My fiance and I merged Netflix accounts when we moved in together earlier this year so that there would be one little red envelope sitting unopened on our coffee table instead of two.

The plan was to keep his account and add my movies to his queue. What did I find? Lots of serious, critically acclaimed and intensely depressing movies. The Deer Hunter. There Will Be Blood. Amadeus. Hotel Rwanda. Apocalypse Now.

The recommended movies? Schindler’s List and Requiem for a Dream.

I have nothing against critically acclaimed downers and I’m sure I’ll see most of these at some point. But we were staring down our first winter in the dark, frozen tundra that is Minnesota. That means cold, snow and Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD, which is how you feel after you watch The Deer Hunter and don’t see the sun for four days.) I knew we were going to need the movie equivalent of cotton candy and Skittles to get us through. So I got to work doctoring the list with such classics as Friends with Benefits, Kung Fu Panda and the complete fourth season of Entourage.

But I didn’t realize how much I’d altered my fiance’s Netflix identity until I logged on last night and saw the recommended movies. Gone were the Nazi dramas and stories of heroin addictions. In their place were these two categories: “Feel-good comedies featuring a strong female lead” and “Movies starring Hugh Grant.”

It’s going to be a good winter!

When you move to the frozen tundra (aka Minnesota) you expect snow. Lots and lots of snow. Drifts of snow that freeze into drifts of ice. Snow that starts on Halloween and doesn’t melt until after Cinco de Mayo.

Serious snow.

And I hate serious snow.

I love the fast falling, fast melting snow of the Southeast, the kind that stops everyone in their tracks. Snow in the Southeast means staying home from work, making hot cocoa and watching snow flakes fall while wearing flannel pajamas. Snow in Minnesota means strapping on your Joan of Arctic boots, scraping off the car and going out into the cruel world as if nothing unusual is happening.

That’s why it’s been a pleasant surprise that so far we’ve gotten exactly three inches of snow. And it melted! That’s right, not only has it been dry, it’s been “warm,” or at least warm in terms of Minnesota Novembers. Today it was 42 degrees! Over Thanksgiving it was nearly 55!

It doesn’t look like we’re going to break the streak any time soon. The local weather guys are predicting a flurry of snow tomorrow and this weekend, but not enough to ski on. And there isn’t any significant snow predicted between now and mid-December, the furthest out the weather scientists look. We could be looking at what Minnesotans call a brown Christmas. That’s a brown Christmas in a state that has white Christmases 72% of the time.

All this warm, dry weather means we’ve already skipped a whole month of winter. For someone spending her first winter in the frozen tundra, this feels like a major win. I’m  as proud as if I’d controlled the weather myself.

But the locals, not so much. Some of my coworkers who are from Minnesota or nearby states, have been lamenting the fact there’s no snow on the ground yet. They want real snow, feet of snow, piles of the stuff. Today someone actually said we “need” some snow.

And that was the moment I realized I’ll never really fit in here. Because I know — you never “need” snow. Never.

Arianna Huffington came to speak at work a few weeks ago. I wasn’t sure what I’d think of the writer turned politician turned online journalism pioneer. I expected arrogant and out of touch and instead found her funny, down-to-earth and insightful.

The core of her talk revolved around her new book, On Becoming Fearless, which I’ll share more on later. But she also shared one of her keys to success: get enough sleep.

In recent years, I feel like it’s become a requirement of success not to sleep at all. Bill Clinton claimed to sleep four hours a night. Martha Stewart came to work to speak a few months ago and also talked about not needing much sleep. Sleep, it seems, is the a lazy man’s crutch; the successful learn to conquer it, health impacts be damned (and there are a lot of health problems that come with getting too little sleep, including heart attacks). As someone who needs eight hours a night, it’s pretty disheartening to hear I’ll be limited professionally by my need for Zs.

That’s why it was so refreshing to hear Huffington praise sleep. She said she spent years not sleeping enough, only to pass out one day from exhaustion and realize the error of her ways. She now gets at least seven hours a night and wishes everyone else would too.

“I was having dinner with a man, I won’t say who, who bragged about only having five hours of sleep,” she said during her talk. “I thought to myself, ‘Well, this dinner would be a lot more interesting if you’d gotten a few hours more.’”

