Round Two.

Last night my dreams alternated between being forced to jump out of a plane on a skydiving trip - something I really, really did not want to do, and having someone force their way into my home, demanding that I show them the drugs I had smuggled into the United States via Mexico.  The latter, I'll blame on the fact that Sicario was the film I watched right before crawling into bed.  And the former, well, it doesn't take a psychologist to figure out I was having anxiety filed dreams.  I'm going to blame that on the fact that my second semester of business school begins today.

In July, the first day of school was scary and exciting and wild for a whole host of reasons; mostly because it was a leap into the unknown.  Now, while a lot of my anxiety about this program has been alleviated - my classmates and instructors are awesome, I've made great friends, the workload is super intense but I made it through, I love what I'm learning and studying - at this stage I also know what I'm getting into as the semester begins.  Our break between semester one and semester two was quick - a few weeks that felt busy in their own right thanks to the holidays and wrapping up things for the end of the year and a week long work trip out to California.  Still, for a handful of weeks I remembered what it felt like to get my social life back, albeit briefly.  I saw friends I hadn't seen in months, I made it to my hairdresser for the first time since the summer, I fell back into a regular yoga routine, I even made it to a meeting with my writing group.  I popped up to show my face, to remind people that I existed and now I'm headed back down into my rabbit hole...never to be seen or heard from again until mid-May.

It's not that I mind exactly.  I've said over and over again that when I signed onto this adventure I knew I would be forced to give some things up.  One of my friends joked that it's costing me over six figures to learn how to say NO.  Often, I tell people that I wanted to be selfish for two years and focus on something exclusively for me.  I joke with my friends who have newborns and toddlers that while their schedule is hectic due to their babies, mine is just as crazed due to my own baby - my MBA.  When people ask about the details of the program, I can usually see their eyes widen as I start to explain my schedule, the pace at which I am making this happen.  "How do you do it?" they ask, bewildered.  And I always tell them the truth.  I put my blinders on and I get into "go" mode...and then I just, well, go.   If I stopped to take a moment and observe the workload and schedule from a bird's eye view I feel I would probably just panic and not even know where to begin.  We all know that if you want something bad enough, you will figure out a way to make it happen.  And when it gets too overwhelming you remember to pause, catch your breath, and take it bird by bird.

Alright, second semester.
Here we go.