Proofreading with a Purpose

Just when I thought my life was going to be nothing but hardtags and hangars from now on, I had the opportunity to proofread a thesis paper for one of my former Czech students. She's studying linguistics and wrote a very interesting paper covering variations in the English language in England. It was pretty fascinating, and brought back memories of my History of English class in college. It was really so nice to be able to reach out and help someone. She was also pretty much in awe of how fast I was able to do it. Guess my English degree still counts for something ;)
I'm now almost to my Friday of the week. I've only got four short shifts total for the week, so I've made it through three. At the beginning of today I thought it was going to be a real drag. There were a few things from yesterday that I'd done wrong and therefore had to fix today. Let's just say making errors has never been something I enjoy. That's part of why I could never understand bad kids in classrooms, or misbehavior in general. I hate hate HATE being in trouble. Therefore, I always try to do things right in order to avoid any awkwardness. I can accept that it's all a part of the learning process, something everyone has to go through that will make life easier in the future, but it's still a bummer.
Fortunately, by the end of the day we'd done everything so well in the stock room (we were also blessed with FAR fewer boxes of clothes to rehang and tag) that we were awarded "star cards." Wahoo! Seriously, I feel like one of those elementary school kids with a green card. I did good Mommy. I got a Star card. That means I'm special and can maybe win some money in a drawing. Honestly, it totally boosted my esteem and made me feel like the whole day was a bit more worthwhile. Yeah for positive motivation. It works WAAAAAAAY better on me than the negative variety. Yes, make me learn from my mistakes, but making me miserable by telling me how much I suck is never helpful. That would be the reason I quit working at the Maids after one month. That and the fact that I kept getting stuck with this lady who didn't speak any English so I had to do extra customer service work for her while she still got paid for it. (sigh) Probably better not to go there. It'd be pretty lame to still be bitter after like 8 years.
Anyhow, I'm slowly getting into the swing of things. I still don't think getting up at 6 is exciting, but it could be worse. Much worse.
So this day is rounding out well. Kudos at work. A proofreading project I can feel really good about, and a dinner that doesn't really require any effort on my part because we just have to throw it in the oven. It'd be great if all days were so balanced in the end.