Opa!

First off, this particular blog entry is dedicated to my good friend and partner in eating Greek food, Taleen Brady. She is currently living in South Korea, where there is a cruel shortage of Greek food.

Today our boss was out of town, so I was anticipating an epic lunch. One of my co-workers brought her lunch, and the other asked me if I wanted to order Chinese food. I was horrified because I had been looking forward to this particular Thursday. On our office "Summit" calendar, it was clearly marked that today was Greek Islands day at THE SUMMIT. Between the failing Greek economy, and my friend Taleen suffering from Greek food withdrawals, I felt that it was my duty as an American to indulge in some tasty Greek food.

I walked over to the Summit by myself, feeling very Mary Tyler Moore-esq. I even remembered how to get there. Fun fact, because First National is the tallest building in Omaha, if you get lost you can just look up and walk towards the tower. When I got there, the line was literally wrapped around the entire gift shop. It was insane. I probably stood in line for 10-15 minutes. When I got up to the front of the line, they had huge trays of gyro meat, chicken, and salad. And a giant tub of tzatziki sauce. Like a 5 gallon paint bucket of it. Seriously.

I took my food back to the office where I made a total pig out of myself. Katie's is my favorite Greek restaurant in Omaha (feisty feta!), but my Greek Islands takeout gave it a run for its money. Their sauce was amazing, and their Greek potatoes were phenomenal. At Katie's, you get two giant potatoes, but these were adorable little bite-sized potatoes. They must also cook them with big cloves of garlic, because I accidentally ate a clove of garlic because it looked like a potato. It didn't even phase me. Despite an intense food coma afterwards, I will be marking my calendar for whenever Greek day comes up again.

#heaven

More Lunch Adventures!

I embarked on yet another lunch adventure today. I was invited by some friends who work at ConAgra to join them for lunch in their fancy on-campus cafeteria. Let me tell you, it was fancy. But the adventurous part was my decision to walk there.

People in Omaha generally don't walk to places. It's a strange but true fact. At my previous job, I once drove my car to a lunch place that was across the street and maybe half a block down. I'm not proud of this, but it was really hot out and I was wearing uncomfortable shoes. Today, I decided to embrace the downtown Omaha lifestyle and walk to lunch. My lunch destination was about six blocks away, or just under a mile, according to my fancy pedometer. The main downfall was my poor shoe choice. I thought I was being smart by wearing flats, but they still hurt after a while. Next time I will pack some white Reeboks and fanny pack to change into. The second downfall was that it was COLD. My phone told me it was about 30 degrees, which isn't terrible by Nebraska terms, but the wind was a bit brutal at times. I'm pleased to report that I made it there in decent time without getting hit by a car. Even better, one of my friends was leaving early and drove me back to my office. I would have walked, but I probably had stayed too long between lunch and a fun office tour.

Be sure to check back for more lunch adventures. The boss is out of town tomorrow, so who knows what the day might bring...

Do you wash your hands with hot water?

I hope so. Especially if you work in my building. Because that is the only option you have.

 

Seriously. What if I want cold water?

I've always been crazy...

But it's kept me from going insane.

New theme song. Seems appropriate, right?

Spending my Friday night continuing to obsess over my statistics lecture for my first day of teaching tomorrow. Is it too simplistic? Too complex? Too long? Too many stupid statistics cartoons? What if they hate me? What if they love me? Like really love. In a creepy stalker way? What if I have a terrible hair day?

So many questions. Sorry that makes for a lame blog update. I'll be sure to let my loyal followers know how it all goes tomorrow. Yes, all three of you. :)

Until then, enjoy this awesome Waylon Jennings song I heard on the radio today. It is literally my new theme song. I'm going to carry a boombox will me and blast it everywhere I go. 

Snow Day Part Deux

So the last snow day that hit Omaha was a bit of a bummer. For me, it was just like any other day, which meant I slept in until 11:30 and watched Netflix all day with my cat, feeling sorry for myself? Today was a new snow day.

