Crash(es)

I'm not sure how so much time has passed since I last blogged. There has just been a lot going on. I'm finishing up my first month here at my new job. To finish the story from the previous post, I received a verbal warning for showing up late to the Houston branch and not calling into my corporate managers (although I did call in, immediately, to the branch itself, but apparently I didn't follow correct protocol by letting everyone know at corporate). The warning was then written down on paper and signed by my boss. I had the option of also signing the paper and having it put in my H.R. file or writing a rebuttal letter, but I chose the easiest option and just accepted the letter, as it was, and filed it for myself.

What's even more disturbing than a written, verbal writing within the first month of my job has been what's been going on while driving to work. I've been in three accidents in two weeks. There, I said it. All of them have been my fault and all of them have occurred on my way to work in the morning. With the first accident, I simply looked down at my phone and rear-ended the person in front of me. There was minimal damage to the hood and license plate that I took to a body shop and had repaired that day. Accident #2 occurred just three days later. The roads were wet from rain and I was driving too fast for the gridlock of Houston rush hour traffic. The car in front of me stopped and I slammed on my brakes and skidded into him. Since I was braking so hard, the front of my car actually went under the bumper of the car in front of me. The hood damage that I had repaired was compounded into a wrinkly mess of metal and red paint transfer on the front of my car.

Accident #3 was by far the scariest. I was driving to San Antonio for work. It's about a three-and-a-half hour drive each way. I was only a mile or so from my exit, doing about 75 mph in a 70 mph speed zone on a two-lane stretch of highway outside San Antonio. I looked into the passenger seat for the notebook that I had written my directions on and my car drifted into the gravel on the left-hand side of the road. I overcompensated by turning the wheel sharply to the right and braking hard. The car went into a spin. I crossed over the right-hand lane and ended up traveling in the wrong direction on the westbound freeway. My car slammed into a curb, exploding the wheel, causing the back tire on the driver's side to go flat. Thankfully, no one was in the right-hand lane when I went over and all the cars stopped or went around me. A Good Samaritan and his son put on the car's donut, which was barely drivable. I turned on the flashers and drove 20 mph to the San Antonio branch.

I was going to have the car towed to a tire dealership where I could get a wheel and a tire put on, but apparently one of the advantages for working for a distribution company that has a lot of transportation equipment is deals with guys that will come to the facility for basic repair and maintenance. By 4pm that day, I paid a guy $100 to put on a steel wheel and used tire in the branch parking lot. I was on my way home by 5:30pm, very slowly this time. The car's alignment was pulling hard to the right and there was a strange burning smell. I made it home and the car went into the body shop for the damage sustained during Accident #2 and #3.

I wish I knew what it all meant. On Monday night I couldn't sleep. My mind wouldn't stop racing thinking about what could have happened had there been another car in the right-hand lane or if I had a head-on collision with another car while I was traveling in the wrong direction. I had risked my own life and the life of strangers traveling on the same road. I called a crisis center. The woman that finally answered, after putting me on hold for ten minutes, thinks that I'm possibly trying to sabotage my new job. She said I should give myself the freedom to look for another job if I continue to get in accidents and have such a high level of stress that I could possibly become distracted doing daily tasks, like driving.

There is something to be said about managing my stress better. I feel like I'm finally getting into a new routine and getting used to my hour long commute, although some days are better than others. I am still exhausted by the end of the week and my school work has been suffering. I limped my way through the past module and am having a hard time completing the final take home exam for my marketing class. I'm trying to not to beat myself up about it, just realizing how high my stress level is right now. That's just easier said than done.

I Just Can't

I can't live like this anymore. I thought it would slow down after the Montessori event (which raised $11,000 - hell ya!), but it didn't. It hasn't slowed down at work or at school. Immediately following the event on Friday I had to finish up the final summary paper for my communications class, prepare and practice for a six minute presentation, and study for a cumulative final in macroeconomics. I can't even really tell you how stressed I was - how stressed I continue to be.

