On starting to feel like I live here

So it turns out that once you get used to it, San Diego is a really nice place to live. And I'm starting to get used to the idea that I live here (even if it is only temporary). Some evidence:

1. When I visited Jeff last weekend (more on that at the end of the post), I was excited to go for a walk out in the rain, because "we just don't have rain where I live!"

2. Earlier this week I helped my downstairs neighbor with a fireplace problem (she needed to open the flue; her house was full of smoke), and didn't realize until much later how funny it is that she was making a fire. Why funny? Because although it is November, it was also almost 60 degrees outside, and it was 70 in my house with no heat on. But, I thought it was totally reasonable to be making a fire, because "my goodness, it really is chilly today!"

3. I now believe that if your car door will open the 6-8 inches required for a thin person to squeeze out, you've left plenty of room.

So see? I'm a real so-cal resident now :)

I had a much-needed visit with Jeff last weekend, and I am super excited to have another visit in just a few days (we'll both be in Eugene for Thanksgiving). We didn't do a whole lot last weekend, which was just the right thing to do. We've had a lot of action-packed visits, and what I really miss most is regular time together-- sitting around, watching DVDs, hanging out in pajamas. That's the stuff that relationships are really made of. So it was good to have that time together last weekend, and even though it was way too short, it's good that we'll have it again soon :)

Anybody in Seattle want to hire me?

I am officially over a third of the way through internship, and suddenly this means that I have to start looking for my next job. It seems like a cruel trick, being put through such a long and difficult process applying to internship, and then once I feel like I'm settling in, suddenly being reminded that I am going to be ejected in 8 months. I'm doing my best right now to find out what's available to apply to, and start networking a bit. Fairly soon I'll need to start writing application materials, and that's just no fun. Because really, ideally, I should also have my dissertation research submitted for publication when I apply for postdoc positions, to make me more competitive. All this means that in addition to working my regular full time internship job, I have to work after work on other stuff several evenings/weekend days a week. That's of course on top of visits to/from Jeff, and all the time required to make a long-distance relationship work. I'm feeling just a little bit overwhelmed. So if anyone has a job they'd like to offer me in Seattle, with no application process, no uncertainty or effort involved, be sure to let me know.

Life is generally good, internship is continuing to go well, and I am continuing to enjoy my new friends here. Random things I've learned recently:

1) I am not at all good at the celebrity version of Taboo. As an example, when I say "his first name sounds like a name for drinkable yogurt" people apparently don't immediately think of Kiefer Sutherland, and unfortunately I have no other means for getting people to guess his name since I don't really know who he is.

2) There was a 1985 Cindy Lauper music video based on the movie Goonies, that was 12 minutes long, included a to-be-continued segment, and also included WWF wrestlers. It's on youtube here.

3) Watching football is actually sort of fun. I'm thinking of choosing an NFL team to support (my college team is obviously the Ducks), and I've been considering the choice very carefully. I think it's down to the Chicago Bears, or the Minnesota Vikings. I'm torn between these two, so if anyone wants to push me in one direction or the other, please do. Once you choose a team you really have to stick with them, so it's important to make a good choice!

Exhausted

Some things I did over the past few days:

Picked up Jeff from the airport late Friday night
Dealt with "relationship re-entry shock" that comes with being apart all the time (including brief break for requisite stupid argument)
Went bowling
Sang karaoke
Stayed out past midnight (!)
Took a bike ride around Coronado Island
Went to work
Drove to Anaheim
(Jeff turns 30 here)
Went to Disneyland (subplot: indiana jones, thunder mountain, pirates of the caribbean, splash mountain, haunted mansion, astro blasters, space mountain, carousel, splash mountain, astro blasters, mr. toad's wild ride, peter pan, am I forgetting anything???)
Drove home
Ate cake
Took Jeff to the airport
Went to work
And, grand finale:

Came home exhausted. I haven't been totally out of touch with normal life, but I did have about 50 unread e-mail messages when I finally went to try to clear them out this evening. Having fun is a lot of work!

More details on Jeff's blog (link at right).

Food, Friends, and Bryan Adams

Since people have asked: things are looking up slightly for my roommate's health, and my supervisor has been in a holding pattern for a few weeks which has allowed her to prepare for surgery and all that follows. So the crises of a month ago are feeling less and less like crises, which is good. It's been a busy few weeks, and things are starting to ease up a bit.

This weekend I was vicariously living the joys of others. Two of my favorite people here had great things happen in the past few days: one defended her dissertation, and the other asked his girlfriend to marry him! So there is a lot of positive energy going around. I'm really enjoying their highs, remembering how good each of those things felt when I was living it.

I also had my own joys to celebrate last weekend, when I visited Seattle. Julia, Meredith, and Alison drove up from Eugene, and Jeff's old lab-mate Alicia lives in Seattle, and we all convened for Canadian Thanksgiving. Lots of pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes and yams, stuffing, and for those who cared there was also turkey :)

Our version of Thanksgiving involves friends, food, and karaoke:

That's us singing some Bryan Adams, to honor Canada. Without the Canadian karaoke, there is really nothing to separate Canadian Thanksgiving from the American one. So, somehow or another, it has become tradition that everyone must sing when we celebrate Canadian holidays, and amazingly, everyone just does. There is no protesting, none of the "oh, I really can't sing" nonsense, because for reasons I cannot fully understand, when Jeff asks people to sing, they do.

He also has a magical ability to get people to roller skate, play guitar hero and hula hoop on the wii, eat/drink gross things, and play silly kids' party games (can anyone say squeak piggy squeak?). Somehow, Jeff gets people to drop all their self-consciousness and pretension, and that is one of the things I love so much about him.

Which is one of the reasons why we are going here for Jeff's 30th birthday (just over a week from now). I can hardly wait!

25% Complete

First: No major updates on the health statuses of my colleagues. The good thing about that is that it sort of means there's breathing room, if only temporarily. I'm hoping for the best on all fronts, and in the mean time, at least no news isn't bad news :)

Today marks an internship milestone: I'm a quarter of the way done! It's kind of amazing, because in some ways it doesn't feel like I've been here that long, but in other ways it feels like I've been here forever. The not-that-long parts are that I still don't feel quite like I live here; I still sort of think I'm at summer camp. And since we're still having summer weather, I can almost believe that. And also, I feel like I'm still learning what the heck I'm doing in some respects (although that is starting to change).

The feeling like forever parts are sort of varied, positive and negative. First, it feels like it's been way too long since Jeff and I lived together. I'm starting to adjust to this routine, but I really miss the day-to-day interactions, like making dinner together, or just being able to go for a walk. But in a way, it also feels like it hasn't been that long, and like it will be easy to step right back into those things we used to do every day, so that one is mixed in itself.

It also feels like it's been forever since I saw all my dear Eugene friends and colleagues. I'm really looking forward to seeing a few people during my next Seattle trip (it takes good friends to drive 5 hours for such a short visit!), and a few more when I'm back in town for Thanksgiving.

The flip side of that is that there are a couple of people here who I feel like I've known much longer than 3 months. There really are good people here; people who will probably become very good friends. But don't worry, they will never replace my old friends :)

I'm curious how I'll feel about all this another 3 months from now when it's half done!