desigrl

I had vowed to not go the friends only route, but hey ho, life has other plans. I have a feeling I'll be using this as a vent space, so if you read my journal but aren't on my friends list, go ahead and add me/let me know and we'll fix that. I promise it won't turn into a 100% pissy-hissy journal, but life is certainly tumultuous enough that I'd rather certain eyes not see this.

Also, those of you who actively read and respond - can't begin to tell you how much I value and appreciate it!

I'll lock this journal a week from today (Dec 11) - what a sad day!

I had a lovely lie-in this morning - a much needed lie-in, considering how fast the first two weeks of school have been!

It'll come as no shock to all of you that I have taken on too much again. I seem to thrive (*snerk*) under pressure.

1) School - a delight, minus the boring, post-colonial theory class that is being taught by a cool Caribbean fellow who seems to think he's addressing an over-crowded classroom of high-schoolers. Fortunately, that means I'll be able to ace the theory class without putting in too much effort, which is about as much time as I have to devote to it. But really, another round of The Tempest and Heart of Darkness? Sonofa!

2) Internship - is going to be a bitch. My fault I'm shafting my supervisor with less face-time, but then why did you say it would work out with telecommuting? I'm trying to make the best of the situation. She gives me work with little direction or instruction, and no deadline. Then she hounds me with "are you done yet?" "I need it now" "this is great, but I made some edits" which reveals just how off-target I was because when I ask her for help, she says x and when I submit the work she expects y. Yay lord help me through the next 3 months!

3) Work - have I mentioned I got hired on because they absolutely loved me at the internship? Well, I did. They were mighty impressed and my new supervisor proved it by dumping a project in my lap within my first 5 minutes in the office. It's exciting and eeks and yay and all sorts of mixed emotions. I'm working severely out of title and getting ridiculously underpaid, but between this economy, the difficulty of getting a state job, and my completely unusable educational and work experience background, I'm not complaining much. This experience is a stepping stone in the right direction for my new career path. Gotta say, business analysis and project management is proving to be quite interesting.

Life is a blur outside of all of that. I somehow manage to eat, sleep, finish homework, and get little chores done here and there. Sadly, with everything else going on, I think the Writer's Workshop will have to take a backseat. Same for NaNo this year and all the fan-fiction stuff that everyone else is participating in and getting excited over. Maybe come mid-December I can pursue the Writer's Workshop again - would any of you go to such a thing if your local library offered it? (beta/brainstorming/SPaG/etc.)

I haven't commented on most posts, but I am reading and am so glad that life is heading in more positive directions for most of you. Good luck with everything! For those struggling with issues, my thoughts and prayers are with you!

Tasks for the weekend include cleaning up my room a bit more, finishing off a short story and 2-3 papers, and enjoying some time with the family (I believe this will involve shoe shopping and a movie, yay!).

Ciao and love to all!

Remember how I thought life would get easier with the start of the semester? HA! Jokes on me!

It's all in a good way: 3 days before we "graduated" from the internship, all the interns had to give presentations based on their experiential portion of the summer. This was to a group of employees, including some fairly up-there sort of people. I managed to impress all the right people, to the point where the HR division and my particular office spent the last 2 days scrambling to find a way to get me back. My work over the summer was only noticed and appreciated by my immediate office, but that 10 minute presentation really got people's attention. Ironically, I shudder over public speaking.

( Cut for some minor moaning and groaningCollapse )

So time to focus on the positives: I've got plenty of support on the home front from my parents. I will have a paying job in a couple of weeks (after years!). There will be no break in my health insurance. I will be entering the work-field in a profession I am interested in pursuing. I'm doing an internship in another field I am interested in. I will graduate in December!

My sanity might be taking a minor beating right now, but it will be worth it in the long run.

OH! I almost forgot ... I have been wanting to start a Writers Workshop through my local public library. It would be geared towards adults and amateur or unexposed writers who could use some feedback, basic editing help, and brainstorming. If this was available in your area, would you join in?

