Saturday at Work

Got my first paycheck on Friday! I checked the balance of my bank account and was surprised to find money in there. I guess this is my first paycheck from a "real" job. 

I spent pretty much the entire day today (Saturday) at work. I really didn't mean to stay so long. I went in pretty early in the morning only because I didn't have internet in my room. I didn't have anything else to do so I went in to the office, checked email and started on fixing my model. I had planned to leave around noon or at least early afternoon. But the longer I stayed, more and more of my coworkers showed up. At one point, 5 out of the 6 desks in our bay was filled. It was definitely more relaxed than a normal day at work. There was a lot more chatting and such but everyone was definitely working. 

I've been running into a lot of problems with the model that I've been building. This is mostly due to my lack of understanding of the program. It's a very complicated program and I don't think I can be blamed for not knowing what to do. The excavation that I'm modelling is actually pretty complicated as well. It's not just your typical hole in the ground. haha. Anyway, I feel like I always have pretty fruitful and meaningful discussions with my coworkers. They are very willing to help and discuss issues. They readily admit that they might not know the best answer to the problem and we take it from there. I feel like I can contribute to the discussions and get a lot out of them. 

I wasn't completely satisfied with my progress today but I summarized my results for our meeting on Monday. On my way back, I realized a possible solution to a weird answer that I was getting out of the program. I'm not sure I have the energy to go back into the office tomorrow. I want to go running in the morning and then look around at furniture stores. But at this rate, I think my work journal will fill up very fast! 

I think my Cantonese has improved a lot as well. I think I hesitate less and can speak slightly faster. I've been picking up vocab from other people. Actually I think the biggest hurdle is getting used to using Canto at work. Never before have I associated Chinese with work. Whenever I look at drawings at work, I would say the numbers to myself in English even though I can handle numbers in Canto just fine. And then I realized that I associate English with the workplace. English means business to me. I think I have a long way to go before being fully comfortable in using Chinese at work but I'm definitely getting there. I think I use a lot more English words than my coworkers do but I haven't spoken an entire sentence in English to them yet. And they certainly don't switch to speaking in English with me. So I think I'm on the right track.