I took a writing class in early 2006. I had just gotten out of a lousy relationship and, emotionally bruised and hurting, began a much-needed process of self-restoration. I figured doing new things and meeting new people would be a part of that. I started taking group voice lessons with a professional coach and joined a magazine writing class at the extension school of the local college.
What I realized is that people you meet in night classes or in community choirs are kind of weird, but not too far from where you might end up if you aren’t careful. They wear clogs with wool socks and mom jeans, and put their hair up in buns. They’re kind, wonderful, sincere people who don’t know how to hold up their end of the conversation.
I remember going to Home Depot to buy some houseplants (this was a year and a half ago when I was nesting and not even thinking about the MBA) and I saw a woman who looked just like me 30 misguided, lonely years from now. I left without buying any houseplants and ran home to pluck my eyebrows and put on some tighter clothes.
So the attempt at self-actualization via the night school route just left me feeling more lonely than I felt before, because I was too afraid that by befriending the weirdos I would embrace my inner weirdo. I would have been better off joining the kickball league instead. I did however write some cool articles about the oyster obsession that was sweeping the east coast, about how to do Tanglewood on a shoestring and one about my culinary adventures in Korea. But then I didn’t have the guts to pitch any of my writing to magazines. One of the first assignments for the class was a brief piece on “why I write” and I found that I had nothing to say. I didn’t write. I used to write in my diary back in middle school – I filled pages upon pages with minutiae of what happened that day and a catalog of what Austin wore: Duckhead shorts, Ralph Lauren Polo, vertical stripes, Nike Air sneakers. Then I stopped writing in high school because I was too busy, and picked it up again in college during travel trips. The result was overly florid descriptions of my experiences in Morocco, that found depth in every cultural difference and forced generalizations upon a culture I didn’t understand (much like I’m doing now in France, come to think of it).
Post college I wrote a journal occasionally, but discovered that in my entries, I was always incredibly hard on myself. Each entry would start with something mundane and end in self-loathing. I was unhappy with my job, my prospects, my love life, the fact that I wasn’t an expert that NPR called when they wanted to talk about subject X. I stopped writing and found a shrink and became one of those people who talked about their shrink at dinner parties. Eventually this got loathsome too, so I packed my toga and set off for INSEAD. NPR still isn’t calling me but I’ve learned to hate myself less for it.
During those years, I kept a travel blog as a way of staying in touch with my friends and with my parents and sharing the experience. And since the blog was public, I put more effort into writing coherent stories than I might when writing a diary. These vignettes are like souvenirs from my trips.
Many students (and one faculty member) have asked me why I write this blog. What exactly is my role as the person who reports on the goings on at INSEAD that the rest of the world can read? Do I have a responsibility to the institute to represent it in a certain light?
I started writing this blog back in October when I was bored yet anxious about the changes ahead. Mostly I needed a place to vent about the painful visa process, the lack of user-friendliness of the MBAConnect site, the stress of deciding whether my stuffed Panda could come (yes, definitely) and whether it was frivolous to allocate so much luggage space to a designer teapot (no, of course not).
I continued to write because it was a way of keeping my parents abreast of my life – though lately they message they’re reading between the lines is about how stressed out I am. I write in part because I enjoy the attention – the thrill of being ‘found out’ when people connect the dots between my writing style to my Facebook status updates. Or perhaps I write it because I’m so conceited as to think that my opinions are worth sharing (though GP would say that it’s such a 1970s physchoanalysis cliché). I also write to give sense to my experiences, that I wouldn’t do if I was keeping a journal. I write because I need to vent those daily frustrations with the hope that someone might be reading: i.e. Why does INSEAD print business cards with an e-mail address that expires in a year? Why aren’t students given alumni addresses immediately: mbamrs.MBA2009@insead.edu? Wouldn’t that make sense? The answer I was given was some mumble-jumble about IT settings and permissions for access to the alumni site. Can the Business School for the World not [bother itself to] figure out a simple IT question? Lack of accountability comes to mind. The attitude says, students are only here for 10 months. They’ll stop complaining eventually. And since I’m on a roll, why can I never find someone at the reception desk? Why is it impossible to find a campus map on the school homepage?
See, it’s so easy to rant. It’s easier to poke fun than to write something sincere and positive. I briefly flirted with the cult of Yelp! an online review site for everything from hairdressers to restaurants. The positive reviews were always so bland, but the negative ones were always hilarious.
As far as projecting a certain image, I’m assuming that the people reading this (prospective students/alumni/professors/administrators) are smart enough to realize that this is one woman’s opinion about her very personal experience at INSEAD. The things that I get worked up about may not even be on another person’s radar. The aspects of INSEAD that I enjoy may be very different from those that someone in J’10 will enjoy.
I so get where you are coming from. I like your style, girlfriend!
if i get a job with random house, i will give you a book contract. :)
Sweet. I’ll keep my fingers crossed!
Nothing wrong with some tough love. I am almost certain that the alumni email address is being worked on. Might be a good idea to also nudge your IT Rep on this one.
Preach, sistah. Represent.