I was up two nights ago until 11:30pm working two grants for Hurricane Ike recovery. They were due at 12pm on Wednesday. Each grant had a complex, 13-page budget and required proposal narrative. They weren't so much grants as works of art, if art had annotated attachments and tax-exempt quotes for building repairs. At the end of a very long day I was hungry and tired. Zac was at my parents' house for what felt like the fiftieth time in two months and I sat eating a bowl of cereal. I went to twitter and just realized that I can't live like this anymore. The constant stress, the comfort food I seek in food as I turn to it over and over, the loneliness and guilt from missing my son, the inability to ever really relax.

The most noticeable effect from alll of this is in my body. I've gained 20lbs since June. When Dew came to take me out to lunch the other day, I had to tell him not to mention how fat I've gotten because I'm a little sensitive about it. I wake up in the middle of the night and find myself eating peanut butter straight from the jar or pourning sugar onto a bowl of already sweetened cereal. I eat without even realizing that I'm eating. Sometimes I don't even remember it until the next morning when I see what's left on the counter or in the sink. I worked hard to lose 30lbs a year ago, and now it seems like nothing I did really mattered. My life is out of my control and there is no greater manifestation of that than eating while asleep.

The only thing that I know is that I can't keep doing this to myself and to my family. I want Zac to know that he doesn't have to say my name over and over just to reassure himself that I'm still there. I want to be there. I want to go on a date and not think about the homework that I should be doing or the grant that needs to be written.

I want me back, and also, I miss her: http://treesandcrackers.blogspot.com/. She left today to go back to Iowa and imagining making it through a day at work just got a little harder.

I'm So Cool

I know that I'm a blast to hang out with. Really, I'm so cool that I wonder why more people don't want to hang out in my apartment with my toddler while I read a text book or write a paper. The sheer force of my charisma would be enough; I wouldn't need to talk. My friends could watch television or read and I'd offer them something to drink. I might even talk Zac out of climbing all over them...maybe. It might be kind of funny and I could use a good laugh.

This weekend I went out on a date where I was told that I'm too serious. I'm pretty sure that's because I was working hard at the conversation, thinking about what to say and what question I should ask next. I didn't have anything witty to say and found light banter to be tiresome. I was home in bed, by 8:30pm. I didn't wake up until 9:30am the next morning, which left me wondering if my brain needs to go on some sort of hiatus for a while until my body catches up with whatever it needs. Seriously, when did it become so hard for me to figure out what I need. I have enormous bruises on my calves and the back of my arms and I can't figure out where they came from. It was suggested to me that I might need more vitamin K, or possibly a way to avoid knocking into large, stationary objects with my body.

I don't remember holding a conversation being a difficult exercise when I was in college. I have many memories of talking long into the night. What gives now? Why is it that any attempt at communication seems to fall flat? I wish that I had answers to those questions. All I'm left with now is the feeling that I should avoid trying to meet new people, even though 30 new people recently entered my life through grad school. Even with them, school feels like a solitary exercise. I completed a take-home test for Microeconomics and I'm working on my final paper for Leadership. We have the text books for Business Law and Statistics, which are quite possibly some of the most boring reading material that I've encountered in a long time. That's saying something considering I read a large number of studies and statistics for work.

Does anyone want to hang out with me while I read and try not to fall asleep? I promise that I'm really cool...

It All Goes to...

They warned us in orientation that if everything could go bad at once, it will. That thought flitted through my mind as I was hunched over a hotel toilet in the early morning hours in Wilmington, DE over the weekend.

It seemed like the worst possible time to go on vacation, even though I knew that I couldn't miss AEP's and Liz's wedding. My grad program had just started and I had just finished the first week of class. I found out that the second week of class required me complete a 5-7 page paper based on an interview of a leader and a quiz in microeconomics. In addition to school work, my actual job had exploded on me. I was asked to be part of a team to create a mental health program to address behavioral and emotional disorders on school campuses. Writing it out like that makes it sound easier than it is, considering the team has never created a program before and I haven't ever written about the finer intricacies of mental health, mostly because I don't work in the field. I can't describe the difference between cognitive behavioral therapy and psychodynamic therapy and why one model might be more appropriate to at-risk Hispanic adolescents than another. Every day at work was another round of meetings where we tried to hash out the details of the program. I was chosen as the person responsible for writing the first draft of the proposal, even without any clinical expertise. Somehow being a grant writer is supposed to make me adept at technical writing in any given field. I haven't exactly figured out how that works.

