This week, I got a little bit of a break. The non-Healthcare Administration MBA students took a trip to NYC. They went to Wall Street, met with real professionals living in New York, and made me jealous by posting some awesome pictures and sending group me messages to each other as they saw some pretty cool places.

Here they are near some fancy bridge (I’m not familiar with NY landmarks).

Back in Waco, I had a pretty good time taking it easy, catching up on some schoolwork, and taking some time to play a new video game with a good friend back in TN. Honestly, this past week probably should have been one of the worst weeks for me. Some highlights:

• My dog basically ate an entire loaf of honey-wheat bread. We thought all was well, but the next day she puked up about 12 globs of bread- which were creatively scattered throughout the apartment in some rather surprising places- peed on the carpet 3 times, and left a nice bit of diarrhea for Samantha and I right in our carpeted hallway. It cost us about 80$ to get everything cleaned up and washed.
• I went to the dentist. Normally, this would be bad enough in itself, as I have an irrational phobia of dentists due to a rather lucid root canal I had when I was a teenager; I had been put on so much gas that I ended up getting sick, but not before I believed that I was a computer for a while.

  Anyway, at the dentist, I basically figured out that the cap on my root canal that I received a few years back had not been seated correctly, so I will have to have that tooth extracted for good 🙁 There is some other dental work that I need done that will be quite expensive, and between all of the appointments, I’ll be at Aspen Dental around 4 or 5 times in the next few months.

• My car was broken into a few nights ago. No windows were broken, but I had left a treasured item that got stolen, as well as a few other things including my free Cameron Park Zoo passes. I hope that they use them to go to the zoo and get attacked by that black bear that is always angrily pacing back and forth. All in all, about $400 of damage. But we are safe and no one was hurt.

None of that stuff really bothered me, though. I think I’m just happy to be alive, honestly. I like that I am at the point in school where I am trying to learn, rather than earn a certain grade. I am hitting a groove with my classmates and making some good friends in the program. I’ve been studying Spanish a good amount, and Sam and I have almost finished turning our spare bedroom into a little theater. On top of all that, Halloween is right around the corner and our little party is almost fully-planned.

Robbins Case Competition

I had the privilege this Thursday and Friday to serve as a student host in the 2nd annual Robbins Institute Case Competition. Eleven CAHME-accredited universities were invited to the Paul L Foster Campus where they received a healthcare case written by experts in the field. It was based on a real world example with which students had to analyze, perform calculations, draw conclusions/recommendations, and then present their findings to a panel of qualified judges.

I was assigned to Trinity University’s team comprised of three hard-working students assigned to the case and one student observer. The students arrived at about 7:30 in the morning and did not leave campus until 11PM, working almost the entire time. As hosts, we escorted them to various meetings and areas for lunch or consultations, so there were a few times to talk about their experiences with the case.

By Friday morning, my group was exhausted and nervous. They had stayed up until 3am working on the case and were eager to present. There were only three winners out of the eleven teams, and while the group that I was assigned to did not win, I was amazed by their dedication, confidence and professionalism. Maybe I will be on Baylor’s case team in the future, maybe not. Either way, I believe that these types of competitions are great ways for students to test their business skills in a variety of ways. As I watched the three finalists present, one thought kept popping into my head…

“I still have a lot to learn.”