(shout out to section C past and present. i know you all went home to read this after you profoundly mortified me in front of 200 people this afternoon.)

when i used to think about going back to graduate school, i had high hopes for the continuation of my education. for the development of my personal character. for the expansion of my professional network.

what i had not factored into my decision analysis was that going back to business school would actually feel more like going back to college. and be more like going back to camp.

(the parallel law school culture of intoxication, irresponsibility, and immaturity remains yet to be experienced; although my sources -- and i know too many lawyers & soon-to-be- lawyers to ever be willing to get on a boat with them for fear of being drowned by the number of doctors & soon-to-be-doctors i know -- assure me that it's about the same.)

in short -- i feel like i'm a freshman in college all over again.

because in between the 240 minutes spent in class, the 360 minutes (minimum) spent prepping for class by myself and the other 270 minutes spent in small groups of extremely charitable individuals (holla at LT3) trying to undo the conceptually profound mistakes i made alone, i drink, party, dance, and gossip like i'm eighteen-years-old.

in fact, in the last week alone:

7: the number of nights i've eaten pasta for dinner.
6: the number of evenings i've gone drinking.
5: the number of nights i've tried to resist the social pressure to go out.
4: the number of mornings i've woken up with a hangover.
3: the number of times i've slept through my alarm.
2: the number of afternoons i planned to workout and took a nap instead.
1: the number of nights i've gotten a solid eight hours or more of sleep.

in a way, this is camp business school -- where beer and socializing are the assets. and given the "generally accepted accounting princisomethings," assets have to be equal to liabilities and some other investments: as such, my personal stock in drinking is proportionally growing.

as are the liabilities that come with it.

just like college, i'm anxious of missing out on something fun. nervous i won't be considered cool. terrified i'll have food stuck in my teeth after lunch. unwilling to travel unless in fruddles (read: freshman-huddles). unsure of whether or not i talk too much about the "backhallway" from work or "downstairs amy" from rdc/fw or the "miami boys" from home or "spi and gabe" from college.

and yet i wonder if the self-doubting, self-awareness phenomena are pervasive among the twenty-something generation. do we have enough exposure to the real world to ever really know whether or not we kick ass? we can fake the confidence, but we're susceptible to the truth.

when my sister mojitoed her way through medical school, i thought she was an anomaly. when deion smoked his way through 1-L, i thought he was not taking it seriously enough. when mike drank, smoked, and coked his way through his MFA in poetry, i wasn't sure he'd survive.

seems like this experience is as much about what goes on in class as it is about what happens outside it. it is as much about admitting you're dumb as it is about realizing (maybe) you're not. it is as much about numbers as it is about bullshitting. it is as much about homework as it is about drinking, making connections, and letting those suits that we wore to work for the last few years gather dust in the closet.

turns out i was wrong. (again.)

this is like camp.

and i love getting dirty.