Kim Priore

Well, week 2 of school is officially over, and I am exhausted.  Mostly, it’s exhausted in that really good, really accomplished-feeling way.  There’s quite a bit of sleep deprivation in there too.  I definitely spent the home stretch of the week running on pure adrenaline and caffeine.  At one point I had the random urge to take up smoking (don’t worry I didn’t) which in the past I’ve only felt compelled to do when I’m drinking, or in the middle of finals.  I’m not sure what that means.

The most exciting development of the week was a guest lecture in my Development class on “Monitoring and Evaluation” which is a fancy way of saying “what I did with my summer vacation, and apparently did all wrong.”  Ok well maybe not all wrong.  But as it turns out there’s a whole profession/industry/career path within Development that involves that type of thing.  That’s the good news.  The bad news is, it doesn’t appear to be the career path I’m on.  I can see it, it’s like it’s running parallel to me, and I just can’t quite make the leap.  So if I ever decide to go back for a second Master’s degree (and you really never know when you’re going to have $40,000 lying around and not know what to do with it) I know what I’ll go for.  But so then I said all of this to my work study boss (also known as the professor I’m TFing for, also known as random lady who thinks I’m smart and really wants to get me a job, for reasons passing understanding) and she goes, “oh I should introduce you to my neighbor, he’s an independent consultant and just got contracted by the Clinton foundation to evaluate their HIV/AIDS program.”  What?!?!?  So like, here I was questioning my decision to go to Harvard and not Fletcher, and yet if I wasn’t at Harvard, I wouldn’t have met Rachel and had all these cool opportunities, not to mention the ones she still wants to find for me.  At any rate, it’s just been this weird feeling of things coming together incrementally, and this vague sense that like even though I don’t know exactly what I’ll be doing after May, I’m cautiously optimistic that I’m *sort of* on the right track. 

So that brings me to Friday night.  My loan money came in (wohoo!) so I got to do a little shopping this afternoon after lunch with my mentor, always fun.  On both counts.  And since then I’ve pretty much been staring vacantly at the tv.  I was going to try and rally and catch up on some work or reading, but I think I might just give myself a pedicure and take a bath and turn in early.  I got myself a small pizza for dinner, which I used to feel was really pathetic, but now I just chose to think of it as an emblem of how I’m really ok with who I am, and I don’t need to pretend that I have plans to go out and party it up, I’m really ok with the folks at Liberty’s pizza knowing that I’m heading home to spend Friday night by myself.

But it’s a good reminder to me too, that at the end of a busy week where I feel like a rock star and like I’ve definitely made Harvard my bitch and I’m just kickin’ butt and takin’ names…it doesn’t mean a whole lot of you don’t have anyone to enjoy it with.  This is not to say that on this particular evening I would have gone out anyway (no guilt trip to anyone intended!), but I guess it’s good in the midst of our “40 Days of Community” (insert eye roll here) to remember that I can have the longest most impressive resume in the world, but if my friends are hurting and I don’t take time out to be there for them, or to pull my weight as a member of this family and this household, then I’m really not that great at all.  So my goal is to keep all of that in focus. 

Happy Friday everyone!