Recent Events, also, What Happened To My Internship

So, here's the downlo, yos.

Internship:

So I'm not a very good employee. Good person, yes. Good Catholic, most of the time. Good employee...not so much. This is due in part to a few things:

1. I'm not so great at things which require self-initiative. I especially haven't been so in the past. This plays out in so many different ways.

2. I have problems relating to my sleep. Due to a kind of panic/anxiety I get at night, I usually don't sleep very well. Sometimes it manifests as insomnia, and as I get tired later becuase of the insomnia I konk out the next night (or afternoon, or evening...take your pick) which just fucks up any "plans" I may have made to the contrary. This cycle of sleep and too much sleep causes my immune system to be lower, which gets me sick...which cuases even MORE missing of work.

Missing work thrice without any really good explaination is why I lost my internship.

What? I lost my internship? Yes.

My faculty contact and I had a discussion, which ended with "well, I think we better have a meeting with everyone involved and find you a new internship." Becuase although when I was there I was doing good, enthusastic work, when I wasn't there I confused everyone. Wasn't I supposed to be there, doing something, get my required hours? It was a large internship, so I was required at least 3-4 hours a day and those were all the hours they could manage to give me. They couldn't find enough for me to do to complete it in the first place, so we had worked out a plan that would extend me into next semester. But that all went to hell in a handbasket when they realized I was a bad employee.

SO last week I met with my internship site supervisor, my internship director at CSB, my faculty moderator (Kaster) and an academic advising lady. Everyone wants what's best for me, and naturally so do I. Nobody knew quite what that was, except for that I wouldn't be doing this internship anymore.

The new plan is this:

1. I close out my internship with Kaster by seeing the councilor at CSB and getting checked out medically about the sleep thing. Could it all just be that I have no self-motivation and need to get that in gear? Yes. It could be that. If it is, it's still a big problem...how do you self-motivate to get self-motivated? An excellent question I don't have an answer to. If my sleep problems are medical in some way, then a doctor can perscribe SOMETHING that will help me stay regulated in that way. And a concilor can certainly help me work on the self-motivation and anxiety. I report on this to Kaster. That would be uncomfortible except for that he's an amazing guy, and if he doesn't mind hearing about my "personal life" then I have no problem telling him about it. I trust him.

2. I take an ILP (independant learning project) with a theo prof, hopefully Marian Diaz, about discernment (the same topic as a class she's currently teaching, so she wouldn't be unprepared to moderate an ilp for me). If not Marian, than any theo prof would do. I have to line this up by..oh...tomorrow. I have to be REGISTERED for one by next week.

3. I take a CD mod class, which I'm already signed up for thanks to the academic advising lady. Yay for her!

4. I stay in my Pastoral Ministry class, and kick ass at it. Good for that. It's every monday night, so basically I spend a lot of time sitting on my ass in my Grandma's house. I do my homework. I play nice.

That equals out to 12 credits, which is enough to keep me a fulltime student.


It was a very close call. I might have had to withdraw if I hadn't been able to work out a plan like this. IF I had had to withdraw, that would have put me a semester behind...an extra semester that my parents would not be able to pay for. A complicated series of events would have followed: me begging for money on the street, possibly funding my own "super senior" semester, graduating late if at all.

Not graduating would mean trying to find a job without my BA, not a good things when trying to work for the Church.

I feel about this: startled. This series of events should not surprise me, but I'm dissapointed in myself of course, for failing so miserable at something so dead easy. "Show up to work" shouldn't be all that difficult. But for me, sometimes, it is, and I need to make it not so.

I say need, becuase that's the way it is. Not want, although I also want. But want implies I could do without it. Not so. I NEED to be employable to make any of my dreams for the future a reality. I NEED to bust my ass, and bend and scrape to make things work out, so that I'm no longer this unreliable, incompetent employee.

So I went to the councilor yesterday, and I have a meeting planned with a councilor for next Tuesday. Good start. Still to do: email Marian Diaz about the ILP, and go to the doctor.

Going to the doctor is complicated by past events; last semester's mono-like illness, me recieving my anxiety medication (yes, I am medicated, it's called Solexus and, lol, causes drowsiness!). I don't know if I should just do it and worry about the money later, or brave the conversation with my parents.

Mom and dad know all of this (minus the going to the doctor part) and are reasonably parts dissapointed and supportive of my drive for reform.

I haven't told many other people, becuase it makes me frustrated and sad.

so...that's the way it is.

(fin)