Powerful Woman!

When I first found out Annie's last name, I told her that her name sounded like a powerful woman's name. Ever since then, Michelle has latched onto that phrase. At random times, she'll strike a pose and say "Powerful woman!" It's hilarious. :D I love my roomies.

So it's been a few days since I've written. It's been kind of hectic around here. Work, sleep, work, sleep, work, sleep. That's pretty much what my life has been. I don't have the energy level of a lot of these youngsters (once you hit 25, your body starts to feel old) so I don't go out at night. Annie is going out clubbing tonight and I'm just amazed. I don't have the energy for that. I'm exhausted after this week.

Okay, so Wednesday. I forget what I did at work Wednesday, but I'm sure it involved printing stuff. I got my printer over in my cube. I printed applications for this Iraq program that they're doing because I think the deadline is Monday...? Anyway, it's really soon, so that was top priority. But I finished them all that day. Kareem was happy.

Wednesday night, I had the apartment to myself because all of my roomies had class. I took a glorious shower, and washed clothes. Man, my life is exciting. My roomies got home at about 10:30, when I was going to bed.

Thursday was a very boring day. I ran out of work to do about 10:30am. Kareem needed to do some prep work before training me on the next project, so I just chilled out. I wrote my first reflection thing that I have to do for TWC. Then I pretty much read the rest of the day. I was so sleepy and bored. About 4pm, I went by Kareem's desk and he said that he was having trouble and we'd just have to do it tomorrow. So I asked Taeko if I could go home and she said yeah. When I got home, it was actually still light outside!

My roomies were late getting home, though, and I'd left my phone at the office in my desk. RAWR! I should stop making fun of my mom for doing that now. About 9pm, Annie and Michelle came in, saying that they went to Target and got carried away and then ran home because it got really cold outside. Annie was worried that she had frostbite. She's so silly. Alice, our fourth roommate that arrived...Tuesday? I don't remember. Anyway, she got home about 9:30 because her boss treated her to dinner. Since everyone was home, this mother hen could finally go to bed.

Today started off being a bad day. I woke up at 7am, half an hour before my alarm was going to go off. I wanted to go back to sleep, but I got all excited about work and couldn't, so I just decided to get up. I got ready and everything and went off to the metro. Well, I'm buying 7 day unlimited passes during my time here because after calculating all my expenses, that turned out to be the cheapest option. So I had to buy another one today, which made me just late enough to miss the usual train I ride. I had to stand in the 16-degree weather for six minutes until the next train arrived. That doesn't sound like long unless you're in that weather. And there was a guy about fifteen feet from me who kept spitting off the platform onto the tracks. He did it like four times. I was about to go shove him onto the tracks. Grr.

Then we arrived at the Van Ness station, and I tripped and fell going up the escalator. Boo. :( And it was freaking hella cold outside, again, so I went in the main entrance of Intelsat, which is like two blocks closer than the other entrance (the building is huge). I'd never done that before and I'm still getting lost in that place, but I figured I could ask a security guard if I got really lost. Little did I know that to use this entrance includes going up like three flights of steep stairs. I made it to the central spiral of the group of pods that I work in, but there's no bridge to get to my particular pod. So I had to go one floor below, find another set of elevators, and go up to my floor. Thankfully, unlike yesterday, the door was open today. Security is big in this building (Intelsat = Intelligence Satellites) and you have to have a code to get in the CIES office, which I had yet to get. Juliou gave me one later that morning.

So since my morning was sucking so far and I hadn't eaten anything, I got Lucia to come with me to get some breakfast. Cinnamon french toast day! Yay! I got a couple slices, along with a hash brown and a couple pieces of bacon. Kareem was also in the cafeteria, and made a comment about how expensive it is. I knew that was unusual! And I saw this morning that bacon is $.55/each! But I've been really nice to the lady that works the register and she only charged me for one slice this morning. I'm telling you guys, being nice to people and turning on that Southern charm (if you have it) really goes a long way, especially in a place where the people aren't used to that.

I ate my breakfast, which could have been better, but also could have been worse. When Kareem was ready, he came over and explained to me that we're going to start processing visiting scholar applications. This means the people overseas who want to come to the US to study. There are 800 of them, and each app is about 30 pages, give or take. Why did they insist on me having my own printer? Because I have to print all of them.

