Day 351

Short update today.  I'm really tired and mentally exhausted.


I woke up this morning, showered, woke Nick up, and got some breakfast.  I made eggs, he had cereal.  I'm sure we talked about something, but quite frankly I don't have the slightest idea what.  I left around 6:40.


For most of the morning I worked with Tina, mainly getting acclimated to various programs that are used, along with getting a feel for the general layout of our floor (printers, supply room).  I also had someone come to my cubicle and do an ergonomics check.  It's interesting because 10 years ago, an intern like myself would have gotten some crummy little $15 chair and whatever rag-tag computer desk they could find.  But now there is a such a concern for long-term physical damage from sitting in an office that they take great care to ensure that the work environment is not harmful.  I was also given a few different hand outs and booklets that covered proper grammar usage, how to maintain an ergonomically friendly environment, and a workbook for getting used to the insurance world.  I'll start going through that next week.


I ate lunch with Lee and Tina.  They're both between the ages of 25 and 30, I believe, and are the only ones close to my age in the department.  Lee is taking exam C/5 tomorrow.  Over lunch he was saying how he took exams MLC and MFE (3 and 4, respectively) about 2 weeks apart...which was quite difficult.  Yes.  Yes, that would be insane.  I've heard of worse, but not often.  And definitely not recommended.  But we had a good lunch.


After lunch I had another training session, learning how to use Outlook.  It was useful.  They use the Outlook Calendar very extensively, so it was nice to learn all the standard functions.  Then I worked some more with Vivian on an "end of month" project.  Mostly changing numbers, running summaries, things of that nature.  She and I worked on that for the rest of the day... except when I got to watch a simply fantastic training video on how to send emails.  Apparently those training videos cost around $800 a piece.  It was only 20 minutes long.  That's a pretty good deal, I'd say.


I had to stop to get gas on the way home.  I drive through Beaverdam, which (apparently) has famously low gas prices.  So that's nice.  When I got home I did a little studying before dinner.  I'm working through the last exam in the manual.  Kathryn warned me that this one is pretty tough.  She wasn't joking.  Especially after working all day... my brain is just tired.  I'm getting pretty nervous and today's studying did not help. I just need to get into a schedule. During exam time I just get very... edgy.  And there isn't a whole that I can do about it, except get through it.  So hopefully I can.  I had to go to Best Buy to get another calculator.  It's exactly like the one I have, but I wanted another one just in case something happened on the exam.  That would be awful.


Ok.  It's time for bed.  Hopefully the next few days can provide better study time.  I'm going to ask Jeff (my boss) if I can take a couple hours off on Friday to study more.  We'll see.  But now it's bed time.  Good night.