When I left work at 5pm yesterday the air in Portland had reached 106 degrees F. I had had a glass of red wine shortly before leaving and was blown away when I stepped out of the 1 World Trade Ctr on 1st and Salmon. Our apartment on Barbur was probably 10 degrees hotter. I had gotten up in the morning and found the place to be much like an oven, even at 6:45 am.
So we stayed over at Grandmother's house and slept worlds better.
Today at work, however, I nearly lost my mind, swallowed by the utter insanity of CTRL+C followed by CTRL+V for nearly 8 hours.
The following is a message I sent to Dave via Facebook:
Dear David Robert James Carter,
I am at work at the moment and 1.5 hrs remain. I am so ungodly exhausted of copying and pasting for the last 6.5 hrs, staring at a computer screen and doing the same mindless tasks over and over and over again.
After work I am going to the gym and plan to run enough miles, lift enough repetitions that I will be too tired to blow my fucking brains out with a gun when I get home, thus sparing my life for at least another day.
Sincerely yours,
xxxxx x. xx
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Sunday, July 26, 2009
company party
Last night was the much-anticipated Great Gatsby party which was shrouded in mystery until the last minute; as it turned out, my boss' own home served as the Gatsby estate. We arrived in a white PT cruiser and were greeted by a valet service after which we followed a woody path into the backyard and handed champagne while coming upon the massive waterfall system that had been developed. It started at the top of the hill and ended with an 8-ft deep pool full of koi at the bottom. There was a grill with a whole pig being slow-roasted and several isolated food tables consisting of fine cheeses and crackers, crab and shrimp and oysters on the half-shell, and all sort of salmon pate, smoked salmon, various other exotic rolls and appetizers, a shelf of desserts including tiramasu and chocolate mousse and ginger cookies, et al., a full wait-staff wearing jerseys specifically fashioned for this event. There was an open bar with specialty drinks consisting of blackberry ginger something or other and the bloody orange dream, lemon drops, and tghe basics. As well there stood an ice sculpture through which to pour the vodka for the drinks, a few kegs of microbrew, and that is only scratching the surface...
It was my first company party and quite an experience to say the least. Most everyone was dressed in their 20s attire and slowly but surely getting drunker and drunker. Luckily I paced myself and mixed in a good amount of bottled water to dilute the alcohol coursing through my system. Before I knew it, it was after midnight and the colleagues of mine with kids at home at nearly all left and things had emptied quickly. Still, there were many people there, and we were given a ride in a PT cruiser back home again.
It is more apparent than ever why people begin with the company with a year or two in mind and end up staying over a decade...
All in all, however, it was a good time, and I'm still trying to recover this morning and afternoon, so I am fresh again to go tomorrow for work.
It was my first company party and quite an experience to say the least. Most everyone was dressed in their 20s attire and slowly but surely getting drunker and drunker. Luckily I paced myself and mixed in a good amount of bottled water to dilute the alcohol coursing through my system. Before I knew it, it was after midnight and the colleagues of mine with kids at home at nearly all left and things had emptied quickly. Still, there were many people there, and we were given a ride in a PT cruiser back home again.
It is more apparent than ever why people begin with the company with a year or two in mind and end up staying over a decade...
All in all, however, it was a good time, and I'm still trying to recover this morning and afternoon, so I am fresh again to go tomorrow for work.
Monday, July 20, 2009
monday night thoughts
Going to the gym has helped me tremendously from feeling the slump of a desk-job. I thank Shawna for the encouragement to keep up the habit, and my 3-day-a-week routine of running and weight-lifting not only gives me a medium through I may vent and exhaust the pent-up energy I gradually accumulate over the day and slough it off, but it also regenerates me to a significant extent.
I spoke to Dave on the phone at last. He is back in the States, and, having seen a "lion eating a warthog's ass sixty yards from his sleeping place," I should say he is quite well for the most part.
