Almost There...

I’m excited for the upcoming months following this week and the next; I’ll be starting my internship with one of Year Up’s corporate partners.  I have just found out where I’ll be going as well.  I’ve been able to see the campus of where I’ll be working, and, though I’m nervous about messing up, I would like to jump right into things.

I’m not exactly sure as to what I’ll be doing.  From the meet and greet I’ve had with the desktop support manager, it sounds like there will be quite a lot of trouble shooting and imaging.  I feel really confident with my skills in imaging and hardware trouble shooting, but I fear that my software troubleshooting will be rather lacking.  I hope there will be some opportunities for me to try my hand at networking, since that is something I really enjoy doing and have had experience with through the Reserves.

Though this is a chance for me to show off what I have learned, it is also a time for me to learn.  I feel that I really need to develop my soft skills a little bit more, especially with networking with people.  I’m not the best conversationalist and I hope that will change once I get comfortable in the environment.  I’m also not too sure how I should go about asking for more work when I finish with my assigned tasks and have down time.

Hopefully I will get a job from this internship, but if that doesn’t happen then I plan to go to college to at least get an associate’s degree in computer sciences.

The Party Continues

The induction of 2012 didn't go very well, at least not on the last night of 2011.  The day was rushed with trying to get the house organized and snacks made for our guests.  Every year I've had a party for my friends on New Years, but this year was going to be a little different.  With the lack of attendance at last year's party for the 2011 new year, it was decided that my party would be combined with another party.  I have only met a few of these new people that were going to be showing up at my place for the party, so we wanted to make sure things ran smoothly.  At least, from what we knew of these new guests to my house, they had something in common with us; they are all rather nerdy and love to play games.

The morning of New Years Eve started with a plan.  My fiancee, Bree, would go off to a Zumba class with a friend while I went to pick up another friend at the air port.  The rest of the day was filled with running around trying to get ingredients ready to make the food for the night.  As the day progressed, Bree became more and more sore.  We assumed it was from the work out, but we found out later it was a pinched nerve.

People started to show up around 7 PM, and by then Bree wasn't feeling well at all.  She went to go lay down as more and more people showed up.  With the original guest list having about twenty people confirmed to be coming, it was kinda surprising to have almost thirty people in our house.  When it got to be about 9 PM, Bree was starting to feel overwhelmed with how many people were in the house, and I don't blame her; I was starting to feel that way, too.  We ended up sending the people from the other group, that we weren't too familiar with, away after apologizing rather profusely.  Our own friends were able to stay, as we still wanted to have a good time.

The next morning, Bree was feeling much better.  She felt bad about having people leave, so she extended the offer back out to our friends to come over again that night.  Not as many people came, but that was fine.  It was nice having a smaller crowd for a second night.

It was a great way to start off the new year with close friends.  I hope that this year will be as fun as it started.  I know I will try my best to keep the party going.

Killing Time

With time off, it can be a little difficult to decide exactly what you want to do with it, especially when that time off lasts more than a few days.  Most people would probably try to get away, but there's something refreshing about staying at home, too.  I personally tend to stay at home on long breaks.  It gives me a great opportunity to work on projects around the house that have eluded due me to being busy with other things.  It also gives me the chance to relax quite a bit.  There have been several days over this past week where I didn't go to bed until midnight and I would wake up around eight.  It's quite nice having that freedom from responsibilities from time to time.

But there is a disadvantage to these large amounts of time off.  At least for me there is.  I find that after several days off I become too relaxed and need to re-motivate myself to do work.  It's not the physical relaxation that gets to me, it's the mental relaxation.  Just like the body, if you don't exercise the brain, it gets sluggish.  I try to do something that exercises the mind at least once a day, even if it is something as simple as addition and subtraction.

Bah Humbug...

I have never really been a fan of Christmas-as-we-know-it.  It has become too commercialized with the idea that if you want your friends and family to like you, you'll buy them things.  My family has fell a sort of victim to this mindset, especially with my mother.  Every year it's the same; I tell her that she doesn't have to get me anything, and every year she doesn't listen to what I'm saying and just gets things for me.

The abundance of gifts was exaggerated last year when my fiancée and I spent our first Christmas together.  Her mother hasn't always been the best and appeared like she was trying to make up for things by buying us gifts that she really couldn't afford.  Her father also spoiled us a little with gifts, but no where near as much.

This year appeared to be a nice balance of gifts and what I think the holidays should have their focus on: spending time with family and friends.  Even my fiancée has said that she enjoyed the focus being on the time spent together, rather than the gift giving.

Ready... Set...

Interns need to work harder than most other employs do.  It's not because they will have more work, but because they are there to prove they are worth something.  An intern must demonstrate that worth by being punctual, being eager and motivated, and to be able to handle making mistakes in order to learn from them.

I feel I have shown internship readiness throughout my time at Year Up.  I make it a point to come early and have never been late to class.  I am eager to get to work and motivated to the the work, especially since I enjoy the material.  I do need to be a bit more resilient at making mistakes, however, as I can get frustrated with them.

I need to work on being able to handle making mistakes better.  My plan for this is to make myself understand that I'm there to learn and that they are bound to happen, though I'm not sure how I'll make myself understand that.

Everybody's Working on the Weekend

I've had a few jobs over the years, and I’ve enjoyed most of them.  Of course, there were things that I didn’t enjoy all the time, but that’s life.

One of the first jobs that I’ve had was being a counselor at Cub and Boy Scout camps.  It was fun being able to partake in different activities that were both fun and allowed you to learn.  I got to pass on the skills and the knowledge that I’ve gotten over the years through the Boy Scouts to younger Scouts.  Though it was fun for me, it also allowed me to learn some things.  One of those things was how to have patience for those that don’t have the same level of skills as I do.  Another thing that I learned was how to deal with the “office politics” that happens; there was a bit of a “good old boys” club with the staffers that have been working at the camp for several summers before.

While I haven’t really had a job that I haven’t enjoyed, there have been several details I have had to do while in the military that weren’t very fun.  The thing I found to be the least enjoyable would have to be burning trash while in Afghanistan.  It’s an unfortunate job, but it has to be done, or our health would be in jeopardy.  Most of us would have ephemeral enthusiasm, as we would enjoy the act of burning the trash at first, but soon find the heat too much to handle.  There wasn’t much to learn from this experience, other than the importance of staying hydrated.  And being rather intolerable to heat, I found that I could do the job as long as I stuck at it.

Communication Failure

http://www.kuar.org/kuarnews/41863-army-lr-city-hall-fail-to-warn-public-about-special-forces-exercise.html

According to KUAR News in Little Rock, AR, there was a failure to communicate between US Army officials and officials of City Hall.  A Special Forces unit was scheduled to conduct a training mission in an old VA hospital, but scared the public due to a lack of information given out before the mission was to take place.  The police department was suppose to get the word out, but ended up trying to get the Army to get the word out due to a lack of man power with the police department.  Eventually, no one got the word out.

The frustration that was caused from this incident isn’t from who was going to inform the public, but who is going to take the blame for not informing the public.  Each side thought that the other would take care of the “problem”.  But it was agreed when the Mayor let the Army use the public air space as well as the old VA hospital that the elected positions as well as local law enforcement would inform the public with the aid of media.  So really, there’s no excuse as to why the public couldn’t have been informed.

I can relate to this rather well as that there is a bit of communication problem in the military.  But it usually doesn’t get to this type of problem.  Most of the time it’s last minute things that come up and need to get done before the day is over.  Sometimes those in charge know about these things, other times they don’t, but either way it’s never really fun to have to try rushing around to get these things done.