<p>I’ve gotten a little more used to this than when I made the original post. I’m pretty slow at learning/adjusting, so I’m sorry if this came off as simply complaining. I was also partly bitter because I’d been hoping to revive some of my more creative pursuits over the summer. </p>
<p>Thinking about it now, I think I could easily manage 40 hours a week if I really really liked my job. In Science Olympiad during high school, I remember for the first time I found myself really engaged in something. I pretty much skipped school to work on my building events. So it’s probably possible. </p>
<p>As for the current job, I like it, even though I’m not completely in love with it like I am with school work. I think this is something I could potentially like a lot, but I probably don’t right now partly because I’m still uncomfortable and inexperienced. The things I’m doing are well-aligned with my interests, but I don’t always exactly know what I’m doing, yet. My project is fairly open-ended, but I think I might benefit from a little bit more structure/guidance until I grow a little more and learn more about how things generally work. This isn’t to say that I don’t get help, because I do. I’m just used to collaborating freely with my friends, and now I’m trying not to bother my grad students too much, since they have a lot to do. So I’ve been reading wikipedia a lot and playing around with things to try to get them to work… it’ll still be a while before I’ll be good at what I do. </p>
<p>Also, being a little slow/unconfident and lacking common sense, I sort of developed a fear of responsibility in high school. After spending a year at college with confident, competent individuals I finally decided I should at least try to fix this. (I’ve had jobs before, but they were sort of mindless.) So this is really just me vocalizing growing pains. Thanks for your responses.</p>