journey of a jat, the warrior

with a D from Chicago GSB. To be fair, I did not put in the efforts that a waitlisted candidate at GSB ought to make; admittedly, admit to Tuck had made me complacent. On the lighter side, I don't have to make any tough decisions now - its time to turn this blog green :)

Congratulations to Ganja Turtle and Forrest for successfully converting the waitlist to admits. Happy for you, guys.

Not technically though, since I am still employed by my employer. But Feb 28th was my last day working for my customer on site; I had been working for that customer for past two and half years. There is still uncertainty about where I am heading next. I have had some tough time dealing with my employer's resource management, who wanted me to move to another corner of the US. After great difficulties, I have managed to dodge that bullet. I need to stay at or close to my current location to take care of my court case. Moreover, since I don't plan to work much longer after Tuck's ASW in mid-April, it doesn't make sense to move. I hope they find me something short-term closer to my current location.

Days leading to Feb 28th were busy and fun. I had not kept my MBA plans secret at work, but I had not told everybody either. So there were many new conversations about my plans as I said farewell to my co-workers. It was refreshing to see how everyone admired my career move. Of course there were a few jealous jerks, but aren't they everywhere. One such irritant was solely focused on how much I would make upon graduating. No questions on why I am going for MBA, or what do I want to do after MBA - just repeated questions about money. Such short-sighted schmucks get on my nerves sometimes.

Coming back to more pleasant things, days leading to Feb 28th were also filled with farewell luncheons. I also caught up with one of my old co-workers, who had moved to another company a year back, at our favorite Mexican restaurant. My volunteer group that I led at work also took me out to a new Indian restaurant (or new to me, may I say). On top of it, the non-profit we worked for sent me a huge basket of flowers. I was balled over - much much appreciated! My last day was in NYC, where most of my team is located. We had an eventful team lunch (it would take another post to describe some of the drama we had at that lunch) and an happy hour to end the day.

While I wait for my next assignment, I am eagerly waiting for Tuck's ASW that's coming up on April 12th. Well, there's also another farewell happy hour next week, from my tax volunteer group. Life is good :)

Wow! Its been a really long time since I posted. Not that my life has come to a standstill and there's nothing to post, its just that I have been taking it slow and easy. Guess after months of gruelling application labor, I can afford to do so :)

There have been some developments. I filed my taxes for 2006 and sent the form 1040 to Tuck to complete my application for financial aid. Now they have everything from me to process my application and I hope to hear from them by March 15th. Once I get the package from them, I would need to shop around to see if I get another lender to beat Tuck's offer.

Coming back to taxes, I am volunteering with a non-profit org in my state to prepare free tax returns for low-income households. I had done that last year as well and I enjoy it. I get to help people save some precious money and also learn about tax and personal finance. We were really busy from January-end, when most people get their W2's, till last weekend or so. Now we have hit the "spring thaw" and it will get busy again when we approach April 15, the filing deadline. As regards to my own taxes, I owed substantial money to IRS, thanks to some capital gains I had had during 2006. Its funny that almost all the people I prepare taxes for get refund checks, whereas I, the tax preparer myself, owed to IRS.