You-Know-What is here.....

I always had a feeling that post-college life would rob me of the desire to blog, and my suspicions have proved correct.  When you no longer have hours and hours and hours of spare time (and trust me, you do in college, no matter how busy you think you are), it seems downright insane to spend those precious free hours in front of a machine that I am in front of for at least 10 hours each day anyway.  I have, on average, 180 minutes after work each day before I have to be asleep again so that I'm not drooling all over my keyboard at 7am the next morning (to give you all an idea what life at work is like, consider this: I bought a second coffee maker.  For my desk.)

Add to that the fact that we're currently in the midst of quarter-end - a word uttered at workplaces either with the utmost of contempt or as quietly as possible.  If business were Harry Potter and quarter end were Voldemort (a fitting comparison, really, considering the shenanigans of upper management and the horror of fiscal reporting) we would all scurry around feverishly every three months whispering frantic warnings to each other of the coming terror of You-Know-What.

Blogging, therefore, will need to make a change.  I'm thinking politics.  Or something.  In any case, my life is now officially Way Too Boring to bother publishing on the internet or anywhere else.

So let me tell you about my evening.

I leave work at 6:15, exhausted and drained.  I remember halfway home that I need to stop at the grocery store because I have almost no food in the apartment and can't even make a lunch for the next day unless I go.

So I begrudgingly start making my way through Safeway with a square plastic basket, quickly and efficiently making my way through the store, aisle by aisle, grabbing only the necessities and a few extras at a good price.  Patting myself on the back for my price-savvy, I decide to splurge for the night and buy a frozen Digiorno pizza.  I'm tired and don't feel like actually cooking dinner.

I get home and clean up the apartment while I the pizza cooks.  I even hang the big picture above the couch I've been procrastinating dealing with.

Pizza timer goes off.  I run over to the oven, mouth already watering, and grab the pizza out of the oven.  Here's where it gets interesting.

Since Digiorno cooks without a pizza tray, you put it right on the rack.  I grab this rack directly out of the oven as always.  I've got a cookie tray waiting on the stove to take the hot pizza for cutting.

I decide that since the tray has a lip on one end (the end furthest from me) I might as well try something different and try sliding it off the end closest to me, which doesn't have a lip and I reason will therefore be easier.

I'm wrong.

The pizza slides off the tray.  Too far.  In slow motion it flips and falls - face down - on the open oven door.

Expletives fly.

After cleaning up the mess (as best one can clean melted cheese, pepperoni, and peppers off of a hot oven door) I finally decide that I'm craving pizza enough to drive back to the store and buy a second Digiorno.  It's been that bad of a Tuesday.

I get stuck behind every slow person in the universe on the way over.  Finally getting to the store, I get strange looks from Queen Anne preppies who think it's a cardinal sin to show up at Safeway in sweats and a sweatshirt.

I get in the express 15-items-or-less line, rejoicing that there's only one man in front of me.

Unfortunately, not only has this man bought the full 15-item limit, he is, to my utter and abject horror, the only person left in the universe who actually writes checks at the grocery store.  I am dead serious.  The man pulls out his checkbook and, in the slowest, most excruciating speed I've EVER seen in my life, writes a check for $14.07.

I get back home and put the pizza in the oven, sitting down on the couch with my now-reclaimed glass of Pinot Noir, resolving to blog immediately.

At which point I realize I have put the pizza in the oven without a cookie tray.  Again.

Greta's so cute when she's happy.

Today I gave Greta a special treat.

(For those of you wondering, Greta is my Volkswagen.  Yes.  I named my car.  And yes.  I named her Greta.  Long story short, it had to be a German name and it had to rhyme with Jetta, so that didn't leave a lot of options.  Actually her full name is "Lorelei Greta Jetta" because she was like the folklore siren perched on the Lorelei rock of the Rhein, but that's another story).

