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Ya know, my GAO anxiety has led me to question, yet again, what is it that makes various jobs work for me.

I’ve really liked most of my tutoring experiences. Particularly the small groups of cooperative, interested people.

My computer jobs mostly blew. Somehow my work with Ro didn’t match this. It could be partially the utter informality of the job. It was undoubtedly partially the intense interaction between the two of us. The part time nature of the work.

Motorola blew in a big way. I think the cube farm made it harder for me to hide from my misery. Or maybe I just wasn’t ready to settle down into a desk job.

My CMU computing services jobs were only a little more appealing than the motorola job, but the office arrangements made it more possible to pass this over. And my coworkers contained some truly rocking people. There’s only one of my coworkers at Motorola that I even really liked at all, and I had no deep bonds of affection with him. (Not counting people I didn’t interact with on a daily basis). I wish I could have made one of those two jobs work for me. If I’d liked what I’d been doing, motorola would have had to have offered me far more to peel me away, if they could have done so at all. Don’t get me started on the commute.

So, work has to be compatible with the rest of my life. Work has to involve interpersonal interaction. Office arrangements neither make nor break a job. But what makes work tick for me is still a mystery. I ought to remember that my best programming work experience was doing military drone research. Learn to relax a little, stop worrying so much about saving the world. Stop worrying about doing shit right (by which I mean perfectly).

Enh. No real insights here.

Our project had a group lunch today. We went to a local diner. I had fries, onion rings, and cheeseless pizza with mushrooms and olives. I like cheeseless pizza with mushrooms and olives, but having had it two days in a row now, it’s getting a bit old. =)

Also, I had my first carbonated, caffeinated beverage in what I think has been years. It was a coke with raspberry syrup. Blue raspberry syrup. It was kinda cool, but I think it’ll be years before I have a CCB again.

Now I want to nap. I so need to workout so that I don’t gain 10 lbs from that greasefest, but I’m not doing it for a few hours at least, maybe tomorrow morning. I miss how the gym made me feel.

In response to a comment in .

Nothing new here, just another articulation of my politics

Given my difficulty staying awake (or staying asleep) this morning, I had three dreams that I can recall. First I had a dream of hanging out with and her family at her house (though the house in my dream much more closely resembled the house I grew up in. I don’t even remember what we were talking about. This is actually the second dream _this week_ to follow that basic outline. I don’t recall ever having had a dream involving Laura before. It’s kinda weird.

The second dream involved gymnastics. I was at a gymnastics practice, doing things I’d probably break my neck if I tried to do in real life. I wanted to leave early but the instructor basically told everyone to stay and listen to this gymnast from another country talk about something or other, it’s gone now.

The third dream was composed of disjointed scenes. One involved me at a party which was at ‘s house. This one was a better match to my economic development prof’s house (he had all his students over for a party, it was kind of entertaining). Somehow, on my way out of the house, I lost my shirt and pants. Another scene involved me trying to lead a bunch of pagans to a party from the house I used to live in for ages 5-13. Somehow we had a plane, well, to be more precise, I had a plane, but I wasn’t the pilot. There were several of us in it. I was giving directions, saying we could walk there, and that the plane wasn’t going to get us there. The pagans were making agreeable noises at me, but simultaneously discussing this great pagan hoo-ha being held somewhere far away. The pilot seemed to be paying me no mind. When (s)he got the (fairly sizeable) plane into the neighbor’s field to take off, I indicated that I didn’t know where s(he) was taking the plane, and would she please let us out. I was given the most scathing “Why do you hurt me like this, don’t you understand?” look, but it mostly rolled off my back. She let me out & everyone else got out too. The final scene took place after the party’s at Tom’s place. Somehow I ended up at a professor’s house. And this professor was providing us with the opportunity to clean ourselves up. I was in her bathroom, and having taken care of the basics, I started rooting around for stuff, while the door’s latch kept coming undone.

I think I need a better bed. =)

So, I checked in on the whole “moving my stuff to chicago for the summer” plan. The words “fat fucking chance” spring immediately to mind. Door-to-Door, which for some reason I expected to be cheaper than U-Haul turns out to be slightly more than twice the cost. Uhaul would cost about 400, including gas and basic rental costs. Each way. So that’s $800. If I sublet my place, I save $1200. If I rough it, and leave my shit here, I eat a potential $400 by leaving the place unsublet-able, but I save myself a massive headache. Like having to get a license pronto, or a friend to go with. Not to mention actually finding a sublessor. Well, and then there’s the $40 each way to get to chicago by bus.

I think I’m coming down on the side of paying the ~$480 convenience fee as Totally Worth It.

In other terrible news, the IRS never saw my income tax return, so the calvary I’ve been expecting any day now will likely be delayed quite a bit. I’ve already called mom. Grrsigh.

I love it when I’m in such a hurry to get to school that I forget to bring my laptop’s power supply. *sigh*

The class was over so quickly. Tuesday was the review for the final. 50 multiple choice questions, where some of the options for the “what is the name of the depicted skill” section included “Whoa! What was that?!” I got a 96. I finished in 15 minutes.

It was so weird walking out of the gym knowing that I wouldn’t be back for more than 3.5 months, and that I wouldn’t be doing it with the same people when I did come back. Some sadness. I feel like I bonded with these people, though I really don’t know much of anything about any of them. Still, there’s alot of trust that is earned when people support you (literally, physically) through dangerous explorations, and when you likewise support them.

I’ll probably feel the same way leaving which ever gym I join in chicago. I found two on adultgymnastics that are close to an eL line, though one, as I recall, is a bit of a hike through a scary neighborhood, and was kinda run down 4 years ago. Naturally, that’s the one that offers more sessions for adults per week. The other one is close to the last stretch of the brown line. Don’t really recall what that neighborhood is like, though I’m pretty sure it’s less scary than the area between wicker park and downtown.

If I end up living on the brown line (like I want to) there really won’t be any contest between the two. I’m also planning on sitting in on some seminars at ‘green tech u’, but that’s getting off topic.

1) Total number of films I own on DVD/video:

Three on dvd. Fight Club, X-men 2, Fellowship of the Ring. My mom did get me a vhs of fantasia at some point, but I have no idea what happened to it. On vhs, I have a quasi-porn guide to gay male coupledom, a quasi-porn gay guide to tantra, the CGMC concerts I was in and the Salivation Army. Can’t find the quasi-porn either. I may have given that away before leaving the bay.

2) The last film I bought:

A used copy of X-men 2, which I left in pittsburgh. *sigh*

3) The last film I watched:

Ghost in the Shell 2.

4) Five films that I watch a lot or that mean a lot to me:

Fellowship of the Ring, The Corporation, 10 things I hate about you, Fried Green Tomatoes, and Princess Mononoke (if only Nausicaa didn’t have the terrible 80’s synth soundtrack…)

Once again, you’re all adults, do it if the meme appeals 😉