【Part2】Describe something you did which was a waste of time2

Last summer vacation, I spent two weeks being a part of a medical research under my tutor’s guidance. Because of lack of experience and preparation, my work proven useless.

This research is make clear the status of themedical expenditure of rural elders. I was required to go to a village to handout questionnaires to the elderly for detailed data. In addition, I needed to choose one aspect to analyze and write an essay based on the survey. I thought it was a challenging task through which I could learn a lot practical economic knowledge. I read a lot of local newspapers, visited government websites and sought advice from my parents. I designed several relevant questionnaires and thought everything was fine.

Unfortunately, I got in trouble on thefirst day. Some old people had poor eyesight and hearing, so I needed to read out all the questions loudly item by item. What’s worse, most of the respondents had no idea about the insurance policy even though they were insured. At theend of the day, I merely visited five households and got upset and frustrated.The work was boring, repetitive and seemed unlikely to be finished on time.When I thought about giving up, words of my mom flashed back, ‘Never do things by halves’. So I carried on and finally made it. However, the data were not enough for a good essay. After a lot of work, when I finally handed in my essay,my tutor pointed out that the samples I chose didn’t fit his requirements. My efforts and results became useless.

It was a total waste of time in the regards that I spent 2 weeks without results. But I do learn a lesson from it. Next time,I will think twice before taking action.