2007 in the rearview mirror (thank heavens!)

Having spent much of the week sitting at my computer sending off job applications (I think I got about 20 of them done in the past week - not a bad haul), I've had plenty of time to watch and listen to CNN in the background. Amidst the sad news about Benzair Bhutto, I did catch something rather more lighthearted earlier this morning. It seems in New York, some group or other has invited people to write down all their frustrations and bad news from 2007 and run the paper through a shredder, to be used as confetti on New Year's Eve.

I, for one, think that's a delightful idea.

The first day of 2007 found me waking to a sunny, warm day in an old but beautiful (and surprisingly cheap) hotel room in Portugal. It's a lovely memory, but had I known what kind of year I was in for, I'd have probably barricaded myself in that room and never come out if I could help it. I've long been at the point where the best thing I could say about 2007 is that I survived it.

But I must concede, it has not been all bad. I did (probably) complete my MBA; now that I've moved on to all job applications all the time and stopped obsessing over that last exam, I believe I probably passed it. I'm not going to declare victory until I know for sure, but the panic has mostly passed. The only other remaining requirement was a paper on my internship, which I submitted on Christmas Day. Finishing my third degree seemed like a good gift to myself. And as a colleague of mine said last spring, an MBA is an investment. You do it in hope that it will pay off later on, not because you expect it to be any fun while it's actually going on. And there were times that were fun, in any case. It's sometimes hard to remember that given the way the past couple of months have gone, but it's true. Looking back on HEC, I can tell it's going to be a positive memory overall. So that's one good point for the year.

What else is to be said of the good and bad of 2007? I'll get the bad news out of the way first:
-The internship was a big disappointment.
-My grades weren't what I'd have liked them to be, although I'm told that really doesn't matter in an MBA.
-I was unlucky in love twice...it's good that I got right back up and gave it another try, but the other try was just as unsuccessful as the first one!
-Job searches are never easy, but one does forget just how miserable they are until it's actually upon us.
-There is still a slight chance I won't be graduating, although I will have a chance to fix that well before June.
-I'm more than ready to leave Luxembourg, but can't for at least another month due to the last few loose ends to be tied up at HEC.
-After borrowing a lot of money and working very hard for the past year, I've increasingly come to suspect I'd have been happier in the long run if I'd stuck with teaching. But if I had done that, I'd never have known for sure.

Now, the good news...
-Regarding that last item in the bad news, I'll never have to wonder about "what if," in any case.
-I did learn a lot at HEC, and I also got to make a lot of great friends from all over the world.
-However underwhelming the internship was, it's one more item I can point to on my CV.
-I also now know one more thing I definitely do not want to do with my life, and yes, that's a good thing.
-I got to spend a lot of quality time in one of the world's most beautiful cities.
-I also got to visit half a dozen or so countries I'd never been to (or had been to only when I was much too young to remember). When I arrived in France last year, there were five or six countries I had technically been to, but couldn't really say I'd been there because I was just a baby. That list of asterisks is now down to one country, Italy. I thought about going there for Christmas but I just couldn't justify spending the money.
-I'm sure my French has improved, even if I can't necessarily tell.
-While this Christmas season was awfully depressing, it's setting the bar pretty low for next year. I've been thinking as long as I'm not in jail next year, I'll be able to look back and say how much has improved!

More to come if I think of them...but I think that's about it. I guess it was a less eventful year than the previous few.