This is going to be a whirlwind, this travel thing. By Monday morning the drive out here Sunday night (a mere 2.5 hours) seemed like it had occured years ago, and I can hardly remember the weekend. Of course, I've been experiencing a sense of time dilation ever since I got to California: I wake up each morning with every previous day feeling like it occured eons ago. I feel as though I've been in California for a year by now (I can't believe it's just barely been 3 months), if not more, and I feel as though I've spent half of it in Auburn, though it hasn't even been a full 2 weeks.
This time dilation is not the bad "I'm bored" kind, just an odd sensation, as though my internal clock revs way up at some point, and when it stops I snap to, completely mystified that only a day has passed.
For those of you who are constantly exhausted by a monontonous job of endless paper pushing, I highly recommend going for a swim every day at the end of the work day. It ebbs all that repetition right off your body, and more importantly, your psyche. I don't know WHAT I'm going to do when I get a permanent job that does not involve a hotel with a pool, but I'm living it up for now. The hotel also has a hot tub, so even when Auburn starts to get chilly, I'll have a post-work-day-soak to look forward to...
Love and water jets to you all.
Tuesday, September 30, 2003
Thursday, September 25, 2003
So, the whole internet updating thing is trickier than I thought. The connection in the hotel is "wireless," which although it sounds cool, actually means that it goes slower than dial-up! I tried to sign on to this Tuesday night and couldn't even get the sign-in page to load after about 20 minutes of waiting patiently.
That said, the computer we use at work for data-entry works well, but obviously, we are using it most of the time. I happen to be the data-enterer today and since this is my 15 minute break, I get to partake.
What this info translates to is that I can't promise updates in any consistent way. Some weeks I may be able to update, some weeks I may not. Thank you for your patience.
Everything is going well: my team, as projected, is awesome. We are also goofy, witty and brilliant. In the space of 4 days we've come up with about 35 billion inside jokes. We have a list of the greatest names we've come across in the files (interestingly enough, though I did this on my road trip, they came up with it independently of me. In case you're curious, the names are: Mr. Killingsworth, Volcanoville, Lawrence Root, Hillish Rock Road, LoneTree & Blue Oaks Road, and Darryl Sniff), we have lists of all the silly things we've said, and we've drawn some great personifications of things we've come across.
I found out on the drive out here though -- I AM SURROUNDED BY WATER SIGNS. 2 Scorpios (agh!), a Cancer, and a Pisces. So far though, I have not experienced the dreaded interpersonal problems one would expect from being surrounded by a bunch of emotional, crazy water signs. Perhaps I will have to give up a now-outdated conception of what water signs are like. (One of the Scorpios, in hearing my concern about them all being water signs, immediately pointed out that as a Gemini I'm schizophrenic. I am so not. Yes I am. No I'm not. Am to. Are not. Har har har. Anyway...)
We'll see...one of my team members also noticed that the 4 of us temps fill out the Scooby Doo team profiles almost perfectly: One of us is bearded and loosely locked (Shaggy), one of us is blond and built (Fred), the other girl has short hair and wears glasses (Velma) and I, being a tall blond, am supposedly Daphne (YES! After being a Velma nearly all of my life, I have finally achieved Daphne status...). Our team lead, however, is not really Scooby -- she decided she's more of a Scrappy Doo. So most of our spare time is spent trying to figure out just what the mystery is and who's behind it. ;0)
Last but not least, Auburn is a lovely little town (it has an "old town" section that is very Jackson Hole/Gold Rushy/Store Fronty. But it's pretty small) and our hotel has a pool and a hot tub (both of which I use every day) AND is located 500 feet from In N' Out. We also have a Marie Calender's built into the hotel. Yay!
The momentum is gathering. Though I miss my friends in SF, conditions are ideal and everything is going smoothly. Talk to you soon!
That said, the computer we use at work for data-entry works well, but obviously, we are using it most of the time. I happen to be the data-enterer today and since this is my 15 minute break, I get to partake.
What this info translates to is that I can't promise updates in any consistent way. Some weeks I may be able to update, some weeks I may not. Thank you for your patience.
Everything is going well: my team, as projected, is awesome. We are also goofy, witty and brilliant. In the space of 4 days we've come up with about 35 billion inside jokes. We have a list of the greatest names we've come across in the files (interestingly enough, though I did this on my road trip, they came up with it independently of me. In case you're curious, the names are: Mr. Killingsworth, Volcanoville, Lawrence Root, Hillish Rock Road, LoneTree & Blue Oaks Road, and Darryl Sniff), we have lists of all the silly things we've said, and we've drawn some great personifications of things we've come across.
