Back in Texas

A short entry this week, since the chaos has already started.

I arrived back in Texas this week, to commence the final semester of the MA/MBA program. In the end the Australia trip was all too short; it felt like I had arrived mere days before, and I wasn’t ready to leave. But school called. It was another long voyage, flying from Melbourne to Sydney, then from Sydney to Dallas on a 16 hour epic flight across the Pacific in a massive A380.

It had only been about 8 months of absence, so I wasn’t expecting too much change, but Dallas moves fast, and there were many new buildings that had only been vacant lots in May, and vacant lots where old buildings had once stood.

But the biggest shock was the cold. Melbourne was 30ºC when I left, but Dallas was 30ºF (below freezing for you metric system readers) and in the midst of a windy cold spell. I can hear my Chicago colleagues telling me to harden up, but coming from an Australian summer, anything below freezing that isn’t ice cream is a shock to the system. It’ll take a few days to get readjusted to multiple layers of clothing, gloves, and scarves.

Not that there’s really time to think about it. There’s not even time for jetlag. The chaos has already begun. There’s the residential, moving into a new apartment, unpacking everything from storage. But then there’s the academic side: meetings with lecturers and with internship project teams that have to be fitted in. Already there are readings and assignments for classes which start on Monday in earnest. It’s time to drink from the firehose of the MBA program once again.

That being said, it’s nice to be back.