Countdown to birthday/Christmas/New Year's/freedom.

Being a young professional apparently means being overscheduled.

There's A LOT going on this week: It's the start of finals week of my 3rd semester of grad school, my 23rd birthday is Wednesday, my 3 besties from college are coming Friday morning from Maryland, California, and Montreal for My Big Birthday Weekend of Bad Behavior, and it's Sales Conf at work this week.

For you non-publishing folk out there, that means a week of the pub office (my department) presents 75 books to our Sales & Marketing departments... and repeats in 6 meetings spread over the next 4 days. 75 x 6 = A LOT OF BOOKS/A LOT OF TIME SPENT IN MEETINGS. It also means I will be away from my desk for virtually the entire week, getting none of my other work done, and answering zero incoming emails until Thursday at 3 p.m. when it's all over. AND THEN I am responsible for completing a massive meeting minutes packet & change memo for everything that comes out of Sales Conf.

Which means no chance of doing homework at work this week. (Although, I DID find time to blog during lunch...)

On the bright side, though, Friday-Sunday, I'll be laughing/eating/drinking/shopping/playing NYC tourist with my best friends in the entire world, and then next Wednesday night when finals & work are all wrapped up, I'll be heading home to Mpls for Christmas. I'm excited beyond words for the weekend; I just have to figure out how to survive this week first!

What's better is that every single one of my friends working full-time while in grad school is experiencing the exact same thing right now. It's nice to know I'm not the only one with a crazy schedule... and somehow, we'll all get through it.