Holiday Morning Runs

Well today's run was a strange one.  There's nothing like going back to the suburbs to realize that you didn't grow up follow the suburban triangle and end up living in the suburbs.  We have a 5K that is around the town I grew up in, and I ran it with my best friend from high school and her family.  (My sister was working, and I couldn't convince anyone else in my family that an 8:00 am run the day of Thanksgiving was better than sleeping in.)

My race today was sandwiched with awkward situations.  So I got to the race, went to pick up my race shirt, and my exboyfriend from high school's mom is handing them out.  I thought she might not notice me, so I spelled my name really quickly ... She looked up from her computer slowly and said "Oh I know you!" Excellent.  "Are you running this morning with anyone or did you come alone?"  Who asks that ... I just took my small bib and went back to the group I was with.  I forgot how different the suburbs were, I've been spoiled living downtown big cities for the past six year.

After the race, as I'm running to my car with a handful of baby cinnamon rolls, a coffee, and frozen water bottle, I run into the marine's sister.  (It's funny how people run a 5K, then they grab so many snacks at the end it's like they've never eaten before.  We burned maybe 300 calories, which is one bagel.  Anyways there I was with my handful of baby cinnamon rolls...)  I was so excited to see her I didn't see his whole family arrive behind her.  His mom hugged me, "How's Boston?!?!" "Have you been to DC to visit my son?!?!"  Eeeekkkk..... I guess he didn't tell her.

Sometimes it's a bit of a bummer to be single on the holidays, but the pluses are pretty sweet too.  I bought myself some great Christmas presents.  I think maybe I'll go on a trip somewhere ... Do something crazy.

232 Miles Down 83 Miles To Go

Eventually.

Ugh ... I'm injured again.  I've been so busy with things like Finance, Operations, and Marketing that I haven't run in a while.  And today I got the worst shin splints.  I could barely get through today's run.  I was literally in pain the whole time ... and finally I realized, I need new shoes.  I've run the maximum number of miles for a pair of running shoes.  I have never done this before.  All I could think about today is what a pain in the ass milestone this is.
 
That and I'm going home for the holidays soon.  I love and hate going home.  It's always refreshing to go home, but I'm in such a different place than most of my friends that sometimes it's kind of a bummer.  Recently I even got a text from a friend that says "Life update, I'm getting married in a few months in Ireland.  Please join us if you can.  Also, I bought a house."  He got engaged about a month ago.  Once you get into your late 20's early 30's it seems like everything happens lightning fast for everyone in the dating world.  They meet someone fall in love immediately or are done immediately and move on.  The stories of how people meet are getting more and more ridiculous too.  I have a friend who met someone crossing the street ... months later they are still talking.  My friend who is getting married in Ireland, blew out his knee in the military, came home and reconnected with an old girlfriend.  Whenever I hear stories like this, I wonder if I'll reconnect with an ex sometime ... Maybe the one who lives in Florida or the one who lives in Ohio.  (I think all the rest are married ... I'm not that into married men).  I feel like I need to do something drastic to meet someone ... like move across the country or go skydiving again.  Maybe I'll fall in love with my instructor.  Anyways ... This weekend I'll be going home to my dads house to watch history movies with him.

229 Miles Down 86 Miles To Go

He Doesn't Know He Doesn't Like Me

It's freezing out, and I wimped out and went to the gym.  The good old college gym. Much different than the macho muscle meat heads I'm use to working out with.  Here it's stretchy yoga pants, make up, and girls pretending to stretch while they bend over a knee and text.  Someone actually had her hair down while she was on a rowing machine.  Even the guys are pretty funny.  They lift one rep and wander to the drinking fountain.  Stand in front of the TV for a while and wander over to another machine.  I assume this is what it is like to work out hungover.

I've had a realization about dimples that I can't seem to let go of.  I'm pretty sure he doesn't like me, but he doesn't realize he doesn't like me.  That sounds very confusing, but it is actually very simple.  He would make these little comments, "Your place is kinda messy." After he'd come over and I didn't realize he was coming. He found a pair of jeans in my bathroom and said, "Oh you have pants on the floor.  Interesting."  I made a comment about not even having time to buy a bed skirt and he said, "Yeah I noticed."  So ... I'm pretty sure he doesn't want to date someone like me, I'm just not sure he realizes it because he keeps wanting to see me. There are some other odd things that have been happening, he seemed to share quite a bit of personal information with me.  Things I'm not sure I should know even if we were very close.  And there was a little bit of a red flag that he didn't have the best money handling skills.  Is that what dating is now?  If I think you may have a bad credit score, then I'm out?

I just don't want to ignore red flags again, and I don't want to spend time dating someone who I think will want to try to change me.  So ... I decided to do the mature thing and cancel Ikea furniture date and just be busy.  Honestly, I was actually very busy, but it was easier to tell him I was busy than to tell him that I think he doesn't like me and he's been kinda rude.

As soon as I told my dad this, he sent me this link.  He's talking about how texting has changed dating.  How you avoid situations where one person likes the other and we no longer have to have that awkward conversation. He thinks "You just pretend to be busy forever.  Why risk someone's feelings where you can create an alternate reality where scheduling is the problem."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiLaukbxQMs

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Why Nothing Gets Done

I got my grades back.  Handled that like an adult.  My friend and I got the email.  Closed our computers.  Left the business school.  Immediately ordered two stiff dirty martini's.  It seems like our grades were determined somewhat arbitrarily.  I keep trying to remember, that they don't matter.  And failing in graduate school means getting a B-.  I came here to get health care background and to learn more about hospitals in the area.  As long as I don't fail out, or lose my scholarship I think I am ok.  I'm not use to getting any B's, so I hate it.  Next module, I will just decide to prepare for every exam, and put the social and career exploration second.  Hopefully eventually I'll have more time for those things.

