I arrived to find TM and BPB waiting for me at the bar. TM handed me a colourful striped box.
“What’s in it?” I asked him.
“Read the tag,” he said with a smile.
I flipped over the tag on the box. You drink, right? It read.
“Is this what I think it is? Is it a bottle of Gewurtzraminer?” TM had found out my favourite white was Gewurtzraminer during our Europe trip. I was pleased he remembered.
“I know you love it.”
“I do! Thank you!” I gave him a hug.

I hadn’t seen BPB in a long time, since he had been on exchange in Hong Kong all semester. I turned to him and gave him a hug too.

Moments later, the rest of the party streamed in, including Jasmine and Vin Diesel, carrying a huge bouquet of flowers. I had never received flowers from a non-boyfriend before. And the bouquet had white calla lilies, which looked so beautiful and elegant. Of my Europe trip-mates, Jack Sparrow was the only one who couldn’t make it, but he sent me a text: “You are one of my favourite Asians.” Coming from him, that meant a lot.

Dinner was quite pleasant, and although the Italian food was not as good as what we’d had in Italy, it certainly reminded me of it, and that was enough. After dinner, we went to a penthouse lounge nearby for some champagne and astonishing views of the City.

The entire night, I made sure to spend some time talking to each person, and the more I chatted, the more it dawned on me how strong my roots in the City really were. When I’d chatted with PHB a few weeks ago, he had told me to see Singapore as not only a new chapter in my life, but also an opportunity for a fresh start. When I heard that, I was reminded of how excited I used to be when I was a little girl every time I switched schools (which was quite often). Every time I went to a new school, I had the opportunity to re-invent myself. If I wasn’t very popular in my last school, no problem, this time I would make the right friends and start anew.
But it’s different now. I’m not looking for a fresh start. I like who I am here, and I like my friends here. I don’t feel frustrated or suffocated such that I need to get away, that wasn’t the reason I took this job. I took this job because it was a rare opportunity to challenge myself, but that doesn’t mean I won’t miss what I have here, who I am in this City. For the first time in my life, I had established roots.

And here I am picking up my life and moving.

We started drinking at 4pm at one of my classmate’s house, because obviously by now we are alcoholics and need to have a pre-drink before every single conceivable event. The weather was beautiful and we took tons of prom-esque pictures on his patio. I tried to be in as many pictures as possible because I had spent hours curling my hair¹, and obviously everyone needed a reminder of my beautiful face in their photo albums.
It was so great to see my old classmates all together again², and everyone looked beautiful in their suits and dresses. Despite the fact that I would not consider most of these people my best friends, even feeling like an outsider at times, I know I won’t see some of these people ever again, and certainly not all together like this, so I tried to savour every moment. It was an afternoon spent in the sun, toasting to our youth, congratulating ourselves on surviving Business School, and anticipating what’s to come.

The banquet itself was quite standard, but I was lucky to be seated with people whose company I actually enjoy (and enjoy immensely when inebriated). We had a grand time sharing stories of our classmates (or in my case, myself), recalling our best and worst professors, and of course, stealing cake. The banquet was buffet-style, so while there was a huge line for the appetizers and entrees, there was no one around the dessert table (at first). So I came up with the genius idea of stealing an entire cake and bringing it back to our table. TM executed the plan flawlessly and brought an entire, untouched mango mousse cake to our table. The servers were not impressed with us, but luckily no one tried to remove it (otherwise they would have had to wrestle it from my claws). We did not stop there. We then proceeded to bring the rest of the dessert buffet to our table. There were over a dozen cakes, and trays upon trays of tarts and brownies and other delicacies. Our table became dessert porn central, and we feasted. Dessert gluttony is the best kind of gluttony.

After dinner, there were buses taking us to The Club, but our program director asked us to control ourselves. “Please don’t let me end up in the Globe and Mail on Monday, like the MBA students did.” We, of course, ignored him. In the words of our student president, “For the rest of our lives, we will uphold The Business School’s ethical code, and we will represent our school in the best light. But tonight, we party.”