So, I was already checking into work every day and answering phone calls on vacation, in between trying to write a paper for my leadership class and catch up on economics reading. I was already the leader of Team Stress, getting sick just made it that much worse. Actually I take that back. What made it worse was getting sick in a hotel room that I was sharing with three other people. That was the worst part. There was nothing I could do to make myself feel any better and I knew I was waking up my friends every time I got sick.

Coming back home, I was still shaky and my throat hurt from getting so violently ill. I had to jump back into work and spend hours working with the clinicians on a draft of the proposal. I'm able to take a breath today, which is a nice change. I need to finish up my paper and get some grasp on the economic problems we were given before the quiz on Friday.

My thoughts keep going back to the wedding. It was a beautiful ceremony between AEP and Liz, held outdoors at AEP's parents' house. As predicted, I cried the whole time, actually starting during the signing of the ketubah before the ceremony and not ending until I filled my plate with prime rib. I wish that I could say that I cried out of the beauty of two people expressing their love for one another, but that wasn't why I was crying. I started crying realizing that without AEP in my life, I might be in a very different position right now. She's so significant in my life that I reached out to her when I was very sick, even without realizing what I was doing. Her concern and love has been such a constant in my life that it seemed natural for me to call her when I was at my lowest, if only because she asked me to. It was AEP that called my Dad and got me the help that I needed. I'm not sure how I can ever be grateful enough for that.

Thinking back on the relationship and friendship between AEP and me, I can vividly remember every city that we've been in together. We've criss-crossed America and parts of Europe together. The last time I was actually in Wilmington was when I was five months pregnant and had to attend an AmeriCorps training. She picked me up from my hotel and drove me to her parents' house so I could rest. I ended up falling asleep on the couch outside the kitchen as baby Zac moved restlessly inside me. It's moments like those that kept jumping to mind over the weekend with AEP and Liz.

I know that AEP and Liz will love and take care of each other with all of their hearts. I wish them the best of luck as they continue to build their life together.

1 Down

That was a lot of freaking out about potentially not getting into any grad schools. At least it was for a short amount of time. I interviewed with a grad school on Monday, after I had completed my application. I was accepted into the program today. I'm waiting to get the official offer and acceptance letter.

At least I can stop hyperventilating now and maybe finally put away the GMAT books. I am waiting to hear from one other school before I make any final decisions.

P.S. - There is a new post up over at the Writing Spot. I'm considering thinking about switching over there to write. Let me know if you have any thoughts about that.

P.P.S. - You can send me an e-mail an onbeingandliving@yahoo.com if you would like permission to read posts over at my other blog or you can leave your e-mail in the comments.

Foggy

I didn't exactly land on my feet with the last GMAT exam. It was more like landing on my side, with my shoulder hitting the mat right before my head bounces off. It's the kind of landing that doesn't cause any injuries, but it stuns you to see the world shift out of focus for a moment.

I scored exactly the same as I had 5 weeks ago. The only difference is that this time I got a 20 someodd percent on quantative and an 89 on verbal. On paper, I know look like I should be an English teacher or wait, a Grants Manager. It was disappointing to say the least.

There have been a lot of tears this week, just trying to figure out what I'm going to do. For a while I wasn't even sure if I should continue my applications for school or just ignore them. Fortunately, it's a very small application fee to my top choice school and my secondary choice for schools just waived their application fee until July 1st.

I have an interview with the second school on Monday. I finally figured out how why the online application wasn't working for me (dual accounts with my name on my side, website upgrades and down software applications on their side).

