Process Essay

Each morning I wake up and stare at my phone. My ears are on high alert for that wretched screeching noise it makes, that inevitably starts another day. As I lay in the bed trying to somehow sink my body into the mattress to keep myself from having to get up, the screeching noise begins. Thus starts the day of endless tasks that must be accomplished. I run through the list in my head over and over and over to make sure I am not forgetting anything. Then I start to think to myself, I wonder what on the list can be pushed back a little? I know that come five 'o clock there will be an over grown hungry monster walking through the door and I must muster the strength to get out of bed and get the morning started. I swing one leg over the side of the bed and let it dangle there for a few moments, waiting to see if gravity will somehow pull the rest of me down and out of bed.

It's not as though only one day a week starts like this, but it seems to be each day starts this way. Each day is packed with as many tasks as possible to optimize time and maximize opportunities. Once I've managed to pry myself out of bed, it is off to the bathroom to see what I need to do to make myself look acceptable to the general public. I fix my matted down hair, brush my teeth, grab some clothes and off I am to the office. Stacks of paper greet me each and every day when I enter that tiny little room. There's a stack of bills, receipts, checks that need to be deposited, textbooks for the homework that never seems to be done.

I try to get myself organized as quickly as possible so I am not interrupted by a phone call that will throw me off.I always sort things in the same way, by what it urgent, what needs to be reviewed and then what can wait until another day. This helps me handle the most important things first, like paying fuel taxes, fuel expenses, insurances, faxing paperwork to the various companies we work with and ultimately getting people paid. The process is time consuming, because each document you fill out has several little things that go with it, you can bet that when you need those little things, you can never find them. Receipts stick to each other, invoices hide and bills go unpaid.

Once I've organized and sorted through the massive amounts of paperwork that linger in the office and I've gone to the post office, it is time for a break. Time to head downstairs and clean the house and figure out supper plans. I scoop up all the dirty dishes and whisk them off to the kitchen, fold the blankets in the living room and wipe down every surface. In this household we don't like germs. Upon entering the bathroom each day I am promptly greeted with a mound of dirty laundry and a deceiving mound of laundry it is. Regardless of how many loads of laundry I do each day, that mound never seems to get any smaller. I fear that the laundry breeds at a rate comparable to rabbits.

Finally after the grueling tasks of office work, housework and dinner are handled the day starts to wind down and that is when the homework is tackled. I go through each class, figure out what needs to be done and how long it will take me to do it. I try to figure out what the professor is looking for and maximize the chances that they will get just that. Then my mind goes right back to the office thinking of the paperwork that must be dealt with in the morning, you see it is a vicious cycle that never ends. Six hours of sleep do little to convince me that I'm ready for the day to begin each morning.