Dubai- Day 3

One of our speaker sessions

Julie,

Today was a LONG day. Classes as usual started at 8am and ran back to back until noon when lunch started. After lunch, we had one more class for a couple of hours and then immediately after that we had a speaker for an hour and a half. We then got a break for 45 minutes and then had a reception for 45 minutes, two more speakers for an hour and then dinner for an hour.

That really sums it up, so have a great day.

Love ya,

Ok, Ok so overall the day wasn't too exciting and was just kind of one of those middle of the road days, but did you really think I would finish my letter there? :)

Apparently, I missed out on quite a Halloween party last night. Most people didn't get to bed until around 3am or 4am and there was quite a bit of folklore about things that happened post party that involved drunkenness, nakedness, and room keys. I'm pretty sure that will go down in history with the class, I'll elaborate later.

What's funny is even with all the "memories" and everything that went on, I don't really regret that I didn't go. I've just never been much of a partier and that type of scene just doesn't appeal to me so I wasn't too disappointed I missed out. Funny to hear all the stories afterwards though.

Last night after I wrote the last update, we did have a really cool dinner out on the patio by the pool. It was quite a fancy set up. It was really awesome to be outside for one and two to be right in the middle of Dubai and seeing all the high rises yet still feel kind of isolated. This is definitely a beautiful hotel. Probably not as glamorous as the beach hotels by way of location, but VERY NICE indeed.

Well I find that the speakers who come to our Duke Residencies tend to be very interesting. Not for the fact of what they talk about, I usually find a portion of that very interesting, but more for the time idle time I have and where my mind ends up wandering to. I have had a lot of thoughts about where I stand currently personally, spiritually, physically, and career wise. My thoughts during these talks turned especially toward my career and my current physical and spiritual state.

I have been thinking a lot about where this MBA is taking me and what I want to accomplish. It keyed into what one speaker today mentioned as a theme in his talk. That was that in Dubai they took "Impossible" out of the dictionary and the sky has no limits. He used those cliques to describe how they have been able to build everything they have in Dubai in only 30 years. That is drastically faster than other large hubs of the world have developed. He mentioned that they never wanted their new ideas to be limited and so they always felt anything was possible. I reflected that to my career plan for practice management. It is interesting that in some respects my ideas have been shot down and thought of as "you can never do that with medical practices." These talks just gave me a reminder that if I know it is possible, it can happen.

That lead my thoughts to diving into the details of how I will present myself as a practice manager and the type of presentation I would do to convince a practice that this is the right path, it gets me really excited, nervous, anxious, and wondering... when will that day come?

My other thoughts through this week have been that I am unprepared. Not for school necessarily, but I am just generally unprepared and that leads back to my physical and spiritual preparation. I have done a better job at getting back on track with my daily prayers and scripture study which I am already finding is a great boost to me. It helps deliver some of the inner strength I feel like I have been missing. BUT I am WAY OFF COURSE when it comes to physical preparation. I need to really get myself back into shape and being aware of what I am eating and how I am fueling my body. I'm excited to start crossfit and look forward to changing the way I operate my everyday life when it comes to eating and working out like your Dad has been able to do so well with his program.

I am sure grateful for this opportunity. It definitely isn't easy, but I think that is what makes it beneficial. Even though its not comfortable, I want to be stretched and come out with new skills and abilities when it is all done. I think I am on my way.

Ok, so now to a couple cool pictures. After the speakers today we had our official Duke dinner with them and as always they went ALL OUT.

Can you believe this? A Fuqua School of Business ice sculpture!

WOW!

The Dessert table, only a small example of what they had available.

For a relatively "boring" day it was quite the day. Hope you like the letter.

I'm madly in love with you and I miss you like crazy too.

Love ya babe,

Brock