So cross your fingers please. I am hoping for the best.

GMAT - Part 1

No, taking the GMAT didn't really make any less crazy. I was nervous and broke out into a cold sweat during the essay portion, which is only the first third of the 3.5 hour test. During the quantative section I was pretty sure that I had somehow jumped into an alternate reality, where even basic math concepts made absolutely no sense. The GMAT is a computer adaptive test, which means that the questions either get harder or easier depending on whether or not you answer a question correctly. I knew I was doing badly when I saw a basic addition problem jump up on my screen in the middle of the quantative section. The verbal portion went fine. I might have gotten a little bit too excited during the end of that section. I kept counting down the number of questions that I had left to answer and thinking, "Only 5 more questions to go and I'm done with the GMAT. Only 4 more questions to go and I'm done with the GMAT"

Sooo...it turns out that I'm not done with the GMAT.

I got my results immediately (except for the essay-writing portion) and felt that it was a solid first attempt. I know that I could get into University of Houston or Houston Baptist University with that kind of score and that knowledge is comforting. At least I didn't completely bomb the whole test like I did on some of the practice exams. All and all, it wasn't bad.

I signed up to take the GMAT again exactly 31 days from the date of my first test. That is the required amount of time that I have to wait in between tests. I'm still studying and still working on figuring out the math concepts that seem to escape me. I'm doing better with my medication, although I'm still tired a lot of the time.

All and all, I'm pretty good. How are you?

Love and Nerves

Lately Zac has been taking my breath away. The force of love that I feel for him is more than I've ever expected and ever registered before.

This morning he looked at me with his blue eyes and long eye lashes and looked so big and so fragile all at the same time. I wanted to hold his body close to mine, even though he was just asking if he could carry a puzzle to the car. He's a little person now, with his own opinions and feelings, even though he only comes up to my mid-thigh. I blinked and he grew up from a baby that didn't walk until 17 months to a toddler that asks, "Can I walk by myself, Mama? I'll be careful."

I'm amazed by him.
------------------------------

I have my interview at Rice tomorrow at 3pm. It kicks off the Women's Preview Weekend of schmoozing, boozing, and networking. I'm hoping that no one looks down at my fingers and realized that I've chewed off all the skin on either sides of my nails. It's a nervous habit. A lot of those have been cropping up lately actually. I'm really hoping that I don't mess up this weekend.

B-School Update

Apparently what I needed yesterday was a solid amount of attention from someone that I care about. I feel so much better today it's hard to remember why I was so cranky yesterday. It had something to do with my eyes feeling like they were going to burn out of my skull. That much I remember. Everything else is kind of hazy.

I wanted to write about how I either had a choice to let my depression rule my life and the decisions I make or to decide to try and work around it. I just wasn't able to express that because I was tired that I started to drool on myself at one point yesterday afternoon.

The issue of depression comes up occasionally when I talk about applying to business school. A well-meaning person recently asked me: "How can someone who has such a hard time with daily life consider getting their masters?" It's a good question, even if it hurt.

My answer is that I can either let me depression keep me from trying new things and new experiences, or I can try to be as healthy as possible and manage my depression in between episodes. I've decided to do the later because I can't give anyone a guarantee that I might not fail. I know that's a very real potential for me. It is for anyone, to be honest. I admit that I can get more easily overwhelmed that some people. Getting the groceries out of the car at 7:30pm on a Sunday night overwhelms me when I think about carrying everything into my apartment, unloading the groceries, making sure Zac is safe, putting everything away, giving Zac a bath and getting him ready to go to bed in under an hour. I will fully admit to feeling stress in situations where other people might feel nothing other than mild annoyance, but I'm not sure how that translates into my decisions.

Do I always take the road with less potential stress because I'm worried about how I will handle it?

Do I let the fear of another depressive episode keep me from moving forward?

