The Year in Review

I graduated from college eleven months, two weeks and six days ago. I was in a relationship then, my parents flew in from Europe, and my commencement and birthday supposedly marked the beginning of my life as a young professional. My boyfriend at that time – let’s call him Mike for simplicity – was a few years older than me, pursuing a graduate degree, in the process of figuring out his life.

Mike and I both had international backgrounds, were driven and independent, had big ideas and goals. Without him, I most certainly would not have applied to Harvard Business School. He shared his love for food and wine with me, and encouraged me to get my motorcycle. I like to think that our relationship was a mutually beneficial one, and I have no hard feelings anymore.

Four weeks after graduation, Mike and I had our final fight. We had a few drinks at my neighbor’s party, began to argue. Thanks to the amount of alcohol consumed and my characteristic impertinent persistence, he finally admitted to having cheated on me with his ex girlfriend. The relationship ended then and there, on the 4th of July.

Now I am looking back, a year later, and wondering what surprises the summer will have in store for me this year. Much has happened over the last twelve months. If I had the option, I would not want to have a relationship with Mike again. I have no desire to go back, even though I am grateful for what we had. I don’t know if this past year has taught me anything or made me more mature. I like to think so, but have nothing to show for evidence other than a crazy unilateral romance (which really indicates that I am still an immature teenager rather than a young adult) and a number of warped experiences that I’ll put down in writing in due time.

What I do know is that in fifteen months from today I will begin my first semester at HBS. It’s something I’ve come to very much look forward to, and I am excited to find out what life is going to throw at me in between now and then.

“Write”

There it is, the menacing imperative staring at me on the top of a blank page.

This first post will be out of character. It is my attempt to define what I want out of my blog, what I expect it to morph into over time.

a) This is an anonymous personal blog.

First and foremost, this blog will be pure self-display with no purpose beyond my own gratification. I am writing it based on the assumption that I am the only person reading it. The only person, that is, besides my ex boyfriend (hi, ex *waves*) who I have to believe has installed a key logger on my laptop. So there goes the anonymity… maybe I should do a clean install?

b) There is no one central theme to this blog.

Probably means I’m setting myself up for failure but eh, who cares. There are a number of broad themes, though, that will resurface over time. Of course I’ll use this blog to trace my mundane and not-so-mundane daily developments in an effort to process things and preserve memories. I also plan to spend some time here nailing down my short and medium term goals, and checking in on my progress towards them. And as I am documenting the presence and painting my future, I am also going to go back in time and every now and then recount tidbits of my past.

Finally, I will make an effort to blog about the finance insights I draw from my job – in order to force myself to really, truly think about the concepts I deal with on a daily basis. Over time I hope that this final theme will spin off into a separate blog, one that will be read and contributed to by my colleagues and peers – but I think it’s more than ambitious enough for a newbie to start a blog with multiple themes; I am not going to try to simultaneously kick off two blogs. So, for now, this will be a personal blog with the occasional finance post thrown in.

c) This is a writing exercise.

I haven’t done a lot of writing lately (gotta love being a number cruncher!). Even when I used to do a lot of writing, proof reading and editing my own pieces was never one of my fortes. The logical conclusion: my writing here will hopefully improve over time, and I see my blog as a way to re-learn the habit of writing and get better at it.

I am tempted to say “enjoy reading” but that somewhat contradicts my idea of me being (more or less) the only person reading this blog. So instead I’ll tell myself: “enjoy writing”.