I have a new project to work on, which I'm very excited about.  My new boss asked me to put together a manual for the New Store Team to have all of our info in one place.  Our team is pretty scattered, and a lot of our responsibilities overlap or work in tandem, but for someone who hasn't done the job before, it's pretty confusing.  There are a lot of things happening at one time when opening a grocery store, and our schedule goes as far as 20 weeks prior to Grand Opening Day.  So, it's my job to make sense of what everyone is doing and when they're doing it so that the boss (which changes every 2 years or so, due to burnout and other opportunities in the company) can keep tabs and do a good job managing the team.

I spent a lot of 2008 moaning about how much I hate my job because it's brainless work that a monkey can do, so I'm bored a lot of the time.  This project has given me new hope for a lot of reasons.  For starters, it's right up my alley.  It's a writing project and also a design project.  One of my undergraduate English concentrations was in professional writing, which was the dummy version of what graduate programs refer to as Rhetoric and Composition.  It's the element of design, keeping in mind author, audience, and text and how they all relate to each other.  Secondly, this project uses brain cells and keeps me from boredom.  I get to interview people and organize and condense their information articulately.  And lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I have an opportunity.  I can show my boss and my team that I'm capable of initiative, that I have background skills that can be put to use for the team, and that I enjoy my work.  This one project has potential to lead to other opportunities and advancement in the company where maybe, just maybe, I won't be doing monkey work and making peanuts.  This project gives me purpose.

And because it's been so long since I've updated my blog, let me fill you in on how I've been spending my time and using my brain cells lately.  I still work the 8-5 corporate job at the grocery company.  On Tuesday nights and Saturday days I work at a big-box bookstore, which I absolutely love.  The books and perks are great, but I really like working with customers in this environment and actually being a salesperson.  When baseball season starts up next month, I'll be working at the local ballpark again, but only on Monday and Thursday nights.  And naturally, that'll be limited to home games only.  And most recently, I've begun the process for tutoring with a local nonprofit that focuses on adult literacy.  The students are people who either dropped or failed out of school, have language barriers, or any other circumstances that prevented them from achieving basic literacy.  I will either be tutoring one-on-one or have a small group.  Each volunteer commits to 6 months and 90 minutes a week.  I'll be doing this on Wednesdays.  That leaves Friday night, Saturday night, and all day Sunday free for myself.  I'm really excited about the volunteer project because I enjoyed tutoring a lot more than teaching at FSU.  You can see more tangible results because you have a better read on where a student begins and how much progress they've made.  You can also personalize the experience.

And that is the long and short of it.  I'm also re-reading the Harry Potter series for the millionth time (ps:  can't wait for the Half Blood Prince to come out in theaters July 17!) and am watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the first time ever.  I'm newly initiated to Netflix, and it is some of the best money I've ever spent.