BI wanted to go home and change before The Club, and since my feet were killing me, I decided to go with her. Apparently we weren’t the only ones with this idea, because we ended up piling eight people into our friend’s tiny Audi. There were cops on every street as we drove through downtown, so we had to duck our heads and lie on people’s laps to avoid being seen. It was reminiscent of a certain night in first-year when we had 10 people in a similar-sized car (two people in the trunk). We debated the trunk idea, I was nominated because I was smallest, and I would have done it if I weren’t afraid to mess up my hair (see previous note about how long I spent on my hair). Also, as BI pointed out, “If the cops did pull us over and found a car full of mostly brown guys, with an Asian girl in the trunk, that would not go over well.”

Once I got to BI‘s apartment, I took full advantage of her hospitality and changed out of everything: my shoes, my dress, my purse, even my earrings. She has great style, and I had no qualms about the fact that my entire outfit that evening was going to be sponsored by her. At The Club, we joked with the bouncer that everything I was wearing belonged to her (to distract him from noticing that we had cut the entire line), and he said, “100%? Or 90%?” “Oh, well, not 100%,” I said, remembering that I was obviously wearing my own underwear. “Everything visible to the eye is hers. Everything underneath is mine.” When I saw the amused expression on BI‘s face, which mirrored the bouncer’s, I realized what the line sounded like. I swear to God, I don’t do this intentionally, I just never think before I open my mouth!

The rest of the night was kind of a blur. We had VIP booths and tons of bottles floating around, although I tried to limit my alcohol consumption (very difficult when there’s free bottles all around).

All in all, last night was a great ending to my journey at The Business School. Since I will be missing convocation, I can consider myself an official graduate at any point. I choose today. Today is the beginning of a new chapter in my life. Brave new world, here I come.

1. The process of getting my hair to curl (and stay curled) was a Herculean task. I’ve only used a curling iron once before, when I was 18, so I burned myself several times in the process.
2. Last year, we all had the same classes together as a ‘section’, but the sections got split up this year.

This was the exchange BI and I had on Saturday night. She bumped into me as I was leaving The Club. I must have had a stupid grin on my face, because she guessed right away that it was boy-related.

“Why don’t you just pick one?” BI asked incredulously.
“They’re leaving tomorrow, what’s the point?”
“That’s even better! You should take advantage of tonight.”
“Believe me, I have had enough attention tonight to last me months. I’m good.”
She could see that I meant it, so she let me go.

I went home feeling particularly pleased with myself. Sure, I was flattered by all the attention I had received, but I couldn’t be too attached. Because it felt too good to be true, it couldn’t be real. And I wanted to walk away before something brought me crashing down to earth.

Rewind back four days and I’m standing in the middle of a crowded banquet hall, greeting forty-four students from eleven different countries and glad-handing eleven advisors (professors that accompanied them) from their respective business schools. It was the beginning of The Case Competition, and I, as one of the main organizers, was feeling relieved to see that everyone had made it and that Opening Ceremonies went without a hitch. I had been planning this competition for months, emailing back and forth with their advisors and business schools, so I knew their names by heart and was only now meeting them in real life.
They were an incredibly friendly group, not to mention astoundingly good-looking. If I didn’t know better, I’d say we had invited a group of international vampires as opposed to business students.

Although I was exhausted for the next four days, running around from 8am to past midnight every day, going home only to collapse on my bed for barely five hours, it was totally worth it. The delegates that came were all open to new things and eager to make friends. Everyone was having a great time, and I was having just as good a time becoming fast friends with all of them, which was exactly as I expected.

What I didn’t expect was that I would be such a hit with the gentlemen. For example, for most of Friday, I hung out with the German team because I found them to have a surprising sense of humour. Friday’s events included going on a brewery tour, dinner at the campus restaurant, and having an egg drop challenge. By the end of the night, NGB was asking me out. I couldn’t believe it. Although he was cute, I didn’t like him that way, but I didn’t turn him down immediately. He was leaving a day later than the rest of his team, so he wanted to take me out on his last day. I said I would check my schedule and get back to him.
The fact that he asked me out after only hours of getting to know me was shocking, not because this sort of thing never happens, but because I was starting to take the game-playing tactics of most North American boys for granted. I mean, PLB liked me for months and yet he was still pretending not to like me until the very last moment. Here, it would take months of flirting and text-tagging and pretending not to be interested before a guy would ask me out. But it took NGB less than eight hours, and he was very upfront about it. He wasn’t hiding the fact that he was into me. In fact, it was written so clearly on his face, his actions, and of course his up-front question, that by North American standards, I’d say he was completely smitten.

