MBA Sig-O

Lots of messed-up things going on. At work, the woman I share an office with listens to heavy-metal music (yes, at work...) and has brought a pair of binoculars with which to spy on the construction workers next door. The CEO, who was absent during my first week on the job and who emailed me a welcome (after his return...) with an invitation to lunch, has entered my office every day since then (3+ weeks now) yet hasn't said another word about it.

At home, our water has started to smell. It has something of a chemical odor, mixed with something rotten. Very disagreeable. Thankfully, we use bottled water for drinking, but showering is pretty unpleasant. Even while doing the dishes the smell annoys me. Nothing on the news provided an explanation for this, so I called the Water Dep't today. No explanation other than: sometimes if the water stays in a pipe too long, it smells. Great, thanks. Then they gave me a long-distance number to call if I wanted to talk to an 'expert.' Thanks, but... shouldn't someone be calling ME?

Then, one of my new friends here in the city (the woman I met with the other day) wrote saying that she and her boyfriend have broken up and that she's moving to Florida. This totally sucks. Of all my friends (even those I've had for a LONG time), this is the one person that I felt totally comfortable telling anything to. We're like twin souls, so this is very depressing news.
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Let me preface this entry by saying that I have too many books. WAY too many books. So many, that they don't all fit in our apartment. There are at least 5 boxes of books stored in our garage. Thus, with a possible move to New York looming in the not-so-distant future, I decided that something must be done. I listed over 70 of them on half.com, and by this morning I had already sold 3! One was a book by Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale, that I had bought several years ago. Never read it. Someone bought it. Seller's guilt set in: what if it's a really good book? what if it's such a good book, that I'd consider it a 'keeper'? So I read it. I'm sure I should have spent the time on my dissertation, but 4 hours to read a 400-page book isn't bad, and it was definitely worth it. Because now I know: Good book, but not a keeper.
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Yoga again today. By the end, the tightness I've been feeling in my lower back had completely disappeared. I only wish that I was motivated enough to do an hour-long session every morning. On my walk home, I called UB to meet me outside the apartment so we could take a stroll around the block. As we were walking, I thought that it would be nice to stop at our local IHOP and grab some breakfast. My two reasons: 1) I was tired of cooking the eggs/meat and 2) the kitchen was still slightly messy from last night's dinner. (We had a couple of friends over for a going-away meal, and by the time they left, I was in no mood to clean pots and pans.) At first, UB said no, but after I protested for a bit, he gave in. We ended up with a nice, quick breakfast (UB: steak and eggs, me: eggs & bacon w/ stuffed french toast) and headed home to do work.

Despite the fact that one of my abstracts was approved for an up-coming conference, I haven't yet produced anything substantial. From now until 6, I'm going to strap myself to the computer until I write something. : )

Then we're off to a birthday party for our neighbor's son (UB's MBA colleague), who turns 1 today.
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Yesterday I had to tutor after working at my part-time job, so it was late (8ish) by the time I reached home. When I arrived, UB still hadn't come. Thirty minutes later, he calls, asking me to join him at a local pub. Since I was tired, I declined. When he came home, he told me that he had been cajoled into going by a group of his MBA colleagues, who had complained that he wasn't doing enough "schmoozing." This is MBA-ese for drinking, apparently. In total, they had stayed at the bar for over 5 hours. Though UB's borrachera was probably reward enough, I still let him know that I wasn't exactly pleased. I simply feel that we should both hold each other to equal standards and act in accordance to the other's expectations; I know that UB would have been angry if I had stayed at a bar for such a long time, so it both hurts and angers me when he does so.

The length of his explanations and justifications was the only admittance of wrong-doing that I could expect to get.
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Ugh. I had such a frustrating morning today, and I hate to begin on a sour note. First, there was no morning walk since UB said he had to do work. He's getting the Wall Street Journal now, so I suspect that work really meant reading the paper. When he realized that it was nearly 9am, he jumped into the shower, and a few minutes later shouted for breakfast. While I definitely don't mind preparing meals, lately I feel like this is being demanded of me more than being my activity of choice. I have never NOT made a meal, so why does he all of a sudden feel the need to remind me?? After he left, I prepared to go to the store to pick up a few things, but just as I was leaving, my mother calls. I suspected it was her when the phone rang, but against my better judgment I picked it up anyway. For 20 minutes, she bitched about her work, and repeatedly described the situation that's going on there. Our conversations typically go like this:

Me: Hello?
Mom: GUESS WHAT????
Me: What?
Mom: Such-and-such is happening at work. It's terrible. Everyone is complaining. I talked to so-and-so, and she feels the same way I do. It's terrible. Did I tell you that I talked to so-and-so? Anyway, I talked to her, and she thinks we should all quit. That would teach the manager a lesson. Don't you think? So I was talking to so-and-so, and when she said that we should quit, I agreed. Our manager is just terrible. Everyone complains about her.
Me: (at different intervals...) uh-huh. uh-huh. yeah. uh-huh.

