Several years ago I wrote about how I was preparing to start a Post-Master’s Certificate program in Curriculum Studies. I remember writing that entry and at the time the only phrase I kept hearing go through my head was Chris Rock on the Howard Stern Show saying, “You’re going back to Shawshank!?” after Stern announced he was getting married again. I had that same thought going through my head when I started the Post-Master’s Certificate a few years ago and, in some respects, I have the same thought now as I prepare for this doctoral program.

There is a slight difference between now and then, though. When I started the Post-Master’s Certificate I had that, “Here we go again,” feeling because I was putting myself back in the classroom setting as a student. This time around I don’t have that feeling because I’m going back to the classroom setting as a student, rather I have that feeling because I’m going back to using student loans to finance my education. If you haven’t read my student loan story, then you can get a full rundown of my life with student loans by clicking here. If you scroll through those posts, you’ll find the one where I announce that I’ve fully repaid my student loans.

Though I need to take out student loans to finance my doctoral education, I am in a much different personal and financial place than I was when I finished my Master’s Degree in 2006. For example, after I graduated in 2006 I began working at a company in an entry level-type position making an entry level-type salary. Now, almost 10 years later, I still work at the same company and I’ve obviously progressed in my career. Granted, I don’t have the regular financial capacity to make $2,500 per month payments like I was making at the end of the aggressive, self-imposed repayment plan for my previous student loans. However, I do have the capacity to make payments on my new student loans while I’m still enrolled as a student.

And that’s probably the biggest difference between me being a student in 2015 versus me being a college student from 1999 to 2003 or a graduate student from 2004 to 2006. Today, I can afford to pay down my student loans during the actual semesters when I take them out in the first place. Will I be able to pay down the entirety of each loan during the semester when I’m taking the classes that the loan paid for? Probably not, but I’m in a much better position to try to do that now than I was 10+ years ago.

There are two other differences that I think are worth mentioning outside of the student loan issue. First, this is the first time that I’ll be taking fully online classes. In the past, I’ve successfully completed hybrid courses that are partially online and partially in the classroom. And for the last several years I’ve actually instructed many fully online classes. However, this will be the first time that I am a student in such a class. Second, this is the first time since I completed my Master’s Degree in 2006 where I’ll be taking more than one class per semester. After I graduated with the Master’s Degree, I completed two additional graduate programs by taking one class each semester (outside of textbooks, I didn’t pay to take these classes or to earn these degrees as I was provided with tuition remission at the local college where I work as an Adjunct Professor). The last time I was enrolled in more than one class as a student was during the spring semester of 2006.

All of these comments aside, I’m really looking forward to being engaged in the classroom as a student again. I’m particularly interested in engaging with my new classmates in an all-online setting. And, of course, I’m excited at the prospects of completing the doctoral program and finishing up a lifetime of classroom activity.

Moving on to the rest of this short blog…

I’ve taken to keeping a running list on my smartphone of the different topics and ideas that make me want to write blog entries. The list has gotten so long that I can’t actually post it here because it would take forever to refine my shortened thoughts into coherent, readable content. The same thing goes for my Feedly account – I have so many articles bookmarked to write about that to put them in any order would take several days. Often, I run into the same issue when I sit down to write a new blog entry; namely, that it takes me so long to put my thoughts in clear order that I give up on the whole enterprise.

That was the initial basis for writing this short entry – to note that while I have content seemingly coming out of my ears, I just haven’t been able to find the time to sit down and put it together for you to read. This prompted me to think about what it is that is keeping me so busy and how I might be able to manage that chaos. After thinking about the whole situation it turns out that my time crunch problem is rooted in two sources. First, as I’ve noted for years, my commute is an incredible killer of productivity (not to mention a growing detriment to my health). Spending more than two hours everyday sitting in traffic with nothing better to do than attempt to read bits and pieces of different articles between stop-go traffic is killing me in so many ways. If my commute were even just half of what it is now, then I would have an extra hour everyday to commit to doing anything that I wanted from writing more here to working out more to continuing to improve my new townhouse.