But it's not really about what I want or what I think is best for me. I'm having a harder time convincing those around me that I'm capable of undertaking this challenge. I don't have the words to say that I'm prepared and ready. I know that when I made this decision, it felt right, even if I have to give myself more time to accomplish a task, but that is the worst possible argument you can give to someone who wants to know logical reasons why you think you can succeed. The "I think I can" method of life doesn't cut it with everyone.

So I gave myself more time. My test was originally scheduled for January 8th. After my first score on a practice exam, I panicked and moved my test to January 16th. From that point, it felt like there was a constant buzzing in my head. Something didn't click the way I was expecting it would. I woke up at 3am one morning and couldn't fall back asleep. I was just thinking and realized that I needed to give myself more of an opportunity to succeed. I signed up for an online course and pushed back my test date, again. I won't make the February 23rd deadline for admissions. With my GMAT test date, I'll be in the last round of admissions for Fall 2009.

It's not perfect, but then again, neither am I. I'm so far from it that I sometimes doubt my own belief (I almost called it a faith) that I think I can succeed. It's just that much harder when I have to convince other people as well.

Scared

The last time I was this scared, I think I was gestating a human being. I participated in an interactive chat with the admissions department of my first choice school and left feeling like I was going to be ill. Most of the other applicants were foreign students asking questions about Visas and TOEFL waivers. Then of course there were the applicants that said they had been working in finance for seven years and wondered if it was really necessary for them to take the GMAT. Question after question rolled in about the number of applicants this year in response to economic downturn. The admissions department firmly refused to answer questions about how many applications they had received and responded to. All I know is that 120 students will comprise the Class of '11 in their full-time MBA program and another 120 in the nights and weekend MBA program.

I also learned that the average GMAT score was a 660, not a 620 as I had thought.

I sank a little lower in my chair when I read that. I thought I was a strong applicant before I started studying for the damn test. I have a great GPA from a good school, but do I really know what I'm doing applying for business school? I feel like I know so little about so much that I don't even know what I'm ignorant about.

All of this has brought up many of the insecurities that I keep down most of the time. I feel fat and lazy - disgusting. I haven't exercised in over two months and when I scratch the back of my arm, I can feel my back fat roll around my bra strap. I can't even really stand to look in the mirror, especially since I had another chin procedure done last week and I'm swollen and bruised. I've been falling asleep at work for the past two weeks, even though I've made a conscious effort to stop that behavior - mostly because I like to think that I can control it. I can't say, "I need to push myself harder" because I can't. Even after sleeping a 8-9 hours a night, I still fall asleep mid e-mail. I can't wake up before Zac and study. I can barely get myself out of bed. I can study after he goes to sleep at night, as long as I never try to get less than 8 hours of sleep. Less than that and curbs around Houston start to quiver with concrete fear when they see the front tires of my car aimed for them when I fall asleep while driving.

I wish I had less to do at work. Right now every task is taking me longer than I expect because I can't actually focus on one thing in particular. My mind is everywhere and nowhere. The only thing that I can count on is the feeling of failure in my stomach and anxiety constricting my chest.

That Bad

I rescheduled the GMAT exam for January 16th after taking my first full-length practice exam and getting a score that wouldn't qualify me for entrance into a business program at a community college. I've never been great at standardized testing, but I really, really bombed that test. I actually gasped when I saw the score come up on the screen. As in, "Really? That's what I got?" I've never been in that quartile before.

I immediately called my reinforcements, also known as people who are amazing good at standardized testing and could kick my butt any given day at trivia. The consensus among the reinforcements was to move back the date of the test to give myself more time to study. Apparently my geometry skills are really that bad. Let's not even mention my ability to determine the sufficiency of data. That's a skill set that I failed to cultivate during my existence. I've always gone with the, "If someone nice tells you something, then it must be true" mantra, which has only let me down five or ten times.

The folks in the admissions department recommend giving schools six weeks from the date of your test to receive your score. This includes receiving the scores for the graded essays, which are evaluated by a computer and a human. A second human is called in to force a peace treaty between the two entities if the scores on your essay are more than .5 off. Anyways, January 16th gives the schools approximately 5 1/2 weeks to receive my scores before the second deadline in late February. It was the best I could do.

