The water's playful blue hue belied the purpose of my visit. Normally those light ripples and slow current would welcome my sweating body into its expanse, but from 120 feet above the surface and with seemingly shark-sized barracuda circling for lunch below, there was going to be no frolicking in dewy sea spray for me.

Instead, this trip had a singular purpose: to acquaint me to a tension leg platform (TLP) and do a little hands-on exploring to bring some knowledge and ideas back to the office for some projects I'm working on. For my friends not in the oil industry, a TLP is considered a boat by Coast Guard rules -- it is essentially a floating platform that pulls a mix of oil and gas out of deep wells (I was in around 1700 feet of water I think), processes the mix, and sends the separated oil and gas to shore via miles and miles of pipelines. It. Was. Awesome.

I wanted to laugh at myself and my dorkiness, because one of my first thoughts when disembarking from the helicopter and descending the sturdy metal stairs to one of the many levels of machinery, whirs, and humming, was, "Wow. I'm so glad I happened into mechanical engineering in college. This is sooooooo cool."

I think I would have squealed if my better judgement hadn't told me it'd be inappropriate and possibly delete all of my professional validity with the burly, 200 lb + men that inhabitat the platform for 14 days at a time.

The little pieces of information I've slooowly picked up in the past 3 weeks finally CLICKED in a great way yesterday and today; my vocabulary is becoming such that I can have a full conversation with someone that actually means something technical and productive, without using phrases like, "that thing he referred to when he mentioned the thing with the pressure and the valve? That thing? Know which one I'm talking about?" Luckily the people I work with are really good at what they do, so up to now they've been able to decipher my idiot-speak. But now, I really think I might be able to explain to someone what it is that I do, and, even better, how hydrocarbon production in the Gulf actually works. Well, basically, anyway. And I might still have to throw in a few, "You know, that pressure and valve thingie with the pipe?"

I'm already itching to go back offshore, where the work I do takes on a pertinance and importance that's lost in an office miles from the production. Granted, it was a little strange being one of two, yes TWO, women on a platform with 120 people on board at the time, but no one treated me any differently, and I'm starting to get used to being a rarity.

Nighttime was lonely; everyone gets 15 minutes a day to make personal calls and it's sad when you don't know who to use your 15 minutes to call. Sure, I've got friends but it seems less important to call to shoot the shit for 15 minutes with an old friend when you know everyone else is saving their 15 minutes for a wife or child. Even so, I'd be willing to suffer the sadness of the lonely times for the mental stimulation and excitement of the day's work, not to mention the beauty of the surroundings. Every once in a while, I found myself staring through the metal grates below my feet into the mesmerizing, too-pretty-for-Crayola-to-capture-and-name blue of the ocean. I couldn't get over the fact that, here I was. In the middle of the ocean. Doing engineering stuff. In the Ocean. The smile that escaped my lips forced me to laugh at myself and the speed with which I felt at home. I saw bilges and thought of the time I helped my dad pump the bilge on Physalia (the sailboat I lived on). I saw the sun, and thought of how many times I had ridden against the rails at the very front of the bow as Physalia slowly sliced through the Atlantic's waters, me leaning into the future over those rails, urging the boat to go quicker, quicker over the dark blue to catch my happy heart that was leaping in front of us, 10 knots faster than the sails could carry our fiberglass hull.

Thankfully, I didn't get into an accident today on my drive home from the gym while I frantically scribbled this on a piece of orange paper I had brought along expressly for the purpose of recording my raw thoughts after a tough phone conversation earlier.

It hurts to hurt someone. I just broke someone's heart, again. I re-broke it. And I'm worried that things won't ever be the same. I mean, I know that "things are never the same," inevitably; life's uncompromising progression rejects the stagnation I need to dissect, understand my reaction and I worry that there aren't any words left that can salve re-opened wounds and I worry about not being able to fix things. I hate not being able to fix things because we're all people and can communicate and things should be able to be fixed. They should be able to be fixed.

