or, at least, relearning algebra here on the edge of middle age is presenting some challenges. i'll give myself a break since it's DAY ONE, however.
backing up again, though ...
so it was 1994 and i started researching MBA programs with concentrations in nonprofit management. there weren't many, but i found a few at some excellent-to-good schools - stanford, berkeley (haas), the university of texas, the university of indiana, yale. (yale didn't even technically offer an "official" MBA in those days, but they've since jumped on the bandwagon.) sorry, indiana, but i crossed you off the list right away. good school but not great school, and cold climate. (when i applied for undergrad, i didn't apply anywhere north of where i lived in pennsylvania specifically because i hate the cold. great criterion for a pretty important decision, right?) i forsook my social life for some time to study for the GMAT and luckily did well, but i still knew that berkeley and stanford were both a stretch, which was a cause of stress since I was pretty sure i wanted to be back in the bay area. i got the rejection letter from stanford first. boom.
texas and yale graciously admitted me, and yale began wooing me with offers of scholarships (which was the only way on earth i'd be able to go there). no word from berkeley yet. i started getting knots in my stomach when i approached my mailbox when i got home from work.
and then, because it's just what i do, i kept mulling and turning ideas over in my head. what did i really want to do? at the time (i don't know if this is still true), all the applications required that you write a 2-3 page personal statement telling their illustrious admissions department why you deserved to be there and what you wanted to be when you grew up. at the time, i knew mine was 75% horseshit. (later, when i became an applications reader at haas, i learned that most of them were more like 90% horseshit.) but it was also true that i'd done the berkeley application last, so i'd been ruminating on that statement for quite some time. and although i don't remember exactly what i wrote, it involved using this new "Internet" thingamabob to create more integrated networks for nonprofits and people who required their services - social services like education opportunities for single mothers, inexpensive child care, re-entry into the workforce after being homeless - things like that. hey, for 1994 that was pretty advanced thinking, for real.
social services, social services. hmmm. now, isn't that why i'd wanted to go to law school, lo those many (well, several) years ago? and so that's where the idea of the JD popped up again. and then berkeley sent me the fat package, and i had a decision to make.
texas, berkeley and yale all had good law schools. well, yale and berkeley were great and texas was good. texas came off the list next because, well, it was texas. don't hold it against me. you don't want to live in texas either, even if it's austin and austin is "really cool" with a "great music scene" and an "up-and-coming arts community." it's still texas, people. deal with it.
the tricky thing was that i had to decide which MBA program to attend before i could apply to the law school, all because of my rather wretched, or at least ill-timed, planning. and come on, i mean, i had a good LSAT score (i had managed to squeeze in taking the LSAT - again, since my scores from my college try were no longer good - in the spring of 1995, after i had this revelation) and good grades, but yale was the #1-ranked law school in the country. maybe i'd have an advantage already being in the school of management there, but maybe the law school admissions committee would have a good chuckle at my application. and let's face it, california was calling me back with its temperate weather and liberal outlook on life. i wasn't a shoo-in at berkeley (then known as boalt hall school of law) either, but figured my chances were better. and a little ways into my first year as an MBA student, i found out that i had indeed been admitted to boalt and now, instead of being an MBA '97 student, i was now JD/MBA '99.
school itself, well, that's not a terribly important part of the story - although it seems like it should be, doesn't it? what was important was the hurricane that blew through the hallowed halls of berkeley, especially at the business school: THE INTERNET. by the time i graduated, although i still believed wholeheartedly in using the web for good, i was many tens of thousands of dollars in debt, and the "internet consultants" (a term that hadn't existed five years earlier) were a'calling. i took a job at one of them, trying to hide my shock that my starting salary was more than triple what i'd been making before graduate school. (this was because of my extremely low pre-grad school salary, not a huge post-grad school salary, but still.) i wasn't eschewing my principles, i told myself. i was just prudently postponing them until a time when i'd made my first few millions (which couldn't be more than a few years away), and then i'd go back and do good. so, so much good. really.
and then everything busted out, not even a year later. companies lay in ruins all around the bay area, and mine was one of them. i managed to get out while the getting was good and go to a smaller consulting firm focused on digital marketing. i felt lucky to have a decent paycheck. a lot of my friends didn't. (again, you can relate.) i stayed there for about two years, until the opportunity didn't feel like much of an opportunity anymore, and then i left. (i can still hear my mother: "you quit your job?" read: "you left a paying job in the middle of the worst economic downturn since reagan, and you have no prospects?" actually, maybe that was my inner voice, not hers.)
so here's another part of my story, one i don't talk about much, but which is integral to understanding how i got where i am now. yes, i did quit that job because i didn't see much opportunity ahead of me. but i also quit because i couldn't function, couldn't get up in the morning, couldn't sleep, couldn't eat. i suffer (i can't stand that word, but i don't know a better one) from "major depressive disorder" (DSM-IV-TR, axis 1). in other words, if i'm not properly and adequately medicated, or sometimes even if i am, i can fall into a deeply depressed state from which, at the time, it seems i'll never emerge. i had my first episode in college, and my second a couple years later, during my second year in san francisco. i'd thought it was over, but here it was again, about 8 years after my last "episode." shit. shit.
i spent the next few months in a fog. i managed to do a little volunteer/pro bono work, but i spent the majority of the time by myself, desiring very little social interaction. i did manage to get myself to a doctor and get some medication stuff sorted out. and eventually i started sleeping again, got back over 100 pounds. (i went surfing for the first time during the worst of this period, meeting up with a friend whom i hadn't seen in some time. I'll never forget the horrified look on her face when she saw me in my bathing suit. all she said was "oh my god, what happened to you?" i don't think i've ever felt that ashamed.) eventually, life slowly got more "normal" again, and certainly more manageable.
i'll end on that cheery note for today. really, though, if going into a depressed state feels like the worst thing that could ever happen to you, emerging from it is one of the best. and, in fact, i was going to enter a great period in my life very soon.
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