The second major cause of my limited availability in the last year has undoubtedly been the dramatic increase in adjunct teaching that I’ve experienced. Beginning in the Spring 2013 semester and carrying through the Fall 2013 and Spring 2014 semesters, I’ve been teaching two classes per semester at the local university. For the college student who read this, you probably think to yourself, “That’s nothing! I take 5 or 6 classes each semester!” And you’re right – in the grand scheme of things the hour and fifteen minutes that I spend standing in front of the classroom lecturing two to four times each week isn’t a great drain on my time… by itself. Collectively, though, those hours are hours that other people might argue I would better spend doing something else like focusing on growing my small businesses, improving my health, arranging my townhouse, etc. The time crunch that being an adjunct professor presented to my schedule reached a critical point during the last month, when I agreed to teach a 6-week summer session course. This was not a good idea on my part and I don’t think I’ll ever agree to teach a summer class again. For a guy who works full-time (including 10+ hours of commuting every week) and owns two successful small businesses that require his time, spending 3 hours and 45 minutes TWICE a week teaching a summer session course for 6 weeks just simply doesn’t work.

Agreeing to teach that course was a mistake that I made in my eagerness to pursue one of my passions (teaching and helping others) and I’ve learned that I can’t do that any more. Of course, now that the semester is over I’m coming into a different scenario that I really welcome: for the first time since Spring 2013, I’m not scheduled to teach any classes this coming fall semester! Between grading, class prep, driving to and from class, and in-person meetings – not being scheduled to teach this fall semester should save me around 3 – 4 hours per week. It’s great!

Anyway, these two core issues are what led me to realize that when I get home at night these days I often have an hour to an hour and a half of free time. In that free time, I have to manage my life (i.e. make dinner, clean the house, make lunch for the next day, do laundry, etc.) and there’s just no time left to sit down and create a thorough, high quality blog entry for my readers – or myself.

That may change with the pending free time that I have ahead of me after the class that I’m currently teaching ends on July 3rd. However, the truth is that my commute isn’t going anywhere any time soon and because of the absolutely ridiculous road construction schedule that the State of New Jersey is working right now, I expect that the commute isn’t even going to ease up as the summer goes along. In any event, I wrote this blog entry to put some thoughts out there about where I’ve been since my last blog entry and to explain the sparse updates from even before then. There is content coming – it’s just a matter of finding the time to prepare the content in a manner that is suitable for posting.

It’s enough already with sitting in these classrooms and being a student… I need a break!

As you might imagine, though, my situation brings a bit of a twist that my colleagues do not have to consider. In my case, I can fulfill my professional development requirements by taking classes at the college where I’m a part-time adjunct professor. It’s a good situation for everyone involved. On the one hand, my company gets to have me improve my professional skill set by taking graduate-level courses in a subject matter that is related to our profession. On the other hand, I don’t just audit the courses. Instead, since the tuition and fees for the courses is in remission for me (i.e. I can take the courses for free), I’ve actually enrolled in different graduate-level programs and received new academic credentials from taking these classes. For example, even though I already have a master’s degree from a top tier university, I utilized the tuition remission program at my local college to earn a cost-free Public Relations Specialist Certificate in 2010 (more commonly known as a graduate certificate). I’m currently enrolled in another program that is cost-free for me where I’ll earn a Post-Master’s Certificate in Curriculum Studies in May.

My company gets my professional development needs attended to at no cost to them, I maximize the benefits that the tuition remission program grants me by enrolling in graduate-level programs and earning additional academic credentials, and everyone goes home happy at the end of the day without spending a dime.

Well, maybe everyone doesn’t go home happy at the end of the day…

Remember that in addition to teaching at the local college, I work a full-time day job that I love. I’ve written in other blog entries that I own and operate two small businesses, too. And I’ve also written about how I instruct courses for an all-online college and I spend whatever free time I can muster by volunteering for my church via the Knights of Columbus and for my fraternity as a local alumni advisor and a national program instructor. Suffice to say – I’m a pretty busy guy. And I’m not writing this in act of self-pity or in an attempt to generate your sympathy for my nonexistent personal time. Not at all! Instead, I’m writing this to lay the foundation for the realization that I came to the other day which prompted me to write this entry in the first place.