First, I should point out that there was been way too much hype over this "Winter Storm Q". Naming winter storms is a trend that needs to end. Like now. But that's a whole separate blog. Due to all of the hype, and the Weather Channel's Jim Cantore being in town, many local schools canceled Wednesday night. So of course, this meant that there was zero snow on the ground this morning. Seriously.

My plan had been to e-mail my boss and tell him I was too scared to drive to work and was fearful for my life. However, the complete lack of snow eliminated this option. I'm glad I actually got to go to work for several reasons.
1. Being home all day at my apartment is terrible because of the children across the hall.
2. Getting paid and having a purpose for waking up in the morning.
3. Still parking on the 8th floor of the parking garage and having a bit of a snow frolic up there before going home.
4. The thrill of getting to go home early, while still feeling somewhat productive!
5. Getting to eat amazing Chinese food from The Summit (secret underground food place that I previously blogged about).

After working, I got to enjoy a special snow day meal of crock-pot turkey with mashed potatoes and gravy, that I prepared this morning and my cat supervised in my absence. The evening has been a productive blend of prepping for my class I'm teaching this weekend, and watching Thursday night TV on NBC. Not too shabby of a day.

You gotta hear this one song...

I've always been convinced that I was born in the wrong decade for music. Although my taste may be somewhat eclectic, it definitely skews towards older music. I still think some of the CDs I listened to in high school are amazing and modern stuff just doesn't impress me, for the most part (that probably sounds super snobby?).

That said, I haven't actually purchased a CD since...jeez, I don't even know. High school? College? I think in college it was cooler to burn CDs or just listen to Napster. Anyways, I bought my first CD in a really, really, long time after catching part of Alabama Shakes on SNL last weekend. It was only nine bucks at Target. I suggest you check it out. It'll change your life. I swear.

Elevator adventures

Perhaps you remember my previous rant about the creepiness of the elevator at my old job. Well, luckily my new job has an equally terrifying elevator situation.

One of the cool things about my job is that there is a parking garage with a sky-walk that attaches to my office building. Sky-walks might be one of the greatest inventions of our time. It allows you to get where you are going without dealing with the harsh elements of the outside world (although our sky-walk is about the same temperature as outside, at least there is no wind).

The parking garage is nice too because parking downtown is terrible. I'm sure parking downtown in any city is terrible, but Omaha just seems a bit more ridiculous. The garage takes away the stress of looking for street parking and having to walk (again, the elements!). This comes at a price, specifically eight dollars a day. Luckily, I get reimbursed for parking, otherwise that might be a deal breaker.

Ugh, why does it have to be glass so I can see everything?!

Do people really like gazing out of a clear elevator at the ground below them? I think it's creepy. That, coupled with the fact that the thing shakes like crazy, and makes an extremely unpleasant and terrifying whining noise when it is cold, makes me only too certain that I will die at the nonexistent hands of this elevator.

Look out, sky-walk! Imma coming for you!

The first couple times I rode it, I would hold my breath close my eyes (assuming I was alone). Now? I take the stairs. All the way from the eighth floor. No regrets.

Once I pass through the magical sky-walk, I still need to go up a floor to get to my office. There are six elevators, just like a damn Hilton hotel. They seem more mechanically sound than the garage elevator, but still have an odd hesitation when you reach your floor, before the doors open. Also, one of them has padded walls. No joke.

This elevator takes you to the psychiatric ward.

The weird thing is, I don't think I could tell you when I developed my irrational fear of elevators (maybe around the same time I started disliking birds?). Either way, I'm thankful for the cardio workout I've been getting by taking so many stairs.

Lunch time!!!

I finally got to experience the joy of downtown lunch! One of my co-workers suggested that we check out all the secret places and offered to show me where everything is. We invited my boss and he politely declined, so there is still awkwardness there.

