I had to buy a watch today, I haven’t used a watch in years. I’ve been relying on my cell phone or computer for time when I’m away from home, generally, and I decided that now that I’m working in town I needed one to check the time with the train and such.
I didn’t want one that was too flashy or too expensive. I eventually ended up getting one at Boscov’s, which was also where I found a pair of khakis for a very nice price.
The new job has been mentally exhausting so the blogs won’t be coming as much.
I have to say that the past 3 days haven’t been bad. I’ve been catching up on TV, staying up to watch the Democratic Convention. I’ve gone to the different ethnic markets and I got several new outfits for the new job. Yesterday I went to the mall with my friend A and her 1 1/2 year old baby. I have been trying some different branches of the Free Library to borrow CDs and help feed my iPod, so it’s nice seeing libraries I’ve never been to before. My brother was here from Seattle last night and left later this morning.
I am so unused to unstructured time. Today I started reading up on grant management, since that’s what I’ll be doing.
So, not much else to say today. I’ll leave with music videos of some of the albums/artists I got from the library today: Black Sheep Wall by Innocence Mission
Today was, without a question, one of the most surreal days of my life. I went into work, just like any other day. At around 9am my boss called me into his office and told me that, because of budgetary problems with the organization, my position was one that was being eliminated. He was extremely nice about it and felt really bad that this was happening to me. He’s offered to do whatever he could to help me. Everyone felt really bad and I know people were in shock.
So, I went home and immediately went to file my unemployment claim online and put a deferment on my student loan. I did a little mourning. Around lunchtime I called the HR guy from the job I was waiting to hear about (see Anticipation) and he told me that the woman I met with was on vacation last week and he was waiting to hear from her.
I putted around the apartment a little more, watched some Melrose Place., called a few friends at work that I didn’t get to say “bye” to, sent out a ton of resumes for temp jobs.
Around 2:30pm I get a call from the HR guy offering me the job as a grants administrator. I was so very, very happy and accepted right away.
So…it’s been a roller coaster of emotions today and I’m still reeling from it all. I don’t start till Sept. 15th so I have all this time to just sit around watching TV and maybe learn about some of the tasks of the new job. It’s so weird not to have a schedule or have to get up early tomorrow.
And everything today brought to mind Alanis Morrissette’s song, Ironic, except for me, what happened was just the reverse….
I have not had a full weekend to completely veg out in a long time. And I’m trying not to feel guilty about it. I actually do have some things I need to work on, but I generally want to try staying around and really refresh. As of now I just want to have a Sex & The City marathon and use some of the goodies I got from Lush. Tonight I used the Cupcake mask which smells so very yummy.
Signing off with some clips of Clueless (set to music from the soundtrack), one of my favorite movies and one I’m going to try fitting in this weekend:
I had a fabulous weekend in New York for my birthday. When I got in Saturday afternoon, I did some shopping at Macy’s. Of course, in that Macy’s, the plus sizes are on the 7th floor. I guess that goes to show the lengths they’ll go to to keep people that aren’t model size from the general public. Their plus size department, though, is so huge and nice so it’s worth the adventures on the escalator. I did end up getting some clothes. Afterwards I hopped the subway to Union Square area. All over Union Square people are selling Obama memorabilia. I love that his candidacy has generated so much enthusiasm. I keep thinking that, even if things don’t work out (and God, please let Obama win!!), this has been such a memorable campaign and it’s great seeing people this excited about a candidate. So, anyway, I strolled over to Strand bookstore and got myself mesmerized with the $1 book racks. Of course at the end I ended up putting back most of the $1 books, except ones for my friend’s 1 year old son, and got the more expensive ones…I got A TV Guide to Life: How I Learned Everything I Needed to Know From Watching Television and Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope.
My friend then met up with me there and we had dinner at an Indian restaurant and had dessert at Max Brenner. We finished up the night by seeing the film Mamma Mia! at the AMC in Times Square. The film was fantastic…great music, sexy Pierce Brosnan, and of course Meryl Streep played a great part.
And Sunday we got up late and met my other friend for brunch at the Tick Tock Diner and did a whole buncha shopping in mid-town. I have to finish with a little story about the Bolt bus. This was my third time, I think, taking the Bolt bus and I have yet to be disappointed. On the way back I was really impressed, even though we did get stuck in tons of traffic out of New York and I missed my train (and had to take a cab home…damn bad Sunday Septa schedules). Some guy thought he was on the bus to Boston (how the driver or he didn’t realize this is beyond me) and realized his mistake when we started crossing the bridge. The driver had some Bolt associate meet us at the first rest stop in NJ and drive him back to the Bolt stop. Now that’s some great service!
I turn 29 today, one year till I turn 30. I didn’t think I’d be one to care that much about ages, but this year I’m getting a bit introspective, which I suppose is natural with a milestone birthday a year away.
