I loved this weekend so much

I adored every fantastic moment of this fantastic, fantastic weekend. It might have been the best one I've spent at SOM.

On Thursday evening, I submitted my final assignment for Competitive Strategy, a group paper that we did on the diamond industry. With that out of the way, and only one assignment to go, I had a pretty clear conscience heading into the fun series of activities that would follow.

On Friday, I went with six classmates to two Connecticut wineries, White Silo and Gouveia Vineyards, a trip that three of us (not me) won last year at a fundraising auction. White Silo, which is in a remote and farmy area called Sherman, does mainly non-grape fruit wines, like raspberry, blackberry and black currant; they were light and easy to drink. Gouveia does more traditional grape wines and had a much more upscale kind of vibe. Between the wineries, on the suggestion of a woman who worked at White Silo, we had lunch at a restaurant called American Pie Company (similar to Cracker Barrel). The woman had warned us adamantly not to order the soup, especially French onion. So how could I not order it? It was mediocre.

Later Friday evening, I went to GPSCY, the pub for grad students, for a party/fundraiser for New Haven Reads. That event was upstairs, but I never made it there because I ran into some non-business friends of friends downstairs who wanted to go to Center Street Lounge, a gay bar I'd neither been to nor heard of. Since that's something I rarely do, I I went, and had one of the best times ever -- without over-imbibing, even.

Saturday was packed with party preparations for the Q+ holiday soiree, which my rooommate Suzanne and I threw. We (Suzanne, mostly) went all out with mulled wine, bacon-wrapped dates, cheese and veggie platters, all sorts of goodies. It was a superlative joy. We did a Secret Santa-type gift exchange, caroled around the piano, decorated homemade sugar cookies with homemade icing, and enjoyed the amusing company of my 8-foot inflatable Santa, which apparently had sprung a leak. He consequently looked tispy and tired by the end of the night.

Anyway, it was the kind of weekend that just makes me so happy to be a student again. I know that, post-SOM, this concentration of fun things will be a thing of the past. So I'm soaking it up while it lasts.