The Time Is Now

Here's a holiday update for you all! Merry Christmas!
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Two weeks later I'm sitting in my boss' office parked behind a computer. On a Saturday no less.

"Mariev, want to do me a favor?" my boss, Adam, asks poking his head into his office where I've been punching numbers into a spreadsheet for the past twenty minutes.

Oh the glamorous life of an intern...

"Yeah sure, what's up?"

"I've got to run to a meeting down in Kenmore Square. Mike's finishing up in the weight room with some athletes. I'm pretty sure they're all new. I'm not gonna be here to go over the sport psychology stuff with them, so I'm going to need you to go over the questionnaire with them and have them fill it out," he explains.

"Oh, okay, no problem."

"Alright, so in about..." he pauses looking down at his watch, "ten minutes, just head over and they should be ready."

"Alright, sounds good."

"Okay, see you in class on Monday then over here. Thanks again for coming in today, I know you probably had a million and one better things to do, but I appreciate the extra help. Have a good weekend."

"You too!"

* * * * *

I turn off the computer and grab my bag. I lock the office door and head over to where Mike is with some of the athletes in the weight room. Walking past the indoor track I can see that there's about four athletes in there with him.

I walk in and drop my bag over by the file cabinet in the corner.

"Hey Mariev," Mike says.

"Hey what's up?"

"Not much. I'll be done with these guys in about five minutes. Adam needed you to do the sport psych. stuff with them, right?"

"Yeah, take your time. I'll just grab them whenever you're done."

"Hey, Mariev, what's going on?" I hear from a different voice.

I look up from the file cabinet I'm digging through to see Chris from T's the other night.

"Chris, hi how are you?"

"Not bad, not bad. I didn't know you worked here."

"Yeah, I'm interning here."

"Nice, the team does their conditioning here and stuff so you'll get to meet all the guys," Chris explains, "what's your major again?" he asks, seemingly curious as to why I'd be interning here.

"Awesome. I'm interning here for sport psychology. Right now I'm a psych. major, but eventually I want to go to graduate school for sport psychology, well, that's the plan at least."

"That's sick. Well it was good seeing you, I'm just gonna finish up this set, better see you at Agganis for the game this weekend," he teases.

"Yeah, I'll be there! Here I'll get out of your way so you can finish up."

I head over to the file cabinet to get out the questionnaires and wait. I hear Mike's voice.

"Sid, good, right on time," I hear Mike say.

Sid? I'm pretty sure there's no one named Sid on the BU team... I turn around. Oh shit! Chris wasn't kidding.

"Are you ready for these guys?" Mike asks. I was thirty seconds ago...

"Yeah, sure." I muster, trying to remain as cool and collected as I can.

"Okay, I've done everything I needed to do with them today. They're all yours," Mike says heading out of the weight room.

Deep breath.

"Hi guys," I start, "I'm Mariev and I'm interning here, so I'll be helping out Adam who I think some of you guys have met with some of the sport psychology stuff that we do here."

So far, so good...

"So," I continue, "just like there's ways to measure how fast you are, or how strong you are, there's ways to measure different mental aspects too. So that's where these surveys come into play," I say handing each of the guys one of the questionnaires.

"Okay, each of the questions on this questionnaire measures a different subject like, communication, goal setting, performance motivation, stuff like that. So what I'm going to have each of you do is fill it out and then put your names on it and hand it back to me. Then you guys are free to go. Not too intense, right?" I try and joke.

Some of them laugh. Sidney smiles.

About five minutes later they all finish and hand in their questionnaires. Two of the guys are waiting by the door for Sid
and Chris to finish up. Sid finishes and gets up to hand me his.

Oh God, get it together girl.

"Thanks," I say collecting it from him.

"No problem, I'm Sidney, just wanted to introduce myself," he says extending his hand.

I think I stare at his extended hand for what felt like ten minutes. It seemed like hours had passed in the time it took me to reach for his outstretched hand. "Nice to meet you," I said, finally feeling his warm, firm, slightly rough grip on my own hand.

"You too, see you around," he stated, smiling that boy next door smile, the one that makes every girl's brain, from Vancouver to Tampa Bay, scream ugh, just do me.

I'm still getting over the fact that "Sid the Kid" touched me when Chris gets up to hand me his survey. "Thanks Chris," I say taking it from him, getting back to reality.

"Yeah, no problem."

Notes