We first left our building and headed to the Brandeis building, which is a fancy historical landmark in Omaha. It used to be big department store, where my mom would go and get her picture taken with Santa when she was growing up. It's still a very pretty building, but the inside is a hodgepodge of abandoned office buildings, and new condos that are being built. The food court is in the basement and has nearly every ethnicity you could hope for represented. There is also an Eileen's Cookies and a Vic's Corn Popper for if you just want snacks. Unfortunately, today was President's Day, a fake holiday in which the banks are closed, thus taking out a large chunk of the downtown population. Instead of eating at Brandeis, we continued through an UNDERGROUND TUNNEL. Yes, you read that correctly. There is an underground tunnel that leads over to what I think is the old First National Building (we were inside, so it was tough to tell exactly which building it was). Inside, they have what looks like a normal giftshop (random for being inside a bank). If you go to the very back of the giftshop, they have a takeout area where different caterers come in. Today was La Mesa (Mexican food for those of you who don't speak Spanish). I ended up with a giant takeout box of Mexican food, plus chips for about $8.00 bucks. We took our food back to the office, because there weren't a ton of seats, and so we could pretend to talk about work stuff to get paid through the lunch hour. Classic!

The only downside was feeling incredibly full and sleepy after eating all of that. It might have to be a once in a while treat for me, since I am trying to maintain my unemployment diet (down almost 20 pounds, holla!).

To balance out my victorious lunch, you know something else had to happen to spoil it. In honor of President's Day, the parking garage was half empty. I normally park on the top level, because it is so full (and because the view is a beautiful thing to walk out to after a long day). However, today, I parked on level four, making a mental note. When I went to look for my car, I definitely could not find it, and wandered around for probably 7-10 minutes. Super embarrassing because a lot of people drove by and probably thought I was drunk.

I also missed my interstate exit again. Win some, lose some.


If it was 1908, I may have eaten lunch here.

Unemployed people worse off than me

I can't stop reading this series from Gawker. Although I can relate to a lot of the stories and feelings described, I feel incredibly lucky and grateful that I was able to find something else relatively quickly. Still, those residual depressive, anxious, and fearful feelings are still in there somewhere.

If you know someone who's in this situation, be sure to reach out and let them know you care.

And buy them a beer.

http://gawker.com/5927342/hello-from-the-underclass-unemployment-stories-vol-one?tag=hello-from-the-underclass

Blog Love!

Thanks to the amazing Taleen Brady for plugging my blog on her blog. The truth is, hers is way cooler than mine and she was the inspiration for me starting my blog. It will change your life.

I quit numbering my days on the job, because they are starting to blur together a bit. I get paid next week, which I am pretty jazzed about. I'm already plotting on how to spend my newly earned money after my triumphant return to the same budget I used while I graduate school (hint: it will involve pink lady apples and Banana Republic).

This week is going much more smoothly. I'm finally figuring things out and becoming more efficient at getting things done, and maybe even impressing the boss a little bit. I'm also forcing him to talk to me more, thus causing him to like me and be nicer. So far it's working. I sometimes think I would like to teach a class on social skills that everyone in America would be required to take. I could design the curriculum and market it to the masses at a huge profit. I've been doing some preliminary research on this by testing my own social skills.

Being unemployed is lonely business. Most of the time I would spend at home alone with my cat (who you know was very judgmental at the time), or out being treated to lunch or drinks my unemployment sympathizers. Now that I am around people again, I'm trying to embrace it. I've already become besties with Melody, the parking garage attendant. Our discussions right now are primarily weather-based, but I'm excited to see where our relationship goes. Maybe she will go to lunch with me? I've also been trying to talk to people in elevators, which has been fairly successful so far. Finally, I try to say hi to everyone I pass in the hallway. I never knew that people did this in workplaces, because in graduate school, people were chronically awkward and unfriendly. It's nice to have human interaction again!

Speaking of lunch, I have still yet to experience lunchtime awesomeness, mainly because I've been working through lunch due to some project deadlines. Maybe next week the lunch revolution will start? Maybe I will ask Melody to join me...

Cheers to the freakin' weekend

Not much to report, just wanted to make sure to post something to hold myself accountable. Good times were had all weekend, with just the right amount of socially awkward situations mixed in that help make life more interesting. I'm hoping to gain many more followers after the events of Friday (hint hint people).

Today I had a concert for wind symphony. I think sometimes I take it for granted, but I feel incredibly lucky to have music in my life. It is truly one of the few things I can always count on to cheer me up and boost my spirits. Besides making music, I've also been listening to music non-stop lately (it helps block out the sound of my brain talking). When you really stop to think about it, music is basically one of the most amazing and magical things that exists in our world.

