Hanging in there

Today Susan and I finally hung up our pictures, including my most prized art possession, a painting my friend Tracy Kodner made for me a year or so ago, called Garden on the Sun (pictured). Isn't it a delight? This picture might not make it clear how large this thing really is -- it's five feet wide. I'm so relieved it survived the move. We also bought some curtains today because at night I get the feeling that my sweaty, half-naked body is on display for the whole neighborhood to see. And I don't want to start a riot.

This morning we awoke to no power in our building, which is always a funny experience because you realize how totally dependent you are on electricity. No TV, no Internet ... even my piano plugs in. So Sue and I went to Nica's for breakfast sandwiches, then hit Target and Lowe's for aforementioned curtains and other goodies (shoe organizer, clock, blah blah).

The rest of the day was spent reading the first chapter of my accounting textbook and doing some of the problems. I will admit that I found the reading and notetaking part pretty boring, but once I tried to do some of the problems, I kind of got a kick out of figuring it out. Accounting is completely foreign to me (except that we had to do an online module about it over the summer). I hope and assume it will not be foreign to me two years from now ...

And that leads me to a couple thoughts on work/life balance. We were told repeatedly during orientation that networking is as important, or more important, than studies. And tonight I did turn down an opportunity to go out (sorry) ... But here's the thing. I'm a nontraditional MBA student who knows virtually nothing about business. So all the networking in the world will be useless if I don't understand accounting, economics, spreadsheet modeling and so forth. So all things being equal, I'm probably going to pick studying over going out, especially at first. (Staying in is also the economically shrewd choice. That loan money still hasn't made it into my checking account! Monday, supposedly ...)