last class...

i know the cliche how time flies can appear so... overused, but i am at a loss for words, so i will need to start with a cliche until i can regain my composure and actually write more eloquently.

for now, let the thoughtful stream of consciousness flow... almost 1 year ago today, i was landing in bangkok after having packed my bags, sold most of my possessions, and basically wrapped up my life in chicago. it felt like eons ago. i was saying the good byes, because for all intents and purposes i was moving away to - well - just about anywhere. and when you're moving "anywhere" its hard to say when you'll see anyone.

and here i am now, sitting, sweating in my gym clothes, under the fan, in an apartment in dover, in singapura, just having finished my last class at INSEAD. and the goodbyes have started, again. this time, however, i hardly believe i won't see your smiling faces. if anything, you are the one group of people in my life i count on seeing somewhere, somehow, and yes - somewhen too. unplanned, though they may be, i believe our paths have only just started to intersect.

10 months.
2 campuses.
countless vacations & destinations.
friends still being made as our cross-campus migration comes to a halt in sri lanka for our grad trip starting tomorrow.... (and i'm still toying with creating an application that super imposes a tracker on each of our emails to indicate where all we have been from Dec 31st 2010 to Dec 31st 2011!)

now, i can't help but wonder - what's changed?
short answer: everything.

you, me, us, what we were, what we are, how we interact, where we will go - it has all evolved into something else entirely. and i'm not saying this in the existential sense necessarily. i'm saying this because the doors that have opened, and through us, the experiences that will unfold, has made the world so small - so small - that i can only hope we start colonizing new planets, because i fear that the class of 11D will run out of unique vacation spots!

and for some reason, i have all this uncapped ambition bursting at the seams, waiting to be realized. the only thing i can think of is to now head over to the barbeque about to start at heritage, in preparation for the imminent awesomeness of sri lanka.

i will miss this. and... i now know why every single INSEAD alum i spoke to echoed one statement without hesitation: "best year of my life"

And no, I did not plan for "Develop Beliefs" to overlap this... but it is a great juxtaposition considering what's on the whiteboard!