Miracle on [Beacon] Street
I am relieved to be saying that I write this post from Aventura, Florida. Approximately 12 hours ago, this wasn't looking like much of a possibility. But we'll get to that--it's really in a long line of fairly miraculous events, the craziness of which befit an ABC Family Christmas movie. The PG-13-rated kind, though, or maybe a mild R.
On Friday, there was the great miracle of getting the Santa-hat-clad SS home from Good Life after KF and I stopped her from spreading Santa-ly love to some people at the club who were certainly on the 'Naughty' list--and not in a good way. Saturday, after brazenly venturing out to Storyville on my own, I managed to make it home despite the great number of predatory men populating the place.(That said, I fully plan on returning to Storyville, but with people I know. Even though I had a makeshift clique going by midnight, I wasn't really enjoying being badgered by a 38-year-old engineer followed by a 30-something Italian man who claimed I looked angry and (knowing wink) that "[he] could do a few things to change that." Alas my cleverest retorts always happen after the fact, but I should have said to this guy, "I'm not angry--I'm just not smiling at you.")
Monday I managed to take all the perishables in my refrigerator and make a smorgasbord of delicious items that I can come home to next week and that guests can look forward to at dinners to come (Vanilla honey ice cream? Prepare your stomachs, friends). I also was pleasantly surprised by my time as a "Belle of the [Matzo] Ball," which I could only describe as what a Bar Mitzvah would look like if it all the kids were 21+ instead of 13 and given free reign in a Vegas-like club complex until 2AM (oh, Boston. You and your bar laws).
And this morning, despite waking up at 5:15AM for my 6:00AM flight to Fort Lauderdale, I managed to make it to my plane just in time. I'm laughing really hard about it now, but as someone who never sleeps through an alarm, I was freaking out when I saw my phone and it didn't read 4:30AM. Yet I sprinted down Charles Street in the flurries, waved my hands in the air like a vertical snow angel, and had a blessed cabbie lead me to Logan like a regular Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer in seven minutes, flat. Even though my boarding pass wasn't printing and TSA rescanned my bag because I put my laptop, shoes, coat, and fluids baggie in the same plastic bin (instead of putting the laptop in a separate bin), I made it on board and was the penultimate person to board the plane at 5:44AM.
But the greatest and most understated miracle of all happened with respect to work: getting a tangible (and drinkable) token of appreciation from my boss that reassured me that I didn't have to figure out my next five years in the next five minutes.
Early on last week, I had suffered a crisis of faith about my career prospects, mostly as a result of one of my coworkers leaving HBS for a consulting position out in San Francisco (CD, I'm seriously going to miss you and your farewell dinner party was awesome). I was plagued by next-career anxiety more or less through Wednesday, researching positions I could jump into with a year's experience, consulting friends about next steps, but mostly getting entirely too worked up over a problem that wasn't going to solve itself in a week.
And then, on Thursday, my professor unexpectedly gave me a holiday gift: a really nice bottle of French red wine. Maybe I'm easy to please, or maybe I wasn't as conflicted about my work as much as I had thought, but walking around with the weight of that bottle in my backpack had lifted another weight from my spirits and had me smiling like a fool around HBS the rest of last Thursday.
The best part? I went to thank my professor for the wine, and in his typical eccentric I'm-kidding-but-am-I-really-kidding style, my professor asks, "You're old enough to drink, right?"
So as I head off to dinner for my parents' 31st anniversary (yes, it's on Christmas, and if you know anything about my family, that 31 is more than a miracle--it's near unthinkable), I'm more in the holiday spirit than I've been in a while. And not because I've opened my professor's wine.
At least not yet.
Merry Christmas.
On Friday, there was the great miracle of getting the Santa-hat-clad SS home from Good Life after KF and I stopped her from spreading Santa-ly love to some people at the club who were certainly on the 'Naughty' list--and not in a good way. Saturday, after brazenly venturing out to Storyville on my own, I managed to make it home despite the great number of predatory men populating the place.(That said, I fully plan on returning to Storyville, but with people I know. Even though I had a makeshift clique going by midnight, I wasn't really enjoying being badgered by a 38-year-old engineer followed by a 30-something Italian man who claimed I looked angry and (knowing wink) that "[he] could do a few things to change that." Alas my cleverest retorts always happen after the fact, but I should have said to this guy, "I'm not angry--I'm just not smiling at you.")
Monday I managed to take all the perishables in my refrigerator and make a smorgasbord of delicious items that I can come home to next week and that guests can look forward to at dinners to come (Vanilla honey ice cream? Prepare your stomachs, friends). I also was pleasantly surprised by my time as a "Belle of the [Matzo] Ball," which I could only describe as what a Bar Mitzvah would look like if it all the kids were 21+ instead of 13 and given free reign in a Vegas-like club complex until 2AM (oh, Boston. You and your bar laws).
And this morning, despite waking up at 5:15AM for my 6:00AM flight to Fort Lauderdale, I managed to make it to my plane just in time. I'm laughing really hard about it now, but as someone who never sleeps through an alarm, I was freaking out when I saw my phone and it didn't read 4:30AM. Yet I sprinted down Charles Street in the flurries, waved my hands in the air like a vertical snow angel, and had a blessed cabbie lead me to Logan like a regular Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer in seven minutes, flat. Even though my boarding pass wasn't printing and TSA rescanned my bag because I put my laptop, shoes, coat, and fluids baggie in the same plastic bin (instead of putting the laptop in a separate bin), I made it on board and was the penultimate person to board the plane at 5:44AM.
But the greatest and most understated miracle of all happened with respect to work: getting a tangible (and drinkable) token of appreciation from my boss that reassured me that I didn't have to figure out my next five years in the next five minutes.
Early on last week, I had suffered a crisis of faith about my career prospects, mostly as a result of one of my coworkers leaving HBS for a consulting position out in San Francisco (CD, I'm seriously going to miss you and your farewell dinner party was awesome). I was plagued by next-career anxiety more or less through Wednesday, researching positions I could jump into with a year's experience, consulting friends about next steps, but mostly getting entirely too worked up over a problem that wasn't going to solve itself in a week.
And then, on Thursday, my professor unexpectedly gave me a holiday gift: a really nice bottle of French red wine. Maybe I'm easy to please, or maybe I wasn't as conflicted about my work as much as I had thought, but walking around with the weight of that bottle in my backpack had lifted another weight from my spirits and had me smiling like a fool around HBS the rest of last Thursday.
The best part? I went to thank my professor for the wine, and in his typical eccentric I'm-kidding-but-am-I-really-kidding style, my professor asks, "You're old enough to drink, right?"
So as I head off to dinner for my parents' 31st anniversary (yes, it's on Christmas, and if you know anything about my family, that 31 is more than a miracle--it's near unthinkable), I'm more in the holiday spirit than I've been in a while. And not because I've opened my professor's wine.
At least not yet.
Merry Christmas.