Friday, June 20, 2008

Don't Mind Me, I'm Just Insane

Here I am, almost two months into our 4-month hiatus from MBA class, and clearly I'm starting to come off the rails. How do I know this? Let me share just two examples.

First, I've been reading (and thoroughly enjoying) Alan Greenspan's book, The Age of Turbulence. Who knew economic history could be so eminently readable? So two of the people Greenspan respects most (as he describes in the book) are John Maynard Keynes and Adam Smith. As I'm wrapping up Greenspan's book, I ordered both The General Theory of Employment Interest and Money and The Wealth of Nations and have those lined up to read next. The Wealth of Nations (all 1,200 pages) as light summer reading? That's just crazy.

Second, I caught myself feeling something akin to "missing school" earlier this week. The feeling caught me by surprise: why in the world would anyone in their right mind miss something as demanding and crazy as MBA class? I realized that my overall productivity (in life) was so much higher when I was running on the caffeine-and-stress-infused pressure of class, and that's what I had started to miss. On an average day lately, I can get my work done and also fit in some pleasure reading, but it's nowhere as productive as I experienced at the peak of the MBA madness earlier in the year. While I'm not yet ready to return to class, I will say that I do miss the intensity and the overall beneficial effects it had on other areas of my life.

So there you have it, I'm spending my summer in a questionable mental state. How's things with you?