This week I am going to take a few moments to talk about something that I’m sure everyone in the PLA has neglected at one point or another: self-care.
This summer has been amazing so far -- I am loving my internship and living in New York. But I learned the hard way the past two days that just because you are happy, doesn’t mean you can’t be stressed. Stress is often associated with negative emotions because the two so often coincide, but you can overwork yourself even when you’re enjoying it. It’s just harder to notice, and for me, I tend to associate summer with relaxation and school with stress, so I didn’t realize that I was maybe, just maybe overdoing it until I came back from my lunch break on Tuesday and realized I could barely sit up straight, I felt so exhausted. After muddling through another unproductive hour of the afternoon, I gave in and decided I would go work from home. My boss is still in Germany, and we had already had our daily phone call about all of my assignments, so it wasn’t an issue for me to work remotely. However, when I reached my apartment, I barely was able to post the article I had been working on before I fell asleep. In retrospect, I am not surprised. We had guests visiting for most of the weekend, which meant that there was little downtime, and I ended up having to finish all the homework for my online class on Sunday afternoon when I was already feeling exhausted. Monday night I had forced myself to work ahead for the next week because I am going out of town, and tried to complete some of the coding I am working on for a PhD student in the German department. In addition to my schoolwork and internship, I am also working on a novel with my cousin, and I was feeling pressure to meet our next internal deadline, which was supposed to be Tuesday evening. But ultimately, when I was in a puddle on Tuesday, I realized I had to take a break. I emailed my boss Wednesday morning and he said it was absolutely fine for me to take the day off, and then I slept almost the entire day. Note to self: do not do that again. And while I have been eating well and exercising regularly, I guess it’s important to also realize the physical strain that so many mental pressures can put on you, even if you are feeling happy with your situation. An off-topic anecdote to brighten the day in the wake of the news that Germany was eliminated from the World Cup and that Justice Kennedy is resigning: I discovered this amazing campaign called the Billion Oyster Project, which is organized by a high school here in New York and is aiming to restore 1 billion oysters to the New York harbor system by 2035. This looks like an amazing project and I really hope to be involved some day, although their current volunteer days are on weekdays, which conflict with my work schedule. They do have opportunities for you to set up a larger volunteering session building reefs or helping with the project if you are with a group, which could be a cool opportunity for PLA in a few years when they return to New York City.
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