It is beginning to occur to me how quickly this summer is fading. I have been enjoying it very much, but soon I really need to update my resume and start applying for other jobs. I'm open to any new range of experiences. I don't want to get stuck in a rut, and I feel one of the things that keeps me going is that for now I am simply an intern, and there is a foreseeable end to my work there, an end to the hours upon hours of data entry.
For some reason I am not worried. If we move out of Portland, I should have plenty in savings to get started up and maybe find a gateway job to at least have some money coming in. Maybe it would be nice to have a more physically active job next time around... just a thought.
I'm getting more interested in travel as I catch a whiff of it coming up potentially (if I can get time off). I would love to travel with any number of people as companions- if not simply by myself, with a friend, a family member, with Shawna. Either way it would be special. Even if it were frustrating and bothersome at times. I like the identity of places and I like the thought of me being in places, as though those places define who I am, or at least, help to form some sort of vague boundary that is me. I think about the name of a place and all the images I can conjure, whether or not I have been there, and that mental vision is itself giving identity to a place, something very unique for each person who imagines it. In essence, any single place has billions of definitions, yet one very concrete position on a map. Traveling is a very precious opportunity, made all the more valuable by its lack of form for anyone but the traveler himself/herself.
I spoke to Dave on the phone at last. He is back in the States, and, having seen a "lion eating a warthog's ass sixty yards from his sleeping place," I should say he is quite well for the most part.
It is beginning to occur to me how quickly this summer is fading. I have been enjoying it very much, but soon I really need to update my resume and start applying for other jobs. I'm open to any new range of experiences. I don't want to get stuck in a rut, and I feel one of the things that keeps me going is that for now I am simply an intern, and there is a foreseeable end to my work there, an end to the hours upon hours of data entry.
For some reason I am not worried. If we move out of Portland, I should have plenty in savings to get started up and maybe find a gateway job to at least have some money coming in. Maybe it would be nice to have a more physically active job next time around... just a thought.
I'm getting more interested in travel as I catch a whiff of it coming up potentially (if I can get time off). I would love to travel with any number of people as companions- if not simply by myself, with a friend, a family member, with Shawna. Either way it would be special. Even if it were frustrating and bothersome at times. I like the identity of places and I like the thought of me being in places, as though those places define who I am, or at least, help to form some sort of vague boundary that is me. I think about the name of a place and all the images I can conjure, whether or not I have been there, and that mental vision is itself giving identity to a place, something very unique for each person who imagines it. In essence, any single place has billions of definitions, yet one very concrete position on a map. Traveling is a very precious opportunity, made all the more valuable by its lack of form for anyone but the traveler himself/herself.
Friday, July 17, 2009
the lavender man
Left work today, a bit more flushed than I had expected after a going-away-party for a "teacher-in-residence" who had been with us for a few weeks. It was a big fanfare: multiple types of cheese and wine being passed around. I ended up with a glass of merlot, which I drank, standing amongst my colleagues while trying to retain good posture after another long day in front of a computer.
I got out on the street and on my way to meet Shawna at Pioneer Square happened upon a man with a massive bundle of lavender stalks which he was handing out for free. I grabbed some, and carrying a copy of the book "American Psycho," made my way over to the Max stop on 6th and Yamhill, but managed to catch a good glimpse of the sand-sculpture contest going on in the Square. They weren't as impressive as I expected. The lavender guy had made his way to that area and was questioned by a young patrol (not police) officer, as if he were doing something wrong.
Shawna and I saw the new Harry Potter movie, it was awesome.
Now it is the weekend; tomorrow we plan to head down to Eugene. I think this may be the last time I ever set foot in the town, which doesn't feel too sentimental for me. I'm not looking forward to the clean up and the move out, but once I get this done, the string from me to Eugene is more or less severed and I can get on with my life.
What else can I really write at the moment. I don't want to write about work when I'm not there, but things are going well anyway. Sometimes I'm bored out of my skull, other times content and happy. We had a deployment team meeting the other day where people were making jokes (including other, very business-oriented, interns) that simply were not jokes. Everyone laughed and I couldn't fake it, I kept thinking in my mind, "that literally was not a joke (?)"
