All the things we should have said that we never said

I had to borrow that line from Maxwell.

I had always said I would not turn into those Queen's bloggers who started blogging but never quite got around to doing it. WELL WELL WELL! Sock in my mouth I tell ya.

To be completely and utterly FRANK with you. The MBA is not the easiest experience on the planet. Especially not the Queens MBA. I mean it's hard enough going back to school after a few years re-learning student life, not having that fat paycheck (or slim one for that matter) at the end of the month. For me not having Kenya around me too was a huge challenge.Then they throw in the whole team working thing for 8 straight months and mix you with some different personalities. Its a bit like putting some rats in a cage with some adrenaline meds mixed in with some depressants and watching their reactions.

For my team , it turned out pretty well. For me, I donnu I guess and I'm trying to stay very very very honest here, truthfully, this MBA has taught me far more about who I am as a person, how I thrive and survive and how I can get along better in life in the future than any other of my life experiences.

I was already stressed with the discovery that my brilliant financing plans were thrown to the sea, get this, the day before I was due to get on the plane. Its a miracle I survived the first upset and I will forever be grateful to the people at ISLOAN, and The Paras Loan Foundation, check them out at www.isloan.org. You will thank me later expecially if you are an international student.

Then I'm in a classroom where I am the only black African female, all I had to do was add the label lesbo and I'd be a part of almost every recognized minority group. I really felt out of place and I must say this the world is supposed to look at you the way you look at it, but this time I was sure I was getting played.

If there is one tip I give all you future Queens MBA's and actually anyone for that matter, always remember who you are or at least try to remember who you are. I had completely let my guard down at the start of the year. Thinking everyone else here was like me just wanting to make their fair share of mistakes and learn a few good things to avoid them in the future but I was wrong. Any mistake I made, came back to haunt me and i realize now why the layers are used so often in business.Mask your mistakes and your weaknesses the MBA is no place for them well at least until the elective period depending on the personality types in your team. AND MOST IMPORTANTLY YOUR PERSONALITY TYPE. I am a LOW SELF-MONITOR you'll learn about that from Tina (great proff as are most here), very reluctant to change for the environment and thats an important skill to have on the program. I failed myself miserably here. I did not take time to really observe my environment and learn it. I just made assumptions. I put a foot in my mouth volunteering to lead or being the first to volunteer to do one task or the other.... OUCH!!! Be careful here. I found the more cautious people in this regard were safer.

If I could go back to before the MBA and give myself a pep talk, here's what i'd say to naive little me. Don't forget who you are, don't become who people think you are, do whatever you must in order to get that A, be wiser about letting down your guard, trust the system, it is set up for your success, get to know people a lot better, don't trust just anyone, and most importantly, don't think you can keep up a blog on the program...you know you better than that...hehehe.

In a nutshell all I am saying is this. You are what you make of your life. I allowed myself to believe the stories around me, when someone shouted oh you had an easier time getting here since there was no competition form your continent, I believed it, when that same person shouted nothing good can come from Africa, I believed it, when someone shouted, you don't think before you speak I believed it, and when someone else shouted you have communication problems I believed them too.

Since the Christmas vacation begun, I asked myself a few things... how come I have never had communication difficulties before this program, how come I was such a success before, how come I believed in Africa so much before.... Its because I looked at the world through a different lens and I was allowing myself to look at myself through other peoples lenses.

This is a great program, and the school will give you all the support you need and the systems to support you are in place. The BIG question is....WILL YOU BE SUPPORTING YOU?