I’m going to have to buy a new laptop bag this weekend. The one the company gave me is one you hold on your shoulder, and the computer plus power cord are pretty heavy, and I’m pretty tiny, so overall this doesn’t work.

Wheels
I was originally considering wheels, since my main issue is weight, and I’d like to be able to pack even more stuff. However, I ride the train into work, and there are occasionally stairs I have to navigate. I think wheels would be do-able, but I don’t want to find out later that they were terrible.

Backpack
Wearing a backpack would help distribute the weight, and leave my hands free, but I would still have to carry it. Also, I don’t think backpacks look as professional, and I’m all about wearing only black, white, and grey right now.

Smaller shoulder bag
I asked one of my new coworkers today for her opinion, and she showed me a big black purse sort of thing she carries her laptop in. It’s possible that another shoulder bag would be better, but it would be hard to say exactly what qualities would make it better.

Any Suggestions? I have to go to bed now, so I can be awake for more training sessions tomorrow!

Ok, I have to take the biggest escalator EVER to get from my train station up to street level to work. And by biggest EVER I mean, not really, especially considering the CNN building is somewhere nearby and they have a super huge one.

Credit: sxc.hu/siretnou

Work takes up a lot more time than I thought. So far it has been pretty cool. I have been locked up in a training room with all the other interns and new hires learning about how to use my laptop, MS Outlook, how to search through the firm’s website (more complex than you’d think), and stuff like that.

Tomorrow we will split into our functional areas and learn more about how to actually do our work I think. So I’ll be learning about audit-related stuff.

They have been telling us about how we need to be proactive about our own careers and reach out to people, which is the only stressful part because I have to make sure to look up people I will be working with, and come up with something to say to them in an email.

I am loving Outlook though, because whenever I get an email about meeting with people, we eventually make an official meeting through outlook and it goes on a calendar right next to my inbox.

Probably you all knew that already, but I have always used web-based mail, so Outlook is exciting!

In other news, Adrienne from Jr Deputy Accountant posted a link to these comic books you can get from the Federal Reserve. Whatever your opinion on the Fed (her’s is quite the negative one!) they are pretty entertaining. Titles include “Wishes and Rainbows” and “Once Upon a Dime”.

So on New Years, you’re supposed to make resolutions. However, goal-setting works better if you only have one or two goals at a time, and I have a lot of things I want to get done this year.

In order to accomplish goals, I know I need to be specific about how I’m going to accomplish them. For example, I’d like to exercise more, but I can’t think of a time I can set aside to go out and run, because I’ll have to get up for work at about 5 and who knows when I’ll get home. So I might make a goal to work on strength exercises every day, even if I can’t run.

There’s nothing worse than setting goals that you can never actually reach. I wouldn’t be motivated to try to reach it at all! So I’m going to keep working on my goals over the next few days. One of them might be to stop procrastinating . . . haha, so maybe I’ll get them done on Sunday night!

Happy New Year!