Friendly Friday: Feeling like I belong

I was definitely nervous starting my new job.  I’m a relatively shy person (karate brought me out of my shell but I’m still shy around new people) so I didn’t know how it would be interacting with new coworkers and people I’ve never met before.

But this week has showed me how fortunate I am to have found a group of people at a law firm that make me feel like I belong.  I feel included and like they appreciate the work that I’m doing.  They don’t make me feel weird by being so new.  In fact, they recently hired a few attorneys, so a few people there are still getting the hang of everything in the office.  I can even have conversations with them when they come to my desk, like an older woman who came up and asked me about my day/how I was doing and then we talked about traveling, moving and retirement.  I also had an attorney come up and talk about me choosing Duke to win the national championship because he’s also a Duke fan, so it was nice talking to another person who likes Duke (aside from my other friends who like them, too).  It was also just nice talking to these people about things other than work.

I even received a compliment the other night by one of my coworkers who told me I had really pretty skin and it looked awesome under the light in our office.  So that honestly made my day.  I have relatively low self-esteem (something I’m constantly working on so it doesn’t get the best of me) so hearing things like this from people other than those that I’m close to is really nice and it made me feel really confident the rest of the day.

So anyway, basically the people I work with are great and I’m really excited that I get the chance to work with them every day.  Even though the work I do is tedious, they make my days more enjoyable by little snippets of conversations that I have with them randomly throughout the day. 🙂

Monday lit circle (prelude): A Land More Kind Than Home

Last week’s book I covered was written by someone I know personally, and this week’s will be no exception.  As a heads up, I haven’t actually started reading the novel yet, but I plan on starting it either tonight before going to bed or sometime tomorrow.  “A Land More Kind Than Home” is a novel based in North Carolina where the author grew up.  Since it’s publishing in 2012, it has become a New York Times best seller and I couldn’t be any happier for the author who just happened to be my college writing professor in my sophomore year of college.

Wiley Cash was probably one the coolest professors I had at my college and I definitely learned a lot from him while I was his student.  We were rivals when it came to sports, however, which became evident when I sported a Duke t-shirt to class and I could practically see the steam coming out of his ears since he’s a UNC fan.  We even argued about it over Twitter, believe it or not.  And on his first book tour (I’m 90% sure it was his first book tour), he held a book signing for his friends, coworkers and students at the college and autographed my copy of his book while inscribing a little note about the Plumlee brothers. (For you non-sports/Duke fans, there are 3 Plumlee brothers, but at the time he signed this book, only the older two were there.)

Besides his poor choice in college basketball teams, he was a pretty cool/sarcastic teacher who taught in such a fun way that none of the classes he had were boring.  I’m really excited that his book is becoming so popular, and it’s nice to see his name popping up in practically every Books-a-million I’ve gone to.

Since then, he’s published a second novel (“This Dark Road to Mercy”), one that I have yet to purchase, and has moved back to beautiful North Carolina.

With it now being 2015, it has taken me a while to start reading this novel, but I mainly put it off because I didn’t have time while I was still in school.  Now that I’m writing this blog, I really want to start reading more and expand my horizons, and I want to start with Dr. Cash’s book.

Like I said, I haven’t started reading yet but I plan on starting either tonight or tomorrow.  By next week you’ll either have my thoughts on the first chapter or the first few, depending on how much I read between now and then.

For now, check out his twitter so you can see the most adorable pictures of his daughter “Early” and his wife, and to see if he’s coming to a bookstore near you!