if this past week and i were in a fight, i'd have a black eye, a broken rib, and a damaged uvula. the week, on the other hand, would be standing victorious in its corner of the boxing ring of life.

i'm lonely.
i caught a nasty cold.
i'm getting my ass kicked academically.
i got turned down for a scholarship.
and i got a leg cramp in the middle of the night that left me limping for the majority of wednesday. (i must be the only person in the world to get the equivalent of a sport's injury while sleeping. it's just one of my many special skills.)

for all intents and purposes, i've come undone.

after 24.77 years of being the best at coloring, the best at multiplication, the best at beowolf, and the best at abnormal psychology -- not to mention the best at sexual innuendos, the best at sexual tension, and the best at sexual provocation -- i'm trying to come to terms with mediocrity.

and i don't mean that in a snobby and superficial way. i mean that it is completely emotionally and physically exhausting to be playing catch up every moment i'm awake. those to whom i admit my weakness (which is a strategic move at harvard since admitting weakness is like admitting you went to a state school) assure me that everyone feels this way.

... maybe. but i'm pretty sure that i'm stupider than everyone else.

because if i'm going to be dumb, i'm going to at least strive to be the best at being dumb. whoever said that being dumb and being competitive were mutually exclusive? hey -- you can take the girl out of the competition but you can't take the competition out of the girl.

it reminds me of a conversation i had when i finally got the courage to stand up to a former boss at some point: i told him "you make me feel stupid and incompetent everyday and those are two things that i know i'm not." "i don't tell you you're stupid everyday," he said. "well, you make me feel stupid everyday," i replied.

he grinned. "it's a special talent of mine," he said.

well harvard -- you and my former boss have a lot in common.

i am terrified of spreadsheets. i am terrified of operational flow charts. i am terrified of tables and exhibits. and i am absolutely, positively terrified of numbers. with the exception of 86, 69, and 12.

so i've recruited an aussie and his posse (shout out) to teach me everything i need to know about business. and free cash flows. and eating oreos. but they can't touch my self-deprecation.

afterall, certain things are non-negotiable.

the way i see it, business school and i are in a relationship. things between us are great when i wake up. we derive mutual benefits from each other -- i get an unparalleled network of peers, a personal sushi chef for lunch, and a meaningful academic environment that challenges me to become more than i ever thought i was capable of becoming. in return, harvard gets me ... to, well, drink its free beer, eat its free food, and take naps on its free leather couches.

i'd say it's a fair-ish trade.

but as the hours of each day pass, business school and i break up. (which i seem to be doing a lot of these days.) and i suppose that my daily divorce from business school is indicative of that which i should expect for the course of my other separation: frustration. anger. crying. kicking. and that all happens just between lunch and dinner.

this whole experience makes me miss my friends. and making out. and making out with my friends.

i guess that in the face of being on one's own -- in every sense of being alone -- it's sink or swim. right now, i'm hoping to tread water one day. in the meantime, i've got scuba gear.

dear new readers: just as a forewarning, this post isn't particularly funny. although sarcasm, sexual innuendos, and unconstructive criticism tend to define this forum of unilateral communication, i am occasionally more open and honest than i feel comfortable with in a public setting. admittedly, it's mostly an effort to win oprah's "sharp, edgy, and unfailingly heartwarming" validation of my book/blog. secretly, it's because i'm into voyeurism.

my entire life changed this past week when i became the first victim of harvard's notorious, although well-documented, black monday.

last week, i lost my best friend when eric and i decided to take a break from our relationship.

although the policy about blogging or not blogging about the situation wasn't defined in the terms of our agreement, i have learned that there is infinite wisdom gleaned from talking about it openly. i have also discovered that what i make of the situation -- how i handle myself and how i conduct my life in spite of it all -- is a hallmark of the twenty-something experience.

one day, i can only hope to find some unsuspecting publisher to pay me to provide words that help make sense of that which troubles the twenty-something soul. but in the moment when hot tears sting dubious eyes, it seems that words are as incredulous as they are unsatisfying.

it turns out that making the choice to completely change the dynamic of a relationship so fundamental to our identity doesn't necessarily make the decision feel right. it doesn't necessarily make it make any more sense. and most importantly, it definitely doesn't make it hurt any less.

in a way, i'm having an identity crisis. and it's not necessarily because i didn't have my own identity while in the relationship; it's more that my relationship had become such an integral part of my identity that it is hard to remember what it's like to exist outside of it. admittedly, i'm not a victim of the circumstance; nor am i a passive bystander. but no matter on which side of the equation one stands (but just for the record: i'd be a liability if i had to stand on one side of the accounting equation), it boils down to one thing: this sucks.

