And so begins week two

Week one at the MBA was something of a whirlwind. We started off our 'introduction week' with a 12 hour day, several assignments, and promises that 22 pages on the Japanese fax industry are important (turns out they are, and quite interesting too). That was followed by debates, presentations, an insane Amazing Race across Joburg (it was quite a day, I was stiff for the rest of the week), more presentations, discussions and basically head-spinning work. There is a lot of suddenly meeting people from industry, and a lot of 5-minute assignment (as in "you have 5 minutes to prepare _________, go!")

Between the insanity the people are amazing. I really like everyone in the class, from being super-friendly on day one and sharing our complete terror over coffee, to laughing and teasing when appropriate, to all kind of pitching in to share knowledge of our respective fields.

The weekend was spent reading and reading and reading. The tough part is that I'm such a newbie that reading a single chapter takes several hours. The plus side of spending several hours on one chapter is that I know the work inside out by the time I collapse onto the floor with a numb arm from writing so much.

I'm liking Economics, vaguely understanding Accounting, wondering when Marketing diverges from common sense and buzzwords and looking forward to Human Behaviour (later this week) and Research Methodology and statistics (next month).

I have had a couple of conversations with the people at work, I miss the girls terribly, and from the sounds of things, it's worse there than it was before I left. I have to admit, the feeling of working hard without being set up for failure is putting me in a fantastic mood, even though I'm also getting used to the feeling of waking up in the morning feeling like a truck has hit me head on (there is also unlimited filter coffee and a pretty healthy - if you choose the right foods - meal plan, which means by the time I get my first cup of coffee and fruit/pastry of the day I have usually stopped growling).

Here's to new experiences, to learning, to opportunities and to working harder than ever before!