Back to the keyboard

It's been a long hiatus, in part a consequence of me finding my blog Google-indexed to my name (imagine a bschool admissions officer searching "Craig Cartier", and up pops a blog talking about how my main motivation for pursuing an MBA is to gain access to a wider pool of chicks). I switched the settings so that the blog isn't indexable, so that luckily now my name search only yields a few race results and Super Smash Brothers video game records that I set when I was 18, or in emotional age, 10.

Despite my precautionary actions, I got word earlier that I wouldn't make it off of the waitlist into London, giving me a consistent 0-for-5 result for business schools, which totally blows. It's a lot cooler to tell you're friends you're applying to Harvard than to tell them you got rejected from Harvard...and 4 other schools besides. In the words of Ted Striker: What a pisser!

I thought I might share some of my feelings on not getting in, perhaps it's therapeutic for me. I suppose understanding disappointment starts with understanding "why?". I think my attempt to understand is simply an evolved form of my own internal conversation as we picked teams on the kickball field in elementary school: "Why hasn't anybody picked me yet? Maybe I just suck at kickball...but maybe everyone else is a stupid poopy-head"

Today's version of the false "it's me" vs. "it's the world" dichotomy:

"Maybe my daydreams of being this dynamic business leader are just unfounded. Maybe there's a key element of personality I'm missing. But Maybe I was just too egocentric in my essays. Why did I decide to tweak my essays up to the final minute? For that matter, why am I so disorganized? Is that something I can change? I've been disorganized all my life, why do I think I can change it now...but then again, what's stopping me from changing it now, all I need to do is make up my mind to.

vs.

Maybe this world just isn't built for Craig Cartier. Maybe this has nothing to do with my abilities, I'm just resigned to a life in the middle class--Iowa State and Sprint just aren't Yale and Deloitte, and the bschool elite are maybe just a fraternity where I don't belong. Or maybe my vices (disorganization, for example) are genetic things that I simply can't control, and all I'll do by trying to change is feel a sense of guilt and lower self-efficacy. Maybe I just need to make enough cash to have a secretary. But I need to get into bschool to make enough cash, fuck!"

And, adding a little spice to the mix, my mom (with excessive moralizing) blames it on the fact that I don't do enough volunteer work. Thanks mom.

The answer probably lies somewhere in the middle of all that, and I don't think I totally understand it, nor do I think deep reflection on it is necessarily positive. I'll take what I can from it and move on. I also remember that the whole MBA idea was just as much a way to frame my last year's adventures in a socially acceptable way as it was a true ambition of mine. I do still cling to my "go big or go home" philosophy. If I get into Chicago next year, it's a better situation that getting into Iowa this year. I just have to make it through the next year without losing my ambition, self confidence, and sanity. Wish me luck.

Of course, one piece of silver lining is that the blog is back in business, as the Aussies say, full-on. In that spirit, let me fill in the gap with a story from Munich from almost a year ago (holy shit!)

For anyone that goes to Munich, there's a cool hostel that's only open in the summer (until Oktoberfest) called "The Tent." It is literally a huge canvas tent (two in fact) that houses a hundred or so bunk beds. It's super cheap and super social too, one of the best hostels I've stayed in. Of course, it probably is one of the least private hostels I've stayed in too.

This fact became relevant one night as I was sitting at the hostel bonfire talking to a group of British girls that had just arrived. It was no coincidence that I was talking to them: earlier, I overheard two of them talking about their third friend, commenting that she was so horny she was going to jump on the next guy who winked at her. Driven out of a deep sense of sympathy to this poor girl's predicament, as we sat by the fire, I thought I would strike up a bit of conversation with her and see where it led. Well, it turns out her friend's opinions were rather prophetic, and our conversation led straight to her bunk, one of 100 in the same gigantic room, mind you, but luckily, we were the only two there as everyone was either at the campfire or out at Kultfabrik, Munich's club strip. Our privacy would prove to be short-lived, however, as soon the entire group of those at the bonfire came into the tent, surrounded the bunk, and with just a sheet separating them from the activities underneath, let out a coordinated applause. My only reaction was just to sheepishly smile and turn what I guess was the darkest shade of red my body is capable of emitting.

Luckily, the crowd eventually dispersed and we were able to complete our cooperative business.

Fuck you, you elitist b-school admission pricks! (The worst part is, I fully acknowledge I'll be crawling back to them in just a matter of time.)