I'm a five year old child, head cocked quizzically to the side, belligerently questioning my mom why things have to hurt. Why does life have to be so achingly sad sometimes, and why is so much of that sadness caused by flitting words, tossed carelessly into the space between two people with mismatched understandings? And why can't these weightless words ever be taken back, why is it that their very transience is what makes them indelible? We're all just people. Can't we just see that, see the other's eyes and mouth and ears and cheeks and stray hairs and know that we mess things up, we say the wrong things and sometimes the right ones and it's all okay because we're the same species connecting, reaffirming our own humanity and existance in a gigantic, lonely world?

The truth might be evading me, slowly seeping out of my ignorant mind, sneaking away as my heart pretends it's okay - NO! I'm not lonely, not sad! I'm slipping back into forgetting what it's like to feel real - no, to feel anything but excited or happy; I'm going back to being afraid to feel if it's not good because I'm scared I won't be able to handle it. I'll revel in it too much, I'll sink into enjoying desolation. In "protecting" myself I'm losing sight of myself, I know.

I'm afraid of failing at being alone.

I'm afraid of crying too much and not knowing why and so not knowing how to stop and so I don't think and don't cry when all I really want is to pound my fists against your chest and bawl and tell you that I love you. I know it will feel good to taste my Independent Tears.

Yesterday Jonathan asked me if I ever think about being forgotten, and at the time I said no. But in the past 24 hours I've begun to wonder what my marks have been, are, or will be. This is the greatest test of being alone; I feel rushed to validate my existence to another person, to be given some affirmation that I matter somewhere to someone, even if I know it in my mind. Perhaps that is one the most magnetic draws to being in a romantic relationship - knowing that more often than not throughout a day, someone else is consciously aware of your existance in the world.

I'm scared for my mom, and I'm scared that I'm losing my conviction; I don't want to be scared back into a strong faith. I can't help feeling like a hypocrit.

I hate sounding like an emotionally bypolar psycho here, bloggy, with happy posts followed by equally tearful ones. I never meant for this to be anything more than a journal, though, and my written words are always an exacerbation of reality. Jason Mraz wrote in his journal thing (found randomly online), "the great thing about the shows for me, is how I can stand on stage and work out my problems. That's the moment where everything makes sense to me. Like if there's somebody that I need to say something to, but I can't tell them face to face, I know how to say it on stage....Because honestly when I get on stage, it's almost as if a mirror is put up in front of me, and I'm able to look at myself, and see exactly how I want. Exactly how I want to live. Exactly where I want to go. Who I wanna be. Ya know?"

That's how I feel when I'm writing.

I agree with this too, "There's a seed inside all of us, we're all put on this earth, I believe, for one specific purpose. Whether it's to teach someone something, or learn something from someone, or to say one particular thing at one particular point in their lives which sets off a chain of events that affects the world. Whatever it is we are here for that, and we all know what it is, or how to get to it. And, I hope I can be some type of link in that chain of events that will hopefully put a smile on everyone's face before our time is up. Because that's the inevitable. We need to, I don't know what we need to do. (laughs). I don't know what everyone needs to do. But I know what I need to do and I'm happy."

I'm still searching for what I need to do. Until then, I'm just going to keep trying to put a smile on someone else's face even if all I want inside is for mine to be tear-stained.

....Quick addition a little after I first posted this. I was reading Mandy's livejournal and learned that Erich's in jail. For grand theft auto and possession of cocaine. I don't know quite what I think, other than that my reaction was intense sadness for life's cruelty: the crazy way peoples' lives cross, meeting for only instants on a macroscopic scale, but still define so crisply a certain phase of that life. I haven't seen Erich in 4? years now -- he and Mandy (my best friend from middle school through the beginning of college, and someone I still think about all the time, but that's a whole other story about my inability to maintain friendships) dated for a little more than three (I think) years in high school and college -- but immediately thought back to the time I went as moral support with Mandy to a narcotics anonymous family/friends support group meeting while Erich was at his NA meeting (I think that's what they were called) and how much Erich's drug use affected her and their relationship (how could it not?). He was such a normal guy in high school, in the sense that it was "normal" for the people around me to be recreational drug users, but then he was one of the kids who never stopped when he finished school. He had a good family, both parents, all the stuff "they" say will produce a productive citizen. So why is he now sitting in a Broward County jail cell? I know he has no idea I'm thinking of him right now (I wonder if he even remembers me) -- I don't even know what I'm thinking other than, man, that sucks, and, why? Why you? Why anyone like or not like you? How do people's lives diverge so drastically? Why?

