New Job: Update

I realize it has been two full weeks since I had anything to say, or time to say it. I will summarize the past two weeks:
Week 1, aka Dolphin School: I learned a lot about the company. You might call it brainwashing; whatever it was, it left me feeling pumped about working for them!!! But I was very busy all week- dinner with all the new employees after work on Tuesday, company Happy Hour on Wednesday, dinner with Simon & Katrina & Carsen on Thursday. On the way to see S&K my car overheated, so Simon had to come pick me up and then he kindly lent me his car for the next day. (Thanks Simon!)
Weekend: Mama and Daddy and Justin came up for Simon's birthday. It was fun. Justin and Daddy fixed my radiator. (Thanks Justin and Daddy!)
Week 2, aka Developer training: I learned a lot. It was a bit overwhelming because I was the only one in the class who had no programming experience (other than what I did in high school). But it was not impossible, and I think I will really pick it up once I start working.

This past weekend I was very glad to return to my apartment in Houston. Justin had bought me some plants to make it seem more homey! I really like them. He did a great job of picking them out.

Today I started my first day of actual work. I have been put on a project updating/tansforming old eclectic databases for an energy company (whose name I don't want to say because I don't want it coming up in Google searches). The guy in charge of the project emailed me some work flow documents to look over, one of which I understood. He explained the project to me in general terms, after which the other documents were very slightly clearer. Thankfully they will not be throwing me in head first; he said for this project the main goal is for me to learn. I have been assigned to two employees who are doing a lot of the actual coding, to learn from them and start taking some of their more managable tasks.

I know this is a boring, un-illustrated blog post, but I'm kind of tired and need to go to bed so I can get up early for work tomorrow. (that's the NOT fun part of working). Just think- soon I'll be an expert in actually creating websites from scratch!

...And Work Begins!

Today I started my first day of training. I had to drive up to Dallas last night; my goal was to arrive around 8 or 9 pm. I got a bit of a late start, then had to go by Cracker Barrel to get an audio book (because libraries are closed on Sundays) and take Justin home, so I didn't get into Dallas until around 9:30. Also, my air conditioner stopped working early on in my drive- I think it was out of freon. No big deal. Until I couldn't find the hotel. I had gotten directions from Google Maps, but somehow I couldn't find the street I was supposed to turn on, and then when I turned around, I found that the road I had been on turned into the one I was supposed to be on, but I was already past the place where I was supposed to be. I tried turning around to go in the other direction, but found that direction blocked because of construction. Long story short, I drove around lost for about an hour and a half in my stuffy car looking for my hotel, going through all sorts of shady areas. It was very distressing.

When I finally arrived at my hotel, it was about 11. Then I had to take a shower and do stuff to get ready for my first day of work: decide what to wear, get all the stuff I need together, figure out how to get there, etc. I went to bed feeling frazzled and nervous, afraid that I would be tired all day and that people would be mean, I would be inappropriately dressed, and it would be obvious to everyone that I had very little technical expertise.

After a not-quite-long-enough sleep which was interrupted by a fire alarm at 4 am, I awoke and got ready for work. I allotted way too much time to get there and arrived about 45 minutes early, but I could hear Justin's voice in my head saying, "that will make a good impression. Early is better than late, even if you're 45 minutes early." Good point, Justin. The HR woman who greeted me was very friendly, allaying my fears of everyone being mean, and she admitted she knew next to nothing about computers, which reassured me. In fact, everyone I met at work today seemed nice, and the main IT guy said he would be happy to answer any questions we had, which is good because I am sure to have lots. All the new hires (there were 8 of us: 7 boys, 1 girl) got lots of paperwork to fill out about medical insurance, dental insurance, vision insurance, short term/long term disability insurance, life insurance, 401(k), profit sharing, and Employee Stock Ownership Plans. It was overwhelming and a little boring, but cool because it meant that I am technically a "grown up" (gasp!!! Can it be?!?!?!?!?) and will be making enough money to be "important."

