The past 5 weeks (I still can’t believe FIVE weeks have gone by) have been a whirlwind. Fellowship wise, I get to know so many great people and attend so many inspiring events. Project wise, I was just trying to get my literature reviews done. My deadline was July 5th so I really needed to get my research put together, my thoughts in place, and the innovative side of my brain on (which it is not most of the time). After weeks of mind wandering, mindlessly googling, feeling hopeless and lost, and writer’s block – I was able to produce three maybe polished literature reviews. It felt good emailing them to my supervisor yesterday which also led to a lag afterwards when I should have started my case studies.
Truth be told. I was nervous. I love writing. I just don’t know if I’m good at it though. I’ve had so many mixed reviews in the past from sharing my essays with other teachers to a big, fat red “NO” written on the top. It gets frustrating how subjective writing can be – how one person can love your conversational tone to another person despising it. I wonder how writers even do it. It’s even scarier with professional writing as I had never done anything of the sort. I just did not know if I had formatted or even written the lit. review correctly or if I had completely missed the ball park.
So I was nervous. What if my five weeks of work was miserably horrid? I didn’t want to disappoint anyone – that was the LAST thing I needed. Coming into work today was scary (disclaimer: I make a big deal out of things I probably shouldn’t). I was waiting for my this didn’t meet my expectations conversation. Technically, Emily and I would be having our meeting tomorrow but I was afraid she would bring it up today.
And she did. She said it looks promising. The length was just right and the writing looked pretty good. She even suggested turning it into a professional memo so I could have it for future reference. She still needs to thoroughly look through it. I’m not sure what this really means but I feel pretty good. The past five weeks I wasn’t really sure if I was doing anything right and now, at least I know it wasn’t too bad. I finally feel like I have a place in this organization and I’m not just someone doing work that doesn’t even count.
This is just a huge stress off my shoulder.
By the way, Ramadan Mubarak!!
Congrats on finishing those lit. reviews! Sounds like a great achievement!! I’m writing a report for the end of the summer that needs to be formal and I’m feeling exactly those same fears except what if my TEN weeks of work was miserably horrid?!?
Congrats that you got positive feedback on it though!! It’s so great that your work is helping your organization!
Hope Ramadan goes well for you!