Getting My MBA

Well, I am anyway. The added effort and time for two classes (8 hrs/wk) and homework (2-20 hrs/wk) is adding up. And I’m just getting started!

My hope is that I will figure out how to hit my stride, that I’ll catch my second wind, and will be able to hitch onto those Chariots of Fire and keep the pace. Hmm, enough running cliches there? How about clearing the many hurdles and breaking the tape?

I think I had a point there. I’m too tired to remember … oh yeah, that was it. Tired. “What did you expect?”, I hear you say (ain’t the internet amazing?). “You’re the one who insisted on adding to your already busy life.” Well yes, yes I am the cause of my own distress. Thanks, I feel much better now.

The good news, though, is that one obligation is off my plate. My youngest son has finished his football season and I no longer need to wake him up at 5am, drive to cold, foggy football fields 45 minutes away, and get him ready to play — all before 7am. Also, my obligation to take pictures of the game and post them on the website is done. Granted, that was a responsibility I took on myself (noticing a pattern here?), but it was a lot of fun.

Well, if I survived it at 19 I can do it at 39, right? 19 and 39 are practically the same age, when you consider the billions of years that scientists say it took for life to evolve on earth. Heck, I’m a kid!

Now tell that to my eyelids…

I am now in both Accounting and Economics at the same time. I was looking forward to these classes, in a way, because I thought they’d be more objective than Organizational Behavior. I was thinking in OrgBeh, but it was much more personal — how can I apply these theories to improve myself and my work? That got a little too close to home sometimes.

I will need to think in Accounting and Econ, too, but it will be more concrete. We’ll have actual tests and, in Accounting at least, we’ll have real numbers that need to match. I had a full year (2 semesters) of Accounting in undergrad, which helps a lot. Unfortunately, by chapter 4 (week 2 of class), I’ll be all the way through the review of what I’ve already learned. Chapters 5-16 will be new. And exciting. New and exciting. Keep telling yourself that….

Warning: presumptious

I can’t really call myself an artist. I am an amateur photographer with more enthusiasm than talent — see? And I design web sites, although this site and the linked site are both using templates I didn’t create.

Before I started trying to be creative, I was afraid of rejection. I thought that was what would really bother me about putting myself out there and exposing myself. Because that’s what it is, you know. And it’s a much more intimate exposure than being unclothed–it’s baring your heart and soul and letting everyone else in on what is going through your head.

It’s scary.

I heard a saying: you’re not a writer (artist/photographer/…) if you like to write. You’re a writer if you can’t keep yourself from writing no matter how hard you try. That’s getting more accurate for me with my photography. I have to take pictures and I have to share them. This is, ironically enough, happening to me as I pursue my business degree.

So now I can no longer hold myself back. And the response is not the dreaded laughter and derision. It’s something worse. It’s nothing.

Nothing?

Yep. Rather than getting a reaction, any reaction, I’m getting nothing. Nobody sees my site. Nobody comments. I’m just out here, all alone, a fire and brimstone preacher shouting to the rocks and tree stumps.

In Organizational Behavior we talked about people’s need to be with people. We talked about the tribes that punished wrongdoing by completely ignoring the offender. It must be awful to see. The person, who no doubt deserves punishment, feels that intense loneliness of not existing. Eventually that person wanders off and dies, alone and broken. One description of Hell, now more powerful to me than ever, is the description of being completely and totally cut off from God and everyone else for all eternity.

It makes me understand why some artists, politicians, celebrities, etc will do anything controversial. It’s for the attention.

Okay, I’ve learned this point. Now please visit my sites, make lots of comments, and send me money. Thank you!