Under our overwhelming stacks of forms to fill out we were each given a padfolio containing pens, pads of paper, and corporate note cards. Neat!!! Apparently my padfolio was used, because one of the pads of paper had some notes on it: call Gayle, go to costco, deoderant, etc. As I sifted through my pile of papers, I found two very similar packets about life insurance and asked the HR woman, "do we need to fill out both life insurance packets?" She seemed confused. "You have two? Where did you get that other one?" "It was in my padfolio," I explained. Her ensuing laughter alerted me to the fact that noone else had this auxilary outdated packet... whoever needed to call Gayle had also left this information in their padfolio.

Overall my first day of work was good. Tomorrow and the rest of this week I'll be learning about the company and what I'll be doing for them.

I like living here!

After spending several days in my apartment with nothing to do but explore, decorate and shop, I have decided I like living here. I am sad that soon I have to enter a world of full-time work which will not be punctuated by any month long breaks like school is. Sigh.


Here are some things I like about my apartment:

• The decor, obviously.


• My neighbors. It's easy (at least for me) to feel isolated somewhere like this when I'm living by myself. Since my apartment overlooks the pool, I often see/hear groups out there having a great time, and since I am not out there with them, I might start to feel like I am the only outsider in this place where everyone else knows one another. Sad! But the other day I decided to knock on some of my neighbors doors. Of the four doors I tried, only two people answered, but those who did were nice. One was a girl a little older than me who is a teacher and has a roommate who is a teacher as well. She said she was glad that I came to introduce myself because she has never gotten to know the people that live around her. The other guy was French and moving pack to France in a month or so, but he also was nice and said he hasn't really gotten to know his neighbors yet. So my neighbor-meeting accomplished two things. One: I am not the sole outsider stuck in one big party of good friends; there are lots of people here who don't know their neighbors. And two: I feel a little bit less alien just having spoken to the people who live near me.


• The area. There is a lot of interesting stuff around here, including a lot more old stuff than you see in Katy. The Kroger I went to yesterday looks like it was built in the 70s or 80s and has a fun retro look. And most of the people I have encountered have been pretty nice. I always like nice people.


• Being able to put my own personal touches on the arrangement of my apartment. In the model apartment, they had a little metal tray with some martini glasses and such sitting on the end of the kitchen counter. I don't drink a lot of martinis, but Mama suggested that I put some tea stuff there. So I made a nice little arrangement involving: the new cream dish and sugar bowl from Bed Bath & Beyond, my butter dish also from BB&B, the kitchen tray Auntie Sonja gave me, a bowl of fruit, and a squiggly mirror that I got to hang on the wall my sophomore year of college that could never stay on the wall so I decided to use as a visual interest piece on horizontal surfaces. You'll also notice a small bowl of skittles, which I put out because I knew a certain little boy who likes skittles was coming over.

Stuff For My New Apartment!

Today I went shopping with the goal of getting stuff for my apartment with the gift cards I had recieved for graduation. My first stop was Bed Bath & Beyond, to which Justin's grandparents had given me a gift card. I got: a stepstool (for my kitchen, to reach the top cabinets), a trashcan for my bathroom, an over-the-door towel rack for my bathroom, a sugar dish and cream dish (for tea/coffee!), and a butter dish. I did not take photos of any of that stuff because it is not very exciting looking, but very useful.

After that I went to Pier 1 Imports, where I had a gift card from Simon and Katrina. I was hoping to get something to decorate my coffee table (because I have noticed that something that makes model apartments look nicer than my college apartments is artistically arranged stuff on the coffee table) and/or something, preferably plant-like, to put in a corner. I was able to get both!!!

For the corner I got a funky tall, skinny glass vase (on clearance!), a big fake leaf of some kind (maybe palm?), and two chutes of fake leafy bamboo to put in the tall skinny vase. Here is a picture of this decorative conglomeration out of context, and a picture of it in context: I decided to put it on a box (not visible) between the couch and the coffee table.

My next decorative jackpot was a glass leaf (about the size of a small serving tray), on which I put three light brown votive candles. Bonus: they smell really good. I wish I could post a smell online. Since the leaf is dark and my coffee table is dark, I also got a light brown/tan placemat to go under the leaf for a pleasing visual contrast. When I got home I realized that I had some blue stones that were left if my duplex last year, so I put those in the leaf as well. What do you think? Does it look better with or without the blue stones?

Green Frog?