The Stealth Semester

Last year was brutal-- we knew it would be. Endless hours of pain and suffering when you really didn't understand what was going on in some classes at all, excellent professors that pushed you really hard, and at some point, the dawning realization that you were not, in fact, going to die, that you really might survive first year and someday have that coveted MBA degree hanging on your wall.

Then we had the summer off, which seemed more like four straight months of parole. We were giddy with all the free time we suddenly found ourselves experiencing. Of course there was the dirty little secret that we probably didn't make as good use of that time as we swore we would that sunny day in May at the Corner Bar (I know I sure didn't get much done over the summer), and as the retreat weekend in September approached and we picked up our first half ton of books for second year, we assumed the insanity would resume forthwith.

And then, nothing. It was really easy. Our third semester was much less taxing than either of our first two, and looking back I should have known something was up, that at some point the whole thing would come crashing down just when I was at my most vulnerable. BAM!

This last semester has been much harder than expected, but the strange thing is that it really didn't look all that hard on paper. Nor did the professors seem as masochistic as some of the ones from last year. Hey, this is the semester we all get to go to China together! How bad could it really be?

Well it's turned out to be the most nail-biting of all the semesters. Again, not because the work is particularly difficult, just because we have so much of the work crammed into such a small space of time; we don't graduate until May 18 but three full classes are sandwiched between January 16 and March 27. That's insane. Today is March 1. In 28 short days I will step onto a plane to Tokyo (and on to China), at which point I will essentially be finished with my MBA work. Looking on the calendar that all seems so close, but in terms of work yet to be completed, it seems a million miles away.