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German language. I modeled my thesis after a conversation we had together at a conference, somewhat in attempt to be one of his graduate students.
    That night was the beginning of the end. That year and in those months, out of nowhere the aspiring investment bankers and pro-athletes were all the talk of the school. That was a blindside hit. I think that’s the correct use of an American Football term? A metaphor if you will. I just started getting less and less attention from women my age.
    I swear single girls were pre-filtering people they would talk to. “Not going to be an ibanker? Not going to be a doctor? Not going to be a lawyer? How about a management consultant? Ok, it’s not even worth speaking to you.” My stock value tanked because of my projected future socioeconomic class. That really hurt. I’m starting to understand how actual poor people feel. Trapped. Sure, I could focus my tactics on people younger than me – but that couldn’t shake my feeling of uselessness. Impotency.
    So I abandoned Eden. You know, till this day I wonder if it was the right choice. I haven’t looked back since. It’s been about five years now. It’s when I realized that this pet project that I had would not bring me the socioeconomic status that I was looking for. Sure, it might bring me respect within my academic field... but it didn’t even win me a Rhode Scholarship. I’ve always been the kind of person that is all or nothing. It was time to call a loss a loss. I abandoned her. I haven’t checked on Eden since then.
    That is when I decided I should apply for the two most coveted professions that I knew I had the skills for, investment banking and management consulting.
    Paul helped me through all of the logistics of getting hired for these firms. You may ask, how? Paul came from a family of bankers and consultants, so he had been groomed for this position since before I knew how to speak my first word. Damn, till this day I do attribute a lot of the life decisions that I have made to his brain.
    At the end of the day, I was a little bit too much of a wild card for all of the bulge bracket investment banks. One thing that I was surprised to see, though, were that all of the consultancies were trying their best to hire me. This was absolutely unexpected. Just a few months ago, I wanted to be an academic who traced language to it’s common origin. I guess people didn’t think that I was full of shit, because I told every interviewer that I was one step away from making that a reality. The only problem? The last few ‘intricacies’ of my research would probably take the rest of my life, take the most brilliant people I could imagine, and wouldn’t foreseeability make my net worth in the high millions. High stakes for no rewards right? I felt like a fraud landing that last statement during interviews.
    People loved my story. By the end of the year, I had more job offers than I could decide on. So I decided based on a coin toss. That’s how I decide everything I can’t decide on instinct alone. Leave the rest to chance. Or so I thought.
    I decided on a firm that is based out of Boston, because that’s what I was familiar with. It still has global reputation. Since then, my life has changed in ways I can’t really describe.
    Now my life and thoughts are focused on things that I am forced to focus on. When I was in college, I was able to say what I should research and what I should ignore. Now I am told to make businesses more profitable. Everything I do has to relate back to that.
    It’s really not different at all. I’m just pleasing a different master with different needs. Right?

Michelle - November 2012
    Michelle is the last excuse that I have for a real friend in this world. Don’t mistake me for the kind of person who likes to burn bridges. I just have a tendency of fading into obscurity. You know that friend that you’d hang out with from time to time, relax with – but can’t quite remember when you