Moving Day

I meant to type and post this on Thursday, but I had more cleaning and whatnot to do than expected, and yesterday was an early day at work. Thursday I moved into my apartment for the summer. For the first time (and perhaps the last time) I'll be living on my own. I'm excited and nervous. Excited because it's something completely new, and nervous because it's something completely new. I'm confident that I'm capable of cleaning and cooking and shopping and whatnot, but there's still some apprehension.

First I unpacked. That actually only took like two hours, even though I did a lot of dilly-dallying. I discovered a few things: I left my shoe sorter at home, there is barely any bathroom storage space, and the kitchen cabinets are made for tall people. I also discovered that getting all set up and sorted out was sort of fun. I got to decorate some, too, although it's sort of silly decorating. All I have to work with is what was in my dorm room, so nothing is to be taken seriously. I've got Yoda and the creepery up in my room and the armadillos and the whattery up in the living room. I think I'll take some pictures and post them later.

Shopping was the hardest part of the day. First I had to find the grocery store. In the process of heading to one about fifteen minutes away from home, I found one two minutes away. I felt completely overwhelmed at first even though I've been grocery shopping dozens of times. Maybe starting with meat and produce was a bad idea. Too many choices. I made it through alright, but it took a while. At the end I signed up for a Payless Plus Shopper card (which also works at Kroger stores) and felt all official and whatnot.

Then I had to find the best route to Target. I picked the shortest based on my navigational knowledge, but that turned out to be rather out of the way. I gave up and pulled out my GPS to get back to my apartment, and it turns there was a much, much easier way than what I took. Oh well.

When I made dinner, it turned out well, but I made about twice as much as I needed (...and then ate it all anyway). I did the same last night, so I guess I get something better than a sandwich when I'm rushing out the door to head to Cincinnati today.

In honor of my moving in experience, I've temporarily given my blog a grocery background. Look for something a bit more orthodox soon.

Current blog appearance for future reference:

In Which I Discuss My First Real Job

It turns out I am hire-able after all! At least by a hardware store desperate for people who can tell a petunia from a geranium and work in the garden center. This summer I'll be working full time in the Ace Hardware garden center up here near school. No, it's not exactly a glamorous internship, but it is a full-time job. Furthermore, it fulfills the work hours in my field required to graduate, it gives me lots of people experience, teaches me to balance people needs and plant needs, teaches me about plants, provides me with a part-time job in the fall (and presumably a job after I graduate while I'm waiting for Josh to finish), and a great resume builder.

Five days a week, I stand outside for eight hours a day and take care of plants, people, and the store. For the plants, I water, deadhead, and keep an eye out for pests and other problems. For the people, I act friendly and welcoming, answer questions, and help them find and carry plants and other garden materials. For the store, I do all of the above plus running the cash register and keeping everything organized and in working order. I have a very multi-faceted job.

It's not a career, but I enjoy it as a relatively short-term option. I also like the people I work with. The guy I interviewed with told me they were all "cold", but I have yet to see any evidence of that. Sure, they're sturdy hardware store employees, but I like everyone without effort. Then again I tend to like just about everyone without effort. The only downsides I can see are that my feet are not yet used to standing for forty hours a week (my new shoe insoles should help) and that the sunnier it gets, the busier we are. That means that the more I need sunscreen, the less time I have to apply it. This poses a serious problem for a ginger. I'll just have to get 50 SPF or something and put it on in the slight ebbs in customer flow.

I'm typing this primarily so that I can have at least one post for every month this year.

And as a reminder to myself that this does exist and that I should get back to it this summer. I will either have lots of spare time this summer, or none at all. I should be deciding soon. If you've ever been suddenly expected to make major life decisions in a week or less, I'm sure you know what great fun it is.

My long hiatus was brought on by a whole slew of things demanding my undivided attention, often at the same time. Trying to split your undivided attention is a tricky business, so all the less demanding things got put on hold. As was mentioned before, I hope to return this summer.

I can't think of too many non-stressful things to post about at the moment, so I'm just going to once again redesign the look of my blog and share a few wonderful things that I've found/that have been brought to my attention since the last time I posted:

• Philosiology: a guide to living with your philosopher
• Hyperbole and a Half
• Internet Monk
• Mumford and Sons
• The Civil Wars
• The King of Limbs - Radiohead
• The King's Speech
• Stranger Than Fiction (the website for this one is a little over-the-top in my opinion, so you could also look it up on INMD or something)
• Zombocom
• "nuzz" is the sound a camel makes (I think this is actually from this winter, but it's worth sharing)
• animal crackers and applesauce as the best snack ever
• at 3:30 AM on rainy nights, enormous earth worms by the doznes wriggle in the same direction across a stretch of sidewalk I use to get from the horticulture building to my dorm

Hmm. A list of blogs, recent music artists, not super mainstream movies, and other strange things. I'm not a hipster, I promise (although I get along quite well with the nice ones). I should probably also note that my beau is responsible for/involved in the discovery of half of these things. I guess that makes him cool or something. It could even mean that I like him.

Ta-ta for now. I hope to post again soon.

Edit: I didn't redo my blog's look until after I posted this, so I had no idea what I was about to do. Apparently with one of the templates, changing the background picture just makes it pop up in the title area behind the main part of the site. I was messing around and thinking about the ridiculous possibilities when I tried out the chicks. It was perfect. Especially that one to the left of the center. It's begging for your help with its little orange felt beak and beady black eyes. It just makes me giggle. A little dark, perhaps, but you have to admit it's amusing. Since I was going to be silly anyway, I chose the font "Lobster" for my title and headings. It's such a great font name, but I'll never use it in a "serious" layout, so I decided it would get its chance to shine today.

