Financially Challenged

For years and years I talked about wanting to go back to school to get my M.S. in Nutrition. A move, a heart-break and a last minute application later, I am on quarter 3 of an MBA program.

What can I say…that's just how I roll…

Anyway, surprisingly enough the whole thing has turned out to be pretty interesting and I, who had never taken an advanced math course before in my life, despite my continuous bitching about how much I hate numbers have actually managed to excel at it (and learn Excel in the process). So I almost had a nervous breakdown after my Accounting midterm and nearly died trying to make sense of the financial statements of GM but it made getting that "A" that much sweeter.

Economics I loved. I was so incredibly head over heels crazy about Economics, that I am giving serious consideration to the possibility of getting my PhD in Economics. I know that it's scary and vast and full of theories and that I was taking the class during a time when the Financial world was collapsing and rendering my book with most of its theories completely useless but still, even if turns out that I learned the wrong thing or nothing at all, I am so crazy about it that I stopped buying The Economist and am now a proud subscriber.

…along with the Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Ad Age, Rolling Stone and some other one I can't remember J

Now I am taking Corporate Finance and I am having a love/hate relationship with that class. My professor is this Chinese gentleman who clearly knows his stuff and I am very responsive to his methods. Oh but the numbers! I am convinced that Financial Statements are going to be the death of me. Even my credit card statement stresses me out since I started taking the class but that's an entirely different issue…Actually, it's not. I think that's where my problems with Finance begin: Ignorance is bliss but life revolves around Finance.

I think that if nothing else, riding out the recession in an MBA program has been a good decision, though I must admit that when I decided to embark in this adventure I had no way of knowing that things in our country would get so bad. I definitely had no idea that I would re-evaluate what "living within my means" actually meant and that the tools I was, and am still, learning would help me become more financially responsible.

…but I am a work in progress and no matter how much I organize my finances, I will probably continue to help the economy one pair of shoes at a time…