If there is one thing I am struggling of late, it is keeping this blog up-to-date. It's not even writer's block (I never understood what it actually means) but sheer laziness despite the fact that my life has endured amazing ups and downs since my last post several aeons back. Although the laziness is still kicking in, I better write something today or else the month will be over and I will slack for another couple of weeks.

Certain things have happened in the last couple of months that I will always cherish and others that will remind me of the dire times of my life. The good thing is that those dreaded days of hopelessness are over. No, it’s not about coursework. On the contrary, I had only two simple courses this mod – Economics of Strategic Behavior by the very awesome professor Dong and the boring Leadership and Business Ethics II. No, I am talking about the horrifying job market of 2009-2010 (for some reason it aptly sounds like a movie title‼) Yes, the frustration, especially among the international students had hit the roof and there was no hope at all. Nada. In terms of Kübler-Ross model, our situation progressed from denial to anger to depression and lastly, to acceptance. To put things into perspective, at one point I even applied to a couple of analyst level positions paying much lower salary‼ Luckily for me, the pain stopped there. I got a job with a big oil company in my area of interest, thus becoming the first and only international student to get a job in the US at that time. Fortunately, the job market has improved at an unprecedented speed since then. If only the situation had improved a few months earlier, we could have enjoyed our MBA days even more. For me it meant taking other interesting courses and learning Spanish besides attending the numerous social and cultural events that take place in the university every so often. But this fact did not deter me from making the best use of the two weeks between my job acceptance and graduation: I did skydiving, motorbike trip from DC to RI/Boston, paintball, etc etc… I also attended the amazing speaker series of the university that included, inter-alia, Muhammad Yunus (Nobel laureate), APJ Abdul Kalam, Hank Paulson, and Richard Branson. Finally the day arrived, May 21st 2010, when I was officially conferred the MBA degree.

The days after MBA and before my move to Texas have slowed down a bit though, mostly because of relocation activities – the selling of stuff at craigslist, finalizing plans, completing paperwork for the job, etc. Lastly, to celebrate the employment of all the roommates and before we part our ways across different parts of the country, we threw a party last night that featured a good mix of Indian and American food. My personal achievement: I finally learned to make amazing chicken korma and tandoori chicken :)