Last Monday I had one of those days that really made me think about my life as it stands. I remember sitting thinking, “Wow, I really am living that #mbalife” Here’s what I did:

Monday, April 11, 2016

6ish AM - Wake up to get to campus by 6:45 to drill finance problems with classmate. Quiz is in 4 hours. Share words of encouragement / frustration with more classmates who trickle in.

9:40 AM - Finance class starts, professor lectures, quiz is handed out.

12:15 PM - Leave class feeling like I could have done better, but knowing my score definitely improved from the last quiz (thanks study team!) Make my way towards Dupont for a 2pm meeting.

12:45 PM - Eat a healthy lunch at a hole in the wall place boasting “Baja California food.” Call my mom as I continue to walk to meeting place.

1:00 PM - Chat with my mom about how to handle stress, befriend the pigeons at Dupont Circle. Somehow my fiancee knew I was feeding them. 

1:30 PM - Arrive at Kramerbooks and Afterwords Cafe, order a nitro coffee (looks like a stout) and journal for about 30 minutes. Wait for my appointment to start.

2:00 PM - Start my session with the Proinspire fellow I am coaching. It feels so cool to be a coach for a program that was so valuable to my career. Maybe I’ll be a professional coach one day?

3:00 PM - Walk back to campus for a 4 o’clock meeting with my Consulting Abroad Project CAP team and professor. Discuss the ways we can compare the Israeli and Estonian entrepreneurial landscape to that in South Africa. *Spoiler alert: It’s hard.*

5:00 PM - Wrap up meeting and declare next steps. Since I am the project manager of the team, I had to send a recap meeting to a teammate who wasn’t there. Walk home.

5:30 PM  - Eat a Trader Joe’s salad that's in the fridge and watch two episodes of Animaniacs on Netflix. Appreciate that Dot always interrupts whoever says “Warner Brothers” and says, “And their Warner Sister!”

6:00 PM - Lay down for a 15 minute nap

8:30 PM - WAKE UP I OVERSLEPT

8:33 PM - Begrudgingly make my way to the gym in my building for cardio

9:30 PM - Run into my fiancee in the hallway. He’s just returned from the airport and looks exhausted

11: 30 PM - After a shower, debrief and more Netflix with my fiancee, I head to bed

11:30 PM - 1:45 AM - Stay up on Pinterest cursing my nap earlier

Looking back, that was quite a day I had. I can’t say that was typical for me, but it really makes me look back on the privilege I have to be able to be a full time business school student. It makes me appreciate the #mbalife I am living and enjoying.

Oh and if you’re interested, the previous Monday’s #dayinthelifeofanMBA looks like this

Monday, April 4, 2016

9:20 AM - Oversleep, skip the shower, run to class.

9:48 AM - Walk into finance class 8 minutes late, embrace walking in front of the professor to my first row seat. Sit in class and wonder what language is the professor speaking because I have no idea what is going on.

12:15 PM - Leave class feeling no better than I did before, walk to my next appointment

1:00 PM - Pee in a cup for a pre employment drug screen for my summer internship.

1:30 PM - Stop by a food truck outside my house for lunch and sit on Facebook for 2.5 hours.

3:00 PM - Gym

4:00 PM - Shower and wait for fiancee to get home. Watch TV together. Eat dinner. Watch more TV.

9:30 PM - Go to sleep

As you can see, this Monday is way less exciting than the first one, but that’s what makes being a student worth it. I can’t help but look back at both days and think I’m hashtag blessed.

When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a ballerina. Well, maybe not so much a ballerina, but I remember specifically telling my mother that I wanted to be a dancer. At 5 years of age, I was told that "I didn't have the figure to be a dancer" by a family member, which as you might guess, made a large impression on me if I'm relaying this story at just shy of 30 years old. Needless to say, although I still love to dance, I never became a dancer, and funnier still, I'm a very petite little thing. (This isn't a pretty moment that I'm relaying from childhood, but there's a point here. I promise.)

The point being: Unlike what seems like an unnaturally large portion of my girlfriends, which my guess may all fall within a the amorphously defined Generation Y demographic, I wasn't the kid who was told I could do anything. And, I'm not saying this for a pity party. Truly. My parents were plenty supportive, but they raised a very sensitive child to be almost horrifically practical, and who I might add became a very responsible, caring adult (if I do say so myself). And heck, there's nothing wrong with making practical or logical decisions at any point in life, except when they become paralyzing, limiting, or actually surprisingly impractical personally.

So, with that primer, let's fast-forward to the present. Shall we?

The MBA: I started business school a year and half ago because it was a practical degree (shocker). And honestly, I think that's what graduate degrees should be unless you have gobs of money. I had worked in two very different and yet strikingly similar businesses, entertainment and politics, and was frustrated at the lateral move that a career change had landed me with. Graduate school simply provided leverage. I toyed with the idea of law school. Didn't want to be a lawyer. Toyed with policy. It was too limiting for a communications hack. But, management. Good management and leadership was needed everywhere.

I think I had convinced myself I knew what I wanted to do when I applied to business school. I was all about green business and corporate social responsibility. The talking points were really sexy and pretty idealistic:  I was going to go private to go public. And, hey, in the end it was part of the reason why I chose The George Washington University School of Business over a higher ranked competing DC business school I was accepted to (which on an off day I find myself wondering about).

You probably would've laughed if you had seen the shear horror on my face in my very first accounting class. Now, a year and half into my part-time pursuit of this MBA, I'm far from a CPA, but I feel more comfortable in a business school class than I did in some of my film-school classes (and I'm a pretty artsy kid). Actually, it's been a very strange year and a half both personally and professionally, and it's really school that has *always* been my constant.

Because Everyone Loves a Good Transition: I've never been a big believer in "fate" (probably a whole other blog/blog post). I frankly hate the idea that some high power has already decided things for you. Pure crap. However, sometimes I do believe that the universe is conspiring. Sometimes. It's the whole concept of you get back what you put out, karma, you get the point. That combined with dumb freaking luck. That said, I took a instrumental class this January called Women's Entrepreneurial Leadership (which I'm still currently in), and my world shifted. I know that sounds dramatic, but really. There are a number of pieces of this shift here but to simplify it comes down to three main things: a toxic work environment, an incredible professor, and asking for help.

Now, the story doesn't end here. It's actually, oddly enough where it all begins. You've caught me mid-transition. And I think it's a big one. Yes. It's the fact finding, soul searching kind of transition that leads one to put their big girl entrepreneur pants on and jump.