The latest...

-So what's going on lately?

1. Moved from Dearborn to Bloomfield. House >> Apartment. Better commute, cheaper rent, bigger, nicer, space. I just wish I didn't have to pay overlapping bills from moving in, yikes! I'm also living with 4 other people. Hopefully this won't be a train wreck.

2. My grades for my first semester at UM-Dearborn as a night-grad-student: B- (only one B- can count towards your degree) in Structural Analysis, B+ in Polymer Mechanics. Not up to standard as far as I'm concerned, but I'll live with it because it's passing. Both professors were horrible in their own ways. One was a dick that didn't care about helping anyone and wrote crazy tests. The other was a powerpoint abuser with boring lectures, and un-commented tests and homework so you couldn't learn from your mistakes. Sweet. I hope the classes get better.

2.b. Continuing on that note - I miss being a student in my undergrad at UW. Everything from the teamwork between myself and my classmates to get through our classes, to walking through campus through the changing seasons, and the plain 'ole college campus atmosphere, really made me enjoy and now miss my stay at UW.

3. I can finally do a semi-decent ollie. It only took me.... well, too long. I gotta say that I thoroughly enjoy snowboarding and skating. I wish I took up both sooner than the age of 22. I watch my nephew skate (who is SICK) and I just think about how old I am. Regardless of how talented teenagers are at both, I hope I don't grow out of this shit or get discouraged from just having fun with either. I'd say they're both fulfilling hobbies. Stomping shit @ the mountain is damn satisfying.

4. Something that's been annoying the shit out of me: how every mannerism I have is characterized as "west coast." My vocab, my style of dress, hobbies, music tastes, experiences (that could happen most anywhere), etc. keep getting the fuckin' "Oh, is that how they do it on the west coast?" bullshit reaction. Don't get me confused, I'm fuckin' proud, and glad that I was raised where and how I was. It's just annoying that everything I do is somehow west coast. ...Yes, because nothing else is an influence on my life decisions. Meh, I think it's just people around work (read: white people), because most of my friends outside of work don't pull that shit. Admittedly, while it is annoying, I do enjoy sticking out, because something's gotta separate me from the other CIEs. If it's my "west coast"-influenced personality, then so be it, as long as it's in a way positive.

5. Gotta bitch about work at least a little, right? For the first few weeks, work was damn slow. This was mainly because my bosses weren't giving me enough to do, which was probably because they didn't know enough about me to assign me something they could trust me with. A few months later, that's changed as I've picked up more about how the job works and they've learned more about me. Now I've got full days, and always feel overwhelmed and/or worried that I'm fuckin' something up. This bothers me a lot. I feel like I work too slow and that I should be able to manage a lot more than I do. Often I close the day out feeling like I didn't get enough done. Fuck, I want to leave work feeling like I've done all I could do. That just isn't happening unless I want to put in the OT, which I have on occasion. I told my bosses about this, kinda implying that I could use some advice, but I think they saw this as me not being able to handle what little they've given me; and seeing as they do my performance reviews, the worry only compounds. So, clearly there's a problem here. The solutions are probably a mix of a) changing my mindset to accept the fact that: perception is everything so focus your energy on what will give you positive exposure, b) learn how to budget time better, c) learn how to get from start to finish thorough, timely fashion while making sure all the information is correct, d) my performance depends on the performance of other people, so I've got to learn the art of being able to communicate to different types of people. I think I've got a long way to go before I reach the super-efficient worker I want to be. Who knows if I ever will?