5 months! (and 6 months, 1 week)

It has officially been 5 months since I started my job.  And a little over 6 months since graduation! Time has definitely flown.  I thought time went quickly in school between classes and finals and breaks,  but I started working at the end of June and it's already December!  Since graduation, I talk a lot less to my friends (they are so far away! :( ) and I wake up and go to sleep a lot earlier!  Since I started my job (really, it doesn't seem like 5 months ago already), I have learned sooo much about RF-EME and cell phone antennas.  Ok maybe not too much of the technical stuff, but I can author and review a modeling report within 2 hours!  And that includes all the little things in the template that I change in every report...  I've also recently taken a new view on this job that I have.  When I started, I didn't know what to expect, so I went into it loving that I had a job and hoping that it would be something that I would sincerely enjoy doing.  At some point, I realized that I didn't actually "like" what I do on a daily basis, and got really down, thinking that if I didn't like my job, I should look for one I do like.  Recently, I've settled on doing the job that I have to the best of my ability, and seeing where it leads me.  I'm pretty grateful that I have a job at all, let alone a full-time job that is within the realm of "environmental science."  Eventually, I'll end up at a place where I need to move on with some useful experience.  The job I have is a good starting point, and I'm sure that the coming months will bring new things as the department continues to grow.  At this point, I need to figure out what to do with my non-working time, and make sure it doesn't turn into more working time.  Of course, probably after the holidays!  Now I just get to prepare for the holidays, and hope for snow!

Name Rant

So, it's time for a short rant about names.  More specifically the fact that other people do not pay attention to names.  I've experienced multiple times where people open an email to me with an incorrect spelling of my name.  This wouldn't bother me too much (ok maybe it might) if they weren't using an address book, which has my name spelled correctly, to find my email address. So in the "to" field of the email, the address book automatically fills in the correct spelling of my name, yet some still misspell my name in the opening of the email.  Really?!?  It's right there!  So people need to pay more attention to the spelling of names, especially one that have multiple popular spellings.

Two Months Later

Well, I've been working for almost 2 months now.  It has been a very interesting two months from the first week of training to finally meeting my direct supervisor in person yesterday.  With she and a couple other management people visiting, it has been interesting in talking with them this week.  We also had a cookout today at which I met a couple other people from around the region and chat for a few hours with coworkers.      Overall, a nice group of people, with the typical few that are a little out there. Adjusting to working 8 hours a day has definitely been difficult, in that I find myself bored throughout the day.  I find myself hesitant to bother people for more work when I finish my projects, so I end up stretching reports longer than they actually would take, unless I happen to have a lot to do.  Since most of the work I'm doing depends on other people uploading field work, I end up waiting more than I would like.  I'm still working on being more open and talkative with everyone, something I have always found difficult.  Also, I need to find things to do outside of work.  Something fun to do nights and weekends would definitely better than sitting at home.  I've considered possibly picking up geocaching again.  Well, here's to the next 2 months!

I got a Job! and other Events

I got a job!  I start work as an Environmental Scientist in about 2 weeks!  Hooray!  The job search is finally over for the time being.  In the past few weeks, I've also graduated from college and moved back home.  Graduation day was beautiful.  Just a bittersweet leaving.  At home, life has been pretty calm.  School for my sister finished last week - she finished middle school!  So she and Mom are now home during the week as well.  I also started a part-time retail job on Saturday, but that will only last a couple of weeks.  Now I just need to figure out when to get out to Philly to visit friends...

Home Stretch

I find myself in senior week, awaiting Sunday, when I will officially graduate from college.  It still doesn't really feel real. I can think about that fact that this is my last week living here with my awesome friends, but I don't think I'll actually grasp that until I'm at home.  Not that I'm not looking forward to going home, but I'm really going to miss the people here and the proximity to the great friends that I have.  These last few days of college will go by extremely fast in the larger picture, and I am going to make sure that I enjoy these moments.

Apathy?