And that realization is that with all of the obligations I have in my life I think I need to put at least one of them on hold for a little while. And without question the one constantly frustrating and time consuming activity that bungles me up is taking these graduate level courses to fulfill my professional development obligations for my job. It’s not that I don’t want to increase my professional knowledge or that I’m frustrated because I have to take professional development courses. On the contrary, actually – I do want to learn more and be a better professional in my industry! My issue, however, is the method by which I’ve been engaging in that professional development. Utilizing the graduate courses is a great way to save my company money and a great way for me to maximize the ability to earn cost-free academic credentials. The drawback, though, is that the rigor necessary to properly complete a graduate-level course is much more strenuous than simply attending a one or two day seminar to fulfill my professional development goals. Graduate courses require the completion of homework, writing extensive papers in an academic format, preparing group projects with individuals who are unaware of the obligations on my time, doing research in areas that can begin to border on irrelevant for my profession, etc. And they also require a weekly time commitment to sit in a classroom and engage my instructor and classmates as a good student.

Being a student is a lot of work!

So I think that when the current program that I’m enrolled in is completed this coming May, it will probably be time for me to take a break from being a student. I’m sure that it won’t be a long break because I get the itch to learn almost as soon as I’m not enrolled in any programs. Plus, I don’t like leaving loose ends behind and both the graduate certificate and the post-master’s certificate could be viewed as stepping stones to additional master’s degrees (I’ll have completed half of the credits required in both the Master of the Arts of Education and Master of the Arts in Communication programs). Being 15 credits away from a second and potentially third master’s degree is something that I’m sure will eventually drive me back into the classroom, but my more immediate need is to provide a small bit of relief in those obligations that require a heavy time commitment.

Once I complete the current program, I’ll probably begin to plot out a course of action of the future. I’ll likely begin unwinding myself from some other volunteer commitments that I’m involved in that aren’t noted above. And I’ve been meaning to reduce my overall working schedule (not at my day job, but rather with the part-time teaching), too. And, of course, finding some housing and health stability in my life are both big goals that I need to achieve much sooner rather than later. After I at least have a road map to success in some of these areas, then I think it’ll be a good time to start considering getting back into the classroom as a student (and let’s be honest, getting a doctorate is going to have to be on my agenda at some point in the future). In the meantime, though, I’ll be fulfilling my professional development requirements for my office at one and two day seminars!

Now, enjoy the links! If you come across any interesting links, then please share them with us in the comments section below.

Get your weekend started right by checking out these links, starting a new, free Feedly account, and/or adding the blogs above (and JerseySmarts.com, too) to your existing Feedly or other RSS aggregator account. Enjoy!

This weekend’s links are below for your reading pleasure. If you come across any interesting links, then please share them with us in the comments section below. Enjoy!

Get your weekend started right by checking out these links, starting a new Feedly account, and/or adding the blogs above (and JerseySmarts.com, too) to your existing Feedly or other RSS aggregator account. Enjoy!

Wait until the next time the Powerball lottery gets to one of those outrageous dollar amounts and I guaranty that you’ll hear those conversations going on all around you.

For those of us who graduated college or graduate school with inordinate amounts of student loan debt and have successfully completed or been engaged in a repayment plan, we have a slightly different version of daydreaming. The truth is that this small cohort of student loan borrowers doesn’t sit around and wonder what it would be like to have millions of dollars to play with; instead we sit around and daydream about what it would be like to have all of those student loan payments that we sent off to play with instead.

This isn’t one of those entries where I’m going to bore you with intricate financial statistics or complex equations talking about the amount of money that I lose everyday to interest expenses on my student loans ($3.32). Instead of all of that stuff, I’m going to eyeball a round number to indicate how much I think I’ve spent on student loan principal payments, interest payments, origination fees, transfer fees, and consolidation fees. I’m going to suggest that this estimated round number is between $135,000 and $145,000.

What this range doesn’t calculate is what I might have gained if I would have had the opportunity to invest these funds, but that’s another post for another day.

Those of us who willingly took on exorbitant amounts of student loan debt with the full knowledge that we would be saddled with a repayment obligation that we always intended to meet (lots of qualifiers in the beginning of this sentence…) get a bittersweet feeling when we sit around and think of what we could have done with years and years of student loan payments (which are usually over-payments each month). This past weekend, several of my college buddies stayed over at my place after a group of us went out to the bar. The next day when a few of us were sitting around and talking about different things, the topic of student loan payments came up and it got me back to this familiar form of daydreaming: What would I have done with all of those payments if I didn’t have these student loans?

Immediately, three things come to mind.

First, I would have a substantial savings structure including more equity investments (stocks), fixed investments (government-backed bonds and certificates of deposits), and liquid savings (regular savings account). Granted, I have different levels of these savings structures in place right now, but I’d definitely have more and more varied types of these savings accounts if I had all of that student loan money back.

