So, I guess my blog took a summer break too. I had to go back and check the content of my last post because it had been so long.
First, to update you on that final GPA, it is a 4.53! Wow. To be honest, it’s so much higher than I ever imagined possible. It’s kind of insane. Also, because I completed a minimum of 60 credits towards my degree, I received a 50% tuition scholarship for next year. And now that it’s August, I’m in my third and final month of my summer internship.
I feel like I’m in a place where I’m thriving here. Alaya is thriving. Bochuan is thriving. And me too.
The first two months of my internship were definitely intense though. The first week was amazing, as I was mostly working on my own, and I love working on my own. At least for a week. The second week, the third week, and the week after, I started to feel a bit isolated. Except for weekly Zoom meetings with my supervisor and a team building dinner with everyone in the lab, I didn’t have much other interaction with other colleagues. My internship was primarily a relationship between me and my computer.
My computer is pretty great, but it’s not very good at moral support. The first two months of the internship were a constant barrage of, “Do I have enough background knowledge to do this work? Am I working fast enough? Have I met the expectations for this week?” and on and on it would go. Don’t get me wrong, occasionally I would leave a meeting or read an email and feel like, “Yeah, I’m doing alright. Yeah. I can do this.” But mostly it was a cacophony of “You’re not enough.”
Of course, I could have asked my supervisor how I was doing, but I was honestly too afraid of the answer (Yes, I seem like a strong, confidant woman. It’s all a façade). So, I masked the question with questions about goals. When did she want X done by, and what would she suggest I focus on next? In this way, I got smaller goals that helped me focus when my purpose got vague. In the process of collecting data that often didn’t exist and certainly not in the format you needed it, it was easy to find yourself in a rabbit hole wondering what it was you were trying to find. The weekly meetings were my lifeline.
When I wasn’t working, I was listening to many podcasts and a couple of books on topics that included rest and time management. I am a recovering overachiever, afterall. One book I highly recommend is Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. I’m planning to listen to it again this month and maybe again next month. Essentially, he argues that our lives aren’t long enough to fulfill all our ambitions, so it’s better to accept that you will never feel caught up, never cross everything off your to do list, and end most days feeling there was more that you could have done.
Because there are many more meaningful ways to live a life than there is time to live that life.
After my first two months of the internship, I was able to go home to see my family in the States. My trip home was an epic-level family reunion. There were more people to see than time to see them. My mom turned sixty years old this year, and we had a big party for her. Like a big, wedding-level party with 90+ guests.
Besides my mom’s birthday, two of my nieces have birthdays in July. One turned sixteen, so we had a sweet sixteen for her. One of my cousins, an uncle, and a few other people also had birthdays in July. So, there was a lot of eating out, a lot of ice-cream, and a lot of cake. And did I mention all the people that came into town for my mom’s big birthday party?
I wish the big party weekend could somehow have been made longer. I barely had a chance to speak with some people beyond the simple pleasantries of “how are you doing.” And despite all my blog writing, when people asked, “How are you liking Finland?” I couldn’t think of much to say in the moment beyond “The only thing Finland is missing is family.”
And I did miss my family. After 24 days of the worst diet ever (just kidding, there was a lot of good eats in there too), I was as sad as I normally feel to be leaving them again for another year or two. While my introvert self can be quite overwhelmed when there are a lot of people and things to attend to, as there was on this trip home, I have so much support when I’m home. So many things are just taken care of. I can to some extent feel a little like a kid again. In July, I really put down a lot of burden. I didn't do any work, and I just rested. There are so many more hands to help with Alaya too. I only wish Bochuan could have gone back to the States with us.
It was really, really wonderful to see Alaya with her cousins. But it wasn’t just her cousins, it was also her aunts and uncles, grandpa and grandma, and so on. When we were getting ready to leave, I told Alaya that we were going to go back to Daddy, in the hopes of softening the blow of our leaving. She said to me, “I like my Dads here.” I don’t think Alaya could have given the trip a higher star rating than that.
Alaya absolutely loves her big extended family (and eating cake and ice-cream every few days). When we got back to Finland, Alaya was very happy to see her dad. If he walked out of her sight for even a minute, she would start to get disgruntled. That said, she also asked him, “Should we go together to play with Grandpa?” which I think was her way of saying, “Let’s all go back together. What do you think?”
I know my family would love that, and we’ll be back as soon as we can. In the meantime, our lives are in Finland, and we’re thriving.
The photos below are just a few from so many, many wonderful family pictures.
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