In the Dark

Driving to class this morning in the rain and in the dark, while my family and most of the others in Minneapolis were sleeping, I had to wonder: what the hell am I really doing? We're getting to crunch time in the semester, where the workload is really starting to pile up. And by "pile up," I mean it's getting to the point where working three hours a day, seven days a week, isn't enough to get everything done. I have entire books to read in two weeks, multiple presentations to collaborate on, and two online exams to complete. Plus statistics homework that will take 10-15 hours to complete. And I have a business trip coming up this week.

Mostly, it's getting accustomed to feeling really overwhelmed and trying to keep things in bite-sized chunks just to keep yourself from losing your mind. If you stopped to think about everything that needs to be completed, you would sit in a corner, weeping, totally unable to get anything done. So that's the hard part-- looking far enough ahead that you can plan for future classes and stay at least a little bit ahead of the assignments, but not looking too far ahead where you would go insane.

Every week is a new test of that precarious balance, and I'm finding that when I think there's a lull in the work and pressure, typically I'm missing something and I'm not doing some work I should be. It's like always waiting for the next battle.

And so today, the battles are Operations Management and Accounting.