April 26, 2004

It's been forever since I wrote, and of course, life has gone on. I turned 32 and got many wonderful presents, my mom came to visit, I introduced her to my boyfriend and all three of us lived to tell the tale, and most recently, my work moved into our new building.

Right now, the new building is the change that continues to affect me the most. Work is no longer a three minute walk from my front door; it's now a three minute walk to the campus shuttle stop and then a 25 minute shuttle ride. No more coming home for lunch. Or naps.

The actual move took place last Tuesday and Wednesday, but we're still unpacking, and getting settled. We still have no trash cans or office supplies. And the building, being new, still has its share of bugs to work out. A shelf over my desk collapsed and smashed my laptop on the first day I was there (luckily, my little powerbook is tough and it only lost a couple of keys). Doors that were hung crookedly won't lock. The automatic lights go out every night at 9 p.m. and the override switches don't work. And today, the power went out at around 2 p.m. and still wasn't back on when I left at 5.

Despite my whining, the new building is definitely an improvement. The building itself is beautiful, with huge windows and amazing views of the bay and downtown (the old lab had no windows and was in such a cavernous space that my cell phone wouldn't work there). Our old space was also very isolated, but now I get to see my classmates and colleagues every day. Even the staircase has turned out to be not much of a problem--it turns out that there are two other sets of stairs in actual stairwells! I think I am the only one who knows this, because the doors leading to them aren't labelled, and I only figured it out myself from looking at the building's blueprints. Last week, I ran into a co-worker as I was leaving the stairs and he asked me, with raised eyebrows, what I was doing in the electrical closet.

Another bonus is that the new neighborhood is on the warm and sunny side of the city. Of course, for the last few days, the whole city has been freakishly warm and sunny. It's 9:30 p.m. and it's still 75 degrees outside. Yesterday, Iggy and I tried to go for a walk, but we decided it was too hot, so we wound up sitting in the park in the shade watching the dogs and children frolic. Eventually, we decided that even that was too taxing, and spent the rest of the day drinking margaritas in our underwear and watching movies.

Today was not quite so luxurious. I woke up early and headed over to the shuttle stop, only to find that it was mobbed with other people also looking to get an early Monday start. I wound up having to stand on the shuttle, which wouldn't have been so bad by itself, but it was also about 90 degrees in the bus (it has those tiny little windows that only open halfway) and the driver was a maniac. Of course, it wasn't as bad for me as it was for the poor woman who had to ask the driver to pull over halfway and who proceeded to heave into the trash can at the corner of 16th and Mission. Even by the standards of urban public trash cans, that is not one you want to have to vomit into.

The rest of the day was less eventful: worked, hiked up to Potrero Hill for a bland avocado sandwich that badly needed some pickles, worked some more, then spent the rest of the day in meetings since the power went out and no real work could be done. If it's not back on tomorrow, I'm going back to the margarita plan.