Summer Wrap Up

Well today is my second last day of work and while I haven’t blogged much about being at work, it was mostly because I didn’t know how to say the things I wanted to say. However, I will summarize my summer job in broad strokes:


Firstly, I think was a bit to hard on the place at first. No on knows what to do with a co-op student right away. For them it’s a bit of a gamble because I could be completely incompetent and single-handedly bring down the entire department; or at least that is the general concern.

Secondly, I always suffer culture shock anywhere I go. For some reason I am always surprised by the way people behave, for good and bad. So I sort of had to get over that. Maybe that’s why I often sneeze when I walk into a room I haven’t been to for a while.

Thirdly, I got to try so many HR things here and I feel like I have a pretty good idea about HR in the public sector. There are so many equally weighted pros and cons about the public sector, but I definitely did a lot of learning here, which was awesome.

Fourthly, my great mentor made a huge difference in the overall experience. She taught me so much and will definitely be a role model for how I work in the future.

Also I start a new job this week! YAY! And I will be advising people on their student health care plan at the U of A. Which I think will be career relevant and sweet. Plus good for occupying my time.

This summer David and I went to a billion festivals, because that’s what you do in the summer here. Although I think we are just about festival’d out. We went to: Taste of Edmonton, Heritage Festival, Folk Festival, Fringe Festival, Edmonton Jazz Festival, The Works and we’re going to Sonic Boom this weekend. Needless to say, we’re sort of ready for fall and school; well I know I am. But I think it was a good way to have fun in the summer without having to travel (minus a trip to Fort McMurray and a trip to Crossfield). I like routine and so having a school schedule helps a lot with that. Even though we might be just as busy we’ll be able to plan our time better and maybe I’ll even get to the gym more regularly. That would be nice.

Although Scouts starts next week too…I have such mixed emotions about being a Scout leader. Oh well…