I got an internship! It's a good one, too, at a huge company we all know and love. I'll be working on a well-known brand, will be well compensated, and will have my son for the summer. I can't wait!

He turns two tomorrow. All of the sudden he can say so many words and understand so many things - he's truly not a baby any more. It's been horrible to miss out on so much of his life this year, but I know that it will be worth it for both of us in the end.

Things are good. The divorce went through, I still don't have a summer internship, and I still have a net worth somewhere in the negative triple digits, but in a lot of respects, I'm the happiest I've ever been.

I like it here. I fit in, I have a routine, and I'm surrounded by humble, funny, intelligent, attractive people who guinuinely like me. When I got here I felt disconceted, homeless, and over time Tuck has become home for me.

I'm helping to run Tuckmasters. I'm writing for the Tuck Profit. I'm making the Admitted Student's Weekend video. I've found my niche.

Today is the first day in a very long time that I had time to myself, alone, in my room. A few months ago I would have spent it crying - now I'm content to surf the internet and read The Meaning of Wife.

X and I are getting along reasonably well. Custody is settled (I get summers, some weekends, and school breaks). I have 2 fabulous trips planned for spring break. I managed to buy another car (more on that later), and I always have dinner companions.

The world out there seems big and scary, compared to my beautiful little mecca of Hanover. I never thought I'd say this, but I don't want this time to end.

X used to wax cynical about his undergrad days at the U of Chicago, seeing the b-school types walking around in suits and being amused that they thought they were so important that they dressed like that for class. They didn't. They were engaged in every future MBA's favorite pastime: on-campus recruiting.

I had an interview yesterday, my only one this week. I got really into it. I blew off coursework to prepare for it. I talked to everyone that interviewed with the company last year. I did mock interviews with 2nd years. I wrote out 4 pages of questions that they might ask and my well-reasoned answers to all of them. I didn't get called back for a 2nd round.

I think one of the hardest things about this entire experience is the "smart kid syndrome". I've always been the best, the smartest, the most on top of my game. Now I go to school with people who have built AIDS clinics in Africa and do their case practice in Portugese because they decided on a whim one day that they might like to go work in Brazil. In short, I'm getting my ass kicked.

My program places a heave emphasis on teamwork and collaboration, so to suddenly be going head-to-head with my classmates is uncomfortable. I'm a very competitive person by nature, but I'm also someone who values friendship very highly, so my brain is completely twisted over this. On one hand, it feels great to see people who have worked so hard get the jobs that they want. I'm so proud of my dormmates, section mates, and study group families that are realizing their dreams. On the other hand, I'm scared that this process is going to completely expose me as a loser and a fraud. These people are my network, and I want to be impressive to them. How is it going to look if the school has to step in and get me a job in May?

Pray for me. And send money.

This is hilarious...if and only if you're a current MBA student. For the rest of you, it does a pretty good job of explaining my choices.

Sorry about the severe lack of updates lately, with a new quarter and recruiting season (read: interviews for highly competitive jobs) gearing up, we've all been psycho around here.

I did get to vote in the New Hampshire primary, which was rad, and last week we all piled onto busses and into the Ritz for a super-fun drunk-fest in Montreal (obstensibly we were there to watch our teams play hockey).

Today I got to pitch my start-up idea in Intro to Entrepreneurship, and actually convinced a few people to join my team to work on the business plan. Cross your fingers for me, if I play my cards right I may be able to continue my streak of never having a cubicle job.

And after what I read today about women holding 2% of Fortune 500 CEO spots (even though we hold 50.6% of management spots), I may just have to start my own huge conglomerate empire if I ever want to be at the top...not that bad odds ever stopped me before.

Damn it feels good.

R loaned me some money to get me through until my student loans come in so that I wouldn't have to have an unfun, broke-like Christmas break.

I started doing some hardcore reasearch on how to pay off my old collections debt and discovered a new account on my credit report - apprently it's from DC, for one of those "we caught you speeding on camera" tickets that they had apparently been trying to deliver to my old address. Trouble with those tickets is, they don't account for who was driving the car, and there's really no way to figure out if it was me or X, so I guess I'll just eat it.

I got an email today from a company in Pittsburgh that I'd really, really love to work for inviting me to join a tour of their facilities with other MBA students...on the 4th. I have to be back at school on the 3rd, for the first day of classes, and if I miss two days of classes in a row, especially the first two, I might as well kiss my quarter goodbye. BUT, this is a really great opportunity to get my foot in the door, so I'm actually going to fly back to school on the 2nd as planned, rent a car, drive to the airport on the evening of the 3rd, fly back to the 'burgh, do the tour on the 4th, fly to DC that night, spend the weekend catching up with my peeps, fly back up to Manchester on the 6th, and rent another car to get back up to school. I also broke down and bought (sale!) ski gear today. So the old collections project may have to wait until this summer...

I hope everyone out in internet land is having a happy day.

I spent the morning at X's house watching the boy unwrap his presents before they had to head over to the in-law's (where I am, unfortunately, no longer welcome).

I thought I was set up to volunteer at Family House for the day, but was informed when I arrived that I would have to go through a 4 hour training before I could do anything and that the trainer was leaving in 2 hours. So I did 2 hours, hopefully I can finish the rest of the training next time I make it to the 'burgh. Just seeing the people there was enough to make me really want to be able to help them out. What an incredible organization.

So, now I'm sitting here alone on Christmas. It's not really so bad, especially with my newfound perspective. Besides, Steve Madden is having a 30% off sale until tomorrow morning (enter code: Snowman30), so I got myself a little Christmas present.

Shoes always make everything better. Next time I write a whiny broke post, remind me that I said that.

I couldn't give up all my grand plans for the next 4 months, so I'm going to proceed with the law suit, turn the car back in wrecked, and take the hit of the cost of repair out of the total settlement.

I drove it back to Pittsburgh yesterday, without getting pulled over, thank God, and here it will sit until this entire matter is fully litigated.

In other news, I decided to assuage my absentee-parent guilt by buying every single age appropriate toy I could find. I spent about $500. He's so worth it, though.

As any good b-school student would do when faced with this sort of dilemma, I spent the day gathering numerical facts and plugging them into an excel model. The results are as follows:

Choice 1, repair car & continue with litigation: loss = $2,952.26.

Choice 2, abandon car & pay off loan: loss = $8,605.40.

So the choice should be obvious. Problem is, door #1 requires an up-front repair expense of $3,749, which uh, I don't have and can't really get.

Door #2 requires 27 months of $320.18 and hoping the bank never finds out what went down. And if I were to say, blow the car up or push it off a cliff, the extra 6k would be so worth it.

What would Jesus do?

Today I finished my last final, said my goodbyes, and took my packed bags out to find my car under 3 feet of snow, literally.

1 borrowed shovel and 1 hour later, I hit the road to head back to the 'burgh.

I had made it to somewhere in the rural Eastern corner of New York when the biggest deer I have ever seen jumped in front of my car.

Those of you who have been following the saga know that "my" car is not really mine, as it was sold to me last May by a dealership who didn't really own it, and therefore it is still not registered to me. As a result, I don't have insurance on it, either.

So, "my" uninsured, unregistered vehicle is now my uninsured, unregistered, wrecked vehicle.

I made it across the border into Pennsylvania (let's just say it would be a bad idea to get pulled over in New York right now), and am sleeping in Scranton tonight so that I can get the car looked at in the morning. I have $600 in my checking account that has to last me until January 13th and a bunch of maxed out credit cards.

Stay tuned to find out how I get myself out of this one.