New Beginnings

So you guys might have been wondering why I disappeared after my 100th blog. To regular followers of cricket however, this might not have come as a surprise. As any fan worth his salt knows, batsmen have a tendency to play a rash stroke immediately after getting to their centuries. Its not from a lack of desire or commitment. Its just that the sense of accomplishment causes a momentay lapse in concentration. But you are right. Actually, this does not make any sense in my case! I just stopped because I couldn't think of anything interesting to write about. I was also involved in mundane things with starting Kellogg like looking for a place in Evanston, getting some pre-MBA reading out of the way and figuring out how to activesync my laptop to my new phone so I can have non-existing meetings synced up on both devices. Ofcourse, I also enjoyed spending some quality time with my wife and dog.

Tomorrow (friday) is my last day at work. On Sunday, I'll be leaving with a Kellogg group for New Orleans, where we will do some Katrina rebuilding during the day and check out some of the city's famous jazz scene at night. Its going to be a hectic start to what promises to be the busiest 2 years of my life. So I thought this would be a perfect start to ruminate about "new beginnings" and the like, just so I appear self-aware and philosophical to my loyal readers.

So I'm quitting my job and going back to being a full-time student. I'm throwing a cushy job, a decent pay and an okay reputation to go do something that has an estimated opportunity cost approaching 300K. Its going to be a major lifestyle change. I don't think the full impact has sunk in yet. I'll be meeting my wife only occasionally. This is probably going to be the biggest shocker since we've been inseparable for the past 8 years. Even after I graduate, I'll probably end up in a job that's going to keep me at my desk or on the road for a considerable number of hours a week. So I guess we both will just have to get used to this. This is here to stay.

I can't just whip out my credit card as carelessly as I used to. I'll be living in a modest accomodation on a student budget. I'll once again be banging my head on a wall with courses, assignments and projects. Hopefully, the professors won't be the sort who would twist my ears while I'm already on my knees.

Things are going to change in my social life as well. For the last several years, I've been happy to hang out and party with the same bunch of friends. And its been great. But now I'll have to start expanding my horizons and keep my mind open to making new friends. Its not always an easy thing to do when you are nudging 30. As the great philosopher Seinfeld once said "I have 3 friends. That's all I can handle!".

However, as new beginnings go, this is exciting as well. How many people get a chance to start afresh so late in the game? I can quit all this IT/telecom business and decide what I want to do with the rest of my life. I'll get a chance to interact with with some of the smartest people and have access to some of the most successful people in business today. And hopefully get treated like royalty by recruiters when I graduate. Ofcourse, I just need to watch out that my inadequacies don't get cruelly exposed by my over-achieving Kellogg classmates.

So the challenge now is to take all this in the right perspective. I can sit and complain about the hectic classes, the huge debt, time away from my family and getting back to the student grind after all these years. Or I can look forward to the exciting times ahead and use it to come out of my comfort zone and try out new things. I can look forward to all the interesting people I'm going to meet and the opportunities that are going to come my way. There are new paths to be taken, and new horizons to be explored.

So here's to new beginnings!