So it's been a while. Almost 3 months?? Well I'd like to say I've been too busy to blog, but that's probably not true. Too many other things I'd rather be doing? Probably more likely.
I relaxed a lot this summer, seeing friends disappear one by one as the inevitable fate of growing up and leaving college approached. Dating Kevin delayed it slightly, because he was still taking summer school (with 2 semesters left to go), and we both still worked at ITS, my campus job for 2 years. I only slightly wish we *did* more stuff while I was in LA, but only because I don't have time (or energy) to anymore; I really, really enjoyed the relaxing summer with him, in my favorite apartment (to which it was so hard to say goodbye!)
Kevin and I went to Europe for 2 weeks in August.
While it broke my bank account and made my feet fall off, from going toooo many places in only 2 weeks, it was amazing, and I miss that trip a lot. It was kind of a last hurrah of my carefree youth, between USC and my big-girl job at AST. I'll post some (backlogged) pictures soon.
At the end of August, I moved to Mountain View.
My high school best friend Cheryl's older brother, Will, needed 1 more roommate. It just so happened that his apartment was 2 miles from my up-and-coming job, so I dove in. So now I'm living with Will, his girlfriend Carmen, and his co-worker Mike. Toby and Keiko -- my gypsy cats -- came with, and for the first time in 12-years, Cisco moved away from my parents' house in Almaden. It was a terrible idea, and it was really hard on him, but my mom has been getting sicker and needed me to start take care of him.
He's the big gray cat posed in these pictures of my room:
In September, I started working at my adult job.
Despite having a CECS degree and being assigned to the Software Department, my job title is "Engineer" (as opposed to "Software Engineer"). I'm working on the largest software project I have ever seen. C++ pointers and MySQL database errors make me want to shoot myself sometimes (especially because my assignment was to take over someone else's stuff, finish, test, fix, and optimize his code), but finally solving a bug and seeing your chunk of code work flawlessly is strangely satisfying.
I've struggled with deciding on dress code. What few girls I've seen seem to dress much nicer than the men (who wear a lot of jeans with collared shirts and tennis shoes). I feel under-dressed wearing jeans beside my pointy-heel wearing office-mate. The other girl on my team is pregnant (well, actually, she went into labor last night, so pregnant she is no more), so the rules are an exception to her.
I'm definitely struggling with "adult life" for so many reasons.
I had a hard time adjusting to USC, and right when I started to call LA home, I was uprooted again. And just when my heart was getting attached to someone new. So the 360-mile move by itself was difficult. I struggled very badly for the first few weeks, but routine (and exhaustion) are stamping that out.
Working 5-day weeks is an exhausting change not only from an entire summer of me choosing my own carefree schedule -- if and when and how long I wanted to work -- but from an entire senior year of 4-day weeks/3-day weekends. On top of that, 9-hour days are tough!
What makes them tougher is staying in one place all day. At my busiest, USC days were much longer than 9 days, but they were chunks of time scheduled at scattered places doing many different things. My short attention span could handle 2-hour blocks much better than these 4-hour ones.
What's more, I have had trouble gripping the idea that this phase of life has no foreseeable end. Up until now, there was a schedule. My entire four years at USC were pretty much planned out which classes I'd be taking, all broken up into semesters. There were finish lines -- due dates, exams, semesterbeginnings and endings -- so I knew what to expect. I didn't even have my first deadline put in front of me until last week, 1 month into the job. But it goes bigger than assignments. At USC, I had 1-year leases, knowing how long I'd be in once place, whether the specific apartment or the city I lived in. I have no idea how long I will be at this job, or living where I am now. Either one of those things could change drastically in any unknown amount of time. And it sounds exciting, I guess, having a palette of life in front of me, but it's also scary. I've come to realize how much I like stability. I like new things, but only if the big things are stable.
But it's not all bad.
Visiting Kevin/Kevin visiting me most weekends has given me stars to put on my calendar, things to look forward to. Mostly we just recover from the workweek and relax together, with the occasional outing for food or a movie (and one weekend we made hummus + pita bread, and raspberry sorbet! Damn, I really should have taken pictures...), but I really couldn't care less. Simply reuniting with him warms my happy heart.
This job comes with some financial stability. True, I have to pay my own rent and insurance now, but I was still able to pay off my Europe debt, and finally build myself a new computer!
So there's one more thing that passes my time as I burrow into my nest, missing Kevin and trying to distract myself from all of life's hovering questions.
I'll try to post again soon.
Because this started off as a photoblog, I feel obligated to have a picture to post. So I'll try to start taking more pictures.
~*~
It was comfortable, but lonely. Kevin is still in sunny LA, and so rainy Mountain View doesn't quite feel like home.
