Rules to Live By

There are certain rules to live by. I've recently broken a few of these rules and felt the repercussions. Here's a list of rules that I've either forgotten, broken, or witnessed someone else break and then felt like a jackass afterward:

1. The first rule of donor relations (or investor relations) is to thank your donor when they make a gift. Failure to do so usually results in a lack of second gift or discontinuation of giving. I failed to thank a donor and only realized it when my boss asked to see the thank you letter because the Chairman of the Board of Directors had met the donor and wanted to make sure that we were treating them right. We weren't, and it sucked.

2. Second rule of donors relations: spend the money you have received! Holding onto it makes it look like you never needed it, or worse, that you aren't providing the services you promised to provide in the grant agreement or verbal promise. It also makes me look like an ass when I have to do a report and we have 0 expenditures.

3. Be prepared for an interview! Yes, just like a job interview, you need to be prepared to interview with schools that you are applying for admission. If you are not prepared, the interviewer might ask you a question like: "Have you looked at the list of clubs on the website? Which clubs were you thinking about getting involved in if you were admitted to XXX?" I answered, "Yes, I have looked at the website, but didn't see the portion about the clubs. Could you tell me more about them please?" Then you'll have to figure out if you are more interested in the finance, marketing, or consulting club on the spot. Also having a spare copy of your resume handy in case the Admissions Office accidentally only prints out page 2 of your two-page resume and not speeding to make your interview on-time after a very stressful day at work would also help.

I spent more time being nervous about the interview than actually preparing for it. Consequently, I think I bombed my interview. Really. It didn't go well. I'm not even going to go into the fact that my interviewer either didn't understand the legal structure of a non-profit organization (versus a private foundation or NGO) or I was doing a horrible job explaining it and my job responsibilities within my agency. Either way, it didn't go well.

4. Don't lose your beautiful phone on a bus. It will really, really suck. It's even more humbling to have to e-mail the Admissions Office and ask for the name of the bus company to see if anyone found a phone.

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.
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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.

When All Else Fails...

... and you can't say anything nice about yourself, show off your chin! I'm not thinking incredibly clearly at the moment, so all I have are photos of the on-going evolution of my chin. The green wall has been replaced by a beige one because the spa location I was going to closed down. I now have to go the major super-duper fancy location in middle of Houston to inflict myself with pain.

I also had a "dermawave" treatment done to my waddle area as part of the package I bought. The word "dermawave" has a faintly spa-like quality to it. It conjures up images of dermal massages or gentle oscillating movements. Really, it was nothing like that. It was electrostimulation on my neck (which made my head jerk to either side like I had a tick) and my chin (which made my mouth open or close, clench or unclench, at will). I strongly do not recommend anything called a "dermawave".

1.02.09 - 4 of 8 treatments. Does anyone but me think I need a haircut? It's looking a little ragged back there to me. Winter pallor is looking especially attractive on me. I see very minimal improvement in my chin between January and October. Any opinions?

10.03.08 - 2 of 8 treatments.

8.28.08 - Before treatment.

I would just like to point out to Dew that, yes, I am actually growing my hair out and I have photographic evidence to prove it.

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.