Directonless Dingbat

Still no official word on why I was asked about prereqs, but I've heard that there have been errors in prereq enforcement in other classes this term, and I've been told that others in the class were asked, so I guess he's just being cautious. Regardless, I was directly emailed, not BCC'd, and the salutation addressed me by name, so it's not like I was totally off-base by wondering if it was just me.

Everything went mostly ok today, even though it was a long day. Had a painful dinner with some school/work-friends; we were working late, so we decided to take it to a restaurant, and we had what I guess could best be called a social clash of egos. Basically, two of the girls with us started making with the social one-upmanship about twenty minutes into it. Everything was fair game--illnesses, love lives, travels, the heartbreak of psoriasis...you name it, they've had it better, or worse. I just finally gave up trying to talk, in general found it boring, and of course nothing worthwhile was accomplished. I don't get some girls. Why can't you just be you? That's what I wanted to scream out, but didn't. In fairness, one of them is worse than the other, but they both have enough of particular personality types to have clashed. So it was like Attack of the Drama Queens and Attention Pigs. Brutal. Really.

Note To Self: Wait at least a month or two before attempting that again.

No, really--to subject my fragile constitution to such upheaval again might give me the vapors...I swear! :-) ...and that was typed in my very bestest and most histrionic Scarlett O'Justshootme font! :-)

But seriously, even with that, it was an ok day. I did come up with some decent ideas that, true, I need to flesh-out a little, but they might be workable as far as this one job that's kind of a long-term project. At the end of the project, we have to have something to show for all of our work and time, otherwise we run a chance of not being asked back, is basically the issue. Not being asked back means that job is over, and Mr Credit Card Company gets grumpy. Considering that this is my _main_ job, it also means I'm in a scramble to pay basic bills and help out loved ones, so Mr Credit Card Company can get as grumpy as he wants, he doesn't get jack. But let's not focus on the negative. The _positive_ is that I thought of at least two things that would be easy enough to do, and would definitely count as productivity. At least I think it would.

See, the real problem here is that for this job, we have kind of a project manager. Not precisely as such--this person actually has a different title--but that's essentially what they do--manage this project. And they're one of the ones that's gone a lot. And I am not sure of what I am doing. Ok, I'm a blithering incompetent, but at least I show up every day, and I'm _trying_ to get stuff done, plus it's my first time to do something like this. I'm not sure if I'm doing the right things, if what I write up is correct, or good, and when I try to get direction, I come away with a lot of feel-good stuff, but again, not a lot of direction. So I worry and panic. I mean, this is my livelihood we're talking about here. And I don't know how to do it. So that's one of the things that is actually really bothering me. I don't want to keep hearing all the squooshy lovebunny talk about how great I am, and how she knows I can handle this, and it's all easy--it feels like pep-talking a chicken before you stick its head down into one of those choppy things. Well, ok...you get my analogy. I'm scared about it, though. I actually really, truly am. But I did some decent thinking today, and a side group of us are going to meet on Wednesday to try to see if it might work, or some permutation of it, or something. So that's good. We were going to talk about it some this evening, but we didn't, opting instead to talk about...well...total crap. I guess that's winding down after work? Yeah, ok...whatever.