half past 1

So I'm half past week 1 of classes here. I am currently sitting in my room in the dorm procrastinating the stuff I need to get done by tomorrow. I already feel that I am out of my element. People are so different when they're not all the same. So I've been doing my best to at least make a neutral impression.

I already have a good sense of the classes that will kick my behind: modeling and econ. For some reason, I've decided that the statistics class, euphemistically referred to as "data and decisions," will not break me. Had to draw the line somewhere. Else I'd be crying in my beer right now.

Slept for 12 hours the other night. Not completely sure why, but it felt good. I've been trying to adjust to the schedule. Maybe it's because I went rafting this weekend on one of those organized trips with my classmates. Even out there, I didn't stay up past midnight. My classmates, on the other hand, have really been living it up. Rewind back to frosh year of college for a minute and imagine people overdrinking, overlaughing, and overconnecting with each other. Yep, that's it. But that stuff seems to be subsiding a bit as we get into our classes and begin to freak the f*c* out about how much we need to learn.

Being away from home is somewhat of a strain, and I miss my 3 hours a night of television and my bed. I also miss L, but I get to see him around midweek and on the weekends and would rather not talk so much about that part of this experience because it will make me homesick. I get to see my real bed about once a week, and the rest of the time get to sleep on the yoga mat they call a mattress in Schwab. Pretty hard to believe that my real home is only an hour away--it seems like much longer sometimes. I wanted the total immersion experience, and dagnabit, I think I'm getting it.

All that said, I can't help but feel extremely happy and fortunate and that I'm in such a rare place in time and space. It's a bit surreal, actually. Hard to explain but others here seem to be able to instantly relate to it. But there's plenty to keep our minds off of the real world. For example, I signed up to get more info on a bunch of clubs today. I made a log of the clubs I was interested in, those I signed up for, and how much they cost. Looks like I have the potential to spend over $200 on dues alone. I purposely came without my checkbook so I could sign up, get info, and decide later after I get myself buried a bit in work whether I want to fully commit.

Anyway. I've got several assignments with my name on them, (actually, they're just blank forms at this point since I haven't started them yet.) , so I'd better get back to them.

what I need to know

So it's been a while since I last wrote.

This is partly because I changed my DSL provider, which somehow meant that I was on dial-up for about a week. In this day and age, it seemed pretty preposterous. So where I would normally just get a feeling and sit down and write about it, I was forced to dial in first, then wait for pages to load, or simply give up after a while. It was worse than waiting for the microwave to cook a thawed burrito. At least with the microwave, you know that it'll all be over in 45 seconds. With 37 kb/sec, there was no telling when or if a page would load. But I'm back on broadband now. Interesting how taking something for granted doesn't feel like it until you don't have it anymore. Joni Mitchell never lied.

Another reason I haven't written is that I haven't felt the urge. When I first started this blog, it was because I felt compelled to write. There was so much running around in my head that I had to get it down so I wouldn't lose it. I never was a person who had a journal, but my sister told me that it was good for the soul, and I think I know now what she meant.

A final reason has been that I haven't been moved up to the student section in the league of MBA bloggers, so my blog has gone unnoticed and uncommented, so I haven't feel the pressure to respond to anything specific.

So I'm back, and the good news is that it's because I again feel the urge to write. Maybe I can blame it on Steve Jobs. I was rereading his commencement speech last night, and thinking about how plainspoken it was, and effective. Mind you, I am not the type of person who sits around reflecting on speeches on a Friday night. I had been to the BBQ hosted in the dorm, and found myself in the lobby. Fortune magazine happened to be on the coffee table. The dorm itself also helps me be still and think. Who knew architecture could have such an effect. Probably architects and designers, but certainly not me. The building is an architecturally important one on campus, and I originally thought it was a bit of hoity toity nonsense. Now I have a different opinion because I am personally impacted by the thoughtful and deliberate design. There's this big concrete ball in my courtyard, and everytime I look at it, I think of something one of my coworkers told me she learned that she lives by. See the ball. Be the ball.

It got me thinking about another plainspoken piece of prose I had read and reread countless times -- my MBA essays. It's kind of shameful to admit that I reread my essays. Mainly Essay A. My husband can't stand or understand it. I didn't understand it either until last night. I'm only admitting it aloud now because one of my classmates says she does the same thing, so at least I am not alone. It also got me thinking about why I keep going back.

Here's what I figured out. It's because that essay is the one place where I've summed up what I live by. What compels me to wake up every day and do whatever it is I do after that. It's the lessons my parents taught me, and bits and pieces of other stuff I've picked up along the way. So when I need inspiration or a way out of something that's bogging me down, I go back and get recentered.

Which brings me to why I felt compelled to write today. The DSL came back up last night *blessed Internet* and I got up early this morning and began to write down in a text file list the lessons I have learned, the phrases I live by, and the things I need to remember. I pulled out Essay A and thought about other things I had been reflecting on recently. The lessons come from every direction. Amazing that it has taken me so long to begin putting them right in front of me.

The list is not broken out in any way. Incidentally, I was reading an interview with Craig Newmark the other day, so perhaps I was influenced by the structure of craigslist in the early days: just a list of helpful information. My list is a working document, and it's much shorter than my essay. I either want to begin posting my lessons as they come on a wall, or keep them on cards in a bowl. Gotta be a medium where the list is immediately accessible and organic.

Was also clearing out the house the other day, and came across my old Norton Anthology. Discovered a new favorite, and dwelled on a few old ones. Here are a couple:

On His Blindness "When I Consider How My Light Is Spent," John Milton
Tichbourne's Elegy "My Prime of Youth Is But A Frost Of Cares," Chidiock Tichbourne