Wishing you a very fantabulous week-long celebration dickgloucester ! ;)

I've finally been to an IKEA!

OH MY!!!

That was my playground and candy shop all rolled up in one. I could have spent an entire day and then some in there, but unfortunately we had other items on the agenda. So many cool toys. The set-up rooms. The colors. The variety. Loved, loved, LOVED! I can't wait to go back.

Jersey was fun... I desperately needed to get away from life and enjoy some of this so-called summer vacation.

The brain is, for the most part, fried. The workload of the internship and the online class is quite overwhelming and it's a wonder I'm staying afloat. But it's definitely having a detrimental effect on my mental stability - not enough sleep, a bit scatter-brained as I struggle to keep up, lagging behind on responsibilities to a) myself and b) the paid writing gig.

On top of all of this, the laptop went kaput a couple of weeks ago. It's no joke when I say my laptop is my lifeline: it's my bread and butter in nearly all aspects of my life and living off of borrowed time on family member's laptops (we don't have a desktop anymore) has been... challenging. I miss my baby. Some stupid BIOS update fried the motherboard. If I had the time, I'd tinker with it myself, because I really think I can fix it. Sadly, that's not a realistic possibility so the baby has finally been delivered to a reliable repair shop who shall get the job done for about $300 *is appalled* ... still better than $1,000 for a new laptop. Note to self: next laptop, go for Intel over AMD.

Right-ho! Back to work for me. If I have the energy, I shall rant and grumble next time about how last-minute, bull-shitty some of the "classwork" for the internship has been (which has only exacerbated my already-frazzled state).

I think my editor thinks I'm a boy. He addressed a recent email with "thanks man" ... granted I've only just started working for the news journal, we've never met in person and my foreign name doesn't clearly indicate gender. But it's slightly off-putting that I present myself as a man. Unless that's just his way of addressing everyone. He is the casual sort, having just emailed all the writers that the downed server was a "bit o' bullshit". I've never worked like this before. The lack of structure and organization is ... interesting.

My dad asks "why don't you have a template spreadsheet for your interviews" ... How to make a lay person with a military background understand that some things just don't function that way. I snickered my way through that explanation.

I spent the entire day learning about public speaking. Now, I've had a fair share of experience, especially because I've been pushing myself to take on leadership roles since grade 11. But I still managed to pick up some useful tips today. I also had an "aha!" moment, in that I told myself: "listen, you've done this so many times now. The next time you get up in front of a group of people, fake it. You may be nervous, but you've got experience so tell your brain to shut up 'cause you got this down cold."
They used a Mr. Rogers clip for showcasing a polished speaker. I definitely got a bit sentimental over that segment. Mr. Rogers, you were a childhood hero.

Tomorrow is dedicated to Resumes and Interviewing skills. Joy! I've only spent the past 2 months revising and polishing my resume. *sigh* *grumble* Well, it's never 100% perfect and I did just add two jobs, so I'm sure it can be further tweaked and adjusted. Interviewing bit will be handy. I like to think I'm good at it, but the last time I was interviewed was in 2007. Geez!

I'm UBER sad that another season of Game of Thrones has come to an end. The last episode was a bit disappointing considering the second to last episode. It's gonna be a looooong year till the next season. I wish they'd expand to 12/14/16 episodes per season. We want more! I finally found someone who didn't get sucked in to the series. Many of us tried explaining to her that it takes 2-3 episodes and eventually all the killing and brutality becomes a side thing, but she's not buying in. Can't figure that one out.

I need to blog!!! I have a couple lined up. Just need pictures to add before I publish them. I don't think anyone from here actually reads my blog though, so I don't know why I'm telling you about it.

The rain has got to stop. I'm sick of it. Weather gods, kindly revert to a sunny summer. k-thanx-bye!

