happy anniversaries
TODAY, the 28th of september, is an important day in my life's history! specifically, for two reasons:
one. september 28, 2007: i began my first day of work at augsburg college. it was a friday, and, i later learned that although i chose to start work on a friday simply because that was the earliest i could start and felt bad for not being able to start sooner, many other people choose to start work on the last friday of a month because then they get to receive their health benefits for the following month right away. so hurray! i was covered with health insurance ASAP and have been so since (after a few insurance-free, but fortunately uneventful months in June, July, August and September of 2007).
i did work for about two months at access partners/3M in july, august and september, following graduating from college.....but that doesn't really count. that was just a "job" job, so that i could make some money to pay rent and buy food and stuff. and the work was about as mind-numbing as about possible (yet some people were there, and are still probably there, making a career out of it).
so, i like to think of augsburg as my very first "real job" out of college. my introduction to the working world. and i can honestly say that it has been a FANTASTIC place to work. i immediately liked how it was similar to the place i had just spent the past four years (mac) in that it was in the city, but small. and i began to find that i really appreciated that close-knit community. getting to know people in my office, and around campus. not being able to walk from one end of the campus to the other without recognizing someone! and, of course, the amazing students that i get to work with every day. they are, hands down, the highlight of my day, every day. i love working with them, interacting with them, hearing their stories and watching them experience college. their enthusiasm for augsburg rubs off on me too! i have also really come to appreciate augsburg as an institution: how much more accessible it is, how many students get to be the first person in their family to go to college, how genuinely never pretentious people seem, how it really is a college smack-dab in the middle of the city and works with that. when i started here, i was immediately told by so many people that augsburg is a really special place. and i agree.
work-wise, too, i think that i have definitely learned a lot in this first year. for the first two-and-a-half months of my job, i was without an immediate boss (just my open position boss's boss, who, although very kind and helpful, was also new to augsburg (we started on the same day)) and so was also getting used to the environment here). so those first two and a half months were a little shaky. i wasn't quite certain how to do everything i was supposed to do, and how to handle anything that came up unexpectedly, so......i definitely stumbled a little and i think the augsburg fund suffered a little bit because of my newness-based incompetence. but you have to learn to crawl before you can walk, and it takes longer to crawl somewhere than to walk somewhere so that was that.
and once my new boss came things started to click more. i'm happy to say (especially after watching my mom suffer through a terrible boss) that my boss is great and we get along really well. it's kind of nice, too, that our own particular division is kind of just the two of us so i think that makes it a better dynamic for getting along. and the other folks in the office are really warm and kind-hearted as well.
not to mention the environment of working at a college. there's always something going on! it's not like i really take advantage of a ton of stuff here, but it's cool that just about every week there is some interesting speaker, or sporting event, or what have you. it's like its own little city---complete with a park, a library, a recreation center, a bookstore, etc. i definitely love working on a college campus because it never feels "corporate"!
and reason number two: september 28, 2002: it was a saturday night, and, after being hassled to NO END to go out with him, i met up with jon at the caribou coffee in stillwater to go on a date. well, he thought it was a date; i didn't. i had thought i had made it clear to him that we were JUST going to hang out and then SEE how i felt at the end of the night. but, to my surprise, i found that as we sat and talked at caribou, it was just so easy to talk to him. he was a good listener. (he was pretty cute, too :) we talked for hours, until they were sweeping the floor and getting ready to close. then we went over to his house and watched "super troopers" (a good first date movie because it was so funny). and then afterward, he walked me out to my car and we stood in his driveway and said something like, "so, what do you think?"
and i said something like, "well.....maybe we can try it, and see if it works. and if it doesn't, well, then, we'll break up!" i figured it would last for a week or two.
SIX YEARS LATER.......
ups, downs, lots of in betweens, but we have always gone through it together. i love that i am continually surprised by jon; how, i think i have him all figured out and then he reveals some part of his personality or something new about him that totally throws me for a loop. or how i think that sometimes he just doesn't get me and then he'll succintly sum up what i'm thinking or how i'm acting in a way that seems like he knows me better than i know myself. how he is constantly challenging my way of thinking about things (well.........sometimes i hate it, but i do love the fact that it keeps me on my toes). the things we have in common are the things that are important to me, and the things that we don't have in common are things that nobody has 100% in common with anyone else (like your unique political stance or something). well. i feel like i'm babbling. i'll stop. the point is, happy anniversaries!
