I need your help!

Inspired by the wonderful Hails, I have decided to take part in Project Zero, aka. the 101 Things in 1001 Days challenge. I shall be posting my full list as soon as I’ve finished compiling it – which will hopefully be soon as I want to start it on my 26th birthday, 13th August 2009. But in the meantime I need your help with one very specific item on my list.
For one of my tasks I have decided on this:

“Assign a theme to each month of the 1001 days (e.g. numbers, water). During each of those months take 50 photos related to the theme”

I worked out (or rather Google told me) that there are about 32.8 months in 1001 days. That means I need 32 different themes. So far I’ve come up with 17! So I need your help. Give me some themes!

The rules are as follows:
1) Nothing that I have to set up first, so no teddy bears’ picnics or anything like that. Because that would mean taking all 50 photos on that day, which kind of defeats the object.
2. Nothing that would mean having to take picture  of people… so nothing like portraits or babies. I don’t know yet what I’ll be doing with the photographs, but just in case I decide to post them on the internet I don’t want anything that may compromise other people’s privacy.

Other than that anything goes. And just so you know, once I have the themes the rest is up to my interpretation. So if for water I decide to take pictures of a water melon, and ice cube and a lake I shall. Anything goes, as long is it somehow reminds me of the theme.

Post your suggestions as comments please. Once I have them all I plan to use the list randomizer at random.org to select the order of the themes.
Here are the themes I have so far, just to get you started. The remaining 15 are your responsibility.

1. Blue
2. Doors
3. Water
4. Food, Glorious Food
5. Planes, Trains and Automobiles
6. Man’s best Friend
7. From the Heart
8. Socks and Shoes
9. Looking Up
10. Snail Mail
11. Let There Be Light
12. Spots and Stripes
13. Numbers
14. Some like it HOT
15. Flags
16. Flowers
17. Signs

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Must try harder

I don’t really talk about work much in my blog. Partly because, well, it’s work and who wants to hear about that? Sure, I enjoy it but “today I translated 3 texts” doesn’t really make good blogging material.
The other reason I don’t talk about work is because I don’t want someone from there accidently tracking down my blog. None of them are English but all of them know enough to be able to figure out who I am within milliseconds. So the less I say the better. Not that I would say anything bad, but I might accidently mention something I shouldn’t, so I choose not to say anything at all.
Today I shall be talking about work though…

There are a number of things that completely baffle me. Every day things. Things that come naturally to other people. Small talk, striking up conversations with people you’ve never met before, knowing the right thing to say in certain situations. It’s all beyond me. I’m saracastic, I don’t think before I speak, I get shy around new people, I don’t have a clue what to say half the time, even to people I know, and when I do manage to have a conversation I annoy people by constantly interrupting without even realising I’m doing it. I tend to come across as either, rude, mean or anti-social, which kind of limits my ability to make friends a bit. Look up “socially inept” in the dictionary and you’ll probably see a picture of me.

Now my crapness seems to be spilling over into my work as well. I do manage not to be sarcastic or speak out of turn while I’m there. Knowing what to say is a lot easier in a professional context. But things are not as good as they should be, and I’m sure it comes down to the same source.

Today I only had one translation to do. I was finished by about 11:30 then I had no more work, so I asked the boss for some more. So he gave me the job of printing out and folding advertising letters.
Later he came and called me into his office. I was taking too long over the letters, he said. It should have been done by now. Also I didn’t look very happy about doing it. Then he said he’s noticed that I seem to watch him when he comes into the room (which I hadn’t even noticed myself doing. *Sigh* I guess it’s the same as with the interrupting). I don’t seem to be involved enough in the work I’m doing. I don’t give the impression of being motivated or seem like I’m enjoying myself particularly. But I am motivated and I do enjoy my job. That isn’t the impression I give though, apparantly. Then he went on to say that, while it’s good that I ask for something to do when I run out of work rather than just doing nothing, it’s not good enough. I should be looking around for something to do then offering to do it rather than expecting him to tell me what to do. I believe they call it taking initiative. Yeah, well I would do that, except clearly that’s enough thing I’m missing. Because if I could see something for me to do I wouldn’t need to ask. But I do need to ask. So obviously I’m missing the “figuring out what I could do apart from my own work” gene as well.

So dear readers, if anyobody’s actually managed to make it this, far I need your help. How do I convince the boss that I am motivated and do want to do my job well? If I’m ever going to be given a proper job I need to make the best possible impression now!
On the bright side, they are pleased with my actual translations. It’s just everything else I need to work on. Sometimes I think the best thing for me would be packing boxes in a factory or something. Just someone giving me some clear instructions and me following them. I might be bored senseless but at least I wouldn’t be able to mess anything up.
(Sorry this post is so long andconfusing. It seems I’m having some trouble expressing myself at the moment)