So today after work I noticed Greta was about to be empty (actually, Greta kind of yelled at me, "I'M ABOUT TO BE EMPTY, YOU IDIOT!  DO YOU SEE THE LITTLE LIGHT THERE THAT LOOKS LIKE A GAS PUMP?!?  THAT MEANS FEED ME!"

So I pull into the gas station, and Greta's so empty I figure, "Why not give her a new kind of gasoline?  I've always given her regular, which is what her fuel door says to give her.  Let's treat her and give her PLUS. "

So I fill her up with plus.  I manage to squeeze 14.1 gallons into the tank (for those of you not familiar with the specs on a VW Jetta, the tank only holds 14.3 gallons).  Score!

And since she's gotten her new Plus fuel, Greta's running even better.  Quieter starts.  Smoother acceleration.  Better performance.  She's like Super Greta.  

I love Super Greta.

Workaholic

So for those of you wondering how the job is going these days, let me just say: there's a reason why you haven't heard anything from me on this blog in close to a month.

'Nuff said.

Thoughts on the End of the Chapter

There is a definite sense tonight, as I pack my bags and prepare for the arrival of both family members and the insanity that will be graduation ceremonies, that something is very different. That tonight is different, and that the future is different too.

I keep thinking about what it's going to feel like to drive out of Phoenix. Up until this point I didn't really feel like I was done - I felt like I was about to go home for Christmas break. But I think driving out of the city with all my stuff in the car is going to drive the point home that this time I'm not actually coming back.

Half of me wants to savor this time, to soak in it, to write about it, to listen to music that will deepen it and enrich it and make me remember it. And the other half of me just wants to get it over with, skip over it as quickly as possible, like ripping off a band-aid.

As always when it comes to the end of life chapters, there is never quite enough time for it all. There just hasn't been enough time to say last goodbyes to everyone and everything. One thing I want to be sure that I do before I leave is climb up A Mountain one last time and just look out over Tempe and Phoenix. If I can do that, I'll leave satisfied and ready for the next chapter.

The End

I have just finished my last undergraduate final exam. Which means that once I finish this one last assignment for another class, my undergraduate career is, for all practical purposes, over.

The exam went well. However, my dear calculator chose to run out of battery juice exactly as I finished checking my answers. It was like a divine sign, as though my little electronic sidekick - with whom I have been through so much, suffered long, and endured many exams and assignments - decided it was both a poignant and fitting tribute to choose this exact moment to depart for the next world. Wiping away a tear (not really) and with a heavy heart, I slowly replaced his plastic cover and placed him lovingly inside the outer pocket of my backpack.

Now I sit, one last time, in our wonderful business school Starbucks - a place where I have also spent much time and that I will miss dearly in the coming years.

It doesn't feel like my last day in classes or taking tests on campus, although there is a definite quality about this day that is different - one that I can't quite put my finger on but that I know is there. But mostly it just feels like a really slow and relaxed Friday on campus. I'm sure that as the time to leave for Seattle draws closer it will become more obvious that real changes are happening.

You're such a poser.

I'm in the computer lab on campus right now, waiting for the rest of my study group to get here. Our lab recently upgraded us all from the old, swivel-head iMacs to the brand-spanking-new and über-sexy new aluminum iMacs, which, of course, also run Windows. Although only about 1/4 of the lab is dedicated to these iMacs, every time I come in here there are always 3-4 tools using them to run Windows. I always want to punch those tools in the face and say, "Get out of our section, you poser. This is MAC territory."

It's truly not fair. You know why? Because once you get used to using a Mac - once you've gotten used to that sense of childlike wonder being restored to your life every time you start up your computer - you can't go back to Windows and retain your sanity. So essentially, it is useless to me that 3/4 of the computers in here are Windows, because I can't use them, because if I do I might have to kill someone or myself. And that just wouldn't be good.

So it's not fair that the Windows Posers get to come over here and poach on our Macs. Evil, evil windows posers.