The next day, the other boy on his team, SGB also made up his mind to tell me he liked me. Wow, two boys in two days? This never happens to me.
What really boggled my mind was the fact that their two other teammates were by far the best looking girls at the competition. They were fair, perfectly-proportioned, tall, beautiful, long-haired German goddesses. Next to them, I looked like a gorilla. So how was it possible that these two German boys both set their sights on me? I couldn’t make any sense of it.

On Saturday night, after the case competition was over, we booked out a VIP area of The Club and everyone was in full party mode. The Brazilians and New Zealanders were going absolutely wild, and everyone else was caught up in the frenzy. I danced with more gorgeous boys in one night than I have in my entire life. There was the incredibly tall and unbelievably well-featured Mexican, the handsome Norwegian that looked like a sculpture, the strong Brazilian that could pick me up with one hand, the dancing Mexican that spun me round and round, and the unbelievably good-looking slim Norwegian boy who I spent most of the night with. SNB was the second best looking boy at the competition, second only to his teammate, the Sculpture Norwegian. When SNB started dancing with me, I could see all the girls (and even some of the boys) watching us. I was thoroughly embarrassed, made even worse when one of my co-volunteers, a guy, came up to us and shouted to me over the music, “Hold on to that one, he is way too good-looking.”

Maybe BI didn’t understand why I would pass up an opportunity to make the most of a night like that, but by 1am, I knew it was time for me to leave. It was almost straight out of Cinderella, as if my clothes would turn to rags and my carriage would turn into a pumpkin if I stayed any longer. On nights like these, I want to end on a high note, and there was nothing that could possibly happen to improve my night. What BI didn’t know when she ran into me was that I had already received more than my fair share of male attention:

• Dirty dancing with the hottest Mexican I have ever seen: check.
• Being the only girl to be picked up and spun by a Mexican, a Brazilian, and a German in front of everybody in the club: check.
• Flattery from a ridiculously good-looking Norwegian: check.
• Kisses from a ridiculously good-looking Norwegian: check.
• Confessions from two cute Germans: check.

Of course, I was the epitome of “that lucky girl” that night. But what made me smile the morning after was not just because I felt flattered, but because I realized that there was hope.

After all my experiences with boys in university, and all the shows you see on TV like Sex and The City, I was really starting to believe that all men played games. That no one would put themselves out there and be true to their emotions. That even if they liked you, they wouldn’t admit it unless someone put a gun to their head. That even if they admitted they liked you, they wouldn’t do anything about it.
All of these mind-games were making me beyond frustrated. I think one of the reasons I have been relationship-less this whole time is that I haven’t met anyone that made me feel like the hassle of all those mind-games was worth it.
And now, within a few days, I had met at least three eligible, absolutely date-able boys who were not afraid to say they liked me and do something about it.

Of course, I haven’t forgotten the fact that they may have felt they had to move quickly since they were only in Canada for a few days. But nonetheless, it gave me hope.

The question I still haven’t been able to answer however is, why the hell did they pick me? Seriously, the girls at this competition were just as stunningly beautiful as the boys were handsome. I have never felt less attractive in my life than when I was standing next to them. Of course, I still loved them because they were friendly and interesting. I mean, they were beautiful and had good personalities. As far as I’m concerned, they were perfect.
Yet these boys (more than one, incredibly) were smitten by my charms. Was it my friendliness? My humour? My weirdness? Regardless of the reason, they were willing to put themselves out there even if they weren’t quite sure whether my over-friendliness was flirting or just the way I am¹.

So, clearly, there is hope. Just maybe not in North America.

1. I.e. I could have been overly friendly because I’m Canadian and that’s just the way we are. Or it could have been because I was one of the organizers and I had to set a good example for the other volunteers and be a good host.

I seem to amaze people, although I am at a loss for why. Maybe they just don’t see it coming – you know, innocent little me, planning to have boytoys in every major city in Asia? Or any other scheme I come up with, really.

