Monday, March 8, 2010

Hitting "Submit"

I was leaving for a long overdue 2 week vacation back home (Thailand) to visit my family and get my work visa restamped. During this time I was planning on visiting a preschool in Sri Lanka that I had helped build through some charity work at Vassar (we raised $10,000 post-Tsunami and donated the money to a group that built a preschool! I wanted to visit and follow-up on anything additional we could do).

Needless to say there were a lot of things I needed to wrap up (logistically) before jumping on that flight... one of the most important things being my Round 1 Application to INSEAD. I had already decided to apply to INSEAD but WHEN was the question: Do I recharge my batteries in Thailand and then come back, rejuvenated and ready to hit "Submit" or do I hit "Submit" now and go home with absolutely no worries on the b-school front.

I hadn't been home in over a year so the latter option won in a landslide vote: 1 to 0.


Anyone that has downloaded the online application and circulated that to their respective recommendors knows that the INSEAD application process is built for worldwide access which can, at times, be a little unnerving since every time you open your application (even after submitting) Adobe asks you if you want to grant or block WWW access to the document.

Secondly, I suggest to anyone writing the essays to stay within the word limit because every word you go over changes the word count into RED alongside your application... not something you want to see before submitting the application!

Anyhow, two nights before leaving for Thailand I was up working on last minute edits. No material changes - little "the" additions or removals of too many "ands" - simple things. I re-read the essays until the words looked like foreign languages I did not recognize. And caffeine seemed to pass through my body like oxygen.

Finally at around 2AM (9AM in France), with my now-jittery hands on the mouse, I hit submit.

The rush of adrenaline lasted about 5 minutes - Oh no! I forgot this. I didn't highlight that. The essays were great. The essays were poor. Grammar mistakes resurfaced.

And so, akin to the appropriate response for computer related meltdowns, I hit CTRL+ALT+DEL and shutdown my computer.

Then I crashed.