foundation in education

So I've been looking for signs in the universe to give me a hint about what I should be doing and how much I should be worrying about academics. Yesterday, I found one. In the middle of the night, I went over to someone's room to have midnight coffee cake, and on my way back, I found a quarter on the hallway floor. It is a 2004 Iowa quarter, and the slogan on the back is "Foundation in Education" and it has a picture of a little schoolhouse on it. It reminded me that once upon a time, I was excellent. I knew it because the Iowa Tests told me so. Now, I am not so excellent. But the Iowa quarter reminded me that I have a foundation in education--I used to know something once upon a time. Somehow this made me feel peaceful. Like, even though my midterms won't say that I'm excellent, I used to be, and that is enough. These days, I just want to learn as much as I can without losing all dignity through complete academic failure.

I could count the number of us on one hand who dressed up for Halloween today. I guess most everyone else had already partied over the weekend and gotten it out of their system. Me, I like to celebrate the day itself regardless of what happens before: raid my closet and slap together whatever I can find. This year, I took a few branches off of the faux tree in the dark corner in the family room, put on my nightgown, and called myself a woodland nymph. The downside of homemade costumes is that they can very open to interpretation since the low/no budget prevents absolute clarity of form. So I was assumed to be a muse or healing goddess. Eh, close enough. Much closer than the year I dressed as a pimp, and was assumed to be a rice farmer or that dude Raiden from Mortal Combat. One year, K and I dressed up as shadows of our former selves. Most folks thought we were just depressed.

I am not able to be home to pass out candy this year. But L is passing out chewy granola bars on our behalf. Just like candy in terms of nutrition, but with fiber, too, so they're slightly better than pure sugar.

So, two midterms are out of the way, and I have two more to go: one in the morning, one on Wednesday morning, plus one final for a half quarter course on Wednesday. Then I'm done for the moment and free to figure out how to get it all done for the rest of the term.

Meanwhile, I am working to stick to my guns and not get caught up in activities that don't fit the bill of what I'm really interested in. It's tough, and sometimes I just want to hop on the next bandwagon I see. The last bandwagon was the opportunity to enhance my MBA with a joint Master in Education degree--it only takes a few more classes. The application was due today, and I resisted the urge to hop in with two feet. I made a list of priorities at the BBSA retreat, and since I committed to a handful of activities (both school and other) up front, I've been trying to keep my eye on what's most important to me, and then just promise myself I'll keep an open mind about the rest.

music

studying for midterms on a Saturday night. where did my youth go?

the good news is that I finally hung my pictures on the wall and I got a free one year yahoomusic subscription through the University. won't say I have the best taste, but I'm working on it.

http://launch.yahoo.com/lc/?rt=0&rp1=0&rp2=1843944900

would love to hear what others are listening to as they study or work or whatever, so please comment and share a yahoo music link to your station, if so inclined.

weird thing

weird thing just happened. wouldn't publish. hope it's fixed now.

the red cape

I guess I go from feeling completely overwhelmed and questioning why I'm here to feeling extremely fortunate. There's something about not being able to do all that I want to do that's incredibly frustrating, yet somehow liberating at the same time. I compare it to the feeling of clearing out one's desk: filing away the 20% of papers that are important, and chucking the other 80%. Those things that exist on the margin are the majority of the frustration.

Also, I've been thinking a lot about an idea I call the little red cape. It's not fully formed yet, so I can't really talk about it in definite terms. But it has something to do with viewing a past experience, and recounting it as one where you swoop in wearing a red cape and change everything for the better. It gets more interesting when that same experience is reframed as one where your red cape is not so much draped across your shoulders, but hanging from your fingertips in front of the leadership of an organization. In that way, you end up leading management to rush at problems that aren't necessarily there, then in another direction and another. I dunno how I got to be so cynical. Eh.

on synthesis

A lot of information is coming at me from different angles.

First, it's the email. These days, it seems that 8 out of 10 messages (somehow, not 4 out of 5, since they only seem to arrive in batches of 10 or more) offer the opportunity to get involved in something or other. The other 2 are comprised of either an FYI of some sort or a reminder of something I probably didn't need to be reminded of because I put everything in Outlook.

