Genesis:

Also, happy New Years all. I'm sorry if I am unable to spend the beginning of 2008 with you; I really wish I could be at a dozen places at once.

(I have fond memories of playing the Sega Genesis on New Years Eve, watching the ball drop, then returning to the game console to play Sonic the Hedgehog or NHL 1990 something.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auld_Lang_Syne
I have no intention of ever trying to remember the words.

Listen:

Is it just me, or do you have a voice in your head too? Sometimes I think I can hear myself debate myself, and my own thoughts are so loud and clear that I feel like I might as well be talking outloud to myself. While I can see the advantages of having a strong sense of self, I don't think this innervoice of mine finds very much resolution in whatever it has to say. For example, I never hear myself think, "oh, it is what it is.. that's cool." Instead it's more like, "...but, what about... and what if...? oh scheisse." I'm probably just going crazy and need to figure out how to let go of things. Some medication would probably help.

Blogs:

With the sudden explosion of blogger's popularity, the purpose of my blog has been brought to question in my mind. I tend not to have very many funny anecdotes to write up in here. Even if I did, I know my story telling skills are subpar so I wouldn't even try. I don't have a lot of deep-though-stuff posted; only on occasion will I spill my mind out onto the web. But looking through the past couple of years, I can see that I have recorded a lot of memories and random thoughts which show to me how I have changed and evolved recently. It's very intriguing to read something and think, "wait, I wrote that?"

Hence, I will continue to post every now and then. And stalk other peoples' blogs vigorously. And post for the sake of trying to draw out comments. Because comments make you feel good. Don't deny it.

Brown:

This morning I dressed in the dark. I try to avoid turning on the lights because the blasting incandescent yellow is not so pleasant at 5 AM. Instead I've been lighting up candles in both my room and while in the shower. Today I was too lazy to light the candle while I dressed and grabbed what I thought were my black pants. What I ended up putting on were dark navy slacks that were of similar material and fit as my black pants. A tragedy indeed, for they didn't quite go with the black shoes and belt or the brown shirt. I've been trying to hide out in my cube as much as possible today. I knew there was a reason I don't typically wear brown and red.

Thanksgiving:

Happy turkey day, all. I hope you had your fill.

Something about this holiday makes me feel old and young at the same time.

Feelings:

I've recently learned that feelings are not something that can be controlled. The choices and actions that are a result of emotional stimulation certainly can, but the internal reaction is often inevitable and inalterable. So I've come to realize that I might as well embrace whatever I feel. Strangely elementary.

Capitalism:

I was walking to Barnes and Nobles yesterday to pick up the new Jay Z album and saw a Starbucks that I didn't know existed. I searched "starbucks near" my work address in Google maps and found about 30 stores within a 1 mile radius, and about 15 of those were under a .5 mile radius. Now that's just outright ridiculous. Excessive.

Pie:

No Ned! Don't do it!!

Lately, my TV schedule has been:
Monday- Chuck
Tuesday- House
Wednesday- Pushing Daisies (top pick)
Thursday- Smallville and The Office
With the occasional Jeorpardy, King of Queens, and Family Guy thrown in at random times.

What can I say? I enjoy the occasional romantically tense situation.

Meetings:

I suck at meeting new people. I find that I have a fairly pessimistic view on the general practice of trying to initiate a bond with a stranger, unless they have been highly recommended by another friend. This evening I went to a construction networking event where we (a few people from my office went) were supposed to meet and chat with contractors and companies from the area. What they ended up doing is after a while of mingling, they split everyone up into groups and began the "Speed Networking" portion of the evening (haha yes, they said they got the idea from speed dating... Anna). So I made small talk for 2 minutes and exchanged business cards with ten people, which wasn't difficult or painful... but was certainly pointless. I learned nothing about their company, what they do really, or who they are as a person. Once we were done with that, I had no desire whatsoever to shake anyone else's hand or pursue further conversation with anyone... I mean, what did I really have to gain from investing my energies into anyone there in the room (exception- coworkers of course)? I find myself leaning more and more towards that anti-new-social school of thought, and just asking myself "what's the point?"

P.S. I really enjoy spending time out of the office with people from work. It was a real treat that my supervisor came out to this event. She's pretty awesome. Beer/Open bar is a plus.

Fuel:

On Friday afternoon I filled up on gas and reset the tripometer. By Sunday evening I had somehow racked up 300 miles, and the entire time I had left Kanye in the CD player. I think that after listening through the album 5 times, I've come to appreciate every song with one exception. Know which that one is? I don't think they play it on the radio.

Lame:

Not having anything planned to do after work makes the day go by so slowly. It makes everything unexciting. How late are the museums open on weekdays?

West:

I bought Kanye's new album the other day and it's alright. I picked it up because I was getting bored of listening to Daft Punk all day at work. I had a brief stint of the soundtrack of Pocahontas, but that got old fast.

Poll:

Diamonds or rubies?

Sociality:

I find it interesting how much I can be defined by not only my social surroundings, but also my general social levels. For instance, I can often gauge how excited I am for an upcoming week based on the post-work activities I have planned out with people. If there is a dry spell then I am easily depressed and bored. This is all simple and intuitive, but to me the magnitude of influence these social variations have on me is surprising. I think I've become hooked and bought into the trendy concepts of 'community' and 'sharing life together' to the point of reliance.
This brings me to my next thought. Some people appear to me as very head-strong and immune to these variations. Though they may partake regularly in 'community', they are not defined by it. For example, if they were to say they wanted to go live on an oil rig for a few years, they would go ahead and follow that desire regardless of the community roots that they have developed. Perhaps it has something to do with the confidence they have in the fact that those friendships will endure. Something about that kind of confidence and the kind of confidence that leads one to follow their desires without regrets is extremely attractive to me. I believe that may be because I am lacking in those confidences and want to leech them off of others. Leech is a terrible word.