I found out on the drive out here though -- I AM SURROUNDED BY WATER SIGNS. 2 Scorpios (agh!), a Cancer, and a Pisces. So far though, I have not experienced the dreaded interpersonal problems one would expect from being surrounded by a bunch of emotional, crazy water signs. Perhaps I will have to give up a now-outdated conception of what water signs are like. (One of the Scorpios, in hearing my concern about them all being water signs, immediately pointed out that as a Gemini I'm schizophrenic. I am so not. Yes I am. No I'm not. Am to. Are not. Har har har. Anyway...)
We'll see...one of my team members also noticed that the 4 of us temps fill out the Scooby Doo team profiles almost perfectly: One of us is bearded and loosely locked (Shaggy), one of us is blond and built (Fred), the other girl has short hair and wears glasses (Velma) and I, being a tall blond, am supposedly Daphne (YES! After being a Velma nearly all of my life, I have finally achieved Daphne status...). Our team lead, however, is not really Scooby -- she decided she's more of a Scrappy Doo. So most of our spare time is spent trying to figure out just what the mystery is and who's behind it. ;0)
Last but not least, Auburn is a lovely little town (it has an "old town" section that is very Jackson Hole/Gold Rushy/Store Fronty. But it's pretty small) and our hotel has a pool and a hot tub (both of which I use every day) AND is located 500 feet from In N' Out. We also have a Marie Calender's built into the hotel. Yay!
The momentum is gathering. Though I miss my friends in SF, conditions are ideal and everything is going smoothly. Talk to you soon!
Saturday, September 20, 2003
Dudes: I am now totally like Cali in a vehicular way. I bid a fond adieu to 210-MOS and welcome 5DKY203. And just as I was about to say that I'm finally done with that long list of things to do when moving (new: job, residence, housemates, cable, DSL, electric, bank, phone, driver's license, registration...whew) I realize I just need a parking permit for my neighborhood! But you can mail away for those, so other than that, everything's squared away ------ just in time for me to leave. And also just in the knick of time financially. Aside from having next month's rent tucked safely away in my savings, I'm about $94 away from bankruptcy! Of course, if my @#$%^&*! phone rebate would just hurry up and appear, I'd have a bit more breathing room.
Parents: this is not a sly entreaty for money. I'll be getting my (albeit meager) paycheck for this week's training next week, and all of my bills for this month are paid. I'm just keeping everybody posted on my masterfully down-to-the-wire but solvent financial planning. Yeah, that's it. ;0)
In job-related news: Auburn is East just past Sacramento and towards Tahoe. So it's actually probably only 3 hours away, really. This small elimination of an extra 2-3 hours projected driving time is quite a relief, I have to say. The projected time line for the project has us in Auburn until Mid November, and then in Eureka or Santa Rosa until the end of January, which would be a solid 3+ months of work. (This may mean that my Thanksgiving and Christmas vacations will be tiny. I'm sad about that. But I think they'll still be doable.) Also, on Friday we combined two-teams-to-a-group and did a workshop with "sample scenarios" for what we'll be doing at the electric company. And I must say, my team rocks! While the other team we were working with was all, "wai', wha???" we were all, "do this and this and this. DONE." And, while I have a feeling this applies to a majority of aspiring twenty-somethings in San Francisco, the two boys on my team are both writers, which is great, because if there's anything Wesleyan trained me to do, it's relate to writers. Mom, I will not be marrying, dating, or in any way teaming up with either of these boys, so let's nip that dreamy look in your eyes in the bud right now, okay? But just know I'm in great company. To that end, one of these boys is most definitely bringing his laptop and told us we could use it for email if we'd like. While I don't intend to abuse this situation by writing to you all every single night, it does mean I'm slightly more reachable electronically.
Take care everyone!
Parents: this is not a sly entreaty for money. I'll be getting my (albeit meager) paycheck for this week's training next week, and all of my bills for this month are paid. I'm just keeping everybody posted on my masterfully down-to-the-wire but solvent financial planning. Yeah, that's it. ;0)
In job-related news: Auburn is East just past Sacramento and towards Tahoe. So it's actually probably only 3 hours away, really. This small elimination of an extra 2-3 hours projected driving time is quite a relief, I have to say. The projected time line for the project has us in Auburn until Mid November, and then in Eureka or Santa Rosa until the end of January, which would be a solid 3+ months of work. (This may mean that my Thanksgiving and Christmas vacations will be tiny. I'm sad about that. But I think they'll still be doable.) Also, on Friday we combined two-teams-to-a-group and did a workshop with "sample scenarios" for what we'll be doing at the electric company. And I must say, my team rocks! While the other team we were working with was all, "wai', wha???" we were all, "do this and this and this. DONE." And, while I have a feeling this applies to a majority of aspiring twenty-somethings in San Francisco, the two boys on my team are both writers, which is great, because if there's anything Wesleyan trained me to do, it's relate to writers. Mom, I will not be marrying, dating, or in any way teaming up with either of these boys, so let's nip that dreamy look in your eyes in the bud right now, okay? But just know I'm in great company. To that end, one of these boys is most definitely bringing his laptop and told us we could use it for email if we'd like. While I don't intend to abuse this situation by writing to you all every single night, it does mean I'm slightly more reachable electronically.