Then, there's other people in general, especially in the hallway conversations. Standing at the computer terminal, or sitting in the library minding my own business, and somehow end up talking with somebody about something interesting. I randomly got a Modeling tutor yesterday because I was lamenting the dearth of tutors to the guy standing in the next kiosk.

OK, next comes Coursework. Assignments show up in course materials, schedule, wherever is handy. I searched for review sessions the other day, finally gave up, then contacted the TA only to be directed back to a place I thought I had looked in Coursework. aaarrggh.

Last, but not least, there're the effing syllabi. They all have different formats, emphasize different things, and are wont to be more dissertation than summary of the class.

So, today, while I'm supposed to be working on reading the Eli Lilly case for D&D, or doing my Econ that's due tomorrow, too, instead I finally gave up on trying to keep it all in my head or just consulting 6 syllabi each day. So I'm shunning people all this afternoon, I'm trying to figure things out, and I've spent the last 2+ hours making a work plan. Others have done it, which is how I got inspired. Of course, their formats weren't as deluxe as mine, so I had to make my own. I'm almost done.

The good news: Soon, I'll be able to look at the whole rest of the Autumn Quarter on one page. What joy to be able to plan out my life around my work with ease!

The other news: Soon, I'll be able to look at the whole rest of the Autumn Quarter on one page. That means that I will realize that I don't have time for Board Fellows or any other neat thing I wanted to sign up for. Loose before, the shackles of academics will become just barely moveable tight. Somehow, I had convinced myself that it could be done, and I would do it. Now, I'm thinking, what the--? I went to Student Life today, and heard myself saying that I was going to have too few extracurriculars. Me? No job and no extracurriculars? Apart from threeish existing commitments I made before I started school, I'll have nothing until next quarter.

I must say, though, having a lot to do does make me honest about what's important since I kinda need to cut away everything else. I am so tempted to throw caution to the wind and sign up for Board Fellows anyway. Like I said, I'm almost done, but not quite, and looking at my workplan and realizing that somehow it will all get done is akin to that feeling I get when I stare directly at the sun: my eyes hurt and I can't look directly at it, but I feel kinda powerful. Standard wisdom might caution against trying doing it at all because it could cause permanent damage.

So this is what I signed up for. And agonized about. And wrote about and revised my writing about. I keep asking people who have been through it how bad will it get before it gets better. And they laugh at me. They all laugh at me. And then they reminisce about the good parts. And when I remind them about my question and ask it again, some finally admit to not knowing quite how bad it gets, but knowing for sure that it will get much much worse.

I'm not going to the Halloween Party. There, I said it aloud and that alone makes it so.

I will probably still apply to Board Fellows, but only to the orgs I'm really passionate about. How's that for a compromise? There really is something fascinating about looking directly at the sun. just can't resist. This school wouldn't be a consistently amazing experience if people threw up their hands and cried to the moon. So I'll miss FOAM, and the Halloween Party, and House, and Study Trips, and maybe also being in a WIM group, and being a Siebel Scholar, and part of a Career Team, and a few business plan competitions, and a few parties here and there, some lectures, Admissions Advisory Council, and a few hours of overrated sleep...

Tuesday: NOT the new Friday

So I've heard more and more that Tuesday is the new Friday. This is supposed to be because we don't have classes on Wednesday.

Of course, I love the idea of this because it means that I can potentially watch both House and Nip/Tuck on the nights that new episodes premier.

The downside is that it just isn't true. I should be working 60 hours a week. That's the median number of hours worked for MBA students. Right now, I'm on the low side of that number when, according to how much I currently know and should be learning, I need to be way on the other side lacking balance and losing sleep. Right now, I'm running at about 50, and I feel like a total slacker. I hope that once I get a feel for what it really takes to be good, that I can do that. I don't want to be "meh," and I don't aspire to being great just yet--right now, I just need to be good.

Btw, it is NOT advisable to stay up and watch House and Nip/Tuck, no matter how appealing it may sound. I don't have cable in my room, and therefore don't have Tivo, either, so I either have to watch it live in the lounge downstairs or wait until the weekend and watch it on ReplayTV back home.