In Which I Talk About What I Do

As promised, here is Day 6 of Blog Every Day in May! I know you were all just waiting with baited breath for this (insert eye roll here). Who knows, maybe I'm underestimating my importance to all of you out there in internet-land (probably not). Anyway, not much has happened since my post this morning. I went over to Drexel's campus before my advising appointment for Penn so I could pick up my transcripts. I was mistaken for a freshman (I graduated in 2008), and got slightly lost while looking for the registrar's office (which I had somehow never had to find during my time there). To be fair, the Main Building (yes, that's it's name) is connected to Curtis Hall and Randall Hall, and while Main Building houses most of the administrative things, the registrar's office is stuck down in some random corner of Curtis. Anyway, the buildings were confusing as hell when I was a student there, so I'm not surprised that they're still a labyrinth of insanity. The important thing is that I retrieved my transcripts and got to my advising appointment at Penn with plenty of time to spare. There wasn't much advising for her to do, because I had already picked out the two classes that I wanted to take. With her blessing (and the removal of my administrative hold because my Drexel transcripts were missing in action), I left my appointment, walked back to work, and enrolled in my classes. WEIRD.

Anyway, that's what I did today (among some work things), which leads me to today's blog post topic, which is, "If you couldn't answer with your job, how would you answer the question 'what do you do?" This is a hard question for me (I feel like I start all of these posts like that!), because for as long as I can remember, I've measured my worth as a human being (for better or worse... usually worse) in what I do. Naturally, this doesn't usually include my non-school/non-work accomplishments, which means when either of those things were going poorly, my self-esteem tanked like a lead balloon. So, remove my two go-to things to explain "what I do" and I'm left with... a lot of blank stares. So, to the best of my ability... here's what I do (I guess?).

Excellent question.

Besides being a clinical research assistant, I...


- Sing... a lot... including the made-up operatic songs that I sing about whatever I happen to be doing at the time.
- Talk to myself... all the time... I probably sound like I need to be medicated. (Guess what? I am!)
- Play the viola, the harp, and teach piano
- Take a ton of pictures of my cats
- Bake... sometimes not successfully
- Watch terrible horrible movies (and occasionally good ones)
- Listen to singer-songwriters/folk-rock artists (and introduce other people to them)
- Plan obsessively and make contingency plans for my plans
- Buy too many post-it notes and other office supplies
- Quote "Mean Girls" on a regular basis
- Read voraciously, although I don't have as much time as I used to... which is sad
- Love cheese, fresh bread, and red wine
- Cook with my husband (that is not euphemism!)
- Blog (duh)
- Make people laugh (either at me, or with me)
- Am a good listener/fake therapist for many people
- Synthesize ideas into plans
- Help people realize their potential
- Connect people
- Comfort people
- Love
- Learn... every day

How about you? How would you answer this question?

- A