Dwelling:

How do you not dwell on things? You know, things you shouldn't/don't want to be constantly worried about, yet are. Some days I wish I was simply all robot.

Currency:

I've established a new rule for this month. Walking around Chinatown, I've found a ton of places I would love to try. All of these places, incidentally (or not), are quite a bit on the expensive side. However, I am currently not incurring any expenses other than transportation and eating out so I can rationalize the occasional good time out. Hence if you can arrange a solid evening date or group date with me during the week, I will treat you out to one of the places of which I crave their food. Deal.

Overtime:

I am adjusting fairly quickly and keeping quite busy at work. I'm progressively making my way towards being a productive member of the group, which makes things more enjoyable. Strangely, I also have not had adverse feelings towards staying overtime, though my supervisor has expressed that currently the budget is low and working extra should be kept to a minimum. Even so, the office is quiet and relaxing in the late afternoon so I don't mind staying an extra couple minutes to look a few things over and not getting paid for any of it. My attitude toward work has been fairly healthy and I hope it continues as time erodes away at my life.

So far I don't have anything planned for the holiday weekend except for Sunday night. This is an open invitation to coordinate with me to do something so that I am not bored and wasting away the precious weekend. Maybe I'll even take you out to dinner.

Tired:

Oh man, it's an hour and a half past my bed time. I'm still recovering from the weekend. And the nine bug bites.

Supplies:

Already I am starting to mesh with my work environment. I still have a long way to go, but I've been pretty quick picking up on the dynamics of my work group. Today I got to do two neat things. First, in the afternoon I got to go on my first field visit. Usually new people have to jump through a bunch of hoops and wait a few weeks before they're able to go out to the field, but I was able to pull a few strings. So from 2-4 pm I got paid to take a ride through the city, walk around the house, and take a few measurements... all while wearing a hard hat, neon vest, boots, and safety goggles. Second, I got my hands on the supplies catalog. It's a book about the size of a phone book which I get to go through and select whatever I want from it for my office. Yeah, I'll be getting the $40 Swingline chrome-coated stapler.

The days go by a lot quicker and are more exciting when I have something sweet planned for the evenings. No doubt.

Work:

Today marked the beginning of my first real job. I'll give you all the low-down on what I did today with periodic interjections concerning thoughts and impressions of the job position.

Orientation started at 8:30, but my ride to the metro began at 6:40 so I got there rather early. I decided to burn the time at Starbucks which is connected to the lobby of my building. After semi-awkwardly sipping a coffee by myself (see Joel's blog) I got my guest badge and began the video regiment. They sat the six of us new employees in a conference room and fed tapes into the VCR that had lame 80's/early 90's actors telling us about how to use a fire extinguisher and what sexual harassment is. Midway through the video marathon, the benefits guy came in and explained what benefits were available to us. I'm fairly impressed with what the company has to offer. One thing that I am excited about is that they are trying to promote fitness so the company will pay $100 each month to any gym membership you have. I hope that they will approve EarthTreks because that would cover all expenses! Anyway, this is also when things got a little awkward. The benefits guy asked who fell into the management category since they get an improved retirement plan and immediate medical coverage. I was the only one to raise my hand. And then I felt silly, being placed with the management group when all five other people in the room were older and more experienced than I was. One guy was already working for Pepco and was just switching departments... and there I was, green as grass grows reaping in the benefits. I could see why there is and always has been a divide between management and everywhere else. Maybe I was just being paranoid, but I was separated from the rest of the group from then on- sometimes physically, but mostly socially.

After all of the orientation stuff was done I got to go meet my group and get started. My direct supervisor is the cool lady I interviewed with, so it was nice to see a familiar face and exciting to get to work under her. I met probably 80 people really quickly as I was given the office tour and shook a bunch of hands. One of the guys I recognized from Maryland, but we had never met so it was cool to talk with him about school and stuff. Turns out he walked (that means graduated) with me and had already been working for two months. For the rest of the day I shadowed him as he started a project from the beginning so I could get an idea of what I would be doing. So here is what I do:

The city already has a fair amount of electrical systems infrastructure (power lines) provided by Pepco. A person who is building in the city or is expanding their electrical needs in any way will become one of our customers. They ask for power and I have to design the layout to give them that power. And from there it becomes amazingly complicated, even with the simplest of projects, when you have to consider codes, safety, and the builders who will be implementing the design. It's a little bit like complex legos. The job is not ultra-technical like where you're trying to model an oak tree by chiseling every detail out of stone. Rather it's like building the oak tree with legos, but you have to make sure the color of the pieces are all right and the pieces all fit so that the model is structurally sound and robust. There's my analogy.

Lastly, the environment. One of the first things my boss told me was to never come in a tie again. Nobody who works on that floor wears a tie. The people are pretty cool and a bunch of them have already invited me to ask them any questions I come across, so I plan to do that. My cubical is bare, but I plan to make it homelier soon. A plant and a couple of picture frames will liven up the place. With this long post, I think I've reported on everything. Day two begins in 7 hours and 20 minutes to I'm gonna hit the sack. Peace.