At school today, I found Waldo sitting with Cleopatra, a rather short looking Jack Sparrow and a random vampire. None of my profs dressed up (I had profs dress up last year, and give out candy – no one was that interested in doing so today). However, classes went well today. Still waiting on the results for one of my midterms (Tuesday!) and then after that, only 2 more midterms, 2 more projects, 2 papers, 1 lab final and 4 final exams. Yeah… I don’t know, the term’s only been a handful of weeks but it’s just felt like it’s been so long. I mean, I only took a midterm last week, but it has felt like it’s been forever ago. I don’t know, it’s weird. Time, not flying at all.

In other news… One of my coworkers has not forgotten about me (they always claim to whenever I pop up again at work). He inherited a tub of gummy candy from another coworker who moved (from Building A to Building B) and he told my mom that “since Michelle always had like a handful whenever I saw her” that I should have the candy. Mmm, artificial colours and flavours, delicious! And then today he sent cookies to me via my mom. So eating handfuls of candy (not on a daily basis, mind you) a few months ago means that I get a tub of candy… Works out well, I think!

The weather has been crap today. The rain wasn’t that bad when I left volunteering today, but I just got to the sidewalk when I saw the bus zooming by and it was going to be about another 30 minutes before the next bus showed up, so I figured that I would walk home instead. 10 minutes later, it was pissing rain. I anticipated the weather being horrible, so I wore a lot of layers (regular shoes though – don’t know what I was thinking, a tee, a hoodie, a jacket, knee socks, jeans). Oh, guess what was completely soaked through by the time I got home? My jacket, my hoodie, my shoes and my jeans, at least up to mid-thigh. Not cool, not cool at all. Oh, and about 5 minutes after I got home? Rain stopped.

And it’s Halloween tomorrow… My names? Working on a biology paper, studying, organic chemistry problems, shopping. Yay… Such is the life of someone who has no… life?

How has your Thursday and Friday been?

This is how my desk at work looked this morning, before I had cleaned it up. Note the papers stacked up. Those letter trays? Full of papers, all neatly paper clipped or binder-clipped together. The top 2 letter trays were various completed projects/work. The bottom 2 consists of about a million (… 30+) folders for organizing all the papers of things that I needed for data entry (it’s a sort of fluid project since I was always getting new documents to enter in). And do you see that chair? Super comfy, high back with an arch for great support. The arms were plasticky and didn’t really feel like they belonged to the rest of the chair, but I love that chair! Someone traded with me for their spare chair within 3 days of me sitting in my cubicle.

Work went great today. I didn’t have a whole lot to do (obviously they can’t throw new projects at me, granted they did suggest it though…). I handed out my crocheted cupcakes (as you can see 2 of them on my desk in the photo!) to my coworkers and they all loved them to bits! They asked if I bought them or made them, how long it took me to make them, if knitting was difficult (even after I mentioned that they were crocheted). One of my coworkers, R, joked about how they were like the ‘perfect’ treat: no fat, sugar or calories and 100% fibre.

And this was my desk by the end of the day. I cleaned off all those files and you can see the old school tax calculator on my desk. It was there before I was placed at that desk and I just never moved it. I blurred out the screen, the Post-Its and the company logo on my id because it was all still readable. However, you can see ‘NEW EMPLOYEE’ on my id badge. I gave it back before I left, don’t worry (although I nearly forgot).

It felt weird being able to see all of the fake wood grain on my desk for once. That and putting away all my extra stationary things – notepad, paperclips, pens, pencils, stuff like that. I popped the water bottle into the recycling bin, cleaned off all the Post It notes that I had everywhere. I went around and said all my good byes and I clocked out at a few minutes after 4:30pm.

I had this conversation with one of my coworkers today, about an hour or so before I left, and it went like this:

M: I think I’m really going to miss all of you. You’re all so entertaining.
D: Well yes, we are entertaining, but I don’t think you’re going to miss us that much.
M: Well, of course I will! What else will I blog about?
D: *laughter* This is true. Your poor blog readers, they’ll just be putting up with you bitching about school until next summer.

One more work day!

As much as I do like working at the company that I work for, this is the longest stretch that I’ve worked there so far. For the first and second year, I worked there for 2 months each year. For my third year there, I worked there for about two months, took 4 weeks off, and then worked for another month. I took a month off because I was taking a summer course (biology – and it was one of the best professors I had ever had at my school). This summer, I opted not to take a summer course (I was having enough trouble finding enough credits to take in the upcoming year!) so I worked for the full summer term period. I started the Monday after my last exam and I’m ending on the Friday right before the school year starts, a total of 19 weeks straight.

I like most of the people that I work with, everyone’s always been very friendly and pretty cheerful. I’ve gotten to know some people very well there and I do like the company and the fact that they’ll let me work full time and take a full 4 weeks off. Everyone’s been really awesome to me for the last 4 summers, so I’m glad that I went back again this year (it also helped that no where else I had applied to wanted me). I do something different every summer, I gain new experience every single summer and that’s what I like about it. I get exposed to so many different things and to different people. For instance, last summer, I juggled 10+ projects for the last while and it was a very time consuming 10+ projects, but I got them done and learned much better time management  than I ever had before. This summer, I definitely worked on my communication skills and got better at enforcing things that needed to be enforced in order to get the job done.

I guess what I’m saying is that despite the fact that I will complain about having over a dozen projects on the go or the fact that “all I do” is enter data for a full work day, I still learned something during my stay at the company every year and I learn new practical skills every summer as well. Which, in itself, is so valuable. I am also incredibly thankful to the company that I work for whenever I have to pay for tuition or textbooks, because without the money that I’ve earned over the past four summers, I don’t think I would be as comfortably paying for school and I love the fact that I don’t ‘need’ to work during the school year (I commute to school on a daily basis and this makes it rather impractical, considering I never have ‘good’ class times).

The “End of Summer” lunch happened today and it was really fun. My supervisor and one of the higher-ups were both there today and both of them invited me back for the summer in 2010, so I’ll have to see about that. Hopefully it’ll work out.

So, just one more day. One more day until my ’summer vacation’ of three days where I will be preparing for school and whatnot. Just one more day.

I think I’m already missing it.