But after meeting with a few people at work I am sure that in spite of the monotony of my daily tasks, the people do want me to have a meaningful learning experience this summer, regardless of whether I stay or move on.
Next week I give a presentation of my training curriculum map that I have myself developed for a 1st yr medical school anatomy course. By the end of my internship I am to give a marketing presentation as well as a presentation of what I have gained/learned from my experience there. In the end, there is more good than bad to come from this, I feel, though at moments it seems not so. Just as many attribute the ails of the world to God's own agenda to which we are vastly unaware.
On the lighter side of things, I decided to spoil myself and buy an awesome new pair of shoes (more to come) and a long board (also yet to come).
I got out on the street and on my way to meet Shawna at Pioneer Square happened upon a man with a massive bundle of lavender stalks which he was handing out for free. I grabbed some, and carrying a copy of the book "American Psycho," made my way over to the Max stop on 6th and Yamhill, but managed to catch a good glimpse of the sand-sculpture contest going on in the Square. They weren't as impressive as I expected. The lavender guy had made his way to that area and was questioned by a young patrol (not police) officer, as if he were doing something wrong.
Shawna and I saw the new Harry Potter movie, it was awesome.
Now it is the weekend; tomorrow we plan to head down to Eugene. I think this may be the last time I ever set foot in the town, which doesn't feel too sentimental for me. I'm not looking forward to the clean up and the move out, but once I get this done, the string from me to Eugene is more or less severed and I can get on with my life.
What else can I really write at the moment. I don't want to write about work when I'm not there, but things are going well anyway. Sometimes I'm bored out of my skull, other times content and happy. We had a deployment team meeting the other day where people were making jokes (including other, very business-oriented, interns) that simply were not jokes. Everyone laughed and I couldn't fake it, I kept thinking in my mind, "that literally was not a joke (?)"
But after meeting with a few people at work I am sure that in spite of the monotony of my daily tasks, the people do want me to have a meaningful learning experience this summer, regardless of whether I stay or move on.
Next week I give a presentation of my training curriculum map that I have myself developed for a 1st yr medical school anatomy course. By the end of my internship I am to give a marketing presentation as well as a presentation of what I have gained/learned from my experience there. In the end, there is more good than bad to come from this, I feel, though at moments it seems not so. Just as many attribute the ails of the world to God's own agenda to which we are vastly unaware.
On the lighter side of things, I decided to spoil myself and buy an awesome new pair of shoes (more to come) and a long board (also yet to come).
Monday, July 13, 2009
im gonna write in my blog
Down-trodden weather this last week in Portland, and was hit with overcast and rain in Eugene over the weekend. It was great to see Russ and Zarah, though I felt the distance I've created between me and the place I went to college once. Ha.
We got a late start on Saturday, day of the fair but weren't late for the madness and festivities the network of forest in Veneta has to offer this time of the year. OCF was fun, though I cannot maintain that it was necessarily as bonkers as last year's, I still enjoyed myself immensely and the people-watching experience was quite phenomenal. I think it was the drum circle that started getting me into the vibe at first after watching people in weird interpretive deer outfits and stilts run around a crowd of peope, sniffing them and posing the threat of being caught in a butterfly net.
I saw a lot of people I never knew at the U of O, but could recognize their faces. Among these were the middle-aged white bald man with the handlebar mustache I used to always see surrounded by Japanese FOB girls at International Coffee Hour whenever Nick would drag me there. I even saw my old roommate Jon's girlfriend topless and getting her breasts painted as I walked by; a little boy with a balloon sword whipped an extremely tan guy in the junk who was wearing nothing but a mesh pouch over his junk; two kids walked by talking excitedly about a video game, so much so it nearly knocked me down and when the parade came by full of brass players and women dressed as goths and hippies and everywhere in between, there was a man dancing in the center of the parade dressed completely in a hockey goalie uniform, complete with the mask and the leg-guards... well, at that point I was just so very happy. But that wasn't even half of it. I encountered my old boss Gary from the organic chemistry lab working at the Odyssey Booth and carried on a long conversation with him, a big silly grin pasted across my face. After eating I found myself stuck in a whirlpool around the garbage center, tense hippies shouting at me to put different things in different places, which, in spite of my training through childhood to quickly differentiate trash into salvagable, recyclable, compostable, burnable, and actual garbage, I was rightly bewildered and pushed along by those behind me, terrified about what might happen if I accidentally recycled the compostable plate from which I had eaten.