Second, I would have a more secure housing situation. Now this one is a little bit trickier than just something as simple as, “I would have purchased a house by now.” The area of New Jersey where I live (the northern Jersey Shore area) does not produce reasonable real estate prices right now. Sure, I could have used some of those funds to purchase a home, but the amount, type, and location of the home that I would be able to purchase would not be as much, the type of, or in the area where I’d want to live – so I wouldn’t do it. Plus, the time period when I would have been buying a home would have put me right in the group where the value of the home would be declining quicker than the amount of the outstanding loan principal. So… I wouldn’t have purchased a home.

Instead, I would have set aside a substantial amount of money (around $20,000 to $30,000) to be my “housing reserve fund.” I would still budget my monthly rent from my monthly cash flow, but I would have these funds available in the event that I had to vacate my current place, that I wanted to move, or that I just needed funds for housing-related costs. That housing reserve fund would have provided me with the type of long-term stability that most renters don’t have the benefit of enjoying.

Third and finally, I would have either purchased or been in the final stages of building a vacation home. I know, I know – this one seems crazy. I get it. There are folks at my office who call me Mr. Austerity because of my strong discipline to strict rules and regulations when it comes to the financial aspects of our company. In other words, I hate spending the company’s money even if the company wants their money spent! And I’m a stickler for following a strict set of rules in the office because I think companies need structure and if they have that structure already in place, then they should follow it.

So… the idea of me taking some of this money and purchase a vacation home may seem somewhat insane. I assure you, though, it’s not crazy at all. In fact, there are a lot of reasons why I’d either be savings towards buying a vacation home or I would have already purchased one. Among those reasons are the fact that I would buy a home somewhere in or near the Poconos – where the real estate and property taxes are much, much cheaper than in New Jersey. Plus, there are a lot of beautiful areas in that part of Pennsylvania where you can have a wonderful home with gorgeous, wildlife views. Don’t get me wrong – I love living on the Jersey Shore, but I also really enjoy the peaceful feeling of being surrounded by nature.

I’d also be looking to get that vacation home to host group gatherings. In other words, it would be a nice place where my family could gather for events and holidays, where I could host barbeques and parties for my family and friends, and where I could host other events (planning sessions for my team at my company, annual strategy sessions for some of the nonprofit fundraising work that I do, etc). With respect to regular usage, I’m lucky that my company allows me to work from home on Fridays, so I would probably spend most weekends (weather permitting) up in the vacation home, especially during the summer months when the traffic down the shore is incredibly annoying.

The distance between my office and the general area of the Poconos is about an hour, which is a little bit longer than my daily commute so the distance isn’t a big deal at all. I could easily leave my office on a Thursday afternoon at 4:00pm, head to the vacation home for the weekend, and be there by 5:00pm. Then, I could just as easily leave the Poconos and get back to the office on Monday morning. In the event that I opted to do something like this, then I would probably move out of my current area of the state and, instead, move somewhere a little bit closer to my office. Not too close, though – I’d still like to be within close proximity of the northern Jersey Shore area due to attending Monmouth University basketball games, teaching at the local college, and attending other events in the Long Branch/Asbury Park area. My new apartment wouldn’t have to be too big or costly, either. A standard efficiency arrangement would be fine given that I’d have most of my nice stuff (like high-end electronics) up in the Poconos.

In short, I think I could definitely make that type of living scenario work out. And I’ve given it a lot of thought so I’m sure I’ve thought through most of the difficulties. Oh, and I wouldn’t worry abo-

Hey! Wake-up!

Those are just the daydreams from someone in my situation. You know, someone who has pushed more than $135,000 into student loans over a 6 year period; someone whose 12-month budget shows a whole lot of additional money getting pushed into student loan payments to finish these things off. And here’s the kicker of the whole situation: I might be 12 months away from being free of these students loans, but that doesn’t mean the financial daydreams you read above would be kicked into high gear. Not at all.

Instead, once my student loans are paid off I can then just begin to think about budgeting to start saving to meet just one of those daydreams.

And that is a splash of ice cold reality in the face of some fun daydreaming, don’t you think?

Couldn't find a good picture online, so this is a picture of my home office. Where the magic happens!

