KEY POINTS:
Taxes, Franklin D. Roosevelt once said, are paid in the sweat of every man who labours. Over the next seven days, Laura Langman will be paying heavily in perspiration and ink.
The Silver Fern has a weighty portfolio to deal with - and it's not all about netball.
Tonight there's the Magic's semifinal against archrivals the Sting, where Langman will be expected to bind together her defending champion side.
If they win, the Magic face the might of the Force in a week's time in the emotional final to wind up a decade of the National Bank Cup.
And in the middle of it all, Langman has to put her head down, put pen to paper and grudgingly tackle a taxation exam towards her degree in business management. It's obvious which she is looking forward to least.
"I'm fully focused on winning the National Bank Cup - oh, and my upcoming tax exam, which I'm really scared about," she throws into the conversation.
"It's been a bit of a juggling act. Don't ask me what the exam is about because I can't really tell you. Hopefully I will win the war, but right now I don't feel like I'm winning the battle."
When the Magic arrived in Invercargill, Langman was lugging her varsity tax textbooks with her to study for Tuesday's test.
"It's very sad, but that was my first luggage packed. It won't draw my attention away from the game, but I'd like my lecturer to think I'm reading up during breaks in training."
Langman, 21, has been working towards completing this Waikato University degree, majoring in accounting, virtually as long as she's been playing for New Zealand, but she says it's been crucial to do both simultaneously. "It keeps me sane," she says.
"I need to have something completely different from netball, to challenge me in a different way."
She sat only one paper this semester, to concentrate firmly on the Magic. But if she could skip the exam room next week and just do the court-work, you know she would.
Langman is a player every coach dreams of - utterly focused and equally open to learning new game-plays and positions.
A regular fixture at wing defence for the Silver Ferns these days, Langman has proved to be an equally talented centre for the Magic this season. In last weekend's methodical undoing of the Diamonds, she led the operation from centre-court.
But in typical modest Langman style, she brushes off any praise for her efforts.
"In all honesty, it was a total team effort. The defensive end was just incredible - the ball we turned over and held up was great.
"I'm just the PVA that glues everyone together; I'm the link. Hopefully there is a wee need for me out there."
There may be more than a "wee need" for her at the next level up, as the Silver Ferns look to bolster their midcourt attack for their defence of the world title in November. She already owns the wing defence position, but she provides another option as a hard-driving centre.
"Centre is a great challenge for me, and I'm enjoying it a lot more now," Langman says. "I'm looking to cement my mark there, and hopefully one day I will be in that centre role at national level."
This season, she has turned to former Silver Ferns captain and new Magic wing attack, Anna Stanley, for insight.
"Annie has been a huge asset to our side - she's fitted in seamlessly. Her vision into the shooting circle is phenomenal, and sometimes I look at her passes and think, 'How did she see that'?"
Langman is already being touted as a future Silver Ferns captain, but Langman is taking nothing for granted - not even her place in the New Zealand side for next month's internationals against Jamaica and Australia.
Langman can't look that far ahead. Her loyalty now is to Magic coach Noeline Taurua, who hopes Langman and Stanley will trust in the "spontaneity" of their passes into the shooting circle tonight.
"We've taken the long, hard road to get this far, and we're not stopping here," says Langman, who's been with the Magic since 2003.
Whatever the result of tonight's do-or-die test of skill and stamina, it's always going to rank higher in Langman's book than the mid-week test on fringe benefits and source deductions she must face on her own.
