Going out of my mind
A lot of people ask me how I'm doing from time to time. I usually just say "I'm good" or "not too bad" or something noncommittal. I hate saying "Busy!" because everybody's "busy." Busy is normal .. I am always busy. That's what being a type-A personality entails .. if I wasn't busy that would be unusual. I'm a graduate student, a full-time employee and a business owner .. "busy" is normal.
But I have a whole new appreciation of "busy" after the past week. Actually the past month. But the past week I have been burning all the gas I have and then some. This has been my schedule for the past week.
Tuesday: left work at 5, worked on finishing my final project for Strat Design II (due Wednesday). Got to bed around 2am.
Wednesday: left work at 5, worked on finishing my final portfolio book for Strat Writing II (due Thursday). Got to bed around 3:30am.
Thursday: started feeling like I was coming down with a cold, left work at 4, went home and went to bed. Woke up at 7:30, ran to Office Depot to buy printer ink (got a little paranoid that I would run out before I was done), started printing out covers and spines for the binders for the NBAF site visit* on my little Canon printer .. 40 of each. Once those were printed, I took them to Kinkos and trimmed them all by hand. Got to bed close to 4am.
Friday: stayed home from work, feeling ill, but got up around 9 and worked on NBAF and the art gallery Flash movie for Illumination. Lay down again around 4, slept for a few hours, got up and went back to work on the Flash movie. Finished around 2am.
Saturday: woke up around 9. Worked on converting the NBAF slideshow (126 slides) from Powerpoint to Keynote. Slept for a few hours, got back up at 9 and worked till 5am on the slides conversion. Biggest single slideshow I've ever had to do. I wasn't writing any of the content, but I did have to clean up almost all of the maps and artwork .. that involved redrawing them by hand.
Sunday: Got up around 10, worked on slides until 1:30, went into the office to meet with my boss and go through the slides together. She gave me a to-do list of changes to make and I finally got them done around 7. Went home and ordered a pizza, asked my boss if I could sleep in Monday.
Monday (today): Got a phone call at 7:30am. One whole section of the slideshow is wrong (I was given the wrong set of slides to convert). Also, two of the three remaining maps needed to be redrawn by 9am. The dry-run of the meeting was today at 1pm, so it all had to be done, printed, photocopied and ready to show to the NBAF "task force" by then.
I'm tired.
But I got an A in Strat Design II. Still not sure about Strat Writing .. but I'm optimistic.
*NBAF stands for National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility. MU is in the running to be awarded the contract to build the facility to replace Plum Island. The site visit is a group from the Department of Homeland Security coming to Columbia to be taken on a tour of the area where the facility would be built and a slideshow presentation which will last all afternoon. Not only am I responsible for the slideshow presentation, but I will personally be in the meeting in case something with the slideshow goes wrong. I gotta admit working on this is exciting, because the meeting is very tightly regulated, and it's not often I am designing for a presentation to the US Government (on which billions of dollars in development money is at stake). I feel very proud of this project, and if MU gets the contract it will be a big deal for the university, and I will be happy to feel that I helped in that respect. Also, my thesis chair is on the task force, and I kinda want the presentation to impress him, too.
But I have a whole new appreciation of "busy" after the past week. Actually the past month. But the past week I have been burning all the gas I have and then some. This has been my schedule for the past week.
Tuesday: left work at 5, worked on finishing my final project for Strat Design II (due Wednesday). Got to bed around 2am.
Wednesday: left work at 5, worked on finishing my final portfolio book for Strat Writing II (due Thursday). Got to bed around 3:30am.
Thursday: started feeling like I was coming down with a cold, left work at 4, went home and went to bed. Woke up at 7:30, ran to Office Depot to buy printer ink (got a little paranoid that I would run out before I was done), started printing out covers and spines for the binders for the NBAF site visit* on my little Canon printer .. 40 of each. Once those were printed, I took them to Kinkos and trimmed them all by hand. Got to bed close to 4am.
Friday: stayed home from work, feeling ill, but got up around 9 and worked on NBAF and the art gallery Flash movie for Illumination. Lay down again around 4, slept for a few hours, got up and went back to work on the Flash movie. Finished around 2am.
Saturday: woke up around 9. Worked on converting the NBAF slideshow (126 slides) from Powerpoint to Keynote. Slept for a few hours, got back up at 9 and worked till 5am on the slides conversion. Biggest single slideshow I've ever had to do. I wasn't writing any of the content, but I did have to clean up almost all of the maps and artwork .. that involved redrawing them by hand.
Sunday: Got up around 10, worked on slides until 1:30, went into the office to meet with my boss and go through the slides together. She gave me a to-do list of changes to make and I finally got them done around 7. Went home and ordered a pizza, asked my boss if I could sleep in Monday.
Monday (today): Got a phone call at 7:30am. One whole section of the slideshow is wrong (I was given the wrong set of slides to convert). Also, two of the three remaining maps needed to be redrawn by 9am. The dry-run of the meeting was today at 1pm, so it all had to be done, printed, photocopied and ready to show to the NBAF "task force" by then.
I'm tired.
But I got an A in Strat Design II. Still not sure about Strat Writing .. but I'm optimistic.
*NBAF stands for National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility. MU is in the running to be awarded the contract to build the facility to replace Plum Island. The site visit is a group from the Department of Homeland Security coming to Columbia to be taken on a tour of the area where the facility would be built and a slideshow presentation which will last all afternoon. Not only am I responsible for the slideshow presentation, but I will personally be in the meeting in case something with the slideshow goes wrong. I gotta admit working on this is exciting, because the meeting is very tightly regulated, and it's not often I am designing for a presentation to the US Government (on which billions of dollars in development money is at stake). I feel very proud of this project, and if MU gets the contract it will be a big deal for the university, and I will be happy to feel that I helped in that respect. Also, my thesis chair is on the task force, and I kinda want the presentation to impress him, too.
posted by Craig J. at 1:19 PM
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