Take care everyone!
Friday, September 19, 2003
Thursday, September 18, 2003
Wednesday, September 17, 2003
So this is what, under attorney-client privilege, I am allowed to say: I am working for a consulting firm at an electric company to aid them in an internal audit. ;)
Today's meeting went well. Most of the day was spent learning exactly what we'd be doing, where we'd be going, and meeting our team leaders and the E.C. affiliates. There are 6 teams, each of which will be sent to two major areas. I ended up in one of the teams that starts out in Auburn -- Northeastern CA -- and then moves to the Santa Rosa/Eureka area. For now it will mean driving 5-6 hours in a van with 4 other people (3 other temps and our team leader) every Sunday and Friday afternoon and staying in a hotel all of the corresponding nights. The good news is, we are paid for all of that driving time (which means lot$ of overtime) and we get the food allowance as well, so...essentially I will have little to no expenses besides rent and bills from now until late January.
My team seems cool -- two guys, another girl, myself, and our team leader (who's a girl). They all seem nice, charismatic, diligent. I have a positive outlook on this one.
I'll do my best to stay in touch -- we may or may not have internet access, and I'll be avoiding using my cell phone until after 9pm PST or on weekends, since last month's bill was a whopper, plus I'll be busy anyway. But those are loose guidelines and not to be considered restrictions.
Yay!
Today's meeting went well. Most of the day was spent learning exactly what we'd be doing, where we'd be going, and meeting our team leaders and the E.C. affiliates. There are 6 teams, each of which will be sent to two major areas. I ended up in one of the teams that starts out in Auburn -- Northeastern CA -- and then moves to the Santa Rosa/Eureka area. For now it will mean driving 5-6 hours in a van with 4 other people (3 other temps and our team leader) every Sunday and Friday afternoon and staying in a hotel all of the corresponding nights. The good news is, we are paid for all of that driving time (which means lot$ of overtime) and we get the food allowance as well, so...essentially I will have little to no expenses besides rent and bills from now until late January.
My team seems cool -- two guys, another girl, myself, and our team leader (who's a girl). They all seem nice, charismatic, diligent. I have a positive outlook on this one.
I'll do my best to stay in touch -- we may or may not have internet access, and I'll be avoiding using my cell phone until after 9pm PST or on weekends, since last month's bill was a whopper, plus I'll be busy anyway. But those are loose guidelines and not to be considered restrictions.
Yay!
Thursday, September 11, 2003
In honor of New Mexico, one of my favorite poems:
A Blessing
Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have gladly come out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wildly on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.
-- James Wright, 1963
A Blessing
Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have gladly come out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wildly on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.
-- James Wright, 1963
Wednesday, September 10, 2003
I got the J-O-B! I start training next Wednesday. The pay is enough, plus they compensate for all lodgings, travel time (i.e. when I'm sitting in a van on the way to Eureka, I'm getting paid for that time) and include a more-than-is-necessary food-stipend per diem. It will involve a lot of travel but I'm looking forward to that...the document collection & organization should last 2-3 months, and then they may hire me to stay on for the analysis portion...anyway...I think the words of the day are "at last!" I'll be sure to keep you posted on what the job is actually like, what the people are like (we work in teams) and hopefully what the towns themselves are like....
Monday, September 08, 2003
THE LOST ARCHIVES OF A HOUSE:
So...the thing to tell you is that I got a little mini vacation thanks to the good news about the interview. Chad, who lives in Santa Fe, NM is about to start a job at a book store this week, and I learned of said interview first thing Tuesday morning, and so it struck us both that this past week would be the last "free" week for us. Ergo, I dropped everything (which, since I had to twiddle my thumbs until the interview, was actually dropping nothing) and hopped in my under-used and still ever so eager Forester and drove to Santa Fe. As you may or may not know, I've been to Santa Fe before -- briefly with Lex and Leslie on our first road trip -- but never with Chad on the insider track. I now know where to get the best tamale, tapas, or anole pinon pancakes, the best place to go if you need a pinata or to see some prairie dogs, the best pawn shop to find old Native American crafted turquoise jewelry, and the best place to drive to if your dad loans you his Sea-Foam green mint-condition Mercedes Convertible (the ski basin)...I now also know why there's all that hype about desert sunsets (if you've ever ordered a universe-sized scoop of rainbow sherbet and then spilled it all over the clouds, then you know what a Santa Fe sunset looks like and why it's called "God Sky") and just exactly how the locals get rid of Old Man Gloom every year -- they spend a week in festival and burn a gigantic effigy (named Zozobra) at the stake. (We didn't actually see this for reasons about to become clear. But just learning about it was cool.)