Erich, your shirt is pulled to the side and your face is older, but I look at your drugged out eyes and I still see, or want to see, the same boy that made my best friend the happiest - and saddest - I ever saw her. Why? Why?

......Another addition:

Interestingly, I am the 33rd site that comes up on Yahoo when you search "awesome jugs." This reminds me of today's Dooce entry.

Upside down map of the Gulf of Mexico and calendar


Upside down moniter, key board, mouse, chair on desk


More upside-downness




My hardhat! Upside down!

A prankster hit my office while I was in lots of meetings this week. Apparently it happens to everyone at some point, getting your office turned upside down. The sad thing is, when I first walked into my office, I thought "Oh, maybe the ergonomics guy was here and is bringing me new furniture!" (because I had an erg audit earlier in the week and it was decided I was going to get some new equipment, including a roll-y ball mouse)

But no, Silly Gullible Jenny, you were had. It was HILARIOUS. The attention to detail is incredible; the job was done quite thoroughly. I commend the deviants for their quality. Most everything is back upright now (it was hard to use the flipped over moniter and mouse; I tried though), except for the dry erase board wipe-off juice and the picture of the sailboat (which was already in the office before I got there, thank you very much).

Which is why, when yesterday both the guy who works in the office across the hall from me and myself walked out of our offices at the same time and he said to me, "You know, sailboats usually work best the other way," I said, "I know. But I kind of like it better this way."

(oh, and notice the awesome-ness of having a camera phone now! what what?!)

Work has really picked up in the last few days, I've got new projects and am going offshore Monday-Tuesday. My first helicopter ride! Aaaa! I'm so excited :)

Plus, how could work be bad when I spend the majority of my time laughing -- or trying to laugh silently (you know, where you kind of rock up and down in your chest, trying to hold the peals of giggles inside) and letting a few yelps escape.

To steal a dooce-ism,

Thinking

• my Voter Identification Card came in the mail today - I'm a DEM in JUD CRT 243, REP 081, SEN 06, BESE 01, PSC 01, APP CRT 51, SUP CRT 01, CONG 01, PJ/PC 05, SB 04, and JP 05. I'm especially excited about making it into the PJ/PC 05.
  


• more taxes were taken out of my first paycheck than I made in the entire previous year working for the 'Nique. Contrary to the odds with your local Fulton-county gambling ring, I will not change parties now that I'm part of the fiscally-shafted money-making American public. I relish my opportunity to contribute to wasteful, beaurocracy-laden government programs that will siphon my tax dollars to Billy Graham-loving organizations that will use my funds to encourage abstinence and blow up abortion clinics. Or welfare, maybe. If only I could earmark my tax contribution, "To be directed towards education, food programs, AND NOT YOUR PORKY ROADS AND POCKETS."
  


• I bought Mr. Bubble bubble bath at CVS today. In the pink bottle. Have I mentioned my Jacuzzi bathtub that's big enough to comfortably host a 25-m freestyle race?


• AllState Insurance is the single biggest contributer to my (snail) mail count. Thank you, my local AllState Agent, for keeping me coming back to the Post Office for more excitement every three days. Mary Evans is pulling a close second, but so as not to break federal mail theft laws, I'm required to put her mail back in the slot that says, "RIGHT BOX NUMBER BUT NOT MY MAIL"


• Happy Birthday, Biffy-Biffsters-Biffmeister! Give her some birthday lovin' in the comments of her bloggy!


