Happy New Year, a bit late
Jan. 2nd, 2008 05:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
godreamI spent mine in New York, in happy awe at the lights and the organized chaos.
I was gonna answer a new year's meme or two, but mostly I don't like the questions or the answers, and I don't have any resolutions from last year to reflect on and I'm not planning on making any resolutions this year (mine generally end up unmeasurable or unachieved or both). But I think I'm going to want to have something to look back on a year from now, so instead, here's the grand summary:
This year, I met new people, stretched myself to situations I wasn't totally at home in. (Interviews. That guy from that concert. Being across the country and on my own, long-term far away for the first time.) Not unconnected, this year I actually dated for the first time in ages. I built up friendships with people I hadn't known well before; I slid out of touch with some. I started the first real relationship I've had.
This year, I discovered that either I'm semi-competent or I'm pretty decent at faking it. (Internship interviews, the job, the hall, the full-time interviews.) I got positive feedback on things that I thought I didn't do so hot at, and spent a bunch of time (with resume and whatnot) attempting to make things that I thought were no big deal look impressive. I saw first hand that having a good name on that education line on your resume is important, that knowing people is helpful, but that acquitting yourself well is important too.
This year, I tried things that I wasn't sure if I'd succeed in -- some I did, and some I didn't. (The choir audition, 'fessing up to the boy, interviews once again. Dropping classes. Applying to m.eng.)
I can feel this year as a transition: dipping my toes into reality, not quite taking the plunge yet. I haven't been half bad at it, although I've got lots more to learn.
Tomorrow morning (bright and early) I start my January job. I'm kind of terrified: it's clearly going to be really different from last summer, it's going to be a lot more intense hours-wise, and I'm not going to be one of a zillion summer interns in an enormous efficient machine of internery. Lots of very different ways to fuck up. That whole thing where I felt like last summer I didn't have an impact? Be careful what you wish for.
But I'm going to use this entry as a moment to tell myself (as I've been told by others): breathe. Don't stress out about this. I'm good at figuring things out, I'm well-intentioned, I have a ridiculous amount of qualifying background. This is a project that I CAN do. I'll figure out how to focus and make it a project that I WILL do. And even if it goes horribly wrong -- I have a full time job offer waiting at the end of this semester. So it's not the end of the world. To be terribly, horribly, shamefacedly cheesy -- "in fact, it's still the beginning."
And with that, I think I better stop staring at the computer screen, given how much of that I'm going to be doing over the next couple weeks...
I was gonna answer a new year's meme or two, but mostly I don't like the questions or the answers, and I don't have any resolutions from last year to reflect on and I'm not planning on making any resolutions this year (mine generally end up unmeasurable or unachieved or both). But I think I'm going to want to have something to look back on a year from now, so instead, here's the grand summary:
This year, I met new people, stretched myself to situations I wasn't totally at home in. (Interviews. That guy from that concert. Being across the country and on my own, long-term far away for the first time.) Not unconnected, this year I actually dated for the first time in ages. I built up friendships with people I hadn't known well before; I slid out of touch with some. I started the first real relationship I've had.
This year, I discovered that either I'm semi-competent or I'm pretty decent at faking it. (Internship interviews, the job, the hall, the full-time interviews.) I got positive feedback on things that I thought I didn't do so hot at, and spent a bunch of time (with resume and whatnot) attempting to make things that I thought were no big deal look impressive. I saw first hand that having a good name on that education line on your resume is important, that knowing people is helpful, but that acquitting yourself well is important too.
This year, I tried things that I wasn't sure if I'd succeed in -- some I did, and some I didn't. (The choir audition, 'fessing up to the boy, interviews once again. Dropping classes. Applying to m.eng.)
I can feel this year as a transition: dipping my toes into reality, not quite taking the plunge yet. I haven't been half bad at it, although I've got lots more to learn.
Tomorrow morning (bright and early) I start my January job. I'm kind of terrified: it's clearly going to be really different from last summer, it's going to be a lot more intense hours-wise, and I'm not going to be one of a zillion summer interns in an enormous efficient machine of internery. Lots of very different ways to fuck up. That whole thing where I felt like last summer I didn't have an impact? Be careful what you wish for.
But I'm going to use this entry as a moment to tell myself (as I've been told by others): breathe. Don't stress out about this. I'm good at figuring things out, I'm well-intentioned, I have a ridiculous amount of qualifying background. This is a project that I CAN do. I'll figure out how to focus and make it a project that I WILL do. And even if it goes horribly wrong -- I have a full time job offer waiting at the end of this semester. So it's not the end of the world. To be terribly, horribly, shamefacedly cheesy -- "in fact, it's still the beginning."
And with that, I think I better stop staring at the computer screen, given how much of that I'm going to be doing over the next couple weeks...
