if i leave here in four years with a sense a humor, it'll be a miracle. or a system failure.

some have quietly confessed that this past week has been an emotional rollercoaster for them. which is a huge deal because it turns out that admitting weakness here is like hopping into shark-infested waters with a sign that reads "bait."

and while i appreciate the openness that comes with meeting people for the first time, i'm not on an emotional rollercoaster -- or any rollercoaster for that matter. i'm on the tower of terror.

after six grueling days here at business school, i've learned that a typical work week is six days, a good time is spreadsheets, a slacker is someone who leaves his/her study group before midnight, and the standard unit of measurement is in hundreds-of-million of dollars.

i've learned that "going out for a drink" really means networking, that banging one's head against a case is supposedly a good thing, and that no matter how remarkable one's resume is -- the guy's resume next to you is way more impressive.

i've learned that married people can be cool, pressure is mostly self-imposed, and that even though you were once the smartest kid in class -- if you hesitate to raise your hand, you won't have a chance to beat out the other 64 over-eager, over-achievers in the classroom.

i've learned that prefacing any question with "this is a dumb question" makes you sound smarter.

i've also learned that if you get called on and have nothing intelligent to say, say something witty and irrelevant instead. (particularly if you were making a list of stuff to buy at CVS and had not been paying attention for the last few minutes. hypothetically, of course.)

in spite of all this newfound knowledge gained in just 6 short "work days," i've learned that the best thing about business school and its misogynistic demographics is one of those things that has nothing to do with the learning that happens in or out of the classroom:

it's the fact that business school is the only place in the world where the line for the men's room is always longer than the one for the women's.