Happy New Year! And some retrospection

I vividly remember this time last year. I was ecstatic about being admitted to Wharton and was still dealing with the enormity of the change my life was about to take. One year later and after six months of Wharton, life is still changing, inexplicably so.

I believe a large part of business school is the continuous change it entails. I came in naiver than I am today, maybe even less sure of myself than I am now. I discovered the much feared peer pressure, dissected it and would like to think I conquered it. I found new ways to stretch time to make the days seem longer than 24 hours. I found stimulating pursuits to replace sleep and achieved new levels of insomnia and new levels of inebriation. I learned to "deal" with email, to skim, sift and separate the important from the not-so-important. I even mastered the art of color coding, tagging, flagging and archiving to surpass human levels of organization. I confronted the American grading system, got bewildered, questioned every method I've employed thus far in my previous academic life and finally devised a way to make results proportional to effort. I made friends, friends I can call at 3am. I have friends I can discuss philosophy, economics, films and music with while getting drunk; I can even be my cynical self to them. I realized I don't miss India, neither do I think America is the end of my journey, I proved to myself that geography holds no significance in my life. I witnessed cultures from all over the world, analyzed them to death and ultimately decided diversity is overrated. I understood that everything is negotiable, that perseverance pays, that charm is a weapon, that diplomacy can delude.

I learned all of this and more, way beyond what this blog can express. Here's hoping Wharton continues to be the enigmatic, priceless, eye-opening lesson in perspective it has been so far. I'm enjoying my journey. I hope you enjoyed my retrospective rant. Wish you a very Happy New Year!