• Thank you, T-mobile, for welcoming me into your cell phone fold and delivering my reprieve from the horrible, horrible Hell called 'Sprint'. My number is the same, but my phone is much cooler - I actually have this crazy feature called 'text messaging.' You've heard of it? Really? Because over at Sprint they haven't realized it isn't 1985 anymore.

In other news, I'm sorry I haven't been updating as regularly anymore - I've semi-gone back to jotting notes down while driving (too fast) down the interstate when a thought just hits me. Or in the back few pages of my notebook during interminably long meetings (We upped the choke pressure in the tree ... maybe I'm trying too hard to play the roles I played for my friends at home, struggling to fit into new situations with the same script, not realizing that the cast has changed around me; maybe that's the point of different friendships, to force you to learn and develop different parts of yourself, to help you continually evolve through a lifetime ... so the LDHI injected in the subsea tie-back is better than methanol.)

I went to dinner with a friend from Tech who was in town last week, and it was refreshingly relaxing. Our 3 hours of conversation was, in my mind, me earnestly - desperately - seeking a deeper conversation that would make me ponder and question and FEEL. (Emeril has his onions, celery and bell peppers; I have thought, questions, and an overwhelmed heart) Such a talk it was, and I went to bed with the wonderful feeling that someone else had contributed in a meaningful way to my thoughts and thought process, and I might have done the same for someone else.

The evening also made me think again how much I want to go on a date - maybe it was the comfort of dinner and coffee, or the not knowing where we were going next and not needing to, or the security of being next to someone who cared - with someone nice. On second thought, I don't want a date. I just want to have a substantial conversation with someone in person on a regular basis. A date would require dressing nicely and worrying about formalities.

Ah, and a topic I'd love to vent on -- boys -- and yet I will hold my tongue (fingers?) because the internet has gotten me in trouble before. I will say, though, that it's (kind of) cute to see the number of guys I've met in the past two weeks who have broken up with their girlfriends in the past year, are still determined that they'll be back with them someday, and yet plan to live the crazy life in the meantime. Then I think, hmm, does that guy's ex-girlfriend think what I think when I think of my situation?

I'm in one of those moods where I feel like I have so much more to get out but I don't know where to start. I miss Danny and Hanson and Kristy. A lot. In that missing sort of way that makes your heart kind of crinkle up inside and hurt in a bittersweet sort of way. I want to scream "NO I DON'T HAVE A 2ND FORM OF ID" and Collective Soul and John Mayer and "PROPAGULE" and "KYLOTHEAN" (sp, H?) and "remember that time when we tried to..." and "...when Hanson peed on the side of the road while taking that girl home?" and "...when Danny first Hatched?" Remember when we sang at the top of our lungs, all three of us collectively,

"Don't you see, don't you see,
that the charade is over?
And all the 'Best Deceptions' and 'Clever Cover Story' awards go to you.
So kiss me hard
'cause this will be the last time that I let you.
You will be back someday
and this awkward kiss that screams of other people's lips will be of service
to keeping you away."

each of us thinking of some different personal experience and yet communing in the similarity of it all.

I don't think my heart's ever been as full as it was then, the three of us in one concrete, contained space for a few fleeting moments in our lives, knowing that things were all about to change but it didn't matter because life was in that moment and in that moment was life.

I keep trying to listen to my heart. And think about what IA Jonny would say.

Goodnight, big world.

Work and I are getting along quite nicely.

I really want to go on a date, the kind where you stare into the other person's eyes as if you were looking for all the secrets in the world and hoping that they were falling into your gaze searching for the same things.

I'm now certified with the knowledge of how to safely escape from a helicopter ditching (the "official" term for a helicopter crash). I'm sure that my first trip on a helicopter in another week will include me obsessively holding the seat back between the exit and myself with one hand (my "reference") and clasping my seatbelt buckle with my other hand, thumb smushed between the metal buckle and my jeans (my "release"). I also now know how to take off and inflate my pants (and shirt, actually) to be used as an emergency flotation device.

I got into an impassioned argument about voting Wednesday night on the way home from a bar that lets you take your glasses home with you, furthering my new belief that it's ok to talk about sex, but not politics, with new acquaintances. Especially new acquaintances from work.

