At my job, late Fall and Winter are considered ‘busy season’, a period of time where my nights and weekends more or less become the property of my employer. Every year, the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel is the month of March, when work dies down and my social life puts its on its game face. And even though this year’s busy season was significantly lighter than the ones in years past, this March will not be. A brief rundown of what’s happened so far, and what’s to come:

March 1: SuperHugeClientEvent
This basically marked “The End” of the madness at work, and capped off two weeks of insane hours (85+/week). At midnight (the official end), a bunch of us went to a bar to celebrate. While most of the night consisted of the standard “Hooray we’re done!” shots, a pivotal point in the night came when one of the highest people on my team, basically my boss’ boss, walked over to me with a pair of “Prarie Fires”. It was only after taking the shot with him (and nearly breathing actual fire) that I discovered it consisted of tequila and tabasco sauce. Needless to say, later that night, when I found myself challenging him to ANOTHER ROUND, I realized the next day would not be pleasant. As expected, the wicked hangover and the lack of sleep of all week kept me bedridden until 6:00PM.

March 3: St. Patrick’s Day?
My first experience with the Hoboken festivities, which for some inexplicable yet awesome reason are held two weeks prior to the actual day being celebrated, thereby giving New Yorkers TWO chances to celebrate each year. In year’s past, I wasn’t able to attend due to SuperHugeClientEvents being scheduled later in the month, but this year I was fortunate to be able to make an appearance. We got an early start and were blessed by good weather, and the day turned out to be the closest thing in three years to the deeply-missed St. Patty’s celebrations of Ann Arbor (key similarity: ice luge).

March 5-9: Nothingness
The period after a SuperHugeClientEvent is one in which there is basically nothing to do at work. I spent most of the week “working from home”, and while I realize this might have been a good time to post something here, its hard coming up with stuff to write when you’re literally sitting around doing nothing.

March 11: Touch Down There!
Ahh, football season is back and our team played its season-opener scrimmage on Sunday. Happy Hour followed. Becca puts it best when she says, “Flipcup on Sunday makes Monday really rough.” (Amendment A: Throw in an epic best-of-three 15-cup beer pong battle and holy crap did today suck.)

March 12: More?!
Briggs sent an email this morning saying “It’s sunny and 60 today, and it’s now daylight until 7pm. Does anyone want to try and meet up after work to do something?” When Briggs sends these emails, bad things usually happen. The DVR is set to record 24 tonight, and I’ll likely catch up tomorrow, when I “work from home”.

March 15: Madness, Med School
NCAA tourney time. Michigan’s bubble burst last week, not surprisingly given the fact our ‘Just go run around and uh, do stuff’ style of offense. In any case, one of the best sporting events of the year will soon be upon us. I think there’s an unofficial Man Law out there that says all men must save two vacation days per year to use during Round 1.

Of course, the gambling might be the best part of it all. I’ve committed myself to a minimum of 6 entries in various pools, and by submitting different brackets into each one (maximizing my chance of winning), I will now be rooting for everyone and no one. Go Florida! Or OSU! Or UNC! Fuck it, let’s root for Holy Cross!

I think the ultimate sign that I’ve gone overboard with the gambling is the bet I made last Friday. Sachin and I were at a bar next door to our apartment, grabbing lunch and watching the Michigan-Ohio State game. As we sat at the bar, we heard a patron talk to the bartender about some sort of pool. our ears perked up, we asked the bartender for details, and the next thing we know, we’re buying two squares on the grid (bets on the numbers in the final score) they were running for the championship game. Best part: I didn’t have any cash on me, so I bought my square with a promise to come in and pay later. In a nutshell, I had a gambling debt with an Irish bartender on a game three and half weeks away being played by two still-to-be-determined teams. If that’s not taking things too far, I don’t know what is.

In addition to March 15 being the start of the tournament, it’s also Match Day for medical students. On Thursday, fourth-year med students around the country will find out the results of some complicated matching process and will finally know where they’re headed for their residencies. From what I hear, upon finding out, they all go out and celebrate. I have tenative plans to join some of them this year. These people are making our world a better place, so the least I can do is honor them by having a drink.

March 17: St Patrick’s Day!
‘Nuff said.

The rest of the month will be a rehash of everything above. The tournament will continue. Some of my friends are determined to make St. Patrick’s Day a monthlong affair, and will likely invent additional celebrations. The mayhem might ebb a little, but the slow-down will be short-lived…

March 29: Vegas Baby, Vegas
I’m closing out the month with a blowout for The Jayman, a very close college friend who is getting married this May. Since he’s the first of our college friends to go, it was only appropriate that we plan a ridiculous 3-day, 3-night affair involving 20+ people. Did I mention that the Final Four games take place that weekend? Or that I have a gambling itch? Or that my tax refund should be arriving right before I head out there?

Update: Due to an amazing coincidence, a friend of mine has to go to Vegas on business the week before the bachelor party. Naturally, I jumped on the opportunity to take advantage of his hotel room and extended my trip. So what was once a Thursday-Sunday jaunt is now a full-fledged Tuesday-Sunday vacation. The icing on the cake? My new flight is cheaper than the one I had originally purchased. Even after paying a change fee, I still ended up with a $60 voucher for JetBlue. The irony here is that I’ve burned through all of my good luck to get to a place where I will need it most.

What’s the over-under on how much cash I burn through this month?