Category: MBA

Wake

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Another beautiful morning in Halifax, my last on this trip. In an hour I’ll have breakfast with Stanzi (in town temporarily herself), then head to the airport.

Last night I met up with friends at Salty’s for a few drinks on the waterfront. Somehow I ended up with a bottle of Moosehead…tragic. Anyway, some of us left there and had a fantastic dinner at Il Mercato. Knowing I’d have pasta the following night I stuck to seafood (never a bad choice in Halifax) and had shrimp & salmon…both fantastic. We knocked off a couple of bottles of Chianti Rufina (and a glass of white for my fish) and ordered decadent desserts. One of our party may have over-extended himself, but he recovered quickly.

Feeling poetic, we decided to finish off the evening at The Bitter End. It wasn’t a long night for me by any means though. One friend hit the wall and left early. My glasses of Macallan lasted me ’til around 11, but I needed some solo recharge time. I walked back to the hotel alone, suddenly reminded of how quiet Halifax streets (those outside the downtown core, at least) are at night. It felt peaceful. It felt right.

I was done. It was time to go home. Home home. I know I talked about Halifax being my spiritual home, if there is such a thing, but home is ultimately wherever Nellie is, and that’s where I feel like I need to be right now. I feel like a little chunk of me hasn’t lived there for the past four years…it’s lived in a text book or the computer or a hotel room during a week away on course. It’ll be nice to have that chunk back, and for Nellie to have it all there too, since she’s done without it for the last ~1400 days. What’s more, she’s been amazing about it. If she were anyone other than herself I probably wouldn’t have made it to yesterday.

One final, funny note: last night, sitting at The Bitter End, they were playing (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? by Oasis. Odd choice, since it’s an old album…then I remembered something: after writing the last exam of my undergrad — which happened to be the very same subject as the one I wrote yesterday — I met some friends at the campus pub to celebrate. That day in the pub they played the fairly recent Oasis CD (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? and we discussed the ridiculousness of the lyrics to “Wonderwall” over celebration beer. Twice in my life I’ve had that particular celebration, and each time I had the same soundtrack. The world’s funny, if a little precious.

[tags]halifax, mba, salty’s, il mercato, bitter end, oasis[/tags]

100% & 100%

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

That’s it. Done. Finished. Kaput. All over but the crying.

I wrote my last exam this morning. I was the third one out, finished around 11:00. Went straight to the bar next door with the other early exiters and had a beer. Then another. Then some veggie burgers. Then more beer. Now I’m performing the very important post-celebration rite of relaxing in my air-conditioned hotel room. We’ll head for dinner a little later; for now I just need to chill and absorb.

It feels good. Really good. But I don’t think it’ll sink in until tomorrow. Or maybe Wednesday when we get our final marks.

[tags]mba[/tags]

85.779%

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

We finished our last day in the classroom today, assuming everything goes well in my exam tomorrow. It started to feel long, but the fourth day always does. Wrapped up around 5, grabbed some dinner at the Economy Shoe Shop and came back here to do some work. Not studying really, but case analysis. It’ll be an odd exam.

I ordered a class ring today too. Not exactly sure why, since I can’t imagine ever wearing it. I asked if I could donate the money instead but that seemed to confuse things, so I just picked the smallest, plainest one I could in white gold (Dan doesn’t do yellow gold) and pulled the trigger.

OK, gotta go meet up with the group to review our brilliant insights.

[tags]mba, dalhousie, economy shoe shoe[/tags]

61.567%

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

A pretty easy day. Executive speech in the morning, grad photos at lunch, a full afternoon session and dinner at the Red Stag at day’s end. Only problem was the surplus of heavy food & beer, and now I’m far too sleepy to do any work.

Tomorrow’s my last day of class (and therefore my last night of studying) evah. I can’t say I’m not a little excited about that.

[tags]mba, dalhousie, halifax, red stag[/tags]

37.775%

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Just got back from a cruise around Halifax Harbour. People seemed to enjoy it; most of them haven’t seen Halifax from that vantage point. It was pretty gray and on the verge of raining, but the water was calm and wind not too cold. We ate on board the tall ship and the food was really pretty good. Nice time. A few of us stopped for a beer on the way home, but I was way too full to even finish it, and it started to rain anyway, so we walked home.