If it sounds action-packed, it's because it was. We had a few days total to see the sights, because we also took off for Chad's childhood home, located on a mesa in the middle of nowhere, about an hour and a half or so from Santa Fe. About three decades ago his parents bought a bunch of acres of *rural* New Mexico land, built a house from scratch and lived off the land, from building fences and keeping horses, pigs, and fowl, to farming for food and raising two kids. Eventually they built another home on the land, and as life ran its course, they were able to move to Santa Fe (so a very intelligent Chad could get an education better-suited to his future) and revamp the second home entirely (while renting the first to a reclusive but shockingly normal Ohio State Lottery winner in need of cutting down his expenses). It's now complete with such things as a gigantic TV and pool table -- but it's still in the middle of nowhere on top of a mesa, and thereby gorgeous and uncorrupted. There are petroglyphs carved into rocks, ball cacti that hitch themselves to your flip-flops, furniture that his grandfather made by hand, and water that reeks of sulphur when you first turn on the tap. It rained off and on for the time we were there, but the first night it cleared up enough such that you could see EVERY STAR IN THE SKY, from the Milky Way to Mars, and on to meteor showers -- not just little points of light that shoot across your field of vision, but burning balls that trundle, effervesce, and spit, the kind of shimmery stuff you only see when a small child makes a wish about a whale's friendship on the Disney Channel.
It was beautiful and exhausting -- the whole trip -- and I learned as much about Chad's history (his parents have some fantastic stories about life on the Mesa -- and just some fantastic stories in general) as anything.
I apologize for being out of radio contact -- my cell phone didn't work on the Mesa, and I was in general pretty engrossed...but grateful for a last hurrah that I could actually enjoy knowing that work is on the way.
So...the thing to tell you is that I got a little mini vacation thanks to the good news about the interview. Chad, who lives in Santa Fe, NM is about to start a job at a book store this week, and I learned of said interview first thing Tuesday morning, and so it struck us both that this past week would be the last "free" week for us. Ergo, I dropped everything (which, since I had to twiddle my thumbs until the interview, was actually dropping nothing) and hopped in my under-used and still ever so eager Forester and drove to Santa Fe. As you may or may not know, I've been to Santa Fe before -- briefly with Lex and Leslie on our first road trip -- but never with Chad on the insider track. I now know where to get the best tamale, tapas, or anole pinon pancakes, the best place to go if you need a pinata or to see some prairie dogs, the best pawn shop to find old Native American crafted turquoise jewelry, and the best place to drive to if your dad loans you his Sea-Foam green mint-condition Mercedes Convertible (the ski basin)...I now also know why there's all that hype about desert sunsets (if you've ever ordered a universe-sized scoop of rainbow sherbet and then spilled it all over the clouds, then you know what a Santa Fe sunset looks like and why it's called "God Sky") and just exactly how the locals get rid of Old Man Gloom every year -- they spend a week in festival and burn a gigantic effigy (named Zozobra) at the stake. (We didn't actually see this for reasons about to become clear. But just learning about it was cool.)
If it sounds action-packed, it's because it was. We had a few days total to see the sights, because we also took off for Chad's childhood home, located on a mesa in the middle of nowhere, about an hour and a half or so from Santa Fe. About three decades ago his parents bought a bunch of acres of *rural* New Mexico land, built a house from scratch and lived off the land, from building fences and keeping horses, pigs, and fowl, to farming for food and raising two kids. Eventually they built another home on the land, and as life ran its course, they were able to move to Santa Fe (so a very intelligent Chad could get an education better-suited to his future) and revamp the second home entirely (while renting the first to a reclusive but shockingly normal Ohio State Lottery winner in need of cutting down his expenses). It's now complete with such things as a gigantic TV and pool table -- but it's still in the middle of nowhere on top of a mesa, and thereby gorgeous and uncorrupted. There are petroglyphs carved into rocks, ball cacti that hitch themselves to your flip-flops, furniture that his grandfather made by hand, and water that reeks of sulphur when you first turn on the tap. It rained off and on for the time we were there, but the first night it cleared up enough such that you could see EVERY STAR IN THE SKY, from the Milky Way to Mars, and on to meteor showers -- not just little points of light that shoot across your field of vision, but burning balls that trundle, effervesce, and spit, the kind of shimmery stuff you only see when a small child makes a wish about a whale's friendship on the Disney Channel.
It was beautiful and exhausting -- the whole trip -- and I learned as much about Chad's history (his parents have some fantastic stories about life on the Mesa -- and just some fantastic stories in general) as anything.
I apologize for being out of radio contact -- my cell phone didn't work on the Mesa, and I was in general pretty engrossed...but grateful for a last hurrah that I could actually enjoy knowing that work is on the way.
Thursday, September 04, 2003
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
