Well, here I am, sitting at dunkin donuts and using there free wireless. I would say my life is slowly beginning to fall into place. I am quite thankful for this. It was a godsend mving to a place that I was already familiar with. I navigate quite well nowadays, very rarely ending up in place where I feel the need to lock my doors. I would like to say that after living in West philly i was prepared, but i think that would be untrue. The poverty here is so much more about a lack of education… it seems a lot easier to survive in a place being homeless when you dont have to fear freezing to death in the winter… though at the same time i think this breeds a certain amount of laziness and nonchalance. I do however have to say that southern hospitatility is no joke… it still takes me a few seconds when a checkout person is sincerely wishing me a nice day. I just talked to Lauren and it sounds like she and I are in similar predicaments. We both just hang about filling our days with trips to the store and visual stimulation from movies, or in my case bad teen based programming like the Real World.
This will not be for much longer though b/c yesterday I am happy to say that I went down to the local county animal shelter and adopted not one, but two tiny furballs. one of the kittens, agirl, is a little black and white ball of energy, with a pouchy little belly. her name is itchy and i knew she was perfect b/c she chose me, sticking her little paw out and tapping me on the shoulder as i walked by. the other, an all black male named duke is more of the silent type… and i’m afraid a bit ofa climber as i discovered when they were let out in a dog run and he immediately climbed to the ceiling on the chainlink fence, relizing once he got there that there was no logical way down. i fell in love with itchy and had only been planning on getting one, but apparently these two have been together for most of there two months on earth and therefore work together as a team. anyways i was reassured that having two kittens will make it more likely that they will play with each other rather than think of ways to pop my air mattress that i have temporarily been calling my bed. i dont really believe the people at the shelter, but oh well, i suppose that is the joy of a rental and owning no furniture of real value. i cant pick the two of them up though until tuesday b/c the need the rest of their vaccines, microchip and the big snip.
i’m so exicted to have something happy to see me when i come home at night.
on the work front i feel i have been thrown into the deep end… and i may have forgotten to hold my nose. somehow i went from being the newgirl to being the only person working on aproposal for a big residential development in the south of spain (you can see africa on most days from the site). it was a request for propsals from EDAW, EDSA, and one other unamed big firm. I’m working with the principal-in-charge from Atlanta, and Miami… me being the only other person on the team. they want me to come up with a 2-hour powerpoint presentation (translatable into spanish) for the trip in two weeks. yikes. i am also supposed to take a role as an impromptu project manager, doling out responsibility and keeping the big bosses on track. i wont get my hopes up, but i may force myself to be so invaluable that they have to take me along. crossing my fingers.
anyways, i’m off to research various clubs and groups i can join in the area to make friends and keep myself busy… not that i’m not already, but i always like to be overscheduled.