The first question that some folks might ask is, “Why? What happened?” Okay, I guess that’s two questions. The answer to these questions is actually pretty simple. First, the local college changed their general education requirements to require only one social science class instead of two. Personally, I think that this is a mistake on the college’s part because if there was ever a time in our history that we needed to promote greater understanding of political aspects of our society – it’s now! In any event, I teach introductory courses in the Political Science department. This change in the general education requirements led to less demand for introductory courses from the college’s incoming Freshmen (and all students) and, ultimately, led to the department assigning less teaching assignments to the adjuncts.

I don’t feel down about this, though (and you shouldn’t either!). I’m cool with the arrangement. Look, I want the local college (to which I am a donor) to run and operate as efficiently as possible. If that means that the college has to put a few of us adjuncts on the academic equivalent of the “reserve list,” then so be it. That’s the way the process in these institutions is supposed to work – when there is more demand, then they need more hands on deck; when there is less demand, then less instructors are needed. I’m cool with it.

Plus, my teaching obligations at the all-online college have been steadily picking up since I started with them last year. For an example of how these teaching assignments have been increasing – I started at the all-online college teaching one class with 4 or 5 students in it. Over the last year, I’ve been asked to teach a variety of courses from nonprofit management to foundations of leadership and I now routinely get assigned 20+ student classes each “semester” (I put “semester” in quotes because at this college, each month begins a new semester and thus I can be assigned a new class with new students each month).

The online teaching assignments take up a great deal of my free time, but I’m fine with putting in the time because all of the income I earn from this teaching will go directly towards my tax obligation remaining student loan debt.

So there’s a brief update on where I’m at with two of my side gigs. Don’t despair – I’m cool with all of it!

That’s not exactly healthy!

Back in 2004 and for most of 2005 I dropped a bunch of weight. I went from weighing 385 pounds all the way down to about 260 pounds. That’s pretty significant. However, during 2004 and 2005 I was a graduate student working two part-time jobs that really didn’t take up much of my free time. In those days, I would go to the gym twice a day if I was feeling good. Then in August 2006 I was hired by my current company on a full-time basis and things changed.

For starters, I went from a daily commute of about 5 minutes to a daily commute of about 2 hours and working 8+ hours in between the commutes. For those of you who are reading this and you’re just getting ready to graduate from college or graduate school – beware of your pending commute! I know that the job market is tough and people have to take jobs where they can find them, but if you’re the type of person that absolutely must spend a good deal of time in the gym in order to stay healthy, then please take that into consideration as you apply for jobs. Having a commute that can actually harm your health is one of the many dirty secrets that I found out about the working world once I got out of school (I found out some other really crappy stuff, but that’s for a future entry).

The other thing that changed was my Father being diagnosed with a terminal illness just two months after I started my new job. That diagnosis made me go out of my way to spend any bit of free time in a different part of the state from where I live (and, incidentally, from where I work). In other words, my free time was not spent in the gym – for good and obvious reasons.

The next big change occurred right after my Father passed which happened to be about a year after I was hired at my full-time job. The change this time was me getting hired as an Adjunct Professor at the local college teaching class two nights each week.

We’ll stop for a minute and review the timeline thus far: I went from having all of the free time in the world to taking on a 2 hour daily commute (not to mention going from a part-time employee to a full-time employee) to spending whatever free time I could muster an hour and a half away from both my job and my apartment so I could be with my family to being hired as an Adjunct Professor teaching twice each week at night.

On top of all of that stuff, I was still operating my website company and managing a few websites (including this blog) as well as reorganizing my finances to better prepare myself for the future (i.e. the huge student loan repayment push last year). When I thought I found a balance that allowed me a few hours of free time each week, I was elected to serve on the Board of Trustees for a national foundation which takes up more time than I care to let on about. Once I figured out how to balance the Trustee position with the rest of my life, I wound up getting hired as an online instructor at an all-online college (in addition to being an Adjunct Professor at the local college and my full-time day job with the commute).

I don’t have to tell you all, but this is an exhausting schedule to keep.

