Last week we had a one day orientation for second year MBA students. Panels, resume review, housekeeping…good stuff. As part of it, they had Scott Schaefer, my economics professor from last year, speak to us on the state of the economy. Listening to him reminded me how ticked I was at him.See, I was supposed to be taking a course from him this semester, but I got an email earlier this summer explaining that he had been promoted to Associate Dean of Academic Affairs. This meant the course was dropped. Crap. I was looking forward to it. I couldn’t even tell you what the course was, I just knew I wanted to take a course from him.
Schaefer’s a great professor. He’s able to walk you through very complex concepts and make them totally understandable. If my life was an action movie and the guy in the airport control tower was on the radio talking me through landing the plane because the pilot had been killed, well, I’d want Prof. Schaefer to be the guy in the tower talking me through it. The man knows how explain things.
(I originally had him talking me through disarming a bomb, not landing a plane. Still not sure I went with the right analogy.)
Anyway, I learned a lot from Prof. Schaefer. This is not to suggest I did well in his class. I did not. In fact, grade-wise, it was my worst class. I’m hard pressed to remember having done that poorly on a final since Japanese class my sophomore year in high school. I’m not giving anyone in Tokyo directions any time soon. Still, I want to learn from Prof. Schaefer. He's crazy smart. You can tell. When you ask him a question, he'll pause, look up, and you can just feel the gears in his head spinning. We're not talking simple gears. Large, important gears like in Big Ben.
So I’m ticked. Apparently, it’s more important to him to advance his career, provide better for his family, and guide the direction of the entire program than to teach me whatever the hell I signed up for. That’s just selfish.
Speaking of selfish, I need to give a shout out to Paula Crow. I take that back. I think the term “shout out” is stupid. I need to acknowledge my former academic advisor Paula Crow. She is leaving to pursue a Masters in a Communications. I’ll miss Paula. I decided I would be attending the U roughly 10 seconds before orientation. When I showed up totally unprepared in jeans and Tshirt on a day when I was supposed to be wearing a suit, she tolerated all my crap and disorganization with a patient smile. And she’s been nothing but sweet and wonderful ever since. In fact, she’s the one that has me doing the blog. But, like Schaefer, she’s putting her designs on self improvement and fulfillment above my desire to have her to around to say hi to every once in a while. Jerk.So I’d like to wish these two luck. Jerks.
Unrelated...It occurs to me that was probably the last summer vacation I’ll ever have. Granted I didn’t do much. Mostly worked on my internships. I did go to NYC to be a godfather. I’m not religious but am part Italian, so they let me do it. Which may have been a mistake. Check it out. This picture is the exact second little Tony (named after me, sweet) got baptized. Check out my eyes. I think I’m a demon. Yipes.Anyway, I can’t decided whether I should be happy or bummed that I’ll never have another summer vacation. So when in doubt, celebrate. Here’s my celebration song (this week). Puts me in a good mood. If you seeing me driving 90 miles an hour singing to myself, there’s a good chance this is playing in my car.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4MXFOMpVIw
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