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This year, I LOVE Daylight Savings Time. I mean, I always enjoy the time when the clocks fall back (and disdain the clocks moving forward again in a few months, but who is thinking about that right now). But this year, it really is a lifesaver. For one, I have an extra hour this morning and can actually update this damn thing. But also, I get the hour of sleep back that I lost all this past week with getting up at 7am for the new job. I suppose I could have gotten used to going to bed earlier, too (which I will, I promise!) but having my hour back is great. :-)
Anyhow, the new job... I gotta say, it's a little too early to tell. I spent a lot of my first week reading about consumer payments and ATMs, in preparation for my first project. I also have done a few training sessions, on various things (from templates to timesheets to survey writing), and there will be more of those to come. My new coworkers are great - everyone seems friendly and a lot of fun, and even congregates in the conference room at lunch time to eat together (as opposed to everyone eating at their desks, as we did at the old job). Apparently I'm going to have to get used to eating earlier, though I'm not sure how happy about that I am - I like not eating until 1pm, and when you go out to eat then, often the lines are shorter because it's after the lunch rush! Ohh, and speaking of eating out, looks like I'll have to do that more often, too, unless I can figure out an easy way to bring my lunch (and I didn't do that this week, at all). I think it's going to be more of a hassle than a time or money saver (after all, bringing less lunch means making less food). This week I had Bertucci's (brought in by the company on my first day), Souper Salad (in some building kinda across the street, which also contains some other stores - like a mall! - as well as the magical shoe guy that Laura from Cymfony was telling me about), Au Bon Pain (really across the street, right next to the Park Plaza Hotel), the "burrito cart" (not a cart at all - located in some sort of food court off of Charles St) and finally Viga (Stuart St, a few blocks away and every bit as cheap as Laura told me). The great thing is that while all of this food was of course tasty, I didn't even exhaust the food possibilities for lunch. AND, Smith and Wollensky (which is... somewhere - maybe within the Park Plaza Hotel building?) has $2 and $3 appetizers after work, and they are really tasty (as are their drinks, I hear, but I had wine Monday night when I went there). It's all about the intangibles, people!
Commuting is different. I enjoy being able to get more exercise - between the walk from my apartment to Davis Square (and back) and the walk from Park Street, where I've been getting off and on the T, to the office (corner of Arlington and Boylston, kinda), I'm walking about 2 miles a day. I may end up at times taking the T all the way to Arlington, but I'd like to continue walking to Park Street after work unless the weather is truly awful. Walking is good! Of course, the actual train on the other hand... Monday and Tuesday it made me late (not a good start, in my opinion, but everyone seems sympathetic). I was getting a little worried that it would be late everyday, but things were better Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. I suppose I could leave earlier - I seem to have plenty of time in the morning if I get up by 7:15am - but I like having a little down time before I leave - I knit and watch the news. I've also been knitting on the train - I don't get a lot done, but some does get done, which is better than nothing.
The other nice thing is having my weekends back! I hadn't had a free from work weekend (when I was in town) in a long time, so these past two weekends have been nice. Last Friday, after my last day at Cymfony (which was so sad, having to say goodbye to everyone), I went to Sally's and then to the Tir Na Nog, where I had never been before. I'm not sure how I feel about the Nog - it was awfully crowded and I could barely hear anything (plus I hate shouting to be heard). But overall, the night was a lot of fun, though I had way too much to drink (all those gin&tonics really gets to you after awhile!). Then on Sunday, I picked Jeff and Kristen up at the airport, and then we went to get dim sum in Chinatown (where we met up with Kim). It was so nice to see them, and to hear about their honeymoon trip to Ireland. I headed to Corinne's afterwards, where I managed to catch a whole quarter of the Pats game (she had invited me over to watch the whole game, of course) and stayed for the first half of the Indy game. This Friday I also went to Sally's, but this time I drank far less and there was no trip to the Nog. Last night Elenka had a dinner party for her birthday at her house in Newton - she made beef tenderloin, roasted veggies and whipped sweet potatoes, as well as a flourless chocolate cake (one of her coworkers is allergic to gluten, so everything was gluten free). And of course there was plenty of wine, because Elenka bought some and just about everyone brought some. It was nice to see Elenka, and hopefully I can hang out with her more now that things have calmed down a little for me. Today I'm supposed to watch football with Jeff and Kristen (hopefully this isn't where they have me come over and watch a 2000 picture slide show from the Ireland trip - they've promised lots of alcohol for that).
One of the downsides to the new job is Wednesday nights. I still hope I'm able to make it to poker every week, because it's one of those things that I look forward to, and I've been unhappy the few weeks when I haven't gone, for one reason or another. But I'm used to staying until the bar closes (or until well after the bar closes), and then just sleeping in Thursday morning and no one caring. Can't really do that with a new job (at least not yet, I'll have to give it some time), so I've made midnight my Wednesday night cutoff, and I'm also really truly going to try and drink less so that I'm less hungover on Thursdays. We'll see how it goes - on the one hand, being hungover every Thursday has many downsides. On the other, I love Wednesday nights and many times those hangovers are totally worth it.
Other than that... I have five new pairs of shoes! Okay, not at all exciting to most of you. I guess... I feel a little less stressed and a little less overwhelmed now that I've actually switched jobs. Is it going to be hard? Yes. Is it going to be stressful at times and require working long hours and weekends? Yes. But at least I can start getting myself into a new rhythm. And I'm really hoping that I like the new job - consulting could be a great new building block for my career. I am a little worried I'll hate consulting and that I will have to totally switch industries and start my career over, but I'm trying not to think about right now. There are also some unpleasant things going on in my life that I can do nothing about - I'm pretty upset but at the same time hoping that this will not cause too many problems (at least, any more than it already has) and I can just move on with my life.
I hope you all feel sufficiently updated now. :-)
- Lizzardie, at 8:54 AM
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