Since my first practice exam I've studied and raised my score 40 points. With that score, I could actually get into the local community college, although I still probably couldn't get a MBA. AEP reminded me that it was ok to be on the low end of a range of scores. I reminded her that it's important to have a score that is at least in spitting distance of the range. Somehow I think my pity factor is on the low end. A single Mom with a liberal arts degree and a non-profit background probably isn't as rare as it used to be.

I hate standardized testing. Review courses for the GMAT cost anywhere between $600 (online) and $1,700 (in person, over a weekend or spread out over three months). I would have to infer from this data that the more resources you have, in terms of time and money, to devote to the test, the higher test score you will receive, unless you are a natural genius that remembers every lesson from 8th grade geometry and 10th grade English.

It all just makes me feel behind. I feel like I should have started studying back over Thanksgiving when I got my first book from the library. One of my reinforcements started studying for her standardized test three months before the actual exam date. Every day, for three months, she studied. I'm looking at two weeks and wondering how the hell I'm going to convince an admissions officer to let me in. I imagine saying something along the lines of, "I promise that I'm not stupid! Promise" in my admissions interview.

Update

Hmm...how did that month happen to go by? What was I doing during December? It's interesting that I don't remember.

Here are some updates on life, in bullet form because I woke up this morning fearful that I was going to click the wrong button on the GMAT and fail miserably. My brain needs a little organization, and possibly some anti-anxiety medication:

• I turned 28! I've heard good things about this age. I'm looking forward to leaving 27 behind, even if it does push me one year closer to 30.

• FOB has started paying child support. Right before Christmas I received $170 from the Attorney General's Office of Texas. I assume that either it came from the FOB or the AG's office luvs me and decided to share their Christmas spirit.

• No, I don't know how to format this so the bullets are closer together. I've been trying. Looking at the html didn't help me much. Sorry.

• I just got back from a whirlwind trip (or two very long plane rides early in the morning where I showcased my refined ability to sleep while sitting up in an uncomfortable position) to Seattle for Christmas. Seattle was snowy, icy, a little foggy, and all together filled with precipitation in a multitude of forms. Turns out that a state that gets snow once every five years doesn't have a fleet of snow plows on hand. Parking lots, side streets, and residential areas went completely unplowed for two weeks. While walking in the parking lot of a mall on Christmas Eve and navigating the slush, ice, and water holes, Zac fell down in an ankle-deep hole in the ice. His pants got soaked from the water and he cried. I wanted to cry as well. I had forgotten to where my waterproof hiking boots because only in Seattle would appropriate footwear to a major shopping venue require five eyelet holes.

• Seeing my extended family was great, although a couple of cousins seem to not recognize me. I spent a good five hours at my great Aunt's house repressing the urge to say, "Hi! I'm B. We spent 18 years eating Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner together. This is Zac, my son. He's three and a half years-old. Last time you saw me I was pregnant on my way to Hawaii. I know I've probably changed since then considering I was a giant whale while pregnant, but can you at least pretend that we're related?"

• January 8th is GMAT day. It makes me a little sick to my stomach to think about.

• Although I like to martyr myself by saying "I have two jobs, and I'm forced to volunteer to support a Montessori school, and waa waa waa...my life is so hard," in actuality, Pier 1 has dropped me down to 1 or 2 shifts a week, for a grand total of 6-8 hours of work. I'm wondering whether to see this as a blessing or if I should get a third job. I didn't really view my paycheck from Pier 1 as "extra money". I viewed it as a way to pay my cable bill and keep the electricity on.

• Still dating Dew. We are officially "in a relationship" on facebook. There was actually this funny moment where he and I debated over e-mail the merits of going public with our relationship on a social networking site. For Christmas he received a set of keys to my apartment, just in case he ever needs them. He's officially the first person, outside of my father, that I've ever keyed. At least now he can lock the door behind him when he leaves at 6am. I'm practical if nothing else. Dew has started blogging.

