I thought that the title for this post was particularly appropriate since it probably applies to a lot of Christian students across America at this time of the year, much like myself. When the summer months roll around, and it's time to turn our focus ever-so-slightly away from school, we have to instead focus on earning a living for a few months before financial aid, loans, scholarhips, fellowships, and what-have-you kick back in. As some of you might already know, I'm fortunate enough to be fully funded by a fellowship for the academic year plus a nice stipend. One of the only downsides of this particular type of university funding, as opposed to teaching assistanceships, is that fellowship students don't receive any type of funding for the summer months. Truth be told, I could probably take what I have left over from my stipend over the last year and live off of the for the summer, but being the financially-minded guy that I am, I like to save money rather than spend it. As a result, I got my summer job at the store that you all have heard so much about. In addition to that job however, I also work at a publishing company through my department and do some other little odds and end jobs each week. On top of all that, I've also volunteered to work with a professor of mine on a very long and very time-consuming project this summer. It's an unpaid thing, which is not a problem since it's for my professional development and I'm really excited about doing it. It will also result in a publication, which obviously will look great on my resume. The only problem with this project is just the sheer amount of time that it takes to work on it. When I have so much going on already that I am being paid to do, finding time to work on unpaid things that I actually want to do becomes a problem. If only I had been able to find a job that required less time for more money...isn't that what we all hope for?! Anyways, I'm managing to juggle all these things with very little problem, at least up until this point. I just long for a day that I really don't have anything to do that I actually need to get done. Of course I wouldn't really relax and not do anything, but I would end up working on things or reading things that I actually want to do for myself and not for some job or some project. That would be my ideal summer day. As things have turned out, the project that I was working on with my professor, though I had originally heard that it was to be finished by the first week of August, has actually been bumped up until to the last week of June. Let me tell you that having a whole four weeks less time to work on something like I am doing is absolutely no fun at all. When I learned about this new timeline this afternoon, I had to sit back and totally reassess the remainder of my summer, or at least the next three to four weeks to figure out how I am possibly going to manage getting done the amount of work on the project that I still need to complete. I'm sure that I won't have any problem getting done what I need to, because I am very oriented to attaining my goal and I know that my hard work will be justified in the long run. I just have to keep reminding myself of this fact as I progress through the day. This is much of the same strategy that I use every single morning when I wake up to go to work. I just tell myself that if I get up and go in and get everything done, I can reward myself by taking a nap for a few hours in the early afternoon when I get home. Although this gets me through the first fifteen minutes or so of being awake in the morning, the idea of taking a nap as a feasible possibility has worn off by the time I actually get to work. I know that there is just no time to sit around and do something as ridiculous and wasteful for my time as taking a nap. That is valuable time that I need to be taking advantage of. In the long run, having to push this deadline ahead by a month will at least ensure that I get the work done, and then I will have a whole month where I can probably turn those possibilities for naps into reality.