Later that day…

“Let’s meet in the morning on Sunday and spend as long as we need to to get through these cases.”
“9am?” Someone suggested. “That’s when we normally have class anyway.”
“I don’t think I can make it for 9. How about 10?” I piped up.
“Why? Do you have plans in the morning?”
“Well… sort of,” I said sheepishly. My teammates looked at me, waiting for me to continue. Finally, I said, “I have to make breakfast. You know, weekend breakfasts are pretty elaborate, they take time.”
Everyone burst into laughter. Then, when they realized I was being serious, they stared at me incredulously. “Your plans… are to make breakfast?”
“Well, normally I can eat breakfast on the go. But on weekends, I usually make a big breakfast – you know, scrambled eggs, pancakes… it takes time.”
Now they were looking at me like I was an alien. What? Was I so crazy to want to make myself a good breakfast once a week?
GSB finally chuckled and shook his head. “You are…” he trailed off, at a loss for words.
As the rest of my group begrudgingly agreed to meet at 10, I smiled smugly. Maybe I was “something” but I was going to have a big yummy breakfast on Sunday morning, and that’s all that mattered.

• Do not sleep over at a guy’s place if he has a girlfriend. If anything happens, you’ll be “the other girl.” Even if you think that it’s okay, it’s never okay to be “the other girl.”
• Sometimes, douchebag bosses do need to be put in their place. Even if telling them off won’t accomplish anything, at least you’ll have the satisfaction of seeing the look on their faces when you let them have a piece of your mind. Otherwise, you will dream about having shouting matches with your boss, which is nowhere near as satisfying as the real thing.
• Following from the above, it’s okay to burn bridges. This summer, I burned two bridges (HB and MFL) and it was the best thing I could have done for me. If only I had burned the bridge with LawyerMan too…
• No one will love you like your parents love you. Although I’m proud that I have never been spoiled by my parents, after twenty years, I do want to be spoiled, just a little bit.
• At a recruiting event, don’t say things like “Even if Firm X gave me an offer, I wouldn’t take it” or “I’m only here for the food and open bar.” Especially when there’s a recruiter standing behind you.
• During a case interview, don’t say, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” When they ask you why you want to work at their firm during a behavioural interview, don’t answer with any of the following: “Because that guy I met at the recruiting event was super cute!” “Because you guys fly to Germany to party over the weekend.” “Because I heard you can charge trips to Ibiza on your expense account.” All true by the way. But don’t say it.
• Your friends aren’t perfect either. Being the first to forgive and forget can go a long way.
• Holding a grudge just isn’t worth it.
• Don’t take everything too seriously, you’re too young for that.

The last few weeks have been insanely busy. As you have probably guessed by now, it’s recruiting season at The Business School, which means wearing a full suit to school, getting drunk at recruiting events (open bar) while ignoring recruiters, and no classes. Sounds like one big party, eh? Not quite.
The good news is that this time around, I have gotten a lot of interviews. I have six first-round interviews this week, with some of the top five consulting firms in the world. I only applied to global consulting firms because… well, I figured I’d apply to the best of the best, and if I didn’t walk away with any job offers, I would focus on law school.
I have had two interviews so far, which has resulted in one call-back for a final-round interview next week.

The thought of working for one of these swanky consulting firms still makes me feel a little bit like a fraud. After all, I’m a 21-year-old with no industry experience, and I’ll be working on projects for C-level executives of multimillion dollar companies. Go ahead, send me to client sites in Los Angeles, Dubai, Switzerland, Singapore. Go ahead, pay me $70 grand a year for coming up with a few Powerpoint slides.
I don’t know. But I’m sure all that money will appease my conscience. And help me pay for law school.

Being back in The Business School was weird. I had been excited to see my classmates again, to hear about everyone’s summer internship experiences and to share my own crazy stories, but once I was actually there, I realized that The Business School was the cause of so much of my problems. The high expectations, the competitive spirit, the over-inflated egos, the “playing-adult,” the constant trying to one-up each other.

Sure, I can handle stress. In fact, I love stress. I thrive under stressful conditions. I create these conditions because they make me who I am: an overachiever. But it didn’t preclude the possibility of side-effects.

I had been looking forward to sharing some of my crazy work stories, but now I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t want to make myself a target for backstabbing now that recruiting season was commencing. I’d learned my lesson the first time.

