Another pretty crap day.

Well, today was not so good, as you can tell by the subject. I've tweaked my hours at work to Tues-Fri 8-5. It's tiring working that extra hour, and I have no idea why. It's not proportionately tiring. It's way more so. Odd.

Anyway, I ran out of work this morning and opened my big mouth to my supervisor about it, who told me to tell her and she would always find me something to do. I started doing the sudoku puzzle in my Express newspaper (free, daily) and she came by.

"Hi! How are you doing?"
":P I'm so bored."
"Come with me."

It scares me that she's always so efficient like that, and always has this grin like "you asked for it." The Japanese. They are an efficiently scary people.

She ended up loaning me to another department, since mine won't need me until next week. The department is Global Services. I'm not sure exactly what they do, but it involves more databases and spreadsheets. And a headache that's been going on for a while.

See, their old system was...well, old. They were moving to a new system with the apps from this year, and had all the scholars fill out the online apps directly into this new system. But now the new system is broken. So the apps have to be moved back to the old system. BY HAND. Like HAND-TYPING. That's where I come in. Because I am an intern and no one in their right mind who was getting paid for this would do it. But me? I do it for free. :D

The apps are about 24 pages long. It took me about 2 and a half hours to do four of them. I thought that was it. Nope! Global Services Manager Anneke comes by my desk that afternoon when I'm finished with the first four.

"Were you okay with the apps?"
"Oh, yeah, I was fine, no problem."
"Okay, I'm gonna give you more to do."

By "more" she meant "a helluva lot more." I got two done and was working on the third before the system hiccupped on me, I lost all the data, and only have fifteen minutes left. So instead of breaking down to cry, I left for the day. Seemed progressive at the time.

On the way home on the metro, I started feeling ill. I read about halfway, then had to put my book away and just breathe and concentrate on not throwing up on the lovely shiny shoes of the businessman standing next to me. I made it out of the station feeling much better, but still craptastic. I got to the apartment and got an email from my dad asking if I'd picked up the laptop case he shipped to me. I tracked it on FedEx and it had indeed been delivered. I stole my roommate's shoes to go downstairs and pick it up. In my pajamas. Because I just don't care after a long day's work.

I got down there and the attendant was someone I didn't know and hadn't seen before. I've made a point to make friends with the attendants. I told her my apartment number and my name and she said the package had already been signed for.

...What?

I said that I had picked something up a couple of days ago. She said, "Oh, maybe it hasn't been logged yet." And disappeared behind the desk. She came back a few minutes later saying that she didn't see it and then showed me the log where it had been signed. All I could see were a bunch of strange loopies that looked nothing like letters, much less my name, and much much less my signature. I told her so and she looked panicked, kind of like she didn't know what to do. "Oh...um...oh my god...Okay, I'll leave a note here for Caroline in the morning." She wrote down a strange, short-hand synopsis on the situation on a post-it. I explained that I would ask my roommates if they'd picked something up for me. She said okay. I knew none of my roommates had done that. They're all Asian. They have gorgeous, neat lettering and don't know cursive or whatever that language was that was supposed to represent my "signature."

So I've had a package stolen. It was a macbook case from Speck, so it wasn't anything really expensive. I'm disappointed because 1) it seems like Fate has decided I should not have this case because it was supposed to be a xmas present and has been backordered these last three months only to now disappear and 2) I love Fenestra and the security and the apartments and location and everything. I don't want to have to fight with them over paying for this if it was, indeed, stolen. It's their fault. They will pay for it. I just don't want it to get ugly.

And now I've stayed up way past the time I planned to go to bed. I'm looking forward to tomorrow being Friday, even though Saturday I have a field trip with my class to the Freer/Sackler galleries and then to Chinatown for some chow. At least I don't have to leave until 11.

Wow, long time no see...

I haven't updated in a while, pretty much because nothing big has been going on. We were snowed in for a whole week, with no metro or bus service, and there was a cabin fever epidemic. Thankfully, there were a couple of places in the town square open, and our RAs put on a Valentine's Day card-making party last Thursday for us to make cards for the residents of a nursing home. They also had free cookies and candy and drinks. Yay!

Our vacuum cleaner doesn't suck. Which sucks. (I love that joke.) We told our RA, Ann, about it and she's put in an order for a new one. Yay, we get a new vacuum cleaner!

We went to the Sichuan Pavilion across the street one night. It is really authentic Chinese food. Since we had Alice and Michelle with us, we ordered in Mandarin and everything. They had these pork buns that were the most flavorful thing I've ever put in my mouth. Definitely my favorite Chinese food, followed by the frozen mini-buns we got at Maxim, the Chinese supermarket (not as juicy).

Friday, the government was actually open, but the metro was not serving our area, so we couldn't go into work. I had to take a personal day. :( I guess that's okay, because I get five and I was wondering what I would do with them. They're expecting more snow tonight, but just a little, so tomorrow should be a work day. I hope so. I had just learned to navigate that office and now I'm going to be lost all over again. But the first time we got the big snow, they only predicted 2-4 inches. I don't really trust meteorologists anyway. I think they work for the bread and milk companies.

We did go to this restaurant called Bobby's Crab Cakes. It was...strange. We went there Saturday night, we made reservations for six (even though only five of us went). Their food prices are pretty high, so we were expecting a sort of upscale restaurant. Nope. It was one step up from a bar. We waited forever for our food, too, and it's not like they had tons of orders. There were maybe six tables in the entire place. It was just a strange experience. The food, when it finally came, was delicious, but...because of everything else, I don't know that I'd want to go back.

Oh! I also signed up for some volunteer shifts at the Cherry Blossom Festival. I think I'm working three weekends, so far. Should be fun! If you're in the area, come see me!

Today, I need to finish revising my Individual Development Plan, and write my second reflection, both of which are due tomorrow. Alice and I are planning to cook dumplings for lunch, and then all three of my roomies have a makeup class tonight, so I'll have the apartment to myself again. Will probably go to Five Guys for dinner...

Snowed-in Craziness.

I haven't updated in forever because we've been hit by Snowmageddon. Yesterday was the first and only day in the past five days that metro has been running, and it was at half speed and for only a few hours. But for those few hours, I went out and got more supplies because this snow is never going to end.

Since we haven't been able to eat out, we've been cooking a lot of Chinese food. Tonight we're cooking dumplings, which we've cooked before, and pork buns, which we have not cooked before. Should be interesting!

Anyway, I wanted to update this little snippet of fun that happened just a few minutes ago.

Me: So what's your favorite English word?
Alice: "Cookie."
Michelle: "Ice cream!"
Me: No, not your favorite food, your favorite word!
Alice and Michelle: "JENNIE!"

They're so silly.

SNOWPOCALYPSE!

At least, that's what everyone is saying. Perhaps after seeing these photos, you will agree.



This picture is taken from our living room window, showing how much the snow is building up on them. We're on the fifth floor. The bottom windows (one is in the bottom left corner) are halfway covered with snow building on the ledge).


As you can see, the street and sidewalks are covered. No ground to be seen. And people are STILL out there driving.


There are some markers in this photo that show how deep the snow is. See the pole that the walk sign is on? It's about halfway covered. There is a bush behind the powerline pole that comes up to about waist-height, also covered. The trees in the background are also being weighed down. And these photos are pretty dim, because it's STILL SNOWING pretty heavily out there.


These pictures were all taken around 10am EST. It's supposed to snow all day and perhaps into the night, and, as I said, it's still snowing really heavily right now. More pictures will probably come!