making peace with the unfamiliar

good lord, i got a 4.0. i can’t even fucking believe it. i haven’t gotten straight A’s since high school. i’m astounded that i pulled off an A in literature of the american west. that’s the class i had to write a paper for at the very last minute, a paper that was worth half of the entire semester’s grade. i was basically convinced that my paper made not an ounce of sense, and was afraid to even look at it afterwards to check. such a relief…

i feel a little funny towards grades. of course there’s the issue of priorities, like should i be trying to get an education or trying to get a grade. but also, it irks me that plenty of people who are plenty dumb can get A’s just by working hard, or even just hard enough. maybe that’s how it should be? i don’t know, it just seems like grades should be based more on quality of work, especially in departments like english and art. i worked extremely hard this semester, and that’s probably about the only reason i scored so well. i’ve turned in a ton of crap that i don’t believe deserved the grade it received, case in point that lit paper. not that i’m going to go argue for a lower grade or anything…maybe that would be the ethical thing to do, but it would also be quite insane.

today i started my new job. it was…so many things. i have a ton of stuff to learn. an unexpected job title, too—i thought i was going to be the receptionist, but apparently i’m in charge of distribution, whatever that means/entails. today i mostly sat at my desk and tried to get a feel for the computer (mac! aah new things!), put together a calendar of events for one of the magazines, and answered a bunch of phone calls. i shouldn’t say a bunch…there were times when the phone didn’t ring for like half an hour, but then i’d randomly be deluged for a few minutes. everyone calls at once it seems. god, it’s a lot to get used to. there is nothing more anxiety-provoking for me than to be thrown into a social situation where i don’t know what i’m doing and i have to rely on other people for help, especially people i’m not entirely familiar with yet. so far all my coworkers are totally sweet and amazing, which helps so very much, and the whole atmosphere is pretty laid back. there wasn’t anything particularly stressful about today, but i was still considerably on edge.

i snapped a picture of the crazy amazing desk that is my workstation. i’ll have to get a better photo sometime to really capture the detail. it’s totally one of a kind, i think some local artist made it…the same person also made the matching bench.