All I can say is, I can’t wait to graduate.

When I arrived at the banquet hall, I realized that they were frisking us and checking our purses for alcohol. I had, unluckily, brought with me two (250ml) bottles of alcohol. I chugged one and hid another one beside a vending machine, which I planned to retrieve later. Chugging a 250ml mixture of vodka and coke (mostly vodka) at 6pm was not the smartest decision I’ve ever made. Within 20 minutes, I was undeniably drunk. Luckily, and let me just throw this out there because I am quite certain of this, I am the best drunk in the world. When I am drunk, I can act completely sober. As in, no one at my table knew I was drunk (other than the one person I told), not even my accounting professor, who was sitting with us. I talked to her for a good 15-20 minutes about the course, designations after the course, and career prospects. According to the one person at the table who knew I was drunk and witnessed all of this, I made some very sensible comments. He was in absolute shock of how composed I was. No one realized I was drunk – much less how drunk I was (the room was spinning and I probably could not walk in a straight line if I was asked to). Ergo, I am the best drunk in the world.
But because I couldn’t keep it to myself, I let a few more people into the loop about my drunken state. Since they were so shocked at how composed I had been throughout dinner, the word spread quickly, and soon, half my class knew I was anything but sober. While this was funny amongst ourselves, a few professors overheard, and my operations professor (a very old and pervy man) came over to talk to me. This was weird, obviously, because when I see him outside of class, we never exchange more than a courteous “Hello.” For most of the conversation, he was looking down my dress (I was sitting and he was standing, which was probably not a good call, but I didn’t trust myself to be standing) and had his hand on my shoulder. May I remind you that the man is a million years old?

But drunk me brushed it off as no biggie – everyone knew our ops prof was pervy – and I continued being overly happy. Although drunk me is great at saying sensible, sober-sounding things, drunk me is also a lot more friendly. Sober me probably would have made small talk with a good number of people, but drunk me was flying around the banquet hall, saying hellos and giving hugs. Yes, I give a lot of hugs when I’m drunk. I am also a flirt when I am drunk (the only time I seem to pick up on flirting, apparently), and DEB honed in on that fact right away after I hugged him and cooed “I’ve missed you since Boston!” He told me he had missed me as well. Another hug. Then he asked if he was going to see me in the summer – he was working in The City after all – and I said, absolutely, we can lunch! He made me check his phone for my number, and I confirmed that he had the right number. In the middle of whatever he was saying, I exclaimed, “You have beautiful eyes.”
“Thank you! I get that a lot.”
“I never noticed.” – a lie, obviously, since his name is DreamyEyedBoy. I squinted my eyes as I stared into his. “What colour are they?”
“I don’t know, they change.”
“My eyes don’t change colour. I have boring eyes,” I stated, matter-of-factly.
He laughed and his eyes twinkled. “You are unbelievably cute.” Another hug. We must have hugged four times in the span of four minutes.

I exchanged the same sort of banter with NB. Since those were the only two boys with whom I had had legitimate flirting history, I felt like I had accomplished my mission for intoxication by the time I returned to my seat.

I flirted with a few more boys that evening. Not flirting with words so much as with photos. I didn’t even have a camera, so the photos ended up in the possession of a variety of people. In some photos, a boy and I would embrace passionately as if we had been separated by a long war. In some photos, a boy would give me a piggy-back ride, as if I was a little kid. In some photos, a boy would kiss my hand on bended knee. This was all unplanned. For some reason, the boy just got down on one knee, took my hand, and kissed it. It’s surprising how gentlemanly my classmates are when they flirt with me. I guess I come off more feminine than I feel – or maybe it was the pink dress I was wearing that night. In one picture, a boy even picked me up (he is 6’5 or something ridiculous) and spun me. This scene was so cute that we had to do it several times for the benefit of everyone with a camera. My flirty photography was getting a lot of attention, and the girls in the room got a little jealous. One girl even asked the boy to do the same lift-and-spin for her. Except she is not a small, Asian girl, and the boy politely refused.

