06.18.02 - 3:47 p.m.

So. Started the new job. Don't really know what's going on. Spend most of my time going through mail and looking confused. The boss (no clever pseudonym yet) doesn't seem to have a need for me, so I'm not sure why she wanted to hire an assistant. Still, I'm here, and I'm going to assist in every damn way possible. It's only Day 2. I'll learn more today.

I am an impatient fool, I can't help it.

And the living situation is getting worse, and it's not something that I really want to talk about in depth right now, since it will probably cause me to break down in tears in the middle of my new cubicle, and I don't want everyone at the Woman's Mag to think I'm an unstable froot loop on my second day. I am an unstable froot loop, but they don't need to know that yet.

Can no one fathom that I don't want to live out of boxes for the next five months?

But I like my job. I do. I think I do. The phone doesn't ring, not for me, not for the boss (which I don't even know if I have to answer for her), and that's good. That's great.

I think maybe I should have gone to an all-girls' school. Not that I haven't done well at any of the schools I've attended, but I continually find myself in mostly female company. My French classes at Bucknell, the magazine project at Medill, this magazine - they've all been estrogen fests. And I don't say that as if it were a bad thing; in fact, I think I'm instinctively drawn to girly environments.

I don't often feel in control and I don't see myself as someone who wants to take on responsibility or be seen as a leader, even though I know that's what I end up doing in the end.

My mind is all over the place. I ran a red light last night. It was an empty intersection, which is why I didn't pay attention, but still. I need some things to be resolved.