I am typing these words one letter at a time because one hand is busy itching all parts of my leg violently. Mosquitoes have attacked Fort Tejas, and things are not pleasant at the moment. Time for S.W.A.T. forces to takeover.
I’ve always viewed winter break as a great time to detach yourself from most things University / School related. This didn’t happen much at school, or, maybe not as noticeably. Considering everyday after 4 I was at home and away from the school atmosphere – it was easy enough to detach yourself from stuff you did for school and do things you wanted to do.
On a residential campus that changes – because even if you’re done with classes, if you want to do something University related, you’re going to end up being busy all day doing stuff that is intertwined with University life and things you study there. It’s rare to get the level of detachment during the semester.
Hence, semester breaks. Deductive reasoning, much wow. (is that right? I’m not even sure.)
Anyway. I used to think this in my first year.
Soon that changed. A lot of this is because of who I am as a person – in terms of how much I enjoy trying new-new things and taking up work. But work spills over to winter, and I found myself carrying work that was happening during the semester into the winter break.
I thought it would be manageable only. Till the internship hours hit me.
After that it just became a situation where I was doing expectation and time management – which has honestly been the greatest learning over the last two months.
Expectation management doesn’t mean you underperform or compromise on quality of work. It just means you’re honest about the kind of effort you’ll be able to put in to work that is assigned to you. It means that you’re able to tell the people you’re working with exactly what the limitations of working with you are – which helps them plan better.
This aids you in your own time management.
And it stops making you feel like things are out of your control.
It’s great for the mind, body, heart, and soul. It also has a great effect on your stomach because you can take time to eat a hearty meal instead of trying to work through a meal because you need to keep up with deadlines.
The other pretty great learning for me has been that it’s important to surround yourself with people who trust you with this entire task of expectation and time management. That once you commit to undertake work, they trust you enough to actually execute it – and don’t pester you every two seconds about it.
That helps the stability too.
Damn. So much gyaan I have gained. And given. Chee.
Tejas Rao 