Which made me realize: I have really underestimated the power of being cute and small. I mean, the slightest bit of boldness and there were boys lined up to take pictures with me, scoop me in their arms and twirl me.
I can’t believe how clueless I was about this phenomenon. It turns out being cute, small, and Asian is an automatic “in” with the majority of guys in the room. Being outgoing and silly just made it that much easier. I have never had to work less to get the attention of an entire roomful of people. I felt fabulous.

I ended up going home early with CBA. I had gotten as much fun out of my intoxication as I was going to get. Nonetheless, it was weird to be leaving at midnight; in first-year, a night like this would not end until 4 or 5 in the morning. But if there is anything I have learned from my wild nights out, it is to get out while the going is still good, because it only goes downhill from there.

Thus, I ended my first year in The Business School, not with a whimper but a bang.

The plan was as usual: joint pre-drink with two other classes at someone’s house and then a limo would take us to the club. I really wasn’t in the mood, but it was our last hurrah as a class and I knew I would regret it if I didn’t go. So I went, knowing that I would be either bored out of mind or drunk out of my mind. Or both.
As soon as I arrived, NB started sticking sake shots in my hand. I guess it was going to be the latter. Not that I minded – I didn’t have much to say to the people there, and I definitely prefer being awkward drunk rather than sober. DEB came over to give me a hug as soon as he saw me. It almost made me think the night would be an opportunity for us to hang out again (since Boston, I haven’t talked to him much at all), but then I thought: What’s the point? It’s too much work to keep his attention when he’s trying to flirt with any skirt that walks by.
The Asians mostly hung out together, and we quickly finished the sake. NB and I, as well as another girl (let’s call her CBA) got drunk first. The limos to the club came and went – most people preferred to stick around and turn the pre-drink into a full-out house party (like every other time – and like every other time, the cops eventually showed up). As a drunk, I adamantly wanted to leave the party and go karaoke instead, but as I sobered up, I realized what I really wanted was just to leave the party.
As much as I love my classmates, they’re still classmates. They’re not friends. I didn’t have much to say to them and I didn’t enjoy hanging out with them nearly as much as I should have. It was depressing to realize this sobering truth at our last party.
So I continued to drink.

I finally convinced the Asians to go to karaoke with me. When we were deciding to leave, I noticed that NB kept putting his arms around CBA. And not just her, other girls too. Here was another sobering fact: NB, one of the few guys that make me feel feminine, one of the few guys I thought was a down-to-earth decent type, was also a Chronic Flirt (a Chronic Flirt is someone who just can’t help it. It’s like getting a hard-on, when they’re around an attractive girl, they can’t help but flirt, regardless of whether they have girlfriends or not. Chronic Flirts are the bane of my existence).
So I stepped outside for a smoke.

And they caught me. And they were shocked, as everyone is when they see a cigarette in my hand. I mean, I haven’t smoked in months, and I pick the day when all my classmates are there to go and have a smoke.
What can I say? I’m a closet bad-ass. Consciously, I didn’t want them to see me smoke¹. Subconsciously, I purposely put that pack in my purse that night, and I purposely went out for a smoke at the party. Deep down, I was desperate to shatter everyone’s suffocating perception of my doll-faced innocence.

After I liberated myself from their misgivings about my innocence, NB smoked with me, and I embraced the aroma of cigarette fumes as it settled around us. I used to hate the smell of cigarettes, but now I find it intoxicating.
I don’t remember the walk to the karaoke bar very clearly, except that at some point NB convinced me to let him give me a piggyback ride – I have no idea why. I also remember running a block to try and stop a bus and almost getting hit by a taxi.

By the time we got to the karaoke bar, I was sober. The owner, PKB, used to have a huge crush on me. I hadn’t been to this bar since first-year, in part to avoid him. When he saw me, he almost didn’t recognize me. He did a double-take before he said, “Wow SG, you look so different.”
“Older, hopefully?” I asked him.
“Yes, definitely. Very different. Very… sophisticated.”
“Sophisticated?”
“Before, you looked like a smart… kid. I mean, very smart, but you were like this cute little girl. And now, you’re a… woman.”
As glad I was to hear that I looked older, I wasn’t that flattered to hear it from him. He tried to flirt with me, but this time, I was prepared. When he had showered attention on me in first-year, I was awkward and uncomfortable. Now, I knew exactly how to handle him. I guess I had grown up, a little.

