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...