Today started off with a bang when I woke up dry-heaving at six a.m., which would have probably been vomiting if I had had time for dinner last night. I managed to go back to sleep and felt marginally better when I woke up again at 8:30, although I've had a raging headache all day. It got a little bit worse when I strolled into work at five past nine, only to discover that I had left my laptop in my apartment because I had mistakenly thought that I had left it at work the previous night. This set me back another ten minutes while I came back to my apartment to retrieve the aforementioned laptop, which had managed to get buried under a pile of clothes during the ten hours that I wasn't in the office between leaving yesterday and going in this morning.
Needless to say, I wasn't really in the mood to give two more presentations today, and no one else on my team really was either, but we got through them surprisingly well given our overall group depression. But, I miraculously left the office around 4:30--my manager here made me schedule 'Sara time', and I actually took it. I was supposed to use it to think about my future, but I mostly used it to take a nap. Then I went out and had a steak and a glass of wine, and tried to list all of my strengths. Renate (the manager) chastised me for thinking too much about my weaknesses, as I believe I mentioned last week--and so she tasked me with trying to list one hundred of my strengths. I'm not particularly good at this; while I can definitely be introspective, I am more self-destructive than self-aggrandizing, and so even my strengths sound like things that I sometimes berate myself for (such as my ability to persuade people to do things my way--it's probably a competitive advantage in the corporate world, but I feel rather domineering sometimes and don't always think it's a good thing for my interpersonal relationships, especially with the opposite sex). But anyway, I compiled a rather long list, filled out by slightly less stellar skills like 'computer skillz' and 'living abroad' (you can tell I was stretching). I may not know what to do with my future, but I'm definitely a little more relaxed than I was earlier this afternoon, which will hopefully help me to get through the craziness of the next few days.
I have five more nights in Ireland (six if you count the Thursday that I'll be here to pick up my luggage), which seems ridiculous considering I haven't started packing or saying goodbye to people. I also haven't been to the Guinness Storehouse, which is apparently a must-see thing. So, let's see how much I get done this weekend; I'm actually just looking forward to taking a day off (since I've worked every day since getting back from Berlin), and sleeping until I wake up naturally. Which, given the fact that the sun rises at five a.m. here, will probably mean around six a.m. when it starts infiltrating my curtains.
I know that I'm talking tons about work, and I've fallen back into that classic Stanford-style 'look how hard I'm working and yet I'm still cool and fun' mentality that has been oft-bemoaned in the past. I can't help it, though! Going home will help, since I'm a little more balanced (or off-balanced in a better way) there. Now, though, I'm going to wrap up my IM conversation with Claude and go to bed. Goodnight!
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