Meat and Greet

The week went by unnaturally slowly, and I was called in for all sorts of menial tasks to the Study Abroad Office. I sat in on some advisement, worked out changes to fliers they needed, and now I'm in charge of sussing out a google calendar for the office. They were going to teach me how to fill out Chinese Visa Applications, which would have been a valuable experience, but the program start date hadn't been completely negotiated yet, so that was a no go.

However, I understand that sometimes, things start out slowly. I discovered I will be having actual hours in the office instead of a sort of freelance relationship I had been operating under, which makes me feel better. And talking to John, it appears that we are approaching the part of the "season" where promotion becomes the main priority. I expressed my interest in learning as much as I could about that, because I understand it's the most important part of the job. He promised me I would learn more than enough.

Even knowing all that, the week had been draining and a little bit disheartening. I felt like it was a week of this semester-long internship that hadn't really taught me much about a real world job. I was beginning to wonder why I was even wanting to do this, getting that little niggling voice in the back of my mind, the one that I got about my last career path. And then I went to the study abroad barbecue.

The barbecue today was set up and planned out to allow students from overseas and students who had gone overseas and returned to meet and catch up and just have a free lunch. I turned up with a football, and by the end of the lunch, we had a full game going on. A Bulgarian girl complained too much about us playing touch football because she felt like it limited her from gaining further yardage, and demanded we play tackle football. She was competitive to say the least.

Teaching all these foreign people American football, and telling them about restaurants they need to go to, and having them share their culture with me, it reminded me why I'm doing this. Maybe I'm not flying to Paris to meet the Director of Administrations for some University, maybe I'm not eating lunch with the dean of the journalism school in Australia tomorrow. But I'm making a REAL difference in people's lives, and I'm helping students here go out and have a unique experience. Today helped to cement, at least for the near future, the reality that I am doing something I love, and this is what I want.