Disclaimer: This is purely my opinion generated from my limited experience.
This post is sparked by the April Fool's Edition of The Muhlenberg Weekly.  However, this post is not a joke, I honestly am concerned about the lack of involvement that the younger class years have on campus. I've considered the subject of apathy among the younger classes before, and the more experience I have, the more convinced I become.  The classes directly younger than me are more apathetic than I have seen.  The Weekly is one example.  CASE is another.  APO even has this problem, even with the relatively large number of brothers.  There is just very few people outside of the senior class that are heavily invested in some organizations that I am more familiar with on campus.  For CASE, we have nobody, outside of the 6 house residents, who regularly comes to meetings; and 4 of the residents are graduating in May.  The future of the club is looking grim: not enough interest in a house for next year and very few attendees other than seniors at the couple events that we have had this semester.  I feel bad for the couple of people who remain interested in keeping CASE going, because this lack of interest has placed additional stress on them and makes the responsibility of it too much to handle.  We don't even have a treasurer for CASE, meaning the president has to take care of it.
Note that not everyone in the younger classes falls under the "doesn't care about anything" category.  I know many younger students who remain involve and are passionate about the organizations on campus.  As whole however, it seems like the younger students are not as involved as the classes that have recently graduated have been.
If this applied only to CASE, I would understand that it could be just an isolated lack of interest in a substance-free organization.  But the problem appears to be widespread, which leads me to think otherwise.  Which is unfortunate, because organizations like CASE, APO and The Weekly cannot operate and be successful without students who are willing to take on some responsibility.

Sick of It

So this week has been interesting, but I've officially decided that I'm tired of being a student.  After 16+ years of education, I have had enough of everything involved with classes and school.  I realize that I have a little under two months left until graduation, and I don't mean to imply that I will be entirely happy to graduate from college, but I will be more than happy to be done with classes after finals week.  After 4 years of trying to figure out exactly how much effort I should put into assignments and how I should try to overcome procrastination, I've decided that the quality of my work doesn't depend on the amount of effort I put into it.
This feeling mostly stems from a specific class that I have this semester, but in general, I think I'm more than ready to move on into the next stage of my life.  Beginning my career will be difficult, as I've found with trying to find a job for post-graduation that is both interesting and truly entry-level.  It is amazing how many job postings claim to be entry-level and then require anywhere from 1 to 6 years of experience.  For the field I want to go into, I have maximum of 3 months experience, in addition to the bachelors degree that I will get in May.  I know that there are jobs that I could do, the trick is finding the companies looking for recent graduates or other people with little to no job experience.  And I'd really love to have a job that I enjoy, but that may have to wait until the job market improves... who knows?

Wake-Up Call

I have experienced senioritis.  The general feeling of not really caring about classes, lacking motivation to do anything ahead of time.  At this time last night, I realized that my apathy came dangerously close to actually affecting my schoolwork.  With an hour before class, I realized that I had not written a (short) paper and had not revised my other essay.  Cue mini-panic attack.  Instant change in dinner plans and a crazy 40 minutes of making up something to write about and throwing it into a word document.  I got two pages, which is close to what I have gotten in normal circumstances.  A very disorganized essay though, definitely not the best, but it could've been worse.  At least I'll find out in a week or so.
Following class, I decided to actually sit down and redo syllabus week - meaning take my class syllabi and copy assignments into my agenda-book so that will not happen again.  Getting more organized  - check. Now I just have to make sure to keep up with my agenda.
On another note, I decided that giving up Facebook for Lent would be the best challenge to reasonably attempt.  Considered chocolate, but the conversation in class definitely made me want to try facebook.  And I have plenty of other internet things to keep me distracted from my work.  And I can continue my pleasure-reading.  So we'll see how that goes starting tomorrow.

4/1/12 Update: That paper was better than I expected - 88%.  And no Facebook for Lent is going well also!

Contemplation

In returning to my blog from my pre-college years today, I'm trying to decide whether it is worth it to keep the existing posts and add on starting around now to capture important thoughts and moments of my final semester of college, or if I should simply delete older posts and start a brand-new blog.  As of now, I'll probably leave past posts alone; they are intriguing to go back and consider where I was at the time.  However, in the new series of posts, the focus will be very different in that I will address topics that are on my mind instead of merely recounting daily activities.  I'll probably try not to sugar-coat things as much as I did, since in looking back, I see a few hints of hating high school, but not nearly the amount that I actually did.  Over the past 3.5 years, I've definitely grown a lot and went through the transition to a college student.  However, the next 6 months to a year will be the greatest transition that I will face in moving on and finding a career and comfortable life.  For the first time, I won't be in a purely educational setting and will have to adjust to many changes, which frankly terrify me now as I think of them.

I hope in following posts that I can capture my journey through this transition and avoid to some extent simply rambling on about my daily activities.  I will definitely still ramble though, as I find that my writing style leans toward random when applied to unstructured pieces.  I'll also be writing mostly as a reflection for myself, but will welcome any insight that other readers may want to give, whether in feedback, comments, or questions.

Note: The posts following this are from high school and reflect mostly on daily activities.  Proceed at your own risk.