lotsa listos.

I think I'm learning a lot about myself at this internship. First of all, I have a problem with execution. I come up with lots of ideas, questions, projects, but somehow they never get created, asked, or finished. So my goals for my internship are now (as of this afternoon at 3pm when I ran out of projects to work on):

• Pitch a project to the acquisitions editor for higher ed - hope to god I don't sound like a naive, newb idiot
• Informational interviews with several people
• Ask at least one question at each section meeting I go to
  
• Ask for more projects. Beg. Beg for more projects.
  

I have never worked 9-5 in my life, and it's a special sort of realization. It feels a bit empty, yes. It also feels easy. Sometimes too easy (thus, the wanting of the PhD). Other times, it's quite freeing. Mostly, it's making me realize several things:

• I am going to have to live abroad after I graduate. I will never forgive myself if I go straight to working and never stop. Either this means I need to take some time to myself right away or work a job for a while, saving money until I have enough to live for a while without a visa.
  
• I am going to need to go to graduate school at some point. I refuse to be just okay at what I do. It makes me toss and turn at night. I've always tried to put myself near the top: the top of the gradebook, the top of the editor list, the top of the other interviewees, the top of the other interns, the top of the human pyramid once on the high school football field, that top I like with the halter straps (it's quite flattering). I was reading a column in the Chronicle of Higher Education today about a professor sick of his colleagues fighting even though none of them were "academic superstars." How can you just be a professor without being an academic superstar? How can you live with yourself if you aren't constantly putting out great ideas? Just okay ones? Just the status quo? Just agreeing, disagreeing politely? Thus, I need to be able to go back to school, to advance myself. MBA, MA, PhD, MS. I don't care.
  
• Being a great intern means taking initiative. That's ALL it means. But that isn't easy. It's a daily, hourly, minutely challenge: you against your conscience, the short-term against the long-term.
  
• What's the point of being a great intern? It's such a low-level position, who the hell cares?
  
• Oh. I guess I do every other minute.
  
• I have to go shopping on my lunch break. It's quite nice.
  
• I have to get away from home for a while.
  

A man was gunned down in front of my office today. Afterwards, my co-worker peaked into my cubicle and said, "Welcome to the Tenderloin."