The Future

Still getting ready...

Thought I'd post this for fun. Can't remember where I got it right now. More later.

I'm back!

I decided to slack off on something I'm supposed to be doing right now and write here instead.

T. was ok. I find meetings tiring and they test my patience. I get impatient when it's all didactic (I find I can only sit and listen to someone else speak for a couple of hours - one of our days it was all day long). I also find it difficult to be patient with others when they are dissecting the clinical papers to death and getting hung up on the minutia and falling into the trap of looking at them from a microscopic point of view instead of stepping back and seeing the big picture. However, I also recognize that it's part of the learning experience for me. I have to learn to have more patience with these things, with other people, and know that work isn't always easy (i.e. sometimes you have to sit through 8 hours of didactic lectures in a day, get a sore back, and suck it up) - this too shall pass. The fun part about T. was exactly what I had mentioned before: the people. I was really happy to see the majority of my friends and colleagues before I head off and leave them for some time. I really will miss so many of them. In particular, my old manager is someone I will miss tremendously. He has been an important person in my life over the years that I have worked with this organization and I learned a lot from him.

Today I got out on the bike. I have not been riding very much in the past few weeks. In fact, not at all in the last week and a half. Last weekend I felt that funny feeling you get in your throat when you are about to get a cold, so I stayed in on Sunday instead of riding with the gang. I was really bummed about it, but I really wasn't up for it and did not want to get sick. I was still feeling this bug niggling at my throat and in my ears when I left on my trip on Tuesday, but with proper rest, lots of extra fluids, my vitamins, and echinacea I was able to fight it off successfully! :) So I hope this means that in the upcoming weeks I'll be getting out on my bike a lot! Oh. And I saw something new today while on my ride: cycle polo. And this is where I saw it. Now that would be a great way to get better bike handling skills. It looked pretty neat!

I've also been doing a little more research on NZ. Learning about the places, things to do, etc. I have some ideas about the cycling communities there through some of my research. And this is giving me some ideas about some places I'm going to check out. But all of that will come when I'm actually there - so you'll have to read then to find out. ;)

One last trip to T. (for now)

Last business trip tomorrow. Back to the Big Smoke, as per usual. I wonder if I'll miss business trips when I'm gone? Nah. I doubt it. There are some fun moments in business trips, but usually you just work way harder than you do at home. Longer hours. Foreign bed. Interrupted routine. Bad food. Well, by that I mean bad for you - like dessert at every friggin' meal. Don't tell me those muffins at breakfast aren't more a dessert than something of sustenance. The fun stuff comes from the people, of course. I do work with lots of really cool, fun, nice people. That's a plus for sure. I think we'll have some fun this week.

I'm sort of settling in to my new environment now. It's not as weird not driving home to my place every day. I'm feeling less out of sorts. But it feels more like a lay-over. I wonder when it will sink in that I don't live there anymore?

I also started to get more info on NZ. One of my coworkers traveled there years ago for a few months and today we went out for lunch. He brought his photo albums and the map and we chatted for quite a while about all the cool places to see and things to do.

I haven't started a countdown. I think it's because leaving is bittersweet. I'm excited, but it's so far away - I'll miss everybody here a ton!

Adjusting

So last Friday I moved all the stuff that I hadn't thrown away, given away, or sold into my new storage locker. I could never have done this on my own:
The movers screwed me I think - charged me way too much. At any rate, I was too tired and too brain-dead to care or to complain. It was done, I'm glad it's done and I was on to more pressing things: get the remainder of the little things out of my place and into my sister's and clean the apartment up for the new tenants - some cool people I know.

The rest of the weekend was nice and I had some time to come down from all of the stress and trauma of moving out of my beloved apartment. I may sound slightly melodramatic, but it truly was stressful and traumatic. It has only been a few short days, and living with my sister and her hubby is still better than being a real guest in someone else's home, but it's also still an adjustment. I don't want to do something that they might not like and I also don't have everything my way. In fact nothing is my way really. That's ok, but imagine having absolutely everything in your environment and your life your way for years at a time. I knew when I moved out on my own that I would come to this kind of crossroads one day. So here I am. It's not all about me. But I'll stop whining. Life really is pretty good. I've got a sister who loves me enough to have me stay with her (and I guess my brother-in-law thinks I'm pretty ok too). I'm heading off for a totally amazing trip of a lifetime pretty soon. But with all changes in life I guess you grieve the things you leave behind.

And hopefully not everything about my place is gone with me leaving it... tonight when I was out for my little ride on my own I ran into Robbie-O and I got to ride with him. He helped me get my first real bike, my second f-ing amazing bike (the Colnago), he changed several tires for me in a pinch when I was running late for group rides and had flats, he taught me how to change an inner tube, and introduced me to lots of great people to ride with, amongst other things. In all the years I lived downstairs from him we never did ride together. Took me moving out for us to run into each other on the bike path and head up to the park together.