One Foot in the 'Real World'

I was expecting this semester to be mainly focused on my internship but after having my first day of classes yesterday, I'm a little overwhelmed.  I'm taking an Arts in the City class which should be pretty fun except for the paper writing I have to do...and the "creating your own masterpiece" final.  I'm also taking Diversity & Inequality.  This one is going to require a lot of reading and some paper writing too.  We are also required to be in a Practicum Group.  From what I understand, it's basically a small group of students (I think there are 8 in my group) that meet for an hour and a half each week to talk about our experiences--class, internship, city living, etc.  I have to do a weekly journal/paper for this.  All in all, I have right around 30 "papers" to write before the end of April. Plus all the reading I'm also required to do.  I think I'm going to be glad classes are only once a week!!!  I feel like I have one foot in the 'real world' with my internship starting but I'm also still stuck in the 'school world' too...not my favorite feeling.

My internship started today.  If you know me, you know I like to be early.  I HATE being late.  My supervisor said that work starts at 8:30.  My Practicum Group Leader told us to be there 10 or 15 minutes early.  And I, of course, didn't want to be "late" by showing up 10 minutes early so I made sure I had PLENTY of time to get there.   ...I showed up 25 minutes early.  Overachiever? ...I guess so.  I got out of the elevators on the 37th floor and all the lights in the office were turned off and the doors were locked.  So there I stood, the new intern, pacing around the elevators waiting for someone to show up to let me in on my first day of work.  My supervisor showed up a few minutes later saving me from embarrassing myself in front of all my new coworkers.

My first project for the day was inputting data into an Excel spreadsheet...rather mundane and tedious.  A group of the guys and my supervisor took me out for lunch for my first day of work.  It was interesting and definitely showed me that I'm not in South Dakota or Iowa anymore!  After an hour lunch break with them I'm finally starting to be able to tell when they are joking and when they're not...but not always.  After lunch I started working on another project.  This time I was basically checking data between two documents and making changes as needed.  I was asked to sit in on a conference call with Morningstar for about an hour and a half while the guys asked questions about a new program they are considering purchasing.  I sat there with a blank stare on my face for most of it and looked out the window.  I was still listening!! I just didn't know what they were talking about so an hour and a half of that got a little old.  I left at 5 and took a bus home.  I had a mild panic attack when I realized the display on the bus that tells you which stop is next, was broken...and I had no idea where I was.  Thankfully I was sitting next to a very nice lady who helped me out.  She happened to be getting off at the same stop that I was looking for so she told me to just 'follow her lead' :)

Megan, Karla, Sherry, and I are going to end the evening with a movie and hopefully get to sleep semi-early.  Another big day tomorrow!