Learning curves Read Online Free PDF

Alan having to go into a room and come back with three facts about one another that they hadn’t known before. Jesus, it was just too soul destroying. What on earth was the point in knowing that Alan liked history books, was born in Hampshire, and spent his childhood holidays in Wales? And while discovering that Lara was a thirty-four double-D was quite interesting, she hadn’t particularly enjoyed conveying this piece of information to her entire class. Especially since she herself was closer to a thirty-four B and just knew that they were all going to be making little comparisons in their heads.
    Jen sighed. This was just day one, she told herself. It would get better.
    But what if it didn’t? What if it just got worse? What if she was stuck doing team building exercises all day and never got close to doing what she was there for— uncovering a conspiracy and showing her father to be the bastard she knew he was. She had no idea how she was even going to start fishing for information, and sitting in a lecture hall all day long wasn’t helping at all.
    Jen downed her wine and poured herself another glass. Maybe she’d turn into an alcoholic, she decided. Maybe if she was drunk all the time she wouldn’t mind sitting through skull-numbing lectures about corporate strategy.
    She frowned. Or maybe not.
    Slowly, she got up and wandered out through her back door into the little area she called her back garden but which was really too small for such a grand name. It was ten feet by five feet, a teeny-tiny little area that over the past few months she’d managed to turn into somewhere worth sitting, complete with herbs and climbers growing all over the place.
    Was she kidding herself, she wondered, thinking that being at Bell Consulting was actually achieving something? Was this really about corporate espionage and bringing her father to justice, or was it rather about her having something to prove? She knew she’d been right to split up with Gavin; knew she had to create a life of her own. But was this the right way to go about it? Wasn’t she secretly deep-down inside doing this in the hope that he’d find out? Be impressed? Realize that he didn’t have the copyright on heroic deeds?
    Jen laughed at herself. Doing an MBA a heroic deed? She really was delusional.
    She looked around her a little disconcertedly. Things were getting a bit out of control. The clematis was getting everywhere, the jasmine needed deadheading, the poor basil was wilting, and the rosemary was drying out. She wasn’t surprised—they weren’t exactly equipped to fend for themselves against the London grime and uncertain weather. Then again, she wasn’t exactly convinced that she was either.
    “What do you say, shall we run off to the south of France together?” she asked her plants conversationally as she put on her gardening gloves.
    Slowly and methodically, Jen watered and pruned her plants, gently aerating the soil, adding compost and fertilizer, and imposing some order back into her little enclave. It was the only thing she ever took her time over, she thought to herself curiously. The only thing she did that she didn’t rush, didn’t cut corners. And one of the only things that she was really, truly proud of, too. It wasn’t like it was some great feat; it was just a few square feet with some plants stuck in it, but she’d planted every single one of them herself. No one had had any influence or input—in fact no one else really knew it existed. It was her little sanctuary. And it came in rather handy when making a mozzarella, tomato, and basil salad, too.
    She sat back and appraised her work. The herb garden was situated in the far left-hand corner, then to the right where her garden got most sun, she’d planted jasmine and clematis that covered the battered fence separating her garden from her neighbor’s. And at the front, to the side of the little paved area onto which she’d squeezed a small table and two chairs, were pots