i have survived a week of work! i know it doesn't sound like much of an achievement but it really wasn't easy. it's not like the work is hard or anything, though. in fact it's really quite the opposite i think i've really just spent the entire week reading journal articles so if anything it's like school all over again. sometimes i catch myself almost wishing for more concrete work that's set out for me to do. like write a literature review or something. so far my reporting officer has been really nice about everything and i think he doesn't want to scare me off with too much work. but i feel like i'm not able to help with anything at all. ):
most of the time he just comes by near the end of the work day to check on my progress but so far the two reviews that we've had have only been verbal so i don't even know (a) if my thoughts are structured enough when i say them and (b) whether i've been doing things correctly or not. and i think i haven't been reading academic articles for too long it takes me three rereads for some articles to even understand a little what it all is about. but it's good practice i guess! especially since what i'm doing now is related to what i'm doing in school anyway so it'll all help in the long run.
the worst thing about work now is the time i think. because it's so far away i have to go out and take a bus at 6.30am and since it's not bus 10 there isn't even anything to look at but expressways. and i don't know why but somehow i'm always so tired that i fall asleep almost immediately after i get on the second bus at the interchange. even when i had to go take bus 10 to school for my 8am tutorial it wasn't so hard. and 8.30am to 6pm is really tiring i'm always horribly drained by the time 6pm swings around even if i really have only been sitting in an air-conditioned office the whole day. there's just something about it that totally drains me.
before this internship i really never understood why people were so against doing office/deskbound jobs because i always believed that there would be a kind of satisfaction that came from mundane tasks like filing papers or something. even something like doing up excel sheets. it might be boring but at least there would be some semblance of order in your life. but i've had a change of mind already i think after this internship i will have had enough of being at a desk the entire day. it's funny how doing something so sedentary will make you so tired but i think even a busy weekend at whathewants wasn't as tiring as one day of sitting at the office.
but i was counting the number of days for the internship and i realised if i only count the workdays it only lasts 7 weeks. so i'll make the most of the 7 weeks and try and contribute as much as i can! plus everyone at the office seems so nice. they try so hard to make me feel more comfortable and i really appreciate their efforts. but being so socially inept sometimes all i can do is smile and then i feel bad because if i were them i would think i was being patronising/not even really listening.
someday i should go take a course/get one of those self-help books on how to be a great conversationalist or something and save myself the agony.
anyway i just realised i'll be working away the entire GSS again ): i have no luck with GSS at all i'm never able to shop when it comes around! the next round of summer holidays i swear if i work at all i will go and do some slack part time job that won't take up so much time. i should take time off as a student before i graduate and start work and there's no longer any time left to do anything but climb along slowly till we all fall down.
baek ji young's live rendition of that woman. she has such an amazing voice. and she's really pretty when she smiles! like right at the start. even her eyes crinkle up into smiles as well. it's the kind of smile that's so infectious and i realise this would sound more normal if i were a guy or if i were describing a guy instead. ahem. anyway if anyone reading this has watched secret garden i think that sit-up scene at the beginning of the video before she starts singing is one of my all-time favourite kdrama scenes. it's so cute! :D i feel like rewatching the drama again. hyun bin! :D
it worries me that what i'm most concerned about in the days leading up to the start of my internship is what i'm going to wear. i feel like such a bimbo for thinking about things like this! it ought to be stuff like "will i be able to do what they want me to do?" or "do i remember enough about statistics to help with their research?" or "will i even be able to add value in any way at all to their work?" or "such a wonderful opportunity for gaining experience this is!" that should be swimming around in my head right now. but no at this moment all i can honestly say is that i'm only thinking about what to wear.
if i were my employer i'd be seriously reconsidering my decision to hire me now.
but it's really a very important concern! someone told me that a friend was fired on the first day because of inappropriate attire. by the way, i am really sorry if that someone is you because i have horrid memory for who says what i only remember the what and not the who. it happens for everyone because of my amazing ability to only remember parts of stuff and not the whole. i have a brain like a goldfish. which, incidentally, has only a memory span of three seconds. bet you didn't know that. and i don't know why i remember only silly facts like that.
anyway it's a pressing concern for me because even though this isn't my first job it is the first one in which i have to be dressed more presentably since for the other two dressing really wasn't that important at all.
so in short i think i have legitimate reason to feel concerned about this. yes i'm really just trying to justify my acting like an airhead. please don't point that out let it just sit in my subconscious. at least i'm going to be proactive about it and go out and look for more work-appropriate clothes!
i am sorry reading this has been such a waste of your time because this has been such an immensely frivolous post. i just feel obligated somehow to blog because i don't want my blog to die just because i've got twitter now.
new baek ji young song! if you're a kdrama watcher i'm sure you've heard her songs before they're always used as drama osts. this one grows on you the more you listen to it even though it's not as much of an instant favourite like her previous ones were.
always meeting average guys
always loving averagely
in an average looking house
with average children
only feeling average pain
only feeling average happiness
just wondering which is better -- to live so averagely or to put up with intense pain to feel intensely happy at times.
there must be something to be enjoyed even in just being swept along by the turmoil of everything happening around you, but lately i just feel very tired by all these expectations. today has been the first day in a while that i've really been able to sit down and not feel pressured to do something. but even then it's not exactly a whole day to myself since i only managed to sit down and not do anything about half an hour ago. (and the second i finished this sentence my mum came back and called for me to go type a text for her -- see what i mean?) it bugs me that i get so impatient with everything that i seemingly have to do or am obligated to do but honestly is there anything bad in being selfish once in a while so i actually have some time to myself? but then right after all that fuming i start thinking it's really just small things so it shouldn't warrant such an explosive reaction (even if it's just internal and anyway with my temper i'm sure it shows externally as well). it's just that all these small things add up. trickle by trickle and bit by bit they take up so much of my time and some days it just irks me so much all i want to do is shut myself up in a room and wish everyone away.
sometimes i feel like everyone is just using everyone else.
it's so disheartening to feel this way because then it means nobody just wants me there, and it's always because they need me to do something that i'm even around at all. i know this may not be the case and i'm probably just misunderstanding other people's intentions (and overestimating myself) but sometimes it's just really hard to shake this feeling. especially when i know i'm guilty of it too, which only makes it even more apparent that other people do so as well.