I also made a huge decision, I applied to get a Masters in Public Health.  I'm not really sure why, I made an impulse decision.  I can get my MBA and my MPH in two years for the same price.  I'm not 100% sure I'll need it with my career goals, but I would really like to be in a less competitive and more organized environment.

However, I feel like I've finally discovered the reason I went to grad school: My Ops Professor.  She's amazing.  She use to be a nurse practitioner in a hospital.  She got frustrated that she couldn't make process improvements to the way things were done, so she went back to school.  She focused on operations management and when she graduated she went into hospital consulting.  Her professor said to her one day, "You're so smart.  Why do you want to go into operations?  All the smart people go into strategy."  She laughed and said, "That's why nothing ever gets done."  I love her.  I went to meet with her, and after 45 minutes of talking with her, she just bluntly said, "What is your dream job, and how can I help you get it?"  She does hospital consulting for the hospitals in the area FOR FREE.  She feels bad charging them for identifying changes she thinks are so obvious.  She's putting me in touch with people in Boston, and I'm meeting them for coffee.

So now ... I need to really think about what I want to do next year.

224 Miles Down 91 Miles To Go

Ikea Furniture Date

I've located dimples for sure.  He walked me home last weekend and texted me to let me know "Stay away from the potato chips.  You're welcome."  He's a second year in my program, which already seems a little bit risky.  He's really nice and has been walking me home from school, which is about 30 minutes out of the way for him.  He finally walked me home, and after four other walks, he kissed me before he left.  I should be really excited, he cooks, he's older, he's funny, he loves dogs ... he's been going out of his way to be so nice but ... I'm not sure how I feel about him.  It came up when he was over, I'm not really sure how, that he doesn't want kids.  It was dropped so casual in conversation, I can't tell if he was even serious about it or joking.  So .. now what?

It's not exactly a first month of hanging out with someone question: "Hey ... I know you mentioned before you didn't want kids.  Are you serious?  Because if you are ... I'm not sure this is going to work."  I think I'll try to maybe casually drop it into conversation again and judge his level of freak out.  I don't want to have a baby tomorrow, but if someone doesn't want any at all... I just don't have enough free time to spend dating them.  Dating as an adult is so different, as soon as I find out there is something I'm not willing to compromise, I can't make myself keep dating them.  He did offer to take me out to dinner for my birthday, and help me build the Ikea furniture I ordered two months ago when I moved in.  (I'm convinced Ikea furniture was designed to make girls need boys.)

Ikea Furniture Perspective

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Distractions

I'm 28!! First run as a 28 year old: check.

I've taken some time off running ... not on purpose, but because if I didn't stop running I'd have to stop sleeping, eating, or showering.  I can not believe how time consuming school has become.  I'm done with final exams, FINALLY, and I've already finished my first three classes of grad school.  I'm not sure how people with no business background are able to pass these exams, I've taken these classes before, and it was a lot of work for me.  I feel like school hasn't fully taken into consideration the fact that we are supposed to be looking for jobs.  We have 18 hours of class a week ... and 2-3 hours of homework for every hour in class.  Which means, I am studying roughly 60 hours on the short end.  So I've decided how to deal with this ... I just stopped studying for some things.  But I'm finding a direct correlation between studying and passing exams.  Whenever I study, I get an A.  Otherwise, I barely pass.  So now I'm just trying to balance all this and learn about hospitals and make new friends and get a beer every so often and I have barely had any time to think about having a relationship!

I didn't dimples again this weekend, but I did figure out his name.  This could be a distraction ... I think I need to decide if it's a distraction that I want.

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Potato Chips in My Bed

Today, I did my laundry to find work out clothes in the bottom.  I had one of those moments where I forgot that I owned the clothes in the bottom of the pile.  I'm not sure which is more embarrassing ... a. that its been that long since I've done laundry or b. that it's been so long I don't remember what my workout clothes look like.

I'm currently in the middle of my first round of final exams!  I've also recently decided to apply for another graduate degree, I must be crazy.  I'm applying for a dual degree of a MPH/MBA.  I can get my masters in public health, which leads directly into the hospital health care industry along with my MBA.  It's like a perfect marriage of what I want in my career.  I'm finally starting to feel like all this preparation is putting me on a track that will lead where I want to go.  As long as I can submit the application during finals ... and my application comes out in coherent sentences, which has been a struggle for me ...

I've also met someone here.  (I think).  I'm fully embracing college life, and we had a boat cruise with our whole class a few weekends back.  A bunch of us got together to drink a little before we went on the cruise, and ended up somehow having roughly 5 drinks each (??).  I remember the night being so so so much fun ... but I also remember when we got on the boat, one of my friends got a bottle of vodka taken away and another one walked onto the boat and immediately broke a wine glass.  A great night that ended somehow with me spending quite some time talking to a cute stranger who cabbed me home.  I woke up with a few text messages "Where did you go??" and a bag of potato chips in my bed.  So this sends me on a while goose chase to find a guy who: has incredible dimples and that's about all I remember.

I feel like in undergrad it's totally acceptable to laugh about how little you remember about the night before, but as a 27 year old it's a little strange to need someone to fill in holes about your night.  I found him at a bar a week later (when I walked in and all his friends pointed at me yelling "Heyyyyy!!!!!" ... none of which I recognized.).  We sat and talked for a few hours and he walked me home.  I feel like the east coast is a little "rougher?" "argumentative?" than the midwest, so I was really surprised when he walked me home and texted me later to say "Glad you made it home safe.  Stay away from the potato chips."

It's a nice distraction from all the studying and cramming of information I've been doing ...

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