It is the final day of my three day holiday weekend. It is really rainy and icky outside, so it's a great day to just lounge and watch television and relax. My community and I were talking about how strange it is not having homework or a paper or some assignment hanging over our heads. I guess the "young professional" life is pretty snazzy in some ways...
I had my first day at my service site on Friday! I was really nervous about getting lost (I assume if you know me at all you know that I have quite possibly the worst sense of direction in the entire world) so I attempted to do a dry run on Thursday afternoon. Well there are only two SEPTA lines) (which is the name of the subway system in Philadelphia) and I STILL managed to get on the wrong one initially. In my defense, I put a $10.00 bill into the token machine and was supposed to receive six tokens and some change, according to the directions. I only received four and was rightfully upset so I awkwardly talked into the microphone to the SEPTA man in the box and he had me fill out a form for a reimbursement to be mailed, etc etc. By the time I did that, I saw a train coming and just figured it was the right one so I hopped on. To my dismay, I realized that it was going the opposite way, but I was able to get off a few stops later and switch directions. Alas, I was happy I did do all of this Thursday instead of Friday morning before work.
I felt really welcomed and excited when I arrived on Friday morning. The staff were all very kind and full of advice and questions for me. I was happy too because they set an orientation of sorts schedule for me that will last through a lot of next week. It was kind of strange starting on a Friday before a holiday weekend, but it ended up being a low key day and a good time to get somewhat acclimated to the worksite, my office, and some of my coworkers. I am so pumped to have my first office! I set up my phone and voicemail, and learned that whenever someone leaves a voicemail it is sent as a copy to my email so that you can listen to it on the computer. How nifty is that? I learned a little bit about what I am going to be doing. I am a pro bono case manager for the LawWorks team, working specifically on homeownership claims. I think it is a fancy title for a paralegal. The staff is in the middle of strategic planning, so I will be able to attend meetings and also have the responsibility of helping formulate goals and ideas for the coming year. I am considered a full time staff member and therefore part of the team. There are a variety of interns starting tomorrow and in the coming weeks so I will have some training sessions with them, but since they are part time they are doing different types of work. It's neat that I am actually a staff member, even though I am certainly the youngest one of the bunch.
This weekend my community and I mostly just relaxed. We watched some television, caught up on sleep, cooked a few meals, went to mass, played Trivial Pursuit (that game is still extremely difficult in my opinion!), and went out one night to a local club called Silk City. I am excited for my first real week of work!
