AOK's blog

Madrid and all the rest

Grad school ended with a flourish last month. The two years were an intense and remarkable experience which I'm thankful to have had the chance to pursue. Now it's back to the working world and all the changes that are associated with that shift: having relatively consistent working hours, rather than the haphazard schedule of a grad student; adjusting to a new city after two years in New Haven; having a paycheck again (hopefully) after going without; applying what I've learned and proving to myself this experiment was all worthwhile.

Madrid's bear and tree symbol

For my return to the working world, I've decided to make a very big move to start things up in Europe. For the moment I'm in Madrid, but expect that the role I'm searching for will be elsewhere. It has been exhilarating so far to soak in and internalize all the ways things will be completely and thoroughly different. It all feels new for so many reasons.

The changes I will encounter as I shift away from school are compounded by the new environment I've chosen. This includes the minor differences -- the detergents have different names, the crosswalks look different -- as well as the bigger changes -- government systems and cultural norms.

There has been lots of observing so far, listening and watching and asking questions. I expect there will be plenty more of that as well as a handful of mistakes along the way as I push forward. Clearly my education didn't end at commencement last month. I'm excited about what's next.

On the street

Street art / graffiti in New Haven.

Mud race

I did a mud race over the weekend. I've heard there are lots of these races, where you run a bit, jump in the mud, run some more, cross some monkey bars, crawl through a tunnel, do some more obstacles, and then run some more. It was a ton of fun.

The entry fee for the race was substantial and the drive to get there was kind of long. As a student, these things are on my mind. And it reminded me of a conversation I've had before with some runner friends about the point of paying for entry into a road race. The question is why you'd pay to run a 5K when you could easily head out the door and do a 5K for free every day of the week. Of course there are plenty of reasons to want to do an organized race. But the point transfers to this mud race. Why pay to go out and get wet and muddy and put yourself through the discomfort at all?

Clearly, the point to doing it is the spectacle of doing something this out of the ordinary. It was doing it for the challenge, it was something so over-the-top that one wouldn't ever do it otherwise, and it was a great event to do with a bunch of friends.

Hockey

I've been playing ice hockey at school and having a great time.
There's a big final game at the end of the season and to get everyone
excited, players wore their jerseys to school and some friends
decorated players' lockers. Here's my locker at school (yes, we have
lockers). It was very fun and it all felt a bit high school.