So on this lazy, post-Thanksgiving day, now I can sleep in and feel smart and successful at the same time. And if I can’t follow Huffington’s advice, I’ll take after Winston Churchill. He believed in the afternoon nap. Mmmmm.

I hated networking events as a student. The whole mating ritual felt so fake. I ask questions and make nice and the recruiters answer questions and make nice, but we both know what’s on the table – an internship, and ultimately a job. But most of the time we don’t talk directly about that.

Plus Darden doesn’t allow you much time to research companies, reflect on what you want to know and form cohesive thoughts about them. That makes it hard to have normal, nice interactions. Instead you ask about the corporate culture while not really listening because you’re trying to find a way to shoehorn your awesome analytical experience into casual conversation.

It’s a sweaty, awkward mess. And, yes, it’s obvious from this side too, and we sympathize. Or at least, I do!

How can you avoid the sweaty, awkward mess? Be yourself. Or rather, be the best version of yourself.

That means asking questions you genuinely want the answers to and sharing things about your experience that are relevant.

Don’t try to be the perfect MBA machine. Instead, try being human. Remember small details and try to connect on a normal level, the same way you connect with the barista or the grocery clerk. It works with recruiters too.

I know, I know, this is easier said that done. But remember that the recruiters you can be yourself with are also likely the kind of people you’d like to work with every day. And the recruiters who make your stomach knot up, well, that’s a pretty miserable work situation.

After all, who wants to feel sweaty and awkward all the time? B-school recruiting was enough for me.

And I’m sure those people are out there. It’s just that I keep running into the jackasses, like the guy who honked at my fiancé for not pulling out of his parking space fast enough. Or the woman who nearly rear ended me. Or the 18-wheeler driver who tried to run my fiancé into the concrete tunnel wall on Interstate 94, opening his door and screaming at him.

But tonight, I met a red-headed Minnesotan angel.

It had been a rough evening, a rough two weeks. My fiancé is traveling for work and everything just seemed to go wrong. Things piled up, one right after another, culminating in me driving around downtown after work today, dog in the back seat, frantically trying to finish errands before the stores closed. The sun was setting and I had just finished — hooray! — and got into my car outside the drug store to drive home. I turned the key, put the car in gear. Nothing. Nothing, that is, except every check engine light on the dashboard.

My last bit of composure disappeared. Teary and frustrated, I went inside the drugstore to make sure they wouldn’t tow me and called a friend to come get me, describing my car trouble to him. When I hung up the phone, I noticed the drugstore’s red-haired security guard standing next to me.

“Let’s go take a look at it,” he said in a calm, confident voice. “I’m not a mechanic but I’m pretty fair with an engine.”

He walked outside with me, popped the hood and fiddled with something I couldn’t see. Miraculously the car turned over. And stayed on. I almost collapsed with gratitude and relief.

Then the red-headed angel pointed to hoses and plugs and explained with the patience of a kindergarten teacher what needed to be fixed. He assured me the car would make it home, but probably not much further. He told me what to do in case it stalled and died again. And then he wished me a good night.

I’m so grateful that when I needed it most, when it counted, a genuine, wholesome and kind Minnesotan came to my rescue.

But for now:

1. I am tired. I’m crawling into bed every night at 9:30 p.m. feeling like a prize fighter after a match. Between the exhausting work during the day (smiling too much, meeting too many new people who are all forming instant first impressions of you, performing mental gymnastics just to log on to your computer and find the bathroom) and the stress dreams at night, I’m a zombie. That makes No. 2 even more super fun, because …

2. I am overwhelmed. Combine tired with a lot of new responsibilities, serve to a Type A personality and – tada! – you have Overwhelmed! This particular emotion comes in waves, like a sine curve. Some days I feel pretty awesome and some days I feel like running off to become a landscaper, a waitress, or anything at all that doesn’t involve an Outlook calendar and Power Point.

3. I am learning something new everyday. In the first six weeks, nothing is monotonous. It’s all too new and there’s information coming at you like water out of a fire hydrant. And for the nerdy student in me, it’s nice to still be learning.

