly), and plug in to what is going on in the world. (My mainstream media consumption waxes and wanes with the frequency of my Finance cases.)

As glad as I was to get back to the bubble and my new friends here, I am all the more looking forward to getting home for Thanksgiving again and spending some time with the family, actually relaxing, and otherwise taking long, deep breath.

This post will wander around a bit…

Funny thing about the City of Cambridge. They have a very fickle trash collection policy. It is not very clearly articulated on their website, and every week, after trash collection, it is always fun to come home and play roulette: “which container will still be sitting there full on the curb today?”

Tonight it was the cardboard. No explanation why. Perhaps pizza boxes don’t recycle? One of my housemates suggested that it might be nice if they left handwritten notes explaining why they didn’t take it. I chuckle imagining that note.

It is turning to autumn here. Autumn is always a sentimental season for me. Usually I am in New York now, where I want to equate the smells of fall with the starting of something new, like school. This year, I actually am doing something new, like school. And as a bonus, the leaves here actually change colors. They haven’t peaked yet, but there are a few trees here and there on the walk to campus that have turned brilliantly.

This morning, going into our class building, I was attacked by the campus turkey. It’s been written about by the Boston Globe, and it has an attitude now. It chased me across the lawn as half the MBA class was crossing the lawn from Spangler to Aldrich and then tried to follow me into Aldrich. That was great. At least my blood was pumping for the first case this morning.

Walking over the river to make dinner tonight I started complaining to myself (as usual) about how tired I am and how the schedule here is kicking my ass, etc etc. Somewhere on the bridge I had one of those minor epiphanies that happens every now and again. If this were meant to be easy, it probably wouldn’t be that hard to get in here. This is supposed to be hard – that’s why I came here. So my adrenaline started pumping again and I feel like I did when I first got here. (Plus, finally the RC Plague is entirely out of my body).

So here’s to turning a new leaf on the year… a bright red leaf…

While the Harvard Business School celebrates itself this weekend (100 year birthday party), the MBA RC class is enjoying its first real break from the insanity that is our schedule. Personally, I am sitting in my empty house (housemates all out of town) enjoying a lazy Monday afternoon, looking at another day off tomorrow, and enjoying the first feeling of boredom in about 2 months.

This morning I was fortunate enough to have a friend wake me up to go catch Bill Gates speaking at the HBS Centennial. (We were in the peanut gallery, watching via video, but it was interesting all the same). The man is something else. He seems to know something about everything – and not in the way that annoys me. He spoke at length about the work his foundation is doing around the world, and I have to say, you can’t sit through a talk like that and not wonder if you shouldn’t be pursuing something a little more “good” than you are. (And by you I mean me, so now you know what it sounds like inside my head).

I’m currently working on transposing my resume from the aesthetic format I prefer, to the one that HBS forces us to use in order to be included in the book-o-resumes. A completely understandable standardization, but a tedious exercise. While moving my bullet points about making television into the proper spacing and alignment I started to get the real feeling that this job search is going to be hard. Like really hard. Previously, I was casually approaching the resume situation from the standpoint that if it was good enought to get me into Harvard, well… Not so much. Perusing some of the EC (2nd year) resumes, I realized that there are some RIDICULOUSLY well-qualified people in this candidate pool, and we are all applying for work in what may be the most competitive job market. Ever.

So, not wanting to get bogged down with too much stress, I turned to eating.

Which then reminded me I need to go to the grocery store.

And the to-do list returns. Break’s over.

The week ahead looks busy. It’s the start of Entrepreneurship Week, which means there’s a ton of panels I want to attend. All three days (W, T, F) are three-case days, and the cases are thick – so there’s a lot to read. There’s an analytics reunion party Wednesday night. Resumes are due Thursday. There’s a Latin party on Thursday night. And by Friday I may just decide to barricade myself in my room. Because midterms start the following Monday. Zzzzzzz.

Wednesday is the start of the uphill battle that ends at Thanksgiving. I’m going to try to enjoy being bored for a little while longer…

I’ve been waiting for the momentum of the school year to plateau, but it hasn’t yet. I’m starting to wonder if it ever will. I still am averaging about 5 hours of sleep a night during the week and struggling to wash that out with 10 during the weekend. On top of that, I’m still sick (yes, three weeks later).

Finally the cough is starting to subside. But it’s been so long since I’ve been completely healthy that I’m starting to forget what that’s like.

Tomorrow is a 3-case day, but I only had to prepare 2 today because one of the cases was done in learning team on Friday afternoon. Was nice not to have to read three books today.

And lastly to add more to the already growing pile, I got an unexpected jolt today when I found out I was elected president of my section. It’s a responsibility I’m really looking forward to having this year as my section has not yet ceased to impress me. And since I’m in that mood, I’m finishing up the weekend watching an episode of the West Wing while my housemate has about 18 girls in our living room watching the Sex and the City movie… weird.

When I started telling people I was going to hbs, a lot of them said “oh I heard it’s a two year party.” I’d like to take a second to address that notion.

It is.

And it isn’t.

Lots of people imply that they come to b-school for a two year vacation from real work or hard work. I understand that some people worked worse hours before school. I also understand that some people are so smart that this is all second nature to them.

I am not one of those people.

Here is what I have learned so far: b-school is a lot of fun. There is a social element to this place that I could not have predicted before I arrived. So ya, big party. But it’s also lots and lots and lots of hard work. There is a mantra here: work, play, sleep – pick two. Completely true. But not at all something I’d change.