Most of my college friends seem to be settled in careers and/or settling with partners. I’m not doing any of these things and I know that these days it’s common for 30-somethings to still be in transition, but I guess I grew up having certain expectations for my age. I know I have accomplished quite a bit, but I still don’t see it as enough.
Sigh, I will stop at there. Next weekend, if I don’t have to work, I was thinking of having a Sex & The City marathon. I did just get the last part of season 6 from Amazon. I think watching that will help me.
In tribute, here’s an episode of Friends that’s appropriate for this morning…it’s where they all recall their 30th birthday.
I have been following the story about Larry Mendte with a moderate amount of interest. I don’t usually get into these types of Philadelphia stories that they beat into the ground, especially considering all the problems in this city that will take forever to resolve. Michael Nutter’s doing a great job and I still say I’m so proud of our city for voting him in. But…my discussion about the troubles in Philadelphia can be put off for another blog.
Back to Larry Mendte, though…of all the newscasters in Philly, he’s one that I’ve always felt a certain fondness towards, moreso since I officially moved here. Larry and his wife, Fox news anchor Dawn Stensland, live in Chestnut Hill and on several occasions I’ve seen him come into Starbucks. He’s always seemed like a generally good guy. My friend H worked with him, too. After graduating college, she got a job at NBC-10 through an internship she had there, and told me about what a rough time she had with the majority of her co-workers at the station, including one of the weekend anchors that really treated her like crap. She said, though, of all the anchors there, Larry Mendte and John Bolaris were among the nicest ones. Larry always made people laugh and was always telling jokes about Dawn’s absent-mindedness. So, knowing what I know of Larry and the fact he was a bright spot for my friend during one of her more difficult times, I was very disappointed to hear of these allegations against Larry. Now that Larry has been convicted and will likely be go behind bars for these charges, I’m still not going to be quick to jump down his throat. What he did was certainly wrong and he should get some punishment, but I hope he eventually comes out of this learning a good lesson and maybe gets back into the media in some form.
I had to get a physical for work today and I have lost 11 pounds since January. It’s not much, but I guess what I’ve been doing has paid off.
I was contacted by a staffing agency today and am seeing some good opportunities through them. So, we’ll see what happens there. They did say they get positions from non-profits, which I thought was promising.
Tonight I’m watching all my Aaron Spelling soaps. They’re coming down to the end of 90210, tomorrow they’re showing the episode where Kelly & Brandon decide not to get married. I’ll be working and missing it, but I don’t care so much. I was never much of a fan of the Kelly/Brandon relationship. I like them both apart, but wasn’t wildly amused about them together. I still find myself much routing for Donna & David. I know they get married in the series finale, but I’m intrigued to watch the follow up to it. I think I route for them like I route for Billy & Allison on Melrose Place. Except I’m not finding Billy as adorable as I did when I first decided to get myself sucked into this show. I do find him more intriguing than Jake (Grant Show), but eh. Right now I’m in the season where Marcia Cross’s character just blew up Melrose Place and Kristin Davis is on being all vixen-esque. I must say that it feels really odd seeing Kristin Davis playing such a nasty, manipulative character on here. She certainly has talent for playing someone like Brooke and going on to play a character like Charlotte on Sex & The City.
In unshallow news, today I shipped back the Thinkpad I ordered from Overstock. It officially went defective over the weekend, making really loud clicking sounds when I turned it on. I didn’t do anything unusual…just tried connecting to a wireless network. I might look into installing a new hard drive on my old Gateway laptop and maybe running Linux on it. I have no idea how to go about doing any of that, but during my bored time at home I’m planning to read up on it.
Well, I ended up having a very fun and busy weekend. It’ll be a real bummer going back to work this week. I contacted a few places I had interviews with and they’re all still making their decisions. Damn that waiting.
So, yesterday morning I did my job hunting while sitting at Chestnut Hill Coffee. That has become a pretty cool routine that I’m going to keep doing (well, actually, I hope that I get a new job soon so I won’t have to keep doing this). Then I went with the church to Project HOME. Good time there. And today I met with my friend Allie & her husband for dim sum at Joy Tsin Lau and got some goodies from Reading Terminal Market. I did get some good relaxing in too so….yeah. I’m still thinking about the really good salmon I got. And my cats have been extra cute all weekend.
We’re having a nice little heat wave in Philly. I did errands for a few hours Saturday, hung out at Chestnut Hill Coffee Shop to do some work but stayed in the rest of the weekend. I hate this heat. I can’t breathe in it, I can’t do anything outside.
I did get some popsicles from Shoprite over the weekend so they do a great job at keeping me cool. And I got a big bag of cherries. I have interviews later this week so I hope my hair doesn’t become a big puffball for them.
Pish Posh Etc. 