Sunshine!

Today's been the first sunny day in a bit, and although it was somewhat blustery, overall I am feeling positive.  Firstly, I'm learning how to work in Linux, which is always an adventure...I've also figured out the shuttle system to and from work, and I've located the Whole Foods so that if the little groceries nearer to where I live are out of lemons or closed on Sundays, I'll have a backup plan.  And if I sliced my finger while preparing dinner, well at least the new knives are sharp; likewise I'm going to look with positive anticipation on the passive-aggressive battle of the front door locks that's brewing with Ms. Downstairs and her two yappy dogs.  Oh yes.  Bring it!  I've got my stomping boots on, and her ceiling is my hardwood floor.

Fear and Loathing in Boston

I'm now relaxing in my $45 wingback (pristine!), listening to this song and partaking of some tea and brownies...but most of the day has been filled with some sort of angst or another.  Eh, I suppose these days happen to everyone.  And in reality it wasn't so bad...

I suppose most people fear the first day of a new job (?) but I had already met my supervisor and we seemed to rub along nicely...and anyway, I really do intend to like doing research.  I was a bit anxious, though, walking across the Worrisome Bridge on my way to work.  It was raining when I woke up, and the wind had picked up, and so I - fear of depths and all - had to pick my way across the river via slick metal mesh while still only half-awake.  The whole way, eyes on turbulent water and braced against gusty weather I was envisioning disaster (and before I had gotten a chance to file my life insurance policy, too!).

The rest of the morning, however, was pretty uneventful (if soggy)...almost too quiet: I hardly even met anyone.  About the only amusing tidbit I can provide is the location of my desk.  A hallway.  It's pretty awkward, although apparently it hasn't helped me to make new friends yet.

The afternoon was filled with RAGE at Comcast...but to be honest, I really don't want to get into it again.  Grr.  I sincerely hope the issue will be resolved by the weekend, but I have my doubts.

Oh, PS!  I've finally met both of my neighbors!  One of them seems pretty cool...the other one...less.  That's all I'll say for now; first impressions aren't always the most accurate.  (But these are.)

List Time

I am looking forward to the time when I can stop walking around chanting lists to myself like some sort of demented religious zealot.  Thing.  Orientation is at last over (it ended on a somewhat treacly note...and I will say no more.  The goal is not to use this month to get fired from my place of employment in time-honored blogging tradition.), but I am going to have to go back at some point to follow-up on my TB test - a.k.a. I've just been infected with tuberculosis - and I've finally got high-speed wireless installed, but I am going to have to phone the morons at Comcast tomorrow to tell them that yes, they are in fact morons.  Or something like that.  I've got it written down somewhere.

Still no white coat, but I am hopeful that it is just on the horizon, as the JOB officially starts tomorrow and I am p.u.m.p.e.d!  Also tomorrow I may possibly see friend Drea, may possibly get the ingredients to make Pasta Bruno, should probably run down to the hardware store, and will definitely wash my bath towels, as they are leaving red fuzz on everything they touch. 

Until tomorrow, then!

Yawn

In the words of Daffy Duck, "my room, bumpkin, I'm pooped!"  Seriously though, it's very excellent to have a place to come back to...orientation was rather grueling and continues along tomorrow with round two.  No white lab coat yet, but I did manage to pick up a library card on my way home, which was happiness in plastic form.  The world shall be my oyster!

Tour de Force

Well I've recovered from a sensational ocular migraine obtained last night (if you've never experienced the intense and magical pinwheeling of an ocular migraine, I highly recommend it...or maybe not, if you're jumpy about things like strokes or aneurisms or retinal tears...) and am onto having adventures!

The apartment is officially sorted - I bustled about my OCD way after Mom and Dad left as a way of recovering from a brief bout of verklempt-osity...I also, you will be pleased to note (?), went on a little jaunt around the North End, etc., and tried to meet my upstairs- and downstairs-neighbors.  No luck with that last endeavor, so it looks like tomorrow I shall start to HUNT in earnest, but that's not the adventure for tonight.  Tonight, I bring you: Emily's In(s)ane Ramblings - Now With Video!

...

Grr well that totally didn't work.  For whatever reason.  Perhaps this shady internet connection is failing me, or perhaps the video is too long.  Orrrr perhaps the powers that be are preventing me from sabotaging myself and allowing me to post for all the world to see a catalog of my worldly possessions.  Ehh...well if you're really very interested, drop me a line and I will hook you up, either (a) with the video in all its glory, or (b) with a live! Skype tour.  Riveting stuff.

Beantown

More unloading and unveiling and untangling today...successful though.  That's what happens when my parents are involved.  Some days I wonder how I am going to manage on my own.  But I guess I'll find out shortly. 

Why Beantown, though?  What beans?  And what?

Well according to Boston-Online, Boston is called Beantown because people in Boston used to like to eat a lot of baked beans (but they don't anymore).

This seems lame to me. 

But I can't seem to find any other explanation.  There used to be a lot of beans here, I suppose, because it's more northern, and beans are filling and flavorful, and people had a lot of molasses to cook them in.  So they did.  They got the molasses from slavery.  (???)  Iiiiiii don't know...apparently there was a flood of molasses in 1919 in the North End..possibly around the corner from where I live!.., which sounds like something really worth writing about - or even, if it comes to that, nicknaming a city after.  But alas, it was (and is) not to be.  Not this time around, anyway.

Deluge

So I'm sorry I've broken my promise already and am having to backdate these first days of October in addition to the ones from the past week.  It's been ridiculously chaotic around the place, and I don't even have an official internet connection, but hopefully - I think? - things are only improving from here on out?  Yes?  Yes!

So where's "here"?  Well, on Friday, October 1, "here" was any number of places...at 1am, "here" was squashed in the middle of a bench seat of a moving van, grasping white-knuckled to pleather while careening through buckets of ex-hurricane, over pitch-black hill and dale, with several tons of furniture rocketing along behind.  Then, around 2am, "here" was in a small ball on the corner of a hotel bed, having an (immensely pathetic) emotional breakdown upon the discovery that the back of the moving van was not, in fact, watertight, and that the contents of my suitcase were on the humid side.  At 8am, "here" was the godforsaken breakfast bar of said hotel.  And so on and so on...around 12 noon, "here" was a repeat of the early hours, minus the pitch-blackness.  We finally rolled into Boston by midafternoon, and paused only to collect the apartment keys before myself and my poor mother and father unloaded the moving van in the twinkling of an eye, somehow between bouts of torrential downpour, so that my mattress emerged practically (!) dry and the wooden whatsits had not a rainspot in sight.

All in all, a fairly positive day, although I won't deny that the French restaurant at the end really helped to fill the glass half full.