The boat still floats and journeys onward!

I decided to write for a bit as I'm across the street from our home printing out some materials for Jen, and had to pay for a half-hour of computer time in order to print the 25-cents-per-page (welcome to Canada!) document, which thankfully was only a couple of pages. The place smells like unwashed punks, which brings back the memory of some basement shows, but I can't tell if it's just the place, or if it's the guy who's fallen asleep and is snoring in front of computer No. 5 (I'm at computer No. 10 about ten feet away) but is not logged in, as evidenced by the oscillating graphic on the screen in front of him. It's pretty impressive, actually, how he's just asleep in the chair, while the front-counter guy pays him no mind, having since gone outside for a smoke and come back in. It's not that cold out - only 18 degrees - but who knows. It's a 24-hour place and there's that Mickey's Diner-type vibe that this place and all 24-hour joints have. It makes me a little nostalgic for the nights when I'd stay out at Hard Times reading things that I simply wanted to read, digesting the verbage of James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, David Korten, so much that was so formative for me.

But back to the matter at hand.

After I'm done typing here, I'll resume studying for my management accounting final on Tuesday afternoon, which hopefully will not be as demoralizing as the managerial finance mid-term I took on Thursday, where I clearly failed it and it's only a matter of whether I am at the bottom of the score range or not. At least most everyone came out of the room shaking their heads, but it would have been nice to have some more rigorous class examples to give us a hint at the steamroller that we'd face. When studying the chapters gives you no real preparation, is that on me or the professor? It's a little of both, but the stereotype persists that every professor thinks that their class is the most important, and that things should be clear.

Then again, I've been exposed as a poor test-taker, much to my own irritation. My experience in the business world has taken me out of the if-you-fail-at-this, you'll-fail-in-business mentality, as my life experience has taught me that that's clearly not how the business world works; it may be that way in some areas, but of all the good I've been able to do, there's no punishment that has mirrored the effects of passing or failing a test.  (Each loan application I ever worked with was its own "test", in a way.) I'm a much better writer than test-taker, am comfortable talking in front of people even with no real preparation, all thanks to my self-study and my band experience, respectively.

More to the point, though, I like the explanatory power of management accounting, regardless of how brutal and comprehensive the test is going to be. As I was going over the slides earlier this morning, I was reminded of how I'm still adjusting to adopting the mentality of a manager, being rewarded for thinking analytically and holistically, when my entire professional career (save perhaps for my Wellstone time when I'd mastered the requirements of the position) has provided no such reward for such thinking, and has in fact actively discouraged it through the job design and the organizational expectations.

To learn to think in new ways is one thing, but to have the confidence that you'll not only be able to apply them, but be expected to apply them - well, that's something I've never experienced, but it's something that I'm being trained for.

The sleeper has stopped snoring for the moment, and my time here is almost up. Time to move on, time to continue to prepare yet again for a three-hour moment during which I will do my best.