I've come to the conclusion that my personality is not fit for a 7am - 4:45pm job; no, it's not the waking up early or being in an office all day, or filling out TPS reports. No, it's because I'm the sort of person who likes to check everything off her list before shutting down for the day and relaxing. Or, if I can't finish everything, working until I have to go to sleep. It's what made me "successful" at Tech -- let's not necessarily include school work in that :). I feel stressed with a partially completed To Do list, but I also feel stressed with an empty To Do list. I feed off of mentally checking things off my To Do list, and I like taking breaks as long as I know I can go back to working on my To Do list whenever I want.

That's what was easy about school, that my To Do list was portable and I was supposed to always be thinking about it, working on completing items on the list. But now my mildly addictive and task-accomplishment oriented brain is having to refocus according to the working world's rules, in which you shut everything down precisely 9 hours after beginning (plus 45 minutes for lunch). You're supposed to leave your assignments in whatever state of disarray they might be in, blissfully clear your mind, and already find yourself mentally in the comfort of a warm, sudsy bathtub before you even enter the elevator shaft. My mind doesn't work this way!

Walking through the corridors to get to the elevator, I'm running through my To Do list in my mind, thinking about the Sticky Note waiting for me in Outlook on my computer that enumerates everything I want to accomplish tomorrow morning (after Wednesday's Donut Day festivities, of course. I'm seriously pumped about my first Group Donut Day) - could I have brought anything home to read? No, I tell myself, that's what you're supposed to do during work hours! It's not homework! They don't pay you to get everything done as fast as you can, they pay you to get it done as fast as you can during normal business hours. It's not even like you're working on time sensitive reading that has to be done in 48 hours which would then justify taking it home. No, it's just personal edification, self, that can wait until the morning. And that email? You can't email from outside the building, yet, anyway! I'm having guilt issues with changing my modus operandi - issues with fitting my overachiever mindset into the working world, a working world in which my skill set is still too small to try to be an overachiever, and a working world in which "overachiever" means so many different things and requires so many different things than at school.

Plus, I really enjoy what I'm learning about and like feeling productive. When I come home, I really want to read my starter's guide to hydrocarbon production, not Guns, Germs, and Steel.

As much as I don't want to feel guilty, at the same time I feel like by losing my guilt, I'll succumb to the indoctrination I'm being injection molded with. As much as I like my office -- I've got a window looking over the rest of the city and the river, it's really quite nice and as large as my mentor's, they gave me my own Swingline, and it's NOT a cubicle! -- and the people I work with, I feel like I'm fighting the dullness that seems to color everything around a faint beige; I'm fighting feeling dulled by dullness into a dull and boring person.

Or maybe I'm just tired today, after playing 2 hours of tennis with my buddy (that's his official name, too -- I have a supervisor, mentor, and buddy, plus my buddy's buddy, my grand-buddy. hehe it's Greek life all over again) and another young guy from work and his roommate last night. I had fun, and it was nice to hang out socially - though it still feels like there's this work-wall up around us all (I wonder if that goes away eventually). Today my buddy and I went spinning during lunch at the gym thats in the building.

In any case, I am happier than my last post, with renewed confidence and a sense of happiness with my house. Thank you KAB for your comments, I love you!

My next point of work-related excitement (besides the fact that this Friday happens to be my group's schedule color's Friday off, so only 2 more days for my first week!) is the "Drown-proofing" training I'm taking next Thursday in preparation for going offshore the week after. Woooo! I'm going to get to visit the asset I'm assigned to with my mentor to spec out some new projects I started today.

As caught up as I've been the past 48 hours in acclimating, I keep returning to thoughts of you guys, my friends, and how lucky I am to put you on my target (or bullseye, as the case may be ;)). It's cheesy, I know, and I'm risking redundancy here, but thanks for being my friend, friends.