Exhaustion at Friday

Not to call myself lazy, but daily exhaustion, particularly mental exhaustion, is new to me. I guess I've never been really pushed before. (Although I am probably forgetting just how exhausted I was my last semester of undergraduate during all the joy of completing my undergraduate thesis for high honors.) Despite my friendly, outgoing, "extroverted" exterior, I am an introvert from scalp to toenails. The business meetings for information of all kinds have been so draining, even if they were productive. This isn't to say that they were not fun. We toured three possible building locations, with more meetings next week followed up by the actual presentation itself.

Our mock presentation allowed Dean Ogilvie to poke some holes in our presentation. Although we had some positive points, we still need a lot of work before Thursday afternoon at 3:30. It seems that there is a core group of about five to seven groups including ourselves from the twenty that are really strong, so our competitive natures have to be kicked up a notch. Some have already secured bank financing for their idea, all but guaranteeing themselves a spot in the top three. So, of course, now we are trying to pull our information together to do the same.

Today, I have to finish my homework, but I'm slow going because my brain is still reeling from yesterday's long day. To people who regularly pull fourteen hour days, I applaud you. Even if it is something that sparks all your creative passion, it still drains you to the point of mush. This also makes it difficult to return to focusing on homework for Supply Chain management, which I do need to finish today if I don't want to be burning the midnight oil all weekend.

Entrepreneurship is not for the timid, weak-hearted, or pampered. It requires work that no customer ever gets to see. While this is not my first time trying to start a business, this is my first experience with partnerships and the process for finding investment. It's a learning process. You want to know what else I learned this week? Alligator snapping turtles can climb. Digest that one for a moment and then look at the picture of our zoo's massive alligator turtle.

Leaves you with a warm, fuzzy, feeling inside doesn't it?

After Spring Break

The Monday after spring break meant snow for Kansas. It started blowing in and sticking shortly after lunchtime. Most of the snow had melted after five p.m. that day, but there were still a few patches when I was walking to campus yesterday. Spring is always a bit of a loose term around here. At least the weather is being unseasonal in early spring instead of in May or June when we should be getting summer weather. I want the apartment pool to open on time this year, please and thank you.

My team for the 3D competition meets with the Dean of the business college on Thursday (tomorrow) to get raked over the coals to assist with improving the presentation. We present to the judges in a week. We've successfully met with two judges which has improved our pitch already but we need to try to meet with the third judge which might also happen tomorrow.

Most of my Tuesday was devoured by a meeting, finding more relevant data, and constructing the power point. I have to say, though, conventions are being somewhat ridiculous by not tracking their demographics every year. Gen Con, the original, seems to the be the only one out of all 400+ gaming conventions in the U.S. that knows exactly how many visitors they've had since inception and from where these convention-goers hail. I keep thinking there's a potential job position with that for tracking visitor data and putting it into meaningful visual forms for data analysis for organizers. Someone should hire me to do this, don't you think?

This morning, though, I need to make my coffee and finish up my required reading for the week. My goal is to get my exam for international marketing out of the way as well. I have a feeling that Thursday is going to be another time sink of a day especially with one, possibly two, meetings and more work on the presentation to follow. Don't plan on being an entrepreneur if you aren't prepared to work crazy-hard every day. That's the real lesson of this competition, I suppose. That's just it, though, I have never minded working hard so long as there was a purpose to it.

My goal is that by the time I have finished my master's degree next year, our little business is more than capable of standing on its own merit. Or, at the very least, I might have something worthwhile to make my resume standout to Wizards of the Coast or a few other companies I was considering.