Dinged!

Oh no! Actually, I don't really care much even though it was a fine school. Looks I won't be having lunch at Uris Hall in September. Oh well, that's life. I didn't expect much after all this time. The visit was great and I enjoyed it but I won't be meeting Marina and the rest of the CBS Class of 08. I am just a bit weirded out by some email sent right after my ding. Someone replied to me about some update I had sent telling me that it will be put in my file AFTER the final decision was made. I guess they read the update, discussed and then took a decision and the ding email was sent first. Oh well, that's life.

Confusion (Hidden)

I haven't really expressed the issues I have been having concerning the entire MBA process.
I am thoroughly confused about the decision I made to sacrifice two years of salary to further educate myself. Part of me really just wants to leave North America and try my luck back home where I will most likely find a decent job paying enough to maintain a lifestyle I am used to.
It helps that I would be not paying rent. However, life in Haiti is quite stressful and I will literally risk my life every time I step outside of my house. I keep meeting friends who went back home after graduating only to come back to Canada after three years, delusioned with an increasingly chaotic society. I have to face that the idle life I led as a teen is just a memory. I cannot relive my youth.
I still have a shot at NYU but I really don't know when I will know whether I can start realistically envision a move to NYC. The waitlist process is a long and tortureous one. And I am not patient. One good thing about NYC is that I have many friends already living there. I can go see the movies I like to go see, can go to shows,etc. OK, if I actually have time/money to do so while studying. I would be also so close to Montreal and just take the bus whenever I miss poutine and bad roads. It's also a plus that I have many relatives in the Tri-State area who will feed me whenever I am starving. Frankly though, besides the Bay Area, I don't know where else in the US I could live. Although Miami would be a natural, I am somewhat a tad too "intellectual" for that town. I love bottle service like everyone else but I'll be 30 sooner than later and the nightlife is not my main priority in life. I'm more NYT than Miami Herald. However, the fact that Miami is the capital of CALA (Caribbean & Latin America) business-wise is enticing. The weather is great and Miami girls are very nice on the eyes. To be
able to play some tennis in January would be amazing providing I have time.
Speaking of time, why are all these jobs after an MBA require so much time commitment? When I worked in industry, I spent an inordinate amount of time on planes and client sites and it really got stale after a while.
I am still debating about visiting IESE in May. It's a great school but somehow Spain seems so far now. I felt really at ease with potential students I had met. I just feel that I would definitely get out of my comfort zone. Mind you, the best decisions I made involved me getting out of my comfort zone. Yet, I don't know. It's so drastic. One good thing would be the food. I love Spanish food in general. If I were to go the entrepreneur route, I would go to IESE in a heartbeat. Should I spend the money and go in Europe for a week to visit and interview?

As for Columbia, as i didn't hear anything yet, I am assuming a ding. Oh well, that's life.

For film buffs out there, I'd definitely recommend Michael Haneke's latest, Hidden (Caché).
If one has seen Code Unknown with Juliette Binoche, Caché is familiar territory.
It's about the story of a Literary TV show host ( there are so many in France but doens't mean most French people watch them) who starts receiving weird videos that seem related to an event in his youth involving a young Algerian who lived with his parents.
Don't want to get too much in the story but the movie really left a mark on me. It reminded of many things I had witnessed in class-conscious Haiti. Call it liberal guilt or what have you but I was deeply moved.

On Nomination and past Week

I was nominated as one of the best 25 aplicant blogs at www.clearadmit.com! Wow! That is great! I guess a few people don't mind me taking liberty with the English language from time to time (ok, most of the time).
Yesterday, I went to church for the first time for what seems to be centuries. It had been a long time since i hadn't stepped foot inside a sanctuary. The occasion was sad. A few weeks a go, a 31 year-old engineer was shot by robbers in front of his house in Haiti, leaving behind a young wife and their three very young children. I didn't know well the person who died but it touched me so when I heard the news that I had to attend the ceremony.
There, I saw many familiar faces. People who I can't say are friends or foes but who share a link with me. For ten years now that I have been in Canada, I have seen these people at parties,we have lived in the same areas, went to the same schools, etc.
Some are nice, some are mean, many are now married, some have succeeded while others are shadows of their former selves. A lot of these people are not my friends but they are more than acquaintances. We share a heritage, a way of looking at the world, a history.
Being part of a close-knit commmunity has disadvantages:the gossip, competition, fakeness.
Yet, when one of ours has fallen down hit by bullets, we all came together and I was proud.
I was proud that instead of being a celebration of death, the mass was a celebration of life.
I was proud at my fellow Haitians for using well-chosen words that soothed our souls.
I was proud to see the young widow still full of life and smiling and laughing.
I was delighted to drink some homemade Haitian hot chocolate while joking with people I hadn't seen in years after the mass. To be in a church basement with the same people one used to see at all the parties freshman year, 10 years older, wiser, was an interesting experience. It didn't leave me sad because despite the circumstances, I still saw the great spirit that we, Haitians, have inside of us beaming in the room. I went in sad but I left joyful.
Thank you Wladimir Antoine and may you rest in peace.

Volunteering

I always wanted to volunteer in the old Montreal hilly area where I used to live as a student. It reminds me of back home. The higher one goes up the hill, the more expensive it gets. I am currently working at the bottom of the hill where a population from all over the world lives. Cote-des-Neiges, as it is known is known as the first place where immigrants choose to live when they first move in Montreal. Rent is cheap and appartments are of varying quality, some worse than others. Since I have free time these days, I now spend four hours every week helping area residents resist rent increases, learn more about welfare and other social programs,etc.
It fills me with joy to see that I am helping these people out. I could go and try to dissert about charity and how ultimatily giving is more rewarding to the one giving and not the one receiving but it's getting late.