New Year's Resolution

I'm sitting in the Air Canada lounge in Toronto waiting for my flight back to DC (with thanks to my Dad for the lounge pass). Christmas holidays are over. It was a wonderful 3-week break. I'm headed back to DC to face Module 3 of the second semester.

I'm happy to be returning to life in DC, though I confess I'm less-than-enthusiastic about going back to school. The first semester was a lot more stressful than I anticipated. I don't know.... maybe I thought grad school would somehow be more laid back than undergrad. Not at all. And the module system doesn't help - I'm convinced some profs have just taken a 14-week course and compressed it into 7 weeks. I'm not the only one finding it very intense.

Academically, I did very well the first semester. Probably better than I have to do in an MBA program. Few firms hire strictly on GPA - it wouldn't make sense for something so practical as business. Of course, you can't fail out, but a perfect GPA plus no social life is not a recipe for success in business. I want to do well, but I could afford to slack off a little more. I did have a social life in the first semester, but not nearly as much as I expected. At times it was easy to forget that I live in DC.

For that reason, my New Year's resolution is to get outside Duques more often and experience all that DC has to offer (Duques is the name of the business building). While I hope to stay in DC (or at least the U.S.) after graduation, there's always the chance I won't be able to find work there - especially if the current "buy American, hire American" mentality remains. (Please, please economy, get well soon!) I'd hate to leave DC without having truly experienced life in the U.S. capital.

That's it for now.... back below the 49th parallel in a few hours!