Pushing for More

Internship week 6

Most of my week at work was spent looking up information on the budget and Early Childhood Education, and then writing up a summary of what was going on politically. Something about this week was difficult, though. I was feeling pretty negative about myself (appearance, personality, abilities, the whole bit), missing home, feeling lonely, and so on. Not necessarily a highlight of the trip so far, that’s for sure. Anyway, all of those negative emotions resulted in me really not wanting to focus and do work. Pushed through it – what else can you do? – and got it done. However, when I turned it in to Noeline on Thursday, she called me into her office. “What’s the point?” she asked. “We’re about advocacy – what are we advocating? Where is the call to action? What are we supposed to be doing about this?” Things have gone well enough at work so far, but that really let some air out of an already deflated balloon.

I have realized how little I have had to push myself. Academia, the realm in which I have spent a majority of my life in, is a comfortable world for me. It’s easy for me to produce A’s, and in some ways I am ashamed of that. There are many other people who work so much harder than I do for lower grades. Working in the Writing Centre at my university has really shown me that, especially with the people who are coming back to school after living in the real world for a decade or two. One woman in particular, a grandmother from Flint (a not-so-nice Michigan city), would spend several days writing and revising a paper that I could probably knock out in an afternoon. I don’t feel that I deserve my abilities, but I do know that I have to use them responsibly.

Anyway, my point in that whole bit is that I am disappointed in my reaction to a piece of valid criticism. I never realized how much of a quitting attitude I can have. However, that doesn’t mean that I have quit. I am just going to have to do some more stretching, more searching, MORE. For the first time in my life, I have to struggle to produce something that is more.