And in addition to being exhausting, it’s also not very healthy. So this year I’ve tried to take advantage of a few things that are working in my favor. First, I wasn’t scheduled to teach at the local college this semester. That means that I’m not going to be teaching in a face-to-face setting until next September so I don’t have to worry about that time constraint. Second, I’ve been spending a lot of time spinning off certain website clients that used to take up too much of my free time with silly, unnecessary requests. Sure, I have more clients to spin off, but the ones that I’ve let go thus far have dramatically decreased the amount of time I spend on dealing with my website company. Third, I’m coming to a head on many of the major items that I undertook as a member of the Board of Trustees for the national foundation. Once these major items are completed (likely by April), I’m going to only take on one project at a time for the foundation – and I’m going to make sure that the projects are small and manageable in my free time. Fourth, the all-online college didn’t schedule me to teach in either the January 2011 or February 2011 semester (each month starts a new semester for them which runs some 10 weeks).

And maybe the best change in circumstances of all is that my day job is planning to move its location from about 45 miles away from where I live to about 30 miles from where I live. In addition to the shorter distance, I plan on going to the office a little bit earlier each day and then leaving a little bit earlier to avoid traffic. With this plan, I could net a gain of about forty-five minutes to an hour each day of new free time.

With all of these constraints on my time being reduced, I figure that now is as good a time as any to try to get back into the spirit of 2004 and 2005 as best I can. To that end, I joined a gym, I spent some time doing research online to piece together a really good, low-impact weightlifting and cardio plan, and joined a calorie counting website to monitor the amount of calories that I’m taking in each day.

Tomorrow, I’ll post an entry about things that will be different this time around for my attempt to get a little bit more healthy. For example, back in 2004 and 2005 I was really looking to drop an incredible amount of weight for reasons of health, but also for reasons of vanity (who doesn’t like looking less heavy?). I don’t really care about that this time around. What I really care about this time around is reducing the amount of pills that I have to take everyday. I’ve had enough of these 10 pills each day!

Anyway, more on what will likely be different this time around in tomorrow’s entry.

In addition, I’ve been reading through some of the books that are taking up space on my bookshelf and, obviously, you should look for a few book reviews coming in the next few days/weeks. And hey, at least one of these reviews is for a book sent to me from a professional wrestler’s publishing company so I could offer some commentary on the piece. Pretty cool, huh? Here are some other things that I’m working on that may not receive their own entry on JerseySmarts.com:

• Sigma Pi Educational Foundation: I make no secret out of the fact that I donate my time, talent, and whatever treasure I can scrounge up to the Sigma Pi Educational Foundation. With respect to that “talent” portion of my contributions, since August I’ve been heading up the Foundation’s strategic plan study group. This duty has allowed me to work closely with some of my fellow Trustees as well as some volunteers – all of whom are looking for a better, stronger way forward for the Foundation and Fraternity alike. Earlier this week we held the last focus group conference call which capped a two and a half week period of these types of calls – many of which I was on for over an hour. I’ve compiled a preliminary, raw data report and sent it out for the study group’s review. Later this week we’re going to have another conference call and then I’m going to spend some time compiling a final report to the entire Board of Trustees. However, the work isn’t over yet. In a few weeks I’ll be heading to Nashville, Tennessee to present our research findings and then to lead the larger strategic planning process with the entire Board of Trustees. This process will be capped off during the December/January time frame and then, finally, I can take a breather on this stuff! By the way, click here if you want to make a small, 100% tax-deductible donation to support the Foundation’s scholarships.
• Preparing for a Family Night: Over the last few weeks, I worked with my brothers and future sister-in-law to plan for a family night and dinner for my Mother’s recent birthday. We had the family night and dinner last night and it was a lot of fun, I think. In fact, one of the best things to come out of last night was a family discussion about reducing our excess spending on Christmas this year because, frankly, we’re all working towards specific financial goals that require a dedicated planning effort on our parts. It was a great conversation and a great conclusion, I think. Plus, spending the night with the family for dinner to celebrate my Mother’s birthday was a great time!
• Financial Planning Roadblock, Courtesy of NJHESAA: I’m not sure yet, but I might spin this little blip off into its own entry to mimic an entry that I wrote both one month ago and many months ago. The long and short of it is that I sent a $1,000 payment to NJHESAA on Monday, October 18th. The check was finally posted to my account on Thursday, October 28th. But that’s not what has me completely frustrated and aggravated with this anti-customer service organization. What bothers me is that I sent a $4,300 check to NJHESAA on Tuesday, October 19th and here we are on Saturday, October 30th and the check hasn’t been posted to my account yet. What the Hell is NJHESAA waiting for to post my damn check?! This isn’t hard, NJHESAA – I know you have the check now post the damn thing to my account for goodness’ sake. I can’t wait to be done with this miserable, horrible organization. NJHESAA could learn a thing or two from the United States Department of Education about customer service and making the student loan repayment process easier for the borrower. Because, at this point, NJHESAA’s payment processing system is borderline ineffective which tells me that there has to be some incompetent people working there. What else could bring on a nearly two week delay?!
• Financial Projections and Forecasting Stunted: As you might imagine, because of NJHESAA’s inability to process a check with any semblance of efficiency, my financial projections and forecasting has been stunted for the last few weeks. For a guy who checks each of his accounts both in the morning and at night (and sometimes in the middle of the day), waiting for these bozos to post this check is torture. I’ve been adjusting my projection models by $4,300 every time that I go in there and make a move. It’s annoying. I have a lot of financial goals that I expect myself to achieve in the coming weeks, months, and years and with my ability to precisely project when my dollars will be posted to various accounts, it makes planning for the immediate future very difficult.
• Bizarre Indian Summer: I’m not going to spin this out into its own entry because it’s short, but if you live in New Jersey then you know that we had this weird Indian summer hit us in the last week or so. Before the mini-heat wave hit, I went out and purchased a radiator for my bedroom and it’s awesome! It actually warms up the entire second floor of the townhouse – can’t complain about that at all!
• Beginning to Complete Coursework: Some of you may remember that I’m actually enrolled in an independent study course at the local college where I teach. Successfully completing this independent study will give me a Public Relations Specialist certificate. Not too bad, huh? I’ve read through the material for the course and, once the final strategic plan report is completed for the Foundation (see above), I’m going to aggressively complete the required coursework for the independent study. I’ve decided that this is going to be the last course that I take for a while since it will complete the certificate program. Also, I don’t want to go back for more education until my life calms down just a little bit (which I think is coming within the next two years, thankfully).
• Grading, Grading, and More Grading: It’s midterm season at the college where I’m an Adjunct Professor so you know what that means – grading time! But it’s not only grading time for the class that I teach in the face-to-face setting. It’s also grading time for the classes that I teach for the online college. I’m thinking of asking the online college to reduce the number of classes that they assign to me – they’re giving me two or three each month and it is so incredibly time consuming that it’s painful sometimes…
• Some Consistency at the Local Gym: Hey – I’ve been going to the local college gym at least once each weekend for the last three weeks. Not bad, right? And now you know why I’ve been able to read so much in the last few weeks – I’ve been on the treadmill. I’ll be heading to the gym tomorrow morning before the trick-or-treaters start knocking on my door. While my results at the gym haven’t been overly impressive (I’m not necessarily losing a bunch of weight – a pound here and there maybe), I am pretty pleased that I’ve been able to make it there one day each weekend during a very busy, crazy time for me.
• Unending Projects at the Office: Hovering above all of the stuff written above is the fact that I have a pretty busy, increasingly stressful day job. Part of that stress comes from the person that manages my department and her mood swings, part of that stress comes from a changing workplace that expects the existing employees to transition to a new organizational structure without officially telling us what that structure will look like (or interviewing us for new positions), and part of that stress comes from the daily grind stuff that needs to be completed day in and day out that is made harder by the fact that my particular department is well-understaffed and thus we all have to do four/five different jobs each. And when you add in the fact that I’ve been doing a lot of the communication work for the organization – you can see how the stress builds up. Very annoying and, frankly, until this day-to-day stress goes away (which better happen soon), I think some of the other goals I have for my health and finances are going to be hard to achieve.
• Changing the Face of Usable Web Solutions, LLC: Thankfully, after months of trying, I’ve successfully spun off one of my last remaining problem clients. Sure, the client screwed me on the way out the door, but I’m so excited that this client is gone that I don’t even care any more about the screw job. Whatever. Removing this client effectively removes more stress from my life and, ultimately, makes Usable Web Solutions, LLC a stronger, better organization. And with that, I’m beginning to change the nature of this small business. In the future, I’m going to focus on websites that are owned by the company and bring in advertising revenue because, honestly, that’s where the money is in this online business stuff. Going out there to find independent clients is not the way to find success in the website world.
• Barnes & Noble’s New NookColor: Here’s a quick item for both the “Watch What You Say to Customers” and “Buyer Beware” files. For some awful reason I’ve been researching e-readers lately. I don’t know why – I love reading an actual book and I really don’t like the setup or arrangement of the e-readers that are on the market. But still, I began researching them and decided that I wanted to buy a Barnes & Noble Nook. However, something told me to wait. I wasn’t sure what it was that told me to wait, but I think it had something to do with the good voice in my head constantly shouting that I had dozens and dozens of physical books in my home that I haven’t even read yet! So, this buyer was wary of the products on the market and didn’t buy. Then, lo and behold, the NookColor is introduced and now I want to buy that thing as soon as possible (probably early next year once the inevitable glitches have been worked out). But the “Watch What You Say to Customers” file comes into play here because, just days before the NookColor was released I asked the guy at the local Barnes & Noble whether or not a new model was coming out and he swore up and down to me that, “We’re not Apple – we don’t have a new version of the product each year.” Oh yeah? Really? Hmmm…

