Five Things Friday Vol. 88… on a Saturday

Hi friends. I thought I’d check in with you guys before I duck out once again. As you know, I’ve been talking about traveling back home, and well, my departure date which seemed so far away a few weeks ago, is now here. To say that I am excited is an understatement.

This week has been super busy. I had some loose ends to tie up at work, I squeezed in a day-long workshop on short notice, and I worked yesterday (usually my day off) to wrap up things before I leave. I don’t know about you, but I always try to leave my desk “virtually” empty, handing off completed tasks to my co-workers so they can continue their work while I am away.

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As mentioned above, I got to attend a workshop this week – a ‘drone workshop’ to be specific. I know. Sounds cool, right? I went with a co-worker who I have known for quite some time but never really spent any significant time with and it turns out, we get along really well. We had to spend an hour in the car and it was not awkward at all, quite the opposite. We hit it off and chatted nonstop. She just finished her PhD (while working part-time) and will be going full-time again now, so she moved into our office suite this week. Looks like I’ll see much more of her going forward. I am very excited about that. We did talk a bit about being female in a male-dominated field and on Thursday, she brought a book to the office that she said I had to read – Sarah Cooper’s “How to be successful without hurting men’s feelings”. And this should tell you all you need to know about her. Haha.
I only thumbed through the book so far but from what I’ve seen, it’s funny but also, sadly, true.

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In other exciting news, I was paired with a mentor this week. I don’t remember if I mentioned that I applied for a mentorship program through work – oh only, 15 years into my career, but that’s because I feel like mentorship and guidance have been lacking for me all along. You can’t ask for something at your job if you don’t know it exists – like the mentorship program – so I only recently heard about it. But better late than never! I am excited to be paired with another geographer with similar expertise and research interests. It’ll be exciting to pick his brain and hopefully learn from him because I am a bit of an outlier in my research group.

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I finished my knitting project this week, just in time to take my finished sweater to Germany. Considering this is my first knit garment, I am pretty pleased with how it turned out. It’s not perfect and I can see some flaws here and there, but the sizing is correct and I didn’t mess up too badly. (Well, I had to undo one of the sleeves when I was almost done because I realized I had used the wrong needle size, but other than that, I followed directions). I’ll share a photo soon – it’s being wet-blocked as I type this.

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I’ll check in with you when I can, friends. I know you’ll be holding down the fort online.

Have a great weekend and rest of March!

  1. I work with mostly women in my office. It is truly delightful.

  2. I did my Friday 5 on Saturday as well this week. I hope you have an amazing time in Germany, congratulations on finishing the sweater in time. I love the idea of having a mentor, and am going to take a peek at the book.

  3. I hope you have a wonderful trip!
    How nice to have a colleague you can relate to on several levels. I’m glad you get along so well!

  4. Congratulations on getting a mentor this week! That’s awesome and I hope helps you develop where you want to. I also LOVE the title of that book. Too funny and probably too close to home too. I hope you have an amazing trip!

  5. It’s so good when you have people at work that you get along with easily, even better when they’re one of a limited number of women. Congratulations on getting a mentor too.

  6. I hope you have a great trip at home. I’ll have to check out that recommendation. Congrats on getting into a mentorship program. That is GREAT!

  7. Feedly is letting me down again, just fyi. It says your blog is “Unreachable” but, um, obviously it’s not. I hope you had a wonderful trip! You seem to have ended work obligations on a high note – connecting with a coworker is such a wonderful way to improve your experiences at work, AND you got into the mentorship program, AND you wrapped things up before you left. Go, you!

  8. Hi San! Thanks for the update. I wish you safe travels! Just fyi, on Feedly your blog is listed as “unreachable” and I checked the link but it is correct. Just wanted to let you know, because I was going down the list of blogs I follow and realized I haven’t seen posts from you in a while. And that’s how I saw that it’s “unreachable” – or maybe it’s just for me. Regardless, I wanted to let you know.

  9. You posts are showing up late in feedly again. Ugh!! Stupid feedly!

    I work in a totally male dominated environment but I do not mind it actually. They are pretty straight forward about things and tell it like it is. I have only been in male dominated environment so I don’t know anything different! And I was a math major so that was also a male dominated environment.

  10. Oh no… Feedly just pushed your posts three days ago. I thought you just took some time off and now I see I missed Aton. Sigh…

    Anyway, how wonderful that you got connected with your co-worker and that you hit it off. It is a nice thing to have people at work you can chat and be friendly with. And who may even become real friends later on.

  11. […] becoming a weekly thing) and a chat with my other (female) co-worker with whom I went to the drone workshop a few weeks ago. It’s nice to get to socialize a little more. I also figured out how I get my […]

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