Hitting My Stride (finally!)

Source image: http://runnergirlsblogspot.blogspot.com

This past week, I finally felt like I was doing a good, worthwhile job when I sat down to work on my internship. First it was nebulous for me because nothing was happening and I was just anticipating future tasks. Then I was floundering under the weight of my time constraints. Then I had my meltdown, which wasn’t fun for anyone. Now, I really feel like I’ve finally hit my stride, I’m at a point where I feel comfortable and I have a lot of work to keep me busy, it’s great.

Last week, I did two very important tasks to further this journal to its eventual launch. First, I contacted two people regarding web design for the site and funding for the journal.

Week One of a New Schedule

Source image from http://ase.tufts.edu

Over the past week, I’ve felt much better about the work I’m doing through my internship. The biggest change we made this week was to change the internship from 3 credit hours to 2 credit hours. This means that rather than 15 hours a week, I only have to do 10 hours a week. I can’t even express what a difference this has made for my morale and motivation. I want to be clear about this — I was not worried about fitting 15 hours each week into my schedule. If the work was there, I’d do it. As it was, though, I felt like I was struggling to fill those 15 hours just for the sake of filling them, just for the sake of making sure my timesheet was honest. I didn’t want to ever resort to fudging the records because I finished tasks too quickly, or be scrambling for work to do near the end of the semester. It’s hard for me to explain, but it was a great source of anxiety over the past two weeks. So, the point is, that’s cleared up.

Hitting a Brick Wall & Bouncing

I don’t mind admitting when I run into problems, or get stressed out, or feel like I’m at a dead end. Am I embarrassed when those things happen? Of course I am. But saying them out loud and seeking help or advice from others gives me the strength to keep on going when I’ve run out of steam, or a more efficient form of fuel. The truth is that I’m only human, we all are, and sometimes we come to a point in a project where we can’t go any further, where we feel as though we’ve come to the end of our rope. This happens to all of us at some point in any project we’re working on, and there is no shame in admitting it when it does happen.

Not even if it happens when you’re only one week into the project.

New Semester & Time Management

Source image from http://blog.fabshophop.com

The semester has officially begun! And those lazy days that I was beginning to tire of are long gone. Now, my days are filled with a presence on campus and a rushing around to fulfill all of my many and varied obligations. Call me a crazy person, but I’d rather be busy like this than simply sitting around the house.

My first week was a blur of finding classrooms, finishing first assignments for professors, and getting everything in line. This blur flew past me so quickly that I almost forgot to stop and make time for my internship. This became painfully clear to me when I handed my proposal to Simone this past Tuesday and realized that I hadn’t done much since writing the proposal. At the middle of my first week back on campus, all that I’d accomplished for my internship was a page or so of journal research and a proposal of what I’d be doing.

Now it was time to start doing all those things I laid out.