It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

It’s May. I’ve been at my job for four months. You wouldn’t guess it, though. This morning I awoke and found that the rooftops in my neighborhood had a significant amount of snow on them. I always thought that spring weather in Seattle was manic, but it’s nothing compared to living in a desert! It was 76 last Friday, and it’s been snowing/raining/hailing/sunny/windy all this week.

In many ways, however, this weather suits me in my current mood and place in life. I’m up and down lately more than the Dow. I can’t explain it at all. In the last few years I have learned that I’m a person who thrives on change and new things to get excited about. So, am I reaching a point where my current state isn’t good enough any more? Most of all, I guess, I don’t want to feel like I’m wasting my life. I feel like my blog is a broken record, and certainly my time in Eugene, while short, showed me how much loneliness affects me. So, you’d think I’d love the fact that I have roommates and people to talk to at night. I do a lot of times, but usually I come home exhausted and just want to be quiet, watch the Colbert Report (my new favorite show), sleep or just think. Ah, the old adage: you always want what you can’t have.

In the last month I’ve started to go to a church that's close to home. I’m hopeful that I can get involved there and ideally it will be a place I can feel at home and make some new friends. I have to keep reminding myself that while I have started hanging out with a few people at work and am slowing starting to see more of Bend by bike and outings, moving to a new place where you don’t know anyone is a slow transition. How hard it can be. I sometimes wonder why I left a good group of friends and family in the first place. I took so much for granted in college – especially built-in friends all in similar places in life and all needing each other. I know it can be better than this, and maybe I’m getting there. I just need patience. And courage.

Coincidentally, today I was offered a real job at Bend Research! I guess I don’t have too much to complain about, except this terrible dichotomy of feeling like I’m working way too hard, but having a huge desire to “make data” as my cubicle-mate Steve puts it. I can’t believe they’re doing this, but they offered to pay me a real bachelor’s level salary for the next 5 months until I get my Master’s Degree, at which point they’ll pump up the compensation pretty awesomely! I had no idea that everyone at work thought I was doing so well, but this speaks volumes to the fact that working hard does indeed pay off. This is pretty cool and feels largely undeserved since I feel like I only know what I’m doing about 60% of the time and totally messed something up today J I never thought I’d stay on at my internship, but in keeping with my MO, I normally throw up my arms and say, “let’s see what happens!” and this is no exception. BRI is a fantastic place to be professionally and personally, and I have a feeling that’s extremely rare in the science realm. I feel like I’ve grown up so much in the last4 months, but I don’t know if I’m ready for 401Ks, health insurance and crazy taxes quite yet. Regardless, it’ll be a great chance to grow up more and learn how to be an adult no matter how long this chapter in my life lasts. I think in the back of my head, I always thought my mom would be sending me my health insurance card and my dad would send my car insurance cards. Oh, and then there’s the new idea of paying for all my living expenses. Budget, here I come! Maybe.

So, there have definitely been changes recently. I’m thankful that I’m starting to pull my shit together a little better and focus more on what really matters. Who knows what the next few years or even months holds for me, but I am pleased with the fact that things fall into place for me in spite of myself oftentimes. For that, I owe all the credit to God.