Busy? Honey, this isn't even excited yet.

When I came to NBCC for the second time to do this most recent program, all the instructors ever wanted to talk about was how incredibly busy we would be. Seven hours of lectures on Monday, an average of five a day across the week, with assignments for every class that would take at least an hour or so's commitment. Homework to make a grown man cry, on top of your studying. You in the army now, son.

Well, with the admission that I'm not taking the communications course for the three hours a week everyone else is, I'm pretty sure that so far that's all been a load of baloney. Rare is the assignment delivered that can't be completed before the time comes to leave the building. Instructors assign the reading from the textbook a week ahead of when they expect to touch the material, so even taking notes in class has been reduced to a mere insertion of a footnote wherever the teacher seems to linger the most, with the words "expect on test". The whole year's writing has consumed just two cartridges for my Schaeffer fountain pen and I write at least two pages of personal notes for every page of schoolwork required to be done by hand... mathmatics, mostly.

Very little is submitted. I have enough time during the day to go through my blog reading, usually get into an argument or two online, try and guestimate what the market is doing, and insulate my simulation against the inevitable crash from Greece's fiscal irresponsibility and the rest of the world's inability to see that we're all in this together. I lost big money yesterday, not because I didn't have time to dump the shares out of the simulator, but simply because I couldn't have cared enough. It was inevitable. The TSX dropped something like 300 points. Nobody made money, yesterday, unless they short-sold their entire portfolios right at market open.

And that's just the morning. In the afternoons I usually have time to balance my books (a real task, considering there's about 2000 dollars floating around in them right now that I seem to have pulled out of the clear blue sky), read a chapter or so out of whatever I happen to be reading (or re-reading, since the late target has been Getting Things Done by David Allen), send about a half-dozen emails to my brother in the next class, and still find the time to be bored.

Maybe I'm more effective than I remember at balancing my time, but it doesn't feel it. Sure, my house is a mess, but not much I can do about that from the comforts of the class-room, and I certainly wasn't this good at multi-tasking in the kitchen at the Hilton. Then again, I've always been good at numbers and letters.

In any event, I almost wish there was some way I could sell my empty time, try and cut the losses I incur. Last month cost me nearly four grand, with nothing more than the interest on my not-exactly-Warren-Buffet accounts to defray the expense. I thought about writing articles freelance, but then you have to ask yourself "about what" and "for who"

Any suggestions for a guy with a computer and a brain for the English Language and financial math?