Givin' 'Em The Business I

(first in a new series)

I've been awake since 8:30 this morning.  Exclusive of time in the shower and on the bus, I've been hard at work since 8:30 this morning.  Between the fact that it's Cognitive Dissonance Day (every Monday and Wednesday features a class on white-guilt diversity and one on US History from the white man's perspective back to back, which is about as textbook a definition as you can find for cognitive dissonance!) and the fact that due to scheduling constraints I've set up a meeting at 8:15 tonight with my morning show people, adding in my regular 5:30 math class and three mid-day hours on campus working on everything else...well, you can see where things get screwy.  By the time I get home shortly after 9:00 (or perhaps closer to 10) tonight, I will STILL have some homework left to do and won't complete my day's work until almost midnight.  Counting it all up, that's over 15 hours between waking up in the morning and finally getting a minute to breathe and relax.  And the kicker?  I get to do it all again tomorrow.

Just for kicks, I'm going to recount the sum total of my responsibilities here.

- Going to school full time, taking 18 credit hours.  Adding in homework and other on-campus responsibilities this is easily a 40-hour-a-week job.
- Starting a business, including producing and writing two radio shows, over four hours of content every week, and later this spring I'm going to be doing voice work/on-air talent.  At present this constitutes about 20 hours a week.
- Trying to wrangle with bureaucrats in two states so I can get my application completed and approved for the University of Nevada, Reno this fall and continue my education toward my bachelor's degree (and eventually a shiny pair of master's degrees in accounting and finance within the next five years.)
- Keeping myself from going batshit bonkers from all that work and also making sure my bills get paid and food gets purchased so I don't starve to death in the dark.
- Doing all of the above while still trying to sleep at least 6 hours a night.
- And all of this does not count efforts on my part to make more friends, go on dates, and try to fill some of the baser needs of Maslow's hierarchy.

Keep in mind that as recently as the third week of January I had no responsibilities at all.  I had 168 hours a week of "sleep and play video games".  In the three weeks since I've finally started to adjust to the new and improved workload (and for those of you thinking "he's just overcompensating for his divorce", banish that thought from your mind.  I signed up for six classes BEFORE the marriage drama, and the business is something I've always wanted to do and the opportunity came up for me to finally do something about it.)

The only thing that's changed is that I now joke that becoming a CPA is "what I'll do if that whole radio thing doesn't work out."  I'm only half kidding.  But my main goal and thus my first priority is directly related to my field of education.