one. september 28, 2007: i began my first day of work at augsburg college. it was a friday, and, i later learned that although i chose to start work on a friday simply because that was the earliest i could start and felt bad for not being able to start sooner, many other people choose to start work on the last friday of a month because then they get to receive their health benefits for the following month right away. so hurray! i was covered with health insurance ASAP and have been so since (after a few insurance-free, but fortunately uneventful months in June, July, August and September of 2007).
i did work for about two months at access partners/3M in july, august and september, following graduating from college.....but that doesn't really count. that was just a "job" job, so that i could make some money to pay rent and buy food and stuff. and the work was about as mind-numbing as about possible (yet some people were there, and are still probably there, making a career out of it).
so, i like to think of augsburg as my very first "real job" out of college. my introduction to the working world. and i can honestly say that it has been a FANTASTIC place to work. i immediately liked how it was similar to the place i had just spent the past four years (mac) in that it was in the city, but small. and i began to find that i really appreciated that close-knit community. getting to know people in my office, and around campus. not being able to walk from one end of the campus to the other without recognizing someone! and, of course, the amazing students that i get to work with every day. they are, hands down, the highlight of my day, every day. i love working with them, interacting with them, hearing their stories and watching them experience college. their enthusiasm for augsburg rubs off on me too! i have also really come to appreciate augsburg as an institution: how much more accessible it is, how many students get to be the first person in their family to go to college, how genuinely never pretentious people seem, how it really is a college smack-dab in the middle of the city and works with that. when i started here, i was immediately told by so many people that augsburg is a really special place. and i agree.
work-wise, too, i think that i have definitely learned a lot in this first year. for the first two-and-a-half months of my job, i was without an immediate boss (just my open position boss's boss, who, although very kind and helpful, was also new to augsburg (we started on the same day)) and so was also getting used to the environment here). so those first two and a half months were a little shaky. i wasn't quite certain how to do everything i was supposed to do, and how to handle anything that came up unexpectedly, so......i definitely stumbled a little and i think the augsburg fund suffered a little bit because of my newness-based incompetence. but you have to learn to crawl before you can walk, and it takes longer to crawl somewhere than to walk somewhere so that was that.
and once my new boss came things started to click more. i'm happy to say (especially after watching my mom suffer through a terrible boss) that my boss is great and we get along really well. it's kind of nice, too, that our own particular division is kind of just the two of us so i think that makes it a better dynamic for getting along. and the other folks in the office are really warm and kind-hearted as well.
not to mention the environment of working at a college. there's always something going on! it's not like i really take advantage of a ton of stuff here, but it's cool that just about every week there is some interesting speaker, or sporting event, or what have you. it's like its own little city---complete with a park, a library, a recreation center, a bookstore, etc. i definitely love working on a college campus because it never feels "corporate"!
and reason number two: september 28, 2002: it was a saturday night, and, after being hassled to NO END to go out with him, i met up with jon at the caribou coffee in stillwater to go on a date. well, he thought it was a date; i didn't. i had thought i had made it clear to him that we were JUST going to hang out and then SEE how i felt at the end of the night. but, to my surprise, i found that as we sat and talked at caribou, it was just so easy to talk to him. he was a good listener. (he was pretty cute, too :) we talked for hours, until they were sweeping the floor and getting ready to close. then we went over to his house and watched "super troopers" (a good first date movie because it was so funny). and then afterward, he walked me out to my car and we stood in his driveway and said something like, "so, what do you think?"
and i said something like, "well.....maybe we can try it, and see if it works. and if it doesn't, well, then, we'll break up!" i figured it would last for a week or two.
SIX YEARS LATER.......
ups, downs, lots of in betweens, but we have always gone through it together. i love that i am continually surprised by jon; how, i think i have him all figured out and then he reveals some part of his personality or something new about him that totally throws me for a loop. or how i think that sometimes he just doesn't get me and then he'll succintly sum up what i'm thinking or how i'm acting in a way that seems like he knows me better than i know myself. how he is constantly challenging my way of thinking about things (well.........sometimes i hate it, but i do love the fact that it keeps me on my toes). the things we have in common are the things that are important to me, and the things that we don't have in common are things that nobody has 100% in common with anyone else (like your unique political stance or something). well. i feel like i'm babbling. i'll stop. the point is, happy anniversaries!