Half done the classroom portion of the week now…believe it or not, I almost wish we had more class time. There’s so much going on this week it feels like we haven’t had much time to really dig into this course, but I’m not going to complain at this point if they want to take it easy on us.

[tags]mba, halifax, tall ship silva[/tags]

13.478%

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Day one is over. Pretty easy so far. The new business building is sooooo much nicer than the old one where I did my undergrad. Some people from the university gave the group a campus tour at lunchtime, which was nice…could see what’s changed. And it turns out one of the guys giving the tour grew up 15 minutes away from me and went to high school with some of our close family friends.

Anyway, tonight was a quiet one, maybe the only quiet one. We finished a case around 6:00 and had a bite to eat down at the Rogue’s Roost. I’ll enjoy my relaxation time when I can get it.

[tags]mba, dalhousie[/tags]

Love my bed SO HARD

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Sorry, there hasn’t been much time to post. It’s been a whirlwind since landing in Halifax…lot of catching up and celebrating and so on.

It’s amazing to be back in Halifax. Seeing old familiar places (like Pizza Corner) and new ones (like Rogue’s Roost), with so many good friends, many of whom have never been here before, has been fantastic. I’m really looking forward to the rest of the week — even the classroom time — and they’re keeping us busy in the evenings. Feels weird to be here without Nellie though.

I have to get up early, and I’m damned exhausted, so that’s it for tonight. I’ll have more later in the week. If you desire more updates and want to follow along with the minutiae of my daily life, you can follow me on twitter.

[tags]mba, halifax[/tags]

"It's the ciiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiircle of liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiife!"

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

In three days I’ll fly to Halifax (again…I was just there less than two weeks ago) to attend the final intensive week of my MBA and write my final exam. I’m excited about this, for reasons beyond the obvious…the obvious being that I really, really, pretty-please-with-a-cherry-on-top want to be done this fucker.

Ahem…like I said: beyond that. Even though I’ve lived in Toronto for eleven years now, I still very much think of Halifax as another home. A different kind of home than the family farm, which is two hours northwest of Halifax, but home nonetheless. I spent four years at university there, where I met my wife. I visited Halifax with my family several times as a kid and have visited many times since I moved away. I was married in Halifax. I have good friends there. Some of my favourite places are there: the Public Gardens, the Daily Grind, the bottom of a glass of Granite Brewery Special Best Bitter. If there’s such a thing as a spiritual home, I think Halifax is probably it. If I love the farm for feeling familiar and comfortable, I love Halifax equally for being liberating. Not liberating from the farm or my family, but liberating from the nearby town where I went to high school and the life I was afraid I’d slip into there.

I’m glad I’ll get to enjoy next week with new friends, good friends. It’ll be fun to be one of the two people who’ve lived there and show the tourists around and explain what a donair is. It’ll be fun being on campus, even if it’ll be quiet during the summer. I think it’ll feel like closing a circle too, righting a small wrong. I’ve never felt like I wasted my university education; in fact I think I’ve done fairly well by it. However, I look back (as most people probably do) and shudder at the weakness my work ethic in those years, and regret the sloppiness of my first two most especially. I’ve been lucky enough to learn some of the stuff I, quite frankly, probably should have learned (or remembered) from my first go-round at business school. Not many people get a second crack at that.

How lucky, then, that I get to wrap it all up in the city where it started. Where everything started.

[tags]halifax, dalhousie, public gardens, daily grind, granite brewery[/tags]

Turn out the lights. The party's over.

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Well, nearly.

I just submitted my very last assignment* ever. I’d celebrate a little if I didn’t have to sign in and answer a bunch of work emails now.

But…yay!

* assuming I pass this final course, that is. Actually, if I don’t pass, I’m likely to hurl myself from the parapets of Casa Loma, so I guess it’s my last assignment no matter what.

[tags]mba, casa loma[/tags]