The Shrine

<div style='font: bold 9pt ; text-align: left; '>This sucks. Pouring down snow, all schools are closed and I'm at work! Being an adult sucks!</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "Fine Hand"; text-align: left; '>*looks outside of office window* It's raining in WashingtonDC.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>I have to teach a lab tomorrow morning. On a Saturday.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt "Cooper Black"; text-align: left; '>boohoo, from January 15 to April 15 i'll have to work 10 hours a day 6 days a week.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "Fine Hand"; text-align: left; '>Doing what?</div>

<div style='font: 11pt Dominion; text-align: left; '>I get to slide across campus in the snow/slush to get to class...PSU never closes for snow</div>

<div style='font: 12pt "Cooper Black"; text-align: left; '>I havent worked out all the details yet and when i do i will post them, but if anyone here wants their taxes done for them i'll be offering my services free of charge for the first year.

I am allowed to use the company's resources and programs, but you will have to mail them off yourself or e-file with the IRS since you will not technically a client of our firm. I'm in the process of making a checklist/questionaire for people to fill out to make the work easier for the both of us.

More information to come later...</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "Fine Hand"; text-align: left; '>You're a CPA? So's my dad.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt "Cooper Black"; text-align: left; '>but that doesnt stop anyone from being a tax preparer, you dont have to be a CPA to do taxes it is just that most people feel more comfortable having a CPA prepare their taxes (and they pay more for it).

There are 4 parts to the exam, i think i may have passed 2 or 3, in which case i can retake the ones i missed in June, then if passed i get certified.

At my public firm i do taxes, audits and bookkeeping. Its a small firm so everyone does a little of everything. During the 'season' (roughly Jan 15 to April 15) everyone does a lot of tax work. Off the clock they do not frown upon employees using the company software and resources to do returns for friends and family. They realize that once these friends and family returns get more complicated they will become clients.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "Fine Hand"; text-align: left; '>Good luck. My sister took 4 CPA exams. Let's just say that she'd rather have her wisdom teeth pulled.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>I'm a graduate student. I work 16 hours a day 7 days a week.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt "Cooper Black"; text-align: left; '>School has been in for months, dont you do something every Saturday? I dont doubt your stress level, but i've defenitely realized how much more free time i had while in school. Plus, my roommate last year during our 4th years at JMU dated a W&M grad student and if she had time to drive over to JMU twice a week and get drunk with us and still get her degree then i dont want to hear about it.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>The weekend is when I get the chance to do course work uninterrupted by classes. But because of hurricane Isabel, we have to make up days over the weekend. Normally, at least I can catch up on some sleep on the weekend - and then come into the grad office and work the rest of the day.

<i>I dont doubt your stress level, but i've defenitely realized how much more free time i had while in school.</i>

That's because you were an undergrad - just like I was last year. And yeah, I had much more free time as an undergrad. Trust me, graduate schools is much more intense. As an undergrad, I had the time to lift three times a week. I haven't lifted in almost three weeks now.

<i>Plus, my roommate last year during our 4th years at JMU dated a W&M grad student and if she had time to drive over to JMU twice a week and get drunk with us and still get her degree then i dont want to hear about it.</i>

She wasn't a CS grad student. She also probably wasn't funded.

What did you do Wednesday night? Sleep, maybe? See, I didn't. I worked the entire night. I don't mean, "I worked a lot Wednesday night," I mean I worked the <i>entire</i> night. My simulations final project went from 0 to 29 pages in 16 hours. I came to campus 9 am Wednesday morning, and I didn't leave campus until 3:30 pm on Thursday. That's 31 consecutive hours on campus, wide awake. When I went home, I took a three hour nap, then came right back to campus to grade labs and prepare for Saturday's lab.

You get one day a week off? That sounds nice. In the past five or six weeks, I've had one day off. It was the day after Thanksgiving. Did you spend Thanksgiving day with your family? I didn't. I spent it in the CS grad office working on a systems programming assignment. I took Friday off because they came into town. They were in town until Sunday. However, I still worked on Saturday and Sunday.

Don't get into a pissing contest with a grad student over how much you work, because you're going to lose.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt "Cooper Black"; text-align: left; '>I'm a strong proponent for the philosophy that quality work done at a reasonably quick pace can exist.

I also believe there are some people who feed off of stress, create it for themselves, and want to make sure everyone around them knows how terribly harrowed they are.

I dont think you are this type of person, though, so i guess i'll take your word for it that no CS gradute student at W&M sleeps or gets time off. You must have sadistic teachers since they pile more and more work onto their zombie eyed, drooling from exhaustion students. I can almost hear them cackling now.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt "Cooper Black"; text-align: left; '>ack, actually i guess CS isnt apart of the business department so you wouldnt have had to take general business classes.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>When you're swamped, the only time management rule you have is "Work on what's due next."</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "Fine Hand"; text-align: left; '>You got just enough time to take a dump, shower and sleep.</div>

<div style='font: bold 10pt ; text-align: left; '>In my opinion, putting your body through that isn't worth it period. You're just doing it to yourself. I just can't understand all the school some people go through. BSc in CS, then work, then a masters in something else for me :P</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Exactly what is graduate school?</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "Fine Hand"; text-align: left; '>Remember my comment about you being "Sharp as a bowling ball?".....this is one of many reasons why I say it. =8^)</div>

<div style='font: 11pt Dominion; text-align: left; '>hey man...bowling pins are made from wood...and that means they can have splinters...and those things hurt...right? :P</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "Fine Hand"; text-align: left; '>I said bowling ball. Not bowling pins. =8^)</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Well, in undergraduate school, which is what most people just call "college," you get a Bachelor's degree. If you want a Master's or a Ph.D., you go to graduate school. I'm currently working on my Master's in Computer Science.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Arial; text-align: left; '>Don't mind Tess, he's just as sharp as a bowling pin. :) j/k!</div>

<div style='font: bold 9pt ; text-align: left; '>As am I, but much much more slowly. :)</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Sorry. I never went to graduate school, so I don't know exactly what its purpose serves. Tis a better thing to ask questions than to assume you already know the answer.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>I figured as much, but I just wanted to make sure. I didn't realize that you already had a BS.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>I graduated from Virginia Tech in May.</div>