Notice the sudden launch-into-bitching at the beginning of the conversation. It's always the same. No "hi, how are you and UB?" No "are you busy?" No "what's new." This does sometimes make an appearance in the conversation, but only at the end, when I am already seething and ready to start screaming.

Anyway, after about the fifth time through her work situation, I did start scolding her. I don't necessarily mind listening to her complaints, but when she is obviously doing NOTHING to solve the situation (ie: talk to her manager directly) and is only making her work environment WORSE, there is a problem. And so I told her. And she just continued to bitch.... Arrrrgggg.

When I finally was able to get off the phone and go shopping, I ended up buying way too many chocolately-sugary things to give myself something to look forward to. Thank God I'm not on a diet.
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After tutoring this afternoon, I met up with a friend of mine. We actually met a few months back through an 'activity partners' ad in craigslist. (That was a bit daring, but paid off in the end!) She & I have experienced so many similarities in our lives, that it's scary. Whenever she tells me about a certain event or memory, I can exactly relate to what she's saying. Right now, she's going through a rather difficult moment in her relationship, something akin to what UB and I went through in our first year living together. Anyway, we had a good conversation over coffee and then walked around the neighborhood a bit. We parted at 5:30 so I could make it to a 7:00 tutoring session I had scheduled with a new student. On the way home, the highway was blocked off w/ police vehicles (still no idea why!), so I had to make a rather circuitous journey back. The traffic fiasco cost me nearly 1 1/2 hours travel time, but I luckily arrived at the coffee shop where I was to meet my student at exactly 7. In the end, though, the guy didn't even show up! It reminded me of a saying my grandma always uses: Life is hurry up and wait.
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In my part-time job, I work with a woman who graduated from the same MBA program as UB. When I told her that he was venturing into investment banking, she just looked at me as if to say, "Is he crazy?" She asked if I would be joining him in NYC (if that is indeed the case), but UB and I have already decided that it would be rather pointless for me to go. First of all, I would barely see him. If we estimate that he'll be working 100-hour weeks MINIMUM, that means that we'd be together between the hours of 1am and 8am. Weekends included, and this doesn't factor in travel time. Plus, my priority over the summer is to finish (as much as possible) the dissertation, and with all of my books here (along with my library access), moving to NYC would only complicate things. So this means that I have a long, lonely 10 weeks to look forward to this summer.

When I said as much to my co-worker, she agreed, and said that this would be my introduction to the next 5 years of my life. Yay. Just the cheering up I needed. And then I run across articles like THIS that state: "I don’t know one senior-level person I worked with (in investment banking) who has a healthy marriage. They don’t spend time with their families... divorce rates are relatively high... to be honest with you, I don’t know too many happy bankers. People aren’t happy.”

So much to look forward to. Blech.
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The weekend was good. I went to yoga on Saturday, though it wasn't quite as satisfying this time. We focused more on breathing techniques when what I really wanted to do was stretch. So after the 90 minute routine, I came home and did another 30 minutes of stretching poses. By nighttime, I definitely felt the soreness in my muscles. It's a good feeling.

UB and I have continued our morning walks. With the weather gradually warming, it's not nearly as bone-chilling, though it's still mentally unpleasant to go from warm bed to chilly air in the AM. The Atkins diet is also on-going, and in just one week UB lost over 5 pounds. I, too, have lost some weight simply because I haven't been eating the same amount of carbs. Since I actually want to maintain -or even increase- my weight, I've had to make conscious attempts to eat more. Though I don't think eating icecream and Little Debbie snack cakes is necessarily the best answer, no other food satisfies as much. : ) One thing that has surprised me in this diet is how nutritious meals can actually be. At first sight, the Atkins diet seems overloaded with fat, but in reality, one can eat lots of protein while still eating healthy. Our Sunday breakfast, for example, consisted of hard-boiled eggs and smoked salmon, while Saturday we had a lovely Mexican-style breakfast, with huevos rancheros & pico de gallo along with black beans & bacon. Total net carbs: under 10, and this includes a glass of milk. (Ideally, one should limit total net carbs to 20 per day for the first 2 weeks.) To remedy the slightly high morning carb intake, I bought low-carb milk yesterday. The whole protein vs. carbohydrate thing is very interesting, actually, and is making me reconsider what a 'good' meal should consist of.

Dissertation is coming along, at least in mental stages. I keep reading articles and building the structure of my thesis in my head, but when it comes to writing, I'm lagging a bit. Today I want to finish at least a draft of one chapter. Hopefully by week's end, I'll be able to submit something tangible to my committee.
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