I Am Wiser Now and Stuff

And I'm back... haha after a little hiatus. A lot has been happening-- with graduation and all that good stuff, and a lot of life changes. Here are some things I've learned over the past couple weeks:

• There is a direct, inverse correlation between the amount of time left in b-school and the number of social engagements that happen. This is due to a couple of things:
• People suddenly realize that they might have messed up "the best two years of their lives" and are desperately trying to rectify that. Desperately.
• People suddenly realize they have a lot of money and by money, I mean debt. Lots of debt. But, on the upside, this is debt that has already occurred, so even though we've learned about sunk cost, we want to get the most "bang for our buck" by "spending it optimally" (read: "bang for your buck" = "as fast as possible before we graduate and loans are not something that just happens every quarter anymore and "spending it optimally" = "buying rounds of fireballs much against your better judgement")
• The school also plans a couple of these things, but I think we take it upon ourselves to make it more epic every single time than it needs to be. Because. #YOLO.
•  Breaking up kind of sucks. It brings out the worst in everyone, and it has lasting effects. It's kind of like that awkward picture of you as a tween-- you try to keep burying it (because I deal with my emotions in a healthy way) but it keeps popping up at inopportune moments like you birthday, your wedding and your funeral (yeah I just Up-movied you). Luckily, there's websites like Single Steve that assures me that I'm not alone.
• Cats know when you're sad. And then they sleep on your face and cuddle you so hard that they wake you up. It's the most adorable thing and the most annoying thing all rolled up into one. Which actually explains cats pretty accurately.
• The real estate market in San Francisco is insane. Seriously, insane. We're talking first born child in exchange for a 200 square foot efficiency studio (which is code for: sometimes you have to share a bathroom). Also, the Tenderloin district in San Francisco is not as sketchy as I remember.
• Chelsea Clinton is killin' it. She's definitely part of my generation, and she's been able to take approximately a million different roles (PhD, McKinsey, campaigner, Wall Street and more) and she's been able to handle it with grace. Now she's dedicating more of her time to her parent's foundation (now rebranded with her name prominently in the title) and she makes no excuses and has no regrets about all the changes and decisions she's made. Especially right now, I find her ability to pick up, move on and start over really inspiring.

To new beginnings.

Chicago Is No Longer Chiberia!!

It was a beautiful day today. Days like this remind me that it's actually kind of awesome to live in Chicago, because eventually, the winter will end. Went to brunch and then had a fantastic walk around the lake. I'm going to miss these days.

I'm An Adult, I Swear.

Ahhhh.... admit weekend is finally behind us. After three exhausting days of way-too-early mornings and far-too-late-for-me-because-I'm-a-grandma nights, the admits have gotten to sneak a peak at what makes Booth, Booth, and I've gotten a small reminder about why I love going to this school.

Admit weekend is a funny thing, because it takes a ton of planning so you'd think that it would come across as very forced and contrived, but because of the sheer amount of people who help out to make it happen (over 200) it really takes on a life of its own. On Sunday night though, as I scrambled to finish my cases in financial management midterm that I'd put off all weekend due to the festivities, I realized just how strange it was that people came to the school and saw the second years and first years as people that were somehow "more knowledgeable" than them. The first years because they had gone through a whole year of business school already, the second years because not only had they gone through a year and a half (holy crap, does that year make a ton of difference *sarcasm*) of business school, but they also had finished recruiting and *hopefully* have figured out what they're going to do with their lives.

Well let me destroy some myths. You think I'm an adult but:

• Instead of working on my take-home midterm on the impact of hedge funds and the technology bubble in the winter garden, I'm actually looking up the best ramen places in Chicago. Why? Because. #2ndyear #ramenisyums that's why. And there's a lot of new contenders this year! Check it out: Best Ramen in Chicago Revisited
• Instead of fretting over who's going to take over co-chair positions next year, I'm really just looking at the million "top X lists" on Buzzfeed. These usually have deep, meaningful impact on my psyche like "Top 10 Ways You Can Tell Your Cat Hates You" or "What Game of Thrones Character Are You?" or, my personal favorite today, "17 Things Only a Hyperactive Person Would Understand"
• As a side note, all co-chairs are really in it so they can hang out with their friends and pass it off as work. We work hard organizing conferences and things, but most of the time, we just genuinely like each other and want to hang out. Therefore, all co-chair meetings are really just meetings to eat food, laugh at each other and catch up on life
• When you argue about stupid things in public places, I laugh at you. When I was a real adult and I worked for a living, I would stifle my laughter behind a coffee, newspaper or my computer screen. Now I give zero. So if you're sitting in the middle of the Winter Garden arguing about how the reading room shouldn't be called "the reading room" and instead should be called "the studying room", or how you don't like it when your group members won't brainstorm with you during study group meetings, I'm just going to laugh at you. And maybe point
• When I'm typing furiously in class and you think I'm taking very meticulous class notes. I'm really just writing on my blog. No seriously. Or I could be chatting with my friends through Facebook. Depends how ambitious I feel

#2ndyear #concentratingishard