I was very excited this morning when I found out that it wasn’t raining! Wishes DO come true, people! Of course, I was a little less thrilled when I found out the wind had decided to compensate for the lack of wet misery by picking up an extra 5-10 mph. I decided to wear pants again to work and avoid the embarrassing situation of trying to walk while keeping a skirt down and knee-highs pulled up.
I was also happy that this was my last work day for the week—whew! And it seemed much longer than usual; even though I had plenty of work to do, the clock dragged on reaaaaally slowly (in contrast to yesterday, when the time just flew by). I was having trouble staying awake, too, during the last hour. Probably because I got to bed after midnight (Legally Blonde lasted until almost 10, then I had to fix dinner, clean up dishes, brush my teeth, put away all my stuff, write in my blog, and read my scriptures before bed), and woke up at 5:30 (but didn’t really get up until 6) this morning. The gym doesn’t open until 6:30, which isn’t good at all considering that I have to leave for work at 8:15 and don’t do very well if I skip either a shower or breakfast after exercise. Nevertheless, I am going to try to start going there on Saturday—time to get exercise by doing something other than racing across crosswalks at the last second!!!
I did enjoy going downstairs (all by myself—which I kind of like. It’s peaceful and relaxing to be alone occasionally) this morning to do squats, push-ups, sit-ups, and yoga while watching Fox News and another episode of Redwall. They really are cute, and I’m going to be sad when I run out of them...
After exercising, I came upstairs, showered, ate my breakfast (and actually got the oatmeal right! It used to always be lumpy, but I put in more water and cooked it for the right time. Hooray!), and took off for work, wearing my boots again. Despite my perpetual nervousness at walking anywhere in D.C. by myself, surrounded by other people who could be any of the four P.P.P.Ps: perfectly normal pedestrians, pickpockets, perverts, or—which is more common than you’d think—posh. Anyway, I made the walk without any trouble, and didn’t even have to look at my map today to get there. I was quite proud of myself for that!
When I got to the museum, my supervisor was late again, so I just went to my workspace and got started on the day’s assignments. I had to send out the daily Art News stuff, and then later that day we packaged up all the complementary issues of the magazine and mailed them off. It was a HUGE, time-consuming process, and the printer next to me ate up one of our sheets, then refused to work when Michelle helped me take it out. The secretary who monitors our floor was NOT happy about it, and blamed me for the problem. I guess she was right in that I caused the problem, but she did get a few details wrong (like saying I hadn’t canceled it from the computer when I had), and I was a little mildly hurt by the hostile nature of her accusation. Perhaps she was just having a bad or long day. After the problem got fixed, I tried to avoid using the printer and seeing the secretary for the rest of the day. The problem is that I don’t want to be avoiding her for the next four months....so....bother. The funny thing is that I didn’t mind a bit when Marc, our business guy (who came down and tinkered with the computer until it worked again), said to me something like “You didn’t break that again, did you?” before he left. Probably because he said it in a friendly, teasing way, with something called a “smile” on his face. I laughed and told him no, and thanked him profusely for fixing it.
Marc is a nice guy, by the way. After the printer incident, but before he left, he also helped me find some labels for the stamp machine when all the stamps ran out. And he was so funny. He came upstairs and said, “How’s it going?” or something, and then I said, “Well, I was wondering...” and he immediately said, “Oh no!” But I knew he was kidding. I just did. So I didn’t mind going ahead with the question, and he was more than happy to help me. Maybe I’ll just pretend next week like it never happened, and then be nice to the secretary on Monday and things will be fine. I’m hoping, anyway. Dr. Goss was pretty straightforward to us in class in lecturing how “secretaries can make or break you” in the political realm. I just don’t seem to have the best of luck when it comes to secretaries, I guess...
I worked on our “Culture Watch” section for a few hours after my lunch (two slices of bread, eight carrots, apple, broccoli, water, blahness; but during it I read the free copy of The Onion—basically a joke paper—which I picked up on the way there, and it made me laugh a lot!), trying not to fall asleep, and was very happy to leave when 5 pm arrived. I was annoyed that it was already dark outside, and still windy. It’s kind of frustrating to know that I’m here in Washington D.C. but have to miss eight glorious daylight hours and all the fantastic tourist opportunities offered by the city for my poky little cubicle... But I guess I am getting paid, which is nice. And some of the work is really interesting, once I get started and focused on what I need to do.
With all that said, I am thrilled that tomorrow is Friday (oops, today! It’s midnight again—rats, there go my plans for a long sleep) and I don’t have to go to work. We will have class at 9 am, and we had an assignment due which I spent most of this evening writing. It was really a silly little assignment, nothing at all worth the two hours or so I invested in it, but I just hope I get a nice grade on it and can move on.
I had another success this evening with the pasta and cheese sauce recipe—it took what seemed like a long time to boil (really 10 minutes), but the end product was much better. I ate it with grapes and two yogurts (yeah, I went to Safeway after work and bought some of the little Activa yogurts; they were on sale and I just couldn’t resist!)....mmmm....mmmm! Valerie and her mother-in-law (who lives close by and has a CAR) went shopping at a real grocery store this evening, and came back with a lot of stuff for real cooking, real decorating, and real cleaning.
Speaking of which, our community sink is kind of...gross. Every night I wash my dishes I have to be careful not to put them in someone else’s mess. Yuuuuck. I guess we’d better have a talk about how we’re going to keep things clean. Nobody wants to see cockroaches in the place, after all.
Still speaking of cleanliness, today marked the day when we emptied our first trash bag! Sniff—what a historic moment! Also, I’m wondering if that means the number of weeks we have left in the Washington Seminar may be equivalent to the number of trash bags we’ll need to buy....
Well, sorry if this post is a little shorter than you might be used to from me, but scripture study is calling. I’ll probably write more tomorrow since we’ll be done with class hopefully early and I’ll have time to do something fun, like, oh, laundry, and shopping, and clean the bathroom, and...sleep?
1 comment:
You do have all the luck with secretaries :) - and please, no descriptive sardonic letters to the Washington Post!! I assume you are talking about a large, commercial printer, and those are notoriously difficult to maintain, especially as they age. I would definitely pay attention to how it gets fixed each time it breaks down, if possible, as that is a great skill to have. Perhaps the secretary could instruct you, as secretaries usually get stuck with that chore and are usually quite good at it.
Anyway, sounds like you have a great opportunity to learn how to forgive and not hold a grudge! Good luck!
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