Unwanted Weekend

Today is a Saturday, the first day of a 2-day weekend.  2-day weekend that greets us after a 5-day workweek like a rainbow after a rainstorm; 2 days of relief after 5 days of waking up to an alarm, over 17 hours spent on the bus, and 40 hours at the office.  We all look forward to the weekend for some sleeping in and relaxing.

But this weekend does not feel good for me.  I am not happy this weekend.  I wish Monday would come soon.  I did not want this weekend to come, and I cannot wait until it is over.  And this is because of the way I wasted this week at work.

I am working on my biggest project of the  year at work.  This annual project took 6 months last year, and I hope to finish it in 3 months this year.  But this is only my second time doing it, and it is a very complicated process.  And that evokes my weakness: procrastination.  Not that I want to procrastinate, but when faced with something that is very boring and tedious, I tend to tune myself out.  And I did some work this week but I spent so much time not working.  I regret not working hard, and this wasted week is really bothering me.

I really shouldn’t be wasting company time like this.  I want to make things right.  I want the feeling of accomplishment.  I want to get a lot done.  And once I do that, weekend will feel much more deserved.  Next week is a 3-day week, probably followed by a 2-hour early office closing on Wednesday.  It’s a short week.  I can do it.  I can stay focused all day.  Then hit the comedy clubs at night.

I do share quite a bit about myself, and sometimes about my work, on this blog.  This is why I would like to ask you not to mention this site if you are e-mailing me at work.  Everything gets monitored there, and I do not want anything linking me to this site.

School or Jail

Studying for actuarial exams makes me feel as if I am in school or in jail.

School is obvious, with the studying connection.  Exam Day is the end of the semester, and I am finally free to do other things on my vacation (such as things on my To Do List).  But I may still do some summer reading or go to summer school (CPCU exam).

Jail: I study for my exams as if I am in jail.  I clear out my social calendar and box myself in.  I cannot be trusted to go venturing into the outside world.  I must remain my cell and study.  Of course, if I did not spend so much time procrastinating, I may not have to be jailed, but that’s the situation for now.  Once exam is done, I am free.  I am released from my self-imposed jail.  I can go visit friends.  I can do comedy.  I can drink.  I can have…

And that freeing moment is about 14 hours away.  Exam is at 8:30am, and should end before noon.  Exam is 10 hours and 15 minutes away.  Take away the travel time, and I have 9 hours left.  Take away getting ready, and I have 8 and a half hours left.  How can I divide this time between study and sleep to maximize my readiness for this exam?  I will probably go with 8 hours studying, and 30 minutes eating.

I’m about to tackle the review problems of the final chapter, after which I will have to review all of the material once again while doing practice questions.  If I fail this exam again, it will be because of the same reason as the previous two times: got started too late.  I am tired of studying this stuff but more importantly, I must pass it this time around in order to get my 13.5 study days next exam session.  Things will get tougher if I do not pass this time around.

The time is near.  I must pass.  I think passing is still within the realm of possibility, so I must do everything I can between now and tomorrow morning.  Wish me luck.

Addiction

This morning, I took an actuarial exam.  I can almost guarantee that I failed this exam.  I’ve had a lot of time to study during the past two weeks, but I wasted so much time procrastinating.  There were many days when I’d come home instead of going to NY after work, and then just waste 3 hours doing nothing before going to sleep late instead of studying.  I think I realized what I must do to avoid letting my time disappear without anything to show for it:  limit computer usage.  I’ve always been a very curious person so once I get on the Internet, I can surf for hours, doing everything I can think of.  Well, looking back, 99% of my Internet time does not bring any positive results.  I decided that I’d only go on my computer twice a week.

I’ll be taking another test in May or June (CLEP exam for Micro and Macroeconomics), while taking an online course until late July.  I think if I seriously reduce my computer time, I can find time to study for these while still going to NY to do my comedy thing.  Only way prove it will be to actually do it.  So I will.

Exam finally behind me, my comedy career will resume tomorrow night.

Procrasvacation

I just came back from a 4-night, 5-day trip to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.  My wife has been looking forward to a trip like this ever since she started working 11 months ago, since we got married 9 months ago, and since the weather turned cold and snowed 3 months ago.  Her job is very tough on her physically, and she really wanted to get away, so we did.  Trip was nice and we had a good time in warm weather, but if it was up to me, I would not have gone.  During the trip, I realized that a vacation, when you still have so much to do, is like a bigger version of procrastination.  I still have exams and auditions to pass, not to mention update this blog and hopefully finally begin writing columns for Stand Up.  Not to mention, I am not satisfied with my current salary, and my level of debt.  I would rather have spent the money on paying off debt than on vacation.  But I guess that’s part of being married – sometimes, taking care of your wife means spending a bit of money and going on vacation.

I’ll go into a bit more detail on the trip.  We stayed at an all-inclusive resort, which we definitely did not take advantage of.  All-you-can-eat, I can handle.  All-you-can-drink, I can also deal with.  But all-you-can-eat-and-drink was hard to manage.  I do like to drink, and I also like to eat.  If I drank too much between meals, I wasn’t hungry for the next meal, and if I ate too much, I wasn’t able to drink that much after the meal.  Needless to say, I got way too full while I still wanted to eat or drink more.  But I got sick on the last day and skipped breakfast and lunch before taking the 3pm flight out of town.  That may be why I actually lost about a pound during the trip.

Best part of the vacation must have been the timing, however.  We took a 6am flight out of Newark Airport, a few scant hours away from the so-called snowicane.  I was actually afraid of our flight being canceled that I moved an 8:25am flight to 6:10am flight – and stayed up all night in order to make it.  Turned out that the switch was unnecessary, but I heard later that flying out after 10 or 11am was probably impossible.  What’s better is that my company did not even declare an emergency closing, and I would have had to take the day off from work on Friday anyway because my commuter bus was suspended.  So if I was going to take a vacation, this was the perfect time.