Part of this is because I feel like I have to shout, scream who I am - I must actively define myself to my new friends. I've spent ten years figuring out who's inside this overactive smile, and I don't want to be redefined - not yet, anyway. I want them to know me like I know me and you know me, forgetting that part of the beauty of friendship is just that discovery process of testing each other, poking and prodding the other to figure out their shape. I don't want to rush the wonderful swirl of getting acclimated or lose sight of the excitement of this time, but I also am ready to feel like I'm with people who know me, you know?

Sunday night I ended up hanging five pictures in a horizontal row in the den: a monkey, two beetles, a howler monkey, a dragonfly, and a sloth; I took all the pictures last summer in Costa Rica and am impressed with how professional the shots look considering a. I took them and b. I printed them at home on my HP printer with Canon photo paper.

I feel more like a real person now than I ever have before. College independence was a farce, comparatively. I have my own space in the world, that is all my own; my time is my own; I bear responsibility to very few others in the world. I clean my sink (almost) every night. I feel uniquely normal.

Enough of this randomness - off to lift weights.

Is it weird to feel like everywhere I go, I'm searching the faces of the people I pass for something, some sign or clue - but for what?

I've got no cable, nothing to do, have exhausted recent NPR archives, and am starting to feel guilty about my pilfering of someone else's wireless signal. (But if they're silly enough to not secure their network, they're just inviting me to use it, right?)

The cable company was supposed to come yesterday to hook up my phone and TVs. Apparently I disappeared from their system, though, and so now it will be another week before I am able to watch The Daily Show from the comfort of my own (sofa-less) house instead of at the gym, where I nearly fell off the treadmill 3 times Friday because I was laughing so hard.

I feel I've deserved some veg-out couch potato time, but I've got no platform from which to potato, and I'd just have to stare out the window more. Maybe "deserve" is the wrong word, since my "earning" has consisted of me staying out of my house until 6am Thursday and Saturday nights. Yes, New Orleans knows how to have a good time.

Thursday we met up with some co-workers for happy hour, which devolved quickly into an all-night get-to-know you fest. We went to a burrito place (NO where near as good as Moe's or Willy's), and then to Kingpin, a place with table curling (quite amusing), then a live band show where they were giving away free Smirnoff paraphenalia (I now have a blinking necklace), then a place with, seriously, the best cheese fries I've ever tasted in my life. Ever. Then to a place just next door (where we were the only people and were kicked out because they wanted to close - why? - it was only 5:30!). I had an awesome time. Then T and I hung out at C's place until we decided we wanted to try to leave. (this every other Friday off thing is AWESOME)

The problem was that our two cars were sandwiched between C's car and her housemate's car in a crescent-shaped driveway. I managed to squeeze Dip out between two spindly trees but then T's car wouldn't fit (its an old, mom-style sedan) so I decided to try to drive C's (standard) car -- more like I stalled 5 times in coasting the 10 feet necessary for T to get out. I couldn't shift into reverse (apparently you have to push the shifter down while pushing past first) so T's like, "put it in neutral and I'll push!" so he did, the car was back in place, and C slept/passed out through the whole thing.

Last night was White Linen Night downtown, so a big group of us dressed up, did the art/wine/wandering around thing for a while (there were lots of hoitey-toitey people there doing the same thing but with a more sophisticated air). After dinner we went to the French quarter area and 2 places; T and I have really gotten quite the tour of the hip young scene so far. And again, we ended up at someone else's house this morning until 8 am or so, when we called a cab to take us back to my car. We're going to try to see how many people's houses we can sleep at before we head to Rijswijk in the Netherlands in September. :)

I also went swimming at the gym yesterday afternoon and then T and I laid out for a while (the gym is awesome - it's got 3 outdoor pools and a bar and everything. I felt like i was at camp) and I am definitely a brilliant shade of red today. My (one piece) bathing suit lines looked awesome in my strapless dress yesterday.