Perfection is a Tough Place

I probably could look back in my personal history and pick a worse time to be studying for the GMAT exam. There is the time when I took the GRE. That was pretty awful. I was pregnant in my first trimester with Zac. I did fairly well considering that I had to go to the bathroom every 10 minutes and only briefly glanced at the review book. Looking back, though, I was only two years out of college and had been teaching English and learning a hard language. If my brain is a car, it was finely tuned and running smoothly then. I can't say as much for my brain now. I frequently forget where I park the car and have been known to fall asleep while sitting up. Really, the only worse time than now to take a graduate entrance exam would have been the periods when I was severely depressed and in and out of hospitals.

Yet I've decided to study for a difficult exam and enter graduate school, upon admission to the school of course, in summer 2009. I've been debating this decision for the past six years. I graduated college in 2002 and finally, just finally, decided that this was the year that I should get a graduate degree. It feels like now or never, even though rationally I know that isn't the case. I just feel committed. I bought a study book and CD. I have asked my people to be my references, for the first time ever. I've requested copies of my transcript to be sent to various schools. I'm farther along in the process now than I've ever been in the past. Usually I just look at programs and dream wistfully about possibly studying again in an academic environment.

Thinking about getting a MBA has been completely new to me. I always thought I'd get my masters in public policy or international development. I didn't even think about a MBA until I was sitting in my last fundraising class and the speaker talked about getting her MBA because it was one of the most widely recognizeable degrees across the non-profit and for-profit sector. Something struck a chord in me. Maybe it was because I'm feeling so burned out. I thought I was dedicated to non-profit work, but all of the work on nights and weekends, the fights to earn a decent market wage, and the non-existent benefits have started to wear on me. If I include my senior year of college when I did an internship for a non-profit, I've been in the non-profit field for seven years. Eighteen months of that time, I lived in Mongolia and ate more sheep meat then one person should consume. Since I've been back in America, I've been my own administrative assistant for longer than I care to admit. I'm getting tired of working alone in a office. I'd like to work collaboratively with a team, to be excited about going to work, to have coworkers that I can talk to, at the very least professionally.

Part of wanting a MBA is wanting the chance to experience another kind of work environment. I'm ready for a change. God help me, though, this change is coming at a high cost. I feel like I need to be on top of my game to pull off working two jobs, "volunteering", and studying for the GMAT, and applying to schools.

Last night I stayed up later than I wanted working on a short essay for an application to a "Women's Weekend" at one of the schools I'm applying to (all three are in the Houston area. I can't imagine moving right now, not when I still have boxes that I haven't unpacked and roaches that I haven't killed yet). I was invited to apply for the weekend, which made me instantly long for Smith. I realized that in my essay about why I would like to pursue my MBA at such and such business school, I didn't even write about their support of women professionals and how much their active recruitment of female MBA students means to me. I didn't write about it because it feels instinctive to me. I'm more shocked when colleges DON'T do that. Only 30% of incoming MBA graduate students are women. It's an understatement to say that I appreciate institutions supporting the advancement of women. I was spoiled by attending a college that was dedicated to that purpose.

Unfortunately, this post has taken me almost two full weeks to write because I just can't seem to find enough time for everything that I need to do. The mandatory volunteer work involved me drafting up a solicitation letter and printing a 1,000 copies of the letter, solicitation card, and envelopes. I had to cut the solicitation cards into thirds and staple the entire packet (letter, card, envelope) together for distribution. Now I need to write another letter for my own organization and make sure that we pass the administrative and site review that's scheduled for tomorrow.

I know that I don't need to be perfect, but I need to be pretty damn good and the realization of that is hard sometimes. In order to make this all work, I need to avoid falling asleep in an idling car for an hour in the parking lot of my son's preschool. I need to keep doing the dishes and unloading the dish washer so the ants don't find Zac's syrupy plates and milk-rimmed glasses. I need to rely on family, friends, partners, and coworkers to help and support me. There is too much to do and not enough of me to be able to accomplish everything.

I'm never going to be perfect.