No Soda December FAIL

As you can tell by the title of this post, I failed at No Soda December. However, there is a reason (sort of). And I'm going to tell you the long and rambly story of today that will also include the reason why I drank soda. I'm on my 10th wind or so right now and feel like a cracked out crackface.

I awoke today after another night of not nearly enough hours of sleep to head to a team meeting. The largest deliverable of my b-school career, a full business plan, is due tomorrow (er, today) morning (the second largest yet arguably more important was due in the spring). My team decided to meet at 9 AM yesterday to finish what needed to be done.

Our teammate had discovered a secret awesome work space that is the library in the ministry/theology school building, and so with the support of our lord and savior JC we got to work. People pounded furiously at computers and occasionally stopped to yell out questions to the rest of the group. We would discuss, and then continue working.

Around noon, I realized that there was no way we were going to be done by the time my 7 PM class rolled around. Which I sort of expected, though I had done a foolishly hopeful thing and worn gym clothes to the meeting hoping I could work out after. But since I had a presentation to do in class later on, there could be no wearing of a bright green Tufts sweatshirt to class. But I would worry about that later.

At 2 we figured we would soon be unable to work any more if we didn't eat, so we ordered delivery.

At 3, my teammate got the call that the delivery was there, so he went outside to go get it.

At 3:30, we suspected that our teammate had either gotten kidnapped, or had decided to hide out and eat all of our food himself. Which would have been foolish, because while the rest of us got normal food, he decided to order a sub with boneless buffalo wings, mozzarella sticks, and french fries. In the sub. All of those things. In a big sandwich. Which I'm pretty sure sounds like THE GREATEST SANDWICH IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD.

At 3:35, he came back and regaled us of his adventure running up and down the street trying to communicate via cell phone with the delivery woman who did not speak English and, surprisingly, had no idea where or what the ministry library was because I can't imagine why they don't get delivery orders to there like, every single day. Whatevs. We opened the bag to get out our food, and I was all "WHERE IS THE BOTTLE OF WATER I ORDERED???"

Don't get all hater-tastic on me for drinking bottled water. I wanted to bring my Nalgene with me (the new kind, not the kind that kills you, thanks) but my bag would have just been too damn heavy with my laptop. And also, there was no water of any kind available in this building. None.

So, back to the water. It wasn't there. Everyone took their drinks, and it became apparent that instead of a bottle of water, they had thrown in an extra can of root beer besides the one my teammate ordered. I had 2 choices: go thirsty, or drink the root beer.

Whatever, root beer is fucking delicious.

And for the record, I am going to continue not drinking soda for this month.

Drink crisis averted, we got to eating. And my teammate is chowing down on his wing/mozz/fry sub AKA the food I will eat every day in heaven and talking about how he had this goal to run 1000 miles in 2009 but because he ran 2 marathons this year and subsequently took off the weeks following each, he was left with 200 miles to run in December and because he's running so much he can't stop eating because his metabolism is just whirring away and HELLO, CAN I HAVE YOUR PROBLEMS PLEASE (and also your sub) and then he goes, "Arielle, how's your salad?" and had it been a gloating type of "Your salad clearly pales in comparison to my sub" sentiment I would have overcompensated with "OH YUM BEST SALAD EVERRR" but I think he was just being nice and so I had to answer with an honest, "It sounded a lot better on paper."

And then we kept working. At 6 PM I excused myself from the meeting, ran home, changed into a business casual outfit, ran back to school and gave an awesome presentation at 7.

After class some people (non-MBAs, this particular class has a lot of them) were like "who wants to go out?" and the MBAs were all "um, business plan due in 12 hours, sorry." And then I checked my email from my sexy iPod touch and saw ZERO EMAILS from my teammates which meant there was nothing for me to do at the moment, so I was all "Okay, even though I haven't been out on a Thursday all semester and now is not the time I should start, I'll grab a beer." And I did. It was delicious. And since there are a few theology students in my class, I made sure to tell them over my Blue Moon that I spent all day in their hood.

I stuck to one beer and went home, at which point I watched the Glee finale (AMAZING) as I waited for it to be my turn to proofread the final business plan.

And now we have a completed plan. And I'm looking it over in all its pretty prettiness and I'm like, holy crap we wrote an entire BUSINESS PLAN!?! DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH WORK GOES INTO ONE OF THESE BECAUSE DAMNIT IT'S A LOT. One day when this baby startup has blossomed into a lovely successful business and all of you are seeing advertisements for it I'm going to be like "Umm I WROTE THE MARKETING PLAN FOR THAT COMPANY and by the way the reason it exists is because someone invested money in it because they thought it had longevity potential and it's all because I WROTE THE SUSTAINABILITY ANALYSIS PROVING WHY IT COULD LAST."

And then someone is going to be like, "Tell me about the company's finances" and I will answer with, "Please speak to my teammates because I did NOT write that part. Thanks."

And it's times like these where I LOVE BUSINESS SCHOOL SO MUCH because I'm accomplishing all this crazy stuff that I never thought I would ever do and I'm sad that when I leave here I'm not going to be challenged in this way ever again and I'm not going to have 9 hour meetings in ministry school libraries.

But oh, I will eat a buffalo wing/mozzarella stick/french fry sub one day.

And maybe now that it's 2 AM and I have to wake up early yet again tomorrow and then magically work a 9 hour shift later in the day, I should go to bed.

If you've made it this far, you deserve a medal. Or a bite of my sub.