Thickening Skin

I did not realize that July 21st was going to be my last day at the funeral home until that moment that Brenda and Laura both wanted to formally "talk to me for a minute." Something was wrong, and I was fairly certain that it was going to end with my services were no longer needed. On the bright side, I'm eligible for rehire, but I realize that is a piece of paper designed to make future employers not think I was a terrible employee when I wasn't. The problem with funeral homes is that office personnel are not needed if the business is too slow. Emporia may not be big enough for two funeral homes, but I guess it's not my problem anymore.

Related to this, I now have a bottom layer of blue-green parrot-esque hair. The top was supposed to be purple, but my hair refused to take the purple dye at all. So I'm not nearly as exotic as I wanted to look.. When I get upset, I dye my hair, and I saw this as possibly one of the last opportunities I may have for doing something insane with my hair for quite awhile. My friends were also providing free dye that they could not or were not going to use, so there is that as well.

On the positive side, Flat Earth Hobbies is slowly crawling to its feet. We have Tsunami Con in Wichita in November which will be our official debut. We should have at least one flagship table completed by then. Two of the general partners will be at Gen Con next week with one of our dice trays and some of our business cards. We've been to one of the farmers markets at Emporia thus far selling some things that are "on target" with our preferred audience and some that are just for the farmer's market crowd to try and raise capital, but we're going to be a bit more regular throughout the year trying to practice our display skills.

I start my training as a graduate assistant this week. Nothing was said about my hair when I brought up dress code, so we'll see. I may get told to dye back to a natural color, but that's fine. Classes start back a week from tomorrow. For good or ill, they are both online again.

The North American Collegiate Hearthstone Tournament 2 has been interesting so far. I advanced because of a no show, fell in the second round, but there's now talks of redoing round 2 today and going through round four by 7 tonight. I am glad our usual Sunday gaming with friends is cancelled today.

John is enjoying his new job and we are finally starting to get ahead because of it. I worry all the time that everything is just going to fall apart but I don't tell him that. He worries enough without my help. I am getting tired of being the bounce back queen, though. Some smooth sailing would be awesome. Just for a little bit.

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?