Day 5 of the 100 Days of Writing Project: Recap and Reflection
Today is almost over and I still have work to do to prep for tomorrow’s orientation sessions. I started the day with an orientation session, then a walk with the dogs before picking up an item from my local Buy Nothing group. I rushed home to heat up leftovers from the orientation leader (OL) training the day before and sat to watch the Kansas City Chiefs game (which we eventually won!). While watching the game I noticed a little bug on my dog. (No! Fleas! Ew!) So I spent time looking up on YouTube how to treat my dog for fleas with a DIY solution, which I tried and it worked, and it got 4 or 5 fleas to come out, but the solution doesn’t kill off any eggs or larvae. So, I rushed to Costco, only to find out they don’t carry flea medication anymore or at least they were out of stock. But my time was running out before the next orientation session was going to start so I rushed home to get on the computer. While on Zoom, I had another web browser up to see if I could order the medication from Amazon…darn, earliest delivery date is Wednesday! I’m not living with my dog with fleas for three more days! So I look up the closest pet store to see how much time I had before it would close (cuz all the stores close early on a Sunday.) The closest store charges double the price, but it is only a mile away. The next closest store is almost 3 miles away, and they have a sale! Switch gears! Time to kick off the orientation session and once the students are moved into their breakout rooms with the OLs and we shut down the virtual help desk, I am running out the door and in my car to drive over to the pet store. I arrive with only minutes to spare before the door locks and I get what I needed. I pick up dinner on the way home and make it back to my home desk before the students are back from the break after the faculty speaker. Phew! I made it. Time to put the medication on the dogs. We send the orientees off for the night and debrief with the OLs. It’s past 10 p.m. and I still haven’t written anything for the Project. Which means, here I am, with about an hour left in the day, writing a recap and reflection of my day as my writing piece before heading back to work on my talking points about Revelle’s commitment to leadership and my closing slideshow about “making the most out of your college experience” for tomorrow’s orientation session. In some ways, this day seems to parallel the busyness of what I imagine many of our students face during the cycle of being a college student, running between classes, managing work priorities with emergencies happening at home, finding time to eat on the run, and pulling all nighters to get their homework done. Today is also a day an Enneagram 7 hath made, it is “on brand” for me to be this busy, trying to fit in more than what is realistic, wanting to do it all so as to not have the fear of missing out aka FOMO, and procrastinating on all the work I didn’t want to do earlier this week. Doing these reflections each day has been something I committed to doing along with my writing. It’s also part of my intention for this year to build my capacity for reflexivity. Today — Day 5 — my recap and reflection will need to be enough for this writing project. I’m tired and there’s still more work to be done.