300 days have come and gone...

One week after commencement, I sit in Maui (at 5AM!) and ponder the year I just experienced and the year that is ahead.  You see, today is my birthday. Every year on my birthday, I withdraw and consider some of the things that I’ve done right in my life and some things that need improvement. I make my annual birthday list of goals that I’d like to get accomplished in the short and long term. There is a goal for every year, so the list does get longer!  I think that I’m almost up to 40 items?! (Yikes!)

This year my #1 goal, graduate from Harvard, was achieved.   It took me over ten years to get to the point where I could mark through the goal and list it as completed. You would think that a goal that was so hard (and expensive!) to get done would leave me giddy with excitement.  Truth be told, I felt very little emotion. 

When is the magic supposed to happen?

If I weren’t in such a reflective “about to turn 40” mood, I’d still be waiting for Tinkerbelle to sprinkle me with some fairy dust.  But, for me, the magic has already happened. The magic was in the experience of attending Harvard, not the receipt for tuition diploma that I received or my ability to drop the H-bomb.

Admittedly, when the homework got heavy, I slacked in updating this blog. As a result, I was only able to share a few of the big and tiny things that were a part of the Harvard magic.

My 300 days at Harvard have come and gone. I’m 7 days post-Harvard and the dust is still settling. I still have not spent a night in my home. I’m still seeking gainful employment.  The boxes from moving halfway across the country are still piled in a corner. My refrigerator is still empty. But more importantly, I still feel that I need to share some of the magic.

For now, I’m planning to update the blog with my 100 days post-Harvard to include some new experiences, but it will mostly be reflections on the past year as they pop into my head. The updates will be sporadic, at best but they *will* include more pictures. (Yay!)

Hopefully, it will be a way to spark my memory and to continue to give you a peek behind the Harvard curtain as seen through my eyes.

The journey continues.

Little Birds

This morning, promptly at 7:15AM, I heard something that I had not heard in since my first 10 days at Harvard:

“Please move ya caaaah.  If you don’t move ya caaaah, you will be towed.  We aahh about to staaht street cleaning.” 

Today is the fourth Thursday of the month.  It’s street cleaning day.  How fitting is it that the pronouncement that greeted me back in July is the same one that is ushering me into my final days at Harvard?  Is it a sign? Or is it just a freak coincidence?

I like to think of it as a sign.  Just yesterday at our kick-off meeting to Commencement Week activities, I mentioned how this is really the beginning of the end.  I mean, it’s also the beginning of a new life post-Harvard, but it’s the end of the life in which I’ve become comfortable with the last several months.  In all its craziness, there has been some normalcy. 

Every Mon, Tues and several Wednesdays since the beginning of the year, a group of us would eat at breakfast at the Spangler Cafeteria right after our Harvard Business School class.  Our impromptu meeting started due to the fact that none of us actually woke up early enough to eat breakfast before an 8:30AM class.  But it was also our way of meeting to review what happened in the class after each one of us tree-hugging Kennedy School students got served by the capitalist Business School students.  We helped each other decipher the language of the business school and it became normal.  It was something that I kicked off my week, every week, and now it’s over.

I think about what will become my new normal.  Right now, I don’t have a job and no immediate prospects for a job.  As soon as I leave Harvard, I will lose the structure that I found within the confines of being a student. The grueling all night writing sessions will be no more.  There will be no expectations for my time and I will be in a state of limbo.  I don’t quite know what I’ll do with myself in the first couple of weeks.  As a new bird, which has been kicked out my mother’s nest, I will spread my wings and attempt to fly.

The incessant chatter of my fellow soon-to-be-evicted birds will comfort me as I know that the day both hoped for and dreaded is only seven days away.  Some of the birds have bought extra time by extending their housing leases throughout the summer. Others have delayed the inevitable by applying and getting accepted to other Harvard master programs and fellowships.  But others, like me, who have accepted that we will be completely kicked out of the nest, on May 30, 2013, will look bravely towards commencement and will fortify ourselves with drink.

Cheers!