There are a few different items that I’ve been working on that I didn’t think would find full entries on JerseySmarts.com. However, this stuff may be of some importance to a few of you so I hope that you enjoyed reading!

As some of you may remember, I teach at the local college. Well, two weeks ago was the first day of class and I just took over the teaching assignment for this class at the end of August. The problem with switching teaching assignments so close to the beginning of the school year is that the previous professor’s books are still the ones that are listed as the required texts – and I use different books. Thus, we have a problem.

My students came to class on the first day and most of them had the wrong textbook with them. No problem, I thought. I told the students to go back to the bookstore and explain the issue and that it shouldn’t be a problem to get a refund and switch out the book that they bought with the correct one. I’ve worked with the bookstore before and they’re typically a good, easy-going bunch.

However, I decided that since I was on vacation from my day job that after class that day I would walk over to the bookstore and just double check to be sure that the right books were assigned to my class section (they were). When I arrived at the bookstore, I noticed some of my students switching out their books, which was good. I asked one of the runners (they have students that run to the back to check on questions when they come up) if she could go and check my book assignments. By the response on this young girl’s face, you would have thought that I asked her to do high end calculus using nothing but an abacus. She responded with something like, “Oh… I don’t think I can do that, but let me ask my supervisor.” And before I could tell her not to worry about it, she was gone.

Folks, the last thing I want to do as an adjunct professor on the first day of school is bother a supervisor in the bookstore. If you’ve ever been to a college bookstore on the first day of classes, it’s mayhem. The young girl came running back and said to follow her to the back. Immediately, I put my guard up because not only was this completely unnecessary, but I knew that whoever I was going to speak with was going to be irate at my presence.

And I was right.

This young girl took me to a person in the back who was checking something on her computer as she was hunched over it. She said something like, “Yes. Hello.” I told her who I was and that my class had been changed a few weeks ago and that I used different textbooks than the previous professor. She responded with, “You can go online and check the textbooks to see if they’re the right ones.” So I told her that I went online the night before to check the texts and they were incorrect. And I also told her that I e-mailed the bookstore about the assignment change a few weeks prior to school starting and never received a response. She responded with, “Well, it’s been a little busy around here in case you can’t tell. You can go online and check the textbooks to see if they’re the right ones.”

Now, at this point I’m not in the mood for some idiot’s stance that she’s going to keep on going to the same line about checking online. So I said very calmly, “Yes. I checked online last night and they were wrong. I know that you guys are busy and you are all doing a great job. However, my students came to class with the wrong books this morning so I just wanted to double check.”

She responded with, “You can double check online.” I should note that the dummy was doing ten different things while trying to address my concerns and that after she repeated about going online to double check, she walked right by me without looking and stomped towards the front of the book counter. I slowly followed her and said, “I’d like to check the shelf.” And as it happened, she was marching by my books and said, “They’re over here somewhere,” as she pointed to her left. She then added, “If they’re wrong, let me know, but you can check all of this stuff online in the future.”

At this point, and as you might imagine, I was done talking to her. The combination of her not listening to me and relying on some stupid talking point about going online wasn’t helping the fact that her tone was a mixture of anger and frustration. So I walked over to where my books were, saw that the change was made, and began to walk out of the restricted area. On my way out, I called out, “Thank you. You guys are doing a great job. I appreciate it.”

No one responded.

And so I share this story with you because it’s been a while since I wrote about someone this rude and downright ignorant. I hope you’ve enjoyed because I enjoyed shaking my head in disgust as I left the bookstore!