i have been too busy in the unreality of overstudying, overdrinking, and undersleeping to grapple with the unreality of the separation. in my anxiety, i want to be reassured. in my grief, i want to be comforted. in my uncertainty, i want to be loved. the greatest resource i've found during this difficult moment is the people surrounding me who -- albeit new friends, connections, and future senators -- prove that these situations bridge the barriers of gender, race, and age. i am deeply grateful for the compassion that emerges when people share the pain that has been absorbed into the fabric of their own lives.

life is hard. we play the cards that are dealt to us. we make the best choices we can. and g-d knows we need all the compassion we can get. i suppose that i go forward from this moment sobered (albeit probably not sober), chastened, and sad. but we learn that we are strong in ways that cannot be measured by excel spreadsheets or pro forma statements.

it seems to me that love is the only thing on this earth that lets us see each other with the remotest accuracy.

and it makes me wonder: maybe life isn't about what happens to people. maybe it is about what happens between people.

(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.

the intellectual exchange of ideas.
the concretization of ideals.
the acute insight into personal values.

... these are what make my experience here at harvard astounding. and absolutely traumatizing.

permit me to highlight some of the insights from the future leaders of the free world (admittedly and purposefully taken completely out of context):

as i sat home this evening because one unnamed feline ate an unnamed object and subsequently required the supervision of one unnamed business student, i've been thinking about the professional lessons gleaned over the last two weeks of "pre-school for b-school" (a prerequisite business bootcamp for those of us who didn't snort coke and crunch numbers -- in that order -- as investment bankers).

and i've come to the conclusion that -- so far -- my favorite thing about harvard is that just when you're prepared for some snotty, superficial, and demeaning comment, someone says something deeply meaningful. undoubtedly consequential. and surprisingly profound.

granted, none of those things come out of my mouth.**

(**for some of the non-meaningful, consequential, or profound comments that have come out of my mouth during class discussion, see "funny im" sidebar.**)

albeit -- inevitably -- whatever magic imparted by profoundness is often followed by previously mentioned snotty, superficial, and demeaning comment. that's where i come in. i mean if no one here is going to address the prestigious stereotype associated with our educational institution, then i'm making it my hobby to challenge the notion of its existence.

that said, here's is a short list of some of the meaningful, consequential, and profound truths and the snotty, superficial, and demeaning anti-truths that have thus far defined my harvard business school experience:

1. "accounting is like ironing. it's the hobby for the anal-retentive."
now any of my friends, family, or former colleagues could tell you that color-coding my planner, scheduling my projects at work into fifteen minute intervals, and cleaning my apartment every morning with a dust-buster are all indications that i am -- by all definitions -- anal-retentive. but i've got nothing on accounting: with a process that requires double-entry booking, small lists of numbers divided into over a dozen categories, and precise labeling, i have decided that accounting is one of the most boring, superficial, and redundant disciplines. matched only by ironing.

when i nearly failed calculus freshman year of college, i made a firm commitment that i would never, ever become a mathematician. let the record state here and now that i will never, ever become an accountant. sorry professor piper: we both know i just don't have it in me -- and my career profile supports my case against it. but i sincerely appreciate your unyielding confidence.

2. "the hardest thing about finance is that ... it's not about you."
not about me? i got called into my professor's office for intervention and a self-esteem pep talk and then you tell me that this crap isn't about me? isn't this harvard, where everything is supposed to me about me? what? did i accidentally wind up at public policy school?

3. "financial gain at harvard doesn't mean 'i want to make money.' that's 'security.' here, that means 'i want to make A LOT of money.'"

and

"i actually consult for consulting groups. which is about as far as you can get from actually doing any real work."
both those came from the career counselor. which gives me hope. and fear.


4. "you are what you eat."
if there ever was a more harvard-eque statement, i don't know what it would be. all i know is that despite my efforts to challenge the stereotype that comes with being a harvard kid, i totally pulled a harvard (to pull a harvard: the act of perpetuating one of the arrogant, selfish, or competitive stereotypes that exist about harvard kids) one night last week.

here's how it went down: so teaching for a test-prep company has imbued me with a sense of patience, an appreciation for the student-teacher relationship, and most importantly, a handful of dry-eraser markers -- a true commodity here at business school (whereas, for example, mercedes are not). i am very protective of these markers, and when a peer asked me last week to borrow one for her study group, i inadvertently gave her my death stare and then lied and said i didn't have any. you are what you eat, afterall.

although in my case, i'm what eats me. figuratively, of course. as for what literally eats me ...

5. harvard business school isn't about money; it's about the difference you make in this world.
harvard business school isn't about arrogance; it's about humility.
harvard business school isn't about power; it's about change.
harvard business school isn't about you; it's about the others around you and the millions of people you will affect once you leave this place.
... and if this last piece of wisdom holds an ounce of truth, then maybe -- just maybe -- i'm in the right place.