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.