Holy cow. I made it to day 5. Whodathunk?
Summary: Work, lunch, sleep
People I talked to: Katie, Sarah, Grant, mentee #2, Chris, Vinita, Matt, Christy
Me, not able to sleep at night. My room is actually not that dark but mostly orange with the eery glow of the streetlamp.
Day 5, Thursday
5:32a. Wake up in a panic, did I miss my alarm which is automatically set so that doesn’t make any sense?! Check my phone. No I didn’t. Why do I always wake up before the alarm!? I really need curtains. My blinds are so useless that light comes in day and night. At night because I’m in front of a street light and in the morning because of the solar system.
6:00a. Alarm goes off next to me in bed. Something about the sound of an alarm clock always makes me want to go to sleep…I put my head down but I know it’s a trap.
6:05. Get out of bed, brush my teeth. Arm & Hammer toothpaste, guys, I’m telling you. It makes life worth living.
6:12a. Get ready for work. It’s supposed to be pretty warm in the city and at work. Dress? then I don’t have to coordinate? Nix dress A, dress B is dowdy but, time has run out. Dowdy dress + boots that hit my calves at an unflattering spot. DONE.
6:38a. Ready, time to collect my things and shuffle out.
6:58. Bus. Get my spot. I’ve been standing near the front of the line recently. I think about how the person that used to sit here is probably annoyed when I see me. There’s a girl with high-top sneakers that always takes my bus as well and a guy that looks like one of my friends. I always look at him too much because I’m trying to figure out if he’s my friend or not. But you know, also all strangers are just a friend you haven’t made yet.
7:08a. Deciding whether to listen to a podcast or write, but I realize I hadn’t written anything yesterday so I thought I should. Was also chatting to Katie & Sarah a lot in the morning. Katie’s back from her fancy-fanc’ turn about Europe with the fiancé.
8:02a. Arrive on campus and decide to eat a cafeteria I’ve never been to before because they had something with coconut on the menu. But it’s a continental breakfast so I pick up a shrimp and jook to-go box at a food truck and a Blue Bottle New Orleans ice coffee. Half because they come in a cute carton, half because it’s tasty coffee. It’s one of my favorite breakfast items and I am a frequenter of this food truck. Which is good because the coconut muesli ended up disappointing me.
8:10a. I end up mostly chatting up a storm with Katie & Sarah in the morning while I eat. Grant is also leaving some feedback.
8:30a. I go to leave, but then end up sitting outside and finishing the text of the post really quick.
9:00a. Get to my desk. Emails are calling my name but today I’m like “finish the drawing first!” But then my co-worker comes in an excitedly tells me she saw a clueless biker almost get hit twice on her way into work today. Then I do answer a few emails…
9:50a. No! Finish the drawing! Format the post!
10:01a. I surreptitiously take a picture at my desk and then realize I’m late to a meeting. (Worth it).
10:04a & 10:12a. accidentally take pictures on my still-open camera that I will discover later in the day.
10:30a-11:10a. Helpful meeting, came away with more work though that I should just hurry up and do. It takes a while. I follow up with someone who is volunteering on the project about it.
11:13a. Finally finish uploading and posting Day 4.
11:14a. Fill an awkward amount of time by emails, which are endless.
11:30a-12:00p. Think I’m late to a meeting, but I’m one of the first ones there. Despite not having an update on my actual work, I think I’m helpful because I know a lot about different aspects of the system and can comment on what’s going on. Lately I’ve been having these weird realizations about how much I know about the product because I’m working on so many different things.
12:05a. I continue talking to a teammate about a new problem that arose from the meeting, Yikesaroni.
12:25p. Frantically hopping on a bike (in a dress) to meet a different intern for lunch. This is the second intern I’m mentoring. They’re both from CMU! I’m not an engineer, but I try to be as helpful as I can and collect resources.
1:10p. We’re both finished eating but we grab and ice cream and walk around a bit more to finish them so that we can ride bikes back. Old fashioned soft-serve swirl.
1:20. Woof. I feel like I have a pretty good chunk of time before my next meeting. [work + a mash up of people asking me things and me asking people things]
2:25p. I get this inking to make integrate Pokémon GO into something I’m working on and get a little distracted.
2:30p. Meet with a designer from another team to go over a project I’m working on. It’s good to get fresh eyes on our work.
3:03p. We part ways. Work work work. I’m crashing pretty hard from the sugar and caffeine.
5:00p. Someone comes over to talk to my co-worker about something exciting and then I get totally distracted. But must…finish…one…thing.
6:00p. I send out the email summarizing my work for feedback. It’s 6pm on a Thursday before an all-day picnic tomorrow, there’s really no hope.
6:15p. We’re still talking about some new stuff. I think everyone is a little tired and happy for a distraction. I’m like, making sure things are on track, but it’s really tough for me to start something new right now.
7:15p. Eh, I get something to eat. One of the places I go to had an enormous line. So I just walk out and go back to the cafeteria in my building. I eat outside alone. Not that many people eat outside at my building.
7:34p. I decide I want to go home. I don’t have a jacket. Oh, the bus has already left. I’ll have to wait until later. I talk to Vinita, write a little of this post…
7:52p. I leisurely make my way to the stop for the 8:08PM bus.
8:25p. Board the bus that was very late. I was listening to a band called Whitney because my friend sent me this song and I liked it.
8:50p. The natural worrier in me thinks that no one remembered to scan the waivers that we are supposed to turn in this afternoon. I am talking to a co-worker about it.
9:02p. I am to this point. I am feeling super car sick from working on my computer and stop.
9:37p. I get home, dump my stuff in my room. One of my housemates has Google images up on her computer and says she’s getting into drawing again. I b-line to the bathroom to take a shower and get ready for bed.
10:07p. Still have a lingering headache and feel pretty groggy so I melt into bed. My mind is still racing will all the stuff I have to do and I can’t sleep. I think about the meditation exercises I did once-upon-a-time-ago where you take a big inhale and when you exhale you think about all your worries getting breathed out of you. Each exhale more and more thoughts and worries leave you. That works for like, 3 breaths and then I’m thinking about doing this on my bed in Pittsburgh. It takes a bit longer, but I fall asleep eventually.