What Happens Next? – A Girl and Her Dragon

I am leaving for college in 10 days.

TEN DAYS.

People react in a number of interesting ways when I tell them that little factoid. Some immediately begin gushing about their college experience. Some just laugh a little, noticing my parents out of the corner of their eyes. A few have told me that the real fun starts in grad school, while the rest just say congratulations (joyfully to me, wistfully to my parents).

And then come the questions. They range from what is your major going to be (International Relations with a Computer Science minor) and are you going to join a sorority (maybe, if I can’t find a Dungeons and Dragons club) to how many units are you taking (waaaay too many) and what are you going to do with the pizza oven?

What AM I going to do with the pizza oven? To answer that question, I have to admit that I may have been a bit disingenuous when I said that I’m “leaving for college.” I’m moving out, yes, and setting up shop in a quad on campus, but I’m not exactly going far. In fact, I’m going to college closer to home than I was in high school. Stanford University lies only seven miles down the road from my house and, (more importantly :D), the dragon wagon! I’ve run A Girl and Her Dragon Pizza for three years now, and I am nowhere near ready to let go (or to give up my access to unlimited personalized pizzas, if I’m being honest.)

I will be continuing to slice and serve pizza throughout my college years. Heck, I already have a smattering of events lined up for the next couple of months, and even into next year (which I may regret, come finals season). My schedule seems blessedly uncluttered, though I know homework and socializing and getting used to the strangeness that is college will gobble up hours like I’ll gobble up cafeteria desserts (freshman 15, anyone?).

Hopefully I’ll be able to keep up my high school pace of about 3-5 events a month, but we’ll have to see. Nothing is set in stone, which is both terrifying and exhilarating. On one hand, I’m incredibly excited to go to college, and to keep running AGHD while doing so. On the other, I worry that juggling too many different commitments will leave me unable to properly fulfill any of them.

The particulars still need to be worked out, like transportation to and from campus (since Stanford forbids freshmen from having cars, and my siblings may not fancy becoming my personal chauffeurs). I may also need to focus on weekend events, so that the multi-day prep and clean-up process doesn’t interfere with my class schedule, or block out entire weeks for the sake of finals.

One solution to my potentially confusing schedule would be to put together a crew capable of running events without me. This setup cuts into my per-event profits, but also allows me to cater parties irrespective of my personal schedule, vastly increasing revenue. It’s a logical next step to start hiring proper employees, so I can expand the business into a truly full-time operation. The logistics of workers comp insurance, registering for all the databases and then sorting out the tax headache that would arise should I take that step does give me pause, however. I’m not keen on adding another insurance bill to my yearly expense account, and keeping track of payroll would be a whole other ballgame (and I am REALLY bad at sports). I think I will keep track of all the events I have to turn down over the next couple of months, and then estimate the price of starting to hire before making my decision.

In short, everything is up in the air right now. I’m heading off to college (seven long miles away) and I’m not sure what the future holds, but I am eager to embrace it and can only hope it involves interesting classes, new friends, and lots of pizza!

View More Posts By Kylie Here or Visit AGirlAndHerDragonPizza.com