A foreigner's MBA (and related) adventures in the "Big Apple"

Thursday, July 03, 2008

Thinking of home

One month since the last post. In the meantime three of my friends have become dad or mom, three of them have got married, some classmates have come back to their countries for good and I have changed apartments. One damn month is a lot.

I am feeling tired and unwilling to do nothing but doing nothing. It is a curious thing that I am in NY, one of the best cities in the world, if not the best, without much to do and that I spend most of the time at home. As a friend was telling me today is a kind of Catch-22 situation: so many things to do and that I wanna do but no income that allows me to enjoy them. But if I was making working and making money I would not appreciate all those things to the same extent and they would not be available to me on a daily basis. It is frustrating.

As I was saying I am feeling lazy and a little bit tired of mostly everything. I am even tired of looking for a job. I am still into it, it is not that I have surrendered or so but my thoughts are a little unclear now. A tough time now.

I have active job leads now, a few of them. I really feel like this set of leads is the definitive one. I do not see many more coming and, if something pops up (or not) it will be thank to the current leads. I may be wrong but that is my perception. But the more I think about these diverse leads, the more confused I am. The thing is that as of today I may end up working in San Francisco for an internet start up focused on online video, a sports marketing agency in the L.A. area, a media conglomerate in NY… Does this make sense? My life may take one of these very diverse paths. All of them seem to be fine but I do not really know which one I would take if I had all of them within my reach.

And then it is home. I may be going through an awkward moment but the idea of eventually coming back home is growing stronger inside. In the last couple of weeks I feel nostalgic when my friends from my country tell me about the stories that are going on, the summer plans, the usual and typical jokes and so forth. I have also briefly talked to my dad about the possibility of joining him at the family business (something that has always been present in the back of my head, althugh never as a primary motivation). All this stuff already existed when I decided to come to the US two years ago and yet I came over for my MBA. All that also existed a few months ago when I was determined to stay in the US. What’s changed? Is it that I am somewhat fed up with what I am going through or is it really that I want to come back? I have not figured it out but nothing has changed that much to justify the different mindset…

Anyway, just some random thoughts that I needed to jot down. The next couple of weeks are gonna be critical. The leads/interviews will die or will turn into something tangible. And by then it will be almost the end of July and I will have to decide what comes next.

Will keep you all posted.