Alright, before I shut up for the night: BIG thanks to the lovely peoples who took time to fill out my Johari window. Utterly sweet of you. You all see me in ways I didn't realize and that's an ego/confidence boost. The Nohari window would be more helpful in terms of personal development, but I can understand why no one from LJ would feel comfortable filling that out. In case you haven't, but do still want to, you can help me out with the Johari window by going here and clicking on 5 adjectives that describe me. If you're game, you can visit the Nohari window.

Internship and classes are coming along well. My days are hectic and completely consumed by work for the internship and the 2 classes. Also the odd interview/article work. Freelance writing is tricky, especially when dealing with business of varied natures. What's professional in one setting is unacceptable in another. Hello confusion!

The internship is packing on more homework than I had anticipated (read: didn't expect any homework, accepted that we'd have to do some readings and questions, now getting bombarded with additional mini-assignments). I'm in an HR track, which is not so different from my life experience. I find that I'm actually skilled or experienced in many of the components of HR work (which, gasp, expands beyond administrative duties ... to be fair, that was my impression before starting). We have "classes" and during one of these an instructor asked us to look up a Joe Harry Window. I assumed this was some window of time to accomplish xyz, as he hadn't given us any context. Well, as it turns out, he meant a Johari window! Thank you laralee88 for bringing this to my attention weeks ago. I was able to look smart in front of someone fairly important.

The class discussion prompted me to create my own Johari and Nohari windows (Jo: positive, No: negative). If you have a moment, I'd love some feedback! Feel free to keep it anonymous if it makes you more comfortable. I'm looking for honest information, not cushioned responses born out of a sense of obligation. Jo: http://kevan.org/johari?name=simtara and No: http://kevan.org/nohari?name=SimTara

Someone tell my Homeland Security class professor 200 pages of reading is cray-cray!

Family life is running its course, downhill at the moment, but gearing up for some highs. Hopefully.

If you've got some spare energy or time, feel free to send it my way. I could use a bit of both. On the plus side, I'm left completely exhausted at the end of every day, which leaves me sleeping soundly every night.

I'm really glad I decided to take the Homeland Security course. It's unique, interesting and informational. Also, as my second public policy class in two semesters, it is telling me that I have an interest in this field. Uh oh! More options in life.

Internship is still in its god-awful orientation phase. More diversity and sexual harassment training. Extremely important for me, the Indian woman.

Hermanita is slowly driving me batty. We're with each other nearly 24/7. She works at a completely different pace (ie: slower than me!) and that leaves me frustrated, annoyed, and itching to shake some sense into her. I don't want this to end up being the summer where I did all the work and she got the credit for it. "Just keep swimming" and "suck it up, you can do it" keep running through my head. I abdicate my role as sane, older sister. Mommy come home!

( No bridges were involved in the propagation on memeCollapse )

ps - I'm sleep deprived and functioning on zombie-mode *points to icon* (I feel equally dazed and numb). If I'm responsible for helping you out in anyway, please bombard my email so I can stay on top of things.

So we may or may not be safe in this storm that's brewing up fiercely. I'm of the opinion that we will not actually have a tornado issue. Then again, we rarely get tornado warnings, so maybe I should be gathering our most important stuffs and shifting it to the basement just in case. The lights are flickering and something just made a odd humming sound.

Is that siren sound a definite sign to be concerned?

Oh and Day 1 at the internship went well. There's only 8 of us and I didn't get the Project Management track because it's not available yet (why advertise it then?) but it sounds like I'll be working in a PM-oriented subdivision of HR anyway.

I'm pooped and have too much work to do. Can the storm decide if it wants to turn into something bad or not...I'd like to know if I have to submit my work tonight or can get away with "the tornado killed my internet."

ETA: Well that was uneventful! The tornado watch/warning has passed. We're back to our regular flash flood warning level. But I'm keeping my emergency bag prepped, just in case. Somebody pass me some valium: the sister gets scared over the slightest rumble and this had her downright panicky.