So back to the point of this post - it just wasted a bit of time for me, which is great, and I still don't know what I'm going to do with myself today. I think the zoo's going to have ot wait for next weekend, though. Maybe I'll do a finger puppet show for myself, in leui of cable. Or I could go grocery shopping. And do my laundry. And hang some pictures on the wall, all very suburban-working-family-LAME sorts of things to do :)

Hum de dum, such is life without homework (it's really starting to grow on me).

Oh, and I'd also like to mention that I'm *possibly* going to be helping to start a local GT alumni club here in NOLA. I'm super excited :) (but who would've thought there wouldn't already be one here?!)

You might also notice that I updated my sidebar to reflect my recent realization that I'm grateful for other people's random links that allow me to follow a train of blogs, see how people are interconnected, and entertain me with others' random thoughts. So, I've posted my own (very brief) "blogroll" of sorts for now. Enjoy! :)

Let's talk about ergonomics for a few minutes here.

Have you ever really, I mean really, considered the ergonomics of your workstation? Because I'm concerned for you if you haven't. It has been impressed upon me in the past three days how very important to productivity and overall worker happiness ergonomics is. Did you know there's a whole team, a Work Group, focused soley on ergonomics?

Sure, I laughed at first, too (especially when I was forced to watch a 15 minute videotape on the topic, produced in 1987). But the more days I've spent in my desk and in unequally comfortable chairs at home and in meeting rooms, the more I've become a believer. Ergonomics is completely, totally important.

I love my mesh chair (it looks like the ones from the Management Building); I love my foot rest (I know! A foot rest! Who knew how important foot position was for comfortable ergonomics?). I never really liked the squishy things you put in front of the mouse and keyboard, but they've won me over, too. They help keep my hands in a comfortable, "natural neutral" position, after all.

As much as I ridiculed the video, I make an attempt to stand up when I'm reaching for things above my desk, and to squat to relieve back pressure when I pick up low things. And I feel comforted in knowing how much my company cares about me.

Or, at least about preventing me from suing for worker's comp.
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Speaking of school vouchers, I'd like to make it clear that shopping for groceries DOES NOT equate to the value of voucher programs as some quackpot tried to claim in an opinion piece on my local NPR station today during a local "commercial" break from All Things Considered this afternoon. She tried to make an analogy between school vouchers and the idea that poor people would make a huge ruckus with the government if they disallowed the poor to use food stamps at a grocery store that was selling deeply discounted, and better, food than the poors' local grocery store because that grocery store was run by a religious organization that puts scripture in every grocery bag. She describes a parent's instinctual love for their children, a love that makes parents willing to do most anything to better their children's lives, including wanting to send them to a better school. And this is why parents should be up in arms, according to her, about Louisiana politicians taking away a school voucher program because the majority of schools that receive the state's money from the voucher program (because that's where the students switch to) are parochial.

Granted you get some preaching with your peaches at the religious grocery store, and the congregation gets a little government money, but there's a choice there whether to read the religious pamphlet or not, and the congregation could be considered just like the private company that owns the other grocery store that used to get the government's food stamps money -- either way, the government is not endorsing, promoting, or financially supporting the belief system of the beneficiary. More importantly than that, I don't think issue about school vouchers should be about whether religious schools are getting government money -- religious organizations already get TONS of government money for doing "social services," the religious schools are a CHOICE (just like reading the pamphlet), and the schools are providing a service (just like the store). Instead, this conversation should be about the problems of directing government money AWAY from finding solutions to fix the problems (put the money that goes towards vouchers into increasing teacher salaries or buying more textbooks or technology for students) and burying it simply avoiding the problem but ignoring it, pretending it doesn't matter since the students have "options." Not to mention the fact that parental involvement in the student's life and school has more influence on individual success than the school does.

I have full confidence in the power, benefit, and grave IMPORTANCE of public school systems. They need to be reconsidered, reworked, standardized testing de-emphasized, exploratory and discovery-based learning focused on, and their employees given more real respect by the rest of the working world. The American People need to put their efforts (and tax dollars) where their flowery, empty speech is -- "yay for schools and learning and teachers molding our future leaders" -- and demand our government support real, worthwhile change.

