last tuesday was a complete watershed moment for me.

i have spent the last nine months suppressing the competitive bear that is not only deeply engrained within me, but is also admittedly the biting edge that has gotten me to the widely acclaimed (but narrowly-minded) institution at which i find myself today.

when i started school last august, i quickly realized that this was not a place i could compete. well, at least not one where i could compete and win. and honestly, why compete if you can't even place?

so i surrendered.

yet unbeknownst to me, perhaps the biggest challenge i've struggled with this year is navigating the waters of complacency. when i waved my white flag of defeat, i also waved off part of that which makes me inherently ... me. (and the drive that gives me a competitive advantage in bed.)

89 of the smartest people in the world couldn't do it. 11 classes couldn't either. neither a psychologist, an academic advisor, some random hookups, or a TIVO.

but standing in front of 50 twinkies and 900 people could.

i got reluctantly peer-pressured into an eating contest for business school's let's-pretend-this-is-summer-camp-color-war but with the cut throat competitiveness that is hormone fed in the water fountains and sprinklers here at harvard.

this eating competition was a big deal for me despite the fact that i didn't want to do it. for me, i this was a public manifestation of my deep-seeded hatred of being judged for the fact that i'm a chick who orders cheeseburgers instead of salads.

and i'll call out the double-standard here: a guy shoving food into his mouth is impressive, but there is absolutely nothing sexy or attractive about a girl who can win an eating competition.

so a showed up with a fork and a knife in protest.

and did what i do best: underpromised and overdelivered.

the most constant feedback i receive is best captured by the following description i received earlier this year: "if [daniela] says she is going to make you dinner, it will be the best dinner of your life. if she's given a project -- whether it is a major initiative for work or the minor task of cleaning the living room -- the results will be beyond your wildest expectations. [daniela] does nothing in moderation."

i think that for my entire life, my strategy has always been to never let on to my uncompromising determination to exceed expectations -- particularly in cleavage contests.

the truth is that when i promised my section that i would aim to eat 10 twinkies (the over/under was 9), i had no doubt i could do more, but had told myself that less than a dozen was an appropriate amount for a women to eat.

but when the powers-that-be said "go," i threw away my womanly-appropriate self-control when i threw down the fork and knife.

the sound of "go" and standing before a task in which i could actually compete somehow stimulated the fire that makes me way more dynamic, way more fun, and way more confident in my lack of useful skills. the same fire that is probably what got me accepted here. and the same fire that i extinguished when i surrendered last august.

i have no false illusions that i can actually compete here at harvard. the reality is that i can't. but it was a watershed moment for me to remember what it feels like when i'm at my competitive best.

a memory, which for better or worse, cost me 3,000 calories, 90 grams of fat, and 5 rounds of vomitting.


... oh, you want to see it? it's gross, but don't say i didn't warn you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJWtIXYgApo

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::sigh:: this makes me so proud.

new post below. keep reading.

in the last four months, i acknowledge that i have been uncharacteristically quiet.

this can be attributed either to the fact that i've seen my already-low-self-esteem kicked, run over, and deep fried ... twice. or it can be attributed to conceding to the transformational experience thrust onto me -- the one that i resisted for the first five months i was swimming in quicksand here.

or this quietness can just be attributed to the fact that i realize that i'm not as witty nor as quippy as i once was when i was on sabbatical (read: jobless and pissed ... albeit no less cynical).

when i was considering accepting my offer to this particular business school, the mother of one of my favorite youth group advisees told me that her largest criticism is that the school's strategy is to "break you down to build you back up."

ppsshh ... break me down? after surviving a boss who made me cry no less than three out of five days a week? when you've had newspapers hurled at you, been asked if you offered a colleague oral sex (i didn't ... not that i remember anyway), and been told your curly hair and insufficient make-up might scare off clients, a little business multiplication doesn't seem so imtimidating. ppsshh ... break me down?

well, it turns out that being stupider than the 90 people you sit with every day is way worse. i get it: i'm broken. and i'm waiting patiently to be built back up. but when does that happen, again? i'm starting to lose said patience.

because what is comes down to is that i'm sex deprived i'm not as smart as i once thought i was. (i mean, i'm sex deprived too, but that's not the current focus of this vignette any more than sexual desire usually is.)

when i left this place in november, the answer to the question "how are you?" was truly "not okay." (but honestly, if the world actually stopped to listen to peoples' responses to "how are you?" the world would probably cease to move forward.)

i felt inadequate. compromised. and fat. i was suffering because what i wanted -- to beat the system, to feel equal to if not better than my peers, and to get some ass -- was out of reach. even in moments of the utmost clarity -- the ones where i realized that comparing oneself to 899 of the smartest fucking people in the world is kind of unnatural -- i just felt ... well, fat.

and yet a few months later, despite the fact that my strategy professor profoundly embarrassed the hell out of me, i lost a multi-hundred million dollar contract negotiation, and have an upcoming final that i know i will fail no matter how hard i study for it (and that's today alone) -- despite and in spite of these personally disarming and deeply unsettling fuck ups:

i'm okay.

really, i think i'm okay.

relatively, at least.

because when i strip away the hours i spend worrying, pacing in my apartment, and fighting off escalating panic attacks, i think this place has made me much more aware of the world in which i live and much more appreciative of the people in this world with whom i live.

albeit, it has also made me far more impatient with stupidity.

and way more appreciative of meaningful sex.

i guess in the end, not having what we want and not being whom we want is deeply heart breaking.

... but as tough as wanting something can be, the people who suffer most are those who don't know what they want at all.