It was a good day, wandered around the deceptively large fair with Shawna, Russ, Zarah, Paul and Shereen, and although the overcast sky was a little disappointing, we still had a good time.
I thought, and for good reason, that any notions that may arise of how weird I may be is completely drowned out by the weirdness of everyone around me. Country Fair is the place where you can be completely ridiculous and still be openly accepted.
Next morning, it was pouring down rain. While Shawna slept I scrambled to disassemble as much as I could in my room and pack it all out. We got brunch at a vegan/vegatarian restaurant that is actually good called Morning Glory with Russ and Zarah before hitting the nasty road back to Portland.
That was my weekend in a nutshell. Went to work today and put on a totally different face, the kind that no one thinks would love OCF. Even spoke differently, all diplomatic and such... business-speak.
We got a late start on Saturday, day of the fair but weren't late for the madness and festivities the network of forest in Veneta has to offer this time of the year. OCF was fun, though I cannot maintain that it was necessarily as bonkers as last year's, I still enjoyed myself immensely and the people-watching experience was quite phenomenal. I think it was the drum circle that started getting me into the vibe at first after watching people in weird interpretive deer outfits and stilts run around a crowd of peope, sniffing them and posing the threat of being caught in a butterfly net.
I saw a lot of people I never knew at the U of O, but could recognize their faces. Among these were the middle-aged white bald man with the handlebar mustache I used to always see surrounded by Japanese FOB girls at International Coffee Hour whenever Nick would drag me there. I even saw my old roommate Jon's girlfriend topless and getting her breasts painted as I walked by; a little boy with a balloon sword whipped an extremely tan guy in the junk who was wearing nothing but a mesh pouch over his junk; two kids walked by talking excitedly about a video game, so much so it nearly knocked me down and when the parade came by full of brass players and women dressed as goths and hippies and everywhere in between, there was a man dancing in the center of the parade dressed completely in a hockey goalie uniform, complete with the mask and the leg-guards... well, at that point I was just so very happy. But that wasn't even half of it. I encountered my old boss Gary from the organic chemistry lab working at the Odyssey Booth and carried on a long conversation with him, a big silly grin pasted across my face. After eating I found myself stuck in a whirlpool around the garbage center, tense hippies shouting at me to put different things in different places, which, in spite of my training through childhood to quickly differentiate trash into salvagable, recyclable, compostable, burnable, and actual garbage, I was rightly bewildered and pushed along by those behind me, terrified about what might happen if I accidentally recycled the compostable plate from which I had eaten.
It was a good day, wandered around the deceptively large fair with Shawna, Russ, Zarah, Paul and Shereen, and although the overcast sky was a little disappointing, we still had a good time.
I thought, and for good reason, that any notions that may arise of how weird I may be is completely drowned out by the weirdness of everyone around me. Country Fair is the place where you can be completely ridiculous and still be openly accepted.
Next morning, it was pouring down rain. While Shawna slept I scrambled to disassemble as much as I could in my room and pack it all out. We got brunch at a vegan/vegatarian restaurant that is actually good called Morning Glory with Russ and Zarah before hitting the nasty road back to Portland.
That was my weekend in a nutshell. Went to work today and put on a totally different face, the kind that no one thinks would love OCF. Even spoke differently, all diplomatic and such... business-speak.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
awesome book
I can tell the work week will fly this time around and as soon as I am off on Friday early evening, Shawna and I will drive down to Eugene and prepare for Oregon Country Fair the following day in Veneta. I'm really excited and hoping to run into some interesting experiences and characters there. No doubt it will be fun and for those who have never been, I can't even begin to describe, but I think it is one of the great American treasures that nearly no one even knows about. It's a slice of NW culture that relatively few have seen.