4. I am frustrated everyday. Same as No. 3. I just feel differently about it on days when I just want to get stuff done. Why I don’t know this stuff already?

5. I am cash-flow positive. Hooray for paychecks! After two years of watching my bank account slowly dwindle, money is flowing in! It’s good to see that balance ticking upward for a change. It also makes it possible for me to visit the Nordstrom shoe department again.

6. I am terrified of my student loans. Oh crap, all those loan checks were, like, really loans. Thank God for No. 5.

New York magazine

I’ d forgotten it was the 10-year anniversary of Sept. 11 until  I got this week’s New York magazine and began reading their excellent “Encyclopedia of 9/11.” It reminded me of what happened 10 years ago and it revealed to me things I’d never known about that day and geopolitical ripple of effects that came after it.

But for me the most heartbreaking stories are the personal ones. I started weeping as I read “Good-Bye,” the story of a husband calling his wife from the 105th floor of one of the towers. And that reminded me of the most emotional class of my MBA career.

In honor of the 10-year anniversary and in the spirit of never forgetting, here is The Management Decision I Hope I Never Have to Make.

But once in awhile we host someone less inspiring. These people may be damaged, burned out, arrogant or callous. They are a reminder that business has the capacity to chew you up and spit you out and leave you with very little of your soul left (they don’t make movies like Wall Street and Working Girl because this isn’t true. Who among us wants to be either Gordon Gekko or Katharine Parker, aka the backstabbing Sigourney Weaver?).

So, inspired by Tina Fey’s “Mother’s Prayer for Its Child,” I wrote the prayer below. On the eve of my graduation, I need to remind myself not to lose myself in the years ahead.

An MBA’s Prayer for Her Future Self

First Lord, no jet talk. No matter how many (or how few) times I ride in corporate or private jets, may I never brag about it or forget the horrors of flying coach.

Save me from new BMWs, Mercedes and Audis, reminding me that they lose 25 percent of their value the second I drive them off the lot. Empower me to buy preowned.

Even if my days are filled with conversations about “aligned incentives,” “value-adds” and “strategic, multi-functional solutions” may I never bring that tinny, meaningless jargon into my home.

Keep me from greed, needless status symbols and “keeping up with the MBAs” in all their many forms: Louis Vuitton handbags, Maseratis, penthouse condos, Burberry jackets, vacations in St. Bart’s, jet shares, private islands and mini-yachts. May I always recall the cost and weight these things will add to my life, chaining me to my career long after I have burned out.

Lord, make me not a slave to my job, one who works and travels 360 days a year so that my personal life consists not of a husband, three lovely children and several close friends, but chiefly of a bottle of cabernet, a Netflix subscription and late-night online shopping. May I never utter the phrase, “I’ll have a personal life when I retire.”

Also, make me brave enough to pursue my passion (after I pay off my student loans, of course) and not surrender to the corporate treadmill of carrots, sticks and golden handcuffs. Give me the strength to one day leave my cushy, regular paycheck to chase my dreams of entrepreneurship, start-ups, social enterprise and novel writing.

Protect me from the temptations of insider training, abusing the expense account, cooking the books, sleeping with the boss and other forms of corporate shadiness, reminding me always and forever that my integrity has no price.

And, above all Lord, deliver me from becoming an uppity, entitled, self-centered corporate bitch. Should I verge on this horrible fate, remind me of my grandfathers, the bricklayer and the steel worker, and my grandmothers who bought government cheese and sewed their children’s clothes. Remind me of my days as a janitor and a pool snack shop girl and shame me, Lord, for ever thinking I “deserve” anything. May I recall that the higher I rise, the more responsibility I bear and the more people I have who depend on me not to screw up. Help me to honor my duty to those people and never, ever think, “They owe me.”

Amen.

(For a much more eloquent take on how not to lose your soul in business, read my professor’s goodbye speech,”Are You a Turkey or An Eagle?”)

The nation — or, more specifically its two richest emirates, Dubai and Abu-Dhabi — is rich with oil money and its sheikhs have decided to pump that money into the biggest, largest, tallest, fastest, bestest things in the world.

