work # three

The internship continues. I've officially completed 8 days and I’m still learning my way around. I really want to do well, which leaves me vulnerable to criticism. It seems like the more I try to do a good job, the more I realize what I do not know. This leaves me feeling frustrated. It's an interesting balance -- between caring too much, which inherently leads to disappointment when things do not go as well as planned, and not caring enough, which undoubtedly leads to failure.

Today, I was thrown off guard when a fellow intern mentioned that a man was angry with a judge. This man was at least 300 pounds and confined to a very large wheel chair, and was in court due to criminal menacing and assault charges allegedly perpetrated against his elderly mother. His mother, who required a walker to walk, was with him in court. He insulted her in front of me.

When my co-intern said this, I misheard her, and thought that she said the judge was angry with me. I spent the rest of the afternoon (an hour or so) waiting to be summoned by the judge. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what I'd done. I had mentioned her re-election campaign once, which technically isn't proper, but it wasn't done so in a way that broke any laws. I figured that it was related to that. Later, when I had the chance, I asked my fellow intern about her comment. She cleared things up and I felt slightly foolish.

The larger question here is, why did I let myself care so much. Why I did I let myself take on the mentality of an elementary school student summoned to the principal's office. I'm going to have to work on building a greater degree of self-confidence. I hadn’t realized that I was so lacking until it smacked me in the face. At least I’ve had a wake up call, before it was too late.