Meanwhile, got random projects piling up at work; if I am kept busy long enough I forget about how boring the work I am doing actually is from an objective standpoint. That is, I can get into it and focus even if it is pretty boring, as long as I have some tasks to give me a break from the data entry, which is most of what I do.
I finished reading "The Road" today as I sat on the 94 express bus coming home from work, good air flow going throughout the cabin. It's an incredible book. As soon as I finished the last sentence I thought I could flip the book back to the first page and read it all over again from the beginning. I know I will re-read it eventually. The story is really simple and slow yet somehow it is really encapturing, the prose so intense and beautiful. There's this feeling of impending doom as you read, page-by-page, and the few scattered moments of more definable 'action' are immensely haunting images. I cannot even analyze the book in words; it just stirred within me ambiguous emotions that I have never really felt before.
Anyway, it's time to snuggle up for bed soon after a little ironing of the shirt I'm going to wear tomorrow at work.....
Meanwhile, got random projects piling up at work; if I am kept busy long enough I forget about how boring the work I am doing actually is from an objective standpoint. That is, I can get into it and focus even if it is pretty boring, as long as I have some tasks to give me a break from the data entry, which is most of what I do.
I finished reading "The Road" today as I sat on the 94 express bus coming home from work, good air flow going throughout the cabin. It's an incredible book. As soon as I finished the last sentence I thought I could flip the book back to the first page and read it all over again from the beginning. I know I will re-read it eventually. The story is really simple and slow yet somehow it is really encapturing, the prose so intense and beautiful. There's this feeling of impending doom as you read, page-by-page, and the few scattered moments of more definable 'action' are immensely haunting images. I cannot even analyze the book in words; it just stirred within me ambiguous emotions that I have never really felt before.
Anyway, it's time to snuggle up for bed soon after a little ironing of the shirt I'm going to wear tomorrow at work.....
Saturday, July 4, 2009
july 4th weekend
I'm enjoying the long weekend but still need the time to do at least one load of laundry, some ironing my formal shirts and pants, and research for the side-project I have going on in work, something specially assigned to me by the CEO. Unfortunately I have plenty of data entry tasks to do at work that keep me limited in my abilities to develop the project so I am going to ask about the possibility of doing over-time. As an intern? Moreover, the Boss wants a progress check with me by Wednesday afternoon and I've barely taken a step forward since I was put on the assignment.
Other than that I am settling into the job well I suppose, getting to know my "associates" little by little including my direct office mate from Benin. It's amazing how nice it feels to not have any lingering studying or homework to do at the end of my day. Also, I am loving Portland more than ever. The summertime here is awesome and enjoy every day of it that I have. I have found a renewed appreciation for books. I blazed through a library copy of "Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress" which is a wonderful and brief read and have moved on to some heavier stuff, namely "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy.
Now it is the morning of the 4th of July and already the weekend has been chock full of activity from black-light miniature golf to the Rose Gardens and Washington Park to 80's night at Lola's in the Crystal Ballroom, all of which was quite a bit of fun. Also watched a part of the 1968 version of "Night of the Living Dead" with Shawna at a posh restaurant with a $3 happy hour special on pizzas....
Other than that I am settling into the job well I suppose, getting to know my "associates" little by little including my direct office mate from Benin. It's amazing how nice it feels to not have any lingering studying or homework to do at the end of my day. Also, I am loving Portland more than ever. The summertime here is awesome and enjoy every day of it that I have. I have found a renewed appreciation for books. I blazed through a library copy of "Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress" which is a wonderful and brief read and have moved on to some heavier stuff, namely "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy.
Now it is the morning of the 4th of July and already the weekend has been chock full of activity from black-light miniature golf to the Rose Gardens and Washington Park to 80's night at Lola's in the Crystal Ballroom, all of which was quite a bit of fun. Also watched a part of the 1968 version of "Night of the Living Dead" with Shawna at a posh restaurant with a $3 happy hour special on pizzas....
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