The Guiness records and superlatives are simply everywhere. Some examples:

• The tallest building, man made structure and free standing structure (Burj Khalifa). And yes, those are three separate records.
• The third-largest mosque in the world (The Grand Mosque in Abu-Dhabi).
• The largest chandelier in the world (The Grand Mosque).
• The largest single piece handmade rug in the world (The Grand Mosque).
• The fastest rollercoaster in the world (Ferrari World in Abu-Dhabi).
• The world’s only 7-star hotel (Burj Al Arab in Dubai).
• The largest gold ring in the world (The Gold Souq in Dubai).
• The second-largest yacht in the world (Dubai, owned by the sheikh).
• The largest mall in the world (Dubai Mall).
• The largest water cannon show in the world — think the Bellagio (Dubai Mall).
• The longest indoor ski slope in the world (Ski Dubai).

It became a running joke, a joke that was topped off when we saw this sign inside the offices of the developer of the Dubai Mall (largest mall in the world!):

When a country starts measuring the size of its plexiglass, you have to wonder. The obessession with bigger, faster, taller, better seemed to be everywhere. In some ways, it’s understandable. The United Arab Emirates has taken a pile of oil money and transformed a primitive desert into two sophisticated, modern cities. They are clearly proud of their accomplishments as they should be. Not every nation so successfully transforms itself.

But it also reeks of nouveau riche.  The UAE is like a man who makes a lot of money very quickly and spends its ostantaciously simply because he can. Like that newly rich man, Dubai and Abu-Dhabi seem to want to show they can do whatever developed nations do — and even do it better. By building all these modern marvels, they are proving they can compete.

But the problem with being nouveau riche — other than accumulating a collection solid gold toilet seats — is that you often don’t spend your fortune wisely. And there are signs that Dubai and Abu-Dhabi have fallen into that trap. Dubai’s man made islands have fallen in value and, according to some folks we spoke with, may be experiencing technical difficulties. Abu-Dhabi is building a carbon zero city so far away from its city center that all its employees must drive for an hour or more to get there. Every new development is a luxury development, leaving one to wonder — is there enough money to fill all these fancy hotel rooms?

Only time will tell if Dubai and Abu-Dhabi can maintain the lead in all these biggest, tallest, fastest races. It will also determine if setting Guinness records makes a better country.

Belle

As a little girl, I hated dogs.

One of my earliest memories was of being chased around my front yard by a neighbor’s Great Dane who used to roam the streets. Looking back, I’m sure the dog just wanted to play, but from a three-year-old’s perspective he was terrifying. My grandfather used to keep a wooden baseball bat on the front porch to chase him away.

And so, for the first 12 years of my life, my family shared a home with a beautiful but anti-social white cat named Edel Weiss and I stayed away from dogs.

Then, a few years after Edel Weiss died, my parents met a border terrier at a friend’s dinner party. They were so impressed with how smart, friendly and adorable the dog was, they decided to get their own. So one day in February we drove to Virginia to pick up our new puppy.

Her AKC name was Bendywood Sleigh Belle, but we called her Belle. She was like a lot of dogs — she loved chasing squirrels, eating and playing. But she was unique as well. She was stubborn and never learned to fetch because she thought it was much more fun to train us to chase her. She learned words just by listening to us. LeCoco, Cindy, dinner, go, Grandma’s — she understood what they all meant. And she adored my father. He was the only one who was allowed to hold her on her back like a baby, rub her chin and talk baby talk to her.

It was hard to resist her eyes.

Belle was such a good dog that my parents decided to get a second border terrier, a friendly but ditzy girl named Maggie. The two terriers became friends and as Belle aged and lost her hearing and then her sight, Maggie became her nursemaid.

Last week, Belle died at the ripe old doggie age of 15. I still can’t quite believe it and I’m not looking forward to visiting my parents this weekend and not seeing her there. Maggie wanders the house at night now, looking for Belle. And my dad’s voice choked up when I asked him how he was faring.

Belle left behind a family of people who loved her. But more than that, she was my first dog and the reason I love dogs today. Belle paved the way for me to say yes when my fiance proposed getting a Hungarian viszla puppy this year. Rugby is a smart, funny and loving puppy who wouldn’t be in my life today if not for Belle.

I miss her, but she left me better off. She was a good dog.