I literally ran through five packs of paper today. That's almost a whole case. 2500 sheets.

And my morning didn't get any better.

I was just feeling bad for some reason. Not physically, but mentally or spiritually, I guess. I just wasn't in my normal, happy, energetic mood. When I was printing the Jordan apps (there were 11 of them, 339 pages) I noticed that the back door of my printer was open and the paper was spitting out there. Well, I was multitasking doing other stuff, but eventually noticed that paper was falling out of the back. I turned around (my back is to my printer) and paper was piling on top of it, all turned over and falling on the floor, totally getting out of order. I stopped everything. I got into an even more gloomy mood after seeing this. I pouted for a few seconds, then went to Lucia's cube and demanded a hug. She obliged and I told her what had happened. She lent me her sympathy and I went back over to stare at the mess. Kareem sent me an email asking me to print one of the applications I had processed Tuesday and I got that done, really procrastinating on what I had to do--pick up all 300+ pages and reorder them. I sent Kareem an email about my bad morning, and he came over. But he hadn't read his email yet, so I had to tell him what happened, in the middle of sorting the apps out.

He said, "You know, I would just chuck them and print them out again."

I raised my eyebrows at him.

"You can be green if you want to, but I'd recycle all that and start over."

I rubbed my face and relented. I chucked all 300+ pages into the mixed paper recycling. And started over.

From then on, my day got better. Taeko took us out for lunch to a place called Z-Burger. They have, literally, 75 different flavors of shakes. And their burgers and fries are good, too. She treated us all, and it was just a really cool lunch. I got to tell a few more of my coworkers about myself and also to hear what they had to say about stuff. I like getting to know people. Taeko teaches martial arts! How many of you can say that your supervisor teaches martial arts?!

We went back to the office after an hour and a half lunch and I got back to work. I had about seven or eight countries' apps to go through and I got them all done at about 3:15. I went to deliver them around the office after I was done with each one, and people said, "Oh wow, they're still warm. Did you just print these?" I nodded and they were amazed. Really made me feel good. ^^ Anyway, when I was done, I went to Kareem and told him. He had nothing else for me, so I went to Taeko and asked if I could leave. She consented and I got to leave early. Man, the metro is dead at that time of day.

Got home early, took a shower, and read some fanfiction that Christy sent me. Ahhh, it was so calming. And again, it was daylight! I don't like getting home in the dark.

Annie got home about 5:30 or 6, demanding that we go out for dinner because all she had for lunch was a bagel. I had eaten well all day, so I wasn't really hungry. Michelle got home shortly after that and we learned that Alice's work hours are 10-6. She would be late getting home. We waited as long as Annie could wait and then decided to just go. We took Sarah, our neighbor, with us to Primo Italiano. Honestly, I wasn't all that impressed. I ordered some garlic bread, which went over well, but my calzone wasn't all that great. I just ordered a cheese one because they didn't have any with meat, just cheese, eggplant, broccoli, and spinach. Ew? So yeah. I also got a root beer. I've been wanting a soda for like over a week and the Sprite was broken. :( Why does that always happen? Anyway, they had cannolis, though! Me, Sarah, and Michelle ordered one. Chocolate flavored. They were richer than regular cannolis, and Michelle didn't like hers. She's not used to the richness of American food yet, I don't think. But I suggested she take it home to Alice, because Alice has a sweet tooth like I do. I don't think we'll be going back to the restaurant, though.

I was correct about Alice liking the cannoli. She said it was delicious.

Now Annie has gone out clubbing, Michelle and Alice are in bed, and I'm falling asleep in my bed.

Tomorrow is Tai Shan's Farewell Party. I really hope the weather holds up. Right now, they're predicting 2-4" of snow. :( It involves a lot of walking to get the the zoo and then get around in the zoo. I hope the snow doesn't screw up my plans. I love Tai Shan and the other pandas. I can't believe we can't get an extension on our loan from the Chinese. :(

Anyway, those are my plans for tomorrow. We have a 3-5 page paper, part of our TWC portfolio, whose draft is due Monday, too. Bleh. If not tomorrow, I'll be busy Sunday. At least I'll have Monday off from work...