A birdie enjoying a Blue Hawaiian

Baby, I'm a star!!!

A couple of weeks ago, there was an email solicitation by my negotiation instructor for Kennedy School students to participate in a taping that would be used on the Katie Couric show.  

It was a segment to promote the book “Lean In” by Sheryl Sandberg.  It was about how women negotiate and how they are perceived in the workplace.

 Katie Couric - Women negotiating at work

As you can tell from the video, they picked my clip and the clip of another one of my midcareer classmates to be on the show.

How’s that for a Harvard moment?  I go to class one day and end up on national TV a couple of days later!

And just for the record, Lisa’s clip shows her as angry.  Originally, I was the one who was supposed to display anger but I refused to feed into the stereotype of an “angry Black woman” so Lisa did it.  Lisa is one of the sweetest people that I’ve had the pleasure to meet and it was a shock to see her act so angry. (And it was an act!)

I make a concerted effort not to feature other people or mention them by name in my blog in order to respect their privacy.  However, Lisa likes to fly below the radar.  She’s an amazing activist for women’s rights, especially for women who have endured sexual violence in the Congo and Somalia.

Check out her website and if you feel so inclined, please volunteer to participate or make a financial contribution.

Run for Congo Women
A Thousand Sisters
Lisa Shannon - Wikipedia

57 days until commencement

Harvard Memories: Harvard Yale Game

The Harvard-Yale game is supposed to be LEGENDARY.  It’s simply known as The Game. So, who was I to miss out on the opportunity to participate in something that was a Harvard tradition?

First things first:  Let’s talk about the tail gate party!

The one advantage that we older students have over the younger students is that we can buy good alcohol and throw one heck of a tailgate party.  Case in point: The Bloody Mary bar.  Yes, our tailgate party had a Bloody Mary bar and mimosas. (In our minds this was perfectly reasonable since we were starting to drink at 10AM)

Breakfast in a cup

This drink was the breakfast of champions!  Absolute Peppar, V-8, cheese, salami, olives, pickled green beans, Tabasco and celery!  Yum!

The game started at Noon.  Guess what I was doing at noon?  Hint: I was still outside the stadium.

Once I was inside the stadium…the game was OK.  It was all kinds of fuzzy though. I barely remember the half time show (Aztec temples and a whale?) but not much else. I blame it on the alcohol.

(The white thing in the background is the whale)

Oh yeah.  Harvard won.

58 days until commencement

And the final countdown begins...

Since I have been slacking horribly on this blog, I’ve decided to be ambitious and make one blog post a day to chronicle my last 59 days before graduation and my last 60 days on campus.  Guess what? I’m already behind a day!  Today I’ll make two posts to make up for missing yesterday.

Yesterday and today, I was part of a phone-a-thon to reach out to newly admitted Harvard Kennedy School students.  In the middle of the first call, I had a flash back to when I was newly accepted and to all the questions that I about what it meant to be going to Harvard. 

My first question was: How in the blazes am I supposed to afford almost $100,000 for one year of school?!  That’s a lot of money.  Especially since at that time I had not worked a permanent job in about 4 years.  I had picked up some contract work to get by, but it wasn’t like permanent work (with benefits) and a steady paycheck. 

My second question: What am I supposed to do with my boyfriend? At this point we had been together for year.  I had told him that if I was admitted that I was going to leave, but I don’t think either of us believed that I was going to get admitted.  (Surprise!!)

My third question: What in the hell was the admissions office thinking?! Of course, I wouldn’t have applied if I didn’t think I could get in but it was still a shock to get the email and then the paper admissions letter.  So much so, that I didn’t tell anyone that I was admitted for several weeks because I was sure that Harvard was going to retract their offer.   I only began to tell select people after the registrar’s office cashed the check for my deposit!

I can’t believe that all of these memories came flooding back in the space of one phone call. I guess now I can look back on it and realize that it was all going to work out even if it wasn’t exactly the way that I had envisioned.

So far, it’s been a wonderful ride. 

59 days until commencement