And I Get Lost Again

I've developed a habit of posting most of my stories from getting lost. Not all of them, because if I posted all of them I wouldn't post much else. I'm not sure if this really counts as being lost, but I'll let you be the judge of that.

Today I went to interview for a possible summer job in Indianapolis. The woman I was emailing offered to give me more detailed directions, but upon checking Google Maps it looked pretty easy to find. All I had to do was drive toward home, get off at a different exit, and stay on that street until I found the relevant office. Just to be safe, I left with ten minutes of buffer room in case I somehow managed to get lost.

I made it all the way to the desired street without event. As the checkered flag indicating my goal on Janet (my GPS) drew nigh, I scanned both sides of the street for any signs of the office. I couldn't find it. I turned around, and drove back the way I had come until I had once more passed Janet's flag. I still didn't see it. So I turned around again. And still didn't find it.

Convinced that turning around and driving past the alleged location once more wouldn't be very helpful, I pulled over in a parking lot to get out the business card of the woman I had been emailing, only to discover that I had left it in my dorm room. I called my mom, and she was kind enough to look up the location on Google Maps again. We pin-pointed the block on which the place should have been, and she tried to get me there that way. I still wasn't seeing anything.

My ever-helpful mother then checked online to find a phone number for me to call. She couldn't find the person I had talked to, but she did find a number for me to try. I called the number, and a friendly man answered it. He was happy to help me find the office. After describing my location, he found the place where he thought I was on Google Maps and then instructed me to drive north. I did so. He named places and streets I should be passing, but I didn't see any of them.

Apparently I was supposed to have headed south rather than north, so I turned around yet again. A few minutes later, I finally found the office thanks to the kind man. It wasn't labeled. It was in a warehouse complex, but the company name wasn't on the sign by the road. Nor was the name on the building itself. There was a pleasant woman sitting outside eating lunch, and she confirmed that the building I had pulled up to was in fact the correct one.

In the end, I was twenty minutes late. My buffer time had not been sufficient. I somehow managed to be lost on the same mile-long stretch of road for a half hour. Fortunately, the interviewers didn't seem too upset by the delay. The interview went well, so hopefully I get the job. I should know sometime next week.

Spring Songs

It's time once again for another season playlist and blog background. Today's background is not only spring-like, but relates to what I would be doing right now if I were responsible and hadn't lost my keys: science. It's time for planting arabidopsis like crazy in the lab. I was tending to some plants in the greenhouse when I got my keys locked in the lab. Since it's Sunday, nobody was there to unlock it and let me get my keys. So now I'm unable to finish what I need to get done, so I'm just going to publish this post instead.

I finally got around to categorizing all of my iTunes music by season, and as a result I have far too many songs in each season to continue my 20 songs per season trend from fall and winter. I have 270 just for spring, and that's one of my short lists. With great effort, I've narrowed it down to 40. In the process I had to get rid of some excellent spring songs, so just because I've missed a nice song doesn't mean I don't believe it suits the season.

1. Prelude No. 1 (Bach)
2. If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out (Cat Stevens)
3. The Door in the Air (from The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian)
4. Raindrop Prelude No. 15 in D flat Minor (Chopin)
5. Analyse (The Cranberries)
6. Danses Sacree et Profane (Debussy)
7. La Fille Aux Cheveaux de Lin (Debussy)
8. Sons and Daughters (The Decemberists)
9. Old Old Fashioned (Frightened Rabbit)
10. When U Love Somebody (The Fruit Bats)
11. Ballooning (Gulley)
12. That’s No Way to Get to Heaven (Guster)
13. Death of a Tune (Hidden Cameras)
14. Moths (Jethro Tull)
15. Saria’s Song (from The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time)
16. Title Theme (from The Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker)
17. Houses of the Holy (Led Zeppelin)
18. Many Meetings (from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring)
19. The Morning: Another Morning (The Moody Blues)
20. Nice to Be Here (The Moody Blues)
21. Flaming (Pink Floyd)
22. Dawn (from Pride and Prejudice)
23. Leaving Netherfield (from Pride and Prejudice)
24. Intro et Allegro (Ravel)
25. Scheherezade - The Young Prince and Princess (Rimsky-Korsakov)
26. Tendrement (Satie)
27. Je Te Veux (Satie)
28. Allegro (Satie)
29. Meet Me by the Water (Saturday Looks Good to Me)
30. Black Hole (The Silent Years)
31. For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her (Simon & Garfunkel)
32. America (Simon & Garfunkel)
33. Rustles of Spring (Sinding)
34. Kiss Me (Sixpence None the Richer)
35. Nutcracker – Waltz of the Flowers (Tchaikovsky)
36. Swan Lake – 7. Sujet (Tchaikovsky)
37. I’ve Always Loved You (Third Day)
38. Whiskey in the Jar (traditional Celtic tune)
39. Drowsy Maggie (traditional Celtic tune)
40. All Creatures of Our God and King (traditional hymn)

Edit: I've decided that since I typically refer to new blog layouts as they are used, but once I change it again it's hard to know what I'm talking about, I'm going to post screen-shots of the new-to-that-post design after I've changed things. Here is what my blog looked like when I published this: