this is a great place but i hate new places

[cimorene]

I like my work practice placement. I would rather send my supremely hypothetical offspring there than the other daycare I substituted at once here Turku.

All the employees I've met seem pleasant enough, the boss is very welcoming and helpful, and I get free food and Twinings Earl Grey and the free expensive chocolate and cookies at the coffee break are plentiful.

The breaks are also generous. The atmosphere is nice. It's sort of luxurious, as daycares go.

I also feel more confident in social situations now. Like, where in the past my brain might have been a yawning, panicky chasm of "HOW DOES SMALLTALK???" and "AM I EVEN SUPPOSED TO TALK????", now it's just "THIS IS THE PLACE WHERE I SHOULD BE MAKING SMALLTALK BUT WHAT IF I CAN'T SUMMON THE SPOONS TO DO IT" (I failed a couple times today, but only at making conversational first moves, not at responding appropriately to smalltalk from other people - which I judge to be acceptable, as the former is much harder).

But I'm an introvert and I just REALLY HATE NEW PLACES AND SITUATIONS, okay.

It doesn't matter that the place is friendly and the job is undemanding because I already know that just by going there I am signing up for my brain having to be ON, in like, EXTRA-ALERT MODE, all the time that I am there until it decides that it is a Familiar Place and I can relax there. And until then not only can I not feel comfortable there, but every day is like an EXHAUSTING PARTLY SUBCONSCIOUS MENTAL WORKOUT and I am full to bursting with experiences to process that are mostly the introvert-brain equivalent of security tape of an empty hallway.

Comments

[alafaye]

*hugs* At least there is tea. I've found as an introvert that just breaking away to huddle over a cup of tea for a minute can help!

[cimorene]

I can't really do that, though - all 11 of us have to have our ten-minute breaks in the same 1-hour period so it's almost impossible to be alone in the kitchen when breaks are allowed and otherwise hot beverages are to be drunk on a grab-it-and-gulp-but-not-in-front-of-the-children basis. The toilet is the only guaranteed solitary space, I suppose, but it's not a very pleasant one, being tiny and cramped and cold. I can get five or ten seconds alone in the hall without tea...

[alafaye]

:(

*hugs*

[cimorene]

Thanks :/ Actually the other day I was desperate enough to consider locking myself in the bathroom for privacy and then someone came and tried to open the door even though it was latched and the light was on, so it's fairly easy to tell it's occupied! Luckily it was locked but I was so freaked out that I was all "NEVER READING TWITTER IN TOILET AGAIN D:"

twins. gamelas as clones may or may not work out.

[kay_mulan]

https://www.facebook.com/ityangsacia http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWl7WjAtBME