One of the coolest things about live music, in particular, instrumental live music, is overtones. I wasn't a music major or engineer, so this is a pretty lame explanation of how overtones work. Brace yourself for some nerdiness.

When you build a chord, you have different pitches operating at different wavelengths. What makes a chord sound nice or unpleasant depends on how the different frequencies line up. Sometimes when everything lines up just right, you get this super cool effect of hearing other notes that aren't physically being played. So if you play a triad (three notes) that are perfectly in tune, you'll be able to hear the whole range of harmonics, and it sounds magical. 

Anyways, that's enough nerdiness. If you want to more know, you can definitely google it to learn about the technical side. But you really have to experience it live. Trust me on this one.

Day Three...Frustration and Triumph...

How long can I maintain blogging? I feel like numbering the days helps keep me accountable. Today was incredibly frustrating. First, the type of work I am doing is brand new. Second, my new boss is super socially awkward and has basically given me no instruction or training of any kind. Third, the project I am working on is way behind schedule, so tensions are a little high. I thought I might lose it and walk out today after trying to read this guy's mind, doing something, and then being told I did it wrong. Part of my task involves entering data into an incredibly complicated Excel spreadsheet, which I found several errors on. The final straw is that I was given a Dell laptop circa 1989 that is running what I can only assume is Windows 97. It's really slow and horribly inefficient.

Now for the good news. After almost freaking out, I did manage to figure out a lot of stuff today. I feel like I have some sense of what I am doing now, and will hopefully get a lot done tomorrow. My goal is to wow this guy, even though he seems to be hard to impress. Let's be honest, if there's one thing I can do, it is deal with difficult people and still rock the shit out of whatever I do.

Boom.

(that was a truth bomb, in case you are unfamiliar)


PS. I left after 5 today and took the "long way' home. Meaning no interstate. Took the same damn amount of time. Ugh.

Day Two Awkwardness...

I think I jinxed myself with all of my glorious talk about lunch. Through a series of bizarre events, I did not even eat lunch today. No, I'm not anorexic, or trying to maintain my depression-fueled Unemployment Diet. Here's how it went down.

Today it was only me and my new boss in the office. I had assumed that he would take me to lunch, due to the information I received yesterday about him going out for lunch everyday, and the fact that I am delightful and everyone wants to have lunch with me. However, as a backup, I took a cereal bar and a Soup at Hand with me, just in case.

My boss left for lunch and did not invite me. It was awkward. Maybe he was meeting someone else for lunch? Maybe he is manorexic, and actually doesn't eat lunch? Maybe he thought I would be weirded out by a lunch invitation? Maybe he was worried about sexually harassing me? I did have on a rather fetching cardigan today. After he left the office, I pondered these various explanations and then decided I would just eat my soup that I brought. At that point, I realized we do not have a microwave, or any other mechanism for heating soup. We have a refrigerator, a Keurig machine, and a fancy water cooler (hot and cold water!), but I definitely imagined a microwave that does not exist on this plane of reality. I briefly considered having cold soup (it was creamy tomato) or thinking of some way to use the hot water from the water cooler to heat it. Neither option seemed appealing.

Next, I considered leaving and going somewhere for lunch by myself. I decided against this because. 1. It sounded depressing. 2. I was worried about potentially running into my boss at a nearby lunch establishment and dealing with more awkwardness. 3. It looked kind of dreary out and I wasn't thrilled about leaving the building to wander around in search of food.

Finally, after all of this obsession, I realized that I actually wasn't even hungry. I went in at 10am, meaning I had a later breakfast and wasn't even hungry at noon. It was all in my head! So I powered through the stuff I was working on and ate my cereal bar later in the afternoon. When my boss came back from "lunch" he didn't even acknowledge that I didn't appear to have eaten lunch. Maybe he thinks I have an eating disorder?

The moral of the story is to bring a backup lunch that does not require heating. Or to make lunch plans with someone in advance.