When he took us to our karaoke room, NB and I were left alone for awhile. NB took the opportunity to pull me toward him and put his arm around me as we were singing. I didn’t mind, because even though he was a Chronic Flirt, he still made me feel valued somehow. And, ever since I stopped running around making out with strangers, I’ve been lonely. So that night, I let NB toe the line of “acceptable flirting when you’re in a relationship” (to be honest, after all these run-ins with Chronic Flirts, I have no idea where that line is anymore). He put his arm around me a lot, leaned his head on my shoulder, and generally made me feel a little bit more wanted than I have in a while. Suffice to say, it was an unexpectedly pleasant twist to the evening.

1. Actually, I am not a smoker. I’ve only bought one pack my whole life and only managed to smoke a few cigarettes before I stashed the pack away, expecting never to smoke again.

January at The Business School has been a crazed frenzy of info sessions, recruiters, and job applications. We were given no warning as to how crazy it would get, and I was sucked into this frenzy with no preparation, and thus no hope of getting a job for the summer.
Summer recruitment at The Business School is always taken very seriously because 1) the companies that come are the best in their industry, and 2) after the summer, you are almost guaranteed a full-time offer, so you won’t even have to worry about going through the job search process again in September.
Anyway, what this really means is that everyone is crazy competitive, and it’s so much worse this year because of the economy. There are fewer job openings and even more people competing, especially for my career path of choice: consulting.
In consulting, there are basically four big names: McKinsey, Bain, BCG, and Deloitte. My dream job would be at Bain, but with the competition this year, I did not even get a first-round interview.
Twenty job applications and fifty cups of coffee later, I managed only to get one interview with Deloitte’s strategy & operations department. Pretty sweet deal, if I could actually get through to the final round and get an offer, but this story does not end that way. I did not get to the final round, I did not get an offer.

This is all fine and dandy, but here’s the kicker. With my marks, extra-curriculars, and charming demeanor (*bats eyelashes*), I would have gotten interviews everywhere had it been any other year. But not this year. And the worst part is that I don’t even know what I could have done better. So instead of torturing myself with the what-ifs, I blame January.

January has always been a terrible month for me. My first January away from home was spent combating pneumonia and an allergy reaction to the antibiotics that my doctor gave me. On the first day of class that term, my laptop died and I had a midterm in a week.
The second January of my university life, my purse was stolen in class, and I was left without money, a phone, or keys, and nowhere to go. I also ended up paying for a spring break trip I didn’t go because I was, essentially, scammed by the tour company. Later that week, my laptop died. Seeing a trend here?
This January, not only has summer recruitment gone nowhere, but someone used my credit card and spent $700 with it before I noticed and called the credit card company.
So you can imagine why I was unsurprised that I did not get a single job offer. The fact that my laptop hasn’t died yet is already making it a better month than previous years.

It’s not so bad, I tell myself. There are people far worse off than I. I shouldn’t give up. I have great credentials, I am incredibly bright and hardworking, and I will reach my goals. Somewhere, someone will be able to see that.
But despite how optimistic I sound, I have actually been utterly depressed for a good two weeks now. I can’t help it, I just am.

When I got the call from Deloitte telling me I wasn’t selected to move to the second round of interviews, I held it together for the whole day before I got home and cried. The worst part was that my “whole day” didn’t end until 10:30pm.
And what made me upset wasn’t the fact that I was a fully qualified candidate who would make a stellar consultant if they gave me a chance. No, instead, I was crying because I was so exhausted. I was so exhausted of being me.
I often hear people I know telling me that I am so amazing, that I can manage to cram so many things into my schedule, take on so many responsibilities, and still do a good job on everything. They are all, “Wow SG, you are like a superwoman.” They are in awe of the number of leadership roles I am in, the fact that I am still top 10 in my class even though I work part-time 20 hours a week, and the fact that 1 out of 3 people on campus know who I am. “You have so many friends!” They’ll say, or “You do everything!”
And at the end of the day, what does that amount to? None of them have the slightest clue what my life must be like. What it’s like to be busy from 7am to 10pm EVERY SINGLE DAY. It is not just for a week, or a month, or even 3 months. It is every single day of my life. I just never get a break!
And when I get home, I am so tired. I am tired tonight, tomorrow night, and every night after that. I have few friends who are actually close because I just don’t have enough time in my schedule to see them regularly. Most of the people I interact with just think I’m some sort of superhuman and have no idea the toll it takes. In fact, some of them are even jealous of me. But what is there to be jealous of? My day-to-day life is an absolute misery. How can they be jealous of that?
What makes it worse is that no one can sympathise with me. Even my parents think of me as this incredibly independent and capable young woman. These perceptions of me by my friends and parents are even more tiring to me than the actual work I do. I can’t even turn to them and tell them how I want to just spend a couple days hiding out in my apartment. They would say, “Nonsense SG, you can do it, I know you can! You’re brilliant!” But why do I have to be brilliant? What if I just want to live the normal life of a university student? Just go to class, come home at a reasonable time, make dinner, do some homework, and then go to bed?

