I had a bin full of projects from my UMBC class sitting at my desk waiting to be graded last weekend. Saturday was all about the greenhouse, and Sunday started out rainy, so I spread them out on the coffee table and dug in. By 1PM I was about halfway through and by 6 I had grading sheets written out, grades entered, and printouts ready for proofing. That’s the first time I’ve turned grades around in one week, but it was worth the effort. I’ve got several students in danger of failing who needed the feedback as soon as possible, and I’m going to be tapped out for the next two weekends with other commitments.

We’re gearing up for a huge event at work, being held at Hudson Yards in New York City two weeks from now. It’s a huge deal for WRI because it’s our biennial fundraiser and this year we’re honoring one of our biggest donors in the middle of his largest project, which as of right now isn’t even finished yet. I’ve been tapped to assemble and oversee the video backdrop for the whole thing, as well as all of the printed visuals, and take photos on the night before and the night of the event. It’s exciting and interesting and will be a challenge to execute, but right now it’s taken over everything else I’m doing at work–which is itself an above-average workload.

Finley’s business is moving forward through profit and investment; she’s increased her net to $21 through a second day of sales, completed a page of color studies, and is now ready to go to final on her logo. I had a long chat with her about profit, loss, and partnership after she mentioned she’d made a friend a co-owner of the business. Digging deeper, I got her to tell me she’d invited a friend to work the stand with her, which sounds great, but I asked if she was going to split the profits as she’d done before. When she told me that was her plan, we got into a discussion about profit-sharing with partners who don’t invest the same amount (I’ve been teaching her about re-investing her profits into supplies as a way to teach her basic business skills) and after a couple of examples I got her to see that maybe giving half of her profit away to friends who just come and hang out might not be the best business model.