I'll admit I'm a hypocrit; it's true -- I haven't written to my congresspeople yet, either. And, aaahh, we return to that oft-frequented topic of how do you care and make a difference?

I've come to the conclusion that my personality is not fit for a 7am - 4:45pm job; no, it's not the waking up early or being in an office all day, or filling out TPS reports. No, it's because I'm the sort of person who likes to check everything off her list before shutting down for the day and relaxing. Or, if I can't finish everything, working until I have to go to sleep. It's what made me "successful" at Tech -- let's not necessarily include school work in that :). I feel stressed with a partially completed To Do list, but I also feel stressed with an empty To Do list. I feed off of mentally checking things off my To Do list, and I like taking breaks as long as I know I can go back to working on my To Do list whenever I want.

That's what was easy about school, that my To Do list was portable and I was supposed to always be thinking about it, working on completing items on the list. But now my mildly addictive and task-accomplishment oriented brain is having to refocus according to the working world's rules, in which you shut everything down precisely 9 hours after beginning (plus 45 minutes for lunch). You're supposed to leave your assignments in whatever state of disarray they might be in, blissfully clear your mind, and already find yourself mentally in the comfort of a warm, sudsy bathtub before you even enter the elevator shaft. My mind doesn't work this way!

Walking through the corridors to get to the elevator, I'm running through my To Do list in my mind, thinking about the Sticky Note waiting for me in Outlook on my computer that enumerates everything I want to accomplish tomorrow morning (after Wednesday's Donut Day festivities, of course. I'm seriously pumped about my first Group Donut Day) - could I have brought anything home to read? No, I tell myself, that's what you're supposed to do during work hours! It's not homework! They don't pay you to get everything done as fast as you can, they pay you to get it done as fast as you can during normal business hours. It's not even like you're working on time sensitive reading that has to be done in 48 hours which would then justify taking it home. No, it's just personal edification, self, that can wait until the morning. And that email? You can't email from outside the building, yet, anyway! I'm having guilt issues with changing my modus operandi - issues with fitting my overachiever mindset into the working world, a working world in which my skill set is still too small to try to be an overachiever, and a working world in which "overachiever" means so many different things and requires so many different things than at school.

Plus, I really enjoy what I'm learning about and like feeling productive. When I come home, I really want to read my starter's guide to hydrocarbon production, not Guns, Germs, and Steel.

As much as I don't want to feel guilty, at the same time I feel like by losing my guilt, I'll succumb to the indoctrination I'm being injection molded with. As much as I like my office -- I've got a window looking over the rest of the city and the river, it's really quite nice and as large as my mentor's, they gave me my own Swingline, and it's NOT a cubicle! -- and the people I work with, I feel like I'm fighting the dullness that seems to color everything around a faint beige; I'm fighting feeling dulled by dullness into a dull and boring person.

Or maybe I'm just tired today, after playing 2 hours of tennis with my buddy (that's his official name, too -- I have a supervisor, mentor, and buddy, plus my buddy's buddy, my grand-buddy. hehe it's Greek life all over again) and another young guy from work and his roommate last night. I had fun, and it was nice to hang out socially - though it still feels like there's this work-wall up around us all (I wonder if that goes away eventually). Today my buddy and I went spinning during lunch at the gym thats in the building.

In any case, I am happier than my last post, with renewed confidence and a sense of happiness with my house. Thank you KAB for your comments, I love you!

My next point of work-related excitement (besides the fact that this Friday happens to be my group's schedule color's Friday off, so only 2 more days for my first week!) is the "Drown-proofing" training I'm taking next Thursday in preparation for going offshore the week after. Woooo! I'm going to get to visit the asset I'm assigned to with my mentor to spec out some new projects I started today.

As caught up as I've been the past 48 hours in acclimating, I keep returning to thoughts of you guys, my friends, and how lucky I am to put you on my target (or bullseye, as the case may be ;)). It's cheesy, I know, and I'm risking redundancy here, but thanks for being my friend, friends.