A Midterm Reflection, in Blog Style

Because it is midterm month, I will take this moment to explain the areas in which I have improved so far in my writing and communications with others.  I will also look at the places I have trouble, and how I think I can improve.

I realize that this internship is quite unlike other internships in that I do most of my work away from an "office".  This job can easily be explained as a freelance position, and it is important for me to remember this.  There are times when I think that I need to be in a corporate setting in order to actually be performing a job; as long as I am free to write (whether with pen and paper or computer), I can carry out my job.

The main area I have improved in is my actual writing.  Coming in to this internship, I had no idea how to write a press-release.  This was intimidating at first because that was going to be a main job.  Through free writings and practice, practice, practice, I have been able to improve my style of writing.  I am also able to finalize an article faster than at the beginning of the semester.  For the first two articles, I struggled with word count and content in such a way that I could think of little else.  Having due dates has improved the amount of time it takes me because I know when I must be done.

Another area I notice an improvement is in email communication.  Before my internship, I rarely performed work-related communication through email because I did not trust the systems I used.  I have found that Gmail is an excellent provider because it catalogues and houses thousands of emails.  Just having an email account that is not MIX has helped--I have lost so many hours of my life fighting with the school mail system to be comfortable with using it for this internship.  Gmail makes the email portion of the job easy and rather effortless, so that I can focus on the actual content of the email itself.

The main area in which I need to improve is my time management.  All of my previous jobs have been in an office-type setting, and it has taken lots of adjustment to see this as an actual job.  I have put aside specific hours of the day and week to work only on job-related material, but I struggle with staying on this schedule.  I believe the way to combat this is to move around the distractions that I face.  I live in Stalnaker with three roommates, so working alone in the room is next to impossible.  There is a lounge right around the corner to my room, and I think that this area would be conducive to my time management because this is the place where I tutor on Thursdays.  If I only use the lounge as a work-space, I think it will "program" my head into only looking at it as such.

The second major area that I need to improve is my hours.  At this point in the semester, I have completed around 40 hours of work.  Since it is midterm, I know I need to step on it in terms of getting 100 more hours, but I am unsure of how to do this.  Am I allowed to count free-writings into my hour, even though it doesn't directly reflect on my job?  I will easily have the page requirement completed by the end of the semester (I'm at around 11 pages now), but I'm worried about the hours.  Any ideas?

Another area in which growth should come is my blog postings.  I have given my blog address to my job supervisor so that she can check to see what I am saying and what problems I am encountering.  It's rather difficult for her, I'm sure, to come to the site when it has not been updated since I began it.  I realize that this does not reflect well on my time management skills, but it has helped me realize that if I say I will use a site for a supervisor to check-in on, I should stand by what I say.

I'm looking forward to the continuation of this internship, and I'm encouraged by knowing what I can do to finish the semester strong!