Things Aren't Going Wrong

I’ve been feeling comfortable at my work in New Zealand… too comfortable. It’s calm. And it feels a little off to me. Don’t get me wrong, things going smoothly and as-planned is a good thing! I’m just not used to the lack of chaos and activeness in what I do, so perhaps that’s why I feel a little sedated.

My boss and I meet every week for a formal check-up and review of the work I have done during the past several days. He acknowledged that, yeah, a lot of the work done by the office is done in front of a computer and that it can sometimes seem a little unvaried. He is very correct in this.

In my job last summer and in my academics, which is either very on-your-feet or very let’s-talk-about-it, there is little time to let the mind settle into a state of what I like to call mental cruise control. And it is interesting to compare the work I do with the Society to other parts of my life. But before I go all “I NEED TO BE ACTIVE”, I have to ask myself: is this “mental cruise control” appropriate for the task at hand? And I think the answer is yes. As my boss said, the very nature of the work is sit-down-and-concentrate.

Figuring out what stimulates my mind as I reach the end of week 5/12, what method of driving (so to speak) best suits my personality, is something positive that I will definitely take away from this experience. It’s also bettering my ability to cruise control because let’s face it, I like to talk. I can be quiet (though my sister would beg to differ), but most of the time I find that learning and work gets done by speaking. As for my work here… there might be some days where I speak only 10 words during work hours, and they’re almost all pleasantries. But hey, it gets work done.

Really, things aren’t going wrong. There aren’t things for me to fix and there aren’t moments where I am forced to problem-solve, which I would say I’m already good at. Instead, there are things for me to find. And “fix” and “find” aren’t even on the same spectrum; I can’t see a way to compare the two words. So this is definitely something new… something different… and I’m simply trying to figure out how finding can help me fix things in my future endeavours.

So that’s sort of what is going on in the back of my mind as I read about New Zealand researchers conducting Antarctic ice sheet studies and making volcanic activity hypotheses. Because while I can see what I am doing immediately and the effects it has now (words being written in a document), I also need to stay focussed on what all of this is doing for me in the future.