Month: February 2002

So work has gone from being midly boring and slow to incredibly busy. There is a financial report due to the board tomorrow, and it’s interesting to see how this company works under stress and compare it to my past experiences at you-know-where. Here are some of the big differences.

People do not seem to crack under stress. When it’s cruch time, people spend time doing the work that needs to be done, instead of spending time on the phone complaining to their friends about how they have so much to do. People genuinely seem to want to help each other here. Personally, people seem to be very happy with the work I’m doing, and on top of all of this, I get paid when I work overtime! I left the office at a quarter to midnight last night , and will probably be staying late again tomorrow night with the rest of the team to finish up this report. And when you do stay late, and you work for the vice president of the company, they get a “car” to take you home instead of making you try to catch a late train.

On the other hand, large corporations seem to create work for themselves, but when you have a small non-profit organization with not many employees, there is a lot of excess that is stripped off. I wonder if a large corporation running stripped-down like a small company is something that would work.

That’s the last thing I expected to hear. After John Williams’ Olympic Theme during the closing ceremony, they played Pink Floyd’s Run Like Hell throughout the stadium. What’s up with that?

I wouldn’t exactly call my weekend incredibly productive, but I did get some things done. I did my federal taxes and it looks like I am due a pretty nice chunk of cash. Now that I am working and actually have income, I’m feeling a little bit better about my financial state.

Beyond the money scope, I’m getting my life in order. It’s all a matter of making choices; maybe it will be right, maybe wrong, but the important part is to make the choice. I’m almost twenty-six, and I’m thinking about where I want to be when I’m thirty and designing a plan that will take me there.

As for where I want to be, I’ve made some changes in my thoughts within the last few months. I’d like not to be in New Jersey, and right now the Washington, D.C. metro area or Baltimore metro area are my ideal locations. I will be working in a job that will allow me to work creatively with computers, to have a side-job of working with a marching band or some other musical group, and to be making enough money to secure my future and the education of future children.

Of course, I can change my mind at any time, and that’s all a part of being human. But for now, that’s the goal.

I’ll probably catch a lot of criticism and open myself up for nasty emails being sent around, but I’d like to be married by the time I’m thirty or at least heading in that direction.

Now that I’m pretty clear on my goals, I am working on a plan to get me there. In immediate terms, I plan to keep working in New Jersey for a bit more while making contacts and networking with people in the D.C. and Baltimore areas as much as I can.

Of course, I don’t have to stick with these goals just becaise I am publishing them here. Any number of things can occur in my life that would allow me to decide to change my mind. But the thing is that I’m not going to just sit around waiting for things to happen or for decisions to be made for me. I kind of like the thought of controlling my own future.

The last two nights I’ve remembered my dreams. This is odd, since I haven’t really remembered my dreams in a long time. It might due to the change in my sleep pattern… but what’s weird is that I was dreaming about this girl I knew in middle school and high school. We weren’t friends, per se, in fact we tended to intentionally not associate with each other. Well, I would have associated with her, but I never thought that she wanted to. We were always a little bit conpetitive for some reason, especially when we were in middle school.

In any case she showed up in my dream yesterday, and said something quite profound. Then she showed up again this morning, and I mentioned to her that she appeared in my dream the previous night.

I guess the true test is to see if she reappears tonight.

So, here’s my report after the first day. My assignment is for a week and a half as the administrative assistant to one of the Vice Presidents of the company. I’ll be preparing presentations, answering phones, and stupid stuff like that while the regular admin assistant is on vacation. I think I’m going to like the place.

In Other News, I made it to the DMV to restore my license. Now the question is: where do I go?

I’ll be starting a temp assignment tomorrow. I’ll be an administrative assistant at the [DELETED]. Oddly but not surprisingly, the pay is better than what I was given at my last employ.

I’ll be getting my license back in the next couple of days. In the mean time, I can take the train to this position.

What’s up with this curling sport?

Our friend Jamie got her gold medal earlier tonight. It’s only fair, etc. Anyway, here’s another picture.

There’s just something moving about watching the gold-medalists mouth the words or sing along with their respective anthem, whether it’s American, Russian or Canadian… or whatever.

I’ve been reading The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition which is a collection of some of the works by Lewis Carroll (aka. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) with commentary. His works are greatly influenced by mathematics and logic, which reminds me of another favorite author of mine, Tom Stoppard.

The Lewis Carroll Society is meeting in Princeton this spring, and I just might attend.

I decided today that I’d rather have Linux on my laptop instead of Windows. So, after check to make sure it would work with my computer, I downloaded RedHat Linux 7.2. I backed up the important stuff on my computer and began the installtion. It got through most of the process, but choked when it asked for the second installation CD. Or rather, I chocked because I didn’t make, or even download, a second CD. So now my computer won’t function until I get the second CD somehow. So I’m working on that, but if anyone can assist, I’d be more than happy.