Today also ended with a minor emotional breakdown in my car driving home. Mainly because I cannot figure out how to efficiently get home from downtown during rush hour traffic. That might need to be its own entry though.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go eat all of my calories for the day for dinner.

Day One!

Today I started my new gig! I think things went pretty smoothly, considering I was rolling on three hours of sleep and puking the night before. I was able to get up sufficiently early to drive downtown and figure out how to get into the parking garage I needed. Then, I went to the wrong building. There are actually two larger "towers" downtown labeled north and south, and I accidentally went to the north one instead. Luckily, I got there plenty early to bond with the dude at the information desk. I'm working with a friend from school and she gave me a tour, including the skywalk, which is the easier way to get to the garage, and to ensure that I reach the correct tower. Our office is pretty cool. It looks like a "real" office. Especially compared to what I was in before. Some of the highlights include: really nice chairs, windows that overlook downtown Omaha, a watercooler (just like in the movies!), and what appears to be an unlimited supply of Bakers chocolates. I'm also excited about all of the places to eat lunch downtown. From what I hear, the other people in the office are very "pro lunch". I might just gain back my ten pounds that I have lost while unemployed. First, there are a billion restaurants nearby. Second, the First National bulding (the one I puked in one time) rotates catering from different restaurants every day. Third, Union Pacific is right across the street, and the rumor is that they have a kick ass cafeteria that is open to the public. Finally, there is the Brandeis building that has tons of secret restaurants in the basement that only downtown people know about. Apparently there is a really good Greek place that even serves breakfast. Greek breakfast! Can you imagine?

So naturally eating food is what I'm most excited about at this point. The work itself is likely going to be a little on the tedious side, but I'm excited about learning something new. Tomorrow is just me and the boss. He told me not to come in until 10 (he is also pro sleeping in).

That's all I got for now, blog world. I'll keep you posted on any exciting developments, like what I eat for lunch tomorrow, and how long it takes me to drive home in rush hour traffic. Stay tuned!

The tooth about unemployment...

Warning, this entry might be disturbing.

I had a super creepy and vivid dream last night that involved my teeth falling out. It started with one loose tooth on the bottom, near the back of my mouth. I thought it was unusual, but for some reason thought there might be another tooth underneath it that was trying to grow in. I tried to avoid touching it, but eventually decided to pull it out. Terrible idea. The rest of my nearby teeth seemed to be all attached, and easily removable. It was super horrifying. I'm probably not explaining it that great, but it was a dream and is a bit fuzzy. Also, if I did a good job of explaining, it would probably scar you for life.

This dream is noteworthy for a couple of reasons. First, I've been having terrible insomnia, as previously noted. So it is lousy that my first night of decent sleep was ruined by such a traumatic dream. The second noteworthy aspect is that I seldom remember my dreams. I just don't. Or, I'm the kind of person who will think during my dream "hey, I should remember this so I can tell people about it when I wake up" and then I never do. The third reason, is that the teeth falling out dream has been a recurring one that has haunted me for years.

I think it may have started my senior year of high school. I was one of those kids who was anxious about college and basically everything else in my life. I think it reoccurred my senior year of college when I was trying to decide what to do for grad school, and likely again around the time I had my wisdom teeth out, when there was a legitimate fear of my teeth falling out. I'm sure there have been other instances, but those are the ones that stand out in my mind. There are sometimes variations of the dream. Like one time it was my teeth disintegrating in my mouth while I was trying to chew food. Otherwise, its the bloody, gross variety like the one from last night. Either way, it is creeptastic enough to stick out in my mind.

So what does my teeth falling out dream mean in my unemployed state? I dig some digging, and found a couple of interpretations. Teeth are considered a symbol of power (e.g. used to bite, chew, and rip things on a kind of neanderthal level). Losing your teeth can mean that you are feeling powerless. Other interpretations include, feeling self-conscious about your appearance, fear of getting old, and fear of rejection. These dreams can also result from feelings of inferiority and lack of self-confidence or feelings of control over some aspect of your life? Finally, the myth of the Tooth Fairy appears to have a loose association with these types of dreams, so it is possible that I will be coming into a large sum of money soon. Let's go with that one.


This will haunt your dreams...