On Wednesday night, when I finally got home after a 16-hour day, I let it all out and I cried. I just sat on my bed and cried until I was too tired to cry. I thought about everything that everyone thought I was, and I felt so lonely. So lonely that no one could see that I am only human, that I had limits, that as ambitious and capable as I am, I also have a weak side. But instead of being comforted by someone who could understand how I felt, I was alone in my room, bawling over some job interview.
Suddenly, the life I worked so hard to keep together felt worthless. I was busting my ass every single day, and for what? I couldn’t even convey my value to some interviewer for a summer job. I couldn’t even make him understand that for me to get the marks I do, given everything I am involved in, is an impossible feat, and yet I had somehow managed it. But all he did was compare me to the person with the next highest marks, who probably had one extra-curricular activity and definitely did not hold down a part-time job.
For someone who’s supposedly smart, I’m pretty stupid. Why do I bother doing all these things? I mean, it isn’t for my resume, but it isn’t exactly like I enjoy being stressed to tears. There are just too many opportunities I am not willing to pass up, so I don’t. But in the end, the person who gets the job is someone who expertly picks one or two things that are relevant to the job they want, and spends the rest of their time networking.

Last night, as I told all these things to the Sisterhood, they tried to convince me that it would pay off. That I wouldn’t regret these miserable days of my life. Maybe they’re right. But for now, the only thing I have to look forward to is the end of January.

The only problem was that I was on someone else’s couch, in front of someone else’s fireplace, and the boy warming my feet was someone else’s boyfriend.
Small details, of course. When I should have been jolted awake by the realization that this entire fantasy belonged to someone else, I was instead swooning in his presence.

The last two days have been spent preparing for a presentation that we had to make this morning on a business idea. DEB was in my group, and we flirted mercilessly. My version of flirting was bickering with him – on everything. So much so that the rest of our group started to call us an old married couple. Honestly, he really drives me crazy, but in a good way. I find him so frustrating and exasperating and… heart-wrenchingly adorable! The only way I could focus on the task at hand was by making snide remarks and snappy comments to make him think I was annoyed with him. Every time he said something, he would grin at me, and I would look up from my work and lose myself in his eyes. And then I’d snap back to reality with a quick “you are so annoying” or “I hate you” and proceed to ignore his wounded act. As we were closing in on 30 hours of working together, he started to really believe it.
DEB: Do you really hate me?
Me: Of course.
DEB: I can’t tell if you’re being serious or not.
Me: I’m a good actress.
DEB: See, right there, were you being serious? I can’t tell.
My friend, who was also in our group, walked by and said, “She is probably secretly in love with you.” I guess she saw right through me. I blushed and returned to work.
This morning, after we presented, I made a paper crane and gave it to him, and he wrote me a note:
so you don’t hate me?
I replied: of course not =)
I was tempted to draw a little heart but I didn’t want to make it too obvious. He smiled and tucked the paper crane into his shirt pocket.

All in all, it was a fantastic way to end first term, even if I could only borrow DEB for a short time to play the boyfriend role in my fantasy. Now I am going to end up spending my holidays going over every little detail in a futile attempt to figure out if he was flirting with me and whether that is because he likes me or not and… you know. Typical googly-eyed girl stuff.

1. He divided his time between watching me work and trying to do work himself, but he was pretty much useless so it was much more the former than the latter.