a look back :: june 3, 2004

I wrote this in the hopes of being selected for the MBA Journals on the Business Week Boards. That didn't happen, and I never published this. It is an interesting summary of how we got here:

Greetings! My name is Chris. I am a 30-something who pinches herself every morning as I peer out at the Golden Gate Bridge because certainly this must be a dream. Never in a million years would I have guessed that I would find myself here.

Currently I am in the midst of the Road Trip of Road Trips (affectionately known as R-TORT). As I write this I am in a hotel in Madison, Wisconsin, and in about 12 hours I will at long last walk the streets of Chicago – a place I have never been, but which I plan to call home for the next two years. My fiancé, B, has been accepted to the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business (better known simply as The GSB). It has been a long (and sometimes arduous) road to get to this place. Still, I can hardly believe it is real.

You see, we having been living in what feels like limbo for over a year and a half. It’s more than a little complicated, but let me try to explain:

B and I have known each other since he was an undergraduate at UC Berkeley (I was at UC Irvine – I told you it was complicated). In the summer of 1998 I decided to drive to Austin, Texas to help finish a job I had started. The idea was to come back, but somehow we moved there.

After a five-year stint in Austin, we decided to return to our home on the 27th floor in Emeryville, California. I had ended up working for the company where B was working, so when it closed its doors on September 16, 2001, we both became job free. After almost a year of trying, we called it quits and made that 1500-mile trek back across the Continental Divide.

It didn’t take us long to confirm that things weren’t much better in the Bay Area. In fact, in some ways they were worse. So in early 2003 when B announced that he wanted to apply to B-school, I stopped unpacking as it looked like another move would be in our immediate future.

We quickly learned that timing is everything. If you apply in the final round (for in many cases a handful of spaces) it is almost impossible to be accepted (even if you have a killer GMAT score), especially when the economy is trending downward. Every school rejected him.

B decided to re-apply. He visited schools and we attended local info sessions together. Both of us learned much about the process and what schools really want. I summed it up in four easy questions. Answer these are you are in:

1. Can you do the work?
2. Why MBA?
3. Why our program?
4. What do you bring to the table?

This time B applied in the early rounds: he re-applied to one school, and applied to two other programs he learned about in his research. Once he hit the submit button, all we could do was wait.

When the first letter came back – denied a second time – we were both stunned. But shortly after that an interview was offered (a first glimmer of hope which was quickly shot down). And then finally a maybe – waitlisted at the GSB. While not a “no”, a maybe is not a “yes” either, so backup applications were sent.

In March, B received his first phone call. One of the backup schools said yes. And while we were elated, that maybe was still out there. In fact it was a double maybe – B had been re-waitlisted at the GSB. Huh? Who has ever heard of such a thing? On the bright side it still wasn’t a no. And so we waited.

Deposits were made at the safety school, and during the gruesome waiting period I learned that my 33-year old sister had died (a year ago) {Yes, my life can be that crazy sometimes.}

Shortly thereafter the long awaited phone call came – Chicago said yes! We learned as we were driving down to Los Angeles to make potential arrangements for plan B.

Quickly B booked a last minute flight to attend the Welcome Weekend for newly admitted students. I stayed at what seems to become my second home, Los Angeles. {I know this may be confusing but that is how these last several months have been.}

Since then I have been trying to get my mind around these changes. Trying to grasp about what I am about to do. We decided to make a road trip out this visit, and stopped to see friends in Minnesota on the way, and will come back via Austin to meet up with more friends. We will stay a few days in LA and visit not only with B’s grandmother (who is on her way to Manila after spending time in Delaware) {I told you this was complicated.} but also a friend who just had a baby boy.

Perhaps tomorrow it finally hit me. I am really moving to Chicago, back to the Central Time Zone and land of Hellman’s mayonnaise, about to embark on the journey of a lifetime. Or perhaps it will start like most days, pinching myself.

background noise :: telling stories, tracy chapman